sethos

Dexter's a total mess at the moment, everyone's acting the muppet and while it's never been the most subtle of shows it now feels like its hitting me over the head with a big club of obviousness everytime his monologue kicks in.

yep, worst season of the lot by far. I really do hope they'll start working towards an end game soon (two more seasons, right?), because this show is just.. ugh.

Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror" episode one was rather great.

Sons of Anarchy season finale tonight/tomorrow!

Finally got around to finishing Abercrombie's First Law series, very much a case of the whole being stronger than the sum of its parts as most of the third book ended up being a struggle to get through yet I was left wanting more by the time I'd gotten to the last page!

 

The idea of an [ Spoiler : evil...or at the very least, horribly pragmatic...Gandalf type ] was quite well executed but most of the plot leading up to that payoff was horribly obvious and almost off-puttingly smug, every 'twist' during that final book was ridiculously telegraphed [ Spoiler : until the events in the closing section which did catch me somewhat by surprise. I do wonder if those initial story beats were deliberately clumsy in order to make that closing rug-pulling all the more effective ? Oh and radiation poisoning...interesting! ]

 

 

Say this for the series, I want another trilogy wherein everyone gets what they bloody deserve!

haha, yes very much so. I really enjoyed the whole storyline though, though yes, all characters are really rather horrible. go read the two semi-sequels: Best Served Cold (set in a different country but with some familiar characters on the fringes) and The Heroes (excellent war story set in the north, with all your favourite Northmen involved). both are better than the First Law trilogy, in my opinion. Abercrombie is working on a third spin-off right now, a semi-western set in the Gurkish Empire, apparently.

 

I think you mean Jean Van Hamme? I agree, Thorgal should have ended around album 17, The Keeper Of The Keys i guess would be the English translation, after that it lost its greatness. Albums 1-17 are pretty much all awesome though.

you are indeed correct. sorry about that..

Something tells me I should read the Belgian comic XIII. Right?

 

I didn't read much of it, but there is another series by the same writer I can't recommend highly enough - Thorgal, it's really great story with gorgeous artwork..

Thorgal is awesome, though like all of Dufaux outputs (including XIII) it suffers from his lack of wanting to end series. XIII reaches its high point around number 8 or so, but is still continuing (it's at number 20 or so?). the art is amazing though, by the late great William Vance. If you do keep at it though, the 18th album is drawn by Jean "Moebius" Giraud, who is never not good.

Latst Homeland featured the best tele 'Fuck You' smile in ages - [ Spoiler : "Have you ever cheated on your wife ?". "No". ]

 

Prediction : [ Spoiler : He's actually a counterintelligence agent which is why he was able to fuck with the Polygraph test. ]

I think you're right about that one. Homeland really is my favourite new show of the season, excellent stuff.

Immortals: uh.. yeah. wow. what a mess. The acting was horrible (Mickey Rourke was ok, the rest pretty much all awful, but the script didn't do anybody any favours)! The script made little to no sense, most of the beautiful shots were redo's of either 300 or Tarsem Singh's terrific previous flick The Fall, and the film was void of any emotional investment, just like his pretty but empty first feature, The Cell.

I wasn't expecting this amount of (CGI) gore though! holy shit, the way the Gods just (literally) ripped through normal folks. the level of violence and gore really was unexpected, way beyond 300, more into Saw territory and the like. my girlfriend was really sickened by it.

Also, the 3D conversion gave us both a humongeous headache.

EDIT: realised I made it sound really awful, which in a way, it wasn't. the set and costume design is stunning, the action is fantastic and, a rarity for Hollywood, very well and clearly shot: there are no quick cuts or twenty different camera angles to turn a simple fight scene into a puzzle, everything is clear and even when a multitude of gods are fighting a a whole lot of Titans you rarely lose track (except for which god is which as only Athena, Zeus and Poseidon get named/have somewhat distinct appearances). I did find myself enjoying it in part, though certainly not in the dialogue scenes. I would have liked it more in 2D, that's for sure. the characters certainly were two dimensional, anyway. I'd definitely rate it above Clash Of The Titans and about on par with 300 (which I also find a very problematic film).

There's no comic I enjoy reading more than Hellboy. The latest hardcover House of the Living Dead is the sequel to the excellent Hellboy in Mexico, a tale about demon fighting luchadores.

 

 

Lol. SOLD !

 

I gotta get me some of that. For fun comics, maybe only Atomic Robo comes close for me, to anything Hellboy.

It's really, really good. Corben was made for Hellboy.

folks, go see it. as much as I doubted the uncanny valley CGI faces when the first trailer hit, it works (most of the time). some of the stuff is still stiff and dead looking but the more cartoony nature of the figures (especially Haddock, the Thompson twins and some of the side characters) works to its advantage. I would have preferred a more "ligne clair" appearance, but I was pleasantly surprised by what was on the screen. What works even better though, is the script tying together elements from some of the best Tintin albums into a pretty cohesive whole. And I appreciate that they did absolutely nothing to modernize the characters: Tintin is still a blank canvas, Haddock is an severe alcoholic and Snowy is still smarter than either of them. the chase near the end of the flick is some of the best action stuff Spielberg has done in his entire career, and this is by far my favourite Spielberg flick of the last twenty years or so (I still have a soft spot for Jurassic Park). go see it, it's absolutely wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8gyurQJqU4

haven't watched Misfits yet. hope it's not as dire as you described it. That said, I really enjoyed The Fades. I thought it was a pretty great ending, can't believe Neil

What I said just there goes for this week's episode too, good tele this!

I was a bit miffed at the Juice cliffhanger/resolution, very cheap. but damn you, Clay Morrow, damn you. that was a great scene. will anybody believe that the cartel did that? no way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXtABNgR018

my favourite cover of "Where Is My Mind?"

and my favourite dutch singer of the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwv44xgr_to

Emily Carrol has a new horror comic up that she's serializing through October, Margot's Room. Her excellent story, His Face All Red, was one of the best things I read last year and this is looking pretty amazing as well.

The Unexpected was a bit of hit and miss, but I really enjoyed some of the art. especially the stuff by Jill Thompson, Farel Dalrymple and the awesome Emily Carroll.

I saw your Facebook post and may have cursed at you a little bit

I was quite careful not to give anything away though. except the song on which the season ends.

season finale of Breaking Bad: AWESOME. that ending! wow.

Breaking Bad is just amazing this season.

Sons of Anarchy.. I don't know. that whole business with Juice just seems to come out of nowhere.

is that just me? Just seems an inane plotpoint, really. oh, and can Opie's porn wife storyline please go away already? what I did like though was

Habibi, folks. get it. gorgeous stuff. the story can get very tough, I wasn't a fan of all the numerology, but aside from that, it's pretty excellent.

and Love & Rockets New Stories vol.4 might be my favourite L&R story of all time. if you like your Jaime Hernandez stuff, you need to read this (together with the story in L&R:NS vol.3, as it's a direct continuation).

I got Habibi and Love & Rockets New Stories vol.4, in which Jaime Hernandez manages to pull off a story even better than that in L&R NS vol.3. which is pretty incredible, since that was some of the finest work he's ever done. If you (like me) have read all the Locas stories, you'll need to read this as it pretty much reads as an end to the series. pretty stunning stuff.

now, onto Habibi, which certainly looks like the most beautiful designed graphic novel ever.

Inspector Spacetime was brilliant, yeah. as was Cougarton Abbey.

did everybody get the way obvious shoutout to The Shield on SoA? "You lemonheaded freak!" it made me chuckle. I thought it was an okay episode, and it did a 180 from last week, with Clay going all psycho now, and Gemma being afraid of him..

Man, that new Optic Nerve (#12) was great. two stories, both pretty good, though I preferred Amber Sweet above Horticulture. really lovely art by Tomine, it's way less angular than it used to be (though he's clearly still capable of it, seeing the little autobiographical thing at the end about sticking with floppies). and as always, a hilarious letter page. brought me right back to the early 00s.

aaaand we have another veteran of The Shield joining SoA! So, things are really heating up now

the only stuff I didn't like involved Opie's old lady. looks like that will be the one weak storyline this season?

Also

I loved Attack The Block. also on my list of favourite movies of the year. I like how the film slowly turned the lead characters somewhat likeable. it owes a great deal to the original Attack On Precinct 13, I thought (also in the music department! like Hanna, another excellent soundtrack from a british duo, this time Basement Jaxx). oh, and fantastic monster designs. I hope the DVD will feature a moment where they explain how they basically stole it from classic videogame Another World though...

HappyThankYouMorePlease was the most tedious overlong How I Met Your Mother episode ever. didn't enjoy it very much though it was nicely shot.

yeah, really enjoyed that one. great stuff at the end, I thought. Also, excellent make-up effects on making Amy older, I thought.

I'm ashamed of myself for not having recognised Ronnie first time round myself - I'm putting that down to the lack of dodgy mustache! Some top new additions to the cast, pretty sure that was [ Spoiler : the crazy preacher from Deadwood playing the assistant DA and that's definitely C-Note of Prison Break fame as the new sheriff, think I spotted the asshole cop from the fourth season of The Wire too ].

 

Strong opening episode, nice premise for the season as Mister White said and the focus seems to be firmly back on all that's good about the series, namely just the gang itself, only real duff part being [ Spoiler : Opie's new wife looking all worried at the thought of having more kids - I don't care if she's sterile or whatever so let's just leave that be, shall we ? ].

ha, exact same thing I was thinking regarding Opie's old lady. Also: [ Spoiler : the biker DA is creeping me out! clearly this mass culling of Russian mobsters and one FBI agent is going to fuck everything and everybody up. ]

Got me all excited now, burgers'n'beans for dinner and new Sons Of Anarchy...(wilfully ignores how poor last season was).

 

Plus, the actors who play Lem and Ronnie from The Shield are in the premiere.

yeah, I noticed Ronnie there too, playing a fed no less! he didn't end up going to jail! maybe they can get Chiklis on the show next year to kill off the whole Samcro gang?