Tag: TV Guide

Brainiac On Banjo #085: Crossing The Stream

Brainiac On Banjo #085: Crossing The Stream

Star Wars! / Give me those Star Wars! / Nothing but… Star Wars / Don’t let them end — written by Nick Winters, 1977

With all the streaming at our fingertips, the entertainment business is making a lot of headlines promoting what they’re going to do once Earthlings return to mobility. But don’t get excited just yet: the only cameras operating right now are working Zoom and not Studio Binder. When Keith Richards self-quarantines, everyone should self-quarantine.

Next week’s launch of HBO Max has turned up the heat. Clearly, studios are concerned about competing for subscribers with promises of new content, which, at best, won’t appear until after the winter solstice. My take on HBO Max is simple: it’s goddamn expensive, and right now they’re running little but reruns. It’ll probably work out because they’re not promoting that fact. But reasonable bean-counters understand that few people are going to maintain subscriptions to HBO Max, Disney+, AppleTV, CBS All Access, Peacock Premium, and Amazon Prime – to name but a very few – all at once. That’s a lot of money, and it’s also more programming than one can handle. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo #085: Crossing The Stream”

Brainiac On Banjo #047: Getting Mad For The Last Time?

Brainiac On Banjo #047: Getting Mad For The Last Time?

That Mad Magazine cover shot to your left (well, it’s to my left) with the old-timey Harvey Kurtzman logo is on what purports to be their final mostly new-content issue. If it looks familiar and you haven’t been to the supermarket in the past five days, you may have noticed it in Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

The movie is set in 1969 and it’s about a nearly washed-up television actor best known (in the storyline) for his headlining a black and white western show the decade before. That’s the movie actor Leo DiCaprio playing television actor Rick Dalton there on the cover; the movie also stars Brad Pitt as Dalton’s stuntman/best friend, and Harley Quinn’s Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate. Comics fans might be amused to know that it also costars the 1970s Spider-Man, Nicholas Hammond, as well as Riverdale’s Luke Perry in what is, if I’m not mistaken, his final performance. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo #047: Getting Mad For The Last Time?”