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positivexcellence · 25 days

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Is there garlic on this pizza? An oral history of Supernatural's 'Monster Movie' episode

THE BEGINNING

What started as a simple enough idea — a black-and-white episode — was then put into the hands of writer Ben Edlund, who’d already crafted some of the show’s more creative hours, including “Hollywood Babylon,” which marked one of the series’ first meta episodes, and “Ghostfacers,” which was shot like a cheesy ghost-hunting reality show using handheld cameras. Alongside Edlund was director Robert Singer, an executive producer on the series and a massive movie fan himself.

ERIC KRIPKE (Creator): I was an obsessive fan of The X-Files and in their prime, they got really bold and adventurous with their format, and they had a black-and-white episode. I was always hoping that we could start taking those same kinds of swings. I remember saying, “I want to do a black-and-white episode where Sam and Dean are up against the classic movie monsters.” But I think Ben came up with the shapeshifter. We were trying to figure out: How do you get a mummy and a werewolf and a Frankenstein and a Dracula in the same episode? That makes no f---ing sense. So this idea of a shapeshifter who loved those movies and was ultimately just a fanboy was the secret to cracking that one open.

ROBERT SINGER (Director): I think that script was Ben at his best. I was really happy that I was in line to direct because I really loved those old movies, so it was fortuitous that I got to do it.

JENSEN ACKLES (Dean Winchester): It’s all just paying homage to the old-school ways of doing things, which having Bob at the helm, he’s seen all those movies time and time again, so he was the perfect guy to direct this episode.

KRIPKE: Bob has an encyclopedic knowledge of movies, especially older films. He’s a classicist and his directing style is a lot of that kind of beautiful, elegant Hollywood style, and I think he just really relished it.

SINGER: I shot generally with wider lenses than I would normally do with Supernatural to try to give it some of that old-time feel. I really took pains to make it look as old fashioned as I possibly could. I’m a big fan of James Whale, who had done Frankenstein, and there are a lot of great crane shots in those movies, so I did a lot of crane work in this. We did a lot of shadow play.

JARED PADALECKI (Sam Winchester): You put Ben Edlund on writing and Bob Singer on directing and magic is bound to happen.

But there was another piece of the puzzle that needed to come together for the magic to truly work: Who would play the shapeshifter (and therefore spend the episode doing their best Dracula)? The answer was Todd Stashwick.

TODD STASHWICK (Dracula): They wanted a full-on replication of Bela Lugosi’s performance. I had the DVD of the 1930’s Dracula, so I was watching that just to get the mannerisms and vocal intonation down so that I wasn’t doing a Xerox carbon copy but rather actually trying to get that Hungarian dialect that he has. I went in [to the audition] and just swung for the rafters.

SINGER: We had him do one of the Dracula scenes and then do the speech where he’s telling her how he became the way he became and Todd just killed it. That was an easy call to cast him.

STASHWICK: They wanted to know that you were going to be able to bring both sides to it, the full-on studied Dracula performance and then to let that mask drop and see the wounded man that is the monster.

KRIPKE: We needed someone who could stick the landing on the Dracula part and that’s really hard. It’s hard to do it and have it not come off like a bit. Todd is a remarkable mimic of Bela Lugosi and brings humanity and soulfulness and depth to it. There’s something in his eyes that made it deeper and sadder than had you cast someone who was just going for an impersonation.

PADALECKI: That episode belongs to Todd Stashwick. He’s so damn good.

Alongside Stashwick was Melinda Sward, whose character Jamie, a local waitress, caught Dean's eye and marked a first for the show.

KRIPKE: At the time, there was a young female fan named Jamie. She and her mother would write us letters and they were super fans, and we were still early enough that we’re like, “I can’t believe there’s fans.” Jamie had medical issues, so when the season was coming up, I wrote her a response and said, “If you concentrate on getting better, we’ll name a character after you.” And she responded and said, “That’s amazing, but can you just do me a favor? Can you make sure it’s a character that doesn’t die?” So the female lead in this one we named Jamie. That was one of the only times we ever named a character after a real person and a fan. The happy ending is she was thrilled and she grew up healthy and now tours around with a replica of the Impala.

ACKLES: Jamie was one of my favorite Dean Girls. Melinda was so good and so fun.

From the instant the episode began, fans knew they were in for something special as the old black-and-white WB logo kicked off a very old-school credits sequence.

SINGER: Right from the opening of the Warner Brothers shield, you know where you’re going. It set the tone perfectly.

KRIPKE: That and “Changing Channels” are the only two episodes where I’ll sit down and just watch the credit sequence. The font, the way you list every crew member, and it just goes on forever. And [composer Christopher] Lennertz wrote real orchestral music for it. I just love the opening of that episode and the way we did that title sequence. But changing subjects, what that reminds me of is the singular genius of Ben Edlund to set this episode during Oktoberfest. Suddenly everyone looks like European villagers and everything becomes a real monster movie.

SINGER: And that location was a party site, but it worked perfect for us.

PADALECKI: It was like an amusement park in the outskirts of Vancouver that we rented out. It ended up unfortunately getting torn down and turned into condos or something.

THE MIDDLE

With the setting and the cast locked, the brothers set out on their hunt, arriving at Oktoberfest to help solve a murder. And when the investigation made Dean late to his first date with Jamie, he found himself face-to-face with Dracula. So naturally, Dean punched the shapeshifter in the face. A fight ensued, one that ended with Dean holding an ear and Dracula ... riding a vespa?

ACKLES: I believe one of the many reasons this show lasted as long as it did is because it can be scary but then at the same time, you throw something like the scooter in and it layers in comedy with horror, with drama, with romance. It touches it all. Bob said it early on and it became a mantra of ours: “No joke is too cheap.”

STASHWICK: That’s the infamous assault scene. I’m in full crazy mode and I’m supposed to clock Jensen in his beautiful face with my elbow, and for whatever reason in that moment — I perhaps leaned in, he perhaps leaned in — we closed that gap and I clocked him. So what you see on the DVD extras is me being all Dracula and then me being mortified that I just hit their billion dollar baby in the face.

ACKLES: He caught me with an elbow but he probably thought he hit me harder than he did. It was a mix between a good shot and a graze, but he immediately broke character. He was like, “Are you good?” And I was like, “Yeah, that one woke me up.” [Laughs]

Dean made it through that fight, but the shapeshifter had already planned its next move: While Sam checked out an eccentric local that they thought was the killer, Dean and Jamie shared a drink back at the bar where she worked. Her friend Lucy (Holly Elissa) then showed up just in time to spike their drinks. By the time Dean woke up, he was wearing Lederhosen while strapped to a table in a dungeon.

SINGER: Jensen was like, “Oh god do I have to wear this?” So to make him feel better, I put on the Lederhosen top. I didn’t go with the full shorts but I did direct that day in the Lederhosen top to take the edge off it a little bit for him.

ACKLES: I remember that! He directed in that shirt. [Laughs] Those were authentic leather Lederhosen from Bavaria. Only the best for Dean.

PADALECKI: When Jensen’s first getting strapped to the table, cause he’s a big guy, I remember them talking about how for the visual's sake, they wanted it to be like he’s a quote-unquote damsel in distress, so if they used a normal-sized platform, it would’ve looked comical, but not in a good way. So they had to make it a little bigger cause he’s kind of big.

Dean wasn’t in the dungeon long before Dracula left him to go answer the doorbell. It seemed the shapeshifter ordered a pizza … and he had a coupon.

KRIPKE: I just love how there’s the monster lab in the basement but then you go upstairs and it’s this mid-century ranch house. That’s almost a direct ripoff of the Steve Martin movie The Man with Two Brains.

SINGER: [Set designer] Jerry [Wanek] did a great job in building the dungeon set, and then when the doorbell rings, you realize it’s in the bottom of a suburban house with a pizza guy showing up at the door.

KRIPKE: When Ben wrote the script, we talked about that scene more than any other scene in the episode. We were so specific about how we wanted the Dracula shapeshifter to react to the pizza guy and the way he’s scared when he says, “Is there garlic on the pizza?” And then the way the pizza guy’s so bored and over it: “Did you order garlic?” And then he says, “No!” It’s the way that he’s so bored of this Dracula at the door.

PADALECKI: I think Jensen and I must’ve watched this episode together in 2008 because I remember us looking at each other and going like, ”Oh my god, [the pizza guy] is way better than he needs to be!”

ACKLES: That line, because of the way that Todd delivered it, we used that line on set many, many times. Whenever somebody asked a question that had an obvious “no” to it, it’d be like, “Hey, did you want the big light on in the distance?” And Bob would be like, “Is there garlic on it?” So that became a little ism on set.

STASHWICK: I’m a Second City guy, so “yes, and” is drilled into my head and yet the two memes I’m most known for, I’m saying the word “no,” and that is Supernatural and Star Trek. I have the no's that are heard around the world.

In the end, the brothers came out victorious and another monster was dead, but not before this one made you feel a little something (and gave one heck of a final monologue quoting King Kong).

KRIPKE: Ben gets all the credit, and rightfully so, for writing the crazy episodes, but where I don’t think he gets enough credit is what a disciplined screenwriter he is in terms of character consistency and rule consistency and just the emotion and pathos he brings to every single story he does. No matter how crazy, he always has such a talent for capturing humanity. I wasn’t counting on the shapeshifter to have pathos but when he gives that speech at the end, it’s so sad. I give him all the credit in the world for that.

SINGER: Eric used to say, “Every villain is a hero of his own story,” so we always tried, as best we could, to give the villains something to do and learn more about them and give them full characters. So even with all this fun, we managed to give him something a little more to do.

PADALECKI: He becomes an almost sympathetic character — I stress almost because he did kill a couple people — but what a great character arc all inside of one episode.

STASHWICK: Because this character wasn’t just a cartoon Dracula and he had that human moment, I think it made him stick in people’s minds more. This monster just really loved the movies. He was the ultimate cosplayer. It might be the thing I’m most known for outside of Star Trek, that one episode of TV.

THE END...?

Although Dracula didn’t make it out alive, the episode seemed to breathe new life into the series, marking perhaps its biggest risk yet, though not the biggest risk the show would ever take.

SINGER: It kind of laid a template for other big swings that we took that were out of the ordinary, whether it was “Changing Channels” or “The French Mistake.” This was the first of our big swings of being totally different than what the show was generally week to week.

KRIPKE: I remember it getting a positive reception. I think people appreciated the swings we were starting to take. I just love that this small little supernatural show that’s arguably a Buffy ripoff on The CW got so experimental. I am really proud that we were doing legit avant-garde stuff, really experimental filmmaking, of which this was one, and then we just kept pushing it.

PADALECKI: It’s such a great episode of television and I think we have a few in our 15 years that could stand alone as something fun to watch and out of the box, and it's certainly easy to argue "Monster Movie" is at the top.

ACKLES: This was really when we were hitting our stride. We were in the pocket with these characters, with the storytelling, with the writing. The first year was really finding our feet, the second was like, "Okay we somehow survived a network merge, let’s not mess this up." And then third season we started playing a little bit. So by the fourth season, we’re like, "Now we know where we need to be." This was the perfect time to do one of these outside-the-box episodes. This is definitely one of my top 10.

SINGER: I directed 48 episodes and if somebody asked me which is my favorite, I would probably say this one. I just had the best time doing it.

Entertainment Weekly

#supernatural #spn 4x05 #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #robert singer #eric kripke #tom stashwick

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adamwatchesmovies · 1 year

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Tom and Jerry & the Wizard of Oz (2011)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

I don't often give movies "So Bad It's Good" ratings. Even rarer are low “So Bad It’s Good” ratings. If a movie isn't good and isn't enjoyably awful, it probably isn't pleasant under any definition. I'm making an exception for Tom and Jerry & The Wizard of Oz. Why? Well, it all began with Tom and Jerry and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; a film so bad you had to see it to believe it. No one in their right mind would rent or buy that cinematic mistake. All of its profits must have come from grandparents with poor eyesight desperate to find their grandkids a last-minute Christmas gift. After seeing it, no one would give any Tom and Jerry films - past or future - a chance but it's still available for purchase today. As long as Tom and Jerry and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is out there, the only audience for this… adaptation? Spoof? Follow-up? to the 1939 Judy Garland classic are demented cinephiles who purposely seek bad movies. Why aren’t they going to be pleased? Read on.

While reuniting Dorothy Gale (voiced by Grey Griffin) with her dog Toto, Tom and Jerry get sucked into a twister and transported to the magical land of Oz. Following Dorothy’s tracks on the yellow brick road, they meet munchkin Tuffy (voiced by Kath Soucie) who tells them of the great and powerful Oz (Joe Alaskey) - the only being who can help them return home.

Unlike Tom and Jerry and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this isn’t a straight retelling of the original film with the two violence-prone cat and mouse clumsily jammed in. This is an “original movie” with an original plot. It's sort of a Lion King 1 ½ type of story. We see familiar events from a new angle. For instance, did you ever wonder how that bucket of water ended up in the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle? You'll know its back story after this film. What’s that? You never cared? You shouldn't, and that's why this movie fails. This side story is razor thin. In fact, the whole thing clocks in at a slim 56 minutes - far less than the film it’s spinning off of. Unfortunately, since you don’t care about anything, it feels much longer.

This is a perfect example of a film that would be better if it were worse. The new songs are bad, but they’re lame, not cringe-inducing and not memorable. The animation is cheap. I only counted one scene in which a character had a shadow. However, the budget isn’t so low that characters are constantly off-model or animated in a way that makes for great stills. Similarly, since the plot is new, there are no plot holes or nonsensical developments like we had in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ripoff. This means there is less to make fun of and many more reasons to become bored.

This is a picture for a non-existent audience. No adult watching will go “I’d much rather watch this than the classic!” If you haven’t seen Dorothy Gale’s original adventure, you won’t understand this plot because it assumes you already know the story and blazes through important information. It isn’t good, and isn’t bad enough to be fun. There’s no reason to see this film and everyone who made it knew this perfectly well. I can’t think of any reason why anyone should ever see it but I also don’t hate it enough to care if you disagree. (On DVD, November 23, 2018)

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abnerkrill · 6 months

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no joke we should start putting out this list daily to bully the celebrities who haven't visibly supported the sag-aftra strike yet

INCOMPLETE LIST OF PEOPLE WHO WILL BE SPARED IN THE REVOLUTION [/hj]

Chris Pine, Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Mandy Moore, Ben Schwartz, Nick Offerman, Ming-Na Wen, Sam Elliott, Jack Black, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Margot Robbie, Jon Cryer, Jean Smart, Aubrey Plaza, Adam Scott, Jennifer Grey, Clarke Gregg, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rhys Darby, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Deschanel, Sterling K Brown, Ben Barnes, Jack Quaid, Robert Pine, Raegan Revord, Tate Donovan, Milo Manheim, Simu Liu, Wendie Malick, Camryn Manheim, Danielle Fishel, Annette O’Toole, Martin Henderson, Michael McKean, Colin Farrell, Billy Crystal, Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldstein, Breckin Meyer, Rebecca Wisocky, Devan Chandler Long, Todd Stashwick, Tom Ellis, Patrick Fischler, Quinta Brunson, Jeri Ryan, Jon Cryer, Chris Gorham, Gina Torres, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Elizabeth Banks, LeVar Burton, Kumail Nanjiani, Seth Rogen, Jessica Lange, Mark Ruffalo, Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Chastain, Lily Gladstone, Anna Kendrick, Pedro Pascal, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ayo Edebiri, Sean Astin, Gillian Jacobs

#sag-aftra strike #sag strike #actors strike #yes this list is missing people no i will not be creating a whole catalogue. [she says. thinking about creating a catalogue.]

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marymoss1971 · 1 year

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Random thoughts on Star trek Picard 3.5 "Imposters

As someone who usually goes around looking for spoilers, I was SHOCKED to see Ro! I love that she got redemption and she and Picard finally got to talk about what she did years thirty years earlier. What ultimately happened to her here was sad, but poignant.

Also, I started thinking about Tom Riker when Will was defending Ro to Picard. I really want to know what happened to him. I have a slight headcanon but want an official take.

Ro telling Picard about the conspiracy in Starfleet (a story I find fascinating!) reminded me of Picard being told about the conspiracy in the TNG episode of the same name.

I don’t buy Krinn’s “There can be no utopia without crime” statement.

At the mention of AI's at Daystrom, my mind immediately went to Lower Decks and the Texas-class and sentient computer facility. (not saying there’s a connection. It’s just the popped in my head)

My favorite Shaw moment (and Todd Stashwick stated this was improvised) was the gesture Shaw was making when he reinstated Seven. LOL. (I also loved it when someone told Shaw "If you can't trust us; trust your eyes" You could almost hear Shaw thinking "SHIT")

I’m really wondering, and worried, about what’s going on with Jack. I've heard some interesting theories but don't know how I feel about any of them.

I think we’re going to see Geordi next week which’ll be great. It is weird, they couched this as a reunion but we’re halfway through and a full reunion hasn’t happened yet.

#star trek picard #star trek picard spoilers

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videogamesincolor · 2 years

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[...]My newfound fears weren’t helped when Rymer and Stashwick described Frey’s origin story, which came off as a tired amalgamation of Black stereotypes. Those stereotypes included her “being very angry,” her having “fallen through cracks of society,” and being “on the verge of prison,” before being teleported to Athia. The cherry on top of my newfound dread was motion capture and voice over director Tom Keegan describing Balinska’s mannerisms during her motion capture performance as having a “very hip-hoppy kind of walk.” I wasn’t the only journalist to find Keegan’s awkward remark and the lack of Black writers shown in our preview as harrowing. When Axios’ Stephen Totilo asked if there were any Black developers or consultants involved with Forspoken in Square Enix’s video chat, he didn’t receive an answer during our preview. (Later on, he received an FAQ sheet that rounded up our media questions. Sadly, its answer came off as a canned response that leaned heavily on the hands-off preview where Balinska’s “passionate” feedback throughout her motion capture process was regarded as “invaluable feedback” for the team.

#forspoken #square enix #luminous productions #frey holland #anti blackness #gaming culture #representation in media #media: articles #videogamesincolor

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tawneybel · 5 years

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Note: Top ten sexiest characters, part nine. I forgot to do this when I hit five hundred followers and I’m almost at six hundred. Might do another animated characters list for that.

10. Drakken (Todd Stashwick) from Kim Possible

There were many things wrong with this movie. Making Dr. Drakken oddly attractive wasn’t one of them.

9. Evra Von (Patrick Fugit) from Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

There’s a scarcity of beddable scaled characters.

8. Dean (Justin Long) from Waiting...

Monty occasionally feels squirrelly. Does Dean?

7. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) from Hostel

He went on a quest for p*ssy and found... p*ssy. Also, torture.

6. Carlos (Nicholas Gonzalez) from The Purge: Anarchy

If he kidnapped me, I’d make him my dog.

5. Crash Wilson (Erik Knudsen) from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I love this one!

4. El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) from Planet Terror

If anyone in this movie had to gogo dance, it should have been him.

3. Eddie Brock and Venom (Tom Hardy) from Venom

Obviously.

2. Brian (Rick Hearst) from Brain Damage

Parasitism shouldn’t be arousing.

1. Stiles Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien) from Teen Wolf

Sure, Scott is bae, but if it wasn’t for Nogitsune imagines on here I wouldn’t have watched the show. All hail Void Stiles!

Note: Previous part. Seriously, the gun-legged dancer should have been Wray. Brain Damage is a hidden gem. Brian and his brother Mike are sooo appealing. I came to Teen Wolf for possessed Stiles and stayed for Scott, and all the other comely monster men.

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theworkprint · 7 years

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'12 Monkeys' S3 Episodes 308-310 Review: The Beginning of The End

’12 Monkeys’ S3 Episodes 308-310 Review: The Beginning of The End

Spoilers through season 3, episode 10 of 12 Monkeys. In the final night of the 12 Monkeys season 3 binge event and it’s the most important one yet as we discovered not one, but two Witnesses. One of the best things about the show is its continuous ability to surprise audiences with plot twists as even one question gets answered several more gets asked in kind. Here are the most important events…

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#12 Monkeys #Aaron Stanford #Alisen Down #Amanda Schull #Army of the 12 Monkeys #Barbara Sukowa #Emily Hampshire #James Callis #Rupert Graves #sci-fi #science fiction #Syfy #Time Travel #Todd Stashwick #Tom Noonan

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metawitches · 4 years

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12 Monkeys was a Syfy network series, loosely based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam film of the same name, which ran for 4 seasons/47 episodes, from 2015-2018. It focused on a near future post-plague world and the survivor, James Cole (Aaron Stanford), who is sent back in time from 2043 to the decades before the plague in order to stop the deaths of 7 billion people.

Though the series uses concepts and characters from the film, it’s largely left the plot of the film behind by the end of the pilot. In the original 12 Monkeys film, the Army of the 12 Monkeys is a red herring. In the series, it’s a vast, secret organization which is responsible for the plague. Cole and Katarina Jones (Barbara Sukowa), the scientist who sends him back in time, assemble a time traveling team who oppose the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and their mysterious leader, the Witness, in a war to control the fate of the timeline.

In the future, post-plague world, Katarina Jones and her people find a damaged recording made in 2017, at the height of the pandemic, by Dr Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull), a CDC virologist who specializes in epidemics. The recording asks “Cole” to hurry and names “Leland Frost” as the originator of the plague. With this starting point and a time machine that barely works, Dr Jones sends James Cole, a barely civilized scavenger, back in time to interview Dr Railly in order to learn further details about the start of the pandemic. His mission is to use the knowledge he gains from Dr Railly to stop the plague virus from being released.

Of course it’s not as simple as that. Time travel isn’t precise enough yet to get Cole to the correct moment in Dr Railly’s timeline. He arrives in 2013, meets kidnaps Dr Railly, figures out that he’s too early for her to have the information he needs, then gets shot by the police in the process of jumping to a later point in her life. When she meets him again in 2015 and sees his fresh bullet wound, 2 years after she watched him receive it, Dr Railly is convinced that Cole is telling the truth. Together, they investigate the origin of the virus, which eventually leads them to Leland Goines (Zeljko Ivanek), code name “Frost”.

As viewers will expect, by the end of the pilot they’ve realized that Goines is only a piece of the puzzle. Information they glean from him, and later from his daughter, Jennifer (Emily Hampshire, brilliantly playing the role originated by Brad Pitt in the film), will draw them deeper into the conspiracy than they could ever imagine. But the Army of the 12 Monkeys is way ahead of them, already expert at time travel and manipulating events to suit their agenda.

While I love this series, the pilot is not one of my favorite episodes. I suggest watching the first several episodes, or even all of season 1, before you make a decision about the show. The plot is intricate and fast-paced, requiring close attention if you want to keep up with all of the clues and mysteries. There are set ups that don’t pay off for 2 or 3 seasons, but all of the dangling threads are addressed by the end of the series. I think it’s a great show to binge watch (over a few weeks) for that reason. If the episodes are spread out over several months, never mind years, it’s difficult to remember all of the tiny details that become important later.

But 12 Monkeys can also simply be watched as a fun romp. It’s one of the best scifi action-adventure series ever, with enough episodes to make it a meaty experience, but not so many that you feel like you’ll never finish. It’s well-made from a technical aspect, having been nominated for and won several cinematography awards. There is an overall series long quest, plus each season has its own arc. The series is full of great stories that range from the pandemic, various future dystopias and alternate realities, time travel, romance, detective noirs, comedy, Cold War spy vs spy, World Wars 1 and 2, mad science experiments, terrorism and revolution, fantasy to an art heist or two.

Some episodes can be viewed as entertaining stand alones, with familiar guest stars such as Christopher Lloyd, Matt Frewer, James Callis and Madeleine Stowe, as well as many faces that are recognizable to genre fans. Jay Karnes’ arc of episodes is a particular favorite of mine.

If you want to examine the episodes more deeply, the show also explores philosophy; the ramifications of scientific and technological progress; the long term effects of political decisions, corporate greed and organized religion; what long term poverty does to people on a personal level and on an organizational/ disorganizational level; and more. 12 Monkeys extensively explores the concepts of cycles, motivations, emotions, and morality. The ideas that are explored rotate through characters, groups and time periods, examining how varying circumstances affect the outcome, and how they don’t.

But this no Ground Hog’s Day- 12 Monkeys is well-written and original entertainment. You have to be paying attention to pick up on all of the social commentary and loops. In the end, it’s a show about love, loyalty, persistence and sacrifice. Showing the relationships between the characters is one of the things it does best. Many types of love are highlighted, including familial, romantic and brotherly. Intense religious devotion and ideology are explored as well. I would say that only same sex love is short changed. It’s hinted at, arguably to the point of queerbaiting and mild homophobia, but never fully expressed.

The characters are likeable, well-cast and acted. They all have chemistry together, including the recurring and guest cast members. Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull, Barbara Sukowa, Kirk Acevedo, Emily Hampshire, Alisen Down and Todd Stashwick comprise the core cast who circle in and out of relationships with each other for 4 seasons. They are all outstanding as individuals and in their many configurations.

The female characters are complex and fill a variety of roles in the story. The main cast is mostly white, with only a couple of men of color to add diversity in the first season. The show eventually adds women of color later in background/minor recurring roles, but it also drops Kirk Acevedo (José Ramse) as one of the regulars. 12 Monkeys did have a female showrunner, Natalie Chaidez, for season 1 and a few female writers and directors over the course of the series.

Within the series universe, physical, medical and mental disabilities and differences were extensively considered throughout the show’s run. One of the main characters struggles with mental illness, while others have chronic illnesses, addictions, or susceptibility to the plague virus that makes them functionally disabled in the future. There are a variety of conditions that are unique to the 12 Monkeys universe that can be considered gifts or disabilities, depending on the situation, and this is also explored.

The series is character-oriented enough that each main and recurring character has a chance to be fleshed out. Several switch between villains and heroes, then back again. I found the main villain particularly compelling. Not because they’re so out of control or murderous, but because they’re trying so hard to understand themselves and their place in the world, and then to create a world where they can feel free and okay about themselves. This isn’t the usual selfish, OTT megalomaniac. All of the extraordinary actions in 12 Monkeys are motivated by very human reactions.

Because 12 Monkeys is about a global pandemic, there are some eerie similarities that predicted how the real world would change in a few years. Without the comforting distraction of zombies, watching a show in 2020 which depicts the death of 7/8 of the world’s population due a virus, followed by an inevitable break down of civilization, might not be for the faint of heart.

On the other hand, this show is sustained by the characters’ belief that they can find a time or place in the world where they can be happy with the people they love, even if their loved ones are currently lost to them. Throughout the grueling struggles in the series, the characters never give up hope that they can make things better in the long run. They have an amazing amount of grit that carries them through as a group, even when some stumble along the way. That’s a powerful message.

All of the struggles are brought to a big finish in the series finale, which is one of the best I’ve ever seen, also in my Top 5. I cried happy/sad/emotional tears throughout the last 2 or 3 episodes of the series. There’s nothing I would change about the ending. The characters and all of the many dangling plot threads are given closure in a satisfying way, with just a tiny opening left should someone want to revisit the universe again in a spin off. Given the complexity of the story and everything viewers go through with these characters, it was an incredible achievement for the showrunners to also bring the story to such a perfect end.

This show was created by showrunners with a clear vision and an ending in mind from the beginning, which is reflected in the show’s consistency across 4 seasons and in all areas of production. 12 Monkeys was created and executive produced by Terry Matalas and Trevor Fickett. Richard Suckle, Charles Roven, Natalie Chaidez and Jeffrey Reiner were also executive producers. It starred Aaron Stanford as James Cole, Amanda Schull as Cassandra Railly, Kirk Acevedo as José Ramse, Noah Bean as Aaron Marker, Todd Stashwick as Teddy Deacon, Emily Hampshire as Jennifer Goines, Barbara Sukowa as Katarina Jones, Demore Barnes as Marcus Whitley, Alisen Down as Olivia Kirschner, Andrew Gillies as Julian Adler, Tom Noonan as the Tall Man and Brooke Williams as Hannah Jones.

Currently streaming on Hulu.

Images courtesy of Syfy.

12 Monkeys: Review of Entire TV Series-1 of the best scifi shows ever. 4 seasons of action-adventure, time travel, a global pandemic, true love, & a vast conspiracy that spans the globe & all of time + questions the nature of reality. 12 Monkeys was a Syfy network series, loosely based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam film of the same name, which ran for 4 seasons/47 episodes, from 2015-2018.

#12 Monkeys #Aaron Stanford #Amanda Schull #dystopia #Emily Hampshire #Kirk Acevedo #metacrone #plague #post apocalypse #Quick Review #review #SYFY #Time Travel

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adamwatchesmovies · 1 year

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Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz (2016)

When I saw Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I saw unintentional comedic gold. The shoehorned cat and mouse created plot holes, the crappy animation made for many meme-worthy frames, plus it was just so out-of-nowhere the very title made me laugh. What was next Tom and Jerry and Kramer vs. Kramer? Tom and Jerry and Me, Myself & Irene? I couldn't wait to see Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz but it disappointed me. It’s a film made worse by being better, which is also very much the case for this sequel.

Following her return to Kansas after her adventure in the wonderful land of Oz, Dorothy Gale (voiced by Grey Griffin) learns the farm’s livestock is about to be forfeited to Mr. Bibb (Jason Alexander) unless the family repays their debt to him. Worse, the Nome King (also Jason Alexander) has attacked the Emerald City and threatens to sink it so he can reclaim its emeralds. Rejoined by her friends The Scarecrow (Michael Gough), The Cowardly Lion (Todd Stashwick), The Tinman (Rob Paulsen), her faithful dog Toto… and Tom and Jerry, Dorothy must stop this new threat to the kingdom and save the farm too.

Much like its predecessor, it’s hard to pinpoint who this film is for. “Wizard of Oz” fans may get a kick out of seeing some of the books’ less well-known elements, like the Jitterbug (James Monroe Iglehart, whose character was originally meant to appear in the 1939 classic but was ultimately cut) and the Nome King. I'd wager they'd rather watch Return to Oz, or read the books instead. It’d be different if the animation was good but it’s just ok. At its worst, it's bad without ever becoming so bad it’s hilarious. What a shame. The end credits show some pre-production stills and animatics in which the characters ARE consistently on-model and look nice. Clearly, this was a production made as cheaply and quickly as possible.

Assuming Tom and Jerry fans are interested in seeing the characters interact with L. Frank Baum’s creations, they'll find a few decent gags here. They’re nothing special but these laughs prevent this creation from becoming painful. I guess you can also appreciate that as a sequel, this is “good” in the sense that, unlike so many other Oz sequels, we actually get to see the characters we liked the first time around come back. Well, not ALL of them. Thankfully, the irritating Tuffy (Kath Soucie) is kept to a minimum this time.

The songs are so bland and unmemorable I nearly forgot to mention them. The best bits of music is another rendition of Over the Rainbow which you’d trade in for a recording of Judy Garland’s any day of the week. That's all I've got to say about that.

Overall, Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz is betterrrr (?) than the first but not by much. It still struggles to validate its existence. This is the kind of movie you only end up watching because your grandma bought it for you at the gas station because she thought it was your birthday and forgot that you’re now a grown man. I didn’t hate it but would be hard-pressed to find anyone I'd recommend it to. (On DVD, February 8, 2019)

#Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz #movies #films #tom and jerry #the wizard of oz #return to oz #Grey Griffi #Jason Alexander #Joe Alaskey #Michael Gough #Rob Paulsen #Todd Stashwick #Frances Conroy #spike brandt #tony cervone #l. frank baum #paul dini #2016 movies #2016 films

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