Needless Things Podcast 291 – Bloodsport Needless Commentary

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-dnmeb-c7846e

Part of an ongoing series – the Needless Things Irregulars gather in the Phantom Zone to provide their own unique commentary on classic genre films!

Rad Ranger chose a real barn burner for this month’s Needless Commentary – 1988’s Bloodsport, starring the one and only Jean-Claude Van Damme!
Toughen your taint with the Needless Commentary Team on the newest episode of the Needless Things Podcast!
Be sure to join the Needless Things Podcast Facebook Group and get in on the conversation for this week’s episode! Let us know what you think!
“Procrastibate” by LeSexoflex.com
Interstitial music provided by The Mystery Men?
You can follow Dave as Phantom Troublemaker on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for all the latest on pop culture!

Hungry for more movies, music, and pop culture? Visit the Needless Things Archives for a decade of dorkery!

I’m Not Getting Disney+…Yet

I did not jump on Disney+ the instant it became available. I feel wrong for this, but I don’t know that I’ll be getting it for foreseeable future. I’m not as excited about it as I probably should be, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Taking a long hard look at the launch line up did explain a few of my misgivings to me though. The list is way too long for me to copy here so I’ll just throw up a link if you want to check it out. Strangely, the biggest thing to jump out at me was that I never knew the Brave Little Toaster went to Mars. Where the hell was I when this historic space mission went down?

At first I thought maybe I wasn’t the right demographic. I don’t have kids, and I don’t want to watch Cinderella. I felt like I might be too old for it because I’m not interested in Lizzie McGuire. Then again, maybe I’m too young since I don’t want to watch Darby O’Gill and the Little People either. I am also not a fan of any Pixar movie. I’m a monster, I know. They do certainly have things I like. Marvel, The Simpsons, and Star Wars are all things I include in my fandom. Here’s the thing though. For now FXX shows around 6 episodes of The Simpsons five nights a week. I’m not sure how that will change with Disney+ taking over the territory. So I can see The Simpsons pretty much anytime I want without paying anything extra. If I see that they’ll be taken off FXX then I’ve still got time to get some of my favorites onto my DVR. I own every Marvel movie I’d want to watch again, and if I do get a wild hair up my ass for something I don’t already own my father has every single one of them on his computer hard drive. I can get a copy of Iron Man 2 pretty easily if that desire ever comes up. It probably won’t, but it’s there if that were to happen. Would I like to watch some varying degrees of awesome X-Men cartoons again? You bet, but not so much that I’m getting yet another streaming service for them. As for the newer Marvel cartoons I’m not invested. I’ve watched a few on Disney XD, but none of them really grabbed me.

Home Again – November’s Blu-Ray Releases

Welcome to Home Again, where each and every Tuesday I’ll be running down some of the best genre releases coming to home media.

All info is from the excellent Blu-ray.com. This isn’t every genre release, just the ones I find interesting. For the full list, follow that link.

Home Again – November’s Blu-Ray Releases

Welcome to Home Again, where each and every Tuesday I’ll be running down some of the best genre releases coming to home media.

All info is from the excellent Blu-ray.com. This isn’t every genre release, just the ones I find interesting. For the full list, follow that link.

The Corman-Poe Cycle

 

No, it’s not some stupid new band. Or even some stupid old band. To be honest it does kind of sound like the name of some 70’s super group. But, no. The Corman-Poe cycle refers to a series of films in the 60’s by Roger Corman and based on works of Edgar Allan Poe. There’s a very good reason that I’m talking about it today though. Other than it being Halloween today, of course.

The other week Dave had me thinking about what got me into horror. Not just the things that I love now, but stuff from when I was a kid. I’ve spoken before about my ultra-permissive parents. I was pretty much allowed to watch whatever I wanted because I wasn’t easy to scare. Thinking back on it this might have come from the fact that by the time I was 10 (or however old I was when I started picking out scary stuff to watch) I had already read a lot of creepy books. My father always had tons of books around. While he wasn’t into horror novels he did have things like Lovecraft, Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe. I read all of them, but the Poe stories stuck with me. So much so that some of the first horror movies I ever saw were the Roger Corman films based on Poe’s stories.

Now most people think of Roger Corman in relation to schlock B-movies of the 50’s or the SyFy schlock of the 2000’s-the nows. There was this lovely time in the 60’s though where he produced and directed some really good schlock featuring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and many other notable actors of the time. I was drawn in by the stories, but I stayed for the acting. I’m sure you can understand why. If you haven’t seen them I highly recommend you give at least one of them a shot. Clearly Corman and Price worked well together as they went on to do 7 films based (sometimes VERY loosely)on the works of Poe. They aren’t scary, but they are creepy and fun.

Home Again – October’s Blu-Ray Releases

Welcome to Home Again, where each and every Tuesday I’ll be running down some of the best genre releases coming to home media.

All info is from the excellent Blu-ray.com. This isn’t every genre release, just the ones I find interesting. For the full list, follow that link.

It’s that time of year, Phantomaniacs – when all of the big companies get in on the spooky act that our favorites like Shout Factory and Arrow maintain all year long! Halloweeny Blu-rays and 4Ks should be coming out a  furious pace for the next few weeks, so be sure to check in every single Tuesday to see what’s coming!

Home Again – October’s Blu-Ray Releases

Welcome to Home Again, where each and every Tuesday I’ll be running down some of the best genre releases coming to home media.

All info is from the excellent Blu-ray.com. This isn’t every genre release, just the ones I find interesting. For the full list, follow that link.

It’s that time of year, Phantomaniacs – when all of the big companies get in on the spooky act that our favorites like Shout Factory and Arrow maintain all year long! Halloweeny Blu-rays and 4Ks should be coming out a  furious pace for the next few weeks, so be sure to check in every single Tuesday to see what’s coming!

Needless Things Podcast 287 – Friday the 13th: Jason Goes to Shelves

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-b3m4a-c3b414

Welcome to the spooky season on the Needless Things Podcast!

On this week’s episode, Dave welcomes horror aficionado and host of the Seeking Human Victims podcast, Reverend Dan Wilson!
Dan returns to the show to discuss a very special topic – Jason Voorhees! More specifically, toys and action figures that have been based on Jason over the years. As one of the most toyetic slashers in film history thanks to his large stature and immediately recognizable hockey mask, Jason has been adapted in plastic many times over the years.
Listen in as Dave and the Rev look back through history at all of the tiny – and some not-so-tiny – Jasons that have stalked our shelves!
Be sure to join the Needless Things Podcast Facebook Group and get in on the conversation for this week’s episode! Let us know what you think!

“Procrastibate” by LeSexoflex.com

Interstitial music provided by The Mystery Men?
You can follow Phantom Troublemaker on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for all the latest on pop culture!

Hungry for more movies, music, and pop culture? Visit the Needless Things Archives for a decade of dorkery!

Movie Review – 11 Thoughts About Joker

SPOILER WARNING – THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR WARNER BROS.’ NEW FILM JOKER

In order to fully enjoy Todd Phillips’ new movie, Joker, you have to put aside any ideas you might have that it’s a prequel to any sort of Joker anything that you’re aware of. It isn’t.

I’m looking at this movie as a sort of alternate reality project that’s taking the idea of a character that is well-known and exploring a different way of using said character. If you know your DC comics, then you know that’s pretty much what their Elseworlds imprint did for years and to me this is basically an Elseworlds Joker movie.

You might, as you’re out and about on the internet, see people mention the bizarre concept of “Joker’s origin”. Thye might claim that there is one and that this story of a man named Arthur Fleck isn’t it. Those people are wrong – there has never been a definitive Joker origin, though many writers have presented possibilities or suggestions. The most widely adopted origin is probably the one in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke. While that’s a fantastic story and the original presented is compelling and believable, the origin and, indeed, the entire story occupy shaky ground in DC continuity.

But people like it, so they adopt it.

I’m all for as many variations on characters as creators want to provide, as long as there’s a certain amount of clarity as to where they each fall in current canon. In my opinion Warner Bros. and company did the best job they possibly could at emphasizing Joker’s uniqueness and standalone (for the time being, anyway) nature.

I was excited for this movie, mostly because of Joaquin Phoenix. That guy can act. But I was also excited because I felt like it was a bold decision for Warner Bros. to strike out in a new direction with their DC Comics characters. I didn’t necessarily believe they had found a new path to success, but at least they recognized that what they were doing wasn’t working. Something fresh and new might not be great, but at least it would be free of expectations tied to the existing film franchises.

Was what Joker delivered worth diverging from the set course or should WB have stuck to their guns? Read on and find out!

Home Again – October’s Blu-Ray Releases

Welcome to Home Again, where each and every Tuesday I’ll be running down some of the best genre releases coming to home media.

All info is from the excellent Blu-ray.com. This isn’t every genre release, just the ones I find interesting. For the full list, follow that link.

It’s that time of year, Phantomaniacs – when all of the big companies get in on the spooky act that our favorites like Shout Factory and Arrow maintain all year long! Halloweeny Blu-rays and 4Ks should be coming out a  furious pace for the next few weeks, so be sure to check in every single Tuesday to see what’s coming!