Daily Archives: February 24, 2012

Movie News & Opinions

Star Trek 2 Set Photos: Benedict Cumberbatch!

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So here’s a couple of quick little glimpses of Benedict Cumberbatch on the set of Star Trek 2, as he is playing the new supposed mystery villain in the forthcoming (And eagerly anticipated) sci-fi sequel. But then again maybe it won’t be such a mystery once his name is revealed. I’m sure some mindless Trekkies will blurt out a dozen theories about which character he is supposed to be from the old show. Check out the first picture with Cumberbatch feeling the wrath of the Vulcan Death Grip:

Our next photo shows him being held at phaser point by the beautiful Zoe Saldana who plays Uhura in the new Trek films:

One can only hope that we’ll soon have a trailer for this bad lad. 2009’s Star Trek was by far one of the best movies that year. It re-invigorated that franchise and brought in tons of new fans, myself included. I always hated Star Trek, but absolutely loved the new one. Not to mention Benedict Cumberbatch from BBC’s Sherlock is in it to play the newest villain. I’ve not watched any of Sherlock, but Dr. Kronner talks like he would totally make out with Buttercup Cumberbatch because the show is so amazingly awesome. I’m sure in the coming days more and more set photos will begin hitting the web and eventually plot details. Stay tuned for more info as we get it!

TV

Star Wars: The Clone Wars 4.19 -‘Massacre’ Review

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The Clone Wars is wrapping up its fourth season with a bang as the first of the last four episodes airs in the form of “Massacre“. We see Ventress making her return to Dathomir and swearing full allegiance to the Night Sisters of Dathomir, forsaking the Sith. Count Dooku in the meantime has ordered General Grievous to strike hard at the planet and rid the galaxy of the witches. These rich Sith types just tend to hold a major grudge ya know?

https://youtu.be/zFcZd2502ik

It was actually kind of hard to decide which group of scumbags to root for. I mean, Grievous and the Separatists are a no brainer, they suck. But the Night Sisters are equally as shady, with the hairless harpy leading the charge of laser bow-wielding Night Sisters and even a contingent of zombie Night Sisters. Yes, you heard me…. zombie Night Sisters. They were definitely creepy as hell, but nowhere near as creepy as the wrinkled old Night Sister who is even older than Mother Talzin. I thought Talzin’s double-layered voice was unnerving enough but the oldest Night Sister blew it away with all of her crazy chanting.

So, even though the battle itself was pretty awesome there was no indication of why it would be best if one side or the other was to win. I’m actually a little sick of Grievous being bested over and over again in combat, but even as he lost to Ventress after a short spar he went on quite the killing spree and savagely killed the super old Night Sister and her guards. One might wonder what happened to Mother Talzin but I’m sure we’ve not seen the last of her.

Clone Wars - Zombies

The force magic of the Night Sisters was an interesting thing to see, albeit some was a little ridiculous. I find it curious how Talzin was able to procure a lock of Dooku’s hair, but it’s a minute detail. The episode certainly did live up to its name. It truly did turn into a massacre as not one Night Sister except Ventress was left alive by the episode’s end. Again, I’m not too broken up about this and I can’t feel much sympathy for Ventress being left all alone. We’ll certainly see where she lands next episode as it appears she may be taking on the role of a bounty hunter!

Stayed tuned next week for the continuation of the Clone Wars ending arc. I give the episode 2 out of 5 grizzlies, great visuals but I just couldn’t find myself caring who won this round on the Clone Wars. Bring on the Maul Bros in a couple weeks!

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Spartacus Season 2: Vengeance – Episode 5 “Libertus”

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*FULL SPOILERS FOLLOW*

This episode of Spartacus reminded me a whole lot of the finale of season one, Blood and Sand. It starts off with Oenomaus, Crixus and Rashko facing death in the arena Ad-Gladium…. at the hands of Gannicus and several other gladiators. Yes Gannicus is back and the episode begins with him and Oenomaus exchanging sword blows and then the screen cutting away to days earlier as the Blood and Sand finale started with Spartacus and Crixus fighting before it showed us events of the day previous. I always thought that was a very cool aspect of that season and I am glad to see they brought it back in this season. However let’s not see that it gets overused or anything.

One storyline that I thought wouldn’t come to a head so soon was that of the game being played by Illythia against her husband Glaber. Thanks to the crafty machinations of Lucretia and Ashur, Glaber comes to find out that Illythia’s plans to abort their child and her further plans of dissolving marriage to get with Verinius soon follows. It’s clear that Glaber isn’t going to let this pass and it would seem even with Lucretia playing both sides, for the moment she will help Glaber out to somehow get back at Illythia. I still think that Glaber is going to get with Seppia after sufficiently humiliating Illythia and Verinius. Glaber is actually becoming a proper villain thanks to his “loving” wife after what he did to her father. I couldn’t help but laugh a little at the moment when Glaber told him that he wasn’t the fool that him and his daughter believe him to be. I believe this leaves Illythia in a bit of a tight spot after revealing her plans to Glaber. TOO BAD!

The plan of Spartacus and the others to infiltrate the arena to save Crixus and the others was predictable, yet awesomely done. I love the arena scenes in the show. The music combined with the visuals of the crowd and the frantic camera work make for quite the adrenaline rush while watching. There was plenty of suspense and tension during the rescue scene too and poor Rashkos was a casualty. Sure the guy was a savage bastard but I was starting to get used to him in this season, but someone was bound to buy it in that scene. The best part besides all of the arena action was most definitely Gannicus being back in the show. Gods of the Arena was a great fill in for our wait for Season 2, and Dustin Clare was definitely a big part of how great that mini season was. Gannicus is by far not the same laughing warrior we saw in Gods of the Arena. Sure, he still loves drink and whores but he is clearly haunted to this very day by what happened to Melitta in the house of Batiatus. He certainly was a little thrown and the tension was palpable in the arena when Oenomaus confronted him about it. One would wonder how they’ll get along in the next episode. If they survived! But come on, they had to survive.

This was an excellent follow up to the awesomeness of episode 3 and I give it a 5 out of 5 bears for sure. I can’t wait to tune in next week and see where Spartacus and the boys stand in their road to war with the Romans. And not to mention the preview for next week showed Gannicus fighting Spartacus! Madness!
TV

The Walking Dead Finds a Governor!

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For those of you wondering which actor is going to be playing that sicko bastard The Governor in the Walking Dead TV series, then wonder no more as he has been cast!

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

David Morrissey has most recently been in the movies Centurion and the Jason Statham cop thriller Blitz. Morrisey also has quite an extensive TV career, but nothing of which I’ve heard of, but feel free to check out his resume’ at IMDB.

For those of you not familiar with the good ole’ Governor, he is the leader of another group of zombie survivors in the town of Woodbury. Now this guy is completely freakin’ nuts. Reading the issues of Walking Dead with him in it were some of the most sadistic and gruesome things I’ve read in comics. Of course now a bunch of comics follow suit with the gruesomness in The Walking Dead, but at the time there wasn’t a whole lot besides The Punisher MAX and maybe Preacher that were as graphic as the Governor issues. Just know that this guy will most definitely change the face of the show if they even remotely stick to the comics. Lord knows they’ve taken plenty of liberties with the show thus far not having it follow the comics exactly, and I agree that the show is better of for it.

I’m not the biggest fan of the Walking Dead TV series, but I may have to jump back on board just to see how they handle a lot of scenes with the Governor and what kind of spirit that David Morrissey brings to the role. I’d love to see the picture below play out on screen.