Once upon a time, you could turn on the History Channel and be relatively sure that you’d find a show on World War II, Nostradamus, the Civil War, or Hitler. Now? Well it’s either Swamp People (a favorite in this house), Pawn Stars, or the incredibly stupid Big Rig Bounty Hunters. Do not even try to tell me how awesome Big Rig Bounty Hunters is because you would be wrong, show is as dumb as dumb gets. Either way, there is nothing remotely related history about Big Rig Bounty Hunters no matter
No ma’am.
how much History Channel touts that “History is made everyday”. That’s a cop out of epic proportions.
Thankfully they seem to realize that they are full of crap right now and look to return to something closer to their roots with two new shows premiering tonight, The Bible and Vikings. Granted both these shows will be taking liberal artistic license but still they have some basis in history unlike the station’s current line-up. While The Bible looks interesting, it’s a story most everyone has heard and seen before so I can’t say I’m all that excited to see it again. However, Vikings is one I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced.
Vikings will tell the story of Ragnor Lothbrok, a man who actually did exist, but the historical accuracy will likely stop at that. Played by Travis Fimmel, Lothbrok is a character that is filled with what can only be described as Norse wonderlust. While the leader of his village, Earl Haraldson, played by the always incredible Gabriel Byrne, prefers to do their raiding in the safe and always reliable east, Lothbrok longs to head west.
Look deep into my brooding eyes…
As is typically the case, the older Haraldson bristles as the young buck’s audacity to defy him, and therein lies our tension. When Lothbrok decides to leave the village, he takes with him a monk, Athelstan (George Blagden in his third credited role), who he makes his slave. While I love Gabriel Byrne and have for as long as I can remember, it’s actually the relationship between Athelstan and Lothbrok that I’m looking forward to most because being a monk, Athelstan believes in one god while Lothrok is firmly entrenched in his belief of the many Norse gods.
Add in Lothbrok’s ex-warrior wife, Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick)and his family and friends, headed up by brother Rollo played by Clive Standen (who was great as Robin’s brother in Robin Hood), and Vikings look sure to be an entertaining ride.
IGN‘s YouTube channel posted up a short film version of the comic sensation Y: The Last Man written by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra for Vertigo Comics comics. The series lasted for sixty issues and was a huge hit with fans, mostly because of its well written description of a dystopian future where all the men have died and women run the dying planet. Watch the short movie below.
If you did not grasp all the plot points in this short then here is a very brief description of the series. Much like he is here, Yorick is the only survivor of a man killing virus that destroys anything that has the Y chromosome, aside from Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand. Agent 355 is given the task of keeping Yorick out of trouble and getting him to Doctor Allison Mann, a cloning expert in the hope he holds the key to rebuilding the male population, and thus saving human kind from extinction.
What I liked most about this short was the way it showed the panic and tension of all the males dying at once in quite a brutal manner. It really added some gravitas to the piece and made the reality of this situation very bleak and shocking. What was entertaining about the piece was the character interactions. Yorick acts like he does in the comic, leaping into situations without thinking of the consequences of his actions, while 355 is then forced to help him out.
Commenting on negative parts of the film, I don’t think we needed the film device of making every guy look a jerk just so Yorick looks better by comparison (and even he comes off slightly jerky). It made it seem like men died out because they were sexist pigs or insensitive screwballs. That’s probably the case with some males of the species, but not all of us!
I am a relative newcomer to this world of Y TheLast Man, but the characters seemed faithful enough to me. All the people you see in this short appear in the comic (The Daughters of the Amazons, Yorick’s sister Hero, 355 and Ampersand the monkey). I did not hear of any mention of Beth, Yorick’s girlfriend who is a big driving force behind his actions in the comic. It seemed his sister Hero took the role of keeping Yorick moving in this short.
This plays out more like a teaser to a possible series, it’d be interesting to see if this ever gets extended into its own series as there is great potential for it to. There has been talk over the years of this comic series becoming a television show, but it has so far never come to fruition. There have also been rumors of a feature film trilogy for quite some time now. This is a fine example of how it could be done and done right.
If you keep up with TV news, this time of year is the ultimate mind-f#ck. Every day news comes out about yet another awesome sounding pilot that you just can’t help but get your hopes up over and then come to realize it’ll never get past the pilot stage. It’s a lot like getting a puppy, realizing it has parvo, and trying not to get attached in case it dies. Hmmm… I think I just won an award for worst analogy ever.
Awful, but that’s pretty much how it works out. Because this is an ever changing world, we here at Grizzly Bomb decided to do everyone a great service and round up the best looking puppies, I mean pilots, so you can be on the lookout for them. This has been a banner year for pilot orders (around 100 so far, up from last year) so we are going to break it down by network. Might as well start off with the basement dwellers… NBC.
February 27th, 2013: the day the Arrow fandom collectively had a fangirl stroke and briefly died only to come back to life sputtering nonsense such as “River Song! Mom! Oh no! The bird! Hot Australian shirtless man!” and “he did that! His hood! Why? What does it all mean?!?!” and the ever popular “John Barrowman’s American accent is so good!” Minus that last one, I pretty much agree with everything there. This episode was insane. After last week’s somewhat ho-hum performance, I had a feeling this week would be killer, but I was unaware how good it would really be.
First off, I need to apologize to Geoff Johns because when it came to episode 7, I said that his writing style did not translate well to television. I wasn’t entirely wrong because Muse of Fire still wasn’t all that great, but Dead to Rights was exponentially better so perhaps he can write well for TV given that the story lends itself to his style. This week certainly did as it was fast paced but it didn’t feel like we were being torn in several different places just for the hell of it, rather it worked well with the frantic actions of the characters and situations.
We started off just like most other weeks with a bad guy coming to town. This time it was Guillermo Barrera, a high price hitman. At first the name didn’t set anything off in my memory but the moment those throwing knives hit the air, I remembered who he was and probably only because I’d just done some catching up on Nightwing thanks to Scott’s Bats and Birds piece over at GEEK. Guillermo Barrera is the name of Bludhaven resident and villain, Brutale. Of course we won’t be seeing any of Brutale as he was dead after the first scene, but it was a nice little shout-out to other DC Universe entities.
The whole “McKenna could have met you at the heliport” thing reminded me of something the show does that I find to be really irritating. They don’t go back and address small things. Perfect example: the bug on McKenna’s phone. Is it still there? Did Oliver take it off? Are we going to find out who the mole is? Granted there have been a few things they’ve gone back to and I appreciate that, but I wish they would address these things as it’s driving me nuts.
Credit to: arrowarcher
The island is pretty good usually at answer some of those little questions and this week it was “was Oliver always in such great shape?” Well the answer is no. Actually that’s not entirely true as apparently he was “more of a runner.” I do love little lines like that, makes the melodramatic ones much easier to take. Outside of that, the island didn’t do a whole hell of a lot this week. Oliver did show off his knowledge of The Odyssey again and fixed a radio while Slade did pullups and discussed Gilligan’s Island escape methods.
This makes two weeks in a row that there has been very little island happenings, and after the big Shado reveal I’m anxious to get back there and see how all that plays out. Of course he was on the island for five years and I suppose they can’t tell that entire story in sixteen episodes.
I’ll give the island a little leeway on not moving things along, the five years thing, but seriously there needs to be a Black Canary post-haste. I feel like I’ve been saying this for months now, just go ahead and slap some fishnets on Laurel and make it happen! All this pussyfooting around with the sushi and the martial arts, and then the picture of her sister and the black canary. Enough already. (While we are on the subject of things that need to stop, Laurel needs to go ahead and never wear that jumpsuit thing again. Might as well just go ahead and burn it.)
This needs to stop!
The only other part of the episode that wasn’t part of the main story was the beautiful friendship that is blossoming between Diggle and Felicity. I don’t think they could get much cuter. Working out together, cracking the arrow shot cell phones of high dollar hitmen together, dreaming of chinese food together… just adorable.
And by adorable I mean, Good god look at his arms!
After the last scene of episode 16, it was obvious that this week would more than likely be about the plan to kill Malcolm Merlyn. I guess China White didn’t feel like she could handle the job on her own, so after Barrera was disposed of, she went and found the person I’ve been saying had to be still alive – Deadshot! Not only that but she ends up giving him his signature red-eye. It’s about time he came back and having China White in the last few episodes has given it more of an ongoing feeling than just the one bad guy per episode thing they had going for a while there.
I’ll go ahead and say it – I want to smack Tommy Merlyn and tell him to shut up. Yea yea yea Malcolm was a shit dad and he probably is still a shit dad but man up son! Either tell your dad to hit the road or take whatever likely half-assed apology he’s offering this week and move on. Man this constant whining is getting old. Of course it did lead to a nice moment between Oliver and him discussing their daddy issues.
Credit to: oliversbow
However I think we can all agree that Oliver blinding some dude with sriracha is the highlight of that scene. Very heads up play on Ollie’s part.
The two big OMG moments were in the second part of the episode. Oliver runs into McKenna as the “Hood Guy” again but is able to avoid her recognizing him with a well placed fire extinguisher. So he makes his way upstairs to where Tommy and Malcolm are trying to escape both the Triad hitmen and Deadshot’s bullets. In a move I certainly did not expect, and that goes very much against his trying to keep the vigilante identity A SECRET, he shows Tommy who he is.
Credit to: arrowtv
WHAT IS HE DOING?!?!?! That’s pretty much my entire reaction. Seriously Oliver, what on earth are you thinking? Not only that but hello, Malcolm was getting ready to show Tommy that he’s the Dark Archer until the grenade hits and then he’s shot and Oliver somehow knows that Tommy and Malcolm have the same blood type so let’s do an impromptu blood transfusion and I felt like throwing things at my TV for a good ten minutes. What is going on here? There’s just too much to process.
So now Tommy and Malcolm are all buddy buddy again and Tommy is pissed at Oliver for not telling him about being the vigilante. When Tommy was first introduced I thought he was basically useless. Now I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn this. Is John Barrowman on board with a long run on Arrow or was this the set up for Tommy to ultimately take on his father’s Dark Archer mantle and battle Oliver, the best friend who betrayed him? Intrigue. I like it.
Credit to: letwinterlightcome
The second WTF moment was the last scene. Laurel had gotten a phone call from her mother earlier, but of course ignored it. Of course like all good mothers, ignore the phone call and she’ll be at your doorstep. Even though I knew that Alex Kingston was going to play her mom and I knew that it was going to be this episode, I still had that immediate reaction of “OMG Laurel your mom, Dinah Lance, is standing right there! She’s the Black Canary and now you can too!!!”
Of course we’ll have to wait and see what all this talk of Sarah still being alive results in. I can’t imagine she really is alive. I mean come on, I saw her disappear off that yacht, we all did. It would be difficult to limp away from that.
Throughout all of this, the biggest thing I took from this episode is Moira has quite the set of steel balls. Even Frank Chan agrees. Even though there were a few moments of slight nervousness, her hand shaking and her obvious ill feelings towards Tommy being at the awards ceremony, she is cold as ice. Standing there as Malcolm declares there to be a traitor in their ranks? I’d probably have pissed myself and started crying.
Even though it lacked substantial island time, this was probably my favorite episode so far. It had pretty much everything else you could hope for. Going to have to give it a solid 4 out of 5. Add in Yao Fei and Walter (I miss you Walter) and it would have easily been a 4.5
Unfortunately we’ll have to wait awhile before we get any answers as Arrow is on break until March 20th, but I think we’ve got plenty to stew over in the meantime.
Over at Uproxx we saw the arrival of some new Iron Man 3 posters (via Empire Magazine). Marvel has recently put a lot of different ones out there leading up to the films release on May 3rd.
The poster that most people will get excited about is a full shot of Ben Kingsley as the most famous Iron Man villain, The Mandarin.
This poster is simply incredible. I love the elements of the Mandarin’s back drop, with the elephant statues and his robe. It pays homage to the comic design, but also modifying it and making it more up to date and taking out a lot of the racial overtones the original character had in the comic books. But with this is also the inclusion of camouflage trousers, showing the more militant side of his character, grounding him more in reality. The next poster is Gwyneth Paltrow as Peppers Potts cradling a destroyed Iron Man helmet.
The molten ash flying across this poster helps add to the atmosphere of this darker instalment, but also is a continuing factor throughout the other posters. Not an amazing poster by any means, but it does show that Pepper is going to have a very emotional journey throughout the new movie. Guy Pierce is next as Doctor Aldrich Killian.
For people unaware of Doctor Killian, in the comic he is one of two scientists who create The Extremis, a techno organic virus that rewrites genetic code. Though the poster is quite uneventful, Killian will no doubt have a big role to play in the new movie. Finally we have Don Cheadle in his new armor, doing the standard Hollywood action pose.
Overall the posters are pretty amazing. The only downside could be that the Mandarin poster is so good that it steals some of the other posters’ thunder. They also shared even more of Empire Magazine’s posters, with a few photos thrown in for good measure. The photos are slightly uneventful with Tony Stark looking a bit worse for wear and Pepper Potts and Doctor Killian having a moment. One interesting bit that is worth noting about one of the stills is that Tony is seen wearing an AIM T-Shirt. AIM stands for Advanced Idea Mechanics and is a group of super intelligent scientists who use their knowledge to gain power. They also created MODOK, an artificial mutated human killing machine. It will be interesting to see if any more information about this comes to light before the film’s release. The most promising piece out of all of this is the new poster (actually Empire magazines cover) which has Tony Stark in his wrecked Iron Man suit (again with ash flying everywhere). It is a great view of his new Iron Man armor. No doubt there will be more information coming out very soon so keep checking with Grizzly Bomb to find out more.
If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I love old, campy B-Movies. If there’s another thing you should know about me, it’s that I particularly enjoy making fun of them. It’s the reason shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000 appealed so much to me, and the reason I can and do enjoy 90% of Hollywood’s releases these days. Zing!
Anyhow, the other thing I love is a good indie comic with a fun concept, it’s something I’ll always read any day over the infinite milieu of any X-Man or League of Justice member, or lately even any Avenger. Sure superheroes are fine and dandy, but there’s nothing quite like a well done, perfectly simple and entertaining comic miniseries. Enter Titan comics, who have managed to combine two of my favorite things into one with their upcoming book, IT CAME! Which is a title for a book so wonderful and subtlety suggestive a retailer could stock it on shelves entirely unaware of the hidden double entendre of its meaning. Or perhaps I just have a filthy mind. Regardless, the press release for it sounds great, as follows:
[quote] “Titan Comics is pleased to announce the launch of the brand-new creator-owned series, IT CAME! – a four-issue, 1950s B-movie style mini-series by Dan Boultwood.
Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will love this hilarious romp, a knowing throwback to the heyday of low-budget Sci-Fi cinema! Trundling through the 1950s British countryside, unthinkingly misogynistic space scientist, Dr. Boy Brett and the suitably chaperoned Doris Night pop into a quaint village pub for a cheese ploughman’s… But waiting for them outside is a most unwelcome visitor: Grurk, an indestructible, rampaging robot from outer space, on a mission to harvest the British Blitz spirit for energy!
Pursuing Grurk in their Morris Minor, will Boy and Doris be able to save the British from a life without stiff upper lippedness, or will Her Majesty’s Kingdom be forever resigned to an eternity down in the mouth?
Creator Dan Boultwood says, “IT CAME! can be summed up by calling it a 1950s comedy B-Movie pastiche from a studio that never was. Which, coincidentally, is also how I sum up my everyday life, but with less giant space robots. Only a little less, mind you.”
“We’re incredibly excited to welcome Dan into the Titan Comics fold,” says, editor, Mark McKenzie-Ray. “IT CAME! is a wonderfully witty and fabulously fanciful tribute to the greatest 1950s B-movies, with all the charm and relish of a freshly brewed cuppa. Dan’s artwork is absolutely gorgeous and so different from anything out there right now. IT CAME! represents everything our new imprint is all about.”
Dan Boultwood was a long-time collaborator with award-winning writer, Tony Lee, having worked together on the Eagle award-nominated, Hope Falls, The Baker Street Irregulars and Prince of Baghdad for weekly British children’s anthology comic, The DFC. Now, Dan Boultwood makes the leap from critically acclaimed illustrator to all-round creator in this splendidly spiffing comic series.
Quaff that hair, knot that tie and keep your notions of gender equality dialled back sixty years – for the sake of the planet!
IT CAME! #1 will hit comic stores on Aug 7, 2013. ” [/quote]
For those who have seen it, the book looks like a sister companion piece to 2001’s The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra, which was a modern movie made with the similar B-Movie pastiche as this book. If you haven’t seen The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra, I highly implore you to seek it out and watch it, as it’s probably one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. With that, this book appears like it’ll be in exactly the same vein, and easily looks exactly like the kind of movie they’d riff on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I’m looking forward to reading the first issue come April.
itself to his style. This week certainly did as it was fast paced but it didn’t feel like we were being torn in several different places just for the hell of it, rather it worked well with the frantic actions of the characters and situations.
Grizzly Bomb 