Category: Live Action

Heroes (Seasons 1-4)

My mom and I had a tradition of watching serial, supernatural dramas together, beginning with Heroes, which originally aired starting in 2006, and proceeding to Manifest, God Friended Me, and Evil. We watched the first three seasons of Heroes, and by the end, the plot had become so convoluted that we no longer understood what was happening.

Heroes, however, remained a major source of inspiration for me. I liked the idea of an ensemble cast of seemingly disconnected characters becoming entangled from a common cause. In 2009, I wrote the first draft of my novel Twelve’s Design from the perspective of twelve characters, who steadily become entwined in paranormal happenings. Previously, this novel had been two novellas, one about an alien abductee and one about a psychic in a mental hospital. The multi-perspective style melded them into an oddly more coherent whole that fed all my desires for experimenting with storytelling and writing. Many things have changed about Twelve’s Design over the years, but the Heroes ensemble-cast-style that inspired its storytelling method has remained.

I forgot how inspirational Heroes was at some point though. I forgot it was the piece of media that inspired Twelve’s Design’s ensemble-cast style, although I knew it had been inspired by something. Maybe it was The Casual Vacancy, that ensemble cast J. K. Rowling novel that otherwise I hated? Maybe it was Manifest or God Friended Me? The timeline didn’t quite fit. Maybe it was nothing in particular.

So when I saw Heroes available on Netflix recently, I took the opportunity to revisit it. I remembered really liking it. I remembered my mom and I had stopped watching it at some point due to its loss of coherence. I wondered if it genuinely became incoherent or if it was trying to tell a complicated story to a distracted audience over dozens of weeks. It turned out, it may have inspired Twelve’s Design in more ways than one… and Season 3 is genuinely incoherent.

Genesis (S1 E1)

I thought it was odd that a prostitute would call her clients perverts. What job do you think you applied for, lady? But then she explained herself as a desperate, somewhat single mom, and it was fine.

My god. This ensemble-cast style and the superhuman abilities has Twelve’s Design inspiration written all over it.

Don’t Look Back (S1 E2)

Claire, the cheerleader is adopted and has regenerative capabilities. That doesn’t exactly match any character in Twelve’s Design today, but it’s close enough that I can 100% believe Claire is in their DNA.

Also, it’s a good thing Claire has regenerative capabilities. She has glass bones and paper skin. She also receives very few consequences for crashing a guy’s car into a wall and punching a girl unconscious. Maybe she’s also immune to prosecution.

Unexpected (S1 E16)

Dr. Suresh and Sylar go to Bozeman, MT!

Four Months Later (S2 E1)

I remembered the whole first season was about “save the cheerleader, save the world” and how that somehow connected to stopping a nuke from exploding in New York. What happens in Season 2?

Because of her regenerative capabilities, Claire argues that she should reveal her abilities in order to donate her organs. Is this where I got the idea for people with regenerative capacities revolutionizing medicine by donating their organs in Twelve’s Design?

The Line (S2 E6)

This Hiro side plot feels like a cheap sci-fi movie that takes place in the woods. The characters have to do everything in the woods because the production can’t afford ancient Japanese architecture.

The Second Coming (S3 E1)

At the time I watched it, the ending of Season 2 seemed rushed and didn’t feel finished before Season 3 started. Among other inciteful incidents, future Peter randomly decides to shoot past Nathan. Sylar cuts Claire’s head off. And did Maya completely stop caring about her dead brother?

In preparation for writing this post, however, I scanned the Heroes Wikipedia for facts. In retrospect, it makes so much sense why the transition between these seasons felt rushed! It turns out, Season 2 happened during the WGA writers’ strike. The second half of the season was canceled, so the start of Season 3 was reshot to quickly tie up all the loose ends.

The Eclipse – Part II (S3 E11)

This eclipse has lasted hours! Across the world!

Was Noah just watching Sylar having sex until he finally decided to shoot him? For a cripple who’s been running around with superhuman speed for months until this eclipse took her powers away, and even for this eclipse lasting hours, Daphne found those leg braces and put them on very fast. Sylar has changed alliances like three times today. And when did Peter stop caring about the Irish girl he met at the beginning of Season 2?

Our Father (S3 E12)

Claire became severely ill and almost died in apparently the multiple hours that the eclipse existed. She was also shot. For how accident prone she is, once again, it’s a good thing she usually has regenerative abilities, or she’d just die immediately.

Claire: You weren’t there. I needed you.
Noah (her dad): There was something I had to do.
Me: He had to slit a man’s throat!

Dual (E3 E13)

Sylar has now changed allegiances like five times in the past day.

Shades of Gray (S3 E19)

I don’t think I’ve seen Season 4 before. My mom and I gave up during some season back when I first watched Heroes. I can believe it was Season 3 because that was awful.

…Wait, never mind. I remember Sylar’s teenage sidekick.

…WAIT, IT’S STILL SEASON 3!? WTF IS THIS NEW PLOT WHERE EVERYONE IS NOW BEING HUNTED!?

Turn and Face the Strange (S3 E22)

Well, of course Matt didn’t kill Jakob’s girlfriend. He didn’t have to. He already made her hate Jakob, so they’re as good as broken up. He’s had his revenge.

Orientation (S4 E1)

Okay. For real, none of this looks familiar.

Is this really how college works? You go to college and then take a test to determine what math class you’re in? Shouldn’t that be determined before the school year starts? Did the writers go to college? What kind of upper-floor dorm room has large, side-hung windows? This is a murder, suicide, or accident waiting to happen.

Ink (S4 E3)

The scenes that take place in Japan are so cheesy that I wonder if the production hired a Japanese studio and director to film them exactly as they would a Japanese drama. Japanese TV is extremely cheesy. Perhaps it merely inspired the production, which is also cool.

Acceptance (S4 E4)

Claire in college makes me oddly nostalgic for college even though nothing particularly good happened to me there. I didn’t make friends. I was quite miserable. It was simpler though. There was routine and interesting things to learn and focus on. I had to do laundry occasionally, but otherwise, there wasn’t cooking, cleaning, animals and plants to take care of, house projects to do, outings and invitations to consider, etc. Also, the University of Montana’s Food Zoo was great!

More relevant to this particular episode, however, lesbian kiss scene. Heroes is going woke in 2009!

Upon This Rock (S4 E13)

This season has been so much more coherent than Season 3. In retrospect, it makes sense. Season 3 had to handle the consequences of thirteen missing episodes from Season 2 while also trying to do whatever it had planned. Season 4 returned to Heroes’ roots of character-driven, ensemble cast storytelling.

Sylar being forced to carry Nathan’s memories, wear his appearance, believe he is Nathan, and live Nathan’s life is also interesting.

The Wall (S4 E18)

Matt trapped his enemy Sylar in a mental hell in his basement and was in the midst of sealing Sylar behind hand laid brick when his ally Peter burst into his house and got trapped in mental hell with Sylar. Matt was very upset about this… so he finished laying the brick and decided to make a sandwich?

Brave New World (S4 E19)

The series ended hinting that more was to come but also fittingly with Claire revealing the existence of people with superhuman abilities to the world.

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Seasons 1-3)

My experience with sketch comedy is pretty much Chris Farley and Dave Chappelle skits from decades ago, so I don’t know how much my opinion counts when I say I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson is awful. I watched it because a colleague recommended it, and I’m willing to try new things. In rating it out of five stars, I give it zero for failing as a comedy to be funny.

I Think You Should Leave features cringe comedy. “What if this person who’s obnoxious in this way existed and never stopped being obnoxious?” As my colleague described it, the characters in the skit are basically told without words, “I think you should leave.” There’s also a lot of poop jokes. Apparently, I find this less funny that a fat guy flailing about or a black guy humping a couch.

Still, a couple moments did make me laugh or otherwise intrigued me.

Has This Ever Happened To You? (S1 E1)

Host: “While the judges make their decision, let’s watch our In Memoriam segment.”
Narrator: “…Shirley Cratsworth Shane, 78: car crash.”
Judge: (in disgust) “In memoriams typically don’t include how they died.”
Narrator: “…Little Jeffery Jeremy, 96: throat slashed.”

They Have a Cake Shop There Susan Where the Cakes Look Just Stunning. (S2 E2)

In one skit, Tim Robinson wears a button up shirt where the whole shirt is a still from the 3D pipe screensaver included with Windows 95/2000/XP computers. Holy crap! What an amazing shirt!

Also, the actor for Saul from Breaking Bad appears!

I Can Do Whatever I Want. (S3 E2)

“How long is your ponytail?”
“I just took a picture last night. Here. Take my phone. Look at my photos.”
“It’s all screenshots of cigars.”

Speed Racer (2008)

A few years after wrapping The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowskis directed the live action adaptation of the Speed Racer anime. My local theater recently played it for a limited showing, I believe to celebrate the re-release of the movie in 4K. This local theater showing was the first time I’d seen the movie or heard anything about it.

Speed Racer has colorful set designs, exaggerated hairstyles and clothing, and saturated visual effects as if the live-action actors were placed in a cartoon. This cartoon aesthetic was great. Everyone being obsessed with car racing was also great. Even the main character’s name was literally Speed Racer.

The pacing and chaotic video editing style sometimes reminded me of Elysium, but Speed Racer made it clear that this chaos was intentional. The scene demonstrating this best was also great. In it, Speed becomes demoralized as he listens to the antagonist tell him that racing is rigged according to the sponsors. Interspersed with this dramatic conversation are cutaways to Speed’s brother Spritle and their chimpanzee Chim-Chim having a comedic side adventure. It felt like a mockery of ensemble-cast TV shows that cut between multiple, parallel storylines. Speed Racer‘s parody featured only a relatively short, dramatic, continuous moment split into multiple parts by a relatively long, comedic, time-skipping side adventure for no reason! It was so weird, so bizarre, but also so good!

Overall, it was a fun movie.

Dark (Seasons 1-3)

Dark, a German Netflix series, was pitched to me as the antithesis of Stranger Things Season 5–well planned, dense, and thoughtful in comparison to action and nonsense said repeatedly to cater to the second-screen generation. Dark features an ensemble cast of characters who discover they are trapped in a time loop in which events repeat every 33 years. Among other past and future years, it takes place in 2019, 1986, and 1953, hitting the nostalgia and atmosphere of both the 80s and the 50s as is popular in media these days.

How did this time loop happen? In the present year 2019, one of the protagonists Jonas discovers that he is the son of his love interest Martha’s 11-year-old missing brother Mikkel. Mikkel went through a hidden portal in a cave where he found himself trapped 1986. Meanwhile, another boy Mads from 1986 goes through the portal and reappears in 2019 dead with his eyes and ears exploded, intriguing other 2019 characters who knew Mads as a boy. Mikkel would grow up to become Jonas’ father, making his sister Martha Jonas’ aunt. Distraught that he and Martha can’t be together, Jonas becomes determined to rescue Mikkel or otherwise stop the time loop from coming to be.

Despite how it was pitched, I spent most of Dark waiting for something to happen. Yes, yes, there’s a time loop. Then, what happened? Ultimately, the entire show is the most frustrating manifestation of pointless, space-time continuum bullshit I’ve ever seen. The first season features the 2019 cast of characters discovering and investigating the time loop and the portal. At the end of the season, Martha is murdered in front of Jonas by his future self (for reasons) just as another Martha from another dimension appears and takes 2019 Jonas to her world. The alternate 2019 is the dimension where everyone has cleft pallets and emo hair… I mean, it has an identical but slightly different cast of 2019 characters who discover and investigate the time loop and the portal… as if the creators had given up on the first dimension and were rebooting the story in another. It reminded me of that quote from Fairly Odd Parents: “It’s the show about nothing! …How do we know when it’s over?” Instead of “it’s the show about nothing” though, it’s the show where every season is the same plot and same discoveries but taking place in a slightly different world.

Several reiterations of the same explanation later, we thoroughly understand that yes, yes, Martha and Jonas are the origin of the time loop, Adam and Eve, and there is no escape. Then, what? Our 2019 protagonist Jonas is then murdered in front of alternate dimension 2019 Martha. I nearly rage quit when her future self reveals that Martha and Jonas still have an opportunity to be together. There are two timelines in their alternate dimension: one in which Jonas went to their dimension and one in which he remained in the original 2019 dimension from season one. So his death is meaningless, and we go back to the original world’s 2019 where we left off at the end of season one. The creators can reboot this show with as many timelines and dimensions as they want without consequence!

I probably should have rage quit because nothing ever did happen, although I suppose the time loop did end. It’s a clever idea somebody discovering that they are the son of a boy who has just gone missing, yes, but then what? All the show had to do was explain the dead birds and why Mads’ eyes and ears exploded.

If you do watch it, however, German with subtitles is superior to dubbed.

Black Phone 2

Black Phone 2 takes place four years after The Black Phone and features the same characters and child actors, now four years older. This I thought was really cool, both the growth of the actors and the realistic treatment of the characters in the aftermath of their experience with the serial child murderer the Grabber. Naturally, Finney is scarred, self-medicated, and angry from his kidnapping and imprisonment and having to murder his tormentor to escape. The caring and protective relationship he and his sister Gwen have, however, has also grown. When Gwen begins having the same dreams their mother had about a series of murders that took place at Alpine Lake Camp in 1957, Gwen with Finney in tow travel to the Colorado mountain camp to find the missing bodies and uncover a mystery regarding their mother’s suicide.

Watching Black Phone 2 made me want to rewatch The Black Phone. It looked like it was really good, which it was once I revisited it. The first half of Black Phone 2 is also good and has the same realism and subtle supernatural elements as its prequel. Unfortunately, the second half falls into the common trope many horror movies do where the ending gives up on living up to its expectations and devolves into ridiculousness.

Throughout the movie, Gwen is tormented in her dreams by the perpetrator of the 1957 murders, who turns out to be the Grabber. His spirit has returned from death, and he reveals that he can harm and even kill her in her dreams. Eventually, Gwen overpowers him in her sleep by lucid dreaming. Gwen’s found ability to overpower him in her sleep somehow translates to her having this ability to do so in reality where his spirit has been gaining power from the missing bodies of murdered campers. This leads to Gwen being overpowered and undefeatable by the final fight scene, which also features the Grabber on ice skates and imagery suggestive of a horse-drawn Zamboni.

Alpine Lake Camp also has an identity crisis. The camp and counselors are all constructed as if it were going to be a typical summer camp. One of the camp counselors even has a stereotypical Texas drawl. It’s the dead of winter, however, and it’s miserable outside to the point where the camp is canceled due to road conditions. It’s so miserable in fact that it’s hard to believe the camp is located in Colorado. My friends and I kept wanting to say the characters were in Alaska. It wouldn’t have been out of place for the Texan counselor to say, “I’m just a Texas girl in the wild Alaskan mountains of Colorado.”

The Black Phone

I watched The Black Phone back when it came out in 2021. Between then and now, it became buried in my memories among so many other horror movies my friends and I have watched, although I remembered it being really good. When I watched Black Phone 2 recently, my main thought through the whole movie was, “Man, The Black Phone looks like it was really good.” I’ve since revisited it.

It’s a shame that I forgot about it because it is indeed really good. The protagonist, 13-year-old Finney is kidnapped and held in a basement by a psycho, serial child killer known as the Grabber. Finney has subtle psychic abilities that allow him to communicate with the spirits of the Grabber’s previous victims, all of whom give Finney suggestions on how escape the basement. Finney’s younger sister Gwen also has subtle psychic abilities, which she uses to lead the police to Finney’s location.

The film is plausibly supernatural and realistic in a satisfying way. Finney and Gwen’s abilities have limitations and never make them superhuman. The film’s ghosts are subtly horrifying, not screaming, throwing people or objects across the room, or jump-scaring the audience. The Grabber has the sense that his house is haunted, but the spirits never rise up in a ridiculous show of revenge. I appreciate a film that treats ghosts more realistically. Ultimately, Finney escapes the basement and even kills his tormentor by his own cleverness and physical strength in a plausible way. The film’s supernatural elements, while they are key to Finney’s escape, don’t overshadow the story, the characters, or the ending.

Spoilers! Its plot twists are great as well. The Grabber’s brother, who is obsessed with finding the Grabber and even lives in the same house, is briefly entertained as Finney’s savior until his idiocy gets him killed. As another example, Gwen and the police discover a house with a dirt basement unlike the one most of the movie takes place in. This basement contains the Grabber’s buried victims. The audience is briefly led to believe that Finney is dead and buried among these bodies, and the scene of him overpowering the Grabber was a dream too good to be true. This makes it all the more satisfying when Finney walks out of the house across the street, the house with the basement where the Grabber tortured his victims.

IT: Welcome to Derry (Season 1)

I don’t know if I can fairly judge IT: Welcome to Derry because I was extremely distracted by things that had nothing to do with it for half to a third of the episodes. Does it say something about the show that it failed to distract me from my distractions? Probably not. Getting into a political argument with a friend and ordering Doordash to the wrong address is extremely distracting. I saw enough of the show, however, to have no desire to revisit any of it, so these thoughts are as close to a review as I’ll get.

IT: Welcome to Derry is reminiscent of Stranger Things in that it features a cast of kids and adults in a seemingly normal town until they become entangled in supernatural events. Welcome to Derry, however, takes place in the 50s instead of the 80s, so it doesn’t have the charming nostalgia. In fact, as with other media that takes place in the 50s–such as the Bioshock video games… and Stranger Things–the 50s-theme is instead used to create a creepy, horrific atmosphere. Additionally, while Stranger Things preserves the lives of its cast, Welcome to Derry begins violently murdering and maiming its child characters within the first episode.

Sure, Welcome to Derry is a horror series. I should have expected everything to be gross, horrific, and creepy, and comparing it to Stranger Things, an adventure series, isn’t fair. Still, I didn’t find the horror elements conducive to sympathizing or bonding with the kids or wider cast. It felt like it wanted to be a Stranger Things with a cast that could endure for eight episodes and beyond, but it was also obligated to kill its characters and disgust its audience. Maybe it wasn’t for me, or maybe while I was distracted I missed the good bits.

Shows like Dark, Welcome to Derry, and Stranger Things have evoked the nostalgia of the 50s and the 80s. What someone really needs to do is make a show about the good old days of the mid-2000s when the Internet and technology was young but fun. That seems like prime real estate to piggyback off the popularity of Stranger Things!

Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026

I thought the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics was doomed to be disappointing in comparison to the previous three Olympics. No one would try to win an event by doing a butt spin as they had in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics’ Break Dancing debut. Italy also didn’t have to clean the Seine River of over a century’s worth of hazardous waste nor would its opening ceremony feature said river and dozens of boats carrying the Olympians. It didn’t have to shut down power plants to make the air breathable as China did for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics nor was it postponed for a year due to COVID-19 as the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics had.

Someone of Raygun’s experience and skill also wouldn’t make an appearance. Summer Olympics 2028 will be sad without Break Dancing.

I was also disappointed to find that the Hulu PS5 app still sucks. It’s been two years at least, Hulu! The PC app also sucks but not as much. The phone app is just okay. Maybe one of these Olympics I’ll use something other than Hulu + TV, or I’ll use the Hulu app on my TV, which I would hope actually works.

The Milano Cortina Olympics did remind me of the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics though, which gave me reason to hope. I was excited for the Turin, Italy Olympics because one of my favorite bands Bloom 06 (2/3rds of Eiffel 65) had created the official theme for that year. I was expecting to see them at the opening or closing ceremonies, but I don’t even remember hearing the theme anywhere. Considering they hadn’t made any music since 2009, I doubted I’d see or hear Bloom 06 during the 2026 Olympics. “But maybe Gabry Ponte (the other 1/3 of Eiffel 65)?” I dared to hope during the whole opening ceremony. Nope. There was a lot of electronic music though.

Lindsey Vonn, a favorite for alpine skiing despite an ACL injury, fell down and broke her leg within 15 seconds.

The winner of Men’s Giant Slalom took his time taking off all his shirts before screaming and flexing at the crowd.

The 90s theme for the Rhythm Dance was pretty great. Still no Eiffel 65 though.

The winner of the Men’s Slopestyle beefed it on what was supposed to be his victory run. The NBC commentator’s reaction encapsulated this moment well, “Dude, what are you doing?”

The NBC commentators look so ridiculous standing and sitting an awkwardly far distance apart while talking to one another in front of a screen.

Every time Picabo Street appears as an NBC commentator, it reminds me of that Front Page Sports: Ski Racing video game from the 90s. It played audio of her breaking her leg whenever you failed to ski down the course.

Snoop Dog looks so old.

Women’s Half Pipe NBC commentators: “That’s the first time anyone has landed the double cork 1080!”
Judges: “Eh. I guess that’s like an 88.”

After all the hype, Ilia Malinin got 8th in the Men’s Free Skate. The guy from Kazakhstan deserved the gold though. He did a good job.

Interesting. The most efficient way to team pursuit skate is to stay in one order for the whole race and physically push the leaders from behind.

During the Women’s Giant Slalom, three skiers tied for first place at one point on Run 1. On Run 2, two women tied for 2nd place.

Poor George Savaricas. I took to laughing at him every time he appeared as an NBC commentator just because he swallowed loudly mid-sentence once.

I agree with the NBC commentators: the Women’s Snowboarding Slopestyle judging was bizarre. The woman who won seemed like she was out-boarded by several others.

The debut sport for Milano Cortina 2026 was Ski Mountaineering. It involves cross-country skiing uphill with sticky skins on the underside of the skis, removing the skis and running up stairs, removing the sticky skins from the skis and downhill skiing, and replacing the sticky skins to cross-country ski uphill again. It reminds me of that bizarre event in summer Olympics with horse riding, fencing, swimming, shooting, and running.

One of the Women’s Free Skate competitors had a Stranger Things-themed skate. The music included an audio clip of Vecna saying, “You’ve already lost,” a brutal reminder considering she’d already fallen down. Meanwhile, Amber Glenn, the American favorite, went from 13th to 5th place between the Short Program and the Free Skate. Good for her.

Women’s Halfpipe Skier: *flails down the half pipe*
Judges: “I guess that’s like an 80.”

The figure skating gala was fun. The skaters may not have spun on their butts, but they did the macarena and YMCA. Another group dressed as Kung Fu Panda, Deadpool, and Mortal Combat characters. The panda even succeeded in doing a triple spin.

Gabry Ponte appeared for two minutes during the Closing Ceremonies! It’s 20 years later, but I finally got to see part of Eiffel 65 at an Olympics in Italy! Yes! Best two minutes of the 2026 Olympics!