Compliments to Your Show

    Based on: 2002 South Korean graphic novel of the same name by In-wan Youn and Kyung-il Yang Written by: Oh Bo-hyun Directed by: Bae Jong Starring: Kim Nam-gil (Van), Lee Da-hee (Won Mi-ho), Cha Eun-woo (Priest Johan), Sung Joon (Gungtan) Island  season 1 trailer: When this Asian live action fantasy adventure was advertised on my Amazon Prime Video home page, I jumped right at it.  But I might've jumped too far.  I seem to have an issue with watching foreign-language titles with subtitles... I guess I get distracted or have trouble keeping up? This happened also with Pachinko , a Japanese/Korean historical drama which I reviewed close to a year ago. The plot complexities seem to escape me and I'm sure there are plenty of cultural nuances that go completely over my head. But hey, I try, right?  Island was released in two batches of six episodes each (for a total of 12 eps). After the first batch had released, I found that I had b...

   Based on: the character Wednesday Addams created by cartoonist Charles Addams, first appearing in  The New Yorker  in 1938 Created by: Alfred Gough & Miles Millar Starring: Jenna Ortega (Wednesday), Gwendoline Christie (Principal Weems), Riki Lindhome (Dr. Kinbott), Jamie McShane (Sherriff Galpin), Hunter Doohan (Tyler), Percy Hynes White (Xavier), Emma Myers (Enid), Joy Sunday (Bianca), Georgie Farmer (Ajax), Naomi J. Ogawa (Yoko), Moosa Mostafa (Eugene), Christina Ricci (Marilyn/Laurel) Wednesday Season 1 trailer: I actually wasn't interested in this show for several weeks after it came out.  I'd heard all the advertising, of course, but neither the character Wednesday nor the Addams family interested me. I remembered it being something of a sitcom comedy with a gothic flair and I was interested in neither sitcom, comedy, or gothic. It was only a month or so after the show had been released, w...

    Based on: Continuation of the 2006  The Santa Clause  movie and its sequels, written by Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick Created by: Jack Burditt Starring: Tim Allen (Scott Calvin/Santa Claus), Elizabeth Mitchell (Mrs. Claus), Austin Kane ("Cal"), Elizabeth Allen-Dick (Sandra), Matilda Lawler (Betty), Devin Bright (Noel), Rupali Redd (Grace), Kal Penn (Simon) The Santa Clauses  season 1 trailer:  The Santa Clause  has significance in my mind as being the only Christmas movie I truly enjoy.  The franchise has mostly kept this status; I enjoyed the sequel even more, in no small part due to the inclusion of Elizabeth Mitchell, an actor I also associate with Lost . Unlike many other Christmas movies, it isn't hollow silliness made for kids, raunchy, absurd comedy for adults, or a feel-good message with a story manufactured around it. Instead, I found the first movie to be a genuinely interesting story co...

  Based on: 2006 graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang (in turn based on classic Chinese novel Journey to the West ) Created by: Kelvin Yu Starring: Ben Wang (Jin Wang), Yeo Yann Yann (Christine Wang), Chin Han (Simon Wang), Ke Huy Quan (Jamie Yao), Jimmy Liu (Wei-Chen), Sydney Taylor (Amelia), Daniel Wu (Sun Wukong), Michelle Yeoh (Guanyin) American Born Chinese  season 1 trailer: I had a couple reasons for picking up this series: the author, Gene Yang, also wrote the first several Avatar  comic trilogies. So I knew I wanted to follow his work. Second, this specific comic focuses on Chinese culture, which I'm very interested in.  Plus, the casting of Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu made it even more appealing to me. I had become familiar with the three actors in Everything Everywhere All at Once , which came out recently in 2022.  American Born Chinese  is about Jin, the first generation...