I know nothing about football. Seriously. I’ve picked up a couple athlete names over the years, and I can name a bunch of teams (both NFL and CFL) but really, I know nothing about football. Which says a lot about The League, as it has become one of my favorite shows on TV despite my lack of knowledge regarding their favorite sport. Funny is funny, and that’s what makes these following teasers amusing to a guy who barely understands them.
Do I know who these football players are? No. I do know they play football, and are known by the characters of The League, and damn it, that’s good enough for me. So while a lot of my fellow fans mention the appearance of this foozball star here or that foozball star there, I am more than happy to sit back and watch Taco be Taco.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s 9th season is set to premiere September 4th, or about 3 weeks from today. To make people aware of this date, as well as the shows move to new channel FXX (the comedy half of FX’s recent split) they have released some new trailers, and unlike last time, now they are actually showing some footage from the season.
Since Star Wars: Episode VII was announced a few months ago, their has been a number of new Star Wars projects announced, such as the Star Wars: Rebels animated TV series. None of these have been quite as left field as the announcement back in April that Dark Horse will be releasing an 8-issue comic series titled ‘The Star Wars‘, based on George Lucas’ original draft scripts written back in 1974.
The original screenplay had many differences from the final draft that eventually became Star Wars. ‘The Star Wars‘ tells the story of Jedi General Luke Skywalker, who seems to be the only person concerned that The Empire is poised for an attack on the peaceful world of Aquilae. When King Kayos is killed, Jedi in training Annikin Starkiller is ordered to find Princess Leia, while Skywalker sends his only squadron against the Empire’s powerful new battle station! O,h and Han Solo is a massive green alien who artist Mike Mayhew described to the USA Today as a “worldly” and exotic gunslinger who is already a rebel agent and “a very mysterious pirate that lurks in the shadows”. Also, gone are the legendary Lightsabers, instead the Jedi wield lazer-swords which are not too different to the swords that we are used to.
Artwork to ‘The Star Wars #1’ Doug Wheatley Ultravariant cover
You may be forgiven for thinking that Dark Horse is cashing in on the renewed interest in the series, however this project really excites me. Marvel and DC have been producing parallel world storylines for years with their ‘What if…?‘ and ‘Elseworlds‘ comics respectively, and for the most part they give us a great alternative vision of classic characters. I don’t see this as being any different. At the very least it will give Star Wars fans an insight into what George Lucas originally intended. Dark Horse also doesn’t tend to churn out any old stuff just for the sake of cashing in. For the most part their continuation of the Buffy, Firefly, and Angel series’ have been nothing less than superb.
The comics creators are also of high pedigree. The 8 issue series will be written by J. W. Rinzler, executive editor at Lucas books with Lucas’ full blessing on the project.
Writer J.W.Rinzler says on the Dark Horse website:
[box_dark]“While researching in the Lucasfilm Archives I’ve found many treasures—but one which truly astounded me was George’s rough draft for The Star Wars. His first complete imaginings were hallucinating to read—mind blowing,” “While working with George on another book project, I once asked if we could adapt his rough draft. He was hesitant. Years later, with Dark Horse’s invaluable help, we showed him a few drawn and colored pages of what it might look like. He gave us the okay.”[/box_dark]
Artwork will be provided by Mike Mayhew, who has drawn for plenty of well known properties such as Green Arrow, Bionic Man, The Avengers and X-Men.
The first issue will be published on the 4th of September. Dark Horse will have a number of variant covers including one by legendary concept artist Ralph McQuarrie.
Artwork to ‘The Star Wars #2’ Ralph McQuarrie variant cover
Edgar Allan Poe’s work has attracted and amazed people since it was introduced to the masses in 1827, and has continued to be a big part of popular culture ever since. Nevermore: An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe is a one man show loosely based on the life of Poe. It uses his own letters and essays as well as incorporating reviews of his appearances at the time to help create an engaging experience. The show is set in 1848 and stars Jeffrey Combs. The audience follows Poe’s descent into madness while out on a cross-country speaking tour. Do not worry if you missed it, because below is a 5 minute compilation of Combs in fine form.
For those of you unfamiliar with the name Jeffrey Combs, you have no doubt have seen him whether you remember the name or not. He is a superb character actor who has appeared in various television roles throughout the years. When not appearing in Star Trek or voicing numerous characters for DC animated series, he is mostly plying his trade in the film industry. What most people will recognize him from is his portrayal of H.P.Lovecraft’s Frankenstein style creator Herbert West in the hugely popular 80’s splatter flick Re-Animator.
Dread Central has reported (via Twitter) that the show is now to become a feature film. Can you guess who the director is going to be? Yes it is none other than Jeffrey Combs old pal Stuart Gordon, the director of the original stage show.
A successful horror director in his own right, the two of them have made some superb low-budget horror movies together including the above mentioned movie and films like From Beyond, Castle Freak, The Pit and the Pendulum and Fortress. They do make a great team, and with Stuart on board you know that Jeffrey’s performance will be given the center stage it deserves. How they are planning on pulling this one stage production off is yet to be seen, but if it keeps any of the magic of the original stage performance then we should all be in for a treat.
Combs has a talent of breathing new life into well established historical figures and this reviewer is looking forward to seeing how this film progresses (watch his performance in the movie Necronomicon where he plays H.P.Lovecraft and you will see how successful he is at portraying that established writer). No official date on release yet, but there is a poster already out for this (which can be seen below) which really brings home the struggle this mentally tortured writer was under. This will be one film that all Poe fans should rush to see.
There is real plethora of excellent television currently airing on Sunday nights as everyone rushes in to fill the time-slots that were held by Game of Thrones and Mad Men last month. What follows were my top 5 TV moments *SPOILERS ALERT!* from Sunday night…
After a somewhat ludicrous, albeit awesome, season 2 finale, we’ve all have been wondering how Homeland was going to stretch the somewhat short premise for another season. Well, the trailer does a damn good job of hinting at it, while staying somewhat far away from spoiler territory. The basic gist seems to be that Brody (Damian Lewis) is on the run from a global manhunt by the US Government, meanwhile an internal investigation is going on in the US, possibly retreading the past years, thus involving Saul (Mandy Patinkin), the new Director of the CIA, and Carrie (Claire Danes). Check out the trailer below.
This premise is the only logically place the show could’ve gone following last season, but with this concept we lose the up close tension of Brody on US soil and whether he has a mastermind terrorist plan in his mind at any moment. Also, the family dynamic, which has been somewhat hammered into the ground, can’t be as big a part to Brody as he’s not with them. That said, the trailer does a great job of setting up the dire tone that is needed following, SEASON 2 SPOILER, a terrorist bombing killing hundreds of US officials that may or may not have been done by the shows main character. Yeah, not exactly a time for big hugs and kisses. Lastly, that final shot between Carrie and Saul was tremendous, the framing of her head turned around as she’s about to tear up, Saul right up beside her, AHHHH, it was perfect, and it’s moments like that make me more and more excited for what’s to come in the third season of Homeland.
Grizzly Bomb 