Jordan Peele's TWILIGHT ZONE on CBS All Access

The new rendition of The Twilight Zone, launched 60 years after the premiere of Rod Serling's immortal classic (1959), is not what you would expect when compared to the original classic. While the entire first season of this new series has not yet finished airing all of the episodes, with one episode added to the CBS All Access streaming service every Thursday, the majority have since been posted and I can now provide an overall review of the finished product.

Jordan Peele, the writer/director of Us and Get Out, ensured us that there would be no remakes, but numerous concepts and characters would be revisited with a modern-day take. Thus "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," which initially starred William Shatner as a schizophrenic who witnesses a gremlin tearing the engine apart on a passenger airliner, is now refined to "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" and concerns a schizophrenic who listens to a podcast predicting the demise of the airplane he is presently flying. Throughout the episode the bigot profiles potential suspects who might have plans to sabotage the flight. Needless to say, the person responsible for the crime succeeds -- and it is not a "foreigner" as suspected. His sojourn into paranoia, fostered by racial aggression, only leads him to damnation in the end. 

But this, and "The Comedian," are perhaps the best episodes of the series. The majority of what remains plays out more like Outer Limits episodes. In "Six Degrees of Freedom," a group of astronauts launch from Earth, bound for Mars, moments before nuclear war commences, they have to not only deal with each other's fallacies but question reality: could this all be a test of endurance under such a scenario? Are they really heading to Mars? There is evidence to suggest but who wants to put it up to the test? In another episode, "Not All Men," small remnants of meteorites crash into the Earth, polluting the water, causing all the men in town to relieve their aggression -- with murder and death to follow. But the plague proves to women that not all men can suffer from the effects when exposed to the water -- it is simply a matter of decision.

As much as fanboys might criticize Jordan Peele, he captured the original essence of the original. Back in 1959, when the program first premiered, Rod Serling discovered how he could have aliens from outer space provide the commentary that would have been censored if spoken by people. Though the first four episodes focus on racial tension and racial divide (which starts to get old after the third episode), the series began showing promise by focusing on other social issues we face today. The scenario of an ordinary person thrown into an extra-ordinary event, patterned with an element of science-fiction, is certainly reproduce here. But with schemes so far out that I would have expected to see them played out in a modern-day Outer Limits episode, I certainly hope the second season can fit closer to the roots of the original. Yes, CBS renewed the series for a second season.

Make no mistake, this is not Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. This is Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone.

What do Tim McCoy, Charles Starrett and Roy Rogers have in common?

Bobby Copeland and his books on display.

"In my research, I found the cowboy heroes had warts and scars just like the rest of us."
-- Bobby Copeland

During the good old days when cowboys would serenade the beautiful daughter of a rancher, sidekicks were really funny and the heroes always stood up for the little man... there was always one man you could turn to... Hopalong Cassidy! No, wait. I meant Bob Baker. No, scratch that. Tom Tyler. Yeah! Tom Tyler was always there. Come to think of it, so was Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy, Buck Jones, Eddie Dean, Monte Hale, Tex Ritter and any other cowboy hero.

If you love cowboy Westerns, especially the old classic ones, you'll find some of the assorted trivia of amusement.

*  Bill Elliott's middle name was Ami.
*  Ray "Crash" Corrigan still does not have a grave marker.
*  Johnny Mack Brown is in five Halls of Fame.
*  Andy Devine once weighed 348 pounds.
*  After 3 to 4 years in Hollywood, Allan "Rocky" Lane was still in good enough shape to play semi-pro football.
*  Fuzzy Knight was a cheerleader at the University of West Virginia and wrote one of the school's fight songs.
*  Despite what we were led to believe, Roy Rogers did not purchase ownership of Trigger until 1943.
*  Tex Ritter and his wife, Dorothy Fay, are buried in different states: Tex in Texas and Dorothy in Arizona.
*  Eddie Dean was the seventh son of a seventh son.
*  Monte Hale once presented Gene Autry with a walking cane made of a petrified bull's penis.

Allan "Rocky" Lane book

Okay, maybe that last trivia was a bit too much but the fact remains: reading about the cowboy heroes is sometimes more fun than watching the movies. (My favorite are the Universal Johnny Mack Brown Westerns and Hopalong Cassidy.) Many talented individuals reign supreme when it comes to researching about our favorite cowboys and a quick glance of my book shelf reveal David Godwin, Tinsley Yarborough, Boyd Magers and Gene Blottner to name a few. Perhaps the largest output comes from Bobby Copeland of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. To Bobby, Roy Rogers was more than a cowboy movie star. "To me, he was father figure, pastor, Sunday school teacher, hero -- all rolled into one," Bobby remarked. 

Bobby moved to Oak Ridge when he was 10-years-old in 1945, quickly developing a life-long interest in and love for Roy Rogers, whose movies he saw in local theaters. That interest and love never left him, as Bobby over the next 50 years read and clipped everything he could find, not only about Rogers, but about all the cowboys who rode across the silver screen, in movie theaters across America, in the 1940s and '50s.The result was a series of informative books worthy of purchasing.

Charles Starrett, a.k.a. The Durango Kid

Recalling the good old days of the Saturday matinee, when double feature cowboy Westerns included a Three Stooges film short, a cartoon and other film shorts. Armed with 10 cents, his childish imagination and his keen devotion to the film cowboys, Bobby watched Roy Rogers, Bill Elliott ("Red Ryder"), Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and others. Kids migrated to the theater in droves, starting at 11 on a Saturday morning, Bobby recalled. "The kids would start to line up at 10 for the show; there'd be long lines," Copeland reminisced. The movies cost 9 cents, which left a penny for treats. "In those days, youngsters couldn't make any money," Bobby said. "Family men cut their own grass and did their own chores.So, you had to beg for that dime to go to the movies. There were penny vending machines, and for that penny, you could get candy, gum or peanuts."

Bobby recalled that the kids would crowd to get in and get the best seats. "There was a real scramble for the front row seats," he recalled with a chuckle. "The kids had to be close to their cowboy heroes, and the front row, that's as close as you could get!"

During the early 1950s, Western heroes like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry made the transition to television with half-hour programs. The silver screen was left with Whip Wilson, The Durango Kid and Johnny Mack Brown, mostly from Columbia Pictures and Monogram Studios. Post-war America changed and by the late fifties, Westerns were all the craze on television. A weekly dose of cowboy Westerns was now a daily offering -- sometimes six times a night!

Fuzzy Knight Rides Again!

Today, more than 50 years later, Bobby Copeland can create a resume citing more than 150 published articles on cowboys and their movies, and more than a dozen books about the subject. His house is a virtual treasure trove with filing cabinets and crates filled with clippings, Xeroxes, folders of information on every film cowboy, recording the details of his life and his films, magazines, books and pictures, reference works and autographed photographs.One of the autographed photos shows Roy and his wife Dale Evans with Bobby, who had gone to see him to show him an article he'd written about the legendary cowboy. (See photo).

Of all the cowboys, Bobby loved Rogers best. Of them all, Roy was truly the king, Bobby explained. "Roy never passed up an opportunity to do good work. He visited children's hospitals whenever he could, he gave money to lots of charities; he didn't like to talk about it though, he just did these things. He was very concerned about being a good model for kids. He liked to drink a beer now and then, but he stopped doing it, because he didn't want to set a bad example to children."

Roy Rogers book

"Cowboy movies were great because they were bearers of moral tone and the cowboys always did what was right," Bobby explained. "The good guys didn't drink, they didn't smoke, they wore white hats. A kid could get a good lesson in morality every time he went to the movies. I don't mean it was a substitute for church, but it certainly complemented church."

"The B-Westerns had simplistic and repetitive plots, ad there was never a mystery about the identity of the hero or the villain. Everyone knew that there would be a rip-roaring climax, where good would triumph over evil and that the hero would ride off into the sunset ready to fight another day," Bobby romantically described. "The cowboy hero had the fastest horse, quickest draw, fanciest clothes, sang the sweetest song, and he possessed a heart of purest gold. Even on his worst day, he could beat the daylights out of the meanest bad guy and clean up the most wicked town in the West without even getting dirty."

Tim McCoy Book

So who cares how many bullets fly out of a six-shooter? Who's counting? Or the movies where Springfield Rifles are introduced a few years before the history books report? B-Westerns rule and five annual Western film festivals in the United States prove the popularity still reigns supreme. Bobby attends a few of those festivals and it's where attendees (myself included) purchase his latest books. It seems one or two new books come out every year. The latest is Allan "Rocky" Lane and Charles Starrett. (Thanks to the latter, a future blog post will list the "lost" Durango Kid movies in the hopes that a few will turn up in the future.)

Bobby's books are not expensive. You don't have to pay $75 to McFarland Publishing or $65 to Scarecrow Press. Usually the cost is $20 for a book and they are worth every dollar. But since he passed away a few years ago his books are becoming difficult to find. If you come across any of his books, do yourself a favor and grab it.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME is no INFINITY WAR

Spoiler free review.

Fans who stuck it out for 10 years and 21 movies will find Avengers: Endgame a rewarding climax to what Marvel Studios is now referring to as “The Infinity Saga.” Reunions and farewells are necessary when on-going story arcs are closed, brief revisits to memorable moments in past entries are restaged and for a large number of superheroes, much-needed emotional and psychological closure. If the first film last year focused on infinity, this movie centers on finality. Marvel made the wise decision to hold back all of the gimmicks (often referred to as “spoilers” if revealed before the screening) and the trailers promoting the film – for the most part – gave away only scenes from the first 20 minutes of the movie. Mystery abound, fans are spending what might be $1 billion globally this weekend to discover how the saga comes to a close.

Whereas Avengers: Infinity War was a light-hearted romp with Olympic-style competition to prevent Thanos from acquiring possession of all six infinity stones, the most powerful elements of the cosmos, then emotionally stabbing us in the back with the villain winning and half of all sentient life in the universe destroyed, Avengers: Endgame accomplishes the exact opposite. Five years after “the Decimation,” also referred to as “the snap,” the world is solemn, bleak and depressing. Not everyone has found a way to move on and the world is not a balanced garden of Eden as Thanos hoped for. Some, such as Hawkeye, who took on the persona of Ronin, found guidance where there is chaos. Others sought counseling. Our heroes got used to winning every battle that they forgot how to lose, so they took their ball and went home… Dark, somewhat depressing at times, the film picks up momentum where a shining beacon of optimism gives our heroes something once again to fight for. The ultimate goal is to return everything – and everyone – back and undo the Decimation. Twenty minutes into the movie they learn the hard way that rushing into action on emotion will not provide closure. All of which can be gathered from watching the trailers, but to reveal anything more would be providing spoilers. Needless to say, our heroes will prevail even if not in the way they expected.

Like any well-thought plan, the process by which the superheroes maneuver through a web of familiar storylines does not go according to design, only leading to an expected climatic battle sequence against Thanos. Their success, however, comes not from strength in numbers but from their heart. In a cinematic buildup where all roads led to the closing chapter, the real beauty of this three-hour spectacle is not good vs. bad, but rather how a number of iconic superheroes find redemption amidst chaos. Throughout the pit of despair, the bravest and best of us discover the valuable lesson to be who we are, not who we are expected to be.

There is no post-credits sequence but there are scenes of past Marvel movies during the closing credits to acknowledge the actors and their decade-long participation, closing the chapter on what became an entertaining – and extremely profitable – franchise. We can almost predict the direction of future installments, those grounded such as Spider-Man and Shang-Chi, and the majority exploring cosmic potentials, but one has to wonder as a result of three key and noticeable scenes in Avengers: Endgame whether or not the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to be influenced not by product placement or focus groups, but rather by choosing a political stance on contemporary issues.

While both Infinity War and Endgame were scripted and directed back-to-back by the Russo brothers, Endgame comes off like a completely separate movie from the first. Summed up in one sentence, Avengers: Endgame is an entertaining movie, but it is not Infinity War.

Shazam! is a Pleasant Surprise

When watching any movie I ask for one of two things. Impress me or entertain me. The movie trailer for Shazam! was misleading, giving me the impression the film was going to be something scripted by Seth Rogen. The first half of the trailer looked intriguing and then, an immature juvenile in a grown man’s body suggested a terrible comedy. For three weeks I hesitated while a few friends recommended I check out the film, all expressing a common denominator: most of the film’s comedy was confined to the movie trailer. They swore it was played serious. And for the most part, they were correct.

Overlooking the deliberate product placement of Batman and Superman merchandise in the toy store where Shazam and Dr. Sivana exchange combat blows, the film provides a couple surprises that I cannot reveal without providing spoilers…. Needless to say Shazam! turned out to be the most entertaining film of the year to date.

The events take place in Philadelphia (avoiding Superman’s Metropolis) where young Billy Batson finds himself placed in a new foster home, makes a new friend, Freddy, and finds himself selected by the Wizard Shazam to be his new champion against the forces of evil. Now endowed with the ability to instantly become an adult superhero by speaking the wizard's name, Billy gleefully explores his new powers with Freddy, the latter of whom knows more about the superhero game than Billy himself. When the world is threatened by the evil Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, who was rejected by the wizard and instead accepted the power of the Seven Deadly Sins, Billy finds himself growing up and accepting responsibility quicker than most children his age.

The film is loaded with more in-jokes and pop culture references than you can catch in a single viewing. During the fight in the toy store, Shazam runs across and pauses a moment to tab a few notes on a giant floor piano/keyboard, an obvious reference to the movie Big (1988), in which a young boy also turned into an adult. Fawcett Central High School was named after Fawcett Comics, the company that originally created the Captain Marvel character in 1939.

If you are unable to acquire tickets to Avengers: Endgame this weekend, or simply waiting for the hype and crowds to die down so you can watch the three-hour epic with less than crowded conditions, I am certain Shazam! will satisfy your superhero craving this weekend… proving that sometimes we need to stop judging a movie by the trailer.