It has been, and is going to be – a long wait until Season 3 of Game of Thrones premieres. In that meantime I’m stuck with the terrible debacle between hating having to wait, and loving the speculation, hints, teasers and every other little tidbit of information leaked in between about the third season. It’s what I call Lost syndrome. Back when Lost was on TV, all I ever wanted was to keep watching, to find out what was going to happen next, and hated the agonizing wait in between weeks of the show, and the truly excruciating wait in between seasons. Now that it’s all over with, I find myself missing all of that time spent in between seasons, wildly speculating on what would happen next, forming bizarre, out there theories, or just plain being baffled and wondering what the hell else could happen.
Game Of Thrones is like this in a way, only there’s a bunch of books with the spoilers right there in them, just waiting there, tempting me. I gave in for the third season/book, and now am stuck in a rock and a hard place between wanting the show to be fresh to me, and desperately wanting to continue the story right here, right now. So believe me when I say that little featurettes about the making of the show, tend to be particularly difficult for me to watch, knowing what’s coming up, and simultaneously NOT knowing what’s coming up. I’m envious of those who haven’t read any of the books and just watch the show, and I’m envious of those who have read all the books, and get to enjoy all of the show-watchers’ reactions. For me it’s a little private hell where I have to compromise between my love of over analyzation, and my impatience. For the rest of you who are in either camp that I’m not in, I’m sure this featurette will bring you lots of joy.
Ciarin Hinds: The King Beyond The Wall aka Mance Rayder
One of the more interesting things aside from that featurette, is the casting of a crucial character only spoken about as of yet in the series, that book readers will no doubt know. That would be the role of Mance Rayder, The King Beyond The Wall.
Playing him is the pretty excellent character actor Ciarin Hinds, who you may be more familiar with from his work than his name. He played Caeser in Rome, Dumbledore’s brother in Harry Potter, and his finest work yet was his role as The Devil in Ghost Rider 2. In no way am I knocking him for that, because that movie was awesome, [No it wasn’t] and he was awesome in it [Yes he was].
While I did imagine Mance Rayder a bit younger in the books, it’s certainly a role I can see him be great in. Now pardon me while I eagerly hate/love waiting for Season 3.
I think it is a testament to how good of a show Boardwalk Empire is, that even their episodes that aren’t so great in comparison to other episodes, still are incredible when compared to other shows. Last week was the best the show had ever been, and after tonight it still holds that title. That is not to say that ‘Margate Sands’ was not good, because it was, but it didn’t even compare to last week.
Biggest disappointment was right off the bat. The opening scene was great, cinematically speaking. Much like most scenes in Nucky’s office, it had the happy and jolly upbeat music playing right along with gunshots and people being mowed down en masse. I loved that juxtaposition along with its build up to the mayor proclaiming that Nucky doesn’t run the town, he does and of course the reporters laughing. Great scene. Could not have been better. However, that’s all we are going to see of the war that’s been building up for the entire season? You leave last week’s episode with Al Capone making a grand entrance and then he’s relegated to a few shots here and there? You’re killing me smalls.
I sort of love and hate what they did with Capone and Chalky the entire rest of the episode. I love it because it’s accurate (TV show level of accuracy at least) as we aren’t that far removed from the Chicago race riots of 1919 so it’s not hard to believe that Al Capone and his men are still a wee bit racist. By that I mean, really racist. They spend the entire episode, minus the two minutes they are killing Masseria and Rossetti’s men, fighting with each other. It was ridiculous. I do think that their coming to terms with each other at the end of the episode will lead into something more significant in the next season. If it doesn’t I’m just going to be irritated because there was so much time dedicated to their displeasure with each other. Time that could have been spent on the actual war between Gyp and Nucky.
There was other examples of factions being displeased with another. Team New York is at an impasse. An impasse that could have been avoided had Lucky and Meyer just listened to Rothstein in the first place. Damn minions, never know when to just shut up and stand in the background looking pretty. Rothstein ruled this episode. He’s like the Grandmaster of gangster chess (it’s a lot like wizard chess but you end up with a knife in your back) and even though he hasn’t had much screen time throughout the season as a whole, it all came to a head in the finale. So he’s taught his underlings not to f*ck with him so what’s next? He now owns essentially all of the Overholt distillery which will mean he’ll finally be able to finally get his delivery! Hopefully this will also lead to many more Rothstein talking to Mickey Doyle reaction shots. The look on his face every time he hears Mickey’s voice is priceless. Depending on when they pick the story back up, I wonder if we’ll see more of Benny/Bugsy Siegel. That would not be unwelcome.
Okay, I can’t stand Gillian but oh my lord she had a rough week. Tommy probably has no idea why he should really hate his grandmother but still his refusal of her company was a bit heartbreaking. You can just see Gillian’s desperation which of course leads to her ballsy attempt to kill Gyp. Even though it seems like a little bit of “turnabout is fair play”, I found myself actually feeling badly for Gillian with the heroin. I felt bad for Gillian. FOR GILLIAN! Damn you writers. If the “Gyp and Gillian try to kill each other” bit didn’t make me feel compassion for someone I previously hated, Gillian out in the hallway high as a kite sure did. Boardwalk Empire does a pretty good job at showing how shitty your life will become is you are forced into prostitution as a young child. When she was telling Nucky that she went upstairs to the bad man, I couldn’t help but just feel so sorry for her. Lesson learned writers- childhood prostitution is a bad idea.
If you are a Gillian fan however, do not despair for it seems that our resident incestual scumbag is going to live to ride again. Michael Ausiello of TVLine talked to Terrence Winter and asked straight out if Gillian lives. I’m torn on this one. Of course I’d like her to be gone because I can’t stand her, but she’s a good character as far as the show goes. Well here’s to another season of Gillian’s mental illness!
Someone else we get another season of, Richard Harrow!!!
I’ll admit that I really thought Richard was going to end up dead by the end of the finale. I would have placed money on that, and obviously I would have been poorer today. Not only did he survive, but he did a kick ass job in the “killing everyone you see” category. That scene was more TaxiDriver than Taxi Driver. That was the second time I’ve said that- wondering if Terrence Winter was feeling rather Martin Scorcese-esque this year.
One thing Boardwalk Empire is really good at is referring back to previous episodes. We’ve got the Taxi Driver style murderous rampage which was cool (bloody but cool) but what I really enjoyed was the “blood on the window” shot that tied together both the season premiere and the season finale.
In perhaps the most surprising turn of events in the entire series to date, Julia’s dad was not a complete asshole for once! I was rather stunned when Richard decided to take Tommy to Julia in the first place without getting himself cleaned up first. I was dumbfounded when it was Mr. Swagorski who was the voice of reason in the situation. Screw people killing and dying, that was the biggest surprise of them all! That scene always had the sweetest moment of the episode. Richard is standing there all bloody, hands off Tommy to Julia, and she grabs his hand. Come on Richard, you may want to protect her and Tommy from the full time gangster life you are returning to, but it appears as if she’s willing to stand by you. I don’t know how many other girls you are going to come across that will. Then again, I have no doubt that Richard and Julia will meet up again because Gillian is going to go on a rampage to find Tommy and get him back. That is not going to be pretty I fear. Oooohh, maybe that’s how she’ll finally die- Richard will shoot her as she tries to take Tommy back. Or maybe now that she’s had a good taste of heroin she’ll become an addict living on the streets of Atlantic City. Or maybe she’ll continue to just be a bitch that annoys me for another season. That’s the most likely scenario.
If we are talking about people who have futures up in the air, we can’t look past Margaret. Oh Margaret, you need to find a confidant. First we have you trying to confide in your sister-in-law who, wisely, changes the subject, and then you try to talk to the doctor’s wife. That and you’re going back to your maiden name and off getting abortions and sleeping in the same bed as your two children just like you were at the start of the show, shit’s come full circle Peggy and it isn’t pretty. I will say, I damn near stood up and cheered when Margaret closed the door in Nucky’s face. What the hell did he think was going to happen when he went to “apologize”? That was both infuriating and expected.
Even with all Nucky has been through this season, he still is the cocky ass who thinks he can “forgive” Margaret and she’ll come crawling back. What an idiot. Of course I do hope they get their shit figured out because I want them to become the King and Queen of the Boardwalk.
Best part of the finale? Nucky and Eli, together again. Actually, Nucky and Eli together as closer to equals than they’ve probably been in a very long time. Even though Eli tried to have him killed, it looks like Nucky has realized that post-prison Eli is the closet he has to a trusted ally now. Sign you are a bad guy? Your most trusted ally once suggested you be killed. That’s rough. But it was nice to see the two brothers come together, talking about their past life as Pineys, fixing old cars (and referring to an old “Willys car” they had when they were younger), sharing cigarettes, and then “convincing” Tonino to take out Gyp Rosetti. The family that kills together, stays together. How sweet.
Which brings us to the most obvious part of the episode, time to pour one out for our ol’ pal Gyp Rosetti. Of course no one had any delusions that he would actually survive this finale (did they?), but it was still sad to see him go. Sad in a “who is going to fill our sadistic sociopath needs now?” kind of way. At first I was a little peeved that he ended up dying in such a quiet way. Standing on the beach, pissing (this entire episode was one pissing match after another), making fun of Nucky, and then literally being stabbed in the back. My initial reaction was that he should have gone down in a blaze of glory but somehow being stabbed by Tonino seems more fitting. After bashing his cousin’s head in with a shovel and proclaiming it as some big favor, I can’t imagine it took much convincing by Nucky to get Tonino to do the deed. Of course them finding him in a closet with dead guys filling the house and them carrying guns themselves didn’t hurt either.
So Gyp is no more, Eli and Nucky are on the same team, Margaret may or may not return, Arthur Rothstein is a badass, Gillian is riding out a possible heroin overdose, Richard is running off somewhere without Julia and Tommy, and Al Capone and Chalky White are bff’s. A lot of action for one episode and that’s not even including the whole Mellon/Rothstein/Randolph/Means thing that was slipped in there. Whose team is Means on? I have no idea. I think I’m going to stop trying to figure that dude out because as soon as I think I do, he goes and does something that just makes me sit back with a “wtf” look on my face.
All we know is Nucky is no long half a gangster, and he certainly is no longer the glad-handing, shit grinned politician he was before this season. As for what the future holds, well we have a long time to sit back and wonder. I’m sure whatever (death of Pres. Harding) it is, it will be awesome.
Like I said up top, this episode was not nearly as good as the few episodes previous, but it was still good in it’s own right. As far as season finale’s go, it was great. It answered a lot of questions, wrapped up a lot of loose ends, but left enough questions that we are looking forward to the next season starting. That is exactly what a season finale is supposed to do so well done Boardwalk Empire.
I’m going to have to go with a four out of five. It was good, but it wasn’t great.
In closing, the song that Gyp was singing right before he shuffled off the mortal coil – “Barney Google”.
Until next year Boardwalk fans! It’s been fun, let’s do it again sometime.
Some stuff went down in this episode let’s not waste time and dive in and get to the bottom of it then analyze, shall we?
Finn is on a quest to find out who his real father is, but when he does find out, he is in for a shock. Seems Finns real dad is dying of cancer and does not have long left to live. He also finds out he has a step sister called Grace who has been looking after their dad. While these three reconnect with each other, Jess once again meets Alex and they finally manage to go out on that drink. While out walking, Finn and Grace both see Alex and decide to follow him, which leads to a some what shady meeting with a strange man in an underground car park. Finn automatically assumes this means Alex is gay and goes out of his way to let Jess know, even confronting her in the local bars toilets to show her photographic evidence. When confronted with this, Alex takes Jess back to his flat and they make out but never actually have sex. Alex wants to take it slow. Finn has taken Grace away from the house for a bit, because her father wants to die. This is all because Grace has the power to heal and has been using it on her father to keep him alive. It does not, however, cure the cancer. It just stops him from dying from it and he has had enough. Finn and Grace both get back to the house in the early morning and Finn has to fight his own sister to stop her bringing their father back. She sees that she has to let him go and they both sit by his bed as he passes on. Alex looks into an envelope that he was given in the mentioned shady meeting. It has a photo of a man in it. He confronts the man and asks the man to show him his man parts.
The spotlight is on Finn in this episode. It is almost like they know he is the weakest character and the writing team are trying their hardiest to give him more depth. It is hard to say but I think it is working. He is always going to struggle to gain audience acceptance because Rudy is such a strong male lead. It is hard to battle against that. In this episode, he does have some nice moments but nothing that ever really blows you away. His nerd-like persona is at an impasse at the moment. Sometimes it is incredibly funny, while other times it grates on you. In this episode, I would say it is a 50/50 split. The introduction of his sister may work for him though, depending how she is used in future storylines. With an extra character in the mix and some one to care for, he may emerge as a more interesting character. Or if Grace is too overpowering as a character, he may get lost in the shuffle. At the moment, they balance each other out quite nicely.
Jess and Alex slowly start their relationship together and to be honest I have no interest whatsoever. It all seems a bit dull, even with the mystery behind Alex as a character. Alex has a big episode up next week which should hopefully explain a lot of things, but at the moment I am really not connecting with him at all. In fact, his interactions with Jess make her seem a bit dull as well. The twist at the end of the episode involving wanting to look at the man’s willy, well that could be anything. Myself and my fiancé have a bet on at the moment on what the problem is. I believe he has had his penis stolen in some way (that pesky storm again!), while she believes he has a kind of monster penis that attacks people. Watch this space to see if we were even remotely right! Greg is hilarious in this episode and it seems that the intense anger is just for comic relief as he has two stand out scenes here, one in the grief counseling and another talking about when his dad died. Rudy as always is amazing, but he has very little to do in this episode.
Because of the serious and intense nature of the last episode, this one is more restrained and personal. I guess that is what the episode was going for. It was hard to sympathize with Finn because his emotional range was not great in this episode. It was also hard to relate to the dying man and Grace, because we have only just been introduced to them and so have no real emotional attachment to any of them. It was a great episode for showing the pain cancer can cause, and having friends who have died from this I thought it would have affected me more than it did. Maybe I am just too heartless! Grace, however, was interesting and could be a wild card in this series. If she is used a lot in the series then it could make the show a little more extreme than it actually has been at the moment. Since she is a healer, anyone can get messed up and she could bring them back. We will have to see because we just may never see her again. As a character she is okay and that pretty much sums up this episode.
This seems to be the days of Alfred Hitchcock with his imprint and likeness being reintroduced to pop culture recently with movies and television series abound. We had The Girl, the HBO movie; Hitchcock, the Anthony Hopkins film; and now we have some more awesome news on the new A&E series, Bates Motel.
Now, we haven’t heard too much other than the first details of the Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates as a kid series with Vera Farmiga playing his less decrepit looking mother in her youth, but we at have this first picture to show. Which is awesome because I love the house looming large in the background and it creates such a buzz for me in wanting to watch this series. But that’s not all folks! We also got some teaser trailers for you that show absolutely nothing yet definitely set the tone of (hopefully) what is to come. Shall we take a gander?
So yeah, all you really need is the Inception “BRRHAAAAAMMM” horns and you can make anything epic. Again, it sets a great tone for the series as we try to figure out what about the house makes the people go a little bit….Psycho? Too much? But seriously, looking into the relationship between how the son developed into the adult Norman Bates and the impact of his mother on his future is something we all need to see. With the teasers showing that perhaps the Bates Motel is something not to be trifled with, or at least the family, we might know exactly how dedicated this family is to each other.
Anyways, leave some comments on the bottom or on our Facebook so we can see how excited about this you are or how lame you are if you don’t like Hitchcock. It better be the former because that’s just un-American otherwise. Bates Motel is due in 2013 on A&E.
Excuse me for a moment as I play the part of the old lady. Kids these days have it so good! Back in 1988 when I was 10 years old, after I walked to school, uphill both ways in the snow, my choices for animated cinematic entertainment were limited. They were good, but very limited. If I remember correctly, 1988 would be the year of Oliver and Company and Land Before Time. That was it!
In 2012, there were more than 10 large studio animated movies. That does not include the Disney 3D remakes, smaller movies, or ones that went straight to DVD. Ten! That is amazing. Not to mention, that quite a few of those would have had an animated short included before the movie. I think it’s safe to say we are in the age of (digitally) animated movies. The bonus of this boom is advances in computer animation combined with the competition to be better, some incredible animated films are being made.
There is a movie coming out next year that exhibits just that.
Epic comes out of Blue Sky Studios, same people who brought us the wildly successful Ice Age movies and last year’s Rio. Those are great movies, but not something I myself would really seek out. However, once I saw the trailer for Epic, I was singing a different tune.
Seriously, that is beautiful. The part when the “decay” comes to life on the tree in a wave motion? I got chills. That looks so cool.
The story is based on William Joyce’s 2001 children’s book, The Leaf Men. If you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to do so, even if you are an adult and think reading children’s books is reserved for only children. It is a great story, no matter what your age. It’s a story that lends itself to being translated to film.
The film version has some big names in the voice department. Amanda Seyfreid (Mamma Mia), Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games), Colin Ferrell, Christoph Waltz, Jason Sudekis, and Aziz Ansari- those are some rather big names. Then you have the musicians who lent their voices- Beyonce, Steven Tyler, and Pitbull. I’ll admit when I ask myself, “Hmmm, who should be a voice in an animated film about little “leaf men” who fly on hummingbirds,” I don’t automatically think of Pitbull but we’ll have to see how that works out. I’m intrigued.
I wish the trailer had either chosen to focus on the humor of the movie, or the pretty of the movie. If nothing else, they could have worked on the balance between the two. I’m sure there will be more footage released that might do just this and I think it will be to their benefit.
Also? The title is awful. I get that it is supposed to be this “epic” battle between the forces of good and evil but that word is a bit overused nowadays. Not to mention if you are going to call your movie “epic”, you are setting yourself up for potential failure. It is hard to achieve the level of epic and while I admire their “reach for the stars” attitude, perhaps it would have been best to settle for “Not EPIC but still pretty damn good”.
All that said, I’ll still go see it. I like pretty movies, and I like seeing pretty movies in the theatre. I don’t know that I’ll shell out the extra money to see it in 3D but that’s only because personally I am not a huge fan of 3D.
Epic is set to be released at the end of May, 2013.
After letting this last episode of The Walking Dead absorb into my brain, I must say that it is one of the best of the series. “When the Dead Come Knocking” was spectacular for several reasons, not the least of which being that Rick hot his groove back! I was nervous when he was losing his marbles that he would just remain the group basket case, and they’d need a new leader. Not only did Rick get his shit together, but he also talked to Carl about what happened with Lori. Now, I don’t know about you all, but most of the families I know hate confrontation and love to brush issues under the rug, no matter how serious. This was a proud moment as a Rick Grimes fan. He’s taking care of business again! He also let Carl name the wee baby Grimes, Judith.
Episode 6 ended with Michonne arriving at the prison, and that was the part I was most excited about. I love how she is always protecting herself, to the point where she will put herself in more danger! She had a bad feeling about Woodbury, so she left, putting herself in even more danger to be killed by walkers. She is one seriously badass character.
Michonne passed out from blood loss and Rick and the boys brought her inside of the prison. Hershel fixed up her wound and she was thankful. She was talking to Rick and was extremely defensive, as always. But this is not a trait specific to Michonne, she just approaches it differently. She protects herself by sometimes not saying anything at all, and mean-mugging everyone. Rick treats everyone with the same skepticism and has sometimes had to kill human beings for putting him or his loved ones in danger. I would say that Michonne and Rick are really a lot alike as both will do whatever becomes necessary to protect themselves.
Glenn getting the living hell beaten out of him by Merle was the most horrifying thing in this episode. Although, he did manage to display how much of a total badass he is.
Maggie was, of course, forced to strip the top half of her clothes off and was almost sexually assaulted. That was hard to watch. After all of that, she spilled to the Governor where their group was hiding out, because Glenn’s life was being threatened.
Proving she can play ‘awkward topless’ more than one way, here is Maggie in the cinematic classic VAN WILDER 2…
I have been at the edge of my seat since Sunday, awaiting the mid-season finale “Made to Suffer”. Join me on Sunday, as I pick apart the highly anticipated episode and make my undoubtedly incorrect predictions for the remainder of season 3.