Stranger Things (Season 2) review

04 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by in Television

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This time the danger’s amped up to… twelve?

by Thom Yee

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Stranger Things 2 images courtesy of Netflix

The first time I fully realized that nostalgia was a real and powerful thing and, more importantly, a definite consumer force was in the early 2000s when my mind started drifting back to childhood, I first started to remember how cool the Transformers were, and I went out to buy an anniversary edition of Optimus Prime, a toy I never owned in my youth.  Of course, I’m a little too young to have been there for the beginning of The Transformers, missing out on the show during its original TV run and not seeing (Naziing?) the 1986 movie until the early ‘90s, but I definitely felt its presence in each of its Saturday morning cartoon/toy/commercial successors, from M.A.S.K. to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to COPS.  Remember COPS?  The Central Organization of Police Specialists?  Every cop had some cybernetic gimmick?  “It’s Crime Fighting Time?”  No? Continue reading →

Blade Runner 2049 review

14 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Films

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Do humans dream of organic sheep?  Don’t they just count them?

by Thom Yee

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Blade Runner 2049 images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

So let’s get one thing straight:  The original Blade Runner is a quality movie.

It’s an interesting movie, a distinct movie, and, more than either of those things, a revered movie.  There are some circles for which a Blade Runner sequel is like a dream even, the fruition of decades of speculation and the ultimate expression of the growth of the movie from a once misunderstood quandary to now a cultural icon.  It’s a visual spectacle with a haunting score and a chilling vision of where it looked like we were going.  In preparation for the release of Blade Runner 2049, I, finally and for the first time, watched the original Blade Runner (and read Grace’s now-classic review of course), only days before I would see its sequel.

I fell asleep twice trying to make it through. Continue reading →