A Golden Age of Superhero TV/Movies

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If you are a fan of superheros, man is it a great time to believe alive. Over the past decade, we have seen some of the best superhero movies ever made be released. Batman Begins, Iron Man, The Avengers, The Dark Knight, etc.

And the superhero films just keep on coming. About a week ago, Warner Bros. and DC entertainment announced their superhero movie slate for the next six years. They are as follows:

2016
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice
The Suicide Squad

2017
Wonder Woman
Justice League Part 1

2018
The Flash
Aquaman

2019
Shazam
Justice League Part 2

2020
Cyborg
Green Lantern

And the crazy part...the above list doesn't even include the Marvel film slate which will include: Captain America 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Avengers 3. Plus you have Agents of Shield on ABC.  That's something like 4 superhero movies per year for the next six years, and a superhero show on every major TV broadcast network. (CBS ordered a Supergirl pilot, NBC has Constantine, ABC Agents of Sheild, The CW has Arrow and Flash, and Fox has Gotham.)

On a little bit of a side note, DC has some absolutely fantastic superhero TV shows on including The Flash and Arrow. I highly recommend you start watching these two shows immediately. With all of these superhero shows out there, I wonder if the bottom will drop out and when? Will the general public at some point get tired of seeing caped crusaders coming to save the day?? I for one will not. For my entire life I have loved superhero movies, and as long as the quality is there, I will continue to be a fan of this current golden age of superhero movies and TV shows.

P.S. As I was writing this blog entry, The Avengers: Age if Ultron teaser trailer was just released. It looks bad ass!!!

The Cable Cutting Revolution is Beginning

This past week, in my humble opinion, was a historic week for television. Both CBS and HBO announced their own streaming serves. CBS All Access launched this week, and for $5.99 a month you will have complete access to current shows, such as The Big Bang Theory, the ability to stream a CBS affiliated station live,and watch classics such as Star Trek. Don't get me wrong, very big news in regards to CBS. However a large amount of their older content is already on Netflix, or another streaming platform. (The selling point of this new service will be access to The Big Bang Theory.)

But the bigger news has to be HBO's announcement of a streaming service that will not require a cable or satellite subscription. This is mind blowing to me!!! For years, cable and satellite companies have been set up as an all or nothing system, where customers bought channels that they may not have wanted or watched. This very well could be the beginning of an "a la cart" system where individuals will be able to purchase the channels that they want.

I'm very interested how the cable and satellite provides will react once this new HBO platform is launched. For decades HBO has been one of the primary features that have convinced customers to sign up for cable.  If this goes through, you will be able to get HBO without such an expensive cable bill along with it.

I want to do more research on this, and possibly write out a longer piece with a little bit more background and content.

The First Saturday Morning without Cartoons On

All children of the 80s/90s will remember this graphic

This past weekend was the first weekend, possibly in fifty years, where there were no Saturday morning cartoons on any of the major broadcast networks. (CBS, NBC, ABC, CW, etc.) Being a child of the 80s and 90s, I couldn't wait for Saturday morning to arrive.

Basically because I could watch cartoons for hours. The likes of Garfield and Friends, Looney Tunes, The Real Ghostbusters, and Tales from the Cryptkeeper graced my television screen every Saturday.

For a long way, it was this stretch of cartoons, which truly made the weekend, the weekend. It's gave the weekend its feel. Gizmodo has a great article discussing this change in television programming, and they do an excellent job discussing it.

Even though television is becoming more on-demand because of Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc, and kids are able to watch cartoons whenever they want, I'm still a little sad. There's something about destination television that helps create a community amongst viewers. For generations of Americans, Saturday morning cartoons will always hold a special place in their hearts.

Something Creative Once A Day

The past four weeks for me have been absolutely insane to say the least.

1) I became an uncle for the first time
2) The students returned from summer holiday
     a. Hired new staffs
     b. Began training staffs
     c. Publication of Xavierite
     d. Football season/Homecoming/Spoke at a student leadership conference/Riot Fest
3) Assisting my sister and brother in law move into their first house
4) Broke the front drivers side door of my car
5) College Radio Day

Now I'm not saying all of this to complain. I am very grateful to have a job that I love, and the ability to pay my bills. But phew, I need a little bit of a break. There's been a few projects that I've been inching to begin working on, but have found it difficult to find the time to begin working on them. Thus I find myself becoming a little bit more agitated than I usually am.

So today I have decided to re-dedicate myself to being creative, not being so easily agitated, and work on a few of my own projects. Hence I have issued myself a little challenge. Once a day for a week I want to try and do something creative. Whether its take a an interesting photo, or create something audibly. Just to do something to get my creative juices flowing. To meet today's challenge, I edited two interviews. One with Andrew W.K., and the other with Matt Kelly from the Dropkick Murphys. Unfortunately I can't upload the promo yet. It has to make its debut on College Radio Day.

The Universal Monsters' Box Set

I just got this in the mail today, and I can officially say that I am set for Halloween. If I had to pick my favorite old school monster movies it would have to be:

1) The Bride of Frankenstein
2) The Wolfman
3) The Creature From the Black Lagoon
4) Frankenstein
5) Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman

Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman is on my list for sentimental reasons. It was the first monster movie I ever saw. These are always fun movies. Especially on a rainy day with the first chill in the air, and a big bowl of soup.

A Brand New U2 Album That Everyone Has

www.U2.com

Anyone who has an iTunes account got a surprise this afternoon. They all had a free copy of U2's brand new album "Songs of the Innocence". Bono took to the bands website, www.u2.com, with a special announcement about the new album.

I love it when bands find a new and inventive way to get their music to their fans. Radiohead pioneered it 7 years ago with "In Rainbows". I remember that release being so big that the White House Press Secretary was asked to comment on the band's pay what you want model. Think about that for a second. An alternative rock band releasing an album, made it all the way to the Press Secretary of the White House!!

Other bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Kayne West, and Beyonce saw how successful this surprise/inventive release model could be and soon followed suite, to great success.

The only drawback is this release method has only been successful with very well known bands for the most part. For an up and coming band to break through, and gain notoriety with this model isn't impossible but can rather be difficult. Mainly because they are fighting to gain notoriety, while bands like U2, Radiohead, and Kayne West have notoriety.

Nevertheless, it's still really cool to be listening to a new U2 album today, when no one expected. Plus I really like the album thus far...

The Tradition Continues...

imdb.com

Netflix has struck again, and my tradition of getting into a TV show after it has ended, continues. For the past few months, a good number of my friends had recommended to me that I would really enjoy the show "Chuck". I've finally listened to their recommendations, and they were absolutely right!

Man oh man is it excellent. The show is perfectly casted, and  features the perfect amount of action, comedy, romance, and complex storytelling. The best way I can describe the show is that it is perfect escapism. It strikes just the right amount of balance between reality and fantasy, yet keeps all of the characters grounded and relatable. For me, that's the real draw of the show, the characters. No matter what crazy/unrealistic situation the characters find themselves in, you still route for them. Mainly because they are very relatable.

As I've been watching Chuck (and that's pretty much all I've been doing the past few days) I started doing some research on the production of the show, and it's pretty interesting. It seems like the show was almost canceled on three separate occasions, but the fans banded together and should enough support that NBC decided to keep it on. Check Chuck out if you are looking for just a fun show.