A Review of "Jeepers Creepers 3"

Woah, okay. It was like a Star Wars release for me. I've been a huge fan of the first two movies since I was in Jr. High school. (Not a long time ago, you old timers). Jeepers Creepers is up there as one of my favorite horror/monster movies of all time. It's not even because it's scary or anything like that, but because it's creepy, and I mean creeeepy. It's one of the creepiest movies you'll ever watch. It does what smart horror movies do and make you think rather than just trying to startle you. Jeepers Creepers 2 is where it became less like a horror movie and more like a monster movie. Just a cool popcorn flick that's a cool way to spend your Saturday night in. Perhaps I'll do full, in-depth reviews of the first two movies for Halloween this year.

Let's get to the main event: Jeepers Creepers 3. A movie that was announced four times and finally saw the light of day in 2017, twelve years after its first announcement. This movie saw star problems, script problems, and even protest problems due to writer/director Victor Salva's shady past. (Look up behind-the-scenes stuff on Clownhouse, I won't go into it here). So, being a sequel to one of my favorite monster movies of all time and being "on hold" for this long, there was a lot of anticipation. I can remember for the past couple of years, I've been intermittently Googling "Jeepers Creepers 3" trying to get some intel on any release updates, news, or rumors. Finally, by about spring of 2017, cameras were finally rolling and the movie was out about 3-4 months later. So, was the twelve year wait worth it? Did this long wait that saw me go from junior high to high school, graduate, do five years combined of a bachleor's degree program and graduate from that, and put in a year at my current job build up enough height that it was insurmountable? Well...

So, I'm not gonna pull punches here and I'm not going to beat around the bush. The movie could have been better, but that's not to say what we got wasn't bad. It was very entertaining and had some over-the-top badass moments, mainly just from the Creeper himself. SPOILERS: The movie isn't due out on Blu-ray/DVD until Christmas, so if you want to wait and watch it yourself, stop here.

To start off, I didn't really care for making the Creeper this mystical being from ancient times. I mean, I know it was the only logical explanation to his origins, considering he's a fucking humanoid bat who makes weapons and eats people, but I digress. His full and unbridled backstory is still left a mystery to the viewer. For the people coming into the theater desperately wanting to know what the Creeper is or how to kill, it's going to be vastly disappointing. Vastly. Stan Shaw sees it, and Meg Foster does too, and neither make any effort to make what they saw known. How do they see it? By holding hands with a dismembered hand the Creeper lost 23 years prior to the movie that Meg Foster just...digs up. I mean...that makes sense to me! (laughter).

The beginning of the movie sees Stan Shaw approach Sgt. Tubbs when Tubbs and his men find the Creeper's truck parked right outside the police station. That's right, the movie starts off directly following the ending to the first one, just after the Creeper took Darry. Tubbs even references Trish as "the sister" who's "inside, a wreck". They find that the truck is booby-trapped and mystical in an of itself. It can drive itself and trigger its own kills. Some goofy shit, but I had to remember that if I had watched Jeepers Creepers 2, its hinted in that one that the Creeper can "charm" his possessions to fly through the air on their own accord or do his bidding without his operation. So, while it's not a totally lame idea, it's still makes the movie feel like some kind of Syfy original movie...and that just makes it feel cheap.

Speaking of cheap, being the low-budget movie that it is sees it using a lot of really obviously fake special effects. There's the infamous chase scene that sees three trucks shoot guns at the Creeper's truck, with bullets ricocheting and bouncing off of it, and the sparks it makes even look fake-as-shit. The glass doesn't even break when bullets hit it. That's some voodoo shit right there. During this scene too, the truck also drops these self-propelled land mine-type spike balls that roll and explode that are clearly all CGi, rubbery and don't react to the terrain very well. It just makes me wonder if Victor Salva was out of ideas on how the Creeper can remain mysterious so he was like "You know what? Rolling land mines! Made out of human stuff!" I did like that the "Creeper task force", so to speak, carried homemade license plates that say "BKllngU" as a play on the Creeper's infamous plate "BEatngU".

Jonathan Breck returns for his third go as the "Bat out of Hell", the Creeper, and does his usual job. What landed him the part for the first one was his eyes and his way of stealing the scene with his presence and his quick, snap-like movements. He carries himself in a way that's foreboding, and with the Creeper make-up on, he looks badass, as usual. Still though, when you compare the Creeper the way he is now to the way he was in the first movie, they don't even feel like the same character. In the first movie, the Creeper lurks in the shadows, whistles 1920's songs as he eats tongues out of severed heads, flies around off screen which leaves you guessing when he's going to strike next, and can sneak in and out of places undetected. This Creeper just flies around in broad daylight, believes a girl who is alive to be dead despite having a sense of smell, goes after someone in vengeance just for peeing on the front of his truck (I'm not making that up) and even falls for one of his own booby-traps in the truck. It's like Salva made him too good and needed ways for the protagonists. He did use his bone-made shurikens and even had a javelin too, which was pretty sweet.

I liked the inclusion of the Kenny & Darla backstory as a cornerstone for this movie's story, as it opens with Kenny's murder in '78, but they fucked it all up. In Jeepers Creepers, Darry sees Kenny & Darla on the wall of the Creeper's House of Pain, and Kenny is black. In this movie, Kenny is white...so they just decided to fuck that right up. Plus, the ghost of Kenny knew tons about the Creeper and informed his still-alive mother (Meg Foster) through hallucinations she's having. This is where the movie wouldn't stop being weird and confusing.

The best part is the over-inclusion of the Creeper's truck. One thing sorely lacking from Jeepers Creepers 2 was the Creeper's truck, which I think would've been cool to have it tangle with the bus. This movie included the truck very prominently and I was extremely pleased. It even had that scary-badass horn. The truck, as I said, is wired like a motherfucker with traps, weapons and even some material or even a mystical "charm" that causes it to be impervious to damage of any kind. A harpoon fires out of a gun mounted on the undercarriage, spikes disembowel anyone who tries to get in the back of the truck who's not the Creeper, another spike impales anyone's head who's near the front seat; it's just a funhouse of death on wheels. The back of the van carries all the Creeper's bodies, tools, maps, weapons, and other treats. We even found out the Creeper keeps a police scanner in the front with him so he can listen to police chatter, which I thought was a neat little twist. There's a scene near the beginning where the Creeper steals his truck back from the impound tow-truck, and rides away on the top of it while it drives down the road which is just a tad silly. The truck can drive itself...fun. It's an odd and unnecessary choice that stretches the limits of the audience's ability to suspend its disbelief. A winged immortal serial killer is incredible enough without making him some kind of automotive enchanter to boot.

Tubbs, as he appears in Jeepers Creepers

So let's wrap up by talking about this movie's double-ending. The ending to the movie was fantastic, and it leaves the door open for another movie. So the Creeper returns to the mound where he buries his fortune-telling hand (just go with it) and finds nothing but a piece of cardboard that says "We Know What You Are" with his old hand pinned to it. He reacts in a fit of rage and tears his treacherous hand apart before summoning birds as he screams into the sky, expanding his facial hood for the first time. The next scene sees the lead guy character, who's name I can't even remember, he was so forgetful, gets on the fabled bus from 2 and "goes to state", meaning that the events of Jeepers Creepers 2 haven't happened yet. So 3 is an "in-between-quel", that starts immediately after 1 and ends just before 2. Fuck me. That would be cool, except you never see this kid in 2, nor is he even reference in 2, so it's a clumsy way to transition the audience into the events of 2. I guess it's the only way you could do it, the actors who played the kids trapped on the bus in 2 have aged fourteen years and probably don't look like high schoolers anymore. The final ending sees a huge shocker as Gina Philips returns as Trish Jenner, giving some sort of podcast as she vows to kill the Creeper once and for all when he awakens again, which would lead us to believe this takes place immediately after 2. That's it. The movie's over. Gina Philips has stated that Jeepers Creepers 4 is already in the works, so at least (hopefully *knock on wood*) we won't have too much more downtime until that comes out and (again, hopefully) ties up some of these horribly loose ends.

To conclude, the movie's pretty weak. I mean, it couldn't surmount twelve years of hype if its life depended on it, so I don't blame it for trying. The Creeper's cool, the truck's awesome, Tubbs is the great as the comedic relief, Stan Shaw steals the show, Meg Foster's weird, and the younger characters are all forgettable, just like in 2. The special effects are cheap and on par with a Syfy original movie, the story has a bunch of holes in it that aren't explained at all as the movie was marketed as revealing or hinting at the Creeper's origins and managed to do neither. I'm disappointed basically, but I mean, when I saw the teaser trailer and the two clips online my expectations went way down. It is what it is, and it's definitely cool enough to be rewatchable. A lot of it either intentionally or unintentionally laughable, but the Creeper more than makes up for it...in the scenes where he doesn't act like a dumb fucking idiot. 1 out of 5.

SIDE NOTE: To the loud, chunky lady who wouldn't stop shouting "Daaaaamn" anytime anything happened or trying to crack sassy one-liners, I hope to never have you ruin another movie experience for me.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #18 - The Terminator

The cyborgs are taking over! Judgment Day is inevitable!
The future isn't written. There's no fate, but what we make for ourselves!
Oh wait, those are from all the sequels...

The Terminator is a low-budget 1984 science-fiction film written & directed by then newcomer James Cameron. Cameron hired Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to star as the villainous cyborg sent from the future to kill the mother of the savior of mankind. Michael Biehn stars as Kyle Reese, the future soldier of war sent back through time to protect her. The mother of the savior of mankind? Linda Hamilton, as Sarah Connor, the mother of John Connor.

The movie starts at an observatory. The Terminator appears in a time bubble and kills three street gang members, stealing their clothes in the process. At that same moment, Kyle Reese arrives in downtown LA 1984, stealing clothes from a hobo and shoes from a nearby department store. He then seemlessly sneaks into society as he and the Terminator race to locate Sarah Connor, the mother of John Connor, the savior from the future who destroys Skynet and restores mankind's dominance in the world.

The Terminator stops and steals guns from a gun store owner. Kyle steals a shotgun from a police squad car. The Terminator strikes first, killing a Sarah Connor out of the LA phonebook. Off screen a little while later, he kills another Sarah Connor, this time Sarah L Connor. Sarah loses her plans to go out on a double date with her roommate Ginger and Ginger's boyfriend Matt that night, so she decides to go see a movie. She stops at a pizza joint, and sees the broadcast of the two Sarah Connors' deaths. She then leaves and goes walking down the street, but Kyle is close behind. Believing Kyle to be a stalker or a potential threat, she sneaks into a club called "Tech Noir" where she calls Lt. Traxler (Paul Winfield) and Sgt. Vukovich (Lance Henrikson). They tell her to stay put and they send a squad car out to her. Meanwhile, the Terminator breaks into Ginger and Sarah's apartment, kills Ginger and Matt, and overhears Sarah's voicemail to them stating where she is, giving the Terminator a location to come find her. It arrives at the club looking for her and picks her out of a crowd, but Kyle pumps shotgun rounds into the Terminator, takes Sarah and flees.

The Terminator chases them throughout the streets of LA. They hide in a parking garage, where Kyle tells Sarah about the horrors of the future. Kyle tells her that she's been targeted for termination because her future son, John Connor, rallied the remnants of mankind against Skynet, the automated self-aware super computer that initiated a nuclear holocaust against mankind. He tells Sarah that the Terminator is an efficient killing machine that "can't be bargained with, can't be reasoned with", and that it "doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and it absolutely will not stop, ever" until she is dead. Sarah decides to trust Kyle, due to his faith in his story. The two are later captured by the LAPD after they once again escape the Terminator in a car chase. They're taking to LAPD headquarters where Sarah is informed of Ginger's death and Kyle is interrogated by Dr. Peter Silberman. He tells Silberman the same thing about the Terminator, and how it'll wade through them all like they are nothing and kill Sarah. Silberman, Traxler and Vukovich try to convince Sarah that Kyle's a liar, but she still persists in believing in Kyle.

The Terminator, after a self-repair session in its hideout, attacks the police station where Sarah's being kept. The Terminator starts shooting threw cops and blasting up the police station in search of Sarah. Kyle breaks free from his custody and moves to find Sarah too. Kyle gets to her first as Traxler and Vukovich are gunned down by the Terminator. Kyle and Sarah escape from the police station and spend the night under a bridge. The next day they get a motel room to stay covered. Kyle purchases some bomb building materials and that night they make dynamite sticks for when the Terminator finds her again. Kyle later then confesses that he came across time for Sarah because he loves her, and the two make love that night.

The Terminator arrives and shoots up the motel but Kyle and Sarah escape in a truck. The Terminator shoots Kyle during the chase, mortally wounding him, but Sarah uses the truck to crash the Terminator and damage it. The damaged Terminator then hijacks a semi and chases Kyle and Sarah, who are on foot. Kyle sticks a lit dynamite stick into the truck's exhaust pipe, blowing it up. Kyle and Sarah embrace, believing they've killed it, but the Terminator rises out of the flaming wreckage, now just a metal endoskeleton since the flesh burnt off. The chase resumes on foot through a computer factory. Kyle sticks dynamite in the Terminator's abdomen, blowing it into two pieces, but the shockwave of the blast kills Kyle. Sarah is left to fend for herself when the Terminator's torso reactivates and starts chasing her again. Sarah finally corners the Terminator in a hydraulic press, tells it "you're terminated, fucker" and crushes it, killing it for good.

Nine months later, the a very pregnant Sarah is recording tapes for her future son to listen to. She stops at a gas station in Mexico, where a young boy takes the polaroid picture of Sarah that John gives to Kyle that Kyle falls in love with. The older store owner tells Sarah that there's "a storm coming", to which Sarah responds "I know..."

The Terminator is a science-fiction noir masterpiece. James Cameron catapulted both himself and Austrian best-buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger into super stardom following this movie's success. They would go on to reunite for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, often called the greatest motion picture sequel of all time. Arnold would come back twelve years after that for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which would be Arnold's last starring role before his term as governor of California. The movies may have gotten worse and worse with each new entry after T2, but with news of James Cameron coming back to executive produce a new trilogy of Terminator films, we should expect nothing but great things on the horizon. Never forget though, this is the classic that started it all.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #19 - Tremors

Continuing onward into the top 20. As Han Solo would say "This is where the fun begins".

Tremors is a 50's science-fiction B movie made in 1990. It takes place rural Nevada, in a town of approximately twelve people, called "Perfection". Tremors follows the story of two handymen-for-hire, Valentine "Val" McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward). They frequently do business with and have idle chit-chats every day with fellow Perfection residents; Miguel (Tony Genaro), Nancy Sterngood (Charlotte Stewart) and her daughter Mindy (Ariana Richards), teenage village idiot Melvin (Bobby Jacoby), Nestor Cunningham (Richard Marcus), shop owner Walter Chang (Victor Wong) and the most badass couple ever put on film, Burt and Heather Gummer (Michael Gross & Reba McEntire). On their way into town, Val and Earl meet Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter), a graduate assistant studying seismology in Perfection Valley, whom Val develops an interest in.

After a septic tank sprays them with fecal matter, Val and Earl snap and vote to leave Perfection for Bixby, the supposed "bigger city" that's thirty-eight miles away. On their way out of town, they come across a man strapped to the top of an electrical tower, a man named Edgar. They find that Edgar's dead, clutching the tower and his Winchester rifle. Jim Wallace, the town doctor, tells them that Edgar died of dehydration, afraid to climb down off the tower for an unknown reason. At that same moment, another unseen force kills "Old Fred" and his flock of sheep. On their second attempt to flee Perfection, Val and Earl come across this and find Fred's face sticking out of the dirt. They race back to Perfection, bypassing two road construction workers who are also attacked and killed by an unseen underground force, causing a rockslide that blocks the only road out of town. Val and Earl return to town, find the phones are down because of the construction, and the come across the blocked road. Isolated from the rest of the world, the residents of Perfection realize that they're own their own.

Val and Earl borrow Walter's horses and decide to ride to Bixby across the country. They find the doctor's house abandoned and his car buried in the sand, both his wife and him eaten by the underground monsters. On their way to Bixby, Val and Earl's horses throw them and then are overtaken and eaten by the monsters. They each make a run for it, failing to leap a dry canal all the way. The underground monster crashes into the wall and kills itself. They find Rhonda, with whom they dig up the carcass of the creature and learn it's sheer size. Rhonda learns there are at least three more monsters in the valley, based on her seismograph readings. Another one appears and chases them up onto a rock. They spend the night on the rock, still unable to climb down since the creature can hear seismic vibrations and detect where humans are through sound.

Val, Earl & Rhonda escape through pole-vaulting across boulders to her truck and race back to town. Soon, the group explains their findings to the rest of the townsfolk, who all agree to get out and get to Bixby. Melvin and Walter agree to call them "Graboids" because of how they grab people underground. All hell breaks loose when all three Graboids converge on Perfection and start picking people off one by one. With various distractions and diversions, all the residents of town end up on their roofs. Val runs across town and hijacks the old bulldozer to drag a semi trailer with all the residents in it out of town. Burt kills one that breaks into his basement with his powerful guns and agrees they should all flee the town before the other two can kill them.

When one of the Graboids digs a trap and crashes the bulldozer, the residents flee across the desert onto a collection of rocks. Sitting on the rocks, they decide to start using pebbles as bait to entice a Graboid to come to the surface, then throwing a stick of dynamite out so the Graboid takes it down. One of them falls for it and explodes, leaving only one Graboid left in the valley. The last Graboid doesn't fall for it and spits the dynamite out. It lands on the other dynamite and explodes, leaving Val, Earl & Rhonda with one stick of dynamite left. Val uses himself as a distraction and runs off, allowing the Graboid to chase him. The Graboid runs at Val, who's on a cliff. Not recognizing where the underground ends, the Grabiod breaks through the cliff wall and plummets down to the cavern below, exploding on impact. With no Graboids left, the people of Perfection return to town in peace

So what is Tremors since it's not really a masterpiece? It's a goofy, 50's B movie tribute that pays homage to the crazy monster movies of old. It has the look and feel of being from the 50's but was made in the 90's. It's got goofy dialogue, awesome characters, and a story that's actually really intriguing. Believe it or not, I used to be afraid of this movie when I was really young, but growing up I realized the hilarity of it. It's a horror-comedy. I love this movie quite a lot. It may not be Oscar-worthy, but it is a ton of fun.

A Review of "The Defenders" Saga: Luke Cage (season 1)

Daredevil is good for The Defenders, Jessica Jones is all geared up. There was still two more series that Marvel had to set up in order to get there. One of which was about the super-strength man with unbreakable skin.

Luke Cage is about...well...Luke Cage. A silent African-American man living in Harlem who works as a cleaner at Pop's Barbershop, as well as a dishwasher at Harlem's Paradise, a local nightclub owned by Cornell "Cottomouth" Stokes. Cage used to be the an inmate at Seagate named Carl Lucas. Lucas was subjected to a deadly experiment during his incarceration by Dr. Noah Burnstien. The experiment "backfires" and Lucas is tortured in his acid bath. He wakes up after a bit and breaks free of his captivity. Realizing he's got unbreakable skin now as well as super strength, "Carl Lucas" breaks out of Seagate by literally punching the wall down and becomes "Luke Cage".

Anywho, like I said, Cage works as a dishwasher at Harlem's paradise, but one night he fills in as a bartender for Dante, who's actually shooting up a deal between Stokes and Domingo Colon with two other boys named Shameek and Chico Diaz. Shameek kills Dante after he panics and together the two go into hiding. With help from "Shades" Alvarez, who works for Stokes' supplier Diamondback, Stokes tracks and kills Shameek and retrieves his share of the money. Stokes' men also support his cousin Mariah Dillard, a councilwoman, and demand contributions to her cause from Luke Cage's landlords. Cage fights them off, deflecting their bullets and tossing them aside like common childhood ragdolls, but their payment for his actions.

In order to get to the hiding Chico, Pop gets gunned down in a mob hit at the barbershop, forcing Cage to go on a manhunt for the men who did it. The mob hit also served to get Chico's stolen money back to Cottonmouth, who throws the hitman off of the roof to teach him a lesson for killing Pops, whom Cottonmouth mourns. Cage finds out from a regular barbershop customer, Bobby Fish, that Pop's barbershop is facing closure due to unpaid bills, and Cage decides to take Stokes' money to cover the debt and re-open the shop. He visits Chico in hospital and learns that Stokes' plans to move all of his money to Crispus Attucks during a crisis. Cage begins targeting Stokes' business, framing Colon. Stokes moves all his money to Crispus Attucks in response, and Cage attacks the complex while Dillard is out, taking out her guards and stealing a small share of the money to give to Fish. Knight and Scarfe arrive soon to impound the rest of the money. Chico approaches Scarfe, offering to testify against Stokes and revealing that it was Cage who attacked the complex. Scarfe, who is actually on Stokes' payroll, kills Chico and tells Stokes about Cage. Stokes goes to the restaurant where Cage is living and fires a missile at the building.

At this point you're probably wondering how far up the ladder goes in this criminal organization. I have trouble following it myself. I know the character known as Willis "Diamondback" Stryker, is at the top of the ladder, who also just happens to be Cage's half-brother. So it's a whole Judge Dredd scenario, only better. So far as I know, Diamondback becomes only the second character in the Marvel Netflix universe to actually have his proper comic book getup, the other of course being Daredevil. His final fight with Luke Cage at the end of the show is pretty great and nearly goes the whole damn episode. Obviously, the show needed some time to tie loose ends up. Still though, it's pretty sweet to watch.

Some point during the show, they introduce what's called the "Judas" bullet, the only bullet in production that can pierce Luke Cage's skin. What makes it so special? Well one, you shoot the bullet into the person, and then they bleed for a bit, then the bullet bursts and the person practically explodes. It's also made of Chitauri metal. That's right, the alien race that attacks New York City at the end of The Avengers? The event that literally every Marvel movie and TV show relentlessly references? Those alien vehicles and weapons have their metal melted down and made into bullets. These are the only bullets that can harm Cage, and he spends a whole two, two-and-a-half episodes injured with Chitauri bullets in his chest and stomach. There's a crazy episode where Claire Temple (again played by Rosario Dawson in her fourth outing in the Netflix Marvel series) and Dr. Noah Burnstein to submerge Cage into a vat of boiling acid to weaken Luke's unbreakable skin to allow Claire to remove fragments of the Chitauri bullet. Some cool stuff right there.

I like the inclusion of "Brett" from Pulp Fiction, as detective Scarfe. He turns to be a traitorous snake-in-the-grass bastard in both that movie and in this show as he reveals he's on Cottonmouth's payroll who kills Chico and tells Cottonmouth to fire a missile into Luke Cage's apartment building. I also really enjoyed the character of Misty Knight, the NYPD detective who grew up in Harlem that knows the streets and investigations Cottonmouth, Diamondback, "Shades" Alvarez and others at the same time Luke is smashing their heads in. She does good as the "intrepid" support of the show to support Luke Cage's superhuman presence, and her and Cage even boink in the first twenty minutes of the show, so that's a plus. Crazy how these Marvel shows are starting off getting our attention like that.


We have the secondary main villain of the show in Mariah Dillard, played by Alfre Woodward, of Star Trek: First Contact variety.  She is a New York City councilwoman and the cousin of Cottonmouth, who funds her political stuff with his gun running shenanigans. Both of them are also the grandchildren of Harlem crime lord "Mama" Mabel Stokes. Though Mariah attempts to avoid involvement in Cottonmouth's affairs, his obsession with Luke Cage ultimately ruins her political campaign. Cottonmouth condescendingly calls Mariah "Black Mariah" in one of their many on-screen arguments, which provokes her into throwing a martini glass at him (it's also a killer reference to her actual name in the comic book). After Cottonmouth is arrested for killing Scarfe, Mariah beats him to death with a microphone stand when he accuses her of seducing her uncle Pete. So...that ultimately comes out of nowhere. With help from Shades, Mariah blames Cottonmouth's death on Luke Cage. After Diamondback is arrested, Mariah redirects the blame of Cottonmouth's death on him while saying Luke's real name on television, enabling the United States Marshals Service to show up and arrest Luke.  Federal marshals arrive to arrest Cage for his escape from Seagate. Claire kisses him before he leaves promising to call "a skilled lawyer she knows" (Holy Daredevil reference) to help him out. After it's all done, Misty Knight goes undercover in the club again. Claire considers taking up self-defense lessons. As Stryker recovers in hospital, Burstein visits him secretly. By the end of the season, Mariah runs Harlem's criminal underworld out of Harlem's Paradise while entering into a relationship with Shades. So I guess you can say things in Harlem aren't looking so well. Can't wait to see how they explain how Luke ends up back in Harlem for The Defenders.

Luke Cage is a very slow-paced show, and part of it serves the plot and some of it doesn't. Luke obviously has super strength and unbreakable skin, so it's going to be hard to get conflict into the story. Superman comic books ran into the same problem when Superman blew out a star like a candle. Not even joking, that happened. With Luke Cage, they come up with very creative reasons and tricky plot points to keep it interesting. The parts where Luke isn't ripping doors off of cars and using them as battering rams, deflecting bullets, mashing people into a thick paste, and basically being a walking badass, are the slow parts. There's some cool parts that aren't Luke Cage-related, but it still feels slow at times. It suffers from the "Yeah he wasn't a huge character, but Marvel had to make this show to make sure he had enough character development to make sense in the future crossover" disease. Iron Fist suffers from it too, much bigger than this one, but we'll get to that. Overall, it's still a great show, and so far Cage is my second-favorite Defender behind Daredevil, of course. So I recommend it.

A Review of "The Defenders" Saga: Daredevil (season 2)

Following Marvel's Jessica Jones, in March of 2016, came the long-awaited second season of Marvel's Daredevil. Unlike the first season, this season was hit-and-miss.

The season opens with Daredevil chasing several men, and beating them up wherever he can corner them. He finds them in kitchens, in alleyways, and finally in a church. As Daredevil, Matt is making headlines cleaning up the city as a vigilante of the night, but his daytime best friend and law colleague Franklin "Foggy" Nelson is not so accepting of Matt's Daredevil persona. Meanwhile, Karen Page, the secretary at Nelson & Murdock continues to be the resourceful investigative secretary that she can be. I don't know, her role in the show gets very confusing. She's just there, I guess, but a very good "she's just there". Either she's the lowly secretary for Nelson & Murdock or she's totally doing more lawyer-esque work than either Nelson or Murdock. You be the judge.

So an Irish mob gets hit hard, Rambo-style. An entire mob meeting is shot to hell from an unknown assailant. The hit is initially credited to a group of hitmen, but it's later deduced that it was one hitman, and that hitman is Frank Castle, also known as "The Punisher". Jon Bernthal's Punisher is bad to the ass. Every time he's on screen, he steals the show. Kind of wonder why they bothered letting the freakin' Punisher have a recurring role in the Daredevil series when all he does is steal the spotlight. Sure, the Daredevil stuff continues to be an awesome spectacle to watch, but we just get the added on awesome dosage with The Punisher. Watching the Punisher interact with people also is a treat. My favorite is the episode in which the Punisher visits a pawn shop, purchases a NYPD mobile communications rig, the surveillance tape that shows he was there, and the shells for the shotgun behind the counter. When the pawn shop owner offers him child porn for $100, the Punisher beats him to death with a baseball bat. Jon Bernthal's performance comes off very "Shane-like" in its presentation. For those that don't know, Jon Bernthal played Shane in the first two seasons of The Walking Dead, and the performance here is very much reminiscent of that. Watch clips of The Walking Dead from the first two seasons and then watch clips of Bernthal as The Punisher...the only thing missing is the head rubbing. I'm not even joking here, there's a video compilation on YouTube of every time Shane rubs his head, and that alone has become a meme.

On the other end of things, is Elodie Young as Elektra. She's...boring. She's not bad, it's just that this sort of inclusion in the story really didn't give her anything interesting to do. This is where I feel the season starts to drag. The Punisher stuff and courtroom drama is all fascinating to follow, but the stuff with The Hand, Elektra and the resurrected Nobu just kind of drags. It already feels like every Marvel show is dragging at some point. Her fight scenes with Daredevil are pretty cool to watch, but the way she just keeps barging into Matt's life and ruining everything while the Punisher courtroom case is going just sucks the life out of me. My least favorite bit is where she and Matt are running around an office trying to find somebody's secrets (I wasn't even paying attention at this point, because it seemed to go on forever). That and "The Hand"? Jesus Christ, the Hand. Thank God Stick, the best character in the Netflix MCU, came back or else I would not given a collective shit about anything going related to The Hand.

The series picked back up with the inclusion of Vincent D'Onofrio reprising his role as Wilson Fisk, only this time he's in prison. He gets a "catch up" episode where we learn what life was like for Wilson once he went to prison, and learn that he still loves Vanessa is doing everything he can to get out of prison in a reputable time frame to see his beloved again. There's a tense scene between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk in which Matt promises that Wilson will never get out of jail and that he'll never see Vanessa again, and Wilson literally starts pounding the shit out of him. Forget that it could net more years behind bars for him, he just wails on a lawyer and walks away completely clean. Remind me why he's in prison, again?

The downfall of Nelson & Murdock occurs in this season. Matt and Foggy that just because Matt's Daredevil, they can't be lawyer buddies anymore and end their partnership. No, really, there's more to it than that but it literally just stems from the fact Matt's more preoccupied with his Daredevil antics than he is accurately defending the Punisher for his crimes. The Punisher ends up throwing the case anyway, just because he's a psychopath badass, but still it derails their friendship and partnership and by the end of it all, Foggy joins with Jeri Hogarth, of the Jessica Jones variety, and partners with her law firm. As all this is going on, Karen has taken it upon herself again to do more investigative and lawyer work than either Matt or Foggy and ultimately is the driving force behind the defense of Frank Castle. She finds information on Frank's family and learns that they were all slaughtered in a gang shootout, and that Frank took a bullet in the head in the process. She came to sympathize with Frank and ultimately try to push him not to be such a vindictive psychopath, but the Punisher that we know and love surfaces again and tells her that he cannot change who he is.

The end of the season is just bitter and said. Sure Daredevil and Elektra triumph over the hand and seemingly kill Nobu (again), plus the Punisher debuts with his skull image on his abdomen, but Nelson & Murdock is no longer a thing, Matt and Karen's relationship failed, Matt and Foggy hate each other. I know it's all going somewhere, hopefully a lot of it is resolved in season 3 that supposed to air in 2018, but I can't wait that long.  Plus, the series ends with Matt revealing to Karen that he's Daredevil. It's pretty sweet, and totally unexpected. I don't know how it segways into The Defenders when Matt's stopped being Daredevil, but I'm sure they'll explain it. Matt's just like "I'm Daredevil, or rather I was Daredevil".

All in all, Daredevil season 2 is a mixed bag. It's still Daredevil, so it's going to be a fun thrill ride at least part of the time. The Punisher and court room stuff, again, is still very much worth the watching of the series. It's once Elektra and the Hand get involved that the show kind of just swaps between flatlining and high-stepping. The Punisher would do something that would spike the interest in the show and then Elektra would say or do something that would just slow everything to a crawl. It's still a pretty great season and I loved in during my watch through of it, I just know there are things they could improve on. Stick is always a great inclusion. Karen does her stuff and is fun to watch. Foggy's schtick of arguing against Matt being Daredevil gets a little old, but I'm sure it does for the character of Foggy Nelson as well. Daredevil season 2 is a great entry in the Defenders saga, but hopefully season 3 is the be-all, end-all entry in the series of Daredevil that it's being rumored to be.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #20 - Blazing Saddles

We've broken into the top 20! Now we're getting serious.
What better way to kick off the top 20, than to start with Mel Brooks' most treasured comedy masterpiece.

In the old west in the year 1874, construction on a new railroad will soon be going through Rock Ridge, a town inhabited exclusively by white people with the surname Johnson. When Hedley Lamarr (comedy legend Harvey Korman) wants to force Rock Ridge's residents to abandon their town to lower land prices and allow a smoother, better construction of railroad, he sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky assistant Taggart (comedy legend Slim Pickens) to shoot the sheriff and trash the town. It worked, as the townspeople demand that the Governor of their state, William J. Le Petomane (comedy legend Mel Brooks himself) appoint a new sheriff to protect them. Hedley easily sways the inept Le Petomane to appoint Bart (Cleavon Little), the black railroad worker who was about to be hanged, as the new sheriff of Rock Ridge. Hedley surmises that as a black sheriff, Bart will offend the townspeople, create chaos, and force people to leave the town anyway.

With his quick wits, lovable attitude, friendly nature, and the assistance of recovering alcoholic gunslinger Jim "The Waco Kid" (comedy legend Gene Wilder), Bart works to overcome the townspeople's hostile reception and even become a renowned member of the populace. He subdues Mongo (Alex Karras), an immensely strong, dim-witted, but philosophical henchman sent to kill him, and then seduces the German seductress-for-hire Lili von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn) at her own game. Lamarr, furious that his schemes have backfired, hatches a larger plan involving a recruited army of thugs, including common criminals, Ku Klux Klansmen, Nazi soldiers, and Methodists. "Hey, where the white women at?"

Three miles east of Rock Ridge, Bart introduces the white townspeople to the black and Chinese railroad workers, who chose to assist the white townsfolk in exchange for their acceptance into their community. Bart explains his plan to defeat Lamarr's goons to build a dummy town that would diver them from their real one. They labor all night to build a perfect replica of their town, but Bart realizes it won't fool the villains with no people inside it. While the townspeople construct replicas of themselves, Bart, Jim, and Mongo buy time by constructing the "Gov. William J. Le Petomane Thruway," forcing the raiding party to turn back for "a shitload of dimes" to pay the toll. Once through the tollbooth, the raiders attack the fake town populated with dummies, which are boobytrapped with dynamite bombs. The Waco Kid detonates the bombs with his sharpshooting, launching bad guys and horses skyward, leaving the citizens of Rock Ridge to storm LaMarr and his cronies.

The resulting brawl between townsfolk, railroad workers, and LaMarr's thugs breaks the fourth wall, quite literally spilling onto a neighboring movie set where director Buddy Bizarre (comedy legend Dom DeLuise) is directing a tophat and cane dance movie, and then into the studio cafeteria for a food fight, and then out of the Warner Bros. film lot into the streets of Burbank, CA. Hedley LaMarr hails a taxi and orders the driver to "drive him off this picture." He ducks into Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is playing the premiere of Blazing Saddles. As he sneaks into the thaeter screening, he sees Bart arriving on horseback outside the theater. Bart halts LaMarr's escape, and then, in a spoof of a classic cinematic gunfight, shoots him in the balls. Bart and Jim then go into the Chinese Theater to watch the end of the film for themselves, which shows Bart announces to the townspeople that he is moving on, for his work there is done (and he is bored). Riding out of town, he finds Jim, the Waco Kid, finishing his popcorn from the movie theater and invites him along to "nowhere special." The two friends then ride off into the sunset in a chauffeured stretch limousine, despite the fact they're in the old west.

Blazing Saddles will have you in stitches every time you watch it. It frequently tops "top comedy" lists, "most quotable movies" lists, "best ensemble comedy acts" lists; it's very much worth your time to check it out. The quotable lines, the cast of comedy movie icons, the ridiculous twists & turns of the story; it's all going to have you rolling on the floor. It kickstarted Mel Brooks' comedy career following the success of his film The Producers and saw him go on to make other comedy flicks such as Young Frankenstein, History of the World - Pt. 1, and Spaceballs. Give it a watch, if you haven't because you've been living under a rock. You won't be disappointed. Even if you've watched it a thousand times, watch it again for old time's sake.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #21 - The Wrestler

Another Rocky-esque story of pride and redemption, except this one involves a character who is way past his prime.

The Wrestler follows Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a fifty-something former 80's professional wrestler who's down on his luck and past his prime. He wrestles on weekends for decent slim wages and works part-time at a grocery store loading boxes during the week. He's estranged from his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and woos the interest of a stripper named "Cassidy" Pam (Marisa Tomei). He frequently somberly relives his glory days as an 80's superstar, including that of his fables match with "The Ayatollah" that symbolized his career.

Following one of his club shows, his promoter comes to him with the idea of a 20th anniversary rematch with The Ayatollah at a Ring of Honor show he's hosting, with the idea that completing the match would send him back into super-stardom. After he accepts the offer, he decides to intensify his training to look more in shape, including taking steroids. Unfortunately, he suffers a heart attack after a brutal hardcore match that sees him bloodied and battered. The doctors perform coronary bypass surgery on him and he survives, though he must retire from professional wrestling.

Pam suggests that Randy visit his estranged daughter to rebuild a relationship with her. Randy visits Stephanie and is immediately rebuffed. He then goes out with Pam to purchase a gift for Stephanie, making intimate advances toward her when they sit at a bar, but Pam turns him down. Randy takes his gift to Stephanie, who then agrees to walk the pier with him. During their walk, Randy breaks down and apologizes for abandoning her in her young age. Stephanie agrees to have dinner with Randy that next Saturday. Randy buys a card for Pam to thank her for helping him buy a gift for Stephanie and getting her back in his life. She angrily declares that "he's a customer" and that "she can't date the customers". He angrily chides her for being a stripper, demands a lap dance and is thrown out of her strip club. Randy decides to go see a wrestling show and go to a post-party with some of the wrestlers. He's seduced by a random woman and snorts cocaine, having sex with her in the bathroom. He wakes up and realizes that he's missed his dinner date with his daughter, and goes to her home. She angrily declares she never wants to see him again, that "he's a fuck up" and he always does this to her, before throwing him out of her life for good. It gets worse that Randy explosively quits his grocery job after a patron recognizes him as Randy "The Ram" from the 80's, "except older". Randy jams his thumb into the meat cutter and storms out.

With both his daughter and his love interest angry at him, no grocery store job and having nothing left in his life, he decides to go back to wrestling against all doctor's wishes. He agrees to the 20th anniversary match with the Ayatollah. Pam learns of this as she catches Randy leaving his home. She goes to chase him but can't stop him from going through the curtain one last time, as he says "The only place I get hurt is out there (in the ring)" and that "the world don't give a shit about me". He then goes out to the ring and gives one of the most beautiful speeches in motion picture history (See clip).

He then goes on to wrestle a hell of a match with the Bob "The Ayatollah". As the match progresses, Randy's heart begins acting up and he begins having another heart attack, this one more fatal. Randy ignores Bob's wishes to close the the match with a pin, instead climbing the rope for his signature finisher, the "Ram Jam", officially turning his back on the world that turned its back on him. The movie ends with Randy diving off the top rope, leaving his fate ultimately ambiguous. The viewer decides if he survives and beats the Ayatollah or dies in the ring.

The Wrestler is a masterpiece. It shows all the negative aspects of the wrestling business, sure, but it's a hell of a story. This is the movie that brought Mickey Rourke back to super-stardom, much like Randy's own quest for redemption. Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood; they all deserve accolades for these performances. It truly is an awesome movie. It's a real tear-jerker at some points too. I'll admit it made me tear up the first time I watched it. The scene where Stephanie throws Randy out is utterly heartbreaking and watching him turn his back on society and ultimately do what he wants to do, regardless of how society feels about it, is rewarding. The ending leaves it totally in the dark whether or not Randy survives the move or the rest of the match. Give it a watch. You won't regret it.