Episode 3 is titled “Lord Snow,” in reference to Jon Snow’s nickname at the wall. This episode continues, and I think essentially wraps up, the trio of scene setting episodes. This world is so complex, with so many characters, it needed a three hour pilot. Still, it’s a damn enjoyable setup.
It’s interesting to see it after the fact, after having watched Rome, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Carnivale, True Blood, The Wire, Big Love, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, etc. This is an intermediate stage in the development of today’s long form visual medium. The Sopranos, like all HBO dramas, is very well written. Where it shines is in character building. Not development per se, but in the creation of unique and interesting personalities.
After watching Episode 1 three and a quarter times, I was eagerly awaiting the continuation. This week’s installment, entitled “The Kingsroad” didn’t disappoint, although this is an extremely transitional episode.
Shameless is Showtime’s latest entry in the “edgy comedy” category, a slot they’re fond of (Weeds, Dexter). In any case, Shameless is an American remake of a British show, and centers around a working class Chicago family with an extraordinarily bad and alcoholic father named Frank (William H. Macy) and a bevy of often delinquent children and associated hangers on.
Really this is barely a time travel movie. Basically Marty just pops back to 1885 to save Doc from being shot by Biff’s great-grandfather (again played by the same actor). The DeLorean has run out of gas… in 1885, so they have to figure out how to get it up to 88 miles an hour.
Following up on such a gem of a movie as 1985’s Back to the Future (my review here) must have been a daunting task. And it occasioned part II and part III being filmed together, and released only 6 months apart. As far as I know this was the first time this kind of joint production was ever done.
As a writer, feedback can be essential to the process. You don’t necessarily want to spend months writing the whole novel draft to find out the voice sucks, or that your plot is boring. I’m a frantic high energy writer (I…
HBO has posted a new 25 minute Making of Game of Thrones video which is really good. CLICK here for my review of Episode 1 of the upcoming series, or HERE for more videos about the series.
Because this is a few years before Top Gun would precipitate the precipitous marketing-driven decline of filmmaking, BTTF is simultaneously incredibly commercial and incredibly good. This script, by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, is tight tight tight. I can only imagine how many passes it underwent because there is not one line out of place. You all know the story…
This new addition to the field of video game histories is a whirlwind tour of the medium from the 70s blips and blobs to the Facebook games of today, with everything in the middle included. Goldberg has wisely chosen to snapshot pivotal stories. He seizes on some of the most important games, and even more importantly, the zany cast of creatives who made them.
26 years really doesn’t show on this film. Sure the DVD transfer is a bit dated, and there are little 80s stylistic moments, particularly out in california, and it’s a tad goofier than movies tend to be now — but this is Rob Reiner in his good period.
For those of you living in a hole, it’s based on the stunning (and huge) series of novels by George R. R. Martin called the Song of Ice and Fire. The TV series is named after the first volume, Game of Thrones, and the first season covers the first novel. Currently there are four books to the series, with a fifth due this July.
Somehow I missed seeing all of Better Off Dead in the 26 years since release (only bits and pieces on cable), surprising given my nearly comprehensive knowledge of 80s films, and that I’m a fan of John Cusack — excepting the execrable 2012. This is one whacky film.
I’ve always loved this movie. Perhaps I’m a romantic at heart. Perhaps it’s the David Mamet dialogue, or maybe Demi’s just hot.
This is a weird weird book, and I mean that in a good way. Nominally, it’s about a schizophrenic girl, Hanna, who’s dad has died and who decides to move in unannounced with her mom she’s never met. But her mom doesn’t live in a normal town. She lives in some kind of weird place in Texas where gates between universes have let all sorts of strange monsters and realities in. A town with its own supernatural police.
Downton Abbey is a fictional great English country estate, owned by the middle aged Earl of Grantham. He has a loving wife and three daughters, not to mention about 30 assorted housekeepers, maids, footmen, and the like. What he doesn’t have is an heir, as his cousin, the closest male relative went down with the Titanic.
This is a short YA book, with nice prose and likable main characters thrown into ‘weird’ paranormal situations. The action so condensed as to occasionally be confusing and it has an unhappy but not completely tragic ending. But I found Tithe’s creepy fairy flavor really to my taste.
This is yet another foray into the world of paranormal YA. This book, unusually, has a male protagonist, and he’s part of a family of “curse workers,” although he himself doesn’t do any magic. He lives in an alternative reality where a small minority of people are able to “lay on hands” in a bad way and curse people. It’s well written and a fast and fun ride.
With the premier of Game of Thrones, the HBO series based on what is perhaps my all time favorite Fantasy series, fast approaching, the network has been releasing all sorts of goodies. Now I’ve posted about this before, but these…
As the sequel to The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man’s Fear is one of 2011’s two most anticipated Fantasy novels. This is High Fantasy of a rather less epic sort. Not that it’s any less fun to read, even weighing in as it does at 1008 hardcover pages. But they whip by as the characters, prose, and world are phenomenally well crafted.
