Glenn Walker is a writer who knows pop culture. He loves, hates and lives pop culture. He knows too freaking much about pop culture, and here's where he talks about it all: movies, music, comics, television, and the rest... Welcome to Hell.
I have had more than a few friends tell me not only what a great, but also hilarious television series "Arrested Development" is/was. That coupled with the fact that Netflix is going to bring it back for fifteen new episodes, which would serve as a prelude to a feature film. Well now, that sounds to me like there must be something unique and exciting about the series to have all that going on for it.
What did I know about "Arrested Development" however? Virtually nothing. I knew it lasted three seasons on Fox and was canceled because of low ratings. I knew that the musical group Arrested Development sued and settled over the use of the name. I knew that it starred Jason Bateman, and that Ron Howard was somehow involved. That's it. Until very recently, I had never even seen one episode of "Arrested Development."
Seeing how the whole series, in anticipation of the new fourth season, was available on Netflix, I decided to give it a shot. Wow. As Queen Victoria was often said to say, I was not amused. This thing was just not funny, or at least just not funny to me. When described to me by friends, or read about online, it sounded hilarious, but actually watching it - nothing. Crickets, baby.
What confounded me the most is that there are cast members who are on other shows or other endeavors who I think are hysterical. There's Jessica Walter in "Archer," Portia de Rossi in "Better Off Ted," Michael Cera in some things, and David Cross in everything - yet in "Arrested Development," it's as if they are performing at a funeral.
I tried. I got through seventeen episodes before giving up, and not submitting to masochism. I just don't get it. The new season will be available on Netflix starting this Sunday, May the 26th.
Amidst a whirlwind of false death rumors about the man, it turns out that music legend, and former member of the Doors, Ray Manzarek, has passed away. In a German hospital from cancer, the founder and keyboardist for the Doors is dead at 72.
This is a gut punch to me as strong as the passings of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, or Warren Zevon. Ray Manzarek is a voice from my youth. I wasn't cognizant for the first coming of the Doors, but their revival in the late 1970s, due to many factors, was strong in my formation.
There was AOR FM radio looking for music to play and not wanting to touch disco or new wave or punk, and began to mine the sixties for music, delivering the Doors to the forefront once again. There was the book, that everyone in my suburban white drug culture high school read - "No One Here Gets Out Alive" by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman - that made a legend of the late Jim Morrison.
There was, and is, some hardcore realist inside me that knows that Morrison was just a sullen alcoholic bully, but it was Ray Manzarek that created the legend, wove the tale, built the rock god, and manifested the Lizard King from the ground up. Whatever Jim Morrison was, Ray Manzarek made him.
I remember listening to Jim Ladd and his Sunday night "Innerview" interviewing Ray Manzarek multiple times, as he told apocryphal and supernatural tales of Jim Morrison, building the legend word by word. Manzarek talked of the Native American shaman who possessed Morrison as a child, the concept that he might not be dead, and all sorts of fantastic stories of the legendary Doors, fact and fiction. And he did it all the finesse of a master radio manipulator. Ray Manzarek would've made Orson Welles jealous with these performances.
For decades, Manzarek kept the infamous Doors alive, both on radio, and in sales, as he maintained his own career as well. He created a wonderful rendition of "Carmina Burana" with Philip Glass, as well as producing several albums for LA punk band X. He also worked with Echo and the Bunnymen and Iggy Pop among others, and even toured with Ian Asbury of The Cult in place of Morrison in a version of the Doors.
His charismatic personality, his fabulous storytelling ability, and his unique keyboard creations will live on for decades to come. We have truly lost one of the rock and roll legends. Long live Ray Manzarek and the Doors. Hopefully he's jamming with the Lizard King right now.
We all (well, all of us of a certain age) have that one 45 RPM single that enticed us into the world of listening to the radio, that one single that we heard and then had to own. For me, and for many of my friends in the summer of 1977, it was "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day. I remember first hearing it on WIFI-92 FM and then having to have the single.
Alan O'Day passed away this weekend after a six month battle with brain cancer. He also wrote, among many others, the haunting and enigmatic "Angie Baby" for Helen Reddy. We've lost yet another icon of the 1970s.
I have talked about my issues with the amazing "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" being canceled here before. I had resolved not to bitch about the new series "Avengers Assemble" until I actually saw it.
Here's thirty-one seconds that have made me nothing but depressed:
"Earth's Mightiest Heroes" made me excited, every image I saw, every clip I watched, made me so excited for the series. This does nothing for me. And the Falcon talking like a teenaged reject from Jeph Loeb's "Ultimate Spider-Man" really makes me not want to even try to watch this thing…
A sneak peek of the first two episodes airs on Sunday morning, May 26th, so we can all see for ourselves. I don't have high hopes…
Finally we're at the season finale of "Arrow." It's been a long road, sometimes bumpy, sometimes kinda cool. We enter shortly after we last left our hero. Stephen Amell's Oliver was unmasked and unconscious, and at the mercy of John Barrowman's Malcolm Merlyn. Amell's chest makes a welcome return as Barrowman plays Bond villain and gloats a bit before leaving our hero hanging chained and flashbacking.
After a pretty dynamic escape, wishy-washily aided by Diggle, Oliver jumps from character to character playing emotional catch up. There's a real sense of finality to it all. Tommy to potential villain, Laurel to potential girlfriend, Quentin to potential ally, everything but Arrow to the rescue. There's a nice bit while Felicity is taken in for questioning, and she channels "Smallville"'s Chloe to Detective Lance, saying maybe The Hood is a hero.
As the gears begin to click together, it seems that Moira Queen is more of a hero than anyone else in the cast. She calls a press conference, revealing The Undertaking and naming Merlyn responsible. The problems? You can't stop John Barrowman, and Thea goes to The Glades to get Roy. Meanwhile Oliver and Diggle go after Merlyn while Felicity and Quentin look for the Markov Device. Why do I get the feeling someone's not making it out of this alive?
I have to say I was surprised who it was that wasn't going to make it. I have to wonder if it was a last minute decision by the showrunners as well. In hindsight, it seems to be more tidying up than anything else. I liked Tommy a lot, and would have dug his young, hip, and vengeful Merlyn the Magician.
The one thing that really bothered me about this episode was the lack of resolution, both on the island, and in the present. While the thinking behind Merlyn's redundancy plan is sound and logical, it's very unsatisfying storywise. I don't want to see the hero lose. Maybe that's something they can work in next season...
