Month: April 2019

Overzealous Recycling 015: Wanting to change vs. wishing to stay the same

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

I don’t do very well with catch-up projects on TV shows and movies. Oh, I’ll binge through a bunch of episodes if I’m behind on a show. I just finished off the last five episodes of Manifest last week, after NBC renewed it. (That reminds me: Renew The Rookie any time now, ABC.) Up next are Doom Patrol, Arrow and The Flash.

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

But when it comes to catching up for a refresher, I’m not often successful. For instance, I didn’t rewatch the previous seven seasons of Game of Thrones before Season 8 began. And I won’t have watched all of the Marvel movies again — not even the three Avengers films — before seeing Avengers: Endgame this week.

There are too many TV shows and movies that I haven’t watched to devote that time to stuff I’ve already seen. Killing Eve, for instance. Star Trek: Discovery. The second seasons of Westworld, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage. There’s that new Ultraman series on Netflix. That reminds me, I also haven’t watched Season 3 of Queer Eye. There are so many more. Oh, and the show I’m probably most embarrassed never to have watched: Breaking Bad. Yeah, that’s right.

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The Podcass 005: Hold the door, La Llorona – Steve Yzerman is back!

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

On the latest Podcass, we examine an important social issue: How long should you be expected to hold a door open for someone? Also, a review of The Curse of La Llorona, a movie I never would’ve watched had I not been asked to for an assignment.

And it’s rough being a Detroit sports fan right now. Seriously, there’s not much fun in it. But Steve Yzerman — The Captain — returning to the Red Wings as general manager provides some hope. We need all we can get.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1B8KhhhbsJTkrYVELAAJur

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You can also leave feedback at thepodcass@gmail.com and find the show on Twitter and Instagram. Hope to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Overzealous Recycling 014: Hodor, we’re becoming a real newsletter!

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Maybe it’s because I have extra time on my hands with the Easter holiday weekend and major rain here in Asheville, but it feels like time to put my mail where my mouth is.

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

I keep saying this isn’t a newsletter and have posted that content here instead. But the reasons I haven’t really followed through on trying to do a newsletter is a) not having anybody sign up would be kind of depressing and b) I’m not writing enough at other outlets to have anything to collect here.

Plus, I’m already asking people to subscribe to The Podcass, which friends and followers have been supporting nicely, and I’d really like that to do well. At some point, you all will just get sick of me tugging on your pant legs, right?

But here’s the thing: I miss the old days of blogging. With me writing less professionally, I need an outlet and I’m enjoying writing for fun again. The era of Blogger, LiveJournal and Tumblr has passed, but the spirit of blogging still seems to exist, if not the interactivity and sense of community. Maybe it’s just in newsletters and podcasts now.

So here we go. This is becoming a newsletter. I’ll try to get this out on Thursday or Friday, since a lot of newsletters go out on Sunday. Please subscribe to Overzealous Recycling at tinyletter.com/casselberry. And thank you in advance.

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The Podcass 004: Hellboy and Lighten Up, Francis

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

We review the Hellboy reboot on the latest Podcass. Can it possibly be as good or better than Guillermo Del Toro’s original two films? Is it more than just a placeholder until Avengers: Endgame takes over the movie landscape?

Before that, however, I need to cool out a little bit. I’ve been wound way too tight lately, and maybe that’s what got me sick.

Please subscribe to The Podcass! We’re on all of the popular podcast platforms, including:

Giving us a rating or review on iTunes and a like on our Facebook page would provide a great signal boost. Taking the time to help out is very much appreciated.

You can also leave feedback at thepodcass@gmail.com and find the show on Twitter and Instagram. Hope to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Unfortunately, the new Hellboy is noise and gore signifying nothing

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

There’s a scene about midway through Hellboy in which a giant sword goes through a monster’s head, virtually splitting it in half, unleashing a reservoir of blood, and showing some of the soft tissue underneath the skull. While taking in that moment, I thought to myself, “I think that’s what watching this movie feels like.”

I was rooting for the 2019 reboot of Hellboy. It was going to be too easy to dismiss this movie and say Guillermo Del Toro and Ron Perlman did it better — twice — without even seeing this new version. But the wave of early reviews seemed to confirm what so many feared when this project was announced. Was there really any point to reviving Hellboy if there wasn’t anything new to offer?

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t have a problem with remakes and reboots, even if they’re being made too often now. (Saying “Hollywood is out of ideas” is an opinion that’s run out of ideas.) Popular characters and franchises are always going to be mined for new movies and TV shows if a newer angle can be taken. And if new digital effects and moviemaking techniques can tell those stories better than their previous versions, it might just be worth doing.

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