Retro-review: The Pink Panther Strikes Again

This is 1970s Austin Powers long before Austin Powers: a deranged Inspector Dreyfuss escapes from the mental institution and creates a terrifyingly powerful criminal organization with one goal: to kill Clouseau! 

He doesn't go about it directly, oh no, he decides to use his organization to blackmail the rest of the entire world into killing Clouseau, because that's easier than... actually trying to kill the unkillable Clouseau. 

Peter Sellers is in top form here, and plays the oblivious fool Clouseau with fine understatement, bumbling from one success to another, despite the odds.

He's a one man wrecking machine, and to be honest, I have sympathy for poor old by-the-book Inspector Dreyfuss. He's like Grimes from the Simpsons: a regular joe who does everything right and still winds up trailing far behind a fool (in Grimes' case, Homer Simpson). 

What might kill an ordinary man, or an army, is nothing to Homer or Clouseau. 

Dreyfuss picks an old castle for his lair, which isn't quite as iconic as a volcano, but his disintegration laser is right out of the most absurd James Bond flicks. And Inspector Clouseau's attempts to break inside the fortress are side splitting. 

This flick marked the apex of The Pink Panther series of films. They never again came even close to this, which is a real shame. The Oktoberfest sequences, and toothache climax, are sublimely funny when you're 8. 

I also really liked the guy who played President Gerald Ford: "Who won the game?!?"

Peter Sellers made one more appearance as Clouseau (in Revenge of the Pink Panther) before passing, and while he's still fabulous, the movie just didn't split my sides like Strikes Again did. 

The Boys season 4 review

The show's still got it, but the paint job is wearing thin. 

Franchises are repetitive by their very nature, but work best when the audience isn't constantly being made aware of this. 

I'd tune in to watch the X-Files, for example, with a vague expectation of what I was in for: a spooky occurrence, Mulder and Scully getting dispatched to investigate, Mulder insisting it's aliens while Scully desperately rationalizes, jeopardy followed by our heroes either overcome the foe or escaping by the skin of their teeth, with Mulder largely confirmed in his beliefs... yet still with room for doubt. The same as every week, just different. Swapped in details, same format. 

Same goes for The Boys, although it is far less episodic and more season (and multi-season) story arcs. In season 4, the show cycles through the usual corrupt hero tropes, just with different heroes than previous seasons. 

Nothing moves forward.

Don't get me wrong: I still enjoyed the show, I like the satirical bent of it all, and it's very sharp edged humour at times. The gross out stuff grated a bit, though; they've dived into that sordid pit over and over, and it's kind of getting old. Having said that, it seems to be baked into the DNA of The Boys, and the dungeon of the faux-Batman stuff... I still can't believe they put that on television. 

For all the glorious blood spattered exploded brains and sex act juvenilia, it felt like padding, like they were dragging their feet, and honestly, I think they were, in order to have that cliffhanger finale.

Fortunately, in the last couple episodes of the season, everything speeds up and events cascade. 

NOW things feel like they're moving forward again. I suspect they wanted to save the really bonkers stuff for the final season. 

Kripke was the showrunner on Supernatural and told a well realized story arc that concluded with season five. Then he left, and the show was kept on life support as a Zombie Franchise for 10 more seasons because money. But this bodes well for The Boys: Kripke very likely DOES have an ending in mind, and I expect it to be both disgusting and spectacular.

Which is exactly what you'd expect, and want, for The Boys.  

I have faith!

Cryptid entry: The Smores Beaver of Upper Canada

The legendary Smores beaver of Canada; image from a rock in Northern Ontario, near Owen Sound

A popular cryptid of the Great White North, the Smores Beaver is a Canadian icon that goes back to ancient times, and carvings of its stylized likeness are found frequently among pictographs (up to 10,000 years old) in Northern Ontario. Tribes known for their high marshmallow consumption were prone to dangerous Smores cults, and their initiations required hundreds of pounds of marshmallows. Believed to breathe fire, the Smores Beaver can melt chocolate bars at 30 paces, and dislikes having its picture taken.

Approach with caution.

Delicious in Dungeon is bonkers fun

Delicious in Dungeon is a Japanese Anime based on a Manga (by Ryoko Kui) about a group of Western style Dungeons & Dragons adventurers going down into a dungeon and cooking the monsters. Of course, they do this while trying to rescue a friend who's being slowly digested, after a TPK, in the belly of a Red Dragon.

It's a fantasy adventure comedy cooking show. 

I'm not kidding.

If that style of weird is up your alley, Delicious in Dungeon may be for you!

It's (dryly) very funny, the monsters are clever, and the cooking angle is a hoot. The colourful characters are over the top in a good way. One of them, I suspect, was originally a cat. 

The main group consists of a fighter who's monster cuisine obsessed, a young female wizard-elf, a... gnome? I think? And a dwarf who joins them on the way.

It cuts to a second group of less fortunate adventurers from time to time, and their paths intersect more and more. 

The show doesn't shy away from depicting violence, or blood and guts, or internal organs, or seasoning and grilling. It makes me wonder what basilisk or animated armour tastes like.

The 'Dungeon Master' is a sly lil' elf character who manages the entire place (of course he does!). Thought went into plotting out the dungeon ecology. 

The show plays with D&D tropes like deathless characters: players repeatedly head down into the dungeon, death after death, until they find success. Here, it's not so much a game mechanic as it is an aspect of this dungeon: death is not permanent, thanks to magic and curses and some such. It's a mix of tongue in cheek meta-commentary, contextual humour, and straight up adventure, with some mystery thrown in on the side.

Which is just what I'd expect from a fantasy adventure comedy cooking show.

Wouldn't you?