A mishmash of cool images I’ve collected throughout the week.

Heaven and Earth are about to collide

The summer of 1998 was a particularly good one when it came to movies. I remember looking forward to Saving Private Ryan and The X Files and Godzilla to name just a few. But the movie I was looking forward to most that year was the disaster film Deep Impact.

Deep Impact was the first of two comet/asteroid disaster films that summer with Armageddon arriving (he-he) a few months later. While Armageddon was a super-charged more action than disaster flick, Deep Impact was sold as the thinking person’s end of the world film. Even the taglines for the two movies played these differences. Armageddon ran “Earth, it was fun while it lasted” while Deep Impact had a level of seriousness with, “Heaven and Earth are about to collide.”

Morgan Freeman as President Beck

But don’t let the marketing fool you. While Deep Impact might be a bit more cerebral than Armageddon, it’s a traditional disaster film at its core with a little more emotion and pathos thrown in for flavor.

Deep Impact follows several groups of characters all living under the shadow of a comet on its way to smash into the Earth and wipe out all life on the planet. The first group are astronauts on a mission to destroy the comet before it gets here. The second is of the teen discoverer of the comet Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) and his friends and family as they prepare for the disaster. The final set of characters is of a MSNBC news team, them covering the immanent disaster and everyone coming to terms with living in the end times.

Astronauts lead head off to the comet

For a while I was seriously devoted to this film. I downloaded every movie trailer I could find for it on a pre-pubescent Internet. I saw Deep Impact in the theater, the first DVD I ever bought was of Deep Impact, I developed micro-websites devoted to Deep Impact, I collected Deep Impact memorabilia and on and on. But honestly, it’s been some time since the last time I watched the film and I have to say that while it’s not as good as I remember, the movie mostly works.

Elijah Wood and Leelee Sobieski

I found the story interesting and the characters of Deep Impact well drawn. Two characters are particularly memorabilia; retired astronaut returned to the fray because of his experience on a Moon landing Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) and the first African American President of the United States Beck (Morgan Freeman). I remember at the time how unique it was to have a movie with an African American as the President. Who could have guessed that a decade later there really would be a person of color on the White House?

Where Deep Impact falls flat is when the creators of the movie try a bit too hard to be serious and mine for serious emotions from the story and character. There’s the dad trying to reconnect with his adult daughter, the astronauts on the mission missing their families, Biederman trying to use his fame to get his girlfriend and her family into a government shelter, the single mom not sure what to do as the comet approaches…And this list goes on and on. It’s like the creators of Deep Impact were embarrassed that people might call their film a disaster movie and tried everything they could think of from separating their film from other disaster films.

Doom from the skies!

However, no matter how many sappy speeches, hugs or crying that might accompany the first two-thirds of Deep Impact, there’s a lot to be said for the last third of the movie when a piece of the comet does hit the Earth. The special effects in the movie of the ocean swelling to engulf the east coast of the US and the astronauts fighting to stop a bigger piece from impacting were amazing and stand up even today.

When I first saw Deep Impact in the theater back in ’98 I remember getting a little choked up in the theater at the end of the movie, and it got me again watching it a few weeks back. Sniff. I need a tissue. Grade B-.

- Vice President Selena Meyer, Veep, accidentally taking on the accents of her Finnish hosts saying “neither” in “Helsinki”

Looks like The X-Files with a superhero vibe. Not that this is a bad thing at all.

Then there’s the atmosphere. The movie opens and ends seemingly mid-scene; there is no set-up and no sense of resolution. The tone is doomy; writer-director Michael Mann—who executive-produced the TV series—refashions leads Tubbs and Crockett (Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell) into weary professionals. The world they inhabit is murky and fatalistic; everything matters only insofar as it continues the flow of information (for the police) or the flow of cash (for the criminals). It’s a movie about drug dealers that features no drugs and a movie about cops that features no arrests. Its characters exist within an endless cycle of informants and moles, takedowns and retributions, seizures and countermeasures.

Personally, I’ve always loved Miami Vice.

- Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”

I get that NBC is trying to extra-extra supersize the last episode of The Office, but why do it at the expense of one of their new dramas? Why not extra-extra-extra supersize The Office, air something like the very first episode of The Office after and then show the COMPLETE Hannibal the next week?  C’mon!

NBC Thursday night schedule for May 16

A mishmash of cool images I’ve collected throughout the week.

Mostly new cast of Scrubs in season 9

The X-Files (1993-2002)

• Ended after nine seasons
• When it should have ended? Probably in the sixth or seventh season, but certainly before the introduction of Agents Dogget and Reyes. (Aka Mulder and Scully’s replacements.)

The Office (2005-2013)

• Ending after nine seasons
• When it should have ended? After six seasons. Before then, The Office was a funny show with a lot of heart. After, it was just another “do anything for laughs” comedy minus the heart.

Scrubs (2001-2010)

• Ended after nine seasons
• When it should have ended? After eight seasons when the show moved to ABC and replaced most of the main cast with new faces. Scrubs never got “bad,” it just stopped being all that interesting.

Lost (2004-2010)

• Ended after six seasons.
• When it should have ended? Honestly I think it should have ended after three seasons. After that the show began its slide towards mediocrity.

Community (2009-?)

• Currently, the show is in its fourth season.
• When it should have ended? The end of the third season was pitch perfect. Unfortunately, while the fourth season of the show has had a few moments of comedy, for the most part it hasn’t lived up whatsoever to what’s come before.

This new version, which deals with a global pandemic, is set to debut on TNT sometime in 2014.

This, along with the series Helix, should make for some interesting TV.

“Shockwaves” follows Loki, Red Skull and Syndrome uncovering the key to The Incredibles past that threatens to destroy the future of the family.

It has been rumored that Marvel has an eye on a live-action The Incredibles movie franchise that would tie to the current Marvel universe of movies, and this comic book just might be the first step in this process.

Falling Skies

The Walking Dead (AMC)

• Do I watch? Yep.
• The good: When the story is paced well, the stories of TWD are amazing.
• The bad: When the story is paced poorly, TWD can be as slow as molasses.

Revolution (NBC)

• Do I watch? I did, but I gave up on it.
• The good: Revolution is a fantastical version of The Walking Dead minus the zombies that’s heavy on action and light on horror.
• The bad: Ultimately, Revolution had a lot of promise but it tried to hard to sell the central plot point of why all electrical devices stopped working. Which honestly I just didn’t find all that interesting.

Falling Skies (TNT)

• Do I watch? Yep.
• The good: At it’s best, Falling Skies is a dark look at last remnants of humanity trying to hold on to what’s left and fight back against an alien invasion.
• The bad: I didn’t think the second season of Falling Skies was as good as the first. It seemed a bit lighter in tone and this might be intentional. Regardless, I still really like this show.

Defiance (SyFy)

• Do I watch? I haven’t seen this one.
• The good: Anytime SyFy creates original programming other than reality series is a good thing.
• The bad: So I need to play a video game in order to fully understand the Defiance TV series? C’mon!

Under the Dome (Premiers June, CBS)

• Will I watch? I’m planning on it.
• The good: Based on a Stephen King novel of the same name. Need I say more?
• The bad: CBS isn’t exactly known for critically acclaimed series. And the vibe I’m getting from Under the Dome is more Revolution than The Walking Dead.