Geek Scope: Agents of SHIELD 1.5

I have decades of otherwise worthless Marvel comics continuity stored in my brain. In Geek Scope, I'll attempt to use that knowledge to shine a light on any hints or Easter eggs producers might drop into Agents of S.H.I.E.LD.

She really likes her flower dresses.

I didn't catch many hidden secrets on AoS this week. As far as I could determine, all the new characters were original creations of the show.

However, there was one small detail that made me raise an eyebrow. Two henchmen appear (quite hilariously out of nowhere) in heat suits to apprehend Chan Ho Yin (aka "Scorch") (aka Scorch?? uugggh). The heat suits immediately brought to mind the AIM agents of the comics.

AIM stands for Advanced Ideas in Mechanics. You may or may not remember that the organization already exists in Marvel's cinematic universe. AIM was Guy Pearce's company in Iron Man 3. And if you start to connect those dots... AIM was behind the Extremis serum which this current mystery group on the TV show is modifying and testing human guinea pigs. Hmm. Whether the visual cue was intentional or not, we'll have to wait and see.

Undead Coulson Theories

(Possible spoilers beyond this point, so beware.) One of the ongoing storylines of the season is the mystery of how Coulson survived being stabbed through the heart by Loki in The Avengers. My theory from the beginning is that Coulson did not survive and is actually an LMD with implanted memories. (Okay, get ready for unfiltered nerd...) LMD's are Life Model Decoys. They are exact duplicate androids of living humans that sometimes don't even realize they aren't the genuine article. They've been used for various forms of espionage and protection.

Tony Stark even mentioned them on the phone in The Avengers when Coulson comes to Stark Tower. "You've reached the Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark..." or somesuch line. Also, in last week's episode Akela Amador asks Melinda May what they did to Coulson. That means something is different about Phil's physiology because Amador was able to see through/into him with her fancy, electronic X-ray eye. That would also lend some credence to the LMD theory. However, if he was a full-on android, it doesn't seem like she would even need to ask the question.

My only other doubt about the theory comes from "Tahiti is a magical place." Obviously Tahiti is the façade they created in Phil's mind for whatever it was they did to him. They've given us the line over and over with magical being the key word. That makes me wonder if some type of Asgard healing science/magic could come into play and possibly Phil is still Phil rather than a robot with Phil's memories.

What are your theories? Leave them in the comments! Keep stopping by on Wednesdays and we'll unravel it together.

Gravity's News and Notes 10.21.13


I sucked it up and went to the movies solo on Saturday night (lets all make a pouty face for me) so I could be sure to catch Gravity in the theater. I know I'm way behind on this, but you can add my two cents to the thousands of others: I can confirm that the film is pretty incredible. Watching Gravity in 3D is a genuine experience. If you haven't been, you need to make it happen.

Some random thoughts:
  • Nice to see our Kentucky boy George Clooney doing his thing. That guy just might make it.
  • Gravity is exactly what 3D filmmaking can be at its best. Shot in 3D and the effect does nothing but add to the storytelling.
  • I'm not sure why, but the 3D seems to lose its full effect on me after about 30 minutes; as if my eyes or brain stop processing it the same way. Anyone else experience that?
  • We absolutely have to keep cinemas alive in perpetuity. Watching in your home could never match this.

Paranormous

The schedule has been released for Rivers Edge International Film Fest and we're happy about it. We have a primo spot in the Maiden Alley Cinema on Friday night and in a black box theater on Saturday. This week we'll be making travel plans to attend and working on a Blu Ray burn to send down as the official screening copy. If you want to see the full lineup of the festival, you can check it out here. And we highly encourage anyone in the Central time zone to come out and say "hi" November 8th or 9th.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

After the premiere episode, I said I wouldn't be doing a weekly breakdown of the show. Well, I may have changed my mind. I've noticed a significant number of tidbits that my geek brain has been trained to recognize after ingestion of two or three decades of Marvel comics continuity. Therefore, starting this week, I plan to do a Comic Geek's Breakdown (working title) of Agents of SHIELD. After every episode I'll make a quick list of anything that I think the average non-Marvel-nerd might miss. In the event of any possible spoilers, I'll hide them at the end of the post.

NYCC Recaps

The breakdown of my days at New York Comic Con is still coming. I'll try not to delay too long.

In the meantime just keep checking in here for Indie Wednesday and anything else that might pop up during the week. From us to you: have a good one. Keep it safe out there, people.

Big News Monday 10.14.13


Warm up the Sandwich Meter, we're headed to Paducah! If I had to end my vacation, this was the best possible news that could have been waiting for me back in the Bluegrass State. Parnanormous is an official selection of the 2013 Rivers Edge International Film Festival. That means a world premiere in less than a month with a web premiere to follow.

We'll have more info on the festival as it develops over the next several days.

Vacation Stories

There are plenty of stories to share from my trip, especially the three days I spent at New York Comic Con. Not just stories, but pictures. Ohhh, the pictures.

Come back this week and I'll regale you with tales of geekdom rarely seen on this level.

Enjoy your Monday. I know we will thanks to the fine folks at REIFF.

Times Square's News and Notes 10.7.13


I'm in New York, so I'll use this News and Notes to just throw out some thoughts after my first day in the city. 

I'll leave much poorer than I arrived. However you can actually get normally priced food here, which is more than I can say for Las Vegas.

Basically the first thing we saw as soon as we got out of the cab was this:


Thanks for the welcome New York. 

Times Square is insane. So many people. On a Sunday night even. Toys R Us in Times Square was equally impressive. Four floors of heaven for maniacal children.

Also I am clearly going to be a very cliched tourist this week. 

I can already tell I'm going have to force the little one to branch out on our food selection because so far we've had Steak n' Shake and, for supper, a pack of peanut butter crackers.

More to come this week. Still no word from Rivers Edge Film Fest re: Paranormous, but we've got our fingers crossed. 

Indie Wednesday: Trippin Balls



This is supposedly done with projection techniques at the time of shooting rather than computer trickery afterward. Don't ask me; I've just been staring at the screen like this...

New York's News and Notes 10.1.13


New York City: an object of my fascination for almost 25 years. There is likely no single place that I've anticipated visiting more. Through middle school and high school, I was convinced I would live and work there. Things change and life moves you in different directions but my crush continued, albeit slightly tempered as the years have gone by. In a few days, I'm stepping on a plane and finally making that trip. Hence, the bloggiest blog post this site has ever seen...

I want to be clear, this trip is completely an indulgence of my 14 year-old self. I'm under no current illusions that the city is magic, but I've found I can still tap into the old fascination. I scoured travel sites for hotels for a couple of weeks. When I saw the views of the skyline from the Mandarin Oriental (the same skyline that was plastered across my room growing up), my heart literally started to race. Now, if you know me, you know I'm not easily excitable. So at that point, I knew the 14 year-old was alive and well. I don't know what it is about the Empire State Building, but that gorgeous, old building inspires me.

What created my adolescent obsession? Growing up in a very small town, I was always lured by the lights and the thought of big cities that don't shut down at 9pm. Cities in which you could go anywhere and find anything. But there were a few things in particular that built my romanticized image of New York and called out to me above the rest. First and foremost...

Saturday Night Live
I've loved the show since the very first time I snuck a peek at it. There were always sketches and monologues and Paul Simon intertwining it with the city, but it was the opening title sequence that painted the indelible image in my mind. Life and lots of it, happening in the middle of the night. That's what I saw. Year after year, the casts came and went, but the images of nightlife on the streets stayed the same. Oh, they may have been a little more rough around the edges in the 80s before Giuliani and the transformation of Times Square, but I loved them either way and they made a huge impact on my subconscious.

Letterman
Only slightly behind my fascination of SNL was Letterman in his prime. Letterman at NBC. Dave was a star of epic proportions in my eyes and there were few things better than Letterman out in the city doing ridiculous things with ridiculous people. Spraying people on the streets with water, dropping things from rooftops, finding out if a guy in a bear suit can walk into a strip club...  I wonder if Mujibur and Sirajul are still around.

Marvel
Stan Lee used to do a column every month called Bullpen Bulletins and, later, Stan's Soapbox. I loved comics and completely bought in to the almost entirely fictional depiction of the hijinx-laden Marvel bullpen Stan described in his columns. For approximately four years, I planned on being a comic artist. Now, no artist actually goes into the office to work, but I didn't know that. Even Jack Kirby would just mail his pages in or drop by to pick up a check now and then. But I was a comic geek extraordinaire and Marvel was my drug of choice. The company and its characters were firmly rooted in New York, rather than a fictional city like Gotham or Metropolis. So reading about Spider-Man catching crooks in Chelsea or Daredevil cleaning up Hell's Kitchen only added to the tapestry my mind was weaving.

New York Giants
I'm not sure if I've ever been a bigger fan of anything than I was of the Giants in the years surrounding 1990. Yes I loved LT and that defense, but Phil Simms was my guy. Phil is Kentucky born and raised; a should-be hall-of-famer and I lived for the occasional Sunday afternoon that I got to watch him play on national television.

All the Whatfor
Why wait so long? I couldn't tell you exactly. It's a combination of factors. Cost in conjunction with the fact that this was a big deal to me. When do I go and who do I go with? I had always looked at age 30 as good time to go, but life threw me a curveball that year. So, now do I go solo? Fast forward a few years and I have a 10 year-old girl who wants to see New York, wants to go to Comic Con, and isn't ashamed to hang out with her Dad yet. Bingo. I'm not the most spontaneous guy, but it was time to pull the trigger.

What does all of this have to do with the WSF site? Almost nothing. But I wanted to write it down and also set up any posts I might write next week or after we get back. If you didn't catch it, Allen's write-up of FandomFest in Louisville was my favorite thing we've been able to share here. So, I may attempt to do a scaled back version of anything interesting we see at New York Comic Con. I'm sure I'll thoroughly document our misadventures on Instagram (wsf_scott) throughout the week as well.

Check back in tomorrow for Indie Wednesday. AND we could hear whether or not Paranormous got accepted into the Rivers Edge Film Fest at any point starting today, so keep an eye out for that news!

Agents of SHIELD Review

Let me say it right out of the gate: I'm impressed.

And (despite how much of a Marvel shill and geek I am), I admit that I did not expect to be. That's why your regular Indie Wednesday post has been replaced by this review of the

Agents of Shield

pilot.

Trust me, this will not be a weekly feature. I just wanted to share in the post-debut excitement and follow up on some of the questions I posed on

Monday

.

My fears were that the show would be slow and hokey due largely to the restrictions of a TV budget. (Heck, even

The Avengers

has some moments of strong hokeyness.) I also didn't have a firm grasp on what the show would be.

Was it going to be CSI with vague occasional references to superheroes?

Almost all my major doubts were put to rest tonight. The effects work and action didn't outreach their means (i.e. Once Upon a Time) and were actually very respectable. At no point was I distracted by any effects looking cut-rate. The pacing was great and the balance between action and character dynamics seemed spot on as well. And Coulson is a very tricky character to navigate. He's built on dry wit and little else in the movies and it works well there. To take that character and bring him front and center in a 45 minute episodic seems difficult to say the least. But, once again, I feel like the producers passed the test.

Geek it up.

There were also more nods than I expected to longtime nerds like myself.

Using Coulson as a conduit between ultra-modern SHIELD and throwback Kirby designs and tech is brilliant.

Another word I wouldn't have anticipated using in regards to this show. (I knew they'd want to make Lola an old-school flying SHIELD car, I just didn't know if they'd have the guts to go for it.) Coulson-as-collector bridges the SHIELD of 60s comics with the cinematic version we know now, not only turning me into a raging geek monster but also creating the sense of the organization's history for the average viewer. Plus, meshing those two worlds of design simply has the potential to create great set pieces and a very cool aesthetic.

I think potential is actually the word of the day.

What I saw was a strong effort for a pilot. Much better than I expected. Now we need to see if those production values maintain throughout the season and if future episodes flow as well without Joss Whedon in the director's chair. Most of my excitement stems not from how good the first episode was, but from what this show

can

be. I saw a lot of moments that made me flash back to fun adventure television of the 70s and 80s. This show could take all the best elements of so many shows and genres and turn into something special. Think about shows like Remington Steele and The Incredible Hulk and The A-Team and Knight Rider at their best. Agents of Shield can create moments like that for this generation. This foundation is definitely strong enough to build something special on, now we'll have to wait and see how good the architects are.

PS -

I'm 90% sure I know what happened to Coulson.

I won't ruin it. ...Unless you want me to.

World's Greatest Political Ad

We like to bring you good things here. Things that make your day a little brighter. Allow me to present Mr. Jeff Wagner and what might be the greatest political campaign ad of all time. Jeff is running for Mayor and he wants Minneapolis to wake the eff up.



Now, you all know right away that this is amazing and that Mr. Wagner is already the honorary Mayor of our hearts. However, I don't want to simply leave it at that. I want to break down every element of this commercial so it may be irrefutably declared the World's greatest political ad.

  • An alluring lady lets us know what she's looking for in a Mayor.
  • The young lady apparently thinks she's done with this commercial and decides to check her phone. But, unbeknownst to her, something emerges from the lake behind her... like glistening Neptune, chiseled from the rocks of the sea floor.
  • I'm sure Jeff had Casino Royale in mind when he dreamt up this shot; oh, but he pulls it off better than Daniel Craig ever could.
  • As he gets closer, we notice the future Mayor of Minneapolis is holding something in his hand... It's a coffee mug. The man was drinking his coffee underwater!
  • Wagner steps up beside the young woman; an answer to her political prayer. Without a word, only a coy smile, he hands her his mug. Her place is not to question why and she does not.
  • The lady disappears and Jeff cuts right to the point of why he's come to bless the surface dwellers.
  • Let's take a time out to appreciate the fact that Mr. Wagner is not wearing swim trunks. He has no need. Underwear are the working man's swim trunks and all of us toiling in the middle class can appreciate that.
  • The message: We the people don't decide who we vote for. Who does? The media and the money.
  • Jeff is not going to play all the old political games. He's HAPPY with the measly 6 figure mayor's salary. He won't take extra cash from the developers OR the political angle.
  • Most candidates wouldn't have even gone this far, but Wagner isn't going to rest there. He makes us a solemn promise that he will not even patronize the local strip clubs (any more). I wasn't aware that strip clubs were a powerful special interest in Minnesota, but Jeff has pulled back the curtain for all of us.
  • Sometimes the masses need a shock and to wake up Minneapolis, Jeff has to drop the f bomb. Did he want to? I doubt it. But they made him. It's called tough love and Jeff Wagner isn't afraid to dish it out.
  • Our young lady returns. It turns out she had gone to fetch Mr. Wagner a fresh cup of Joe from her empty coffee pot.
  • And, just as quickly as he arrived, it's time for him to go. Back into the lake like a forgotten legend of Arthurian lore. He returns to the water to rest and drink coffee until such time as we need him again. And I have a feeling that time will come very, very soon.
We salute you and your amazing commercial, Jeffrey Alan Wagner.