Less than two months remain before the sequel to J.J. Abrams surprise reboot hit of Star Trek arrives in the theaters this summer. It’s set to be one of this summer’s tentpole event films and this later trailer looks to set to prove that to be true.
While the first two trailers went light on the main narrative of the sequel this international trailer looks to really focus on Benedict Cumberbatch’s character who is either going to be this Star Trek alternate timeline’s Khan or Gary Mitchell or an amalgam of the two. Either way the trailer is all about action and Sherlock-Smaug looking, talking and acting all superior evil towards Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew.
Star Trek Into Darkness is set for a May 17, 2013 release date.
“Killing the Governor doesn’t save your friends.” — Milton Mamet
[some spoilers within]
Last week we saw what would amount as a sort of UN Summit between two warring parties in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Just like other peace summits the two parties involve would agree on something then turn around and do the opposite once they were away from each other. It neatly set-sup the last three remaining episodes this season to finally getting this war between Rick’s group and the Governor’s into full gear.
Yet, three whole episodes of just the two groups shooting it out might sound exciting but could quickly become repetitive. I mean there’s only so many people on both sides to kill and that’s only in one full episode of nonstop battle. No, what we get with the first of the final three is an episode wholly dedicated to the Governor and Woodbury preparing for what they think will be their first and only strike necessary to deal with Rick and the prison group. It’s an episode that looks to be a throwaway that literally ends right where it began.
“Prey” is probably going to be an episode that many will not look too kindly at. For one thing, it’s an Andrea-centric episode and it’s been a worst kept secret that many fans of the show have no love for the Andrea character. Yet, this episode goes a long way in helping re-establish the character as the badass that she was originally created as in the comic book. There’s no hesitation in the character to finally make the decision to abandon Woodbury and try and make her way back to the prison. She does this while alone and armed with only the small pocket knife she carries at all times. It’s a situation that most characters on the show would find daunting yet Andrea proceeds anyway if just to warn Rick and the others in the prison what the Governor has planned for them.
Of all the episodes in this series, so far, this one really relied heavily on the horror tropes of the zombie genre. Yes, the episodes actually included a lot of zombies to really heighten the danger Andrea finds herself in as she treks her way back through the Georgia wilderness alone. Yet, it’s not the zombies themselves who really make this episode a truly horror and tension-filled one. It’s the appearance of the Governor who has found out about Andrea’s plans to warn Rick and must now hunt her down to prevent this from happening. It’s what gives the episode it’s title.
The cat-and-mouse game between Andrea and the Governor had some very nice moments when the two maneuvered their way through the abandoned warehouse which was chosen as the location of their one-on-one face-off. We get to see more of the Governor’s growing sociopathic tendencies (something the show has begun to ramp up in the last couple episodes). There’s a great moment when we think Andrea has finally run out of luck and cornered between a stairwell full of zombies in one end and the Governor on the other end when she turns the tables on her pursuer. It’s a move that we might see from Rick, Daryl or, even, Glenn, but something that most fans of the show couldn’t imagine this hated character in pulling off.
The episode did well for Andrea, but overall it did have it’s drawbacks. By concentrating so much on the Governor and Andrea and very little on the growing discontent from one of the Governor’s most trusted lieutenants back in Woodbury we don’t get too excited over the apparent sabotage of the pit zombies being gathered for the next meeting with Rick. The suprise gotcha moment when Andrea was almost home was another bit of storytelling that looked to be more lazy than shocking. It detracted from the strength showed by Andrea in outwitting the Governor, but also made the latter seem like he was some sort of unkillable slasher villain who has the many lives of a cat.
It’s not surprising to see that the episode had two writers in showrunner Glen Mazzara and Evan Reilly. Most of the show’s episodes tend to stick to one writer and let them run with that particular episode’s narrative. By having two writers in this time around could be a clue in the behind-the-scenes issues producers of the show had with Mazzara to the point that he was replaced for the upcoming season. The episode had both the good and bad that has saddled the series since it’s inception. The good being more zombie action and less standing around and just talking. It had the worst things as well with letting a story lead to nowhere which this one seems to have in a narrative sense though in terms of fleshing out certain characters it did it quite well.
The final two episodes this season will tell if season 3 was an unqualified success or still a series that had flaws to work out. So far, reactions to this season is leaning to the former, but if Mazzara had lost control of the story he wanted to tell this season then the climax of the season may be more of a fizzle than a sizzle.
Notes
Tonight’s episode was written by Evan Reilly and season 3’s showrunner Glen Mazzara w/ series newcomer Stefan Schwartz directing.
From the sound of it the backstory of Michonne’s pet zombies in the series looks to be very different from the comic book. It definitely adds to some subtle hints during the season that Michonne doesn’t like to be touched in an aggressive manner by men.
Another change we see in this episode’s cold opening is the Governor prepping the chains he must have made specifically for Michonne. In the comic book series the set-up was already there and hinted at being used by the Governor.
Milton looks to be regretting the fact more and more that he has attached himself to someone who has gone over the deep end and never returning.
Yet, he still seems willing to protect the Governor despite all of it.
Tyrese may be a beast with the clawhammer but he’s awful with a firearm.
Andrea could easily have convinced Tyrese better if she just described what the Governor has done and plans to do instead of being all cryptic.
Tyrese is just too damn reasonable. I guess not spending an extended amount of time with Rick hasn’t made him cynical.
Wow, Allen is such a douche. I repeat, Allen is such a douche.
Hate the character or not, Andrea looks to h ave become very self-sufficient and a badass in her own right since the end of season 2.
There’s the Tyrese fans of the comic book should remember and love.
Andrea definitely did a lot to help repair whatever character-flaws she had that made fans of the show hate her so much. It wasn’t a full recovery but it was in the right step.
It was a nice homage scene with the zombies in the stairs that Andrea lets in to a scene in the original Dawn of the Dead in the tenement building where zombies in the basement breakthrough to attack the National Guardsmen and police. One can see it at the 4:57 mark
Seems Andrea has taken the place in the torture room that had been reserved for Michonne in the comic books.
Another great work by KNB EFX with the zombie make-up and kill gags. Special mention goes to the burned zombies in the pit who were still animated but looking like some very well-smoked brisket ready to be sliced and served.
Milton really has no skill whatsoever of being a good liar, at all.
Tonight might have been one of the more horror-centric episodes of the series. This is surprising considering it’s suppose to be a horror tv series. From the slasher-like way the sequence between the Governor and Andrea in the abandoned warehouse to the final gotcha moment before Andrea could make it into the safety of the prison this was an episode that worked all your typical horror genre tropes to the hilt.
Zombie Kill Count of tonight’s episode: 25 or more seen (another 20+ off-screen). Tonight definitely had a huge kill count.
It’s less than two weeks before we get to the premiere of HBO’s third season of Game of Thrones.
This latest trailer marketing the premium cable channel’s latest epic hit series brings everyone back who survived Season 2 and introduces a couple more people (Mance Rayder being one of them). We also get to see just how much the baby dragons of Daenerys Stormborn’s have gotten not to mention the army she has acquired since the end of Season 2 (I’m guessing these are the Unsullied).
This third season looks to lean heavily on the third novel in the series, A Storm of Swords, and for those who have read that massive tome will await this third season with both anticipation and trepidation. One thing the show has taught viewers has been to not get so fixated on characters. George R.R. Martin is more than willing to kill off beloved character and it looks like showrunners of the show have learned to do the same.
Game of Thrones Season 3 is set to premiere on March 31, 2013.
Summer is still months away. Hell, Spring still won’t arrive for another five or so days, but I’m on a Frank Sinatra kick tonight and what better choice for the latest “Song of the Day” than one of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ seasonal songs.
“Summer Wind” remains one of the classic Sinatra tunes and also one of my favorite songs of his. I think most of his songs are favorites of mine which just goes to show just how much of an icon he has become. Growing up with a father who was a Sinatra fan through and through it didn’t surprise many that I would also end up becoming a fan of the Chairman of the Board.
This particular song wasn’t even originally sung by Sinatra. Wayne Newton had made the song a No. 1 hit single a full year before Sinatra, but it’s once Sinatra had gotten a hold of the song and made it his own that people will forever remember “Summer Wind” as Sinatra and Sinatra-only. The Newton version is not bad and very good as well.
Now, time to pour me a glass of absinthe and mellow out to the coming of the summer wind even if it’s still three months away…
Summer Wind
The summer wind came blowin’ in From across the sea It lingered there to touch your hair And walk with me
All summer long we sang a song And then we strolled that golden sand Two sweethearts and the summer wind
Like painted kites, those days and nights They went flying by The world was new beneath the blue Umbrella sky
Then softer than a piper man One day, it called to you I lost you I lost you to The summer wind
The autumn wind And the winter winds They have come and gone And still those days Those lonely days They go on and on And guess who’s sighs His lullabies through nights that never end My fickled friend, The summer wind The summer wind warm summer wind Mmm the summer wind
2010’s Kick-Ass was one of those films that you either loved or hated. It was a film adapted from the Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. comic book of the same name that also had a similar reputation of having extreme opposites in regards to how people perceived it.
I, for one, loved the film despite just being “meh” when it came to the comic. Where the film by Matthew Vaughn was a darkly comic deconstruction of the superhero story the comic book that gave birth to it was just an exercise in shocking the readers without working for it. Yet, despite that the film was a hit with both the fans of the comic book and those who didn’t even know it was a comic book. That popularity allowed the film to make enough profit that a sequel was greenlit even before a second volume of the comic book was even started by Millar and Romita, Jr.
Kick-Ass 2 sees the return of both Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass with Red Mist now calling himself The Motherfucker and the film’s main antagonist. The sequel sees Matthew Vaughn return as producer with Jeff Wadlow stepping in as director.
Kick-Ass 2 is set for an August 16, 2013 North American release date with the film premiering earlier on July 19, 2013 in the UK.
I know this latest “Scenes I Love” is quite an extended one. It’s pretty much the entire opening to the original George A. Romero classic where we see the four main leads of the story introduced dealing with the crisis that’s been on-going around them for what could be weeks.
I could have easily taken so many smaller scenes from this extended sequence and used them as favorites since they’re all that and more. This sequence was Romero at his best as a screenwriter. While some of the heavy handedness would later plague his writing in his later zombie films in this one they take on the right balance. He’s telling the audience through the screaming outbursts, arguments and general chaos of every scene that we as a society were fucked the moment the zombie apocalypse began. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the civilian expert trying to explain how to deal with the crisis in such logical terms while everyone around him reacts with irrational outbursts of disagreements. Or it could be how the police and the civilians they’re sworn to protect and serve become warring tribes on opposite sides when the true enemy is shambling all around them.
This makes the crippled priest’s words in the end of the scene even more telling.
“If we choose to destroy everything we fought for over the past year.” — Philip “The Governor” Blake
Tonight’s episode, simply titled “Arrow on the Doorpost”, looks to be the final calm before the storm that’s been brewing since the start of this third season for AMC’s The Walking Dead. It’s not a very action-oriented entry in what has been a season full of action, but it really looks to set the tone for what should be an explosive final stretch run that should see the two armed camps in the Prison and Woodbury fighting a war that everyone knows no one really comes out a winner.
We begin the episode with Rick, Daryl and Hershel (one leg and all) arriving at a secluded spot in what turns out to be a sort of zombie apocalypse UN Summit where Rick and the Governor can sit down and talk about things which looks to be leading them both into a violent confrontation. It’s interesting to note how the very person who planned and organized this summit would be none other than Andrea who has become Lori’s replacement as “most hated” character on the show. Even when she’s trying to be a productive character on the show the way she has been written and protrayed just ends up making her seem naive and overly cocksure of her situation when in reality she’s clueless.
It showed during the early parts of this episode when Andrea tries to mediate between the smug Governor and the barely constrained Rick and both men dismiss and ask her to leave the meeting. It’s almost darkly comical how two men who have a vested interest in killing the other would find such common ground and it’s the one character who continues to elude the show’s writers.
As for the meeting itself, for a set-up episode it’s certainly one that I’d consider one of the better ones. What the episode lacked in action (though it did have it’s small share involving a male-bonding sequence between Daryl and the Governor’s henchman Martinez) it made up for in some very tense back and forth between Rick and the Governor. This was the moment that could easily break the season if the meeting between these two alpha males didn’t come off well. The writing was quite good as we see the two men quietly manuever the meeting to their advantage. The Governor poking at Rick with secrets learned from Andrea about his relationship with Shane to Rick sitting there taking it all in and knowing that the Governor was trying his utmost to snow him and failing.
Daryl and Martinez got it right during their bonding session outside that the meeting was pointless. The two leaders would talk and make propositions and counters, but in the end both sides will send out word to their respective people that war was the only thing to do. It’s not idle speculation on Daryl’s and Martinez’s part either. Once the two sides part ways to make their decisions it’s not a huge surprise that the Governor would plan to ambush Rick and his people for a future meet he thinks Rick has agreed to while Rick has plainly lied to his people that the Governor just wants to take what they have and kill everyone. The offer to leave the group alone as long as Rick gives up Michonne doesn’t even get mentioned which just goes to show how much the katana-wielding lonewolf has suddenly become a part of the Rick Grimes Clan.
Some would consider “Arrow on the Doorpost” as one of the weakest episode of the season because it was too talky and lacked the action that the season has been known for, but it did serve a purpose. It finally introduced the two men whose decisions will put the two groups at war with each other. It showed the differences between the two leaders and the similarities between the people who followed them. In fact, the show did more than subtly hint that if the Governor wasn’t such a sociopath and Rick wasn’t such an emotional and psychological mess the Prison group and the people of Woodbury could easily pool resources and skills together to make a better life for everyone. But that’s not the case in this zombie apocalypse world where suspicion, megalomania and broken psyches rule the land.
There’s just three ore episodes left in season 3 and it looks like it’s nothing but action, blood, brains and sorrow left for the survivors of The Walking Dead.
Notes
Tonight’s episode, “Arrow on the Doorstop”, was written and directed by two newcomers to the series, Ryan C. Coleman and David Boyd respectively.
I think I might not have been the only one who thought that Rick should’ve just shot the Governor the moment he appeared for the meeting and end the problem between the two groups right then and there.
Andrea was much better as a character in this episode, but only just (I do believe that if the current producers of the show had to recast the show again I think Laurie Holden would be replaced by someone else).
Glenn back in prison is channeling his inner Ricktator and it’s not coming off well. he sounds more like a scared kid playing at being leader especially when it came to dealing with the rabble-rousing Merle Dixon. It’s a relief that Glenn later pulls his head out of his ass by apologizing to Maggie for how he’s been acting.
Which led to a surprisingly steamy sex scene between the two love birds that one would see as common on HBO but not on basic cable. The Walking Dead has definitely pushed the boundaries of whats to be expected and accepted when it came to violence and, now, sex on basic cable.
I did think that something bad was going to happen during or after that sex scene, but the writers seem to genuinely want to give these two lovebirds a chance at some normalcy and not fuck it up by having a zombie interrupt them.
Merle Dixon may not be an ideal member of the Rick Grimes group, but he does seem like he’s picked the role of redneck Devil’s advocate whose more than willing to air out the bad news and possibilities to the group clinging to a semblance of hope that they have a chance of winning the coming war.
Hershel looks to have found a kindred spirit in Milton (who looks like he’s realizing that he may be backing the wrong horse in the Governor).
I think everyone would agree that a spin-off show starring Daryl Dixon and Martinez as the Odd Couple of the zombie apocalypse would be an instant hit.
So, another day of resting up after a wickedly long weekend of doing nothing but working I came across this little video that brought back memories of not just my youth during the 80’s but also fond ones of discovering one of my favorite anime of all-time.
The latest “AMV of the Day” comes courtesy of TrepidationsFall and it’s combines that 80’s blockbuster of blockbusters in Top Gun and one of the best anime of all-time in Macross Plus. The video is simply called “Danger Zone” and the use of the iconic Kenny Loggins track for the Bruckheimer fighter-jock extravaganza fits the mecha anime to a “T”.
Whoever has been in charge of choosing the songs that make up the soundtrack for AMC’s The Walking Dead I must salute you. With Bear McCreary’s Southern gothic-influenced score this show has been flush with some excellent songs to end particularly strong episodes. Last week’s strong episode of The Walking Dead saw a favorite character from season 1 make an emotional and heartbreaking return. It also helped refocus the show’s main lead to forging past his own psychological and emotional problems to take on the looming war about to begin.
The song which ended this episode is my choice for “Song of the Day” and it’s from British songwriter-musician Jamie N. Commons.
“Lead Me Home” doesn’t just end the episode but also helps put a spotlight on this show’s third season and it’s many themes concerning not just the zombie apocalypse the survivors must exist and survive in, but how they go about this task. The song’s lyrics takes on the show’s very Southern gothic roots as Rick, Michonne and Carl drive away from Rick’s hometown passing by wrecked vehicles, bodies both freshly killed and decaying.
The song really hit home when they pass by the mauled remains of the backpacker they ignored and passed by earlier in the episode whow as begging to be picked up and saved. It’s this scene which brings to light how much cynicism and distrust as entered these survivors. Faith in the goodness of people has been abandoned for the sake of survival and the roadside remains of their inaction to save this backpacker when he most needed it was shown in gory detail. It’s not the Lord that’s inside them now, but darkness and it will be a long way back before Rick and his people can lead themselves back “home”.
Lead Me Home
Oh lord live inside me, lead me on my way Oh lord live inside me, lead me on my way Lead me home Lead me home
Oh lord in the darkness, lead me on my way Oh lord in the darkness, lead me on my way Lead me home Lead me home
Hmmmmm Hmmmmm
Oh lord heaven’s waiting, open up your door Oh lord heaven’s waiting, open up your door Lead me home Lead me home
There’s finally a trailer out about the little film that Joss Whedon made while doing post on his previous little film called The Avengers.
Much Ado About Nothingis a modern and Whedon’s own interpretation of the classic William Shakespeare comedic play. Filmed over the span of 12 days in Whedon’s own Santa Monica home, the film has a cast of Whedom alumni who either has worked with the writer-director on one of his tv series or in his films. The trailer itself has a coolness factor that has to be part jazz used in the trailer and half seeing all the familiar faces Whedon fans have come to know and love through the years like Amy Acker, Alex Denisof, Nathan Fillion and, more recently, Clark Gregg.
Much Ado About Nothing premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and will make it’s North American wide release on the date of June 7, 2013.
Through the Shattered Lens 