Smallywood

I've been writing this blog on and off for like eleven or twelve years now, and I seem to vaguely recall that I used to take great delight in noticing and pointing out unintentional overlaps in my pop culture consumption, like when I finally got around to reading or watching something that had been on my list for years, and suddenly realized it was a predecessor and drect influence of something else I'd gotten into on a whim with no foreknowledge of the connection. Or when I'd discover the same creative types had been involved in two wholly separate projects I dug. I am pleased to report that these things still very much amuse me.

I recently started watching the CW series Legends of Tomorrow from the beginning, via Netflix. Longtime blog fans may recall that I was hugely into the CW's Smallville back in the day; I own every season on DVD and watched the whole thing in order via that medium (mostly using a portable DVD player on the train when I worked as a government contractor, all of which feels like a lifetime ago). I don't know if I ever mentioned it on the blog or not, but when the CW announced Arrow, it was still close enough to my finishing the Smallville run that I was irked it was a new actor playing Oliver Queen, since Green Arrow had been a bg part of the latter half of Smallville. I did not jump into Arrow, but somehow the show got along fine without me, and generated an entire Arrowverse which includes The Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman, Black Lightning, and Legends of Tomorrow.

Legends of Tomorrow is a show that should not work. It's a large ensemble made up of also-ran supporting characters from several of the other shows I mentioned, who are on a time travel mission to stop an immortal conqueror before he succeeds in the future. It is a million bonkers comicbook ideas all crammed together, on a second-tier broadcast television budget. But! It is gloriously, endearingly goofy and I find myself utterly charmed by it. I expected I might be, and it did not disappoint.

(I also have heard that it gets better as it goes along, so we shall see about that. It was the hype about the recent release of the newest season, combined with chatter indicating that it was really great how this show which started out vaguely terrible quietly became arguably the best of the Arrowverse shows, that got me to take the plunge. I also-also know that eventually Matt Ryan joins the cast reprising his role as John Constantine from the cancelled NBC series, which my wife and I were both into, so when I get to the point where he starts showing up I will drag her along on the binge watch as well.)

No more train commutes for me these days I've been watching episodes of Legends of Tomorrow while I run on the treadmill. I'm only about 9 episodes in so far, but it's a good start. Last night, meanwhile, my wife was working late so I decided to treat myself to streaming movie. I have been meaning to see Edge of Tomorrow (aka Live. Die. Repeat.) for a while now, I reckon ever since people on the internet started publishing reconsideration thinkpieces along the lines of "Hey, Edge of Tomorrow had a dumb title and barely made a blip on its theatrical release but it's so good, way better than you might think a sci-fi alien invasion riff on Groundhog Day has any right to be!" The movie came out in 2014, those pieces probably started appearing by 2015, so it's been a hot minute.

Anyway, the movie was in fact pretty good! Definitely entertaining on the visceral action movie level, and mostly satisfying on the time loop narrative level (I'm still puzzling over whether the ending makes sense or is a total cheat). Bravo to Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

I'll point out now that it was a mindless coincidence that I was gorging on two different properties with the word 'Tomorrow' in their title, and that's cute. BUT! What I really came here to talk about was actually the fact that I'm lying on the couch last night, watching Edge of Tomorrow, and Tom Cruise meets the squad he's been assigned to, and lo and behold who is one of his bunkmates but Franz Drameh! And I know what you're thinking: who? And I wouldn't have known this young actor either, if it hadn't been for Legends of Tomorrow, where he plays Jefferson Jackson, one half of Firestorm.

Like I said, it just very much amuses me when I start watching a show from 2016 and a couple weeks later watch a movie from 2014 and get smacked in the face with "Hey! Same guy!" Not super surprising, I suppose, given how some Hollywood agents seem to be able to get certain hot clients into a bunch of things one right after the other sometimes. But amusing nonetheless.