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Once in a while I\u2019ll review a TV series in spite of there being no digital or physical home video release to buy and own outright, and I deliberately waited for the excitement around Stranger Things <\/strong><\/a>to subside before I tasted Netflix\u2019s 100% wholly owned show for myself.<\/p>\n I\u2019d reviewed the Lakeshore Records soundtrack albums \u2013 available to buy digitally, on CD, and on vinyl \u2013 for Rue Morgue magazine in 2016, so part of the curiosity was in seeing how the amazing music by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein worked with the series, and as I state in my series review, it\u2019s the glue that holds the show together; it\u2019s hard to imagine another composer, let alone different musical approach, that would fit so well with this loving homage to 1980s PG-13 fantasy \/ sci-fi thrillers.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve written in prior blogs<\/a>, Poltergeist<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(1982) reflected my childhood. It was a 1972-built neighbourhood, but we had a large park across the street, lots of front & backyard space, greenery, mature trees, new families in their starter homes (which in \u201972 averaged just under $35,000, with an under $5,000 down-payment).<\/p>\n A few rare families had two cars, and neighbours tried to out-do the other, and when 28\u201d Sony TVs were on sale, three of us idiots bought one for our families. Or rather my father did. Traffic was less heavy, so riding your bike to meet friends, heading to the park, and doing mischief was the norm, and parents weren\u2019t over-protective.<\/p>\n Raccoons had yet to infiltrate North York, so the world\u2019s most annoying rodent was less of a headache. Cellphones were non-existent, videogames exceptionally expensive, VCR\u2019s around $1500. A bag of chips, a chocolate bar, or pack of gum cost 25 cents each, and a block of purple Ton O\u2019 Gum was 10 cents (but tasted like crap after 20 seconds of chewing).<\/p>\n My mother went to\u00a0neighbouring Tupperware parties, and I still have the green food containers with that folded pattern in Season 1, which l use to house spices.\u00a0Unlike the kids in ST, I didn\u2019t have Radio Shack Walkie-Talkies, but I had my own pair of budget units that I bought at Consumers Distributing, because any kind of electronic gear brought you a little closer to being a real spy<\/em>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s understandable why many have bonded with Stranger Things<\/strong>, and I\u2019m a cynic by genetics, but if something is done well and isn\u2019t screaming Isn\u2019t This Too Cool to sell merchandise, I warm up to it. Unlike the films ST evokes and recombines into its 8-episode narrative, there\u2019s far less merchandise than expected, which is maybe part of the Duffer brothers attempt to distance their creation from a fabricated pastiche: without toys and spin-off novels, the show is allowed to stand on its own. The hype that still surrounds ST is potent, but it\u2019s not undeserving, which makes the wait for Season 2 tough,\u00a0but manageable.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still juggling & repositioning some posts because of scheduling, but coming shortly are the underwater 3D adventure film September Storm <\/strong>(1960), another set of Twilight Time titles, and a podcast.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor Nope, it’s not (yet) on physical media, so here’s a review of Stranger Things: Season 1 (2016), Netflix’s hit series, available only from the burgeoning broadcaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5032,2562,2563,5033,5034,5030,5031,980],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/StrangerThings_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-45o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15710"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15729,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15710\/revisions\/15729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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