March 28, 2020

Saturday Night Showcase: (The First) Kamen Rider

I was planning to end the hiatus with a Jake & Leon comic and I’m not sure I’m going back to “work” (it’s only a job if I’m getting paid…and I’m not) next week just yet. I’ll see how I feel on Sunday, but I would like to resume soon. However, with so many stuck home I thought we could all use a little entertainment. So how about some Kamen Rider? Specifically the first ever series.

Created in 1971 by manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori, the original Kamen Rider was scientist and motorcycle enthusiast Takeshi Hongo, forced to become a cyborg slave of the mysterious organization Shocker as part of a plan to conquer the world and alter everyone into cyborgs under the leader’s power. Though the organization changed in later years this was the basic formula for how the classic Kamen Riders got their powers, being turned into warriors for some evil group only for our hero to rebel and fight them instead. The more recent Riders dropped the surgically altered cyborg gimmick and mostly came up with different reasons to become Kamen Riders. Two of these series were seen in America. Kamen Rider Black RX became Saban’s Masked Rider (also grabbing footage from two movies, Kamen Rider Zo and Kamen Rider J) while Kamen Rider Riuki became Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, both following the Power Rangers formula of Japanese action footage and American produced story footage.

As part of Shout Factory’s new “TokuSHOUTsu” project I mentioned before the break they’ve put episode one of the original Kamen Rider on their new YouTube channel. Join us in the origin of the first Kamen Rider as he takes on “The Mysterious Spider Man”. No, not that Spider-Man. Notice the lack of hyphen.

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Posted by on March 28, 2020 in Saturday Night Showcase, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , .

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March 22, 2020

BW Programming Note: Taking The Full Week Off

 

As some of you may know I run two websites. BW Media Spotlight is my daily examination of the art of storytelling, with the goal of making myself a better storyteller. The Clutter Reports I use to get myself to do a clutter clearing project or review something to see if I still want it or not, thus clearing out clutter that way. I had planned to take a week or two off of BW to keep from getting burnout, but still doing some minor fixes like updating the RSS feed while still having the energy to do a clutter project for this week.

Then the coronavirus hit and I figured I should do something since so many people were at home. I thought I could do one article a day rather than the usual one big one and two minor ones, and that would allow me to get some kind of breathing room and still do the site work and personal stuff I wanted. It didn’t work out that way. Instead the two mindsets clashed and, unrelated, I had trouble sleeping last week (which oddly had nothing to do with worry, just some mild insomnia) and was too tired to do a lot by the end of the week. This meant burnout was still a concern and I didn’t have the energy or mindset to do any clutter clearing by the end of the week. So I didn’t get to do anything for The Clutter Report this week and no Jake & Leon this week. Even this post is an edit of the one I just posted to The Clutter Reports.

So despite having an almost captive audience I’m going to have to take a full week off to get other things done, rest, and hopefully come back stronger and ready to go. It would be nice if the pandemic was all over with and we could leave our homes for things beyond emergencies, but if not I’ll be returning with reviews and Jake & Leon as well as a full project for The Clutter Reports plus organizing and updating the Clutter For Sale section. I’ve had too many stalls on this lately and I’m getting concerned. However, I’m also pretty stubborn so we’ll see what wins out. Hopefully you’re taking some time to catch up on TV, movies, comics, books, games, or whatever other media you haven’t had time to, or just spending time with your family. Also, look for the #coronakindness on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media to see how people are helping their neighbors and pushing back against the isolation and frustration we’re all going through right now, even a virtual shut-in like me. Good luck!

And if you really need your BW fix I’ve added a category to the BW Progress Report in the sidebar for “Best Of BW”, linking to my annual list of what I consider the best articles I wrote that year as well as collections of the best Jake & Leon comics. It’s a good time to catch up on article I reference all the time in modern articles so you’ll know what Eventitis is, or why I can say positive things about HBO’s Spawn cartoon despite actually hating the show. Happy reading and hopefully I’ll have more to read soon.

Posted by on March 22, 2020 in BW Progress Report.

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March 21, 2020

Saturday Night Showcase: Mira, Royal Detective

I was wondering how to fit the episode one review of this series into my schedule. I’ll get more into it tomorrow but I’ve decided to take next week off as the slow down didn’t work out as planned, and when I come back my schedule will be full thanks to planned articles. Luckily Disney Junior’s official YouTube channel gave me a solution by posting the first episode of Mira, Royal Detective on their YouTube channel. It’s the only thing that’s really gone my way this week.

Mira, Royal Detective follows the adventures of the young girl and her friends as they solve mysteries as being the official detective to the queen. The show is heavily influenced by India, which gives the show a unique flavor. I’ll do a proper review later but in this first episode Mira must find a lost scarf and a missing bike. Give it a chance because despite being for an elementary school audience it’s rather fun and well produced. (Although the official BW policy of “just because it’s good doesn’t mean you’ll like it” does apply. This is a show for young girls but when has that stopped anyone with an open mind?)

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Posted by on March 21, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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March 20, 2020

BW Filler Video: The History Of Bill Murray’s Difficulties With Ghostbusters

l-to-r: Ghostbuster, V for Vendetta, and Darma agent (Lost)

I have to apologize folks. The comic I wanted to review this week turned out to be something worth a multi-part review so I’m going to save it for next week. So I was going to do an Art Of Storytelling, but I ended up taking a longer nap than I planned after having a moment of insomnia last night. Nothing to do with the current pandemic, just a recurring issue with my brain not wanting to shut down. I wasn’t even planning to do anything this week but plans altered so I want to at least give you something worth stopping by for.

So here’s a retrospective from Midnight’s Edge going over the history of the Ghostbusters movies, focusing on a particular detail: Bill Murray, who plays Peter Venkman, the womanizing psychologist. Getting him to do any of the movies proved a huge challenge and why it took so long to do a third movie that one of the other stars passed away first. I wonder if they’re sorry they brought him on in the first place? It also goes into the early concept, Ghost Smashers, which was not going to be a comedy.

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Posted by on March 20, 2020 in Movie Spotlight and tagged , .

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March 19, 2020

BW Filler Video: History Of The Invisible Man

He can turn invisible. It sort of counts.

Time got away from me today (I was supposed to be taking the week off originally and I’ve been following this coronavirus like everyone else) so here’s a quick filler video. The Invisible Man started as a novel but soon found his way into the Universal Studios monsters. There have been numerous incarnations of the concept and even some of the original character. In this video we see the history of the classic movie franchise. It doesn’t go a whole lot into more recent stuff like the really cool Sci-Fi Channel crime drama (which I recommend checking out if you come across it) but it’s still interesting light of the movie recently hitting theaters that is nothing like the book or classic film…you really couldn’t come up with a new name?

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Posted by on March 19, 2020 in Book Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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March 18, 2020

Shout Factory Launches TokuSHOUTsu

Tokusatsu is just a term for Japanese live-action special effects shows usually involving giant monsters fighting people in high-tech spandex. It’s where Power Rangers, Ultraman, and Masked/Kamen Rider come from. While a few series and movies have been released (not counting Godzilla and friends, who also count) there hasn’t been a place to see it outside of home video and one highest-tier TV channel, Toku. Now Shout Factory has created an entire channel on live streaming cable-like but ad-supported Pluto TV dedicated solely to this genre of Japanese science fiction. Let’s see what you get.

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Posted by on March 18, 2020 in Movie Spotlight, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , .

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March 17, 2020

Doctor Who’s Timeless Retcon

For the record I’m not here to join the hate New Who bandwagon. I pretty much gave up on it a long time ago. It doesn’t have the same charm of the original series, and while we could go over why my reason for posting the following two videos and my own commentary on the latest retcon of the Doctor’s lore is more to discuss storytelling and the dangers of the retcon bomb.

Retroactive continuity, or “retcon” for short, is when a writer doesn’t just change current events but when they do so in a way that retroactively alters not only the past but the way we go back and watch those old stories. I’m not talking about plot twists like Magic Knights Rayearth, Terra’s heel turn in Teen Titans, or (insert almost every M. Night Shyamalan movie here) that were intentional from the start. This is something never intended by the previous creator that was shoved into it later on. Think Donna Troy’s origin, that Picard clone from Star Trek: Nemesis, or The Timeless Child.

The Timeless Child comes from the most recent season finale of Doctor Who, “The Timeless Children”. It gives a brand new origin for the Doctor, which if you haven’t seen it yet I’ll let the first video handle the spoilers. It’s a change that fundamentally alters the Doctor as a character by giving an origin to the Time Lords’ ability to regenerate versus the regular Galifreyans. However, the story appears to have gone too far and this very much affects the Doctor as a character and as we’ll see in the second video the already scattered lore of the Time Lords.

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Posted by on March 17, 2020 in Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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