Category Archives: FRONT

FRONT, Netflix

Netflix’s Tiger King Review

The true story about a man and his tigers – oh and a very complex murder plot.

With so much self isolation happening right now (thanks COVID-19) and the amount of streaming services filled to the brim with content available, it’s very easy to miss an absolute bonkers of a gem just waiting for that binge session.

Such is the case with Netflix’s latest docu-series outing “Tiger King” which, upon first glimpse, could be mistaken for a show about an outlandish, mullet sporting tiger owner, but look closer and the tag line reveals the show is about so much more than tigers.

“MURDER, MAYHEM AND MADNESS”

True crime canon has never seen a character like Joe Exotic (real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage) before. A 50 year old (give or take a few years) gun toting, country music singing, bleached mullet sporting gay polygamist who owns and operates an exotic animal private zoo.

And who also happens to find himself locked up in jail for being the mastermind behind a murder-for-hire plot that targeted Big Cats Rescue founder Carole Baskin.

And it is Joe Exotic’s feud with Carole that features heavily within the first two episodes of this seven episode series. Joe thinks he’s doing right with his zoo and his menagerie of wild animals – Carole thinks she’s doing right by her animal rescue park by trying to get Joe shut down. It’s menial stuff that introduces us to a wider cast of younger husbands, zoo workers and other exotic animal park owners that all end up intertwined with each other and eventually blows up into one big giant fireball of a mess that sees this story evolve into something that no one could ever imagine.

Big Cats Rescue founder Carole Baskin

While the first few episodes set the story and it’s mass of crazy characters, the back half takes a sharp look at the criminal investigation of the murder-for-hire plot that begins when an informant rolls on Joe thanks to being caught out on an illegal purchase of a lemur.

Seriously.

This is also not taking into account other moments or highlights that include a presumed murdered-and-fed-to-the-tigers-husband, a park owner who one could only assume will end up being caught up in the “me too” movement, drugs, failed bids for US president, an accidental suicide, condoms with Joe Exotic’s face plastered on them, arson, con-men, a failed tiger filled party bus for hire in Vegas business and one of the most insultingly vulgar eulogies ever witnessed.

It’s so bizarre, one could be forgiven for thinking this was a scripted spin-off of a show like the Mitchell Hurwitz created Arrested Development.

But in the end, it is no surprise that Tiger King is being gulped down by the masses. True crime is always enjoyable, good true crime with a cast of wacky and unbelievable characters that goes in every which way but up – rare.

Tiger King; Murder, Mayhem and Madness is streaming now on Netflix.

FRONT

NY Toy Fair 2020 unveils new pop! Vinyls

Back in early January 2016, I wrote about ‘my want list’ in relation to the world of Pop! Vinyls from Funko (post can be found here) The original Charlie’s Angels, Melrose Place, Sex and the City…

Shortly after the post, Funko unveiled Clueless pop! vinyls – one of the mentions on my list.

Fast forward to Feb 2020 and the New York toy fair and I can cross another TWO items off that list!

Yep, Will & Grace AND Romy and Michele pop! vinyls have just been unvieled during day one of the New York toy fair 2020. Check them out below….

  • Grace Adler
  • Jack McFarland
  • Karen Walker
  • Romy White
  • Michele Weinberger
  • Will Truman

All pop! vinyls (along with the numerous other releases announced (including Smoky and the Bandit, Archie Comics and The Office to name a few) will all be available from your favourite retailer soon.

Now if we can get those Melrose Place pop! vinyls, i’ll be happy!

FRONT

Review: 10 All Access’s “evil”

Katja Herbers (Kristen) and Michael Emerson (Leland) clash on Evil (c) CBS 2019

You’d be forgiven for thinking Evil (now streaming on 10 All Access) is just another cut and paste crime procedural drama show. There’s your team of investigators (including a  forensic psychologist and your stock standard tech guy) and a different case each week to solve. But what makes Evil different from what’s been done is that it’s not entirely a ‘crime’ series. Evil has strong religious themes behind it involving the Vatican and their trying to prove or debunk exceptional cases of miracles and demonic possession.

The opening episode for instance involves forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) meeting with a man, suspected of committing several murders but the topic of him being possessed at the time of his crimes brings her into contact with priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter) who works for the Catholic Church investigating supernatural cases that pique the churches interest.

Michelle and Robert King, the minds behind Evil are also are the same pair responsible for the fantastic The Good Wife and The Good Fight so it’s no surprise that when Kristen is in court, the show shifts into a legal drama or when she’s at home with her four (annoying loud) young daughters, the show shifts into a family drama. And it may seem there’s a lot of ‘shifting’ going around, but Evil never really loses it’s focus as the legal and family themes become intertwined with the supernatural as Kristen finds herself at loggerheads not only with occult expert Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson) but also with a demonic presence that begins to greet her at night.

The only real let down from Evil is how quickly some of the story lines are wrapped up or never actually solved. The angel caught on camera in a hospital? Don’t expect too many answers on that one. The prophet who can see the future? Not going to spoil it, but that’s swept under the rug and shipped out to sea. It becomes a frustrating watch as you realize, with almost the entire episode done, they’ve still got to wrap the main story line up and you know it’s not going to be satisfying.

Evil on paper has a lot of promise and a likable cast that also includes Christine Lahti, Kurt Boggs and our very own Patrick Brammall. If you can get past the quickly wrapped up story arcs and Kristen’s REALLY loud children, you will find a tense science versus supernatural drama involving some really interesting cases.

Evil is currently streaming on 10 All Access

FRONT

Who’s under the mask?! The Masked Singer australia First episode review.

It’s one of the most hotly anticipated shows to hit our screens this year and also, one of the most bizarre – The Masked Singer Australia brings twelve celebrities, local and international, disguises their identities under elaborate costumes (some more stunning that others…) and throws them on stage to sing their heart out while dropping clues about just who is under the mask.

The ‘guessing’panel (l-r) Jackie O, Dannii Minogue, Dave Hughes and Lindsay Lohan. (c) Network Ten 2019

The ‘guessing panel’ is a hodgepodge of well known names – Radio host Jackie O, THE Dannii Minogue, comedian Dave Hughes and making the most surprising appearance – Lindsay Lohan, fresh from her stint in Mykonos, hosting her own reality show Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club

Kicking off the show is host Osher Günsberg, claiming “We’ve never seen anything like this on television” and no, he’s not referring to the silver brocade palm tree suit he’s sporting in the opening episode.

Osh and his suit for the opening episode. (c) Network Ten 2019.

What follows is a round of introductions where our mystery celebs are paired up into battle rounds where they have a sing off, the audience choose their favorite and at the end of the episode, one celebrity is forced to reveal who is under that mask!

The guessing panel spend the episode trying to pick up on any clue possible as to the masked identities and at one point after Prawn sings, Hughesy, the only male on the guessing panel, manages to suffer a case of foot-in-mouth by asking “there’s a few people on this panel who have gone out with sports players” which leads to some some uncomfortable glances from Dannii and a wtf?! from Lindsay.

The mystery celebs can all sing and really well….too well in fact, especially concealed under such elaborate outfits where microphones have no direct access to their voice. A google search revealed “do the celebs sing live on Masked Singer?” is a constant search term – globally speaking – and i’m still yet to find an answer that doesn’t involve the words “we filmed in one take and they sung it live”. I’ll let you all be the judge on that.

So who’s under these masks in our version? Everyone in the know has been super tight lipped but names such as Deni Hines (who i’m pegging as the Unicorn simply from her distinctive and well known tone) to Courtney Act, Rob Mills to Jason Donavan have all been tipped to have stepped into costume. And the guessing is half the fun of these shows.

JUST WHO DID NETWORK TEN GET TO PUT ON THE MASK?!

To finish this review off, The Masked Singer Australia is family fun viewing. The songs sung on the first episode range from Elvis’s Suspicious Minds to Irene Cara’s FAME to Ed Sheeran’s Perfect and you can see everyone is having fun. There’s not really much to poke at here because it’s masked celebs singing songs – with Lindsay Lohan trying to guess who they are.

Is there a reveal on night one? My preview episode didn’t get to that point so i guess we’ll all have to watch to find that one out!

The Masked Singer Australia begins Monday night – September 23rd, at 7:30pm on Network Ten.

Aaron Spelling, Channel 10, FRONT

90210 is back but with a new face and attitude.

It’s 1995 on the phone and it wants to tell you that in 2019, the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 will be back on your screens in an all new version of the show.

Let’s Talk About The Original: Anyone alive during the 90’s knows of 90210. You may be one of the few not to have watched it but you knew about it and the array of pin-up worthy cast members that made magazine covers world wide. The original premise of the Aaron Spelling series followed twins Brenda Walsh (Shannen Doherty) and Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestley) and their friends as they navigate their way through high school, college and into adulthood. Steamy love triangles, story arcs about drugs and alcohol abuse and romantic entanglements featured predominately throughout the shows ten seasons.

Let’s Talk About This Reboot: The reboot picks up 19 years after the original ended, where most of the main cast attend a 90210 reunion in Vegas (keep an eye out for 90210 super-fan Darren Martin aka 9021Bro on Instagram in this scene!) After a hilarious mini melt-down from Tori Spelling – which goes viral, real-life best friends Spelling and Jennie Garth to go about pitching a 90210 reboot to FOX (that in episode two brings in Christine Elise aka Emily Valentine, in a very clever way) and while the network loves the idea, they’ll only come on board if the entire cast is willing to come back. The task isn’t as easy is it should be with animosities, egos and broken hearts come into play.

Straight up, this new incarnation of 90210 smartly takes a new approach to the ‘reboot’ format by creating a scripted semi-reality-meets-comedy show that has the entire cast playing exaggerated versions of themselves (think James Van Der Beek in the fantastic Don’t Trust the B*tch in Apartment 23).

BH90210: R-L: Tori Spelling and Shannen Doherty in the BH90210 “Pitch” episode ©2019 Fox Media LLC Cr: Shane Harvey/FOX

After exhausting every avenue of her ‘brand’ Tori Spelling finds herself close to broke with a career-stalled husband and a house full of kids, Jennie Garth is struggling with a teenage daughter who wants to get into the acting industry while dealing with the end of her third marriage. Brian Austin Green is living the sweet life thanks to his mega star singer wife Shay (La La Anthony) but wants to break from her overbearing star status, Jason Priestly has moved into directing but has anger issues dealing with his younger cast. Ian Ziering is crazily promoting his health and fitness empire any way possible while Gabrielle Carteris is the head of an actors union. Shannen Doherty…..let’s just say she’s found her spiritual center.

The premise of the show does have a some-what uneasy mix of comedy meets drama, because it never really knows what lane it wants to steer directly in to. Most of Green’s scenes involving his attempt at a career revival have a deep poke-at-the-industry undertone to them along with Carteris who finds herself trying to answer a question about herself that has suddenly appeared whilst Priestly and Ziering seem to be relishing playing exaggerated versions of themselves, milking the comedy out of scenes for all they can.

It is Tori Spelling however who seems to not only take the lead in this outing but is also the clear MVP. Chewing through scenes with comedic ease, it’s as if, Tori Spelling playing Tori Spelling was the role she has been waiting her entire post-90210 career to play.

So many of the reboots hitting television screens in recent times have tried to emphasize and encapsulate the nostalgia attached to it and while some work well, none have done it so hard on or taken such a left turn with the format as 90210 has done. The show itself has been strictly aimed at the 90210 fans, those who remember specific episodes, character hook-ups, outfits and quotes and while there’s barely any mention of notable former cast members (Tiffany Thiessen, Rebecca Gayheart, Laura Leighton, Vincent Young, Hillary Swank) or 90210’s sister show Melrose Place, the vibe of the show will be more than enough to satisfy the most diehard of 90210 fans.

Let’s Talk Final Thoughts: Simply put, BH90210 is a fun show that could miss an audience of those not familiar with the original but will sit very nicely with those who have. It’s wacky and touching and wink-wink-nod-nod at Hollywood while infusing enough of what was loved about the original.

BH90210 starts Tuesday, 24th of September at 8:30pm on Network Ten

FRONT

Our first mego sighting in australia has finally happened.

It’s been all quiet on the Mego front since we posted about the lines available to the international markets and that includes the Australia Post exclusive Wizard of Oz – Dorothy and Wicked Witch carded figures (which have oddly appeared on Amazon US before any mention of them here)

The Horror Wave Assortment via MightyHeroes.com.au website

But worry no more as it seems we have our first official sighting of new Mego figures here in Australia thanks to pop culture store Mighty Heroes who have listed the horror wave of Mego which includes Freddy Kruger, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Dracula (Bella Lugosi version) and Face of the Screaming Wolf.

Each 8″ figure, via MightyHeroes.com.au is retailing for $34.99 (which is semi in-line with US prices when you take into account currency conversion) and, to date, there is no sighting of the other lines available to international markets which includes the legends, music icons and Star Trek range.

FRONT

Those X-Men Barbie’s are coming with a surprise addition!

That Storm Barbie glimpse offered by Marvel at Essence Fest turns out to be the real deal.

The first ‘official’ images of the X-Men Barbie’s have finally hit the web with some surprising announcements correcting some previously found information which also includes a new addition to the line.

Instagramer papusilemele posted three photos to her account noting that these dolls will be a GameStop exclusive.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz_QcrZipUi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Scrolling through the photos, the previously known Jean Grey doll is in fact a Dark Phoenix release, the Storm which we saw at Essence Fest and the surprise inclusion of our favorite blue skinned shape-shifter Mystique.

By all accounts, it seems they will be available via GameStop from July 18th for pre-order with a retail price of US$54.99 (which translates to around $79AUD)

Will you be ordering these? Sound off in the comments!

FRONT, Music

A little magic happened amid disasters for Sigrid’s ‘mine right now’ clip

When it comes to a music clip for a single that has some money thrown at it, everything upon everything is detailed right down to the last little minuscule detail. From location to wardrobe, sets and choreography, it’s all planned.

And that’s what happened for Norwegian singer Sigrid’s clip for her excellent and highly catchy new single titled “Mine Right Now” off her debut album (Sucker Punch). But when it came to shooting the clip, disaster after disaster struck and when push came to shove to film the clip, something rather magical happened in the final result.

In a behind the scenes interview, director Max Siedentopf explains “Literally everything went wrong” starting with Sigrid herself unable to make it to location in Bulgaria due to multiple delayed flights leaving Siedentopf to step in and ‘be Sigrid’ in the clip. “Travel with park rangers, police stops, collapsed sets, loads of bad weather…my biggest weakness is singing, and I’m now in a music video, so let’s see how it goes.”

The final, delightful result, showcases Siedentopf, clearly out of his comfort zone, dancing ‘Sound of Music’ style out in the mountain framed fields in Bulgaria all the while the crew deal with wind storms, Sigrid on Face Time and a missing drone. Check out the clip below.

Mine Right Now is off Sigrid’s debut album Sucker Punch.

FRONT

A new Wentworth Season 7 Trailer has dropped and it has me shook!

We are literally weeks away until we return to Wentworth for it’s seventh season on Foxtel and this morning, a brand new trailer dropped showcasing the crazy that’s coming our way. Check it out below!

This seventh season looks set to be a Rita (Leah Purcell) versus Marie (Susie Porter) showdown with Rita now an official inmate at Wentworth Correctional after she killed Marie’s muscle Drago (Natalia Novikova) at the end of season six. Meanwhile it seems Marie is locking herself into a love triangle with herself and Allie (Kate Jenkinson) and Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva) all the while governor Vera (Kate Atkinson) struggles to control the women and her pregnancy.

Never a dull moment in Wentworth!

Season seven begins 8:30pm, Tuesday May 28th on FOX Showcase via Foxtel

FRONT, Netflix

Netflix’s Black Summer is your new Zombie Binge Watch

Courtesy of Netflix

A couple of weeks ago, Netflix quietly dropped a new ‘Netflix original’ series called Black Summer that has everything you need to fill that zombie void until The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead returns.

The series (apparently set within the same world as Z Nation – which I am yet to watch), all bleak and depressing in its stark blue wash, kicks off in the American suburbs only a few short weeks after the onset of a deadly outbreak where people are striving to make it to ‘the arena’, a military zoned rescue point. This is where we first meet our series heroine Rose (Jamie King) as she, her husband and daughter attempt to make it to the evacuation jeeps. But things don’t go to plan and it’s not long before Rose is flying solo, trying to get to her final destination.

The series introduces several other key figures along the way including *possible* criminal on the run Spears (Justin Chu Cary), Kyungsun (Christine Lee) a non-English speaking Korean woman and Lance (Kelsey Flower) who may possibly be the one character to offer a glaringly realistic view of just how an everyday Joe may go about trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse.

And this zombie apocalypse is different to the world in which we’re used to seeing. The zombie’s aren’t your slow-assed Sunday stroll zombies either. These buggers can run. Like fast. And turning them doesn’t take hours after death. It’s literally instantaneously as introduced in the opening episode.

While Black Summer makes for an engaging edge-of-your-seat show, there are a few misses scattered among the many hits that makes the show so great. The eight episodes are all scattered in length making some feel like they ended a little too quickly while others, a little too long. The pilot episode runs for just on 44 minutes allowing for character introduction and a decent look at the world they’re living in while the finale wraps up in a short 20 minute outing forcing the story line to jolt to a somewhat open ended finale.

And don’t be too worried if you feel like your’e missing an episode between 5 and 6. Episode five (Diner) is set entirely within an abandoned diner where the characters bicker and fight while Episode six (Heist) finds the same characters partaking in an extremely detailed heist on an underground warehouse. It’s a situation that is some cause of confusion considering the importance the heist plays on the rest of the season.

Black Summer series trailer

In the end, Black Summer is a series that is always on the go, even in the quietest of moments, there’s a sense of urgency, a sense of needing to keep moving as enemies both dead and alive are right around the corner. And its this constant tension that not only sets Black Summer apart from other zombie apocalypse shows but also makes for entertaining viewing.

Black Summer season one is not available to stream on Netflix.