Tag Archives: Eric Robert Nolan

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A short review of the Season 2 premiere of “The Exorcist”

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I watched the first episode of Season 2 of “The Exorcist” series (2016), and I’m happy to report it was a fun, scary start.  (The season began this past September; its ten-episode arc concluded at the end of the year.)  I’d rate the premiere a 9 out of 10, and I’m on board for another demonic outing.

Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels return as a kind of dynamic duo of protagonist priests — all the more so because they appear to be on the run from a Roman Catholic Church that no longer sanctions their heroics.  (The show is actually well written, and this isn’t as stupid as I just made it sound.)  Herrera and Daniels are both terrific, even if an opening action chase scene reintroducing them here was unintentionally funny.  (They’re absconding by pickup truck with a possessed woman — her gun-toting country family, who is unaware of their intentions, is in pursuit.  I kept thinking this was a like a sequel to 1990’s “Nuns on the Run.”)

Herrera’s character feels a bit more interesting this time out.  Six months on the lam as exorcist-knight-errant has made him grim and unexpectedly arrogant — his darker character is more fun to watch than the slightly cloying, pretty-boy apprentice we sometimes saw in Season 1.

There are more things that make Season 2 seem promising, too.  It looks as though the afflicted woman that we see (nicely played by Zibby Allen) drives only this season’s prologue.  The demon antagonist has its sights set on a foster home staffed by a likable altruistic Dad (John Cho) and his equally likable five charges.  (One of them is Brianna Hildebrand, who comic fans might recognize as Negasonic Teenage Warhead from 2016’s “Deadpool.”  Is she here after being thrown out of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters?)

This was fun.  I’m looking forward to the rest of the story.

 

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A short review of “Black Mirror” Season 3

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“Black Mirror” (2011) remains the best science fiction show on television; I’d rate the six-episode third season a perfect 10.  The show continues to succeed at every level with its story concepts and their execution.  And I think it’s actually getting better.

It’s getting darker and harder hitting, too.  I’d guess that this season’s blackmailing-hackers episode (“Shut Up and Dance”) would be the one that the majority of viewers find the most disturbing.  For some reason, the man-vs.-monster story of “Men Against Fire” is the one that really got under my skin.

I was surprised to learn that nearly all of “Black Mirror’s” episodes are penned by series creator Charlie Brooker.  I’m still surprised at how many clever ideas and lean, smart scripts could spring from one writer.  I was so impressed that I looked Brooker up on Wikipedia — but was surprised to discover I’m unfamiliar with nearly all of his other work.  The one exception is “Dead Set” (2008) — the truly fantastic British zombie horror miniseries that I’ve been recommending to friends for ages.  That makes sense.

Anyway, I am fully and happily converted to “Black Mirror’s” cult following, and I enthusiastically recommend it to people who ask about it.  (The show’s popularity is still growing — I believe it appeals to the same kind of fans as those who flocked to the various iterations of “The Twilight Zone” and “The Outer Limits” of generations past.)  But I might actually suggest that newcomers begin with the second or third season, rather than the first.  Season 1 is terrific, but it’s three episodes are more subtle and thematic, while the latter seasons follow a more conventional story structure that might better appeal to more mainstream audiences.  (They have more satisfying twists and emotional payoffs, too.)

And a quick caveat — I’ll reiterate that this show is indeed dark.  There is a strictly human element to most of “Black Mirror’s” twists that is intended to surprise the viewer by provoking anxiety or dread.  For a show that relies on technological story devices, it succeeds even more with its old fashioned psychological horror.

 

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“Do you come from the land down under?”

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When I reviewed the second season of the outstanding “Wolf Creek” television series (2016) not too long ago, I neglected to mention something — the trippy rendition of Men at Work’s “Land Down Under” in its opening credits.

It’s a beautiful cover by Australia’s Sabrina Schultz, and it’s perfect for the show — it should please both horror fans and anyone who remembers the original song from 1981.  It has a dreamy, melancholy quality that hints at the show’s weird juxtaposition of brutal violence with its gorgeous outback setting.

Check it out below.

 

 

 

 

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Throwback Thursday: “Omni” magazine in the late 1980’s (and that weird Stephen King cover)

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Omni in the 1980’s was an absolutely unique magazine dedicated to science fiction and science fact — it was always weird and occasionally wonderful.  Its content was consistently a good deal trippier than anything you’d find in more mainstream contemporaries like Scientific American or Discover — futurism, the paranormal, and short stories that were pretty damned abstract.  (I remember Patricia Highsmith’s “The Legless A” being a real head-scratcher for me.)  And the covers to Omni were frequently awesome.

I had a subscription around 1989 or so — I believe I got a year’s subscription as either a Christmas or birthday present.  I still remember it arriving in the mailbox.  I think I had all of the issues you see below — except the third one.  That issue is from January 1983, and I never had it.  I’m including it here because it’s too interesting not to share.

Stephen King fans will recognize Don Brauitgam’s artwork for the cover of King’s classic 1978 short story collection, “Night Shift.”  Brautigam apparently sold it to the magazine later.  (Interesting, too, is the similarity of the artist’s name to a key character in King’s subsequent “Hearts in Atlantis” and his “The Dark Tower” series — the kindly psychic, Ted Brautigan.)

Anyway, if you were geeky enough to enjoy this back in the day, the entire run of Omni is currently available at Amazon for $3 a pop.  It was available online for free for a while, and I think you can still find all of the short stories uploaded in pdf if you google them — I found a bunch, including Highsmith’s story.  (I wonder if I’d get a better sense of it if I read it today.)

 

 

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The relic of a rural Christmas.

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Nothing says post-holiday closure like a lone, discarded ornament, like an improbable, platinum, round egg in the tangled, tan tall-grass.

 

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“Not of Byzantium,” by Eric Robert Nolan

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“Not of Byzantium”

Awakening at one AM after dreaming
not of Byzantium,
not of Babylon, but better —
Not Shangri-La, but shaded limb —
The pine I climbed when I was nine.

No Acropolis, only
fallow farm and rising sun.
Across, a distant treeline
ascends to render Athens’
Parthenon prosaic.

Exceeding empires, exceeding
even Elysium, is
This slumber’s ordinary boyhood field.

(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2015

Originally published in Dead Snakes.

 

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Photo credit: kallerna [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

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The Long Halloween?

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So this is slightly weird …

I bought this pumpkin a week before Halloween.  It is now January 5.  It’s as firm as the day I bought it, without a hint of rot.  That’s got to be some kind of record, right?

I’m tempted to think it was chemically treated somehow by the seller.  But I bought another pumpkin from the same batch that soured pretty predictably.  It had to go out on the porch after a couple of weeks.  (Come to think of it … I don’t actually remember putting that one in the garbage pails.  Did a raccoon carry it off?)

 

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Throwback Thursday: NBC’s “Knight Rider” (1982 – 1986)

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NBC’s “Knight Rider” might be the granddaddy of all 1980’s high-tech super-vehicle shows — if I had to guess which one was the most popular or most fondly remembered, this would be it.  (I suppose the other leading contender would be “Airwolf,” which we talked about a couple of months ago — but that was aimed at an older audience.)

“Knight Rider” was cheesy.  But most 80’s action shows were cheesy, and I still remember it as being decent enough.  Lord knows I and Mikey Wagner, the kid on the next block, were fascinated by it.

As anyone who remembers this show can attest, there is a key character that isn’t even hinted at in the intro below.  The car was sentient.  His name was K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand), and he was an artificial intelligence who actually who had a hell of a lot of personality.  K.I.T.T. was a super-intelligent, talking, futuristic, sleek, black sportscar, and he was an incongruous damned hero to us kids.

The other star was Davis Hasselhoff as Michael Knight.  We looked up to him too.  Hasselhoff, of course, is now better known for his subsequent starring role as a moronic lifeguard on the categorically awful “Baywatch” (1989 – 2001).  I remember seeing snippets of “Baywatch” in the 1990’s — it was constantly playing in the newsroom at my first job as a cub reporter.  (The guys there loved it.)  I remember being disappointed that one of my childhood heroes had somehow morphed into a male bimbo on the most saccharine and brainless TV show I had ever seen.  Hey, “Knight Rider” was a show for kids … but it was goddam “Masterpiece Theater” when compared with “Baywatch.”

Weird trivia — the voice actor for K.I.T.T. was none other than William Daniels, who also gave a stellar performance as John Adams in 1972’s film adaptation of Broadway’s “1776.”  It’s so weird seeing that movie and hearing the voice of K.I.T.T. come out of Adams’ mouth.

 

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Botetourt County, Virginia, December 2017

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These are the last photos of 2017, I suppose.  It’s nice that they are of such a beautiful place — despite those cold, foreboding gravestone-colored skies this past weekend.

Virginians are a hardy and gracious lot.  And the people of Botetourt define hospitable.  My friends there showed me terrific time when we celebrated the holidays.

And check out the second-to-last shot below.  Those are the world famous Llamas of Botetourt County.

 

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U2’s “New Year’s Day”

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Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope that 2018 brings health and happiness to you and all who you love.

Regarding the song — the various interpretations of its lyrics make for some pretty interesting reading.  They range from an allegory to the Book of Revelations to the story of a man contemplating suicide after the death of his lover.  My own favorite is that it is a description of Russia’s Eastern Front during World War II, told from the point of view of a soldier in the Red Army.  (As strange as that sounds, it appears remarkably well supported in the song’s lyrics.  Google it.)  I’ve read that the boy on its cover is actually a Russian guerrilla in a Soviet propaganda film.