Weekly Blog Update (April 14th, 2020)

Hey guys! How's everyone doing? I'm okay. I had a really rough weekend and ended up spending most of it in the hospital with a bad infection. Which is why my reviews of TMNT Adventures #34 and The Rocketeer didn't come out at the end of last week. I'm not sure when they're going to come out at the moment because, while I am now at home, I'm staying in my bedroom for a few days to make sure I didn't bring any viruses home from the hospital, which is why I'm doing this blog update.

Because I'm going to be in my bedroom for a while I'm not going to have access to my stuff in the basement until I'm out of here. I'd still like to put out content for you guys though. So over the next few days you're going to see four posts from me. The first is going to be a post about Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda a TV show that aired from 2000 until 2005. The second is going to be about the TV adaptation of the mid-'90s to early 2000s book series, Animorphs, the third is going to be about the first VHS release of the Animorphs TV show, and the fourth is going to be about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The Andromeda post will be out tomorrow, the Animorphs TV show post will be out on Thursday, the Animorphs VHS release post will be out on Friday and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers post will be out on Saturday.

That's all I wanted to mention in this week's update. I'll be back tomorrow for the Andromeda post. Take care.

The Magician's Land (2014) Book Review

The Magician's Land is one of those weird third acts of a trilogy that is pretty unnecessary until the third to last chapter. At least when it comes to Quentin. The rest of the story was pretty cool. Especially the heist that Quentin, and new character, Plum find themselves involved in at the beginning of the book. The Magician's Land is like Return of the Jedi in that the first few chapters of the book, like the opening sequence of the movie, has nothing to do with the rest of the book. At least we, meaning the readers, think it doesn't while we're reading those chapters. As the book goes along though we discover that the first several chapters of the book has everything to do what's going on with Eliot and Janet in Fillory though it takes quite a while for that connection to be made.

As Dan Fogler's character said in Fanboys, the greatest thing Luke Skywalker ever did was destroy the Death Star in the first Star Wars movie. Unlike Luke, Quentin doesn't even find his Death Star, meaning the thing he's supposed to do as the hero, until the third to last chapter of the book and he's been the main protagonist of this trilogy since the first paragraph of the first book. Which is fine because Grossman wanted the series to last for three books, so he had to stretch the story out to cover three books, even though two books would've been just fine. My problem stems from the fact that every single character in this series is more interesting than the one we're supposed to be following.

I know I've been ragging on Quentin in every review I've done of the series, but there's a very good reason for it. Lev Grossman, the author of these books, is a journalist first, and a novelist second. Which means that his writing sensibilities comes from that occupation, rather than from a literary standpoint. While The Magicians wasn't the first novel that Grossman wrote and got published, it's still early enough in his writing career as a novelist that he was still writing as a journalist, who dealt with facts, research and investigation, rather than daydreaming, creating and developing characters into reasonable facsimiles of actual people. As a result, Quentin, who acts like a real person, isn't written as someone who is interesting. Everyone else in the sizeable cast is. For example, Julia was written beautifully in The Magician King while Eliot, Janet and Plum are written beautifully in this book. But for some reason there were enough characters that Grossman couldn't pay attention to all of them in every book, and he also had difficulty making sure his main character, our eyes into this world of magic and fantasy, was interesting enough for the readers to justify wanting to follow him.

As I was reading the book I thought the flashback chapters for the events leading up to Plum and Quentin's expulsion from Brakebills were unnecessary and took away from what was going on in Fillory and was taking away from what was going on with Quentin and Plum in the present day. But I finished the book on Monday night and since then I've been thinking about it further. The flashbacks weren't unnecessary as it informed us who Plum is as a character and how her time at Brakebills shaped her into the person she becomes by the end of the book.

I love Plum. She's everything that Quentin should've been by the end of the first book. She's motivated, determined and we know why she is the way she is. I won't spoil it for you in case you haven't read the book yet, but Plum has a connection to certain characters in the book that I actually didn't really see coming just because it's the third/final book in the trilogy and it's the kind of connection that Grossman should've given to Quentin when he created the character in the mid to late 2000s. That's all I'll say about that.

While Eliot and Janet have a lot more to do in this book than they have in either of the first two books, sadly my three favourite characters, Julia, Josh and Poppy are sidelined for much of the book. Josh and Poppy provide some witty comments and not so helpful suggestions, but otherwise they don't do anything. Like I know Poppy is pregnant, though she doesn't actually have her baby by the end of the book, but I wish Grossman had given her a lot more to do than sit on her throne all day. In a way The Magician's Land is like Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith in that way as George Lucas sidelined Padme Amidala in that movie because she was pregnant with Luke and Leia. And just like in The Magicians Julia doesn't appear for much of the book and only shows up right before Quentin saves Fillory in the way he saves it, which I also won't spoil for you in case you haven't read the book before. I'm more okay with that though because I feel like Julia's story finished at the end of The Magician King. However I still feel like Josh and Poppy had more to do.

Final Thoughts and Overall Rating: Overall The Magician's Land is a really well written book. While I have a lot of problems with it, I absolutely enjoyed reading it. The same thing goes for The Magicians Trilogy as a whole. While I have a lot of problems with it, the trilogy is an awesome series and I would highly recommend it. Having read the entire trilogy now I would have to say that The Magician King is my favourite book in the trilogy. While The Magicians and The Magician's Land work better with The Magician King to connect them and function as a three act piece of storytelling. I'm giving The Magician's Land 7/10 stars simply because the ending was good, I liked how a certain character, who returns in this book, calls Quentin out on his crap. I'm giving the trilogy as a whole 9/10 stars because it's an incredible piece of fiction when put together into a single piece with each book complementing the other two in the trilogy.

Weekly Blog Update (April 8th, 2020)

Hey guys! How's it going? It's time for the weekly Review Basement update where I talk about what's going on with the blog this week as well as what I've been reading and watching. Obviously nothing is going on in my life seen as how I'm still in protective isolation and the rest of the world is basically shut down right now. But I'm still watching a lot of YouTube.

I've also been watching some movies on VHS outside of movies I'm reviewing. So far I've watched Jetsons: The Movie (1990), and Batman: The Movie (1966) and tonight I'm going to watch Star Wars (1977). Then later in the week I'll be watching The Rocketeer (1991) for the first time ever so that will be interesting to see whether I like it or not. That's pretty much it for what I'm watching this week since none of the shows that I watch on a regular basis are new episodes this week.

I just finished reading The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman and am about to start The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Book 1 - The Ring Sets Out as well. Otherwise I'm just reading comic books and blogs and things like that.

This week on the blog I'll have a review of The Magician's Land up tomorrow. Then on Friday I'll have this week's comic book review, where I'll be leaving DC Comics and going over to Archie Comics so I can review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #34 which was the first Ninja Turtles comic I ever got. Finally on Saturday I'll have a review of The Rocketeer up for you as well. So it's another quiet week here at The Review Basement.

That's it for this week's update. Like I said, there's nothing going on in my life right now with the world basically shut down. Once all of this is over, I'm sure I'll have a lot more to talk about in these posts. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of The Magician's Land. Talk to you later.

Blazing Saddles (1974) Movie Review

Mel Brooks is probably my favourite filmmaker of all time even over George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Before last night I'd only seen two of his movies but every time I sit down to watch one of them I am never disappointed. Blazing Saddles was no different. While it's not as funny as Robin Hood: Men in Tights and not as good as Spaceballs (no Mel Brooks movie is as good as Spaceballs), Blazing Saddles is a hidden gem in the Brooks pantheon of films. Oh it's not a movie that could be made now any more than The Dukes of Hazzard could be made now, and it's pretty offensive with the amount of racist jokes, but it's offensive to EVERYONE, not just a certain group or demographic. Honestly that's part of it's charm.

The cast is pretty great. This is my first time seeing Gene Wilder in anything besides Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and it was pretty startling at first to see him play a character who is much calmer than Willy Wonka is. But at the same time it was cool. The rest of the cast was actually pretty recognizable. Slim Pickens (Taggert) played the villain in The Apple Dumpling Gang which I've only seen clips of on different Disney documentaries, Burton Gilliam who I saw play a bad guy in the season 1 finale of The Dukes of Hazzard, I've heard Madeline Kahn's voice in An American Tail and Dom DeLuise in An American Tail, Spaceballs, Oliver & Company, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. So it was neat seeing all of them in other things.

The plot is pretty much a plot from an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard but instead of Boss Hogg and Roscoe trying to cheat the citizens of Hazzard out of something or framing Bo and Luke for a crime, it's Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) and Taggert trying to run the people out of the small town of Rock Ridge by any means necessary, including making Bart (Cleavon Little), a black man, the sheriff of the town, which is populated entirely by white people. Except each scheme blows up in Lamarr's face, just like all of Boss Hogg's schemes did. Come to think of it, this plot has also been in numerous comic books over time as well. Particularly early issues of Superman and Action Comics.

My only gripe with this movie is that the physical comedy gets in the way of the rest of the movie. You can only laugh so much at people hitting their heads or getting tripped or whacked on the head or whatever the gag is before it gets boring. At least for me, because I'm not much of a physical comedy guy. I prefer spoken jokes, snide remarks and other forms of verbal humour. Also the end of the movie was a bit confusing as well. When Bart shot Lamarr in the crotch, in front of the movie theatre, because they literally broke the fourth wall, did Lamarr die? Nobody says whether he was killed by that shot and we don't see him again as that's pretty much the end of the movie, aside from Bart and Jim riding off into the sunset in a limo. Yeah, that ending is weird.

Probably the funniest thing for me in Blazing Saddles is that everyone in Rock Ridge has the last name of Johnson. I don't know if Brooks put that in there as a comment on the stereotype of inbreeding in small towns, which I'm pretty sure doesn't actually happen in real life, or what, but I don't care because I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was the best joke in the entire movie. I don't even know why, it just is.

Final Thoughts and Rating: While it's not as good as Spaceballs or as funny as Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Blazing Saddles is still an amazing film that had me laughing (quietly mind you) the whole time. As a Mel Brooks movie should. I can see why it's a beloved movie by fans of Mel Brooks who have seen more of his movies than I have. It's fantastic. It's offensive, but it's not as offensive as it could've been given the time it was made in. It's not a movie that could be made now that's for sure though. I'm giving Blazing Saddles 9.9/10 stars because I'm just not a fan of physical comedy and I feel it was overused in this movie.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989) #33 Comic Book Review

Staying in 1992 for a little while longer, Star Trek: The Next Generation #33 is the first in a three issue story arc where Q turns the entire crew of the Enterprise, except for Worf and Data, into Klingons at what is probably the worst possible time he could do that as the ship is transporting a Ysalanti delegation to a peace conference being mediated by the Federation. The Ysalanti don't like other warrior races, including the Klingons, so Worf has to stay out of sight, despite being Chief of Security. So then Q turns the crew into Klingons after he overhears Picard tell Worf that he wishes he had a hundred like Worf. You'd think Picard would know by this point (early to mid season 5) that Q can listen in so he should be careful about what he says. But no, instead he goes and says that, inspiring Q.

I always assumed that Q listens in on the Enterprise crew from time to time, but due to the budgetary restrictions that TNG had back in the late '80s and early '90s, they could never portray that. Instead they would have him appear out of nowhere rather than showing him floating outside the ship as. Which is why Q makes a great character to have in a comic book. Just because you can do so much more with him that the show couldn't do either because of budgetary restraints or because of the limitations of the Human body.

Having said that this issue, and the two that follow it, are comics that fall more into the category of fan fiction rather than a story that could plausibly be canon. Not because the comics are never canon, and not because Michael Jan Friedman is a huge Star Trek fan though. The thing about this story is that even if Q ever had transformed the crew into Klingons on the show, he couldn't change their personalities or their internal structure to be Klingons. It would be a superficial thing only. And so the only problem would be that Worf would still be the only Klingon and the Ysalanti would only be looking at people who look like Klingons, not actual Klingons. This is something I'll be getting into again in three weeks when I review part three of this story arc in Star Trek: The Next Generation #35. In this issue La Forge would never be that aggressive, and even as a Klingon, Doctor Crusher would never perform surgery outside of the operating room, and she would never perform it without anaesthesia. Yeah, those two things happened in this issue.

The artwork is much more solid in this issue than it was back in issue #31. You can actually see what location the characters are in, be it a corridor, Engineering, the Transporter Room or the Bridge. Like the artist of issue #31, Ken Penders enjoys taking shots directly from the show and translating them into comic book form. But unlike the artist of issue #31, Penders does it with the Enterprise rather than with characters. There are several shots of the ship in this issue that look exactly like they were taken from the show. He even included a shot of the ship jumping to warp from the same angle as we see it in the opening title sequence. I even imagined that Picard was saying his opening monologue over the shot. The other two are simply two of the stock footage images from the show. So I thought that was pretty cool.

The only other problem that I have with this issue, apart from the story feeling more like fan fiction, is the layout of some of the pages. The panel layout is fine, but some of the story is told left to right, and some is told right to left. It gets a bit confusing, but it's only with four pages in total. Not enough to make the book unreadable, just enough to make it a little jarring if you aren't expecting it.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, I wouldn't recommend that you read this issue unless you grew up reading the comics of the '90s. It's a good story, but like I said, it feels like fan fiction and just defies plausibility as a Star Trek story. Q would definitely turn the crew into Klingons on the show if he'd had the chance, but it wouldn't be like the way it's portrayed in this issue. I'm giving this issue 5/10 as the artwork is gorgeous and for the fact that it is a good story even if it isn't a good Star Trek story. 

My Favourite YouTube Channels and Blogs

Hey guys! How's it going? I'm doing alright. Today I'm here to talk about my favourite YouTube channels and blogs. Originally I was going to just talk about my favourite YouTube channels, but I do read a couple of blogs as well, and I thought I'd talk about those too. I'll include links to all of the things I talk about at the bottom of this post. Also, these aren't in any particular order so this isn't an actual top whatever number list or anything like that. These are just the channels and the blogs that I enjoy watching and reading.

The first YouTube channel I would like to talk about is called Geekvolution. The channel, headed by Captain Logan, is a geek centric channel that tackles comic books, movies, TV shows, and just pop culture in general. It started out back in 2009 with the first episode of Superhero Rewind, a show where Cap reviews superhero and comic book based movies and has grown from there. I started watching the channel back in 2013 while Superhero Rewind was on hiatus because Cap was doing a web series called Spawn Year, which is another review series where Cap reviews nothing but the Image Comics series Spawn and related media, but it's wrapped in a narrative that's actually pretty cool. Cap can be long winded, but he's so detailed with his movie analyses that you never feel like he missed something in a review.

Another general geek related channel that I love is Stefan Homberger's channel. Stefan is very much into geeky nostalgia. Particularly stuff from the '90s. He collects VHS and Laserdiscs, which is pretty cool. However, the thing I like most about the channel is that Stefan is only a few months younger than I am. Most of the other YouTube channels I watch are run by people who are older than I am and so they grew up more in the '80s than in the '90s. Whereas Stefan and his wife grew up in the '90s and grew up with a lot of the shows, movies, books, comics and video games that I grew up with, even though there are some divergences in our experiences. So when he talks about R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series or about watching Star Trek in the '90s, or the video games he was playing at the time, I can relate to that a lot better than I can to the people who grew up watching The Transformers when it was brand new, rather than in reruns. Which is really cool. I also like how he and his wife talk about books without being a BookTube channel.

The next channel I'm going to talk about is one that I've actually been a guest on and have been mentioned on a few times on in the past three years since I discovered it. That channel is The Sentai Review hosted by Bill, Seth, Scott, Shane and Nick. They're actually a podcast, but they host it on YouTube so we can follow along with the pictures they're looking at. The focus of The Sentai Review is Fandom, particularly Tokusatsu shows such as Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Power Rangers. They look at the costumes and Mechs from these shows and rate them just by looking at pictures of them on the computer, even if they haven't actually seen the series the pictures are from. They also make fun of the things they see. Take a look at their Power Rangers season and movie overviews, they're pretty hilarious. These guys are amazing on air, and they're also really cool people in "person" as well (I've only met them online).

A side note to this is Bill's channel, Fandom with ReploidBill. This is where Bill talks about everything from comics to movies to video games to Star Trek, which encompasses all of those things. Sometimes Bill has some radical ideas, but he tells it like it is and when he feels something is ridiculous, he'll talk about it. Oh and if you have kids, it's probably best that you don't watch these channels with them as they are decidedly not for children.

A channel that I love and is more comic book related, though covers a lot of other geeky topics, is Near Mint Condition. Omar, Maddie, Tina, Rob, Dan, and Amanda (sometimes) are the hosts of the channel and they cover comic books and comic book related topics extensively, but also dip into toys, Anime, movies and TV shows as well. Maddie is relatively new to comics so she and Omar do a show called Old Reader, New Reader where one of them chooses a collected edition of a comic book story arc or run that the other hasn't read and they talk about it live on Tuesday nights. Amanda was part of this show as well at first, but life happened and it became just Omar and Maddie. Omar talks about collected editions, not single issues, so if you're looking for info on single issues, this isn't the channel for you, but if you're into collected editions (trade paperbacks, hardcovers, omnibus editions) then definitely check this channel out.

The next channel I want to talk about is CinemaSickness. Dave goes to thrift stores and hunts for movies for his collection as well as for his online store, It Came From CinemaSickness. Oh and his movie is insanely huge. His entire basement is a multimedia library that is set up like an actual library. Like it's unimaginable to me to have a collection THAT massive of anything let alone movies.

And the final channel I'd like to talk about, before I move onto the two blogs that I read on a regular basis, is the HappyConsoleGamer channel. Johnny Millennium, his wife Kim, and his best friend Rob talk about video games. Not just games for current consoles, but games going all the way back to the '80s and consoles like the original NES and Sega Genesis. They also talk about Anime of all sorts. One of the reasons I like the channel is that it's so positive, but it's so real too. This isn't the Angry Video Game Nerd, or one of those channels. This is a cool dude who loves video games and wants to share that with his audience. Oh and they're Canadian too, so that gives people the Canadian perspective.

The first blog I would like to talk about is Cool Comics in My Collection by Ed Gosney II. Every week Ed writes about some cool comics that are in his collection, or were in his collection in some cases, and some of them are even ones you don't normally hear about. Which is what I like about it the most. There's also a Facebook group for the blog that I'm a part of and Ed has made it very collaborative. He allows us to present our own work on the page, including blogs that we have. He's even opened his blog up for us to contribute to as well, which is really cool of him.

The second blog, and final item I want to talk about is a blog called Longbox Junk. Run by Atom, Longbox Junk is a comic book blog full of reviews that nobody has ever asked for. That is literally the blog's tagline "Comic book reviews nobody has ever asked for...". Most blogs and YouTube channels that focus on comic books focus on the big storylines, major issues, and popular series. Not Longbox Junk. Atom reviews the stories, issues and series that aren't as popular with the comic book reading community or aren't as well known or completely forgotten about. Which is awesome.

Well that's going to be it for me for today. I hope I've given you some cool YouTube channels and blogs to check out while you stay home during this global pandemic we're currently facing. What are some of your favourite YouTube channels and blogs? Let me know in the comments so I can check them out. Take care and stay safe!

Links

Geekvolution

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ5AQws-5GJ00VT9olftURQ

Stefan Homberger

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMErFg5ZyVeDZZCQN3Ke7ag

The Sentai Review

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5h_jOFWVtEftLM3qf5wsig

Fandom with ReploidBill

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu-IW5WO-F7Ts5G4hP6-R_g

Near Mint Condition

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUX6kqTUFzQaKJKBaqzuNdg

CinemaSickness

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPBZ2o_LbXU1ySanH5o1Kyg

HappyConsoleGamer

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2vUKoTGIwNYq4LO0YWKPIg

Cool Comics in My Collection

https://edgosney.com/http:/edgosney.com/category/cool-comics/cool-comics/

Longbox Junk

http://longboxjunk.blogspot.com/

Weekly Blog Update and What I've Been Watching and Reading

Hey guys. How's it going? Are all of you doing okay? I'm doing okay. It was my friend's 30th birthday yesterday so I talked to her on the phone for a bit yesterday afternoon, which was nice as she and I have never actually talked on the phone before. She's called me a long time ago when we first started hanging out, but we mostly text or talk on Facebook or in person. So that was cool. I decided to come on here and talk about what I've got planned for the blog this week as well as what I've been watching and reading.

Tomorrow I'm going to be writing a post about my favourite YouTube channels and maybe turn you onto some new channels to watch during this time of isolation. On Friday I'll be putting out this week's comic book review where I'll be talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation #33, the first part in a three part story arc involving Q. So that'll be a good time. Then on Saturday I'll be doing my review of the classic Mel Brooks movie, Blazing Saddles, which I have on VHS. I've never seen it before, so it should be interesting to see what I think about it. It's a Mel Brooks movie though, so I don't think I'll hate it.

As for what I'm watching and reading, there are a few things. I'm still reading The Magician's Land, the final book in Lev Grossman's The Magicians Trilogy. Aside from my weekly comic book reviews, that's actually all I'm reading right now. I'm watching a lot of YouTube though, which is why I want to do a YouTube channels post this week. Both Supergirl and DC's Legends of Tomorrow are on hiatus until the end of April for some reason or another. However I did watch God Friended Me on Sunday and I have new episodes of The Goldbergs and Schooled tonight. Other than that I watched The Terminator on VHS last week so if you haven't already, please check out my review of that movie which I posted on Saturday. That's all I've watched in the past week, but I'll be watching more movies on VHS. I'm also planning on getting some time in on the Super Nintendo as well in the next few days. I tell you it looks like I live in the '90s or 2000s down here. Which is awesome and just what I need to help pass the time since I can't go out with friends or have friends over even right now.

Anyways guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with my YouTube Channels post. So until then stay safe out there in this crazy world we live in now. Bye.