Ah, fall is here. The school buses are on the streets every morning and afternoon, your favorite TV shows are back on the air and… what’s that smell? Why, pumpkin spice, of course! That inescapable smell of pumpkin spice everything.
Here at AiPT!, fall is exciting for a different reason–we’ll be launching our official podcast! Look for the first episode of the AiPT! Podcast soon, but for now, get to know it’s co-hosts David Hildebrand and Jason Segarra in this month’s edition of Staff Picks!
David Hildebrand, Contributor
It’s a new season! What are you most looking forward to this fall? There are quite a few things I’m looking forward to this fall. I’m a huge soccer fan, so my weekend mornings will consist of me waking up at 7 a.m. to watch Barclays Premiere League.
Halloween is right around the corner, so I have to plan out my 30 Days of Halloween movie list. This year, I am shooting for 30 horror films that I have never seen before. I’m curious if that will work out the way I want it to.
Favorite current comic series: My backlog of books continues to grow but there are 3 books that I read the day they come out. First is Amerikarate, an action-comedy book that is very adult-oriented and has many references to the ’80s movies I adore.
Next is Postal, written by Bryan Edward Hill. Hill has created an interesting world in Eden. Eden is a place where hardened criminals get a second chance at life, but as you can guess, things in Eden aren’t that easy.
The third is The Fix, written by Nick Spencer. No “Hail Hydra Cap” here! Just two corrupt cops and a drug-sniffing beagle. Another adult-oriented comic that I have dug since the first issue.
Favorite current TV series: I’m not a big fan of many TV shows. It seems like I always have something going on so I start missing episodes of shows that I like and then try to catch up. But I have been watching one show on Netflix called Club De Cuervos. It’s a soccer comedy/drama focusing on a brother and sister that inherited their father’s soccer club after he passed away. The pair try their best to co-exist as they strive to bring the club back to the successful team it once was. The third season starts at the end of October.
Last great movie you saw: The last great movie that I watched was IT. I’m jaded, I have seen many horror films, domestic and foreign and I can’t find any that have truly scared me. I don’t like clowns, so I was hoping IT would finally be the exception. IT didn’t scare me, I saw the scares coming but they were still a lot of fun. I liked the story, I thought the children actors did an exceptional job, and I absolutely loved the score! IT is easily one of the better horror movies I have seen in quite a while.
Current gaming addiction: At the moment, I’m hooked on Destiny 2. I missed the train on the first Destiny, but decided to drink the Kool-Aid with the sequel. I like the mix of single/co-op campaign, co-op missions, and online battles all in the name of getting LOOT! I need loot! I crave loot! I have a sexy gun right now called the Vigilance Wing and it’s my baby. I will never get rid of it. This is one game that, unfortunately, I see myself paying for DLC *single tear*!
Coolest recent purchase: I got a new car! And i mean new, as in it had 15 miles when I got it. I have never had a new new car before so I’m pretty psyched and have already started to decorate it with Punisher skulls. Tinted windows are next!
Biggest pet peeve of the moment: people overusing words like “epic” “savage” and “amazing”. The only word I use out of those three is “amazing” and when I use it, I really mean whatever I’m referring to is truly “amazing” The other two words are so abused, they have lost all meaning. I will NEVER use the word “epic” because it’s so cheapened now, it has lost its strength. Sorry, Epic. I might be savage, but you will never be amazing.
Jason Segarra, Contributor
It’s a new season! What are you most looking forward to this fall? This may prove to be a theme here, but I’m a huge horror movie guy – so I’m most looking forward to people treating my interests as seasonally appropriate instead of just weird. I love Halloween and every October I host a scary movie marathon for my friends where we start with a not-at-all serious scary movie (last year was Japanese classic House) and then either get serious or go further down the rabbit hole of schlocky horror (like, say, Full Moon favorite Blood Dolls or my favorite Daniel Stern performance in C.H.U.D.). I also like fall and winter fashion more than the summer/spring, and eating ramen on a chilly day is maybe my favorite combination of sensations.
Favorite current comic series: I am really enjoying Warren Ellis’s new The Wild Storm series for DC. It’s a windy and intelligent sci-fi epic that re-imagines so many of my favorites from the old Image series it’s based off of. The particularly strong elements are the storyboards and action sequences, which have a gritty, kinetic energy straight out of a Paul Greengrass film.
Favorite current TV series: I just finished the most recent season of Narcos and really enjoyed it, but OH MAN, people who had issue with the cameo from ginger crooner Ed Sheeran taking them out of the moment of their favorite show will have trouble with this one. The show follows the story of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel on their reign of terror through the mid ’90s, so naturally it’s a pretty dark show. Yet it’s hard to maintain that sense of earnest legitimacy when comedian Gabriel Iglesias is supposed to be playing a badass Dominican gang banger. No matter what kind of acting “Fluffy” is capable of, the dude looks like a chubby 10-year-old with a goatee drawn on with marker. Worse yet is Wayne Knight playing an American lawyer for the cartel, who has a few cringe-worthy lines and fake smokes a cigarette like a 13-year-old who doesn’t smoke trying to impress a 14-year-old who doesn’t smoke.
Last great movie you saw: I feel like it’s cheating, but I just saw the new version of IT last week and loved it. The cinematography, the effects, the acting, I enjoyed it front to back. It got me really excited for the forthcoming second season of Stranger Things, too. If we go a little further back, the last great movie I saw (i.e. better than just good) was Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Talk about a scary movie with a deeper meaning. In addition to its relevant social commentary that provoked important conversations between viewers of all races, the movie was just so well-paced and shot. It’s really hard to believe it was Peele’s first time behind the camera.
Current gaming addiction: Friday the 13th the Game–where was this thing my whole life? The game boils down to a sort of “hide and go seek” aesthetic where players take on the role of any number of different camp counselors (each of whom correspond to a different ’80s slasher movie stereotype) or Jason himself (who also dresses in the various costumes he’s worn in the movie series and–more importantly–his NES video game). Each game lasts as long as 15 minutes, with the counselors having separate tasks and weapons that can help them escape or hold Jason off, while Jason uses his special powers (which range from teleportation to the ability to cut his iconic music and “ki ki ki ma ma ma” chant to allow him to sneak up on unsuspecting players. It is cool to be paired up with total strangers, but playing with friends is where it’s at. You can’t do couch co-op, but having a crowd shouting instructions at you and jumping at every scare is just as fun, it’s like an interactive movie!
Coolest recent purchase: A few months back I went from a Chromebook to a MacBook Pro, which is a bit like going from a bike to a BMW. While the Chromebook was functional and able to help me do simple tasks like word processing or web scrolling, but anything more than a Google search was more of a crapshoot. Now that I’m able to process music, edit images and video, I feel like I once again have a computer instead of a glorified tablet.
Biggest pet peeve of the moment: It feels like “pet peeve” means something small and somewhat inconsequential (as opposed to the big things that we should actually be upset about like Nazis, violence, etc.) So I’m going to go with those HPV commercials where an actor discusses all of the “surprising” ways one can contract HPV and how it could be caught earlier in their lives, only to then cut to a young actor (it literally says they are actors on screen) blaming their parents for getting HPV. Not to be crass, but like screw you, kid, and especially whoever wrote this damn commercial. Worse yet, they seem to travel in packs, so invariably there are two kids pretending to have HPV and blaming their parents for it that I want to punch every time.
Hear more from David and Jason on the AiPT! Podcast – coming soon!
And we know you have picks of your own–share them in the comment space below and we’ll see you next month!
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