RED LIGHT BYTES: Updates Dossier (11-25-2024)
All The Latest From The Frontlines of Our Metallic Future...
OVERVIEW
Morning, soldiers! Back off the mat for seconds, though I will admit this edition of the newsletter will be VERY truncated because of lots of goings-on. Still hammering out stories for both the series and elsewhere, will be recording the new Alan Firedale today (which is an awesomely weird one, not gonna lie), and we’re still roaring along in the art department. In fact, let’s check in on the action:
Intriguing times ahead!
In case you missed a ping from my secondary ‘Stack, I dropped a new article over there after a proper come-to-Jesus moment with my own attitude and approach to the internet, and my work as an artist vs. a wannabe pundit. Dig the diatribe here at your leisure:
THE LIGHTENING ROUNDUP
This is more-or-less just going to be me dumping out things on my mind rather than penning mini-treatises on them. That said, I do have plenty of words for one particular item later in the list…
Never been crazy about The Alan Parsons Project beforehand. I dug the instrumentals, but as far as songs went, I had only stumbled across the super-soft stuff. Not here. The mystery-filled, strutting R&B blended with orchestral passages and a dreamy refrain are properly intoxicating.
While I’m lacking in DC Comics on my shelves, they’ve yielded some crazy good results in the multiplex, and this kinetic-as-hell short from the heyday of the Superman/Fleischer project is a quintessential example. With action so violently kinetic, I literally jumped out of my seat during certain scenes, 1942’s The Bulleteers is a riveting comic book yarn. Not the best in the series, but wildly entertaining regardless.
And now, for something completely different:
So I started Season 4 of Miami Vice…famous last words, I know.
It’s the season where Dick Wolf got bored, gave up his darker creative vision, and basically greenlit every bog-standard (and otherwise) cop script chucked on his desk…is what I thought about the season’s first two episodes.
“Contempt of Court” was a nearly perfect potboiler, until it blew the ending. Literally a freeze-frame away from a classic Vice kickoff.
“Amen…Send Money” is an innovative little number about warring televangelists, but when Vice fans note Season 4 as being the season where the crew kept going beyond their jurisdiction for tenuous reasons, they aren’t kidding. That said, shows like this at least give them a good enough excuse to set down the Peruvian nose powder for a while.
“Death and the Lady” is pure, uncut, five-alarm Miami Vice. Crockett and Tubbs investigate a porno director who may have killed a girl on camera in his latest film. Won’t say anymore, because this is one you gotta watch however you can find it. Oliver Wood is allowed to go whole-hog on his neon cinematography and dynamic compositions, the world of lurid underground art floods every frame, and the twists it takes, and the dénouement it goes for, make the ride worthwhile. And best of all, someone remembered that Miami Vice was meant to be the MTV Cop Hour, and dropped the needle on THIS:
That is "The Edge of Town" by The Truth for those playing at home.
I’m skipping the infamous three (“The Big Thaw,” “Missing Hours,” & “The Cows of October”) on this first watch thru, just to give it a better chance at not kneecapping its own momentum. Will report back when there’s more worth reporting about.
Otherwise, that’s all I got for now. We got another coming up, so stay tuned for when we turn the eBooks loose later this week. And as always:
May God Bless You & This Force. Be Seeing You!
Been taking a break with Miami Vice as of late. Thanks for reminding me I need to get back to it. I think I'm on season 5 now. Almost finished with it.
I recommend the Project's first album, "Tales Of Mystery And Imagination", a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, particularly the 2CD deluxe version.