H-allelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Spoilers fall upon this page.
Alright, after two months, Doctor Who is back... before it goes away for another four months. Annoying hiatuses that would make my head explode if I didn't know Moffat wasn't busy writing Sherlock (H-allelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!) aside, it's time to review the latest DW X-Mas special. Now, like most Whovians, I have mixed feelings about the Christmas specials. I liked the Christmas Invasion, I liked The End of Time, I really liked A Christmas Carol, but for those there's still... the Next Doctor, the Runaway Bride, and the Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe. That's why I was thoroughly surprised when this episode blew me away.
So when this starts off, the Doctor's become lonely and miserable. He's holed up in the TARDIS in Victorian England, he won't talk to anyone except Strax,Vash, and Jenny (great seeing them again), and the deaths of the Ponds still haunt him. But a monster has come to town, specifically the Great Intelligence (voiced by IAN MCKELLAN!!!!), which is using snow and the nefarious Dr. Simeon to reach his goals of attaining a physical form.
I'm not gonna lie, when I first saw the Snowmen monsters in the trailers, I thought they looked wicked cheesy and this episode was just gonna be a showcase for the show's low special effects budget. But not only were the Snowmen effective, albeit slightly underdeveloped, villains (as were Ian McKellan and the guy who played Simeon who's name escapes me), they were far from the main point of the episode.
The point of the episode was Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara. I pretty much fell in love with Clara from the get-go (not just 'cause she's wicked hot-which she is); she was smart (one word answer riddles anyone), she was funny, she was curious, she was tough, she could actually talk faster then the Doctor (apparently that's the reason Coleman was cast) and they had really good chemistry, she was basically everything I liked about Rose amped up to 11, but with the whole River Song-style mystery surrounding her.
The mystery, in case you forgot, was that Coleman appeared in Asylum of the Daleks as well and apparently died, which she did again here. Yeah, you thought Rory was Kenny, now we've got Clara; they obviously didn't explain how she came back to life because that would take the fun out of the whole thing, and I'm glad they didn't, because this is a great mystery. I'm wicked intrigued, and I can't wait to see where this goes. I just have to wait until April to find out. Sigh.
Moffat put in his usual great dialogue into this episode, too. The banter was so hilarious, especially from Vash, Jenny, and Strax (here's hoping for that Spin-off to happen) that I lost track of the number of times I laughed (which culminated when Vash and Jenny showed up at the house and Vash said to the maid "Hello, I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife"). The music by Murray Gold was great as usual, same goes for the new, squeal-inducing opening titles and spectacular TARDIS interior (also, loved how they inverted the usual line with "It's smaller on the outside).
Overall, this was just a great episode. It's one of my favorites of the new season/series/you know what I mean, right up there with Asylum of the Daleks and The Angels Take Manhattan.
Final Rating: 95%
Also, just a quick side note: this will be my last post of 2012. I'll be back on New Year's Day with my best and worst movies of 2012 posts, so I will see you then.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movie review
Okay, so at one point last year I read that David Tennant was almost cast as Bilbo Baggins. My response to this was "hell yeah, forget Freeman. Let's get Tennant." Now that I've seen the movie, Tennant can wait to play Gandalf when they reboot the franchise in 25 years.
No spoilers.
Okay, sorry I'm late with this review, but its here. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey starts Martin Freeman from Sherlock as Bilbo, which, if you didn't surmise from my opening joke, is probably one of the best casting choices ever made. He is perfect as Bilbo. He nails everything: the lines, the mannerism, the whole sense of anxiety, its perfect. That being said, one of my biggest problems with the movie was Bilbo didn't really feel like the main character. I mean I know he is, given the eponymous Hobbit thing, and he does get some great lines and character development, but he really felt more like Han Solo in a New Hope: an important afterthought, but still an afterthought.
Anyway, like I said, Martin Freeman's a great Bilbo, and everyone else is great too; Ian McKellan nails it as Gandalf (still only the Grey at this point) again, this time arguably even more badass then in Lord of the Rings. Granted, he doesn't take on another Balrog, but he's still kicking some major tail. The guy who plays Thorrin who's escapes me is also awesome; Thorrin is basically the Aragorn of this movie, and of all the dwarves, he's the most developed and has the most fleshed out back story.
Let me touch on that: I like all the dwarves so far (their singing is so awesome), but not all of them feel like actual characters cannon fodder. Sylvester McCoy's dwarf is done nicely, as are the two brothers(?) with rhyming names that I can't spell. Beyond that though... Odds are we're gonna start to care about them in the next two... which is when they'll start to die.
And now for the pacing; I'm gonna say the same thing about the pacing that everyone will: it had some issues. There were a lot of scenes that I thought were kind of unnecessary, especially this one part that I won't spoil, but I will say that while it was really cool, after I thought about, I realized it probably should've been left for the director's cut. Don't get me wrong, it was a really freaking cool scene, but still. Same goes for a couple of other sequences that I just thought could've been either cut down by a few minutes and removed all together. It goes like this: first twenty mintutes: awesome. Next thirty minutes I looked at the clock on my phone a few times. Then after that it really picks up and its absolutely fantastic with awesome fighting and battle scenes and just epic moments in general with great music (as in I'm probably going to buy these songs on my iPod great) and good special effects (I know some people are gonna say it was a CGI crapfest, but wasn't. There is a lot of CGI, but its not horrendously overused), and a lot of great humor too. I actually laughed a lot more then I expected to. Granted, I know that the book the Hobbit is more whimsical then the books the Lord of the Rings, but I was still surprised by the amount of times I laughed.
There are two characters in the movie I think I need to address now, and the first is Radagast the Brown. A lot of people are gonna hate this guy. I personally didn't, heck I even laughed at one or two things he did while he was trying to cure his little CGI porcupine (named Sebastian), but there will be some people who call him the Jar Jar Binks of Middle Earth. Again, I don't think he is, and neither did my friends that I saw it with. But if you do feel that way, he's only like ten minutes of the movie, so don't worry.
The next character is Gollum. Bilbo and Gollum in the cave together was the best part of the entire movie. I could've watched that for two hours. Gollum looks great too; the effects have made it so he really looks like he's there now, and Andy Serkis, as usual, deserves the Oscar that he won't get. But that sequence was just so entertaining. I actually can't even really tell why it's so great without spoiling it, so that's a bit of a bummer.
The last thing I'm going to address is the 48 frames per second speed. I have no idea what I saw this movie in, I really don't. When I was looking at times for showings on my theater's website, all it said was "showing is in 2D". I'm going to assume that I saw it in 24 frames per second because of that fact that at no point did I think it was on fast forward, so yeah.
Also, just as a side note, without spoiling anything, there was a cameo in this movie that people are gonna find polarizing. I personally really liked it; I got a great kick out of it, and really appreciated the way that they did it. That being said, the guy next to me hated it and thought it was totally unnecessary and indulgent. So be warned, you will be polarized.
In the end, I will say that the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a movie night classic.
Alright, so what's your favorite Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth movie, which can include the Hobbit? Comment below, let me know!
No spoilers.
Okay, sorry I'm late with this review, but its here. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey starts Martin Freeman from Sherlock as Bilbo, which, if you didn't surmise from my opening joke, is probably one of the best casting choices ever made. He is perfect as Bilbo. He nails everything: the lines, the mannerism, the whole sense of anxiety, its perfect. That being said, one of my biggest problems with the movie was Bilbo didn't really feel like the main character. I mean I know he is, given the eponymous Hobbit thing, and he does get some great lines and character development, but he really felt more like Han Solo in a New Hope: an important afterthought, but still an afterthought.
Anyway, like I said, Martin Freeman's a great Bilbo, and everyone else is great too; Ian McKellan nails it as Gandalf (still only the Grey at this point) again, this time arguably even more badass then in Lord of the Rings. Granted, he doesn't take on another Balrog, but he's still kicking some major tail. The guy who plays Thorrin who's escapes me is also awesome; Thorrin is basically the Aragorn of this movie, and of all the dwarves, he's the most developed and has the most fleshed out back story.
Let me touch on that: I like all the dwarves so far (their singing is so awesome), but not all of them feel like actual characters cannon fodder. Sylvester McCoy's dwarf is done nicely, as are the two brothers(?) with rhyming names that I can't spell. Beyond that though... Odds are we're gonna start to care about them in the next two... which is when they'll start to die.
And now for the pacing; I'm gonna say the same thing about the pacing that everyone will: it had some issues. There were a lot of scenes that I thought were kind of unnecessary, especially this one part that I won't spoil, but I will say that while it was really cool, after I thought about, I realized it probably should've been left for the director's cut. Don't get me wrong, it was a really freaking cool scene, but still. Same goes for a couple of other sequences that I just thought could've been either cut down by a few minutes and removed all together. It goes like this: first twenty mintutes: awesome. Next thirty minutes I looked at the clock on my phone a few times. Then after that it really picks up and its absolutely fantastic with awesome fighting and battle scenes and just epic moments in general with great music (as in I'm probably going to buy these songs on my iPod great) and good special effects (I know some people are gonna say it was a CGI crapfest, but wasn't. There is a lot of CGI, but its not horrendously overused), and a lot of great humor too. I actually laughed a lot more then I expected to. Granted, I know that the book the Hobbit is more whimsical then the books the Lord of the Rings, but I was still surprised by the amount of times I laughed.
There are two characters in the movie I think I need to address now, and the first is Radagast the Brown. A lot of people are gonna hate this guy. I personally didn't, heck I even laughed at one or two things he did while he was trying to cure his little CGI porcupine (named Sebastian), but there will be some people who call him the Jar Jar Binks of Middle Earth. Again, I don't think he is, and neither did my friends that I saw it with. But if you do feel that way, he's only like ten minutes of the movie, so don't worry.
The next character is Gollum. Bilbo and Gollum in the cave together was the best part of the entire movie. I could've watched that for two hours. Gollum looks great too; the effects have made it so he really looks like he's there now, and Andy Serkis, as usual, deserves the Oscar that he won't get. But that sequence was just so entertaining. I actually can't even really tell why it's so great without spoiling it, so that's a bit of a bummer.
The last thing I'm going to address is the 48 frames per second speed. I have no idea what I saw this movie in, I really don't. When I was looking at times for showings on my theater's website, all it said was "showing is in 2D". I'm going to assume that I saw it in 24 frames per second because of that fact that at no point did I think it was on fast forward, so yeah.
Also, just as a side note, without spoiling anything, there was a cameo in this movie that people are gonna find polarizing. I personally really liked it; I got a great kick out of it, and really appreciated the way that they did it. That being said, the guy next to me hated it and thought it was totally unnecessary and indulgent. So be warned, you will be polarized.
In the end, I will say that the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a movie night classic.
Alright, so what's your favorite Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth movie, which can include the Hobbit? Comment below, let me know!
Saturday, December 15, 2012
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King movie review
I got no jokes, lets just talk Lord of the Rings.
Warning: this review is spoilerific!
Here we are at the final chapter! Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are almost at Mt. Doom, while pretty much everyone else is going to war.
Okay, last review I started out with Frodo and Co., this one I'm starting out with Aragorn and Co. The Orcs are coming, and as usual, Aragorn doesn't have enough men to fight the battle. So he, Legolas, and Gimmely go to this cave where they recruit and army of ghost soldiers with one of the most epic speeches ever. Aragorn's just like "WHAT HAVE YOU!" and it riles everyone up. Back at the city of kings, Gandalf and Pippin (Pippin's safety is in danger) are there talking to John Noble (terrible idea) and you know what, I'm just gonna skip over all this stuff. Long story short, Pippin and Gandalf are at the city, Merry and Arren are heading into battle, and the trio of awesome are bringing in the cavalry. I swear, first time I watched this, I thought, "everything is falling into place". And it is; they are setting up for the huge battles that will dominate the rest of this movie. Everyone is where they need to be for the fight(s).
Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are being driven apart by Gollum. Sam knows that Gollum's a nutjob; he's even seen him talking to himself, plotting to kill them to get the ring. But, yet again, Frodo won't buy it. And, in the most painful seen in movie history, Gollum succeeds. Frodo makes Sam walk away, and it was sad. My reaction "No, that cannot happen! That did not just happen!" Haven't reacted like that since Wash died (RIP).
Then Gollum is finishing out his plot by leading Frodo into the den of Shelob, the giant spider. He traps him in the cave, and Shelob wants to eat him. Here's the thing: if you have arachnophobia, fast forward through this seen. I know a guy who can't watch this movie because of Shelob, 'cause it is THAT big. Anyway, Shelob wraps Frodo up, and then Sam, who you knew wouldn't abandon his friend, shows up and shouts "leave him alone!" and takes it down! Its epic. This is the movie that proves not only is Sam an awesome badass, but he is literally the greatest friend ever.
Back at the City of Kings, the fight to end all fights is going down. It is so huge that its almost ridiculous (and so epic). And then Aragorn shows up with his army of ghosts and they mow the enemy down. It was awesome (and so epic). But then after the whole bit is over, Aragorn realizes that Frodo needs time to destroy the ring. So he assembles everyone who's not dead and they go to the gates of Mordor and have the actual battle to end all battles. Everyone just charges in and holy crap it awesome. I can't even begin to describe just how epic this fight is. Just imagine it in your head, just imagine everyone and their grandma trying to waste each other.
Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo have reached Mordor, Sam actually has to carry Frodo into Mt. Doom because the Ring's worn him down that much, and then Frodo is standing over the lava, about to drop the Ring in. But he doesn't just drop it in, because that would be anticlimactic. Frodo gives in puts the Ring on, turns invisible, Sam and you just shout "NOOO!!!" and Sauron's eye freaks out. And then Gollum shows up, which I've never been more thankful for. Gollum decks Frodo and BITES Frodo's finger off the get the ring, and then falls into the lava, taking the Ring with him. Sam saves Frodo, and the look on my and anyone's face when I saw that was "whoa".
The fighting's done, the Ring is gone, and Sauron's dead, but it doesn't end their. It's time for the Return of the King ending. You might've heard that before: basically, this movie ends five more times in the last 1/2 hour. It is a good thing, too, to give closure to all the characters, but you do start to feel worn out after awhile (I watched the extended version the first time I saw this, too, so at one point I just thought "can this end already?"). Basically, Aragorn becomes king and marries his elf girlfriend and your happy for them, the Hobbits return to the Shire, Sam marries that girl he had a crush on in Fellowship (after what he's been through, he's more then earned it), but Frodo just can't go back to regular life.
I don't blame him, I mean after all that he just can't handle everyday stuff anymore. So he and Bilbo go to the Elven holy land with the elves. This breaks the other Hobbits' hearts, too; Sam's crying, but in the end he lets Frodo go because Frodo needs to. And then in the last scene of the movie is this silent shot of Sam with his wife and kids and the movie ends. Is that a downer ending? Maybe a little, but I loved it. It was the perfect ending- well, perfect five endings.
Return of the King is my favorite Lord of the Rings movie, its one of my favorite movies ever period, and in the end I saw Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, and there was much rejoicing!
So, what's your favorite movie ever? Comment below, let me know!
Warning: this review is spoilerific!
Here we are at the final chapter! Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are almost at Mt. Doom, while pretty much everyone else is going to war.
Okay, last review I started out with Frodo and Co., this one I'm starting out with Aragorn and Co. The Orcs are coming, and as usual, Aragorn doesn't have enough men to fight the battle. So he, Legolas, and Gimmely go to this cave where they recruit and army of ghost soldiers with one of the most epic speeches ever. Aragorn's just like "WHAT HAVE YOU!" and it riles everyone up. Back at the city of kings, Gandalf and Pippin (Pippin's safety is in danger) are there talking to John Noble (terrible idea) and you know what, I'm just gonna skip over all this stuff. Long story short, Pippin and Gandalf are at the city, Merry and Arren are heading into battle, and the trio of awesome are bringing in the cavalry. I swear, first time I watched this, I thought, "everything is falling into place". And it is; they are setting up for the huge battles that will dominate the rest of this movie. Everyone is where they need to be for the fight(s).
Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are being driven apart by Gollum. Sam knows that Gollum's a nutjob; he's even seen him talking to himself, plotting to kill them to get the ring. But, yet again, Frodo won't buy it. And, in the most painful seen in movie history, Gollum succeeds. Frodo makes Sam walk away, and it was sad. My reaction "No, that cannot happen! That did not just happen!" Haven't reacted like that since Wash died (RIP).
Then Gollum is finishing out his plot by leading Frodo into the den of Shelob, the giant spider. He traps him in the cave, and Shelob wants to eat him. Here's the thing: if you have arachnophobia, fast forward through this seen. I know a guy who can't watch this movie because of Shelob, 'cause it is THAT big. Anyway, Shelob wraps Frodo up, and then Sam, who you knew wouldn't abandon his friend, shows up and shouts "leave him alone!" and takes it down! Its epic. This is the movie that proves not only is Sam an awesome badass, but he is literally the greatest friend ever.
Back at the City of Kings, the fight to end all fights is going down. It is so huge that its almost ridiculous (and so epic). And then Aragorn shows up with his army of ghosts and they mow the enemy down. It was awesome (and so epic). But then after the whole bit is over, Aragorn realizes that Frodo needs time to destroy the ring. So he assembles everyone who's not dead and they go to the gates of Mordor and have the actual battle to end all battles. Everyone just charges in and holy crap it awesome. I can't even begin to describe just how epic this fight is. Just imagine it in your head, just imagine everyone and their grandma trying to waste each other.
Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo have reached Mordor, Sam actually has to carry Frodo into Mt. Doom because the Ring's worn him down that much, and then Frodo is standing over the lava, about to drop the Ring in. But he doesn't just drop it in, because that would be anticlimactic. Frodo gives in puts the Ring on, turns invisible, Sam and you just shout "NOOO!!!" and Sauron's eye freaks out. And then Gollum shows up, which I've never been more thankful for. Gollum decks Frodo and BITES Frodo's finger off the get the ring, and then falls into the lava, taking the Ring with him. Sam saves Frodo, and the look on my and anyone's face when I saw that was "whoa".
The fighting's done, the Ring is gone, and Sauron's dead, but it doesn't end their. It's time for the Return of the King ending. You might've heard that before: basically, this movie ends five more times in the last 1/2 hour. It is a good thing, too, to give closure to all the characters, but you do start to feel worn out after awhile (I watched the extended version the first time I saw this, too, so at one point I just thought "can this end already?"). Basically, Aragorn becomes king and marries his elf girlfriend and your happy for them, the Hobbits return to the Shire, Sam marries that girl he had a crush on in Fellowship (after what he's been through, he's more then earned it), but Frodo just can't go back to regular life.
I don't blame him, I mean after all that he just can't handle everyday stuff anymore. So he and Bilbo go to the Elven holy land with the elves. This breaks the other Hobbits' hearts, too; Sam's crying, but in the end he lets Frodo go because Frodo needs to. And then in the last scene of the movie is this silent shot of Sam with his wife and kids and the movie ends. Is that a downer ending? Maybe a little, but I loved it. It was the perfect ending- well, perfect five endings.
Return of the King is my favorite Lord of the Rings movie, its one of my favorite movies ever period, and in the end I saw Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, and there was much rejoicing!
So, what's your favorite movie ever? Comment below, let me know!
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie Review
So its pretty obvious who'd win a fight between a Gandalf and Dumbedore. A good question would be who'd win a fight between Treebeard and and army of Ewoks.
Major Spoilers.
The Fellowship is broken: Boromir's dead, Pippin and Merry are captured, Arargon, Gimmely, and Legolas are going after them, and Frodo and Sam are continuing their quest to Mt. Doom. And the forces of evil are trying to kill them all. Yeah.
The movie starts off and Frodo is messed up. Why? Well, he's carrying the Ring and Gandalf just died for starters. So, Frodo and Sam are traveling towards Mordor, but they don't really know where they're going. And that's where Gollum comes in, to which my response is "hell yeah!" Gollum is what happens to you if you've had the ring for too long. He had it for like 500 years or something, it's made him a disfigured nutjob with multiple personality. He is one of the greatest movie villains ever. I feel weird about calling him a villain, too, because in Two Towers he tries to do the right thing at first, but in the end he does give into his desire for the ring. Andy Serkis as Gollum... wow. Just wow. The whole thing was done with motion capture, which the Academy's excuse for not giving him the Oscar for best supporting actor (pathetic excuse, mind you). He should've won an Oscar, which is the highest praise you can give a performance, but it still feels like I'm understating it. It's that good.
So he's leading Frodo and Sam to Mordor, and the entire time he's arguing with himself whether or not to kill the Hobbits and take the Ring. At one point he decides not to because Frodo's the first person to be nice to him in literally centuries, but the whole time you know he's gonna snap. Sam knows that too, and that's starting to drive a wedge between him and Frodo. That doesn't really start to happen until Return of the King, but the seeds are planted in this movie. It's painful to watch, too, because you don't want to see them get driven apart because they basically have the ultimate bromance.
That being said, they're journey to Mordor with Gollum is one of my favorite parts of the movie, especially as you see all these armies just move past them, and at one point they're captured, and you know they're gonna get out, but it just feels epic. At the end of the movie, Frodo and Sam are talking, and goes really nostalgic again because Sam's telling Frodo they'res gonna be books about him, and Frodo tells Sam there'll be books about him too. And you believe it. Sam is the only sidekick in the history of movies that genuinely feel like this story could not be told without him. Usually the only way a sidekick ever seems to matter is if he pulls a Nightwing, but Sam stays by his friend until the end, and it's awesome. And then you cut to Gollum and he's decided to kill the hobbits and that freaked me out.
Meanwhile, the three tall badasses of the story are looking for Merry and Pippin. They're hauling ass looking for them too, because they only have so long before the orcs kill them. And on the way, they meet Gandalf, who, as it turns out, got a comic book death. Except now he's the White Wizard, meaning he is a giant badass. They go to this kingdom, and they free the king who's been under the control of Sauron, and then they realize they need to get to Helm's Deep to fight of the Orcs.
I'm just gonna cut straight to Helm's Deep if that's alright with you guys (yes that means I'm skipping over Gimmely's hilarious speech about dwarves DON'T pop up out of holes in the ground- oh wait, I just did). They're at Helm's Deep, and things are looking pretty bad. A MASSIVE army of Orcs is coming to wipe them all out, and they don't have nearly enough men to hold them off. A battalion of elves shows up to help them out, and you think "okay, they might survive this". And then one of the best battles in the history of movies take place. It is so epic and so many heads roll it is ridiculous. I always loved how during this Legolas and Gimmely are counting how many they kill during the fight to see if they can outdo each other, too, 'cause its really funny.
This battle is actually why I Two Towers was my favorite LOTR movie for awhile. Eventually I decided I like Return of the King better, but seriously this fight is awesome. The fact that anyone makes it out alive is astonishing.
And now I'm going to talk about the thing everyone cites as the bad thing Two Towers: the Ents. I don't the same hatred of the Ents that some people seem to, but I'm not especially fond of them. They're just holding Pippin and Merry captive the for a lot of the movie trying to decide what to do with them, and its a bit slow. It doesn't help that Treebeard, the leader, talks...wicked...freaking...slowly, and that the whole thing is a tad boring. It pays off at the end, because the Ents just show up and trash Tower #1 in an also very sweet fight, but still.
But in the end, I saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and there was much rejoicing!
So, what you're favorite second movie in a franchise? Comment below, let me know!
Major Spoilers.
The Fellowship is broken: Boromir's dead, Pippin and Merry are captured, Arargon, Gimmely, and Legolas are going after them, and Frodo and Sam are continuing their quest to Mt. Doom. And the forces of evil are trying to kill them all. Yeah.
The movie starts off and Frodo is messed up. Why? Well, he's carrying the Ring and Gandalf just died for starters. So, Frodo and Sam are traveling towards Mordor, but they don't really know where they're going. And that's where Gollum comes in, to which my response is "hell yeah!" Gollum is what happens to you if you've had the ring for too long. He had it for like 500 years or something, it's made him a disfigured nutjob with multiple personality. He is one of the greatest movie villains ever. I feel weird about calling him a villain, too, because in Two Towers he tries to do the right thing at first, but in the end he does give into his desire for the ring. Andy Serkis as Gollum... wow. Just wow. The whole thing was done with motion capture, which the Academy's excuse for not giving him the Oscar for best supporting actor (pathetic excuse, mind you). He should've won an Oscar, which is the highest praise you can give a performance, but it still feels like I'm understating it. It's that good.
So he's leading Frodo and Sam to Mordor, and the entire time he's arguing with himself whether or not to kill the Hobbits and take the Ring. At one point he decides not to because Frodo's the first person to be nice to him in literally centuries, but the whole time you know he's gonna snap. Sam knows that too, and that's starting to drive a wedge between him and Frodo. That doesn't really start to happen until Return of the King, but the seeds are planted in this movie. It's painful to watch, too, because you don't want to see them get driven apart because they basically have the ultimate bromance.
That being said, they're journey to Mordor with Gollum is one of my favorite parts of the movie, especially as you see all these armies just move past them, and at one point they're captured, and you know they're gonna get out, but it just feels epic. At the end of the movie, Frodo and Sam are talking, and goes really nostalgic again because Sam's telling Frodo they'res gonna be books about him, and Frodo tells Sam there'll be books about him too. And you believe it. Sam is the only sidekick in the history of movies that genuinely feel like this story could not be told without him. Usually the only way a sidekick ever seems to matter is if he pulls a Nightwing, but Sam stays by his friend until the end, and it's awesome. And then you cut to Gollum and he's decided to kill the hobbits and that freaked me out.
Meanwhile, the three tall badasses of the story are looking for Merry and Pippin. They're hauling ass looking for them too, because they only have so long before the orcs kill them. And on the way, they meet Gandalf, who, as it turns out, got a comic book death. Except now he's the White Wizard, meaning he is a giant badass. They go to this kingdom, and they free the king who's been under the control of Sauron, and then they realize they need to get to Helm's Deep to fight of the Orcs.
I'm just gonna cut straight to Helm's Deep if that's alright with you guys (yes that means I'm skipping over Gimmely's hilarious speech about dwarves DON'T pop up out of holes in the ground- oh wait, I just did). They're at Helm's Deep, and things are looking pretty bad. A MASSIVE army of Orcs is coming to wipe them all out, and they don't have nearly enough men to hold them off. A battalion of elves shows up to help them out, and you think "okay, they might survive this". And then one of the best battles in the history of movies take place. It is so epic and so many heads roll it is ridiculous. I always loved how during this Legolas and Gimmely are counting how many they kill during the fight to see if they can outdo each other, too, 'cause its really funny.
This battle is actually why I Two Towers was my favorite LOTR movie for awhile. Eventually I decided I like Return of the King better, but seriously this fight is awesome. The fact that anyone makes it out alive is astonishing.
And now I'm going to talk about the thing everyone cites as the bad thing Two Towers: the Ents. I don't the same hatred of the Ents that some people seem to, but I'm not especially fond of them. They're just holding Pippin and Merry captive the for a lot of the movie trying to decide what to do with them, and its a bit slow. It doesn't help that Treebeard, the leader, talks...wicked...freaking...slowly, and that the whole thing is a tad boring. It pays off at the end, because the Ents just show up and trash Tower #1 in an also very sweet fight, but still.
But in the end, I saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and there was much rejoicing!
So, what you're favorite second movie in a franchise? Comment below, let me know!
Saturday, December 1, 2012
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie review
Alright, guys, I know it's been awhile; I decided to take a week off for Thanksgiving because that was just a hectic week for me. But I'm back, and in honor of the Hobbit in all it's soon to be released glory, let's talk some Lord of the Rings.
Spoiler alert!
So, with the Hobbit coming out soon, but not soon enough, I figured this'd be a good way to prepped. So, The Fellowship of the Ring starts off with this big flashback about basically the history of Middle Earth. There was this guy Sauron, who was CRUSHING everyone else until eventually all the humans, elves, and dwarves teamed up to stop stop him. They do that-sort of. Only problem is that his ring survived, and his ring basically has his soul inside of it. Flash forward 3000 years, and we're in the Shire, home of the Hobbits. Specifically Bilbo Baggins, the current owner of the Ring, and his nephew Frodo, the main character of the movie.
Then one day Gandalf the Grey, who's basically the greatest wizard in the history of film (sorry Dumbledore, but Gandalf would kick your ass), comes to see his old friend Bilbo, who's celebrating his 111 birthday. It's at this point that we realize something that I personally love about the LOTR: it's ability to switch tones flawlessly. Let me explain: the first ten minutes, the flashback, are really epic and dark, and then we get to the Shire and it's...happy. Nostalgically happy even. That's something these movies do a lot (go from epic to sentimental to epic again on a dime), and you buy it, too. It's something in these movies I think people don't talk about enough.
Anyway, so eventually Bilbo skips town, and the Ring (which turns you invisible when you put it on, I should've mentioned that earlier) is now in the hands of Frodo, and at Gandalf's advice, leaves town himself with the Ring. But his gardener, Samwise Gamgee (Rudy himself, Sean Astin), winds up coming along. We don't know it yet, but Sam is going to become the greatest sidekick in the history of film. Along the way they pick up two other hobbits, Pippin and Merry (played by Charlie from LOST!), as well as Aragorn.
Let's talk about Aragorn, shall we: he's the man. He was supposed to be king, but he gave all that up because he wanted nothing to do with it (and 'cause he wanted to shack up with elven Liv Tyler). He's played by Viggo Mortensen, and it's perfect.
Aragorn brings them to Rivendale, where they meet up with Gandalf, Bilbo, Boromir, and an elf and dwarf, Legolas and Gimmley. It's at that point they realize the Ring is evil, and the only way to destroy it is to got to Mt. Doom in Mordor, the place where it was forged, and toss it into the volcano. So they form the Fellowship of the Ring to do the task I just described, and we have the rest of our movie.
From that point on, it's epic. There on the quest of all quests. They're going across mountains, and into caves, and it's awesome. They establish that Frodo is the only one who can carry the Ring because he's the only one it doesn't seem to corrupt (unlike, say Boromir). Then we get to the best seen in the whole movie: they're in this mine that they've been fighting to survive in and then the Balrog comes out. They don't stand a chance, but then, in the event that established Gandalf as not only the greatest wizard ever but also the most badass old dude ever, Gandalf goes up to it while the others run away and screams "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" They have a fight, and then the Balrog drags Gandalf down with him, and it's the single most depressing movie death since Obi-Wan Kenobi (but like his counterpart in Star Wars, he doesn't stay dead for long, but again, that's another movie).
And then we're in the forrest, where Boromir finally gives in and tries to steal the Ring from Frodo, just in time for the Orcs to show up. There's a huge fight, Boromir dies, and the Fellowship breaks. Frodo's trying to get to Mordor by himself now, but Sam won't let him because they've got the ultimate bromance. Pippin and Merry get captured by Orcs, so Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimmely go to get them, and we have ourselves a cliffhanger.
What else is awesome about this movie besides everything I've just said? How about the acting by literally everyone. Sir Ian McKellan's great, Sean Astin's great, Orlando Bloom and the guy who plays Gimmley who's name escapes is great, and Elijah Wood is great as Frodo. That's important to, because Frodo is really the entire point of this story, and he'd been played by a crap actor, the entire franchise would've been worthless. The characters are great too, and the dialogue is the best possible dialogue you could have in a movie a like this. Add in awesome landscapes, fantastic music, and excellent action scenes (I'm not gonna say epic battles yet, because those don't really start until Two Towers), and you've got this movie. And it's awesome! I actually don't have any problems with this movie, because it's the perfect introduction to this world.
And you know what?
I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and there was much rejoicing!
So, what's your favorite franchise-starting movie? Me, still gotta be New Hope. Comment below, let me know!
Spoiler alert!
So, with the Hobbit coming out soon, but not soon enough, I figured this'd be a good way to prepped. So, The Fellowship of the Ring starts off with this big flashback about basically the history of Middle Earth. There was this guy Sauron, who was CRUSHING everyone else until eventually all the humans, elves, and dwarves teamed up to stop stop him. They do that-sort of. Only problem is that his ring survived, and his ring basically has his soul inside of it. Flash forward 3000 years, and we're in the Shire, home of the Hobbits. Specifically Bilbo Baggins, the current owner of the Ring, and his nephew Frodo, the main character of the movie.
Then one day Gandalf the Grey, who's basically the greatest wizard in the history of film (sorry Dumbledore, but Gandalf would kick your ass), comes to see his old friend Bilbo, who's celebrating his 111 birthday. It's at this point that we realize something that I personally love about the LOTR: it's ability to switch tones flawlessly. Let me explain: the first ten minutes, the flashback, are really epic and dark, and then we get to the Shire and it's...happy. Nostalgically happy even. That's something these movies do a lot (go from epic to sentimental to epic again on a dime), and you buy it, too. It's something in these movies I think people don't talk about enough.
Anyway, so eventually Bilbo skips town, and the Ring (which turns you invisible when you put it on, I should've mentioned that earlier) is now in the hands of Frodo, and at Gandalf's advice, leaves town himself with the Ring. But his gardener, Samwise Gamgee (Rudy himself, Sean Astin), winds up coming along. We don't know it yet, but Sam is going to become the greatest sidekick in the history of film. Along the way they pick up two other hobbits, Pippin and Merry (played by Charlie from LOST!), as well as Aragorn.
Let's talk about Aragorn, shall we: he's the man. He was supposed to be king, but he gave all that up because he wanted nothing to do with it (and 'cause he wanted to shack up with elven Liv Tyler). He's played by Viggo Mortensen, and it's perfect.
Aragorn brings them to Rivendale, where they meet up with Gandalf, Bilbo, Boromir, and an elf and dwarf, Legolas and Gimmley. It's at that point they realize the Ring is evil, and the only way to destroy it is to got to Mt. Doom in Mordor, the place where it was forged, and toss it into the volcano. So they form the Fellowship of the Ring to do the task I just described, and we have the rest of our movie.
From that point on, it's epic. There on the quest of all quests. They're going across mountains, and into caves, and it's awesome. They establish that Frodo is the only one who can carry the Ring because he's the only one it doesn't seem to corrupt (unlike, say Boromir). Then we get to the best seen in the whole movie: they're in this mine that they've been fighting to survive in and then the Balrog comes out. They don't stand a chance, but then, in the event that established Gandalf as not only the greatest wizard ever but also the most badass old dude ever, Gandalf goes up to it while the others run away and screams "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" They have a fight, and then the Balrog drags Gandalf down with him, and it's the single most depressing movie death since Obi-Wan Kenobi (but like his counterpart in Star Wars, he doesn't stay dead for long, but again, that's another movie).
And then we're in the forrest, where Boromir finally gives in and tries to steal the Ring from Frodo, just in time for the Orcs to show up. There's a huge fight, Boromir dies, and the Fellowship breaks. Frodo's trying to get to Mordor by himself now, but Sam won't let him because they've got the ultimate bromance. Pippin and Merry get captured by Orcs, so Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimmely go to get them, and we have ourselves a cliffhanger.
What else is awesome about this movie besides everything I've just said? How about the acting by literally everyone. Sir Ian McKellan's great, Sean Astin's great, Orlando Bloom and the guy who plays Gimmley who's name escapes is great, and Elijah Wood is great as Frodo. That's important to, because Frodo is really the entire point of this story, and he'd been played by a crap actor, the entire franchise would've been worthless. The characters are great too, and the dialogue is the best possible dialogue you could have in a movie a like this. Add in awesome landscapes, fantastic music, and excellent action scenes (I'm not gonna say epic battles yet, because those don't really start until Two Towers), and you've got this movie. And it's awesome! I actually don't have any problems with this movie, because it's the perfect introduction to this world.
And you know what?
I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and there was much rejoicing!
So, what's your favorite franchise-starting movie? Me, still gotta be New Hope. Comment below, let me know!
Monday, November 12, 2012
The Walking Dead: Say the Word Review
How does one characterize Rick Grimes? Well...
Spoilers.
So, after some major death and what-not last week, you'd think this'd be a repeat of the one from last season after Dale died, right? Wrong. At the end of last episode, Rick appeared to be losing his mind. And is he? Oh yeah, totally. The man is storming through the prison, ganking walkers and performing c-sections on their deader bodies. He only says one word the whole episode, and it's at the very end. Beyond that, its just grunts and screams. Andrew Lincoln just does such a great job with this character, that, only did I by that Rick was going crazy, I was disturbed. I was actually a little bit frightened by what I was seeing, and that speaks volumes about the actor and the script. As for the one word he said at the end, we'll get to that in a bit. By which I mean right now. His answering the ringing phone and uttering hello was certainly a good cliffhanger, one I can't wait until next to see resolved.
One of the main points of the episode was Woodbury, where you see the Governor's previously mentioned daughter. And she's a walker. And the Gov' was combing her hair and then put a bag over her head so she wouldn't bit him. Holy crap. And I reiterate, this episode was a bit on the disturbing side. As has been previously, Michonne doesn't trust the Gov' , as is demonstrated by her breaking into his house, stealing her sword and chopping up some zombies he's keeping in a cage. Say what you will about Danai Guirrera and her overacting, in this episode, or at least this scene, it works, because seeing her waste about ten zombies in under two minutes all samurai style was beyond badass.
As has also been previously established, Michonne and Andrea have been arguing about whether or not to stay. You want to think Andrea's right about Michonne just being paranoid, but Michonne's right, so I personally wanted to scream at my TV and tell them to get the hell out before they get their heads stuffed in jars (something occurred to me: if those heads got out of the jars, they'd be zombie heads and, you know, writhe around on the floor biting. Here's hoping for that by the end of the season). Michonne does, Andrea doesn't. Hopefully, Michonne will find our heroes at the prison and that'll lead to all sorts of interesting stuff. Andrea's staying leads to us seeing that Woodbury basically does gladiator fights in wrings of walkers. Yeah. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, but I realized A., it's disturbing (their's that word again), and B., it shows just how much of a control freak the Gov' is, tricking people into thinking walkers aren't dangerous to maintain power.
Back at the prison, the main focus is on the newly dead and the newly born. They still haven't decided on a name for Carl's little sister, though Daryl's suggestion of "little ass-kicker" (for some reason reminded me of turnip-head) seemed to go over well. In the end, they'll probably decide on Lori, though. Just being realistic. There was a focus on Daryl and Maggie having to go get formula from a nearby town, but I couldn't help notice the plot-hole of "why couldn't they just have one of the girls breast feed it?" Just can't shake the feeling they did that to kill time. The scenes of Glen digging the graves were nice, and you find out he knew T-Dog before the outbreak (T-Dog's getting more interesting now that he's dead. Speaks volumes). It was all very sad and such, but you can also tell just how hardened the group has gotten due to the lack of tears being shed. Still no sign of Carol. Hopefully they'll bring her back with Morgan (they need to bring him back!).
Best developed character so far besides Rick? Daryl. The guy is the man, immediately stepping up to help, and he makes ponchos look cool. Who'd have thought that was possible?! Leaving a flower on Carol's grave shows just how complex the character is.
Overall, great episode, not as good as last week, but last week was the best episode of the whole series thus far, so that shouldn't be too big of a complaint.
Final Rating: 87%
Spoilers.
So, after some major death and what-not last week, you'd think this'd be a repeat of the one from last season after Dale died, right? Wrong. At the end of last episode, Rick appeared to be losing his mind. And is he? Oh yeah, totally. The man is storming through the prison, ganking walkers and performing c-sections on their deader bodies. He only says one word the whole episode, and it's at the very end. Beyond that, its just grunts and screams. Andrew Lincoln just does such a great job with this character, that, only did I by that Rick was going crazy, I was disturbed. I was actually a little bit frightened by what I was seeing, and that speaks volumes about the actor and the script. As for the one word he said at the end, we'll get to that in a bit. By which I mean right now. His answering the ringing phone and uttering hello was certainly a good cliffhanger, one I can't wait until next to see resolved.
One of the main points of the episode was Woodbury, where you see the Governor's previously mentioned daughter. And she's a walker. And the Gov' was combing her hair and then put a bag over her head so she wouldn't bit him. Holy crap. And I reiterate, this episode was a bit on the disturbing side. As has been previously, Michonne doesn't trust the Gov' , as is demonstrated by her breaking into his house, stealing her sword and chopping up some zombies he's keeping in a cage. Say what you will about Danai Guirrera and her overacting, in this episode, or at least this scene, it works, because seeing her waste about ten zombies in under two minutes all samurai style was beyond badass.
As has also been previously established, Michonne and Andrea have been arguing about whether or not to stay. You want to think Andrea's right about Michonne just being paranoid, but Michonne's right, so I personally wanted to scream at my TV and tell them to get the hell out before they get their heads stuffed in jars (something occurred to me: if those heads got out of the jars, they'd be zombie heads and, you know, writhe around on the floor biting. Here's hoping for that by the end of the season). Michonne does, Andrea doesn't. Hopefully, Michonne will find our heroes at the prison and that'll lead to all sorts of interesting stuff. Andrea's staying leads to us seeing that Woodbury basically does gladiator fights in wrings of walkers. Yeah. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, but I realized A., it's disturbing (their's that word again), and B., it shows just how much of a control freak the Gov' is, tricking people into thinking walkers aren't dangerous to maintain power.
Back at the prison, the main focus is on the newly dead and the newly born. They still haven't decided on a name for Carl's little sister, though Daryl's suggestion of "little ass-kicker" (for some reason reminded me of turnip-head) seemed to go over well. In the end, they'll probably decide on Lori, though. Just being realistic. There was a focus on Daryl and Maggie having to go get formula from a nearby town, but I couldn't help notice the plot-hole of "why couldn't they just have one of the girls breast feed it?" Just can't shake the feeling they did that to kill time. The scenes of Glen digging the graves were nice, and you find out he knew T-Dog before the outbreak (T-Dog's getting more interesting now that he's dead. Speaks volumes). It was all very sad and such, but you can also tell just how hardened the group has gotten due to the lack of tears being shed. Still no sign of Carol. Hopefully they'll bring her back with Morgan (they need to bring him back!).
Best developed character so far besides Rick? Daryl. The guy is the man, immediately stepping up to help, and he makes ponchos look cool. Who'd have thought that was possible?! Leaving a flower on Carol's grave shows just how complex the character is.
Overall, great episode, not as good as last week, but last week was the best episode of the whole series thus far, so that shouldn't be too big of a complaint.
Final Rating: 87%
Saturday, November 10, 2012
SkyFall Movie Review
At long last, a good fall movie that ISN'T rated R!
So, Skyfall is the new James Bond movie, which was my main motivation for wanting to see it. If you remember my fall movie preview, I said "James Bond, gotta see it." That being said, and this is to my everlasting movie, Skyfall is the first Bond movie I've ever watched all the way through. I've seen parts of The World Is Not Enough (I remember thinking "Brosnan's awesome, but this movie sucks) and like ten minutes of Quantum of Solace, but this is the first time I've ever sat down and seen the whole thing. And how was my first legit Bond experience? Pretty freaking sweet.
So, first off, you've got Daniel Craig as James Bond. 'Nough said. Or at least it should be, but I'll elaborate a bit. He perfectly embodies everything Bond, or at least this version of Bond, is supposed to be. He's badass yet classy (he jumped into a train and then fixed his cuffling. That IS Bond.), and he's damaged. He really is. Could have something to do with, you know, being shot by your partner and almost dying, but in this movie he's really messed up. Take into account that and the fact that he might be passed his prime, and you've got a really compelling take on the character.
And then you've got Javier Bardem as the villain, the other surviving rat, if you will; let me tell you, this guy is channeling Heath Ledger's Joker. He is totally out of his mind, but at the same time, you get why he's doing what he's doing, if that makes sense. Let me explain: he has legit motivation behind his vendetta, but that motivation has driven him nuts. That's a potent combination. Even his hair screamed crazy.
As for the rest of the characters, awesome. Judie Dench was great as M, can't say I'm surprised, and, like with Bond, I liked the direction they took her character in. And then you have Naomi Harris as the newest Bond girl, and she's great because she's relevant. She matters to the plot beyond her and Bond having tension. Among other things, she's the one who gunned Bond down by mistake, she's got good chemistry with Daniel Craig, and she's just cool. I like it when the female characters are relevant is what I'm saying. And then you've got Q. Q is the man. He's a super genius, he's hilarious, and his character is just great. He and Bond have this friction at first, but then they start respecting each other, and that was just great to see.
And how's the plot and dialogue? Fantastic. The movie starts off with this amazing action sequence that leads up to Bond falling from the sky, and it's thrilling and what not, and after that things start building up and building up and it's all great, with awesome dialogue and bits of action here and there, I mean I was engrossed the entire time, and it climaxes in one of the greatest finale battles ever. It's so intense and epic and thrilling that I was on the edge of my seat. I can't give anything away, obviously, but it's great.
The movie was a lot funnier then I expected, too. I figured there'd be a one-liner here and there, but I actually laughed a lot. Most of it is the aforementioned great dialogue, but there's also a lot of throwbacks to the Bond movies of yore (pop-culture icons that you can ID even if you've been living under a rock) that made me LOL.
My only beef with the movie: the CGI. There's more then one scene where I just looked at something and instantly thought: yeah, that's animated. It doesn't drag the movie down too much, but it put me off for a second or two.
In the end, I saw Skyfall, and there was much rejoicing!
So, what's your favorite Bond movie? Comment below, let me know!
So, Skyfall is the new James Bond movie, which was my main motivation for wanting to see it. If you remember my fall movie preview, I said "James Bond, gotta see it." That being said, and this is to my everlasting movie, Skyfall is the first Bond movie I've ever watched all the way through. I've seen parts of The World Is Not Enough (I remember thinking "Brosnan's awesome, but this movie sucks) and like ten minutes of Quantum of Solace, but this is the first time I've ever sat down and seen the whole thing. And how was my first legit Bond experience? Pretty freaking sweet.
So, first off, you've got Daniel Craig as James Bond. 'Nough said. Or at least it should be, but I'll elaborate a bit. He perfectly embodies everything Bond, or at least this version of Bond, is supposed to be. He's badass yet classy (he jumped into a train and then fixed his cuffling. That IS Bond.), and he's damaged. He really is. Could have something to do with, you know, being shot by your partner and almost dying, but in this movie he's really messed up. Take into account that and the fact that he might be passed his prime, and you've got a really compelling take on the character.
And then you've got Javier Bardem as the villain, the other surviving rat, if you will; let me tell you, this guy is channeling Heath Ledger's Joker. He is totally out of his mind, but at the same time, you get why he's doing what he's doing, if that makes sense. Let me explain: he has legit motivation behind his vendetta, but that motivation has driven him nuts. That's a potent combination. Even his hair screamed crazy.
As for the rest of the characters, awesome. Judie Dench was great as M, can't say I'm surprised, and, like with Bond, I liked the direction they took her character in. And then you have Naomi Harris as the newest Bond girl, and she's great because she's relevant. She matters to the plot beyond her and Bond having tension. Among other things, she's the one who gunned Bond down by mistake, she's got good chemistry with Daniel Craig, and she's just cool. I like it when the female characters are relevant is what I'm saying. And then you've got Q. Q is the man. He's a super genius, he's hilarious, and his character is just great. He and Bond have this friction at first, but then they start respecting each other, and that was just great to see.
And how's the plot and dialogue? Fantastic. The movie starts off with this amazing action sequence that leads up to Bond falling from the sky, and it's thrilling and what not, and after that things start building up and building up and it's all great, with awesome dialogue and bits of action here and there, I mean I was engrossed the entire time, and it climaxes in one of the greatest finale battles ever. It's so intense and epic and thrilling that I was on the edge of my seat. I can't give anything away, obviously, but it's great.
The movie was a lot funnier then I expected, too. I figured there'd be a one-liner here and there, but I actually laughed a lot. Most of it is the aforementioned great dialogue, but there's also a lot of throwbacks to the Bond movies of yore (pop-culture icons that you can ID even if you've been living under a rock) that made me LOL.
My only beef with the movie: the CGI. There's more then one scene where I just looked at something and instantly thought: yeah, that's animated. It doesn't drag the movie down too much, but it put me off for a second or two.
In the end, I saw Skyfall, and there was much rejoicing!
So, what's your favorite Bond movie? Comment below, let me know!
Monday, November 5, 2012
The Walking Dead: An Evil Within Review
.....................I, uh, I... I almost cried.
Spoilers galore follow.
So the episode started off a bit weird, by which I mean everyone was happy: Hershel walking on crutches, Carl and Beth resisting the urge to make like Glen and Maggie, who's location results in a pretty major laugh, people are cracking jokes, heck, Rick's even making eye contact with Lori. And then the prison starts getting sabotaged and zombies attack. And people start dying.
May as well get the big one out of the way first: Lori is dead. When she started giving birth in the middle of the zombie attack, I figured this was just something to amp up the intensity and it'd all pan out. And then the blood shows up, and she tells Maggie she needs to give her a C-section, one she won't survive. And Carl has to watch. It's never been easy tolerating, let alone liking, Lori, that much isn't a secret. But the amount of intensity and emotion in the scene, as Carl said good bye to his mother and Maggie sliced her open to retrieve the baby, nearly had me in tears. The actors did such a good job in this scene, perfectly portraying what was happening, just selling it perfectly, and, well, bringing the audience to tears. This was easily the most dramatic moment of the entire show thus far. And then as Carl had to put a bullet in his dead mother's brain to stop her from turning, briefly flashing back to Rick's advice in season 2, well, any Carl haters are now silent. This boy is a man.
Before this even happens though, T-Dog gets bit, at which point I realized I was in for a heavy episode. It was on the shoulder to, so I was more or less convinced they'd just amputate his arm and he'd live right up to the point where he charges a few walkers so Carol can get away and gets eaten alive. As emotional or disturbing as Lori's death? No, but probably more shocking. The shame in it is that T-Dog had finally gotten some development just twenty minutes earlier, campaigning for the other prisoners to be able to join the group. He was finally more then just a throwaway character. And then he dies.
The implication is that Carol is now dead, as we were meant to surmise from her head scarf. Of course, if this is the case, it was off screen and was overshadowed by two other deaths, so it didn't really resonate like it should have. That's assuming she's actually dead. I'm not saying the Walking Dead writers don't have the stones to kill three people off in one episode, but if we didn't see it, assuming it actually happened in a twisty show like TWD might be a mistake. Granted, it could just be we don't want her to be dead, but I'm not writing a Chewbacca-eulogy for her just yet.
The big reveal of who's behind all this really took me by surprise: Andrew. He absolutely had the motive, what with Rick all but handing him to the walkers, but that's kind of it: how the hell'd he survive that? Doesn't really matter, he's dead by other prisoner who's name escapes me now, an action which might get him into the group, but the reveal still caught me off guard in an episode that'd already thrown me for quite a few loops. I mean that as a good thing, obviously.
The Woodbury scenes felt a tad out of place, but they were still good, providing a bit of breathing room and some info: the Governor's name is Phillip, his wife's dead but his daughter's still around somewhere, and he's pining for Andrea. Merle's wants to look for Daryl, but his sense of obligation to the Gov keeps him from pushing it. And while Michonne is putting a tad much into her acting, it was fun to see her play detective.
The final scene hammers home the emotion, as Maggie and Carl walk out with the baby but no Lori, driving Rick into a full on breakdown. I was speechless, and really wanted to watch the next episode before next week. TWD is one of the best things on TV right now, and this episode couldn't be a better example of why.
Final Rating: 100%
Spoilers galore follow.
So the episode started off a bit weird, by which I mean everyone was happy: Hershel walking on crutches, Carl and Beth resisting the urge to make like Glen and Maggie, who's location results in a pretty major laugh, people are cracking jokes, heck, Rick's even making eye contact with Lori. And then the prison starts getting sabotaged and zombies attack. And people start dying.
May as well get the big one out of the way first: Lori is dead. When she started giving birth in the middle of the zombie attack, I figured this was just something to amp up the intensity and it'd all pan out. And then the blood shows up, and she tells Maggie she needs to give her a C-section, one she won't survive. And Carl has to watch. It's never been easy tolerating, let alone liking, Lori, that much isn't a secret. But the amount of intensity and emotion in the scene, as Carl said good bye to his mother and Maggie sliced her open to retrieve the baby, nearly had me in tears. The actors did such a good job in this scene, perfectly portraying what was happening, just selling it perfectly, and, well, bringing the audience to tears. This was easily the most dramatic moment of the entire show thus far. And then as Carl had to put a bullet in his dead mother's brain to stop her from turning, briefly flashing back to Rick's advice in season 2, well, any Carl haters are now silent. This boy is a man.
Before this even happens though, T-Dog gets bit, at which point I realized I was in for a heavy episode. It was on the shoulder to, so I was more or less convinced they'd just amputate his arm and he'd live right up to the point where he charges a few walkers so Carol can get away and gets eaten alive. As emotional or disturbing as Lori's death? No, but probably more shocking. The shame in it is that T-Dog had finally gotten some development just twenty minutes earlier, campaigning for the other prisoners to be able to join the group. He was finally more then just a throwaway character. And then he dies.
The implication is that Carol is now dead, as we were meant to surmise from her head scarf. Of course, if this is the case, it was off screen and was overshadowed by two other deaths, so it didn't really resonate like it should have. That's assuming she's actually dead. I'm not saying the Walking Dead writers don't have the stones to kill three people off in one episode, but if we didn't see it, assuming it actually happened in a twisty show like TWD might be a mistake. Granted, it could just be we don't want her to be dead, but I'm not writing a Chewbacca-eulogy for her just yet.
The big reveal of who's behind all this really took me by surprise: Andrew. He absolutely had the motive, what with Rick all but handing him to the walkers, but that's kind of it: how the hell'd he survive that? Doesn't really matter, he's dead by other prisoner who's name escapes me now, an action which might get him into the group, but the reveal still caught me off guard in an episode that'd already thrown me for quite a few loops. I mean that as a good thing, obviously.
The Woodbury scenes felt a tad out of place, but they were still good, providing a bit of breathing room and some info: the Governor's name is Phillip, his wife's dead but his daughter's still around somewhere, and he's pining for Andrea. Merle's wants to look for Daryl, but his sense of obligation to the Gov keeps him from pushing it. And while Michonne is putting a tad much into her acting, it was fun to see her play detective.
The final scene hammers home the emotion, as Maggie and Carl walk out with the baby but no Lori, driving Rick into a full on breakdown. I was speechless, and really wanted to watch the next episode before next week. TWD is one of the best things on TV right now, and this episode couldn't be a better example of why.
Final Rating: 100%
Good Will Hunting Movie Review
And I reiterate, I need to review more older movies, and I just watched this on Netflix for the first time this weekend, so I figured its as good a place as any to start.
No spoilers, don't worry.
So Good Will Hunting stars Matt Damon; he's janitor at MIT named Will Hunting who didn't go to college, lives in South Boston, and gets drunk with his best friend Ben Affleck every night; basically, he's a white trash nobody. But here's the thing: he's super genius. He sees math equations three other people in the world can solve and cranks out an answer within minutes. Peter Skarsgard plays a professor who catches onto this, so he has his underachieving community college professor friend Robin Williams give Will some therapy so he can move on with his life. And we have our movie... er, well, parts of it.
So, is this movie good? Hell yeah. I'll start with the performances. So, first off you've got Matt Damon kicking ass as Will. In the year 2012, it's really not necessary to say Matt Damon did a good job in a movie because he's Matt Damon, you know, probably the best actor working today other then Bryan Cranston or Gary Oldman. But this was 1997 (year I was born! Woo!), Matt Damon was not Jason Bourne yet, and he still had yet to prove himself truly as an actor, which he does in this movie. Will is a more relatable character then you'd think, too; yeah he's a white trash super genius who's yet to do anything with his life (think Doctor House if he were white trash), but he's going through something we've all been through at some point: asking himself what the hell he's doing with his life. Come on, we've all been there. And they do a great job at that. Add in that Will's funny and kind of a BAMF, and you've got a great protagonist.
The other performances were awesome, too. It's hard to say who really steals the show, just because everyone's so good in this movie, but my first choice for that's Robin Williams. He does so well as his character, and his character is awesome too. His character is the kind of guy we all hope we can be: he's happy with his life and the choices he's made, even though it hasn't all worked out for him and he hasn't been as successful as he could've been. And then you've got Ben Affleck: first, his character is named Chucky. That in itself is funny, then just add in how freaking hilarious he is in this movie. He's also the ideal best friend, too, because even though he's always screwing up, he has Will's best interest at heart. They make pretty much everyone else relevant, too, like the professor and even Will's girlfriend's a complex character. That's the beauty of it, really: they feel like people and not archetypes.
One of the things I love most about this movie is the idea behind, which they do a great job of showing without force feeding it to the audience, something lots of movies and shows stumble over. That idea is that when you have a gift, a lot of the time there's a difference between what you're "supposed" to do and what you actually want to do, hence Will not being particularly inclined to take up any of the jobs he's being offered. At the same time, the movie does a great job with the flip side of that: a lot of the time, there's also a difference between what you want and what you owe to yourself. That's another thing where we've all been there, and I love stuff like that.
Another huge thing in this is the script, which won the Oscar for best original screenplay, and that really shows, especially in the dialogue. The dialogue isn't only realistic, but it's just plain awesome, and a lot of the time hilarious. I've said hilarious a lot in this review, so I'm starting to get scared that I'm sending the wrong message. So let me make it clear: this is a drama with comedic moments, not a funny. It can be kinda heavy sometimes too, and a bit slow. That's my only beef with the movie actually, that it can be a kind of slow sometimes, but that's where the great dialogue comes in handy. Plus, I need to watch slow movies once in awhile to prove to myself that I can watch things that don't have explosions.
So, Good Will Hunting is on Netflix Instant right now, and you should all go watch it because it's awesome. Seriously, IMO this is one of the best dramas ever made, or at least that I've ever seen. Because it's awesome.
In the end, I saw Good Will Hunting, and their was much rejoicing.
No spoilers, don't worry.
So Good Will Hunting stars Matt Damon; he's janitor at MIT named Will Hunting who didn't go to college, lives in South Boston, and gets drunk with his best friend Ben Affleck every night; basically, he's a white trash nobody. But here's the thing: he's super genius. He sees math equations three other people in the world can solve and cranks out an answer within minutes. Peter Skarsgard plays a professor who catches onto this, so he has his underachieving community college professor friend Robin Williams give Will some therapy so he can move on with his life. And we have our movie... er, well, parts of it.
So, is this movie good? Hell yeah. I'll start with the performances. So, first off you've got Matt Damon kicking ass as Will. In the year 2012, it's really not necessary to say Matt Damon did a good job in a movie because he's Matt Damon, you know, probably the best actor working today other then Bryan Cranston or Gary Oldman. But this was 1997 (year I was born! Woo!), Matt Damon was not Jason Bourne yet, and he still had yet to prove himself truly as an actor, which he does in this movie. Will is a more relatable character then you'd think, too; yeah he's a white trash super genius who's yet to do anything with his life (think Doctor House if he were white trash), but he's going through something we've all been through at some point: asking himself what the hell he's doing with his life. Come on, we've all been there. And they do a great job at that. Add in that Will's funny and kind of a BAMF, and you've got a great protagonist.
The other performances were awesome, too. It's hard to say who really steals the show, just because everyone's so good in this movie, but my first choice for that's Robin Williams. He does so well as his character, and his character is awesome too. His character is the kind of guy we all hope we can be: he's happy with his life and the choices he's made, even though it hasn't all worked out for him and he hasn't been as successful as he could've been. And then you've got Ben Affleck: first, his character is named Chucky. That in itself is funny, then just add in how freaking hilarious he is in this movie. He's also the ideal best friend, too, because even though he's always screwing up, he has Will's best interest at heart. They make pretty much everyone else relevant, too, like the professor and even Will's girlfriend's a complex character. That's the beauty of it, really: they feel like people and not archetypes.
One of the things I love most about this movie is the idea behind, which they do a great job of showing without force feeding it to the audience, something lots of movies and shows stumble over. That idea is that when you have a gift, a lot of the time there's a difference between what you're "supposed" to do and what you actually want to do, hence Will not being particularly inclined to take up any of the jobs he's being offered. At the same time, the movie does a great job with the flip side of that: a lot of the time, there's also a difference between what you want and what you owe to yourself. That's another thing where we've all been there, and I love stuff like that.
Another huge thing in this is the script, which won the Oscar for best original screenplay, and that really shows, especially in the dialogue. The dialogue isn't only realistic, but it's just plain awesome, and a lot of the time hilarious. I've said hilarious a lot in this review, so I'm starting to get scared that I'm sending the wrong message. So let me make it clear: this is a drama with comedic moments, not a funny. It can be kinda heavy sometimes too, and a bit slow. That's my only beef with the movie actually, that it can be a kind of slow sometimes, but that's where the great dialogue comes in handy. Plus, I need to watch slow movies once in awhile to prove to myself that I can watch things that don't have explosions.
So, Good Will Hunting is on Netflix Instant right now, and you should all go watch it because it's awesome. Seriously, IMO this is one of the best dramas ever made, or at least that I've ever seen. Because it's awesome.
In the end, I saw Good Will Hunting, and their was much rejoicing.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Arrow: An Innocent Man Review
You've heard the Batman voice! Now, prepare yourself for the Green Arrow voice!
Spoilers follow.
So who's on the list this week? A guy who framed another guy for murder. Arrow decides he needs a friend in the courts to pull through on this one. Three guesses as to who he picks.
That was the biggest thing in this episode, actually: Arrow confronting Laurel and wanting to use her as his friend in the courts. I'll say that if Arrow has anything over Smallville, it's that they've gotten a to a point in four episodes that Smallville took eight and a half seasons to reach. And I gotta say, this was really cool to watch. They worked well together, and it lead to some really badass stuff, most notably Oliver nearly forcing a guy to get hit buy a train, beating the crap out of a bunch of prisoners, and arrow-zipling off a roof (okay, now you're just showing off). This also eventually leads Laurel to realize that both Arrow and Oliver are selfish in their own ways, which could go down some interesting roads.
The real show-stealer this week though was David Ramsey's John Diggle. After Oliver reveals his secret to him and offers for him to be his Kato, Diggle takes a bit of down time to reevaluate his life. Ramsey does a fantastic job as always in his role, really selling his own inner conflict.
The whole Moira is evil thing gets advanced a bit this week after being more or less forgotten in the last two, as Walter finds the ship in a warehouse and Moira visits John "Fist Shakes" Barrowman in a limo. I'm intrigued.
And then we have the cliffhanger ending of Oliver getting arrested on the charges of being a vigilante. I'm very interested to see how he gets out of this one. Right afterwards we saw a trailer with Death Stroke in it, so you can bet I'm looking forward to next week.
There were a few issues, as was expected, mostly by way of Laurel and Arrow getting handed some pretty lousy dialogue and Thea being forced into the plot. I can't say I'm too fond of Thea so far; she's just kind of annoying, and I don't care if she is Speedy, these writers need to either get rid of her or come up with some stuff for her that isn't painful to watch. But hey, at least Tommy was nowhere in sight.
Final Rating: 83%
Spoilers follow.
So who's on the list this week? A guy who framed another guy for murder. Arrow decides he needs a friend in the courts to pull through on this one. Three guesses as to who he picks.
That was the biggest thing in this episode, actually: Arrow confronting Laurel and wanting to use her as his friend in the courts. I'll say that if Arrow has anything over Smallville, it's that they've gotten a to a point in four episodes that Smallville took eight and a half seasons to reach. And I gotta say, this was really cool to watch. They worked well together, and it lead to some really badass stuff, most notably Oliver nearly forcing a guy to get hit buy a train, beating the crap out of a bunch of prisoners, and arrow-zipling off a roof (okay, now you're just showing off). This also eventually leads Laurel to realize that both Arrow and Oliver are selfish in their own ways, which could go down some interesting roads.
The real show-stealer this week though was David Ramsey's John Diggle. After Oliver reveals his secret to him and offers for him to be his Kato, Diggle takes a bit of down time to reevaluate his life. Ramsey does a fantastic job as always in his role, really selling his own inner conflict.
The whole Moira is evil thing gets advanced a bit this week after being more or less forgotten in the last two, as Walter finds the ship in a warehouse and Moira visits John "Fist Shakes" Barrowman in a limo. I'm intrigued.
And then we have the cliffhanger ending of Oliver getting arrested on the charges of being a vigilante. I'm very interested to see how he gets out of this one. Right afterwards we saw a trailer with Death Stroke in it, so you can bet I'm looking forward to next week.
There were a few issues, as was expected, mostly by way of Laurel and Arrow getting handed some pretty lousy dialogue and Thea being forced into the plot. I can't say I'm too fond of Thea so far; she's just kind of annoying, and I don't care if she is Speedy, these writers need to either get rid of her or come up with some stuff for her that isn't painful to watch. But hey, at least Tommy was nowhere in sight.
Final Rating: 83%
Revolution: Season 1 Episode 6 Review
Yes, I know I didn't use the name of the episode in the title. I'm trying to keep things relatively clean, alright.
Spoilers Follow.
For it's first five episodes, Revolution has been consistently "good but far from great." With this episode I can say things got kicked up a notch in terms of quality.
So, Nora's knife wound at the hands of Lapidus in "Soul Train" comes back to haunt her by way of an infection, for which she needs help that can only be provided by Miles' drug dealer "friend" Drexel. Things go south very quickly.
I'll start with Drexel: he was cool. On top of a few very funny lines, he was really REALLY evil. I mean that. The guy kills women because he can, and wanted to use Charlie as an instrument of revenge. That is evil. And he reveals the latest tidbit about Miles' less then honorable past: he used to take payments to off Drexel's competition. It hasn't really been a secret Miles used to do a lot of bad stuff, but that's just messed up.
Believe it or not, I actually liked Charlie in this episode. OK, maybe not liked, but its a step in the right direction. She's toughening up, she's getting rid of all the fluff, she was completely willing to off old Irish guy who's name escapes me and was about to when Miles stops her. And she did exactly zero Tobey Maguire crying (and there was much rejoicing). I know that there's a lot of hardcore Charlie haters out there patrolling the web probably waiting to inflict death by trolling upon me for saying that, and don't get the wrong idea, I'm not saying I'm suddenly team Charlie, I'm just saying she was a lot more tolerable this week then in weeks past. Still plenty of work to do on her part, but we're making progress.
Here was the real surprise this week: Aaron-centric flashbacks. I let out a bit of a groan when I read that bit in the episode description, as his attempted comedy relief has proven a bit flat in past weeks, but the flashbacks were surprisingly strong. We got a glimpse of a guy who had everything, only to have the blackout take it all away and make him useless. He really felt it too: he couldn't protect his wife, and abandoned her because he thought she'd be better off without him. Cowardly? Sure, on a whole new level really, especially as she wanted to stick with him. But this adds an unexpected layer to Aaron, and certainly makes him more interesting as a character. I can only imagine what'll happen when he runs into her again (oh, don't act like that's not gonna happen. We all know it will). Aaron got a few more good moments when he literally became willing to take a bullet for his friends. Well done.
Only weak link in the episode was Danny's finally meeting his mother, which, because of the limited screen time for build up, didn't have a whole lot of impact. There were also one or to moments, and this keeps happening on the show, where the characters explain a common knowledge fact through dialogue that doesn't need explaining. Seriously, writers, assume your audience is smart.
Final Rating: 81%
Spoilers Follow.
For it's first five episodes, Revolution has been consistently "good but far from great." With this episode I can say things got kicked up a notch in terms of quality.
So, Nora's knife wound at the hands of Lapidus in "Soul Train" comes back to haunt her by way of an infection, for which she needs help that can only be provided by Miles' drug dealer "friend" Drexel. Things go south very quickly.
I'll start with Drexel: he was cool. On top of a few very funny lines, he was really REALLY evil. I mean that. The guy kills women because he can, and wanted to use Charlie as an instrument of revenge. That is evil. And he reveals the latest tidbit about Miles' less then honorable past: he used to take payments to off Drexel's competition. It hasn't really been a secret Miles used to do a lot of bad stuff, but that's just messed up.
Believe it or not, I actually liked Charlie in this episode. OK, maybe not liked, but its a step in the right direction. She's toughening up, she's getting rid of all the fluff, she was completely willing to off old Irish guy who's name escapes me and was about to when Miles stops her. And she did exactly zero Tobey Maguire crying (and there was much rejoicing). I know that there's a lot of hardcore Charlie haters out there patrolling the web probably waiting to inflict death by trolling upon me for saying that, and don't get the wrong idea, I'm not saying I'm suddenly team Charlie, I'm just saying she was a lot more tolerable this week then in weeks past. Still plenty of work to do on her part, but we're making progress.
Here was the real surprise this week: Aaron-centric flashbacks. I let out a bit of a groan when I read that bit in the episode description, as his attempted comedy relief has proven a bit flat in past weeks, but the flashbacks were surprisingly strong. We got a glimpse of a guy who had everything, only to have the blackout take it all away and make him useless. He really felt it too: he couldn't protect his wife, and abandoned her because he thought she'd be better off without him. Cowardly? Sure, on a whole new level really, especially as she wanted to stick with him. But this adds an unexpected layer to Aaron, and certainly makes him more interesting as a character. I can only imagine what'll happen when he runs into her again (oh, don't act like that's not gonna happen. We all know it will). Aaron got a few more good moments when he literally became willing to take a bullet for his friends. Well done.
Only weak link in the episode was Danny's finally meeting his mother, which, because of the limited screen time for build up, didn't have a whole lot of impact. There were also one or to moments, and this keeps happening on the show, where the characters explain a common knowledge fact through dialogue that doesn't need explaining. Seriously, writers, assume your audience is smart.
Final Rating: 81%
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
LucasFilm Bought By Disney, Star Wars 7 in 2015
Well, aside from the fact that George Lucas's price for his own brainchild is $4 billion, it means a couple things. First, it means Disney now owns three major powerhouses in the entertainment world: Pixar, Marvel, and LucasFilm. In other words, they own The Avengers, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and about a million other things. It also means Lucas is a totally different person then he was 30 years ago, when he started LucasFilm to avoid big studios. Granted, he's made it pretty clear he's done making blockbuster movies, but still, I'm actually surprised by this.
And now for the real elephant in the room: Star Wars 7 in less than three years. Just for clarification, that means in 2015 we're gonna have the Avengers 2, the Justice League movie, and Star Wars in the same year. While that is a bit of an instant nerdgasm, I still have mixed feelings. It's not that they're short on material for a seventh movie, given the million and five expanded universe novels taking place post-ROTJ. Granted, I've only read two of 'em. I could just never see them as anything beyond well-written fan fiction. But that's my fear, that it'll feel like a fan fiction. Or that it'll just ruin the whole thing, because, at least in my mind, any franchise that goes beyond five movies is asking for trouble. I mean with Star Wars, I'll make an exception, but in general, four is risky, five is pushing it, beyond that... did any of you see Rocky 6?
On the other hand, Disney is likely to install a fresh face for the new movies, something that'd be a welcomed change. Plus, Joss Whedon works for Disney, and I know that this is really unlikely given how busy the guy is between Avengers 2, Doctor Horrible 2, SHIELD, Wastelanders, and insulting Mitt Romney, but it is possible, albeit, not probably, that he could direct Star Wars, in which case HFS! If we can live in a world where Whedon directs Star Wars and JJ Abrams Star Trek, I'm happy. Again, it's not likely, an experienced but available direct is much more likely, and again again, a fresh face is probably a good thing. Brad Bird sounds promising.
On top of all of this, part of me can't shake the feeling that we're all still clinging to Star Wars when we shouldn't be; It's there, we all love it, and it's always gonna be in the public mindset, but do you think MAYBE it might be time to start letting go? Do as the LOST fans do and learn to accept the fact that the story has ended? The idea that Star Wars has run it's course may sound like blasphemy to some, but I'm just considering things from all POV's, and that one is very much alive in my head.
Here's the beef you guys: Star Wars 7 is happening whether we like it or not. Even if I find out what direction they wanna go in for it and hate it, I'll almost definitely end up seeing it, too. But for the time being, I'll try to be optimistic. And for those of you saying I've gotta bad feeling about this, your lack faith disturbs me.
Monday, October 29, 2012
The Walking Dead: Walk With Me Review
How's about a big hug for your ol' pal the Walking Dead
Spoilers for the episode follow.
In episode one, we only get a few passing glances at Andrea and Michonne. Ep. 2 saw none at all, but this week the roles are reversed; we can assume that Rick and Co. are busy getting acquainted with their new surroundings, Hershel learning to use crutches, Carl hitting on Beth, etc., while Andrea and Michonne take center stage.
So we start off with the helicopter. Is it THE helicopter, i.e., the one from the pilot and the season 2 finale? No idea, they neither confirm nor deny it. If it is, then that explains that much, but if it isn't, what the hell is up with that chopper?! Moving on. The helicopter crashes, and Andrea and Michonne find it. And then the Governor shows up. The Gov. and Co. deal with the situation as you'd expect, and Michonne offs her two pet Walkers to stay hidden. I was not expecting that, mostly because I figured they were some sort of integral part of her character. I haven't read the comics, so I wouldn't know, but either way that bit surprised me. And then Merle finds the ladies and brings them back to Woodbury, the Governor's little settlement.
Ah, Merle. You know, the racist ass, brother to the much cooler Daryl, who wanted to kill T-Dog for the heck of it, prompting Rick to chain him to a building. Yeah that Merle. When I first saw the trailer for this season, the bit at the end with Merle gave me this hilariously evil grin (I'm still predicting Daryl's gonna kill him). Not that I liked Merle, quite the opposite, I just knew it was gonna result in some serious death. Which it does a little bit, though he seems to have rehab'd a bit. He doesn't immediately go redneck on Michonne, and even acts sad when he hears Amy's dead. Can't help but feel it's a bit contrived, but there's every chance they'll explain his new found reduction in douchyness.
The show paints Woodbury as a quaint, picturesque little town under armed guard by the charismatic and very evil Governor (it might just be a nickname, but he sure seems to like it). Think the City of Ember; everything looks fine on the surface, but poke it with a stick just enough and it'll all come crashing down. And when I say the Governor's evil, I mean it; he might seem like a nice, well-meaning, kindly leader of a fledgling community, but the troop of soldiers he mows down and the wall made of heads in jars he has in his apartment (and I do mean heads, not inverted, mutated cow fetuses) tell otherwise. Morrissey's got more then enough charisma and acting talent/range to pull off all facets of the character the writers are providing, and he's just good in this role. He's kind of like Ben Linus in LOST season 3, except without the daddy-issues and back cancer (then again, it's only episode 3, he could easily have both of those), and less creepy and more outright terrifying. You want creepy, check out his #2 Milton.
I was pretty impressed with Michonne as well, or at least what little we were given. She's still tight-lipped, so we don't know much other than that she's a badass and she's secretive. Danai Gurrera does a solid job with her portrayal, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her kill more zombies in the future. Heck, I'm just looking forward to seeing where this story goes, because it's bordering on addicting. Next Sunday can't get here soon enough.
Final Rating: 89%
Spoilers for the episode follow.
In episode one, we only get a few passing glances at Andrea and Michonne. Ep. 2 saw none at all, but this week the roles are reversed; we can assume that Rick and Co. are busy getting acquainted with their new surroundings, Hershel learning to use crutches, Carl hitting on Beth, etc., while Andrea and Michonne take center stage.
So we start off with the helicopter. Is it THE helicopter, i.e., the one from the pilot and the season 2 finale? No idea, they neither confirm nor deny it. If it is, then that explains that much, but if it isn't, what the hell is up with that chopper?! Moving on. The helicopter crashes, and Andrea and Michonne find it. And then the Governor shows up. The Gov. and Co. deal with the situation as you'd expect, and Michonne offs her two pet Walkers to stay hidden. I was not expecting that, mostly because I figured they were some sort of integral part of her character. I haven't read the comics, so I wouldn't know, but either way that bit surprised me. And then Merle finds the ladies and brings them back to Woodbury, the Governor's little settlement.
Ah, Merle. You know, the racist ass, brother to the much cooler Daryl, who wanted to kill T-Dog for the heck of it, prompting Rick to chain him to a building. Yeah that Merle. When I first saw the trailer for this season, the bit at the end with Merle gave me this hilariously evil grin (I'm still predicting Daryl's gonna kill him). Not that I liked Merle, quite the opposite, I just knew it was gonna result in some serious death. Which it does a little bit, though he seems to have rehab'd a bit. He doesn't immediately go redneck on Michonne, and even acts sad when he hears Amy's dead. Can't help but feel it's a bit contrived, but there's every chance they'll explain his new found reduction in douchyness.
The show paints Woodbury as a quaint, picturesque little town under armed guard by the charismatic and very evil Governor (it might just be a nickname, but he sure seems to like it). Think the City of Ember; everything looks fine on the surface, but poke it with a stick just enough and it'll all come crashing down. And when I say the Governor's evil, I mean it; he might seem like a nice, well-meaning, kindly leader of a fledgling community, but the troop of soldiers he mows down and the wall made of heads in jars he has in his apartment (and I do mean heads, not inverted, mutated cow fetuses) tell otherwise. Morrissey's got more then enough charisma and acting talent/range to pull off all facets of the character the writers are providing, and he's just good in this role. He's kind of like Ben Linus in LOST season 3, except without the daddy-issues and back cancer (then again, it's only episode 3, he could easily have both of those), and less creepy and more outright terrifying. You want creepy, check out his #2 Milton.
I was pretty impressed with Michonne as well, or at least what little we were given. She's still tight-lipped, so we don't know much other than that she's a badass and she's secretive. Danai Gurrera does a solid job with her portrayal, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her kill more zombies in the future. Heck, I'm just looking forward to seeing where this story goes, because it's bordering on addicting. Next Sunday can't get here soon enough.
Final Rating: 89%
Sunday, October 28, 2012
10 TV Characters You'd Trust In The Post-Apocalypse
There's a slew of post-apocalypse going around the tube these days. I use the term "these days" lightly, as it's not really a recent phenomenon: plenty of genre shows have done either a flashforward or a reset button episode taking us to some screwed up future/alt u. created by the mistakes of the characters, and there's at least three on right now that take place in that exact scenario. But say you were thrown into post-apocalyptic TV land. Who would you want in your rag-tag band of survivors? Let me give you a few suggestions:
Rick Grimes
Show: The Walking Dead
Played By: Andrew Lincoln
Getting the Obvious one out of the way first, I 'spose. So why should you trust this Deputy Sheriff turned Z-poc survivor? I don't know, maybe because he can take his group and turn them all into an elite strike force, capable of taking out an entire house full of walkers in under ten minutes, and then have them storm a prison, exterminating a yard and then two cell block full of walkers in less then two days. Plus, if there's an annoying kid in your group, he'll make a BAMF before you can say Dale's dead.
Martha Jones
Show: Doctor Who
Played By: Freema Ageyman
The Master had taken over the Earth and turned into his own post-apocalyptic playground, rendered the Doctor useless, chained up Captain Jack, and enslaved Martha's family. Martha was the only one left to restore the world. Her actions in "The Last of the Time Lords" prove she's tougher then most people give her credit for, surviving an entire year in the wasteland against all odds, spreading the Doctor's message across the world and eventually becoming the person to restore it, all without spilling blood once. Looking to keep your hands clean? Stick with Ms. Jones.
Oliver Queen
Show: Smallville
Played By: Justin Hartley
In the flashforward episode of season 9, "Pandora", superpowered Kandorians had taken over the world and stripped the soon-to-be Man of Steel of his powers. Oliver and his quasi-girlfriend Chloe lead the only resistance group, taking out beings who could crush them by breathing. So why isn't Chloe on this list. Well, Chloe wasn't willing to stand against an entire army of Kandorians flying directly at her with nothing but a bow and arrows. At the very least, the guy's got balls, something your group of survivors is gonna need.
Alpha
Show: Dollhouse
Played By: Alan Tudyk
In "Epitaph 2", it's revealed that the thought-pocalypse made Alpha defect to the side of angels, and his myriad of skills and personalities made him a valuable weapon. Not only that, but he rebuilt the skeleton of the Dollhouse into a safe haven for dumbshells, fending off butchers at every moment. At the very least, with lines like "It really speaks to the schizophrenic in me. Both actually," and "Did you just call me a Luddite?", he'd provide some much needed comedy relief in the otherwise bleak world of the Post-poc.
Jack Bauer
Show: 24
Played By: Kiefer Sutherland
Just saying, it'd probably be useful to have him around.
Rupert Giles
Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Played By: Anthony Stewart Head
One vampire is worth exactly 20 zombies, and for one episode set in an AU, Giles lived in a vampire apocalypse, keeping any innocent people stupid enough to walk the streets of Sunnydale at night safe and just dusting vampires 'cause he felt like it with the help of only a laconic werewolf and a gay football player. Plus, he winds up reversing said apocalypse, so I think you might want to find if you're somehow displeased with your current situation.
Miles Matheson
Show: Revolution
Played By: Billy Burke
Guns banned by your PA's tyrannical government? No prob, Miles, Revolution's very own Han Solo, can show you the basics of how to be BA with a sword, take down said tyrannical government, and generally just help you avoid winding up with your head on a stick.
Michonne
Show: The Walking Dead
Played By: Danai Guirrera
I'm not saying you'll wind up with both Grimes and Michonne; Heck, if Andrea's present condition tells us anything, it's that that probably won't happen. But if do, we'll then your all set; just find yourself a prison, settle down, and avoid Andrew Morrisey at all costs.
Kara Thrace
Show: Battlestar Galactica
Played By: Katee Sackhoff
Nearly every PA involves violence of some kind, and when that happens, you're gonna want the best shot, in or out of the cockpit. Plus, without spoiling anything, she's more then capable of... how do I put this? Getting you where you need to go. Plus, she's easily the hottest girl on this list, and you're gonna need something like that.
Sarah Connor
Show: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Played By: Lena Heady
It's Sarah Connor. 'Nough said.
Who You Don't Want:
Anyone on Falling Skies
It's not that I hate the show; on the contrary, I like... most of the time. It's just that, let's face, these guys are all gonna wind up dead. Well, except for maybe Tector.
Show: The Walking Dead
Played By: Andrew Lincoln
Getting the Obvious one out of the way first, I 'spose. So why should you trust this Deputy Sheriff turned Z-poc survivor? I don't know, maybe because he can take his group and turn them all into an elite strike force, capable of taking out an entire house full of walkers in under ten minutes, and then have them storm a prison, exterminating a yard and then two cell block full of walkers in less then two days. Plus, if there's an annoying kid in your group, he'll make a BAMF before you can say Dale's dead.
Show: Doctor Who
Played By: Freema Ageyman
The Master had taken over the Earth and turned into his own post-apocalyptic playground, rendered the Doctor useless, chained up Captain Jack, and enslaved Martha's family. Martha was the only one left to restore the world. Her actions in "The Last of the Time Lords" prove she's tougher then most people give her credit for, surviving an entire year in the wasteland against all odds, spreading the Doctor's message across the world and eventually becoming the person to restore it, all without spilling blood once. Looking to keep your hands clean? Stick with Ms. Jones.
Oliver Queen
Played By: Justin Hartley
In the flashforward episode of season 9, "Pandora", superpowered Kandorians had taken over the world and stripped the soon-to-be Man of Steel of his powers. Oliver and his quasi-girlfriend Chloe lead the only resistance group, taking out beings who could crush them by breathing. So why isn't Chloe on this list. Well, Chloe wasn't willing to stand against an entire army of Kandorians flying directly at her with nothing but a bow and arrows. At the very least, the guy's got balls, something your group of survivors is gonna need.
Show: Dollhouse
Played By: Alan Tudyk
In "Epitaph 2", it's revealed that the thought-pocalypse made Alpha defect to the side of angels, and his myriad of skills and personalities made him a valuable weapon. Not only that, but he rebuilt the skeleton of the Dollhouse into a safe haven for dumbshells, fending off butchers at every moment. At the very least, with lines like "It really speaks to the schizophrenic in me. Both actually," and "Did you just call me a Luddite?", he'd provide some much needed comedy relief in the otherwise bleak world of the Post-poc.
Show: 24
Played By: Kiefer Sutherland
Just saying, it'd probably be useful to have him around.
Rupert Giles
Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Played By: Anthony Stewart Head
One vampire is worth exactly 20 zombies, and for one episode set in an AU, Giles lived in a vampire apocalypse, keeping any innocent people stupid enough to walk the streets of Sunnydale at night safe and just dusting vampires 'cause he felt like it with the help of only a laconic werewolf and a gay football player. Plus, he winds up reversing said apocalypse, so I think you might want to find if you're somehow displeased with your current situation.
Miles Matheson
Played By: Billy Burke
Guns banned by your PA's tyrannical government? No prob, Miles, Revolution's very own Han Solo, can show you the basics of how to be BA with a sword, take down said tyrannical government, and generally just help you avoid winding up with your head on a stick.
Show: The Walking Dead
Played By: Danai Guirrera
I'm not saying you'll wind up with both Grimes and Michonne; Heck, if Andrea's present condition tells us anything, it's that that probably won't happen. But if do, we'll then your all set; just find yourself a prison, settle down, and avoid Andrew Morrisey at all costs.
Kara Thrace
Show: Battlestar Galactica
Played By: Katee Sackhoff
Show: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Played By: Lena Heady
It's Sarah Connor. 'Nough said.
Who You Don't Want:
Anyone on Falling Skies
It's not that I hate the show; on the contrary, I like... most of the time. It's just that, let's face, these guys are all gonna wind up dead. Well, except for maybe Tector.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
The Walking Dead: Sick Review
I... I actually don't have a joke for this.
Spoilers for the episode.
So, the episode picks up right where the last one left off: Hershel is dying, and there's other people in the prison. Other people that our heroes(?) are gonna have to deal with. So, as some tend to Hershel, Rick, Daryll, and T-Dog help the other prisoners whose names escape clear out their own cell block. What could possible go wrong?
This was another great episode, so chalk another point up for season 3. The main plot of dealing with the new prisoners was cool, and, when the prisoners use prison riot tactics to try and take out a walker, complete with stabbing it in the chest multiple times, hilarious. Yeah, I just used the word hilarious when talking about TWD. I don't think it'd be too controversial to say TWD's ever been the funniest show, but this seen made me laugh, especially when Rick and Co. looked at the prisoners and poorly resisted the urge to say "can you believe these newbs."
After that it gets back to the usual tone, getting really intense and dark, and of course, bloody, and you enjoy every second of it, right up to the point where Rick offs the prisoners leader for side-swiping him into a walker. Yeah, you read that right. Rule #1 of Rick Grimes these days: Shane is dead, it's staying that way. It really says a lot about how much Rick has changed: a year ago, he wouldn't have even considered that. How far we've come, though maybe a little too far when he let one of the other, completely harmless prisoners, experience death by walker. By episode end, there's two prisoners left, inhabiting a new cell block. Hopefully something good, or at least interesting, will come of them.
The B-plot with Hershel was good too, leading to some great emotional moments with Maggie and Beth (who apparently the writers have decided not to kill given that she's actually being given stuff to do. Or they could just be making us care about her enough to make us cry when she dies), and everyone else a little bit too, though Carrol seems more concerned about the fact that if Hershel dies, she becomes the group doctor. And for those of you wondering why they'd send there only doctor into the walker hunt in the first place, they deal with that when Maggie sobs a very simple "we shouldn't have let him come". Granted, there was a really cheap jump scare moment where you thought Hershel was walker-ifying(-inizing?). See, that's the kind of thing you'd think these writers would be above.
Beyond that, a few good character moments, like Lori addressing the fact that she's a contradicting, annoying person and a terrible mother ("we'll find Carl a safe place to do... whatever it is he does these days."). It's gonna be a long way before anyone actually starts liking Lori, but we're getting there. Rick putting his hand on her shoulder, even though he still won't look at her, is progress to. And Carrol deciding to practice surgery on a walker, both interesting and really gross. And the end twist, that was cool too.
Episode flaws: the prisoners weren't the most believable characters (they were locked in a cafeteria for ten months an NO ONE thought that whatever's happening might be big), and the complete lack of Michonne and Andrea (fortunately, next week is all them and the governor).
Final Rating: 90%
Spoilers for the episode.
So, the episode picks up right where the last one left off: Hershel is dying, and there's other people in the prison. Other people that our heroes(?) are gonna have to deal with. So, as some tend to Hershel, Rick, Daryll, and T-Dog help the other prisoners whose names escape clear out their own cell block. What could possible go wrong?
This was another great episode, so chalk another point up for season 3. The main plot of dealing with the new prisoners was cool, and, when the prisoners use prison riot tactics to try and take out a walker, complete with stabbing it in the chest multiple times, hilarious. Yeah, I just used the word hilarious when talking about TWD. I don't think it'd be too controversial to say TWD's ever been the funniest show, but this seen made me laugh, especially when Rick and Co. looked at the prisoners and poorly resisted the urge to say "can you believe these newbs."
After that it gets back to the usual tone, getting really intense and dark, and of course, bloody, and you enjoy every second of it, right up to the point where Rick offs the prisoners leader for side-swiping him into a walker. Yeah, you read that right. Rule #1 of Rick Grimes these days: Shane is dead, it's staying that way. It really says a lot about how much Rick has changed: a year ago, he wouldn't have even considered that. How far we've come, though maybe a little too far when he let one of the other, completely harmless prisoners, experience death by walker. By episode end, there's two prisoners left, inhabiting a new cell block. Hopefully something good, or at least interesting, will come of them.
The B-plot with Hershel was good too, leading to some great emotional moments with Maggie and Beth (who apparently the writers have decided not to kill given that she's actually being given stuff to do. Or they could just be making us care about her enough to make us cry when she dies), and everyone else a little bit too, though Carrol seems more concerned about the fact that if Hershel dies, she becomes the group doctor. And for those of you wondering why they'd send there only doctor into the walker hunt in the first place, they deal with that when Maggie sobs a very simple "we shouldn't have let him come". Granted, there was a really cheap jump scare moment where you thought Hershel was walker-ifying(-inizing?). See, that's the kind of thing you'd think these writers would be above.
Beyond that, a few good character moments, like Lori addressing the fact that she's a contradicting, annoying person and a terrible mother ("we'll find Carl a safe place to do... whatever it is he does these days."). It's gonna be a long way before anyone actually starts liking Lori, but we're getting there. Rick putting his hand on her shoulder, even though he still won't look at her, is progress to. And Carrol deciding to practice surgery on a walker, both interesting and really gross. And the end twist, that was cool too.
Episode flaws: the prisoners weren't the most believable characters (they were locked in a cafeteria for ten months an NO ONE thought that whatever's happening might be big), and the complete lack of Michonne and Andrea (fortunately, next week is all them and the governor).
Final Rating: 90%
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Supernatural: Heartache Review
You lurk in spoiler-filled waters, be warned.
It was inevitable that Supernatural was gonna start cranking out a few monsters of the week eventually this season, which came to be this week. And how was it? Meh. The show's had some really good MOTW's over the years, too, like season 2's Bloodlust and season 7's Repo Man, but this was not up to that level of quality. By no means was this a bad episode, i.e., this wasn't something from season 3, it was just a tad bland.
The monster just wasn't that great, and you could see where this was going pretty quickly, as was voiced by the not-so-good dialogue. You might be interested to know that this was written by the writers of season 1's Route 666 (the racist truck episode). Just sayin'. In truth, the dialogue probably was the worst part of the episode, with so many scenes, like Sam once again telling Dean he wants a normal life, were awkwardly written, while others, like the first encounter with Eleanor, were cringe-inducing. A few moments had some great lines though, like the bit at the farmers market, or the interaction between Dean and a no-nonsense, no snarkiness detective (played by Jensen Ackles' dad Alan Ackles, no less), though beyond those things were pretty chunky. Rising above the writing was Jensen's directing; it's his third time behind the camera, and he seems to have to genuine talent for it, though he wasn't given a lot to work with.
Anyway, the monster itself, Brick, you never even meet, and there's a few plot holes regarding him; for instance, if Brick knew his heart was the source of his power, why would he let that be donated? And how did no one notice that all these athletes from throughout sports history looked curiously similar? Shame on you writers.
The best parts were the continuity bits, like calling up Harry Groening (the mayor from Buffy) for information now that Bobby (RIP) is no longer an option, even if you don't get to see said mayor, which is a shame. And of course Sam's renewed, season 1-esque desire to go back to a normal life now that he's got a dog and kinda hot girlfriend (displayed in an aww-inducingly warm and fuzzy flashback), contrasting with Dean's "you and me hunting, that's where it's at" attitude. The scene was a awkwardly written, but the point gets across.
In the end, after two fantastic opening episodes, SPN crashes back down to Earth with a little too much impact.
Final Rating: 76%
It was inevitable that Supernatural was gonna start cranking out a few monsters of the week eventually this season, which came to be this week. And how was it? Meh. The show's had some really good MOTW's over the years, too, like season 2's Bloodlust and season 7's Repo Man, but this was not up to that level of quality. By no means was this a bad episode, i.e., this wasn't something from season 3, it was just a tad bland.
The monster just wasn't that great, and you could see where this was going pretty quickly, as was voiced by the not-so-good dialogue. You might be interested to know that this was written by the writers of season 1's Route 666 (the racist truck episode). Just sayin'. In truth, the dialogue probably was the worst part of the episode, with so many scenes, like Sam once again telling Dean he wants a normal life, were awkwardly written, while others, like the first encounter with Eleanor, were cringe-inducing. A few moments had some great lines though, like the bit at the farmers market, or the interaction between Dean and a no-nonsense, no snarkiness detective (played by Jensen Ackles' dad Alan Ackles, no less), though beyond those things were pretty chunky. Rising above the writing was Jensen's directing; it's his third time behind the camera, and he seems to have to genuine talent for it, though he wasn't given a lot to work with.
Anyway, the monster itself, Brick, you never even meet, and there's a few plot holes regarding him; for instance, if Brick knew his heart was the source of his power, why would he let that be donated? And how did no one notice that all these athletes from throughout sports history looked curiously similar? Shame on you writers.
The best parts were the continuity bits, like calling up Harry Groening (the mayor from Buffy) for information now that Bobby (RIP) is no longer an option, even if you don't get to see said mayor, which is a shame. And of course Sam's renewed, season 1-esque desire to go back to a normal life now that he's got a dog and kinda hot girlfriend (displayed in an aww-inducingly warm and fuzzy flashback), contrasting with Dean's "you and me hunting, that's where it's at" attitude. The scene was a awkwardly written, but the point gets across.
In the end, after two fantastic opening episodes, SPN crashes back down to Earth with a little too much impact.
Final Rating: 76%
Revolution: Soul Train Review
Witness the beginning of Captain Neville.
Spoilers lie ahead.
I said last week I was hoping for it, and it came: a Captain Neville-centric episode. Granted, like usual, the flashbacks were far to short and left you wanting quite a bit more, but they were still good. Giancarlo Esposito has been one the show's strong points since the first episode, and him taking center stage was great. His flashbacks showing him as the guy that pretty much everyone walked all over while he puts on a happy face for his family and a disturbing amount of rage builds up was really interesting, and Esposito more then sells it, he owns it. You can tell, too, that he really was a different person back then, by the way he tweeks his mannerisms and intonations ever so slightly.
In no way was he a let down in the main story of the episode either; One of the first scenes was him beating the crap out of Danny for fun. After being a bit stupid last week, Danny boy's wised up a bit, effectively telling Neville he's sick of his crap. Bravo. Speaking of Danny, our heroes have tracked him to a train town that's gonna locomotive him to Monroe and Rachel in Philly. So, it's a rescue mission, in which they recruit none other Lapidus himself, Jeff Fahey, playing a bookstore owner (even in the post-apocalypse, Joe Biden gets no respect.) Fahey was great, selling his misplaced desire to avenge his wife, and like Mark Pelligrino, he made it out of this episode alive. Here's hoping to see both of them in the future.
If there was a weak link, it was, surprise surprise, Charlie. Sure it was cool when she and Neville met and realized they'd never actually seen each other, but is she really so damn dumb as to follow him, the exact opposite of what Miles told her to do and an all around not good decision? Apparently yes, though to be fair, it lead it a pretty sweet confrontation between Miles and Neville, ala Han Solo vs Darth Vader (though there, Han is quite capable of kicking Vader's ass, probably because he's sort of Vader himself, if you follow). And of course you then have a Charlie-Miles fight, Charlie crying those Tobey Maguire tears we've gotten way too used to seeing. At least she had an excuse this time, i.e. she's still reeling from Maggie's death, which got a nice shout out at the beginning of the episode. By the end, Charlie claims she's gonna toughen up. Here's hoping, because if that doesn't take the only way we're gonna avoid any more of these Niece-Uncle fights is if Charlie gets multiple-personality disorder and becomes a totally different person.
And then we have the assault of the train, a very nice action sequence if ever there was one. While the Danny-rescuing mission didn't work, it was still cool, and now he's in Philly with Mamma and Uncle Bass, i.e., no more of the traveling prisoner story line, which was starting to stretch itself a bit thin. Monroe really is evil given what he's doing to Rachel, and it works too, because she let's the second big twist of the episode slip: those electricity-generating pendants? Yeah, there's twelve of them, and Monroe needs all of them if he wants to turn the lights back on. I say the second twist, because of the other one: Not-Nate, AKA Jason, is Neville's son. Gasp. I might not have been shocked by this, but I was glad about, because the writers are trying to make Nate relevant beyond being Charlie's love interest.
Overall, Revolution maintained it's usual brand of good but not great this week, with a few good twists, some nice action, and fantastic performance by Giancarlo Esposito.
Final Rating: 80%
Spoilers lie ahead.
I said last week I was hoping for it, and it came: a Captain Neville-centric episode. Granted, like usual, the flashbacks were far to short and left you wanting quite a bit more, but they were still good. Giancarlo Esposito has been one the show's strong points since the first episode, and him taking center stage was great. His flashbacks showing him as the guy that pretty much everyone walked all over while he puts on a happy face for his family and a disturbing amount of rage builds up was really interesting, and Esposito more then sells it, he owns it. You can tell, too, that he really was a different person back then, by the way he tweeks his mannerisms and intonations ever so slightly.
In no way was he a let down in the main story of the episode either; One of the first scenes was him beating the crap out of Danny for fun. After being a bit stupid last week, Danny boy's wised up a bit, effectively telling Neville he's sick of his crap. Bravo. Speaking of Danny, our heroes have tracked him to a train town that's gonna locomotive him to Monroe and Rachel in Philly. So, it's a rescue mission, in which they recruit none other Lapidus himself, Jeff Fahey, playing a bookstore owner (even in the post-apocalypse, Joe Biden gets no respect.) Fahey was great, selling his misplaced desire to avenge his wife, and like Mark Pelligrino, he made it out of this episode alive. Here's hoping to see both of them in the future.
If there was a weak link, it was, surprise surprise, Charlie. Sure it was cool when she and Neville met and realized they'd never actually seen each other, but is she really so damn dumb as to follow him, the exact opposite of what Miles told her to do and an all around not good decision? Apparently yes, though to be fair, it lead it a pretty sweet confrontation between Miles and Neville, ala Han Solo vs Darth Vader (though there, Han is quite capable of kicking Vader's ass, probably because he's sort of Vader himself, if you follow). And of course you then have a Charlie-Miles fight, Charlie crying those Tobey Maguire tears we've gotten way too used to seeing. At least she had an excuse this time, i.e. she's still reeling from Maggie's death, which got a nice shout out at the beginning of the episode. By the end, Charlie claims she's gonna toughen up. Here's hoping, because if that doesn't take the only way we're gonna avoid any more of these Niece-Uncle fights is if Charlie gets multiple-personality disorder and becomes a totally different person.
And then we have the assault of the train, a very nice action sequence if ever there was one. While the Danny-rescuing mission didn't work, it was still cool, and now he's in Philly with Mamma and Uncle Bass, i.e., no more of the traveling prisoner story line, which was starting to stretch itself a bit thin. Monroe really is evil given what he's doing to Rachel, and it works too, because she let's the second big twist of the episode slip: those electricity-generating pendants? Yeah, there's twelve of them, and Monroe needs all of them if he wants to turn the lights back on. I say the second twist, because of the other one: Not-Nate, AKA Jason, is Neville's son. Gasp. I might not have been shocked by this, but I was glad about, because the writers are trying to make Nate relevant beyond being Charlie's love interest.
Overall, Revolution maintained it's usual brand of good but not great this week, with a few good twists, some nice action, and fantastic performance by Giancarlo Esposito.
Final Rating: 80%
Arrow: Honor Thy Father Review
So, this is Arrow's second week out, and ep. 2 is usually a weak one. How did it fair?
Spoilers for the episode.
Suspicions confirmed, the list is going to be one of the show's driving forces. Liken it to the Machine over on POI if you want.Green Arrow is going after a bad chap named Somers, who Laurel is rather conveniently prosecuting. As Somers gets scared, assassin China White is called in.
The best part of the episode was Stephen Amell. He's really nailing his role, selling the quite brooding bit perfectly. And he's a total badass, and let's face it, you know you wanted him to put an arrow through Somers' chest. The part of his role Amell's having trouble with is the irresponsible playboy stick, which he just doesn't have the swag to pull. It's really not even necessary when you think about, so I'm sitting here wondering why the writers keep shoehorning it in.
Runner up performance goes to John Diggle. He's good, he's cool, and he seems to be onto Oliver. No confirmation as to whether he not he KNOWS knows Ollie's secret, but it'll almost definetly get there eventually. It appears Arrow's getting his own Kato. Most of the rest of the performances were fine, though Katie Cassidy, while good (surprisingly, I might add), could stand to tone it down a bit. I can't say I'm terribly fond of Ollie's sister Thea, who's overacting most of her lines and keeps leading into some really cheesy character interactions. Moira is pretty meh so far too; it was interesting to learn that she sank the boat, thought it feels a tad forced.
Overall, The episode was good, but with a few things holding it back, not unlike last week. A few things I was hoping they'd cut after the pilot but didn't: Ollie's grating, cliched, and just irritating narration, wooden acting, and cheesy/campy/cliched scenarios/dialogue that feel out of place and contradict the dark nature of the show. Onto this week: the opening action scene was a bit poorly done, and China White and her almost disturbingly platinum wig felt thoroughly underused.
Positives, on the other hand, were there: the later action scenes were nothing short of spectacular, the character interactions took the front seat, always a good thing, and the island flashbacks were particularly strong, albeit short, and lead to the big reveal: Ollie was not alone the island.
Bottom line: good but not great.
Final Rating: 80%
Spoilers for the episode.
Suspicions confirmed, the list is going to be one of the show's driving forces. Liken it to the Machine over on POI if you want.
The best part of the episode was Stephen Amell. He's really nailing his role, selling the quite brooding bit perfectly. And he's a total badass, and let's face it, you know you wanted him to put an arrow through Somers' chest. The part of his role Amell's having trouble with is the irresponsible playboy stick, which he just doesn't have the swag to pull. It's really not even necessary when you think about, so I'm sitting here wondering why the writers keep shoehorning it in.
Runner up performance goes to John Diggle. He's good, he's cool, and he seems to be onto Oliver. No confirmation as to whether he not he KNOWS knows Ollie's secret, but it'll almost definetly get there eventually. It appears Arrow's getting his own Kato. Most of the rest of the performances were fine, though Katie Cassidy, while good (surprisingly, I might add), could stand to tone it down a bit. I can't say I'm terribly fond of Ollie's sister Thea, who's overacting most of her lines and keeps leading into some really cheesy character interactions. Moira is pretty meh so far too; it was interesting to learn that she sank the boat, thought it feels a tad forced.
Overall, The episode was good, but with a few things holding it back, not unlike last week. A few things I was hoping they'd cut after the pilot but didn't: Ollie's grating, cliched, and just irritating narration, wooden acting, and cheesy/campy/cliched scenarios/dialogue that feel out of place and contradict the dark nature of the show. Onto this week: the opening action scene was a bit poorly done, and China White and her almost disturbingly platinum wig felt thoroughly underused.
Positives, on the other hand, were there: the later action scenes were nothing short of spectacular, the character interactions took the front seat, always a good thing, and the island flashbacks were particularly strong, albeit short, and lead to the big reveal: Ollie was not alone the island.
Bottom line: good but not great.
Final Rating: 80%
Monday, October 15, 2012
The Walking Dead: Seed (Season 3 Premier) Review
Welcome to a world without rules- oh wait, that was the tagline for the Dark Knight, wasn't it? Never mind.
Spoilers for the episode follow.
Okay, so the Walking Dead is back for it's third season, which premiered last night on AMC, and it is pulling no punches, or anything else for that matter. The episode starts off, it's been like nine months, or at least that's implied from the size of Lori's stomach and the thickness of Hershel's beard, and you see the team storm this house. They just barge in, waste all the walkers, Daryll finds, kills, and begins to eat an owl he finds, and they all sit down on the floor and start to eat, until they notice some walkers outside and they have to run again. And all of this has no dialogue at all, save for T-Dog's one line that I can't even remember. And then theme song starts playing. Basically, this five minute sequence does a perfect job of showing that they've been at this for awhile, they're exhausted, but they just keep pushing. And then they find the prison.
When they find the prison, they immediately see a chance, and they take it. They rush in, seal the walkers in the courtyard, and off them from watchtowers George Romero style, which was really cool to see. It's actually kind of strange to see where all these characters are now; they're a lot more tight-nit, probably because Shane's gone (but people are still feeling the impact he had), Rick is still in charge, Daryl's second in command, and everyone's a BAMF. Even Carl's a badass (it also appears the writers are considering fixing him up Beth, probably to give her something to do other then kill her off, though the age gap is strange). After that, they take a breather, sing a little song with the walkers still around making it a bit creepy, and go for stage two.
Stage two, storm the rest of the prison. This was best part of the episode. It was this gigantic zombie battle, and I don't think anything like it's ever been put on screen. They were all using axes, knives, and such to, so it was close-quarters. And some of the zombies were wearing body armor too, at which point everyone, on screen and off, went "oh crap". The pure joy Maggie had when she works out how to kill them is awesome.
Let's pause from this a moment to talk about Michonne, because otherwise I'll probably forget. We met her last season finale, and I went "huh." She and Andrea have been together all winter, saving each others tails, but now Andrea's sick. This was easily conveyed, and the woman who plays Michonne is not only a good actress, but she's a badass to (she decapitates three walkers at once).
Back to the prison: they get in, Lori, who, thank God, is slightly less infuriating, voices her fears to Hershel about what might happen if her baby is stillborn (terrifying mental images), and the next day, they storm the rest of the prison for walkers in some eerie yet exciting action scenes, and then Hershel gets bit in the leg. For a moment their, we were all thinking his time had come. And then Rick amputates the leg. You read that right (I almost lost my man card when that happened, if you catch my drift), and, big twist, wait for it, their are other people in the prison. Holy *bleep*.
All in all, this was an awesome episode, and a great start to what'll hopefully be a great season.
Final Rating: 93%
All in all, this was an awesome episode, and a great start to what'll hopefully be a great season.
Final Rating: 93%
Saturday, October 13, 2012
The Top Ten Movie Franchises
At long last, a new top ten list. Haven't done many lately, sorry about that, but they take awhile and I've been a tad pressed for time. But better late then never. The list has a simple enough idea: the best movie series ever made. To qualify, it has to be a series of at least two movies, and each film in the series has to be at least as good as the others. In other words: the Matrix trilogy is NOT here. Let's get started.
Honorable Mentions:
Men In Black trilogy:
There will always be a place in my heart these movies, but it wasn't quite consistent enough to qualify. Sorry, Mr. Smith. Sorry Mr. Jones.
Also, if you need the absence of the Godfather trilogy explained, and this is to my everlasting shame, I have never seen the Godfather. Bring on the troll comments.
10. The Back to the Future Trilogy
I almost considered leaving this off the list, but in the end, the fact that the first Back to the Future IS my favorite movie of all time (totally serious about that. If I made a list of my top ten favorite movies of all time, it would be number one) has to count for something, and the fact that these were effectively the time travel movies to give birth to almost all other time travel movies has to count for quite a bit. And hey, the sequels might not have kicked quite as much ass, but they're still enjoyable movies and I'll watch them if they're on. Marty McFly, Doc Brown, I salute you.
9. The Toy Story Trilogy
No matter how old you are, you love these movies. You know you do. Some of the best animations ever made, the Toy Story tells a story about childhood and growing up that anyone can relate to, and, in a lot of cases, cry to (no matter how old you are, you've cried at least once watching one of these movies. You know you have.). They're funny, nostalgic, brilliant, relatable, and at some parts, freaking epic (how else would you describe 3's take on the Great Escape?) You can only imagine how I reacted when I found out Joss Whedon wrote the first one.
8. Harry Potter
Don't judge me. Okay fine, judge me, but this is staying on the list. I'm part of the generation that grew up with these, sue me. I used to be the king of staying up until two AM reading the books. And in there lies the brilliance: the fact that they're some of the best adaptations to ever come along. The fact that the casting directors managed to pick great actors out of the army of 11 year olds doesn't hurt. Telling one of the most brilliant, epic, and carefully laid out stories ever told about a boy wizard finding his place in the world, the Harry Potter franchise captivated a generation and occupied an entire decade. Did the last two leave something to be desired? Yes (making book 7 two movies was a stupid decision, plain and simple), but I will always love these movies, and everyone knows someone who feels the same way.
7. Marvel Cinematic Universe
Yes, this counts. The MCU represents one of the biggest gambles in movie history: adapting seperate comic books into their own solo origin-story movies that take place in a shared universe and having a crossover in the penultimate pile of awesome The Avengers (one of the best movies of the year, IMO). Something like this shouldn't have worked, but it did. Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America were all established in some pretty kickass solo movies, and, along with Black Widow and Hawkeye, met up to save the world. The beauty of it is that it's still expanding, too, with Iron Man 3, Thor: the Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant Man all set to be released withing the next two years, leading up the Avengers 2. Marvel's now company of the year, Joss Whedon is finally getting the praise he deserves, and it is a good time to be a Marvel fan.
6. Monty Python
In my mind, they're all in canon. And there all hilarious, but you knew that. Holy Grail and And Now For Something Completely Different both had me laughing till my sides hurt, Life of Brian is one of the funniest movies ever made in my opinion, and the Meaning of Life, even if it was really weird and offensive, was still good. And it says something that the highest movie rating on this website is a play off a quote from Holy Grail.
5. Indiana Jones
Some of the most badass movies ever made and the biggest reason Harrison Ford didn't become a typecast like everyone else in Star Wars, Indiana Jones is awesome. Does it really require further explanation?
4. Bourne
These are the best spy movies ever. End of discussion. In 2002, Matt Damon's status as one of the best actors working today was confirmed, and by the third movie, it was cemented. Identity redefined the spy movie genre, Supremacy raised the stakes, and Ultimatum is one of my favorite movies of all time (like in the top ten, maybe even the top five). The fourth entry, Legacy, came out this previous August, and while many found it polarizing, I personally enjoyed it. Combining uniquely intelligent scripts and story lines with with badass, and often brutal, action and some amazing acting, the Bourne movies rock. Here's hoping for Bourne five with a Jason Bourne-Aaron Cross team-up.
3. Lord of the Rings
There are probably those of you who are thinking "why the hell isn't this number one?!" At this point, the entries are more or less interchangeable and could all be in first place, but I had to put a number in front of each of them. Amazing writing, even better directing, stunning landscapes, awesome characters, phenomenal acting, great special effects, incredible action, and a tone that's epic and yet oddly sentimental at the same time, the third one won an Oscar and yet all three of them probably could have.The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is coming out this December, and you can bet I'll be lining up to see it.
2. Star Wars
It's Star Wars. 'Nough said.
1. The Dark Knight Trilogy
In 2005, Christopher Nolan did something unexpected: resurrect a franchise that had been dead at the hands of Joel Schumachuer for 8 years and turn it into the greatest series of comic book movies ever made. He also redefined comic book movies by making it gritty and as realistic as you could make something like this (Nolanizing is now a term that means exactly that). Batman Begins proved to us that Batman is supposed to be dark and then some, The Dark Knight is the Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises capped off the franchise in a more then satisfactory way. This, folks, is what happens when you make a movie based on one of the best comic book heroes ever with one of the best directors working today and some of the best actors working today. To paraphrase YouTube movie critic Jeremy Jahns, the The Dark Knight movies are like the actual account of what happened in Gotham if it were a real place, and all the other movies and comics are just exaggerations. To put it simply, TDKT is awesome in every sense of the word.
Honorable Mentions:
Men In Black trilogy:
There will always be a place in my heart these movies, but it wasn't quite consistent enough to qualify. Sorry, Mr. Smith. Sorry Mr. Jones.
Also, if you need the absence of the Godfather trilogy explained, and this is to my everlasting shame, I have never seen the Godfather. Bring on the troll comments.
10. The Back to the Future Trilogy
I almost considered leaving this off the list, but in the end, the fact that the first Back to the Future IS my favorite movie of all time (totally serious about that. If I made a list of my top ten favorite movies of all time, it would be number one) has to count for something, and the fact that these were effectively the time travel movies to give birth to almost all other time travel movies has to count for quite a bit. And hey, the sequels might not have kicked quite as much ass, but they're still enjoyable movies and I'll watch them if they're on. Marty McFly, Doc Brown, I salute you.
9. The Toy Story Trilogy
No matter how old you are, you love these movies. You know you do. Some of the best animations ever made, the Toy Story tells a story about childhood and growing up that anyone can relate to, and, in a lot of cases, cry to (no matter how old you are, you've cried at least once watching one of these movies. You know you have.). They're funny, nostalgic, brilliant, relatable, and at some parts, freaking epic (how else would you describe 3's take on the Great Escape?) You can only imagine how I reacted when I found out Joss Whedon wrote the first one.
8. Harry Potter
Don't judge me. Okay fine, judge me, but this is staying on the list. I'm part of the generation that grew up with these, sue me. I used to be the king of staying up until two AM reading the books. And in there lies the brilliance: the fact that they're some of the best adaptations to ever come along. The fact that the casting directors managed to pick great actors out of the army of 11 year olds doesn't hurt. Telling one of the most brilliant, epic, and carefully laid out stories ever told about a boy wizard finding his place in the world, the Harry Potter franchise captivated a generation and occupied an entire decade. Did the last two leave something to be desired? Yes (making book 7 two movies was a stupid decision, plain and simple), but I will always love these movies, and everyone knows someone who feels the same way.
7. Marvel Cinematic Universe
Yes, this counts. The MCU represents one of the biggest gambles in movie history: adapting seperate comic books into their own solo origin-story movies that take place in a shared universe and having a crossover in the penultimate pile of awesome The Avengers (one of the best movies of the year, IMO). Something like this shouldn't have worked, but it did. Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America were all established in some pretty kickass solo movies, and, along with Black Widow and Hawkeye, met up to save the world. The beauty of it is that it's still expanding, too, with Iron Man 3, Thor: the Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant Man all set to be released withing the next two years, leading up the Avengers 2. Marvel's now company of the year, Joss Whedon is finally getting the praise he deserves, and it is a good time to be a Marvel fan.
6. Monty Python
In my mind, they're all in canon. And there all hilarious, but you knew that. Holy Grail and And Now For Something Completely Different both had me laughing till my sides hurt, Life of Brian is one of the funniest movies ever made in my opinion, and the Meaning of Life, even if it was really weird and offensive, was still good. And it says something that the highest movie rating on this website is a play off a quote from Holy Grail.
5. Indiana Jones
Some of the most badass movies ever made and the biggest reason Harrison Ford didn't become a typecast like everyone else in Star Wars, Indiana Jones is awesome. Does it really require further explanation?
4. Bourne
These are the best spy movies ever. End of discussion. In 2002, Matt Damon's status as one of the best actors working today was confirmed, and by the third movie, it was cemented. Identity redefined the spy movie genre, Supremacy raised the stakes, and Ultimatum is one of my favorite movies of all time (like in the top ten, maybe even the top five). The fourth entry, Legacy, came out this previous August, and while many found it polarizing, I personally enjoyed it. Combining uniquely intelligent scripts and story lines with with badass, and often brutal, action and some amazing acting, the Bourne movies rock. Here's hoping for Bourne five with a Jason Bourne-Aaron Cross team-up.
3. Lord of the Rings
There are probably those of you who are thinking "why the hell isn't this number one?!" At this point, the entries are more or less interchangeable and could all be in first place, but I had to put a number in front of each of them. Amazing writing, even better directing, stunning landscapes, awesome characters, phenomenal acting, great special effects, incredible action, and a tone that's epic and yet oddly sentimental at the same time, the third one won an Oscar and yet all three of them probably could have.The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is coming out this December, and you can bet I'll be lining up to see it.
2. Star Wars
It's Star Wars. 'Nough said.
1. The Dark Knight Trilogy
In 2005, Christopher Nolan did something unexpected: resurrect a franchise that had been dead at the hands of Joel Schumachuer for 8 years and turn it into the greatest series of comic book movies ever made. He also redefined comic book movies by making it gritty and as realistic as you could make something like this (Nolanizing is now a term that means exactly that). Batman Begins proved to us that Batman is supposed to be dark and then some, The Dark Knight is the Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises capped off the franchise in a more then satisfactory way. This, folks, is what happens when you make a movie based on one of the best comic book heroes ever with one of the best directors working today and some of the best actors working today. To paraphrase YouTube movie critic Jeremy Jahns, the The Dark Knight movies are like the actual account of what happened in Gotham if it were a real place, and all the other movies and comics are just exaggerations. To put it simply, TDKT is awesome in every sense of the word.
Arrow: Pilot Review
Insert obligatory Justin Hartley joke here.
Spoilers follow.
So, the CW has decided it needs a superhero show to share a night with Supernatural, and this is their answer is Arrow, which is about the DC Comics hero Green Arrow. Be warned, this is not the lighthearted fun of it's predecessor Smallville, this is a dark, gritty show. And that works to their advantage. The writers left the Green Arrow origin story more or less intact: billionaire Oliver Queen is shipwrecked on a deserted island for five years, during which time he becomes a BAMF. He's rescued, returns to his native Starling City, finds that a lot has changed, and becomes the vigilante Arrow to fight crime and destroy the people left for him in a list by his father.
I'll start with the positives: Stephen Amell is makes a brooding, intense, and downright badass Green Arrow. He's was a good casting choice, because, at the very least, I really bought that he was this crime fighter. As the irresponsible playboy, not so much; he doesn't have the charisma or the swagger to pull it off, but hopefully that'll be a small part of the show. Katie Cassidy plays Laurel Lance (Black Canary?!), and when I first heard that I groaned. Loudly. But she's actually really good in this show. I not only bought that she was a lawyer, but I thought she had one of the episodes better performances. I never thought I would say those words. Oliver's friend Merlyn's cool to, even if he will probably turn evil. Oliver's mom, on the other hand, felt a bit undercooked, but hopefully she'll be explained a bit more. The whole bit with Oliver's sister Thea, who may or may not be Speedy, felt a forced, while I'm on the subject.
The action, which was badass, and the tone, were both great, and served the episode well. But those couldn't save the episodes faults. Where do I start? How about with the pacing and the editing, which felt really rushed and choppy. A two-hour pilot might've been a better idea, seeing how the episode was trying to tell an entire superhero origin story, something that takes a movie about 2-2.5 hours, in under 45 minutes. Oliver's groan inducing voiceover didn't help (this is why I hate voiceovers). Hopefully it, along with the rest of the cheesy, cliched dialogue will get cut. You've also got a weak villain, some disappointingly small sets and weak CGI (then again, this is the CW), and certain sense that they're borrowing a bit much from Batman Begins.
All in all, this was not the best pilot episode I've ever seen. To be fair, if you're supposed to judge an entire series on it's pilot, people probably wouldn't hate Terra Nova so much, and I did have a pretty good time with this episode, good enough to come back next week, at least.
Final Rating: 73%
Spoilers follow.
So, the CW has decided it needs a superhero show to share a night with Supernatural, and this is their answer is Arrow, which is about the DC Comics hero Green Arrow. Be warned, this is not the lighthearted fun of it's predecessor Smallville, this is a dark, gritty show. And that works to their advantage. The writers left the Green Arrow origin story more or less intact: billionaire Oliver Queen is shipwrecked on a deserted island for five years, during which time he becomes a BAMF. He's rescued, returns to his native Starling City, finds that a lot has changed, and becomes the vigilante Arrow to fight crime and destroy the people left for him in a list by his father.
I'll start with the positives: Stephen Amell is makes a brooding, intense, and downright badass Green Arrow. He's was a good casting choice, because, at the very least, I really bought that he was this crime fighter. As the irresponsible playboy, not so much; he doesn't have the charisma or the swagger to pull it off, but hopefully that'll be a small part of the show. Katie Cassidy plays Laurel Lance (Black Canary?!), and when I first heard that I groaned. Loudly. But she's actually really good in this show. I not only bought that she was a lawyer, but I thought she had one of the episodes better performances. I never thought I would say those words. Oliver's friend Merlyn's cool to, even if he will probably turn evil. Oliver's mom, on the other hand, felt a bit undercooked, but hopefully she'll be explained a bit more. The whole bit with Oliver's sister Thea, who may or may not be Speedy, felt a forced, while I'm on the subject.
The action, which was badass, and the tone, were both great, and served the episode well. But those couldn't save the episodes faults. Where do I start? How about with the pacing and the editing, which felt really rushed and choppy. A two-hour pilot might've been a better idea, seeing how the episode was trying to tell an entire superhero origin story, something that takes a movie about 2-2.5 hours, in under 45 minutes. Oliver's groan inducing voiceover didn't help (this is why I hate voiceovers). Hopefully it, along with the rest of the cheesy, cliched dialogue will get cut. You've also got a weak villain, some disappointingly small sets and weak CGI (then again, this is the CW), and certain sense that they're borrowing a bit much from Batman Begins.
All in all, this was not the best pilot episode I've ever seen. To be fair, if you're supposed to judge an entire series on it's pilot, people probably wouldn't hate Terra Nova so much, and I did have a pretty good time with this episode, good enough to come back next week, at least.
Final Rating: 73%
Revolution: Plague Dogs Review
And with this we can all more or less agree that Revolution has major stones.
Spoilers for the episode.
So we're a few episodes in to Revolution, and so far it's been good. Not great, but good. This week was no exception. As usual, we've got four plot lines: Charlie and company, being stocked by both Nate and and psycho with some dogs at an old amusement park, Danny and the Militia in a storm, Rachel and Monroe, and flashbacks for both Maggie and Rachel.
I'll start with Danny and Militia, or, more specifically, Danny and Neville. Thus far, I've been glad the writers haven't decided to make Danny the whiny, annoying "forget the world, my problems are what matter" jerk most genre shows seem to love in teenage boys (and as a teenage boy, I've gotta say I find that cliche a bit offensive), and I found it interesting when he and Neville get trapped in a storm cellar together. Neville has a son, apparently, something I'm intrigued by, who Danny reminds him of. The captain also gives Danny a crash course in post-electricity ethics. Here's hoping for a Neville-flashback episode soon. Anyone with a high opinion of Danny had it lowered by the end of the episode, when Neville manages to guilt trip the boy into saving him, and recuffs him. Fail on your part their, Danny boy, you're gonna have to wise up.
By the end of the episode, we've learned that Monroe needs Danny so he can torture him in front of Rachel for information. Now that is evil. Speaking of Rachel, her flashbacks show us when she first left her family, apparently because Miles, back in his militia days, recruited her for something. In the words of Hurley: "Uh... what?". Looking forward to seeing where that one goes. The Maggie flashbacks, the main point of the episode, were heartbreaking: she was stranded in America after the blackout, walked all the way to the east coast from Seattle, and couldn't find a single boat to take her back to England and her kids (bit of a stretch, but hey). This was to the point where she was about to do herself in, and then the Matheson clan found her. Hat's off to Anna Lise Phillips for really selling this one.
At the amusement park, Miles is considering leaving because he'll get everyone hurt, much to Charlie's dismay. And then they're attacked, Nate is drafted into their little group (really?), Maggie gets stabbed in the leg, Charlie gets kidnapped by a villain (who had a backstory, which I thought was unnecessary because he was only onscreen for about 8 minutes and just ate up screen time), Miles goes all BAMF-tacular, and Maggie dies. Yeah, you read that right. Was it the most heart-wrenching TV character death I've ever seen? No (still either Fred or Charlie), but it took major balls to kill off someone important in episode 4 (even Whedon waited for episode 9 kill Doyle), and it got me a little bit. RIP. The writers were trying to stress the point that everyone leaves Charlie, which I and probably most people were picking up, and it was really sad when you thought about it, but then Charlie actually said "everybody leaves me" while crying her Tobey Maguire tears, and I rolled my eyes a bit. A message to the writers: we get the point. You don't need to be so blatant about your underlying statements, so stop driving them home to point where they lose their impact. Assume people watching your show are smart. Miles is staying though, so that's good, and apparently Nate is too (rolls eyes).
In the end, Revolution maintains it's status as a good show. Will it ever be great? Time will tell, but that probably won't happen until it's stops cramming too much into one episode and being so blatant about what it's saying (and maybe has Charlie take some acting lessons. That Tobey Maguire crying is getting old).
Final Rating: 75%
Spoilers for the episode.
So we're a few episodes in to Revolution, and so far it's been good. Not great, but good. This week was no exception. As usual, we've got four plot lines: Charlie and company, being stocked by both Nate and and psycho with some dogs at an old amusement park, Danny and the Militia in a storm, Rachel and Monroe, and flashbacks for both Maggie and Rachel.
I'll start with Danny and Militia, or, more specifically, Danny and Neville. Thus far, I've been glad the writers haven't decided to make Danny the whiny, annoying "forget the world, my problems are what matter" jerk most genre shows seem to love in teenage boys (and as a teenage boy, I've gotta say I find that cliche a bit offensive), and I found it interesting when he and Neville get trapped in a storm cellar together. Neville has a son, apparently, something I'm intrigued by, who Danny reminds him of. The captain also gives Danny a crash course in post-electricity ethics. Here's hoping for a Neville-flashback episode soon. Anyone with a high opinion of Danny had it lowered by the end of the episode, when Neville manages to guilt trip the boy into saving him, and recuffs him. Fail on your part their, Danny boy, you're gonna have to wise up.
By the end of the episode, we've learned that Monroe needs Danny so he can torture him in front of Rachel for information. Now that is evil. Speaking of Rachel, her flashbacks show us when she first left her family, apparently because Miles, back in his militia days, recruited her for something. In the words of Hurley: "Uh... what?". Looking forward to seeing where that one goes. The Maggie flashbacks, the main point of the episode, were heartbreaking: she was stranded in America after the blackout, walked all the way to the east coast from Seattle, and couldn't find a single boat to take her back to England and her kids (bit of a stretch, but hey). This was to the point where she was about to do herself in, and then the Matheson clan found her. Hat's off to Anna Lise Phillips for really selling this one.
At the amusement park, Miles is considering leaving because he'll get everyone hurt, much to Charlie's dismay. And then they're attacked, Nate is drafted into their little group (really?), Maggie gets stabbed in the leg, Charlie gets kidnapped by a villain (who had a backstory, which I thought was unnecessary because he was only onscreen for about 8 minutes and just ate up screen time), Miles goes all BAMF-tacular, and Maggie dies. Yeah, you read that right. Was it the most heart-wrenching TV character death I've ever seen? No (still either Fred or Charlie), but it took major balls to kill off someone important in episode 4 (even Whedon waited for episode 9 kill Doyle), and it got me a little bit. RIP. The writers were trying to stress the point that everyone leaves Charlie, which I and probably most people were picking up, and it was really sad when you thought about it, but then Charlie actually said "everybody leaves me" while crying her Tobey Maguire tears, and I rolled my eyes a bit. A message to the writers: we get the point. You don't need to be so blatant about your underlying statements, so stop driving them home to point where they lose their impact. Assume people watching your show are smart. Miles is staying though, so that's good, and apparently Nate is too (rolls eyes).
In the end, Revolution maintains it's status as a good show. Will it ever be great? Time will tell, but that probably won't happen until it's stops cramming too much into one episode and being so blatant about what it's saying (and maybe has Charlie take some acting lessons. That Tobey Maguire crying is getting old).
Final Rating: 75%
Sunday, October 7, 2012
The Lone Ranger Trailer Review
Alright, I haven't done a trailer review in awhile, so here we go.
Believe it or not, I only found out sort of recently about the Lone Ranger movie, and my reaction was "yeah, sounds like it could be cool." I haven't been like hugely anticipating it like I am with Man of Steel or Star Trek Into Darkness (and no, I don't plan on reviewing the three-frame clip from it they showed on Conan Thursday), but I will probably see it. And the trailer was good.
You start off seeing/hearing this monologue about trains and the power they're going to create, you have a lot of great visuals and western music, though you can't help but feel like it'll be a little stupid if the entire movie's conflict is driven by trains. And then you cut to the Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) and Tonto (Johnny Depp). A lot of people didn't like that Depp was cast as Tonto instead of a Native American actor, but just so you know, Depp is 1/4 Native American. So yeah. My problem with that is that Depp will be so good as Tonto (which all know he will) that it'll overshadow the Lone Ranger himself and make it the Tonto show. Those fears aren't exactly subsided when out the two, Tonto has the only lines in the entire trailer, and Depp's name is mentioned first. The best we can hope for is a The Fighter-type thing, where they're both main characters, but Tonto wins the Oscar. Which, let's face it, he probably will, because he is gonna be awesome as Tonto. Am I making any sense right now?
In the end, I liked the trailer, I'm looking forward to the movie, I'm not gonna be hugely upset if it's more about Tonto then the Lone Ranger, but I'm sure someone will.
Believe it or not, I only found out sort of recently about the Lone Ranger movie, and my reaction was "yeah, sounds like it could be cool." I haven't been like hugely anticipating it like I am with Man of Steel or Star Trek Into Darkness (and no, I don't plan on reviewing the three-frame clip from it they showed on Conan Thursday), but I will probably see it. And the trailer was good.
You start off seeing/hearing this monologue about trains and the power they're going to create, you have a lot of great visuals and western music, though you can't help but feel like it'll be a little stupid if the entire movie's conflict is driven by trains. And then you cut to the Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) and Tonto (Johnny Depp). A lot of people didn't like that Depp was cast as Tonto instead of a Native American actor, but just so you know, Depp is 1/4 Native American. So yeah. My problem with that is that Depp will be so good as Tonto (which all know he will) that it'll overshadow the Lone Ranger himself and make it the Tonto show. Those fears aren't exactly subsided when out the two, Tonto has the only lines in the entire trailer, and Depp's name is mentioned first. The best we can hope for is a The Fighter-type thing, where they're both main characters, but Tonto wins the Oscar. Which, let's face it, he probably will, because he is gonna be awesome as Tonto. Am I making any sense right now?
In the end, I liked the trailer, I'm looking forward to the movie, I'm not gonna be hugely upset if it's more about Tonto then the Lone Ranger, but I'm sure someone will.
Taken 2 Movie Review
Okay, I'm gonna dodge all the jokes involving a "Very particular set of skills" or the sheer stupidity of trying to kill Liam Neeson and say that when I got the movies yesterday, my choices were this and Frankenweenie, and my undying hatred of Tim Burton (yep, I just said that) repelled me from Frankenweenie. Maybe I should be a little less hard on Tim Burton...
Hey guys, guess what? This is my 200th post. In retrospect I wish I'd planned this out better.You'll get something good for #300, don't worry. Anyway, I saw Taken 2 yesterday, and the plot is as follows: the family of the people Liam Neeson killed in the first movie are out for revenge, so they take try to take Liam Neeson and his entire family while they're in Istanbul. Seriously? This guy is a Greek god and Narnian god, he's fought wolves to the death with his bare hands, he's trained Batman AND Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he's just a flat out badass, and you're really gonna attempt to hurt him. (Okay, I lied, but you know I had to make that joke.) This begins rehash.
I know that's the big problem most people had with the movie, that it's a rehash of the first one, but, and this is to my everlasting shame, I haven't the first Taken. Bring on the troll comments. That being said, I know that it's a rehash, I just can't be as PO'd about that as someone who's seen the first one would be. Let's move on.
So, the biggest overall problem I had with this movie was that they tried to make Maggie Grace's character (I'm huge LOST fan, so seeing her as a brunette is weird...) relevant and competent. Normally, I'd be all for that kind of thing; I've watched Buffy and BSG, I love BAMF girls. There are two problems with that idea though: the idea of her character suddenly being competent after all the screaming and crying she did in the first one (I haven't seen it, but we all know about that part) just isn't believable, and Maggie Grace is a lousy actress (even when she was on LOST, I just felt like "Sayid, man you could have any girl on that island except Claire, and you're going for the one who thought you were a terrorist?"). She was always over the top and Tobey Maguire-crying and just saying her lines badly. It was annoying. And they tried to make her suddenly competent, and I just didn't buy it.
The main villain in this the father of the first one's main villain, and he's not a great villain. Is he intimidating? Kind of. But the thing is, he never gets his hands dirty. He always has someone do it for him. Seriously, this is the guy who killed your son; wouldn't you wanna personally put a bullet in him?
After that there's little things, like location fails, Maggie Grace throwing grenades into the city so Liam Neeson can hear where she is, the fact that no shot lasts more then 10 seconds, especially in the action scenes, where every punch has about ten cuts, twenty angles, and it's in close-quarters shaky-cam, you know, bad directing. (A fun drinking game would be you watch Taken 2, and every time there's a cut you take a shot; after about 15 minutes you'd passed out).
But at least there's plenty of Liam Neeson killing people, right, because that's probably what you saw the movie for? Wrong. There's a confusing lack of Liam Neeson kicking ass. If you want to see that, watch the first Taken (that's what I'm gonna do), watch Batman Begins, heck, watch Phantom Menace, because there's more Liam Neeson badassery in that then in this.
The movie did have a few saving graces, though. Liam Neeson just being there somehow adds credibility, because he was great in it, like he always is. Famke Jansen was good as his wife, too, and the score was really good. Seriously, the score was epic. I was gonna say the music was epic, but they borrowed a lot of their non-score songs from Drive, and at the begininng of the movie, this song starts playing, and when I heard the first note, I was like "wait, is that that the Bourne (I will review those eventually) music?" It wasn't, but you get the idea.
All that being said, I was mildly entertained for most of the movie. I mean, at no point, was like "make it stop, make it stop, for the love of God make it stop", i.e.m it's not The Losers bad. It's the type of action movie where you're entertained when you're watching it, but you don't actually like it that much, if that makes sense. You know, like Terminator 3.
In the end, Taken 2 doesn't suck, but avoid paying to see it like the plague.
So, what's you're favorite Liam Neeson movie? Comment below, let me know!
Hey guys, guess what? This is my 200th post. In retrospect I wish I'd planned this out better.You'll get something good for #300, don't worry. Anyway, I saw Taken 2 yesterday, and the plot is as follows: the family of the people Liam Neeson killed in the first movie are out for revenge, so they take try to take Liam Neeson and his entire family while they're in Istanbul. Seriously? This guy is a Greek god and Narnian god, he's fought wolves to the death with his bare hands, he's trained Batman AND Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he's just a flat out badass, and you're really gonna attempt to hurt him. (Okay, I lied, but you know I had to make that joke.) This begins rehash.
I know that's the big problem most people had with the movie, that it's a rehash of the first one, but, and this is to my everlasting shame, I haven't the first Taken. Bring on the troll comments. That being said, I know that it's a rehash, I just can't be as PO'd about that as someone who's seen the first one would be. Let's move on.
So, the biggest overall problem I had with this movie was that they tried to make Maggie Grace's character (I'm huge LOST fan, so seeing her as a brunette is weird...) relevant and competent. Normally, I'd be all for that kind of thing; I've watched Buffy and BSG, I love BAMF girls. There are two problems with that idea though: the idea of her character suddenly being competent after all the screaming and crying she did in the first one (I haven't seen it, but we all know about that part) just isn't believable, and Maggie Grace is a lousy actress (even when she was on LOST, I just felt like "Sayid, man you could have any girl on that island except Claire, and you're going for the one who thought you were a terrorist?"). She was always over the top and Tobey Maguire-crying and just saying her lines badly. It was annoying. And they tried to make her suddenly competent, and I just didn't buy it.
The main villain in this the father of the first one's main villain, and he's not a great villain. Is he intimidating? Kind of. But the thing is, he never gets his hands dirty. He always has someone do it for him. Seriously, this is the guy who killed your son; wouldn't you wanna personally put a bullet in him?
After that there's little things, like location fails, Maggie Grace throwing grenades into the city so Liam Neeson can hear where she is, the fact that no shot lasts more then 10 seconds, especially in the action scenes, where every punch has about ten cuts, twenty angles, and it's in close-quarters shaky-cam, you know, bad directing. (A fun drinking game would be you watch Taken 2, and every time there's a cut you take a shot; after about 15 minutes you'd passed out).
But at least there's plenty of Liam Neeson killing people, right, because that's probably what you saw the movie for? Wrong. There's a confusing lack of Liam Neeson kicking ass. If you want to see that, watch the first Taken (that's what I'm gonna do), watch Batman Begins, heck, watch Phantom Menace, because there's more Liam Neeson badassery in that then in this.
The movie did have a few saving graces, though. Liam Neeson just being there somehow adds credibility, because he was great in it, like he always is. Famke Jansen was good as his wife, too, and the score was really good. Seriously, the score was epic. I was gonna say the music was epic, but they borrowed a lot of their non-score songs from Drive, and at the begininng of the movie, this song starts playing, and when I heard the first note, I was like "wait, is that that the Bourne (I will review those eventually) music?" It wasn't, but you get the idea.
All that being said, I was mildly entertained for most of the movie. I mean, at no point, was like "make it stop, make it stop, for the love of God make it stop", i.e.m it's not The Losers bad. It's the type of action movie where you're entertained when you're watching it, but you don't actually like it that much, if that makes sense. You know, like Terminator 3.
In the end, Taken 2 doesn't suck, but avoid paying to see it like the plague.
So, what's you're favorite Liam Neeson movie? Comment below, let me know!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)