13.02: National Alaska Day

Happy National Alaska Day—on October 18th! We celebrated Alaska by watching a few movies and a tv show that take place in Alaska. Sadly, we learned later, they weren’t actually filmed in The Last Frontier.

For a trek into the wild, we skipped that one and rewatched “The Grey” (max) instead. We decided that we would definitely want Liam Neeson with us if we were ever in a plane crash. Actually, we’d want Liam Neeson with us in any emergency situation. The film takes not just a few liberties with wolf behavior. I mean, wolves are friends, not fiends. But, hey, this is Hollywood, and ya gotta have a villain. I guess a plane crashing in the middle-of-nowhere, Alaska, wasn’t enough.

If you missed the 3-second post-credits scene, you can watch it here. Sit through or scrub through the final scene, then do not blink. The clip leaves out the credits. Seriously, you’ll miss it if you blink!

Alaska has got to have killers, so we rewatched Christopher Nolan’s “Insomnia” (rent) with Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hillary Swank, and Maura Tierney. Hillary Swank’s character quotes Al Pacino’s character back to him and says, “A good cop can't sleep because he's missing a piece of the puzzle. And a bad cop can't sleep because his conscience won't let him.” True, and maybe also because it’s freakin’ summertime and the sun never sets! Get the dude some blackout curtains!

After our summer escapade, we jumped to wintertime when vampires would naturally take advantage of “30 Days of Night” (AMC+). Do vampires get cold? Vampire Eric didn’t seem to get cold in that one scene in “True Blood”! Forget sparkling vamps, Viking vamps, or sexy vamps. These are monstrous, ugly vamps. Though we do discuss Josh Hartnett a bit.

Finally, we dipped into a little bit of small-town doctor life with “Northern Exposure” (tubi).Yes, Alaska must have some normalcy. Hmm.

So, no biopics or documentaries. No, we didn’t actually learn anything true about Alaska. And, as mentioned earlier, the films were mostly shot in British Columbia, while “Northern Exposure” was filmed in Washington state. Dude.

Next week: We’re celebrating the 15th anniversary of the “Breaking Bad” pilot and the 10th anniversary of the finale (“Felina”).