Month: March 2019

Us will creep you out and is packed with ideas, but lacks satisfying scares

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Whether or not you consider Us a scary movie depends on your personal preferences. If “scary” means making you jump in your seat, shielding yourself with the person sitting next to you, or screaming out loud, you might be disappointed with Jordan Peele’s latest film.

But Us is most certainly creepy, with imagery that might live inside your head for a while and revisit when you close your eyes. The broken mirror doubles that a family suddenly encounters are chilling, a credit to make-up and costuming as well some fantastic acting — both in a physical and psychological sense — from the cast.

Following Get Out, Peele has made another thinking person’s horror film. No, Us probably won’t resonate the way his first effort did. And the story’s resolution doesn’t feel as satisfying. That might compel some fans and critics to use terms like “sophomore slump” in critiquing this movie. But Peele deserves credit for not repeating himself here, something that surely would’ve been easy to do.

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Amusement Park Podcast 030: Avengers: Endgame Madness, James Gunn returns and Triple Frontier

/ Ian Casselberry / 1 Comment

After taking last week off, we’re back with a new Amusement Park Podcast. Chris and I look at the final Avengers: Endgame trailer for clues, react to Disney re-hiring James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, review Netflix’s Triple Frontier, and wonder if “streaming fatigue” is real.

Difficulty lining our schedules up and what appeared to be a slow news week were the primary reasons for us not recording last week. But even if we had recorded, we probably would’ve missed the Avengers: Endgame trailer and news of Disney re-hiring James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Hopefully, you’ll still want to hear what we have to say on those subjects, along with some thoughts on streaming “subscription fatigue” among consumers.

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The Podcass 0.5: C’mon, another podcast?

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Hello and welcome to The Podcass! Thank you for listening and downloading.

My name is Ian Casselberry, and I’m a writer, editor and podcaster. You might know me from such outlets as Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Big League Stew, MLive and Bless You Boys.

This is an audio version of my blog, with stories, rants, reviews and interviews.

Why “The Podcass”? It’s a name that occurred to me once upon a time, trying to come up with a play on my name like “The Casselbloggy.” (By the way, you can find my blog at casselbloggy.com.)

What can you expect from this podcast? Why should you listen? For one thing, I hope this becomes an audio version of my blog with stories, rants, reviews and interviews. I’ve seen people on social media say that they don’t read blogs anymore, but they listen to podcasts. So here I am. You can’t escape me. Unless, you know, you, like, ignore me.

Mostly, I just want to play with the form and see where I can go with it. Let me know if I’ve made a huge mistake at thepodcass@gmail.com. The show is also on Twitter @thepodcass.

Facebook? Eh, I’m not sure about that yet, though I’ve often gotten better engagement there. For now, you can find me on Facebook. I’m on Twitter @iancass and Instagram @iancass6873. I appreciate you stopping by and hope this is the beginning of something fun.

Overzealous Recycling 010: Scattered, smothered and covered

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Thanks to Pat Ryan and WISE Sports Radio (the Asheville station where I do baseball and movie segments each week), I got to attend the Southern Conference tournament final between Wofford and UNC Greensboro. Asheville has hosted the tournament for the past eight years and it seems to be more popular each year. It’s not just a fringe sporting event; it’s something the town takes pride in.

— If you missed the last Overzealous Recycling, you can read it here —

Maybe the surge of interest in mid-major college basketball has something to do with that. But like other small towns and cities, Asheville wants to feel like it matters and an event like the SoCon tourney, which gets broadcast on ESPN, contributes to that.

I don’t go to many live sporting events anymore, other than a baseball game or two over the summer. Being at the SoCon final reminded me of how much fun a big game can be. And sitting in the media section reminded me of how much I’ve wanted to make my living there. Maybe this was kind of a nudge to pursue and enjoy those things a bit more than I have in recent years.

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Overzealous Recycling 009: Higher, further, faster!

/ Ian Casselberry / 3 Comments

My movie calendar is probably way off, but it feels like 2019 is finally beginning at the movies. Oscars season ended almost two weeks ago and Captain Marvel represents the first big blockbuster release of the year. (Sorry, Alita: Battle Angel.) So there’s finally reason to be excited.

— If you missed the last Overzealous Recycling, you can read it here —

Plenty of other films have been released since Jan. 1, and I still need to catch up on a few of them. But it’s also time to write some movie reviews again. I’ve really fallen off during the past few months because I didn’t have an outlet — forgetting that I’ll always have this blog.

So I did write up a review for Captain Marvel, which you can read here. If you’d like an audio version, we also recorded some back-and-forth reaction for the Amusement Park Podcast. I’m hoping this helps me scrape off some rust and gets me back into regularly writing about movies again. More on that with some fun news after the first of this week’s links.

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