Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the news filled world of superhero’s in Film, TV, Video Games and whatever else floats your boat.
Continue reading Hero Express – ‘Beware the Batman’, ‘Man of Steel’ Set Pics, and Luke Cage on TV!
RECAP: First and foremost… “Trinity is back”.
Deb tells Dexter about the situation. It looks like the son of the old Mitchell family, Jonah, killed his sister.
Dexter is still seeing his brother, Brian. Dexter and his brotherly hallucination decide to take a trip to Nebraska to take care of the Jonah situation. With his brother’s ghost in the passenger seat, Dexter sets off on a vacation. I am loving the little things about Brian that make me wish he were around still. He called Deb “the one that got away”, and he talked Dexter into boning the cute convenience store chick.
Angel tells Deb that they found the girl who Travis let go. She had said that she was tied up by someone called the Professor and a weaker guy. Since she was blind-folded, the theory that Gellar is a spirit could still be true.
Dexter goes to the Mitchell home to see if Jonah is really guilty. He notices that his tools and the forensic kit are missing from his car. Although he wears gloves and has a fake back story, Dexter seems sloppy in this episode. Jonah comes home while Dexter is in his house, but runs off after confirming Dexter killed his father Arthur. Then, Dexter is seen by Jonah’s neighbors. After that, he kills the motel attendant because he was blackmailing him with his tools and gun. He is being seen by far too many people.
Travis tells Professor Gellar that he wants to be free. This is obviously not a surprise because he has struggled with his conscience since the beginning of the season.
Quinn and Deb have a relationship conversation which pisses me off. If I were Deb, and I dated someone who acted the way he did, I would probably punch him in the balls. They kiss. I had begun to like Quinn, but he became the same old douche he’d always been after Deb left him. In this scene, however, I felt sorry for him.
The newest trailer for The Hunger Games is out and thank God it’s not another spinning acid trip in the woods. For a while there I thought I was watching daytime outtakes from The Blair Witch Project. With slightly less snot.
I will say from the top that I like the trailer. It encapsulates the character of Katniss quite well, and I am more than pleased with Jennifer Lawrence in the role with what I’ve seen so far. That and Donald Sutherland is basically a badass, so you know he’ll be awesome. I can make my peace with Lenny Kravitz, I really can. I’m sure he had the best acting coaches money could buy that auto-tuned his on-screen performance. I’m sure he knows some guitar hypnosis voodoo to get what he wants.
I really have a hard time making my peace with Woody Harrelson because of what an obscenely awful actor he is. He wasn’t exhibited much in the trailer, but I think this role should be a cinch for him. He’s like Keanu Reeves. Keanu has solid performances when he plays someone who has no clue what’s going on; because Keanu has no clue what’s going on. In this film, Woody portrays a crazy drunk who tends to lash out in a violent rage. Three shots of Tequila and he just has to read the script.
Anyhow, here it is…
I have high hopes for this film because I did thoroughly enjoy the book. There is a wide margin of screw-up possibility, as in any book to film adaptation. However, being that this was the only book in the trilogy that was actually worth reading, I’m excited to see it. This new trailer really gave us a glimpse into Katniss’ life before and leading up to the games; her bravery in volunteering to die to save her sister’s life, her friendship with her fellow tribute, Peeta. It felt inspiring. Hopefully the film lives up to the hype.
Hunger Games will be released on March 23, 2012.
Ok, so I’m way behind on the SoA reviews. I apologize. We haven’t talked about the Sons since the fifth episode – Brick, and a lot to have happened since then. In the 5 episodes I neglected to review Juice tried and failed to kill himself trying to escape the reach of the Law, and Clay has taken the gloves off and become the out right villain. To avoid the reveling of his involvement with John Teller’s death, Clay murdered Piney, put out a(n unsuccessful) hit on Tara, and beat the crap out of Gemma. It’s getting pretty ugly. Anyhow, show runner Kurt Sutter has convinced FX that 13 episodes just isn’t gonna get it done this season, so FX has awarded the creative team behind the show a 14th episode.
RECAP: In the beginning of the episode, Shane and Rick are walking together around the woods looking for Sophia. It is hard to see them together and not think about Laurie being pregnant! I was almost hoping that the Laurie/Shane situation would get brought up hile they were walking, but no such luck. Shane did mention that he wanted to call off the search for Sophia, which pissed Rick off.
When Daryl is out looking for Sophia, he finds her doll near a swamp area. He falls into the swamp, and punctures his side with his arrow. It was awesome to see how realistic the blood spreading through the water looked. Just a minor detail that you might not even notice, unless it were done improperly. As he tried to climb out of the ditch, he fell again. He saw Merle, his brother, who talked to him and basically told him he was the outcast of the group, and only his brother would ever understand him. Merle was just a hallucination, but when Daryl awoke there was a zombie enjoying a taste of Daryl’s shoe. Watching Daryl crush the walker’s skull was grotesque to say the least.The Merle/Daryl situation is oddly similar to that of Dexter/Harry or Dexter/Brian on my other favorite show “Dexter”.
As the ladies are getting things prepared for dinner, the boys and Andrea are outside by the RV. Daryl begins limping up to them from afar, and they are under the impression that he is a walker. Although Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog went to get closer, Andrea shot him in the head, sniper style.
Continue reading The Walking Dead: Season 2, Episode 5 – “Chupacabra”
The radio sucks. Plain and simple. Most of the music that is on the radio is either overplayed, twenty years old, or very, very bad. That’s why in 2010 Drake was mainstream hip-hop’s saving grace. He brought back a smoothness that no one thought was even allowed on the radio anymore. His album, which was both a critical and commercial success, spawned several hits that received an endless amount of airplay. Drake was the best new rapper of 2010.
Now it’s 2011 and it’s time to see if his sophomore album will live up to the hype. Take Care, which was announced a few months back, has been able to generate a lot of buzz. In an era of constant pirating and hateful rambling in the internet community, this was a refreshing change of pace. Everything looked fine and dandy until the album was inevitably leaked a week before its initial release (which is how I heard it). Drake found out about the incident rather quickly, and in some ways I feel like her inadvertently advertised the fact that it was in fact leaked. Regardless, he was very understanding and mature about it, simply saying via Twitter, “Listen, enjoy it, buy it if you like it…and take care until next time.” The way that he so humbly addresses something so seriously is astounding in an industry of show-offs and prima donnas.
As for the album itself, in comparison to 2010’s Thank Me Later, Take Care takes a much more downbeat and almost R&B approach to rap, crafting hits that R. Kelly might have been pumping out in ’91. Much like its cover, Take Care is a sad album among many things, speaking to the inner hormonal child in all of us. Some of the problems that Drake speaks about come off as juvenile, but his clever wordplay and seductive voice hide the fact that it’s so damn whiny.
Lyrically, the album rambles on and seems to have literally no direction whatsoever, which is a shame considering how well crafted Thank Me Later was. Take Care is really just a well-crafted mixtape more than anything, the instrumentals sounding amateurish, and Drake himself sounding like he’s about to kill himself. At 18 tracks, Take Care seems like more of a chore than an experience. By the end of the first half I began to fall asleep, despite doing a lot of other things at the same time. I was hoping that some divine miracle may occur, and the second half would be the album I was expecting. But, alas, this was not the case. It turned out to be simply a larger compilation of more tales of submission and heartache.
Another thing I want to bring up is Drake’s borderline obsession with Nicki Minaj. He’s obviously crazy for her, and it’s starting to become a little childish. On the album’s second single, Make Me Proud, Drake basically raps more about how much he loves Nicki and how proud of her he is. After hearing an inspired performance of it on SNL, I simply just had to skip the track because I was sick of it after only hearing it once.
Take Care is an example of an artist who, in my opinion, doesn’t know where to go from here. As talented as Drake may be, the repetitive nature of his ways may at some point be the reason for his downfall as opposed to the reason for his rise to the top. There is some obvious attempts at creating a new sound, and they fail. Miserably. Maybe I’m just an asswipe and I’m completely missing the point of it, but at this point, I’m tired of listening to pseudo-intellectual radio rap that attempts to make me think, I just want to hear something worth listening to twice. Take Care will be released on November 15th.
Best Track: Lord Knows
Grade: 1.5/5 Bears
Grizzly Bomb 