Serious Series Addiction Part 5: : Exercise Bike Binge-Watching Through The Pandemic

While stuck at home since last Spring due to the damn pandemic, I’ve tried to keep busy by working on various writing projects (like my second book – more on that later), but what I’ve mainly been doing is binge-watching while exercise biking (above is the digital display monitor on my bike, and, of course, my TV).

When I first posted the first installment of Serious Series Addiction in 2010, the term “binge-watching” wasn’t in wide use. I didn’t even use it until a few entries later, instead saying things like “devouring one episode after another.”

Now, binge-watching isn’t just a well known concept – it’s a way of life. Getting on the stationary bike, firing up the Roku, selecting a show on whatever streaming service (Netlfix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.) and energetically pedaling through it really gets me going these days. 

Early in quarantine, I took on a program I had been curious about for a while: The Man in the High Castle, the Amazon-produced series based on the Phillip K. Dick book of the same name. 

The premise is wonderfully juicy – America lost World War II, and the country has been taken over by the Germans and the Japanese. The show is gritty yet still lush looking with its movie quality production values and boasts a solid cast, which includes Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, Stephen Root, and Rufus Sewell, a stand-out as a Nazi officer who somehow becomes a sympathetic character. The show gets more and more compelling as it reaches the inspired conclusion of its fourth season. Highly recommended. 

Next up, a show I’ve seen random episodes of before, but wanted to do the complete deep dive on, Showtime’s Shameless, which is based on the British series of the same name. The Chicago-set series concerns the sleazy scams, and shenanigans of the unwieldy and extremely wild Gallagher family which is held together by the oldest daughter Fiona (Emily Rossum). This is because the family’s father, Frank (William H. Macy*) is too drunk or drugged up (or both) to pull his weight. Shameless is over-stuffed with too many characters and plotlines, but it’s fast paced so one can easily enjoyable whoosh through the narratives. At 10 seasons (with an 11th which is supposedly the final one), it’s a lot to take in. It took me about a week and a half and I was pretty exhausted when I finished. 

* When I interviewed Macy a few years ago, I hadn’t seen much of Shameless. If I had seen the show in full, that interview would've been very different I believe.

Back when the acclaimed show Boardwalk Empire premiered ten years ago premiered on HBO, I was right there with it, especially since the first episode was directed by Martin Scorsese. I enjoyed it and watched most of the first and second seasons. But, despite that it starred three of my favorite actors – Steve Buscemi, Michael Shannon, and Kelly Macdonald – I drifted away from it. I always intended to pick it back up, and lockdown appeared to be the perfect time. 

Set in Atlantic City during prohibition in the ‘20s, the program stars Buscemi as Enoch “Bucky” Thompson, a politician turned bootlegger with a mob boss air. Since Boardwalk Empire was created by The Sopranos executive producer Terrence Winter, and shares a number or writers and cast members with that classic mafia series, it’s unsurprisingly violent as hell. But more importantly, it’s often on the same satisfying level as The Sopranos. And that certainly is no mean feat.

The original TOTAL RECALL gets a spiffy new Blu ray release today

In a perfect piece of cross-promotion, Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 sci-fi thriller TOTAL RECALL is getting a new remastered Blu ray release the same week that the film’s remake opens in theaters (Len Wiseman's version opens Friday, August 3rd).

Although the high-definition transfer contained on what’s dubbed the “Mind-Bending Edition” often draws attention to the dated effects, the original still holds up.

Even if you’re not an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, it’s fun to follow him through the twists and turns of the incredibly intriguing premise which was loosely based on the 1966 Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.”

Schwarzenegger plays a construction worker in the year 2084 named Doug Quaid (in the short story the character’s name was Quail, but at the time the Vice President was the heavily ridiculed Dan Quayle so you can see why they changed it) who gets more than he bargained for when he decides to get memories of a trip to Mars implanted by a company named Rekall.

Our hero opts for the “Secret Agent” package in which he gets to “get the girl, kill the bad guys and save the entire planet,” but he has a violent reaction to the procedure because his mind has been tampered with before because he actually is a secret agent with a Martian past.

Or maybe that’s the phony adventure memory Rekall implanted – the movie keeps you guessing, even after it’s over about whether it’s “all in the mind, you know” as George Harrison said in YELLOW SUBMARINE.

So Schwarzenegger’s marriage to Sharon Stone (later to star in Verhoeven’s BASIC INSTINCT) is a sham, and he’s on the run from goons headed by Michael Ironside under the rule of evil Mars Governor Ronny Cox (also a villain in Verhoeven’s ROBOCOP).

TOTAL RECALL is a successful blend of action and humor with a lot of cartoon violence (including some Tim Burton-esque eye-popping), and it just might have the most shots of people smashing through glass in a movie ever. Oh, and it also has a 3-breasted prostitute (thanks high-definition transfer!) who shows up in a sleazy Martian bar full of aliens that makes the Cantina scene from STAR WARS look pretty quaint.

There are only a couple of new special features on this Blu ray - an interview with Verhoeven, and a restoration comparison featurette. The commentary with Schwarzenegger and Verhoeven was recorded over a decade ago for a DVD release but I'm glad it reappears here because it’s really funny (mostly unintentionally) how they both go on about what’s reality and what isn’t in the film. Also Schwarzenegger notes all the sexual content in a way that I bet he wouldn’t if they recorded it today.

I hear the new version isn't a total remake because it doesn’t have a trip to Mars, but there is a 3-breasted Prostitute! Also Colin Farrell’s lead character is still named Quaid so there's that.

We shall soon see if they do as well with the material as Verhoeven and co. did back in the day.

If not, we’ll at least have this spiffy Blu ray of the original.

More later...