Werewolves!

Movies

Let’s kick off the spooky season with a classic monster!

Werewolves Within is an adaptation of a multiplayer video game released a few years ago. In the game, all the players are sitting around a campfire and the goal is to figure out who the werewolf is. As the werewolf, you want to throw everyone’s suspicions onto anyone but you. The movie spins the gameplay into a more traditional whodunnit plot where a few residents in a small remote town get trapped together, and a monster starts picking them off one by one.

This was a lot of fun to watch with the slow build-up and ratcheting tension. Everything seems normal and then odd things start happening. Questions are asked, the first person is attacked and then the suspicions and paranoia move in full force. Everyone is a suspect and that makes the people just as dangerous as the werewolf. I liked the Jaws approach they took with the werewolf, keeping it basically hidden for the entire movie. Not very violent or gory, but the blood does flow a few times.

Simple premise, small environment, and smart production decisions make for an expensive-looking movie that actually had a very small budget. A lot of fun, and I highly recommend it.

Werewolf By Night is technically not a movie. It’s less than an hour long and is officially called by Marvel/Disney a TV Special. It doesn’t matter though because it’s totally rad and Marvel needs to make more adaptations like this.

I’ve never heard of this comic before, and I remember when this adaptation came out last year but I quickly forgot about it. I never hear anyone talking about it either which is a shame because it’s so much fun. Maybe now that it’s Halloween time this will get mentioned more.

With the death of Ulysses Bloodstone, his wife Verussa calls in the top monster hunters of their secret group for his memorial. Their daughter, Elsa, is one of them and tensions are high between mother and daughter from decisions Elsa has made. The memorial quickly becomes a deadly competition for a powerful relic that is stuck on the creature known as…Ted.

One in the order is more than they seem, hiding a secret that is exposed with deadly results.

The show goes on the road real quick with this one! Everyone is gathered together within minutes of the start and after everyone is introduced and Verussa lays out the competition, it’s a mad dash to the thrilling end. Much like Werewolves Within, this takes place in closed quarters with characters running around from room to room between intense standoffs. Well-directed and great production design with the black and white presentation that highlights the deep contrasts between shadow and light. A cool take on horror that goes a little farther than what you typically see in the consequences of violence in Marvel shows. The fight and weapon choreography is well done too. A pleasant surprise that’s perfect for October viewing.

Reservation Dogs

TV

It feels like three seasons of Reservation Dogs came out all at once in the span of a week instead of three years. It’s been so consistently good and satisfying that each episode was a treat that I never wanted to end. The show is done which is disappointing, but its ending is as strong as its beginning.

We meet the ‘Rez Dogs’, 4 teenage friends, shortly after they lost their friend Daniel to suicide. This–now–clique of 4 is depressed and feeling lost. These kids are Native Americans, living on a depressing reservation in Oklahoma.

I love coming-of-age stories and I think Reservation Dogs is one of the best ever made. The lives of Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Cheese (Lane Factor), and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) are from a culture that is basically ignored in media. Almost the entire cast and crew are Native American and they dig into growing through bad and good times from a different, beautiful angle. I rarely predicted where the show was going to go correctly, which I really love. This show fits in alongside Atlanta and Dave for me.

There is little to do and little opportunity on the reservation. One of the first things we see the Rez Dogs do is steal a delivery truck that delivers the snacks to the only bodega in town. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings and such. People who are born on the reservation rarely leave. Daniel’s biggest goal was to move to California, where he saw endless opportunities. His friends agreed with him and it became their goal too. With his death, the Rez Dogs feel like they have no goals in life and nothing to look forward to.

The idea of not knowing what you want to do in your and the fear of changing the life you know are major themes of the show. So is the power of a community. What I thought would be a show only about the 4 kids expands into something much more.

Most of the episodes are ensemble stories of the Rez Dogs but the series doesn’t shy away from giving individual characters their own focus, especially in the third season. Even the adult characters, who are often on the sidelines, get their fair share to reflect on their past. They have a lot of regrets and some of them, like the kids, need a light shined on their future.

The Rez Dogs eventually go to California to complete Daniel’s wish. It doesn’t go too well. When they make it back to OK, while disappointed they have learned about themselves and start to think more about the future (this segment reminded me of Mad Max Fury Road, one of my favorite movies).

None of the Rez Dogs have both of their parents. Where mother or father or both are missing, immediate and extended family stepped in to raise them. Friends of the family are called Aunt and Uncle. On the reservation, everyone is family. They may be ignored by the outside world, but they do have each other. That’s something the Rez Dogs come to understand and appreciate.

Take Willie Jack, my favorite character, for example. She is a wise ass and ready to go on anything, scam or otherwise, that will move her friends along together. She sees many of the adults as weird but comes to respect and understand them as she learns about their past. It helps her connect the dots in her own life, and how her experiences are shaping her outlook on her life and others. She opens up to learning and we get to see the spark of a future leader.

As events unfold, their childhood starts fading away and adulthood starts to be a real thing. They reflect on their lives of who has and hasn’t been with them. They come to appreciate their elders and look up to them more. You watch them grow as people and look forward to being adults.

These kinds of stories live or die on the cast, and every actor on Reservation Dogs is a knockout performer. Each kid is very different and they’re defined from the very beginning. It’s like the actors immediately knew who the person was on the page and didn’t have to figure anything out, they just became. And then they walked in these character’s shoes for 3 years.

There’s an amazing amount of love and respect woven into the fabric of Reservation Dogs. It’s funny, heartbreaking, touching, really funny, dark, and spiritual. It’s one of those rare pieces of media that you need to watch to understand. I hope this launches a lot of careers forward in the years to come.

The Ice Is Back On

NY Rangers

The wait for the 2023-2024 NHL season is almost over! Preseason has started and the oh-so-important opening night lines are being drawn up and tested.

The New York Rangers played their first game against the Boston Bruins 3-0. The Rangers lineup was almost entirely the younger players (like Jones and Cuylle) and those who were just drafted or are on the minor league teams. So it was a big tryout game as players go out to prove they’ve got what it takes for the regular season. A few guys were cut before and after the game.

While the score isn’t what you want to see, the effort was there and the Bruins new goalie was on fire. Robbed many great shots and 3 or so pipes were hit. Still, none of them went in and Jonathan Quick didn’t have a great game (he played half the game). He bungled one shot which he should have stopped the other one was more or less out of control.

Nothing that alarming to see and there are 5 more games until Oct. 12 when the regular season starts against Buffalo. Tuesday is next against the Islanders and many of the big guns will be playing along with more lineup changes. It’s time to keep a close eye on Lafreniere, Chytil, and Kakko as it’s expected to see them take more prominent roles and increased ice time under new coach Peter Laviolette.

The Hives- The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons

Music

The worst part about The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons is that it took 11 years to come out. Most bands aren’t together for that long and a gap in a discography that big makes you wonder if the band has called it quits but they didn’t tell anybody. Thankfully The Hives are forever and the wait was well worth it.

Swedish Punk is what The Hives are and what they deliver. Half an hour of power albums. Two to three-minute-long tracks stuffed with some of the catchiest riffs, often non-sensical lyrics, bombastic drum and bass, and loud and proud chanting and sing-along choruses.

Breaking out in the US in the early 2000s, The Hives had a few hit songs but never truly went mainstream here. They’ve developed a solid foundation of fans here but are much more popular in Europe. In the last decade, they’ve toured a lot–opening for large acts like Pink and Maroon 5 for stadium tours-but headline clubs and theaters. They consistently deliver high-energy and fun live shows for the entire career. I doubt you’d find anyone who wasn’t impressed by their live act even if they don’t like this genre of music. They also put out a few singles and played a few of the songs on this album live over the years. It just took whatever reason for them to finally go to the studio and record.

But enough with the past. There’s a certain comfort and joy that comes with a Hives album and Fitzsimmons is arguably one of their best. I loved their last LP, Lex Hives, and thought it’d be tough to beat. You’d never guess the gap in time was this long by listening to Fitzsimmons. Their highest energy and creativity can be found here, they haven’t lost a single step. I listen to this album from start to finish, which is pretty rare for me. In fact, this album contains two of my all-time favorite songs from any band: Smoke & Mirrors and Crash Into The Weekend. It is impossible to stay still when these vibrations come out of the speakers. These tracks are sandwiched between two other bangers, Stick Up and Two Kinds of Trouble (and The Way The Story Goes and The Bomb) which makes for a hell of a stretch of jumping and high kicks around your house, car, and possibly place of employment. All of the songs they released as singles are great and that’s only the public bite of what’s on offer. I urge everyone to give this a full spin. Even the song I like the least, What Did I Ever Do To You?, has its merits that won me over (mainly the final quarter that sports a bombastic horn section).

The best part of this album is that it is a The Hives album. They simply deliver to their fans what they want. That’s a bad thing if you don’t like The Hives because none of these 12 tracks will change your mind about them. But that makes you weird and you can go kick rocks. The rest of us will be smiling and sweating all over each other.

That’s Some Gap

Life

I haven’t posted since the hockey season ended…even further than that as I stopped at the start of the third round. Completely missed talking about the finals so, congrats to the Vegas Golden Knights!

I’ve pushed my blog outside of my attention for too long and I plan on writing some updates on various things starting this week. I need to get back onto the writing horse.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 3

NY Rangers

We have an interesting lineup for the final four this year. Vegas and Florida have never won the cup (this is Vegas’ 6th season) and Dallas and Carolina haven’t taken the championship in quite some time.

With how everyone has been playing, I think the favorites for the final are Vegas and Florida. I have no idea how Florida and Carolina are going to match up. I think they play similar styles and it each game should be very close. I’d be surprised to see any blow outs and I think it’ll go 6 games.

Dallas is going to have their work cut out for them. Seattle pushed them to 7 games and Dallas did win pretty handily…it looked like Seatle ran out of gas. Vegas has been humming along, their power play is looking dangerous. I do think this will be a close series as well. I’ve seen more of Vegas play than Dallas, so I’m more in the dark on this series. The East starts tonight and the West starts tomorrow.

A Professional Snooching The Pooch

NY Rangers

My prediction for the Rangers’ first round would be a win in 6 or 7 games. I thought no matter who won, it’d be close. What happened was the JV team showed up and handed the Devils their first pass to the second round in 12 years.

It started out well!

Two 5-1 wins on New Jersey home ice made it look like the Rangers would move on in 5 games. Then the Devils made some appropriate changes and won the next three games in a row.

2-1, 3-1, 4-0. That first one was close, it felt like either team could win like whoever made a mistake first would lose. The Rangers let that get away from them. The next two games were just a slide into the dumpster. The Rangers couldn’t get any sustained offensive pressure and the rookie goalie came across like he’d one the Vesna trophy multiple times.

Game 6, the Rangers rallied back 5-2. After falling over themselves it was back to a legit Rangers hockey game. Then another total collapse to lose Game 7 and the series 4-0.

So the post season matched the regular season. Inconsistent. Moments of brilliance pulled back into incompetence. There was an alarming amount of time when the team played disjointed. A lack of a clear plan and communication on ice. Terrible passing–turnovers got out of control and the Devils pounced on it.

Too many of the team’s all-stars didn’t show up to play hockey. Artemi Panarin is the worst offender. He had 2 assists in the first game and that’s it. He was more of a liability than anything with how much he was getting stuffed on offense and a parking cone on defense. One of the highest paid players in the NHL can’t do that. Scoring 90 points helps get your team into the playoffs. You also need to play to keep your team in the playoffs.

The better team of 7 games won, that’s the short end of it. There are a ton of things to complain about (stubbornness of only using the first power play unit, underutilizing the “kids”, not disciplining the veterans when they play like a baboon, and holy animal what happened to forechecking) but it’s all hot air now. Changes have to be made for next season as this is not a championship team.

A new coach? Maybe. There are a lot of factors to this question but knee-jerk reactions will just cause more chaos. Kane and Tarasenko did well, just not the high bar everyone was expecting. Kane was the most disappointing in the playoffs. New players? Probably but with what money and who do you let go? You need to know a replaced position will be demonstrably better. This solution could also be more drastic line changes with a little personnel change. The younger players need to continue to do strength, conditioning, and skate training through the off season. Everyone has to be better next season.

It’s been a terrible feeling of such a brutal loss with such a good roster. Tampa, Colorado, and Boston all lost too (Boston being the biggest disaster, so thanks for taking some of the shame spotlight best team in the history of the NHL!) so the Stanley Cup is completely up for grabs. Every series has been wild and so far the second-round matchups continue that trend. I’d like to see Seatle win for the Cinderella story and Toronto for the redemption arc. Edmonton winning would be good just for a Canadian team to finally get the Cup up north.

The Devils got smacked down 5-1 by Carolina in the first game…we’ll see if they can turn it around again. I’m thinking they won’t.

We Have Reached The Playoffs

NY Rangers

The fate of the known universe begins tonight! The 82 game marathon is complete. The 16 team, 2 month gauntlet erupts tonight. This is the most stacked bracket in years and while there are favorites to win, anything can happen. The playoffs are a different animal from the regular season. Endurance and focus are the ultimate tests. The Rangers and Devils contest starts tomorrow. For now, a hype video!

Sliding Into The End Of The Season

NY Rangers

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This was not how I wanted the season to end. A SO loss to Buffalo after they came from behind to force OT. Then the Rangers blew another leading game to a regulation loss against Toronto.

Buffalo was fighting tooth and nail to try to scrape their way into playoffs and while they didn’t end up making it, the effort was there. For too much of the game, the Rangers’ effort didn’t seem like it was there. Oh, we have the lead, we can take it from here easily. No. And that happened a lot this season.

For Toronto, both teams were locked into their playoff positions (Tampa vs Toronto) so the game didn’t matter. It started that way too as it looked like a pre-season game. Pretty slow, low impact. That was the whole 1st period. Then the Rangers scored in the second (fantastic shot from Kakko) and Toronto was like…Ya know, maybe we don’t want to lose the last game of the season, and they started playing harder. They scored, Schneider made an incredible goal to take the lead again and it was called offside and taken away. That annoyed the Rangers who went on a rampage when they went on the power play shortly after. Toronto scored shortly after that, which also happened a lot this season. Then with about 7 minutes left in the game, Toronto took the lead after cleaning up a rebound. The Rangers fought like hell to the end and had another goal get taken away, this time for Chytil kicking it in. Not the kind of momentum you want to go into the Playoffs.

The Rangers really should have taken second in the division instead of third. First really was in reach too. Those games that got away from them added up to the Devils’ finishing 5 points ahead. It is what it is, I guess. Maybe they were more concerned with being rested and healthy for the playoffs. Which they are. So that means no excuses for not hitting the ice at full power for game 1. It’s going to be an absolute war against the Devils and they can’t be sloppy against them. They know what that team is capable of after 4 games in the season where they were all very close games where mistakes left the door open for the Devils to come back and win. The coaching staff has some serious work to do to make a winning strategy. The most important games start Tuesday, the 18th.

As a bonus, the Capitals and Penguins failed to make the playoffs. That ends an 8-year and 16 (!) year streak! Both teams will likely have very different rosters come October as they have too many glaring flaws that can’t be patched over anymore.

Five of Six Points

NY Rangers

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The week started as well as we could want. A solid 6-3 drubbing of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Rangers took control right away taking a 3-0 lead and managed to keep the lead for the entire game. Tampa hasn’t been playing well lately and that doesn’t bode well for the playoffs which are only a week away. A great pickup of points for many Rangers players, but the same outcome wasn’t on the table for St. Louis.

The Rangers were clearly exhausted from playing Tampa, overnight travel to St. Louis, and then lining up for the face-off 24 hours after Tampa. Sloppy plays from start to finish with turnovers being a massive problem. The Rangers managed to fight back enough to force the game to OT but another botched defensive coverage play meant the Rangers only stole 1 point.

A bounce back 4-0 finish against Columbus was great to watch, if not expected. Columbus is terrible so anything that wasn’t a solid win would have been bad. Heads up play, great defense, and very few penalties. Kane played which made the first full roster in a very long time. Everyone is playing well, so I feel the team is in a good place. Kane still looks like he isn’t 100% comfortable yet but I do get the feeling that he will hit his stride for the playoffs. I’m not sure if it’s nerves or whatever but he’s not making big waves. He did play well last night and got an assist so there’s not much to complain about.

The Rangers are comfortably in 3rd place so the final games against Buffalo and Toronto are meaningless in terms of rank. The odds of them playing against Carolina instead of New Jersey is up to the Devils, but the odds are the 1st round will be against New Jersey. There are many close wildcard races, the most eyebrow-raising being Pittsburgh trying to claw over the Islanders or Florida. It’s impossible to predict as it’s going to come down to which team loses one game and Pittsburgh does not. It’s only a 1 point edge! Tremendous pressure, I’m glad the Rangers aren’t in that position.

Five of Eight Points

NY Rangers

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For the second season in a row, the New York Rangers have surpassed 100 points and still have 5 games left.

The loss to NJ was the worst…maybe. Losing in OT to Buffalo was probably more offensive since Buffalo probably won’t make the playoffs. In both games, the Rangers got scored on first and the rest was a game of catch-up. The Devils got 7 points out of the Rangers (to their 3) this season, a series that hasn’t gone that way in years. Every game was close, so the likely playoff series will be a non-stop battle where any mistake could turn the tide.

Columbus and Washington were nothing more than speed bumps to run over this week. Tampa and Toronto should be the only challenges remaining, depending on how depressed St. Louis is feeling on Thursday.

Kakko, Lafreniere, and Chytil are playing really well which makes the entire team harder to play against. There’s less reliance on the first line so that’s taking the pressure and the physical stress off of those players. Miller had a fantastic game against Washington and Mikkola has been impressive game after game. Since Lindgren has been out he’s getting more ice time. Tarasenko and Kane pop up for celebrity points here and there and the PK remains strong. The PP is producing again but it’s still too much of a struggle to get anything going. If the PP lines get their act together and can convert to something like a consistent 22% for the playoffs, it’ll make a massive and much-needed difference. I don’t think they’ll make it out of the first round without the special teams being a force.

The Final Stretch of the Season

NY Rangers

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Spring is here and we are heading into the last 3 weeks of the NHL season. The Rangers had a steady week, splitting the two games against Carolina and beating Florida. With the Devils’ week, they are just 4 points behind them for 2nd place in the division. The rivalry game on Thursday will be meaningful, to say the least.

The win against Carolina was probably the toughest regulation win of the season. The competition level was playoff game heights. Then, the kid line rallied the team behind them in the come-from-behind win against Florida. Kakko, Lafraniere, and Chytil all scored. After a terrible first period (3 shots on goal, behind 2 goals), they led the charge to turn the game around. Trocheck was a pain in the neck, which we love to see. Kane nabbed his 450th career goal and moved up one notch on the all-time points total for an American-born NHL player.

Things are looking good for this time of the season and my only main gripe is the terrible power play. Never-ending passing looking for the one-timer goal that hasn’t appeared in three games now. The good news is that the penalty kill is rock solid, keeping the scales balanced. Thankfully goals are coming at 5 on 5 which is what is winning games, albeit only with a one goal lead–21 come-from-behind wins this season. I’m also not liking the trend of letting a goal in shortly after scoring a goal. A bit of a momentum killer.

On the schedule: Columbus, New Jersey, Buffalo.