Tag: television

Cobra Kai, fin

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, when I was having one of those nights where I didn’t feel like I had any real time to do anything, so I was instead just sitting around dicking around on my phone min-maxing my Duolingo XP as well as playing Fire Emblem Heroes, my au pair pokes her head into the media room and asks if I had started watching the final installment of Cobra Kai S6.

I looked at her perplexed and asked if it had dropped yet, and she said that it just released.  I looked at the clock and immediately grabbed the remote, and I said, why the fuck are we not watching it right now then?

We ended up watching four episodes and then it was 1 am, and I said that I needed to stop so that I wouldn’t be butt-tired in the morning, and that I wanted to save the final episode for the following day, preferably in a scenario where mythical wife wasn’t aware that we were going to watch it in front of her, since she’s such a giant fan of the show like we are.

Mission accomplished, and with that, the saga that is Cobra Kai is finally completed.

Frankly, it’s a show that desperately needed finality, not just because it’s the worst show in existence that had no right to be good as it was, but as is the case with any show that features child actors, it’s been like 6-7 years since the show started, and all the youth talent was growing the fuck up faster than kudzu, and the show needed to wrap up ASAP, before Dimitri grew to 7 ft. tall and Kenny turned into Terry Crews.

[Obviously at this point, spoiler alert is on, because I’m probably going to say shit that would be construed as spoilers]

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Seems appropriate that Zombie Deer have made their way to Georgia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: Chronic Wasting Disease, aka the zombie deer disease has started showing up in Georgia

A friend of mine already popped all the actual science behind a lot of this, but imagine how much my imagination exploded upon hearing the words “zombie deer” and “in Georgia.”  The fact that I’m posting about it regardless of the fact that I’ve heard the science that mostly ruins my fantasy that this is the start of the zombie apocalypse goes to show that much like actual zombies, there is life in this topic, even after it it’s dead.

Sure, it is has a 100% kill rate among deer that get infected, which sucks for the deer, and unsurprising, there have been many cases of humans who have already eaten CWD-infected venison.  Yes, there have been deaths in some cases, but as long as the dumbasses aren’t eating The Big Texan slabs of it, it seems to mostly just result in horrific intestinal issues that don’t always kill humans.

Originally, I had all these grand ideas about how Georgia and inevitably the rest of the world were going to be fucked, because relying on the subsect of hunters that fall into categories of being dumb, uneducated, ignorant, some of all of the above if not completely all of the above, to not eat infected venison, allow the disease to mutate and become zootic, leading to the zombie plague for humanity, seemed kind of inevitable.

And how the thought of the zombie apocalypse beginning still seemed preferable to the orange-colored America we were going to be embarking on for the next four years, and I likened it to my version of the choosing the bear meme that women had with a little while ago.

At least in a zombie apocalypse, sure the rate of mortality would probably drop tremendously for humanity as a species, but at least if any zombies threatened me or my family, the opportunity to legally bludgeon and beat the ever-living fuck out of something would be unlocked, and completely in the name of self-defense.  A life-long fantasy of killing zombies seems like a fair trade off, in exchange for getting away from lily-orange America, at least it does in my opinion.

But no, like I said, a friend of mine already burst my bubble by dropping a lot of actual factual science as far as CWD goes which is funny that it’s such an acronym, considering it’s so very close to the popular The Walking Dead TWD acronym.  And most everyone knows that Georgia is basically the zombie capital of America, considering it’s history for being the backdrop for TWD, Zombieland, and all sorts of zombie film and television at this point.  So it seems very appropriate for zombie deer to finally have made their arrival in Georgia, and it’s really a surprise in itself that it didn’t start here in the first place.

Thoughts on the RAW is Netflix debut

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was looking forward to the debut of RAW on Netflix, because I hadn’t seen an episode of RAW in close to almost a decade, since my house had long since cut the cables, and I could usually keep up with the product solely on YouTube highlights or just catching the PPVs PLEs.  Furthermore, being a monumental debut class of episode, I had expectations that the WWE was going to put their best foot forward and have a loaded show.  If the Saturday Night’s Main Event revival they had a month ago was any indication to how they were going to treat special events, I thought the E was ready to pop off, and I was excited to see what was going to happen.

And of course, there was the whole curiosity of what the E was going to do on Netflix, as far as the freedom to push boundaries were going to be, since this isn’t cable television and they aren’t beholden to the television rating standards, I was curious to see what, if any, behavioral changes that were going to take place.  However, they are still a publicly traded company, with collaborative programming still on cable television, so it wasn’t any surprise that they still kept it fairly PG, aside from The Rock saying ‘bullshit’ at one point.

Overall, the show was decent, but I’d be lying if I didn’t have all sorts of opinions and criticisms for it, mostly the fact that the episode was a little bit drowned in the pomp and celebration of the move to Netflix, with all sorts of appearances, cameos and segments that chewed up time, drug on a little bit, and most importantly, got in the way of actual wrestling product.  The three-hour show had a total of four matches, and on paper they sounded good, but I don’t know what it was, but they were all pretty underwhelming in the grand spectrum of things.

The matches were sloppy and got sloppier as the night progressed, and honestly a Seth Rollins vs. CM Punk match could have been on a Wrestlemania card without anyone  questioning it, but as far as I’m concerned it was the worst match of the night for the RAW is Netflix debut.  I don’t know whether their personal beefs interfered with their ability to do business, or if there were any subtle instances of trying to sabotage one another, but the whole match was kind of clunky, and I felt like it was a good example of two talented guys that just didn’t click in the ring.

It’s like the talent caved into the magnitude of the scenario, which is funny considering all of these specific performers have worked multiple Wrestlemanias among other big shows at this point, and those shows are usually two to three times the size of this episode of RAW.

But the biggest thing in my opinion was the fact that the crowd was absolutely dead as fuck.  This was something my bros and I discussed in our group chat during the show, but my consensus was that the crowd was a dead crowd, and I always believe that performers really can feed off of the fans, and hot crowds can really inspire stalwart performances, and since the RAW is Netflix show was held in Los Angeles, primarily full of people who just wanted to there for the hot ticket, but not really because they’re actual wrestling fans, it led to an arena that was full, but full of mostly casuals who don’t know the nuances of a show, intricacies of existing storylines, or have any genuine fandom for any of the workers.  This was an event, and casuals want to be seen at events, and actual wrestling fans that feed a show their energy, weren’t there, be it being priced out or simply incapable of getting in because of the fairweather scenesters were boxing them all out.

Sure, guys like The Rock and John Cena got some big reactions.  Roman Reigns got a decent pop, as did Rhea Ripley, Seth Rollins and CM Punk.  Jey Uso didn’t get the raucous reaction that he normally has been getting, as the most over guy in the company currently.  Dominic Mysterio and the New Day, who have been getting absolutely drowned out by boos and heat in the last few months, I’m convinced had to have boos piped into the arena because of how lukewarm the dead crowd was.

It’s like the people in attendance had it in them to have initial reactions to everything they saw, but by and large were sitting on their hands for the remainder of every segment, reacting to big spots and probably whatever the actual fans dispersed throughout the arena were reacting to and going along with it.  It was almost like watching a New Japan show, by how non-plussed the fans were, except whereas the Japanese chalk it up to cultural meekness and lack of expression, the LA scenesters were dead because they’re not really wrestling fans as much as they wanted to be at a big event so they could boast about it on social media.

I get it, it was important for the E to put their best foot forward, have it in LA and pack it with as many execs, celebrities and people who might actually gain more exposure, but in the process, they priced and pushed out actual fans from attending and it led to a dead crowd that didn’t help the general uninspired performing from the workers on the card.  Wrestlemanias and big shows get away with celeb-stacking and posturing, because they’re held at giant venues where the majority of the audience can still be actual fans, but the dinky Intuit Dome with their capacity of like 16,000, had the majority of the attendance being casuals and/or scenesters, and it was painfully obvious.

However, if there was one segment where the crowd woke up and came to life that truly stood out, was when Hulk Hogan made his appearance and was absolutely booed the fuck out of the building.  It was like the fans were told that they had a finite amount of booing that they were allowed to do, and they passed on using any of it on Dom Mysterio or The New Day and absolutely unloaded on Hulk Hogan.  Unsurprisingly, this was my most notable and entertaining moment of the evening where the most emotion was elicited from me, in the form of laughter.

The funniest part about it all was that how out of touch Hulk Hogan is with the world and the current state of the industry, is that he stood there, somehow surprised that a California crowd was booing him into oblivion when just less than three months ago, he was ripping his shirt and cutting a cringeworthy promo in support of the orange turd prior to the election.  Poor Jimmy Hart standing there with his longtime friend, waving Old Glory, complicit by association, taking tons of shrapnel.  And then Hogan just goes straight into his babyface promo, putting over Netflix, putting over his beer company, and putting over the company, while everyone is still just booing the fuck out of him.

The power of a crowd when they get hot!

Take all the pomp and circumstance, and the whole Netflix narrative out of the night, and this was an extremely mediocre show.  The matches were average at best, the crowd was dead as fuck, and not even all the special appearances did much for me.  A tremendous amount of time was spent on showing off celebrities and speaking segments, and in true first-world wrestling smark problems, the lack of formal commercial breaks really cramped my style of multitasking while watching wrestling like I used to.

The good news is that whether it was intentional or not, the RAW on Netflix bar has been set at not a tremendously high level, and the brand can only go upward from here, and the sky’s the limit.  I’m sure once the novelty of being on Netflix wears out, and regular fans are allowed to start going back to the shows, business will get back to normal, and as far as the E is concerned, that’s probably exactly where they want to be.

Of course white people need their own version of Squid Game

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Shocker: US remake of Squid Game by David Fincher confirmed

Here’s the thing, I actually really like David Fincher.  Man did Fight Club and Mindhunter, two titles I hold in extremely high regard.  But I do harbor some sour grapes for him for being the cocksucker who will apparently be spearheading an American-localization of Squid Game, which seems about as essential as little silicone pot attachments to prop open your lids or hold your ladles.

Obviously, I am hardly a fan of any time Hollywood gets their greedy grubby claws into an idea that is not inherently theirs, but then whitewashes the fuck out of them because white people in America are too xenophobic and/or illiterate to consume anything that isn’t produced in America or has subtitles and requires reading to comprehend.

Squid Game is already an amazing series with fantastic visuals, storytelling, writing, music and overall production, and requires absolutely no remaking.  But Americans are too fucking lazy and unintelligent that one is apparently in the works to be made, which we all know is going to have nothing but bullshit American actors and performers, and out of respect to the Orientals, they’ll probably cast one Asian guy to be the American equivalent of Abdul Ali, who was the token foreigner in Korea, except that’ll probably end up being Henry Golding.

Benedict Cumberbatch will undoubtedly be Gi-Hyun, and the Red Light/Green Light doll will be remade to look like Sabrina Carpenter.  And because they’ll want to have some diversity, and we all know “diversity” in American means “black people,” they’ll have Tiffany Haddish be the Front Man, except that it’s now the Front Woman, where they can kill two birds with one stone by having a black woman in a prevalent role.

Like I said, David Fincher is a good director whom I do like his works, but it definitely is a bitter pill to swallow that he’s taking point on a flagrant example of white washing.  Squid Gmae doesn’t need recreation.  American audiences need better education and reinforced understanding that the world does not cater to them.  Accept that outstanding media can come from other countries and learn how to fucking read subtitles.

As Ho Bong-Joon said,

Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.

It’s astounding the arrogance of America to take something wildly successful and not requiring of any recreation, and doing it anyway, and wasting inevitably an ungodly amount of money and resources to do so, when instead better stories and content could have been created instead.

I want to say that I’ll refuse to watch an inevitable Squid Game remake, but I’m not going to kid myself, curiosity and the inevitable want to make a scathing comparison might make me do so, regardless of my vitriol for the idea in the first place.  The want for brog content is endless, and if it inspires writing, I’m usually game for just about anything.

**I actually gave this some more thought after I had initially written this, and I think I’ve figured out why there is a perceived need for a white people version of Squid Game.  I’ve seen a lot of memes and reels about Squid Game as of late, and I’ve noticed that almost all of them are referring to characters solely by their player numbers.

And it’s my belief that this spurred the want for a variant of Squid Game where the characters can have good ol’ American names like Dave or Harold, so that white people can avoid the indignity of being exposed for not being able to, or having to suffer the potential embarrassment of having to pronounce ching-chongey foreign names like Gi-Hun, Sae-Byeok, Geum-Ja or Abdul Ali, when they want to inevitably talk about Squid Game with other people.

Because if there’s one thing white people really dislike, it’s feeling self-conscious about potentially sounding racially insensitive about other cultures, so it seems like classic white people logic to instead of learning how to properly pronounce Korean names to just instead drop millions on millions of dollars to just remake Squid Game altogether, where Gi-Hun can go by Timothee, Dae-Ho can be Kaiden, Nam-Gyu can be Trent and In-Ho can be Hunter.

Now it makes perfect sense to why a white people version of Squid Game even needs to come to fruition.

Only What We Do in the Shadows could end like this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Going into the sixth season of What We Do in the Shadows, I wasn’t aware that it was going to be the final season in the series.  I just figured it would be yet another hilarious installment of the series and that we’d eventually continue to get more Shadows in the future. 

All the same, I wasn’t really bothered by the news; not because I didn’t like the show enough, quite the contrary, but I’m of the belief that even if it means having to say goodbye, it’s always best when a series is able to go out on their own terms and leave while there’s still something left in the tank, versus a series that has been dragged out way too long and crawls to the finish line only to have a metaphorical bullet put in their head, two seasons too late.

WWDITS has been one of the better shows over the last few years in my opinion because it’s just plan hilarious in its absurdity, from writing, to format, and acting, and fewer things are indicative of a show’s influence and general popularity than its ability to pull A-list cameos and guest appearances, and it was always amusing to see the scale and frequency of guests as the series progressed, because it was clear that the popularity of Shadows was rising with each successive season.

But as was referenced numerous times throughout the finale, all good things must come to an end, and although I do think Shadows stuck the hardest thing to do in the realm of storytelling, putting out an ending that doesn’t suck, the whole sixth season really was kind of one long farewell, with each episode allowing for characters to make their last appearances, wrap up character arcs, as well as letting the cast and crew air out some meta jokes and references.

By the time they got to the actual last episode, there was no feeling of rushing or urgency to wrap everything up, and it almost masterfully done how they allowed for the final episode to be an open book where they could do what they did, be playful and creative and tighten the bow that they had worked the entire season tying up.  It was entertaining and bittersweet, because there’s this tongue-in-cheek awareness of what the audience is feeling, and the writing and characters do a good job of navigating between the fourth wall’s fourth wall, speaking to both the documentary’s audience as well as the television viewers as well.

The finale is a fun joyride, the final love letter to the series as a whole, that successfully wraps everything else up, allows for some of the show’s greatest hits and tropes to make final appearances, and manages to weave in multiple endings and teaser finishes in a fun and whimsical manner.

Personally, I wasn’t sure when the final credits would start rolling, because in this day and age, episodic time constraints aren’t as concrete like they used to be, and it’s not out of the ordinary for finale episodes to have longer run times in order to have a little flexibility.  But when they finally got to the final minutes of the series, I thought they ended it magnificently, and only in a way that Shadows could do.  Part bittersweet, part heartwarming, part gotcha, and of course, entirely funny.

By the time the episode was actually-actually over, I was left with a feeling of satisfaction and general happiness to have been able to been witness to what overall was a fantastic show, and I’m happy for the series to go out on top, instead of limping to the finish.

And metaphorically speaking, it feels nice to end the year’s television watching on a high notes as well as this one.

LoL: Arcane, season 2 – so unprecedently good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What a week for Netflix-dropping both Cobra Kai S6.2 and Arcane S2 on the same week!  Much to the dismay of mythical wife, I went with Cobra Kai first, primarily on the fact that because the episodes are so short and generally way more digestible, despite my guilty-pleasure love for the show, I really wanted to clear it from the queue so that I could really savor and enjoy Arcane S2, which I knew was going to be the way heavier show.  I regret nothing, and the fact that I’m writing about Arcane and not another post about Cobra Kai says what left a stronger impression in the end.

To cut to the chase, I would go as far as to state without any hesitation or real need to think about it, that Arcane is probably the greatest video game-to-on-screen adaptation, like ever.  The bar of such a category wasn’t really that high to begin with, but I would say that it was previously set at like, a generic office building height of like 16 stories, but then Arcane came along and pushed the bar to the height of like that one gigantic ass building in Qatar or Abu Dhabi that’s considered the tallest building on the planet.

Like, despite my heavy criticism for Riot Games as far as business practices and bad behavior goes, and how critical I am of the League of Legends community, mostly being a nuclear toxic wasteland of the worst human beings in existence, Arcane combatted and overcame these handicaps and still put out an absolutely legendary banger of a program that I’m hard pressed to say anything negative about, because it was just so wonderfully executed from top to bottom.

The art style is breathtaking, the voice acting top-notch, and the writing and storytelling was A+ from start to finish.  There are plenty of easter eggs and references to satiate fans of the game, while not at all being difficult for those who didn’t play to watch without failing to understand what’s going on.

As I said from the first season, it’s all so good, it almost makes me want to start playing the game, and if not for the fact that I’m a parent who never has any time on his hands and can’t fathom the amount of time I sunk into playing League in the past, I would consider re-downloading the game and looking around at the virtual arenas that I dumped a solid 5-6 years of my life into.

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin on how to praise how good this show is.  They do a bang up job of utilizing existing characters, and the ones they invented for the show meld so seamlessly with them that doesn’t feel forced, feels organic and feels cohesive.  Ambessa and Mel feel like they belong in the original game’s canon all along, and their general arcs and development feed well into the overall storytelling of the show.

Viewers like me become emotionally vested in the characters, and despite the fact that as a player, Jinx was one of my mains, but just in general, I’ve grown tired of the Harley Quinn-type of mentally unstable girl that seems chaotic and unkillable while also happening to be harboring genius level intelligence hidden behind a façade of psycho, by utilizing her history and life as Powder, she’s still a character to get behind, and not tire of her antics when she’s Jinx.  Even though it’s not simple to deconstruct a Harley Quinn-type, Arcane does such in a way that is realistic and allows for actual growth and development instead of plateauing with more of the same psychotic behavior.

The one character I probably had the most feelings about after watching S2 was probably Ekko; I never played him in the game, and I always dreaded seeing an Ekko on the opposite team, but his treatment in the show was done to perfection.  In spite of the fact that he wasn’t nearly as focused on in the first season, he was a major, major player in S2, and despite my general ambivalence for his character based on my history as a player, he was easily someone I was definitely vested in during the show.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that scene in the show with Caitlyn and Vi; like I’m surprised that it happened, and happened so graphically, and there’s a multitude of feelings of surprised that the show and Netflix let it happen, but at the same time, I applaud the acceptance, the portrayal and the acknowledgement of all of the above, and I can sum it up in a singular word of “bold” and much like how I feel about the rest of the show, I think it was done appropriately, and not even from a sophomoric standpoint as much as it’s commendable that it was done in a manner that doesn’t hide from it, feels emotional and real, and probably gave long-time fans who felt similarly a moment to pump their fists in what feels like a metaphorical win.

Oh and the music of the season, my god.  I don’t seek out and look for new music these days, I’m usually content to occasionally stumble across an artist when it’s spoon-fed through me on Pandora or Sirius, but the soundtrack from S2 was out of this world.  I especially love the fact that it was pulling from all sorts of songs of other languages, and I felt like it was a little deliberate nod by Rito to do such, due to the global reach of the game itself, and if there was a soundtrack of it on iTunes, I’d be compelled to actually spend money on it.

As I’ve said countless times in my life when thinking about shows, films, books and any forms of storytelling, endings are the hardest thing in the world to come up with, and big props to Arcane for also not fumbling that aspect of the show.  Seldom are stories ever truly wrapped up in neat little bows, and Arcane is no exception, but at the same time it’s probably for the best, because to my understanding, Arcane may be over, but Rito definitely isn’t going to not want to tap the wells of numerous other League worlds to source future media from, so it’s best to keep things open ended for the sake of future shows or movies.

Overall, I can’t say anything bad about Arcane.  I really can’t.  I would give the show a solid 10/10 and not one of those bullshit reviews where internet reviewers give it a 9.8 or 9.9 out of 10 because people who review shit are hipsters who are convinced that shit isn’t supposed to be perfection, but as far as I’m concerned, I have no justifiable critiques about Arcane.  Art style, direction, voice over work, storytelling, music, plot, absolutely everything was good.  Not even mad that it was just two seasons, because if they dragged it out, it would inevitably open the door for flaws, this was just A++ show execution from top to bottom, and I’d recommend most everyone to watch this show, because it doesn’t take a history of playing League to enjoy it, and it’s just straight up excellent televison.

Scooby Snacks are obviously a euphemism for crack

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Chalk this up under things you never noticed as a kid but realize when you’re an adult especially a parent reading to your children.  But I’ve been reading my kids stories from 5-Minute Scooby Doo Stories; these 5-minute story books are like the greatest forms of literature that exists for children, because five minutes is about as much of attention span you’re going to get from kids my kids’ ages, and as I’ve been reading them story after story, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Scooby Snacks have got to be made out of, crack, based on their sheer ability to get Scooby-Doo and Shaggy to do basically anything in the world, no matter how much they initially do not want to.

Hey Scooby and Shaggy, why don’t you guys go into this creepy cave while Fred, Daphne and Velma don’t do shit.  Like, no way man.  What about for a Scooby Snack?  Deal.

Hey Scooby and Shaggy, why don’t you guys go be bait for this creep riding a stampeding buffalo and might trample you to death, while Fred, Daphne and Velma go back to the Mystery Machine to search for clues that obviously won’t be there?  No?  Not even for a Scooby Snack?  Deal.

Hey Scoob and Shaggy . . . you get my point.

Which is that Scooby Snacks are clearly made out of crack, and Fred, Daphne and Velma are some fucked up asshole enablers who repeatedly exploit the addiction of these two poor hapless addicts to do a bunch of things against their will, while they coast and stay out of harm’s way.

All the goons that the Mystery Inc Gang apprehend are minor villains compared to the truly evil diabolical drug lord enablers that Fred, Daphne and Velma are, and pretty messed up how the entire Scooby Doo series is built off of the crack-addled false bravery of Shaggy and his crack-addicted dog.

And this is why it’s not always the best idea for adults to revisit properties of their own childhoods for the sake of their own kids.