I find myself thinking today that with all of the violence being committed in the world lately, what ever happened to being caring and compassionate?
As human beings, we are imperfect, fallible creatures. We have our challenges, struggles, ups and downs. But after it’s all over, we have to realize that we are all in this together and always will be.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re with one party or another, or who you prefer, or who you like or dislike. We’re all human.
I would hope that people would stop and think about that before they even entertain the least thought about going out and harming other people.
I know I just said the other day that this blog is not political, and it isn’t. This issue goes beyond politics. It’s about people. People like you and me who deserve to live in a world where we aren’t in fear of one another.
One week ago from the time of this post, I had my second sleep study at UT Medical. This test involved wearing the CPAP mask and figuring out what pressure would be ideal for me.
This means that I will be using the CPAP machine for sure to help with my sleep apnea. I had the help of a prescribed generic tablet of Ambien this time. The test started around 10:30pm, I fell asleep not long after. Next thing I know, I wake up to go use the bathroom, and it’s just before 4:00am. I slept almost all of that time on my back. The amazing thing about that is that I haven’t slept on my back in years! I usually fall asleep on my left side. The problem has been that I eventually end up in a sitting position. This has been going on for a good many years.
I’m glad I’ve been taking steps to combat this. Now I’m just awaiting the analysis of this last study and when and where to get my machine. I’m so looking foward to having a regular, restful night of sleep on a regular basis.
Recently, someone asked if I was going to watch (insert name of film here). It got me to thinking, “Why have I lost interest in movies lately?” Honestly, I don’t know how I can answer that question. To tell the truth (no pun intended) I’m just not that excited about a lot of stuff I see. For example:
Does the world really need Tom Cruise in “The Mummy”?
Why did I like “Alien: Covenant” at first, then grow to dislike it somewhat afterwards?
Is “The Last Jedi” going to suck?
Why did people have such negative reactions to a good story like “Rogue One”?
I don’t know. I guess my apathy level is just at 12 on a scale of 10 today.
With all of the #ComeyDay stuff going on today, I feel that I need to put my thoughts down on why I don’t post about politics on my blog.
This isn’t to say that I’m not deeply concerned with what goes on in politics. I do care in what goes on in the world around me. I surely can’t escape hearing about it every day I’m at work and directing a newscast.
This blog has and always will be an escape. An escape to the topics which interest me and only me. You might find these topics either very interesting or very boring. I don’t personally care. I don’t play it up any more than that. This is a place for my thought and my discoveries, and I feel like there are plenty of people out there to digest and have opinions about what goes on in politics already.
I am not an expert on government. I am not a pundit. So why talk about something that you have no confidence in discussing? That’s all I am getting at.
If only certain people in the world could realize when they are wholly unqualified to talk about anything.
I am confident in saying that I have never been a fan who jumps on the bandwagon. I do tend to see it happen a lot. I’m talking about those fans who start rooting for a team when, all of a sudden, they are in the spotlight playing on a sport’s biggest stage. They can be very, very annoying, especially when one has been very devoted to a team’s cause throughout the course of a season.
What brought this thought on is, of course, the Nashville Predators winning the Western Conference in the NHL last night. They are going to play in their first ever Stanley Cup Final in a few days. I like hockey, I think it’s a great sport, and I’ll of course hope that they do well. I’ve always liked them and always wanted to go to a game in Smashville (maybe one of these days.)
I’ve said in years past that I tend to just like watching a game, or a sport, from afar, not rooting for any team. I’m starting to slowly change, with rooting for Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer, in their inaugural season. In fact, Greg and I are going to their game against the Columbus Crew on June 17th. I am excited about that.
I’ve always been a closet Braves fan. I guess I’ll be right at home if I get to move to Atlanta.
Never really cared for the Falcons or the Hawks. (Apologies if that offends football or basketball fans, it’s just how I feel.)
To the original point: I’d put myself in between a bandwagon fan and a true, loyal supporter. I’d like to think I can root for any team that I choose to root for, but I recognize and respect someone else’s devotion that would far exceed anything I could ever contribute.
It’s an exciting time of year if you’re a TV fan. It’s what is called Upfronts. What that means is that the networks, broadcast, cable and these days, streaming services as well, present their upcoming shows to woo advertisers to buy ads on their platforms in the coming season. To me and many other persons across the vast audience, we get our first look at the shows that are coming up next season. It’s the first chance to see something and say, “Oooo, I can’t wait for that!”
This season is exciting for one very big reason. It’s the long awaited return of Star Trek to where it began: television. The first full fledged trailer for Star Trek: Discovery was put online this week. You can watch it on YouTube:
Just in case you don’t know, the premiere of this show will air on CBS. The rest of the 15 shows will be released weekly on CBS’ digital platform, CBS All Access. It’s unusual for a highly sought after franchise like Trek to be distributed in such a manner. Keep in mind it’s the brain trust of a major media conglomerate making what they believe is a smart move. “Let’s use a very dependable name to further a venture that we have complete control over and can make the most money for ourselves on!”
Now, about that trailer itself. It looks exciting! When I was talking about this trailer with Greg, I was mentioning that I’m trying not to let Discovery fall into the trap of not looking like the original show did in the 1960s, even though it’s supposed to be set after the events of “The Cage” but before Kirk was in command of the Enterprise. I guess we are supposed to believe that if we were to go forward 10 years from this (which is where this series is set) that the Enterprise would be the ship we saw in the 2009 Abrams film, just we won’t have all of the Kelvin timeline stuff. At least, that’s what my suspension of disbelief will tell me.
OK, now that you’re properly confused…
I am so excited to see this show. I couldn’t get into Enterprise when it debuted. I tried to watch the premiere in 2001, and just couldn’t get into it. I hope that doesn’t happen again. I want to like a new Trek show so bad, but I’m trying not to put my ambitions and desires so far up that I will be disappointed easily. It’s a common fan trap.
Of course, I’ll review each and every episode of Star Trek: Discovery here on my blog.
The toughest part of watching a TV show religiously is when a show gets cancelled. It’s become a thing that you have to get used to. Two shows I loved were “The Real O’Neals” and “American Crime.”
O’Neals was a funny comedy centered around Kenny O’Neal, who is in a catholic family and in the pilot, comes out of the closet. Hilarity ensued for two great seasons. Unfortunately, this season, it was on against the hot drama, “This Is Us”, and it got trounced week after week in the ratings. I loved the cast of this show, especially Martha Plimpton as Eileen O’Neal, she has great comedic talent.
“American Crime” was a show that was too good to be on network television. What John Ridley did with this show was nothing short of amazing. Each season of this show was a new story with new characters, but with many of the same actors. Regina King, Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, they were all very dynamic on this show and showed a great range of flexibility in their acting range from year to year. It’s a shame we won’t see what they can do with a Season Four. Unless the show finds another home somewhere. One can only dream. (Hello Netflix, Hulu, or some other streaming service… are you listening????)
By the way, Connor Jessup is just sexy as hell. There, I said it. 🙂
Shows get cancelled folks. It’s nothing to lose sleep over, the world keeps turning on and great actors will find other jobs. At least that’s what one would hope would happen!
Today is May 4th, or has it come to be known in recent years, Star Wars Day. Or, as you may have heard it said, “May the 4th Be With You.”
You can actually celebrate the first Star Wars movie twice this month, on the 4th, and especially on May 25th, with 2017 marking the 40th Anniversary of the original release of Star Wars in 1977. This got me to thinking what theaters in the Knoxville area showed the film upon its initial release.
Before I go into that, I should point out a little background on the release of the film across the entire country. According to in70mm.com Star Wars opened in 32 theaters on May 25th (which was on a Wednesday,) and by the first weekend, expanded to 43 theaters. If you’re curious for more details, read this article from 2003 about the release of the movie. There’s lots of great in depth info there.
The nearest theater to have the film upon release was the Showcase Cinemas in Louisville, KY. As the film grew to more and more theaters, certainly word of mouth must have spread around. As 20th Century-Fox made more prints of the film, it grew to more theaters. A comprehensive list of when and where the film opened as it grew wider is in this very extensive and well researched 2015 article at The Digital Bits. The first place in Tennessee to get the film was the Hermitage 4 theatre near Nashville on June 17th. As a matter of fact, it was the grand opening of that theater. What an time to open an new theater! Check out this article from The Tennessean for more.
The film finally made it to Knoxville on July 15th at the Cedar Bluff Twin theatre. If you’ll note on that list at the Bits, it got to the Tri-Cities before it got to Knoxville. That certainly is interesting, but oh well. Here is a gallery of some period advertisements from the Knoxville News-Sentinel:
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Star Wars also started running in Oak Ridge at the Ridge Theater. It started there on July 29th and played there for 13 weeks. It also played at the Lakemont Drive-In in Maryville starting on August 10th. (As a side note, in research for this article, not long after Star Wars stopped playing at Lakemont, some rather seedy titles started to appear on its ads… go figure.)
Star Wars spend a mind boggling 21 weeks at the Cedar Bluff Twin. It was then replaced with (as shown in the gallery above) another big winner of 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Fans of the sprawling epic needn’t have waited long to see it again, because it moved down Kingston Pike a bit and grew in epic scope and size, to the famed Capri-70 Theater, to be shown in the grand 70mm format! (Note: I am taking liberty here in assuming that the film was shown in 70mm. Since it’s a theater known for showing 70mm films, I think I can safely assume that it probably was 70mm… if anyone reading this happens to know, please do comment below and let me know!)
Article from the Knoxville News-Sentinel regarding the film moving theatersStar Wars moves to the Capri 70, 12/16/77The final day of Star Wars at the Capri 70, 3/16/78… 13 weeks later
If I were there, I probably would go watch it at least twice a week, just for the experience. From my personal experience, seeing a 70mm film is just something to behold. Star Wars played here for another 13 weeks, finally ending its run on March 16th, 1978. It played for longer in bigger cities, but 34 consecutive weeks between two theaters is an impressive run. Movies would certainly never be the same again. Star Wars did appear again in Knoxville later in 1978, particularly at the then Cinema 6, which is known today as the Regal Downtown West 8 (and is one of my favorite theaters in the whole area!)
So, as we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this great film, just think back to the first time you saw it. Whether it was in 1977 or some time after, try and remember the magic of that film unreeling before your eyes for the very first time. I guarantee you that neither you or I will ever have an experience quite like that ever again.
The first season of a television series is interesting. The characters are new and have a lot of wiggle room for the audience to get to know them as well as the actors who portray them. The writers, directors, producers and all the people who create the show also have the same challenge of trying to bring to the screen an interesting, engaging and dynamic piece of storytelling as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
And then there’s Star Trek. You see, it’s the show that broke conventional wisdom. It was classic from the get-go. It’s not like they had to try very hard to do well. The characters were very strong and fresh from the moment they first called “Action!” on the set. True, the writing may have been a bit suspect at times, but every story had one thing going for it: it always attempted to be ambitious.
It could be said however that the show had two sides to its season, and it all boiled down to who produced the show. The first half of the season was produced by the series creator, Gene Roddenberry, and the second half by Gene Coon. The tale of two Genes has been told in print time and time again, so I’ll save you from regurgitating the background info (go seek out any number of books on this topic if you’re interested) and just give you my thoughts.
You can definitely tell a slight shift in how the characters interacted when Coon arrived. The one dynamic that Gene Coon brought to the show was the strong bond between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. That is what I always referred to as the “strong triad” of the show. If you don’t get that central core relationship right, you don’t have Star Trek. All of the other themes will naturally fall into place, but what those three do is of vital importance to make any story work. Look at some of the best episodes, like my favorite, “The City on the Edge of Forever.” While McCoy make have been doped up on Cordrazine, Kirk and Spock realize that what he did must be corrected, but they never blame him directly for what’s going on. A lot of TV shows these days would just outright blame him for negligence and make a whole 13 to 22 episode arc out of said negligence. That’s the reason I don’t get into a lot of new TV shows, by the way. Where a lot of TV shows fail in my book is that they fail to make me like the characters as well as I like these three.
Before you reach for that comment box, I do watch new TV shows, just the ones with characters I like.
The supporting players are just as vital to the show’s success. Where else on TV 50 years ago could you see a diverse mix of races all working together on a ship? Nobody putting the other down or hurling racial epithets at each other? That aspect was truly ahead of its time. Sadly, however, in 2017, that kind of acceptance and collaboration is still a challenge for a lot of people. We all need to work together and treat each other equally, especially now.
You can’t think of this show without thinking of the massive fan support that was generated. I do think that the network brain trust at NBC certainly was not expecting the massive letter writing campaign that they got to protest the rumors that Star Trek might be cancelled. I do applaud them for taking the step of not only renewing the show, but making an on-air announcement to such (during the closing credits of “The Devil in the Dark” on March 2nd, 1967.) I know that if I were around then, I would probably be devouring any information I could find about how to join a fan club and probably writing a letter as well to add to the mass protest that ultimately saved the show from cancellation.
Put simply, what a season! The first season of any show is the most interesting one in my opinion. It always is and always will be true. I firmly believe that.
Last night was the yearly tradition of ABC screening the epic Cecil B. DeMille film “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston. The film has been broadcast annually by ABC since February 18, 1973. Check out this ad from the premiere telecast:
This was back in a time when movies on television were a very big event. It was of course the days before cable and home video pretty much ruined that epic feeling you might have gotten when a great movie was on that you just had to watch.
I thought to myself as this movie was on last night, “You know, this movie has nothing to do with Easter directly.” True, but people love it more for it being inspirational. Of course, this movie would be more identified with Passover instead of strictly Easter, so don’t write in or comment that I don’t know my religious holidays, because I do know.
I guess people just love this movie so much and people still turn out to watch it once a year, even though you can readily watch the movie on any number of home video formats that it has been released on over the years.
While “The Ten Commandments” is not my favorite biblical epic, I got to thinking about when my two favorites appeared for the first time on television.
“The Robe” premiered on ABC on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1967.
My favorite film of all time, “Ben-Hur”, premiered on CBS Sunday, February 14, 1971 and was watched by over 85 million people (a record for a movie on TV at the time).
