Tag: Forest Whitaker

Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (One Night at Mercy)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Peter O’Fallon

We’re back with another episode of Story Time with Forest Whitaker!  Now the last episode we looked at was a pretty boring example of this show barely even trying and merely going through the motions, but I hear that a lot of people really like this episode so maybe the show has already figured out what it wants to do and is now heading in the right direction.  Are the people right and is this one of the better episodes of the series, or is this just another disappointment from a show that probably has no right to exist in the first place?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a whole bunch of SUPER SURGERY where there’s blood splatter, sawn open rib cages, and some bad ass doctor sticking his hand inside some dude’s chest cavity!  SWEET!  I don’t know what the fuck he’s trying to do (something to do with the aorta), but whatever it is it ends up saving the poor bastard on the table.  Oh I’m sorry, did I say table?  They aren’t actually in an operating theater; they’re in the fucking emergency room with the guy on a gurney!  Television execs being cheap or the hospital has budget cuts?  YOU DECIDE!!

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“Can you grab me a bottle of hand sanitizer?”     “WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING!  JUST GRAB IT YOURSELF!”     “The supplies are right behind you.  All you have to do is turn around and grab me a bottle.”     “WHY IS THERE HAND SANITIZER IN THE OPERATING ROOM!?”     “You can keep calling it that all you want, but that won’t make it any less false.”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Night Route)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Jean de Segonzac

We’re back with another episode of The Forest Whitaker Monologues!  Now that we’ve made it through the pilot, it’s time for this series to start in earnest!  Is this going to be one of the good episodes, or will this be one of the FUN episodes?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a woman named Melina Kroner (Ione Skye) walking her dog at night when she’s nearly hit by a car.  Presumably this event will NOT go unnoticed by THE TWILIGHT ZONE and sure enough she’s immediately sidled up to by a creepy ass bus whose driver (Art Kitching from Supernatural) is practically begging her to step aboard.  The dog seems to want to get on, but she just holds the leash firm and turns away from it.  When she looks back… the bus is GONE!  So she’s dead, right?  That’s the twist.  I’m putting my money down RIGHT NOW that that is gonna be the twist.

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“Night Bus to Mundo Fine!  Night Bus to the end!!”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (The Lineman)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 4 Comments

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Jonathan Frakes

Welcome back to our look at the 2002 Twilight Zone reboot!  Now the show’s air dates and production dates are completely different, but we’re gonna go with the latter which means this first episode (the pilot) didn’t actually air until six weeks into the series run; something that makes it even MORE confusing when you find out that this is the ONLY episode of the series that is one hour long story instead of two episodes put together.  As confusing as that must have been to whoever was watching this series as it aired (someone SURELY had to have been doing so, right?), this can sometimes happen.  You needn’t look any further than The Menagerie from the original Star Trek series which was the original pilot but then later retrofitted into a two parter in the series proper.  So what do we have to look forward to from the first episode of this series?  Well it has Jeremy Piven in it from before he was on Entourage but since that’s a show I’ve never seen, my reference pool for the guy is basically Smokin’ Aces and The Good: Live Hard Sell hard.  Not only is he in this episode, but he’s the STAR and it’s all about him developing the power to read minds!  Neato!  So does this episode prove that the series was worth bring back a second time, or is it all too clear right from the beginning that we’re on a ship that’s sinking fast?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with our hero Tyler (Jeremy Piven) and his two work buddies, Buddy and Shannon (seriously, his best friend is named Buddy, I guess so we don’t get confused), who are at the site of a recently downed telephone line.  Tyler has a crush on Shannon but he doesn’t have any confidence in himself and uses being poor as an excuse to not ask her out.  I guess telecom repair people don’t get paid a lot, but then again this is the guy who buys scratcher tickets hoping to win it big, so maybe his idea of success is a bit on the unrealistic side.  Not only that, but the person he’s pining over seems like an irresponsible jerk considering she goads the guy into going to the top of the line to fix it mere moments after the storm ended.  Gee… I wonder if anything is gonna go wrong…

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“I hate Mondays!!”     “It’s actually Tuesday.”     “WHY ARE YOU CORRECTING HIM!?  CALL AN AMBULANCE!!”

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (PROLOGUE)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

You are about to enter another recap series.  A series not of anime or ponies, but of network television at the start of the twenty-first century.  A journey into the early roles of well-known actors today.  Next stop, something super cheesy and firmly a product of its time!  You are about to enter…

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Don’t know what this is?  Well it’s something I haven’t seen in a REALLY long time and yet has still left an impression on me.  I figure it was time to share the joy (or pain depending on how it holds up) that this show has brought me!  But first, we could use a little history lesson.

Portrait of a man who’s amazing hair and clipped speaking pattern somehow changed the world

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Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone ran from 1959 to 1964 and is still one of the most important and ingeniously clever television shows of all time.  Before Serling got his big break on that series, he was already a legendary writer in television; having been nominated for four Emmys and winning three within a four year period.  Still, the idea of a television network investing in a science fiction series was neigh unheard of, and even with Serling’s massive clout it still took some doing before the series made it to television.  The show found its audience but was never a huge hit for the network and was cancelled after five seasons.  The impact of that show is STILL felt to this very day, and has influenced everyone from Gene Roddenberry, Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick; hell, ANYONE who makes science fiction television and movies owes something to this show and the legacy it left behind.  That’s not the show I’m going to recap though.

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Cinema Dispatch: Dope

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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Dope and all the images you see in this review are owned by Open Road Films

Directed by Rick Famuyiwa

We are smack dab in the middle of the summer blockbuster boom-a-thon where you can’t chuck a rock without it exploding and narrowly avoiding a recognizable character from a long running franchise.  Who knows?  Maybe the movie going public is ready for something other than dinosaurs and superheroes for about a week or so and this might just fill that necessary niche.  No wait, they released it the same day as Inside Out.  You’re telling me that this movie, from the director of a Carlos Mencia vehicle (Our Family Wedding), is trying to go up against a Pixar film!?  If ANY movie had the balls to go up against the Mouse House, then this is either a film they just want to dump in theaters to get it over with, or something REALLY special that they are confident everyone will take notice of.  Before my pessimism overwhelms you all, it might just fall into the latter category considering the very solid trailers and the fact that it was produced by Forest Whitaker (who was actually in Our Family Wedding) and Pharrell Williams who was also responsible for the soundtrack.  Well it HAS to be better than Mac and Devin go to High School at least… right?  Anyway, the movie is primary about Malcolm who is a high school student in Los Angeles with a 4.0 GPA and wants to get into Harvard.  Not only that, but he’s also a huge nerd for nineties hip-hop and its aesthetic (just look at his flat top) which makes him an even more obvious target for bullying.  One day, he ends up going to a drug dealer’s party which gets raided by the cops and he barely manages to escape with his friends and the love interest he was chasing after in the party.  The next day at school though, he finds that the drug dealer managed to sneak a big ol’ bag of dope into his back pack and he has a bunch of angry mother fuckers looking for it.  As circumstances begin to snowball, he and friends try to do whatever they can to get rid of the drugs without getting shot or thrown in jail.

“So is this one of those life changing adventures where I learn a lot about myself along the way?”     “You watch too many movies punk.  JUST GIVE US THE DAMN DRUGS!!!”
“So is this one of those life changing adventures where I learn a lot about myself along the way?”     “You watch too many movies punk.  JUST GIVE US THE DAMN DRUGS!!!”

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