The Walking Dead, Running With Ratings

So Walking Dead premiered Sunday night to a record setting 10.9 million viewers for basic cable. I have been really hot and cold on this show. Season one was pretty good while the first part of season 2 bored me to tears. Season 2.5 was okay and saved itself in the end with Shane finally getting killed. So going into season three I didn’t know what to expect. I will say that the plot lines of the prison and the girl Michonne are two of my favorites so I had some hope in me. After watching it here is what I have to say.

It.Was.Awesome. I loved it. It was almost 60 minutes of action packed zombie slaying.  It was what I had been waiting for. Now I know not every episode can be this action packed but it did look the director just went and had fun with. If they follow anything close to the graphic novels there should be enough drama in the next few weeks to keep us glued. It gets a little crazy. It was nice to Rick finally grow a pair and Carl didn’t get on my nerves like he normally does. Regardless of what may come in the next weeks it is nice to know they are off to a solid start.

Is Looper, Super?

So by now you have probably heard a lot about the movie Looper. In short: Go.See.This. Movie. No spoilers here so I can’t say too much but here is the basic idea. Loopers are mob hitman who have people from the future sent back in time for them to execute them. In the future science and police technology is so good it almost impossible to hide bodies, so they send them back in time where there is no evidence of their existence.

Loopers get paid in silver bars. Loopers also know their days are numbered and eventually a future version of them will be sent back for them to kill. This is called closing the loop.  Don’t feel too bad for them though, they get a huge payday to live the rest of their lives as kings. It could be they have twenty, thirty or five year left, but they are going to enjoy it, until something goes wrong.

Suddenly loops are being closed at an alarming rate. Turns out a future mob boss is killing off all the loopers. So one day, the absurdly talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt is sent a hit to kill. It turns out it his future self, played by Bruce Willis. He hesitates a moment and Willis escapes and the rest of the game Gordon-Levitt is trying to find him and stop him.

That is the most I can tell you without spoilers. Willis is on a mission that turns out to be a lot darker then you would expect.  It is also a plot that you would never guess at either.  There were a few moments I thought the movie was about to become to slow but it never reaches that point. It always picks back up at just the right time.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is amazing imitating Bruce Willis. He has down that reserved, deliberate, smug, tough guy act that Willis is so well known for. There is one seen with Gordon-Levitt wearing an A-frame T-shirt that looks right out Die Hard. He was brilliant. There are a couple potentially violent and disturbing scenes. If you are squeamish you might want to look away.

One problem with time travel movies is that there are inevitably some crazy inconsistencies or probabilities that would pop up. Mind boggling possibilities that leave you thinking, “yes, but what about this or that alternate reality.” Looper does a good job of closing these loops. The time travel isn’t so out there that you lose track of the movie and for the most part the lines or reality make sense.

It is definitely one of the top movies of the year. I give it 4.5 Babbles.

Les Miserables Extended Look Behind the Scenes

If you’ve been to a Regal theatre in the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen their “Inside Look” on the upcoming Les Miserables. Here’s an extended look with a bit more insight on having the actors sing live on  set as opposed to using a pre-recorded track.

What do you Babblers think? Will “live” performances improve the movie?

Marvel releases alternate opening to The Avengers

The blu-ray/dvd release of Marvel’s The Avengers is just under a month away (Sept. 25th) and Marvel has wasted no time in getting us excited by steadily giving us bits and pieces of what’s sure to be countless hours of special features. While many blu-ray/dvd bonuses include alternate endings, The Avengers will also include an alternate opening. Check it out below:

This might-have-been opening to The Avengers definitely sets a much darker and somber tone compared to the rest of Whedon’s quippy, light hearted action film. It also paints  a different picture of Mariah Hill’s character and hints at a what could be a plot thread that was dropped from this installment of The Avengers and and even its sequels. Thoughts?

The Onion On SDCC:

Even The Onion is getting in on Comic-Con, even though most of their employees probably went. Check out the video!

2012 Marvel Handbook Casually Reveals Peter Parker Uncircumcised

Countdown to SDCC: T-Minus 6 days – Cartoon Network News

Here is a fun little tidbit as well. Cartoon Network has announced it is hosting an Adventure Time “Comic-Con Quest!” Stop by the Cartoon Network booth at #3735 to pick up your costume map that will lead you to all the locations you must visit.  Complete the quest in time and you will receive “exclusive” rewards. While we don’t know what this is, if you are a fan of Cartoon Network we have no doubt you will love it.

More Around-the-Con Activities at Yahoo!’s Movieland

 

Each year, San Diego Comic Con continues to expand outside of the convention hall, and now there’s just as much to do as inside. Yahoo!, in partnership with in partnership with several major film studios, including Universal Pictures, Sony, Lionsgate, and Paramount Pictures, will bring their own interactive game, >Movieland, to life across from SDCC.

“Yahoo! will transform a 2000 square foot Comic-Con space into MOVIELAND, so attendees can experience a life-size interactive game board with movie-related content (trivia, quizzes, etc.) customized to some of the summer’s biggest movies, including ParaNorman, Total Recall and The Expendables 2. Highlights from the experience will include: actual movie props, augmented reality photo booths, special visits from actors throughout the week including Christopher Mintz-Plasse (ParaNorman, How to Train Your Dragon, Superbad), and chances to win exclusive on-site prizes, including movie tickets.”

MOVIELAND will be located across the street from the convention at 520 5th Ave. No SDCC passed are required and the event is free and open to the public.

Public events like Yahoo’s MOVIELAND are a great way for fans without badges to still join in the SDCC experience. There’s sure to be plenty of fun, freebies, Comic Con news, and even a celebrity appearance or two! Even if you do have a badge and you need to fill some time between panels, it’ll be worthwhile to add MOVIELAND and other around-the-con events to your packed SDCC schedule.

Countdown to SDCC: T-Minus 13 Days (Cosplayers needed)

Hey dear Babblers,  I would love to do an article on a guide to cosplay at SDCC. If anybody would want to do a Q&A with us let me know! Thanks!

Countdown to SDCC: T-Minus 13 Days

In our award winning series we continue to countdown to SDCC 2012!

Here is something interesting I stumbled upon yesterday that you may want to check out while at SDCC. While you and I both know that the comic book world has some amazing artists, it is generally not considered a “high society” or “artsy” genre. So who says you can’t get a little cultural while at San Diego Comic Con this year?

Hopefully you are aware by now that the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya) is suffering from one of the worst famines in decades. Somalia in particular is in trouble as they have had no functioning government since the mid 1990’s. There are literally millions of people  at risk. Africa is a place I have come to care greatly about and so I was thrilled when DC Comics launched the “We Can Be Heroes,” two-year, multimillion dollar campaign to raise money for humanitarian groups working to provide relief in the famine struck area (as reported by B5’s Tony Kim.)

Okay. so, what does this have to do with the SDCC? There is a touring art exhibition called Darkness and Light: Art Inspired by Heroes and Villains, Hope and Heroism that will be viewable by fans attending Comic-Con this year. Various artist, most notably Jim Lee, have donated pieces of art work to the tour that will be mixed with photography’s of the real heroes, humanitarian aid workers, fighting hunger in Ethiopia. At the end of the tour the pieces will be auctioned off to support relief efforts. Proceeds from sales of variant cover comics also went to the cause. They had a pretty cool shirt you could get for making a donation to the cause as well and I can only assume it is still available since this is a 2- year drive.

I won’t get on my high-horse here, but I do think in our 21^st century world where we have so much, it is sad that people still go without food and clean water. I would expect the DC booth to have some info on this as well. I plan on checking out the art show whatever the case may be. Here is the info of where to find it.

www.wecanbeheroes.org

Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts

363 5^th Ave. #102

San Diego, CA 92101

This is literally 2 or 3 blocks away from the convention on the corners of J St. and 5^th.  We can only

assume that Michael J. Wolf is distant evolutionary cousin of Michael J. Fox.

Moonrise on the Rise

Wes Anderson is arguably my favorite director and Rushmore has always been one of my favorite movies, so it was with much excitement that I finally got around to seeing Moonrise Kingdom, his latest film. Now this film has had incredibly good reviews and in fact it is polling 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, so my expectations were pretty high going in.

The plot is about a young Khaki Scout, Sam Shakusky, who at scout camp on the island of New Penzance, falls in love with local Suzy Bishop, the daughter of the eclectic Bishop family.  Sam is orphan who, suffice it to say, has some emotional issues and Suzy has plenty of her own angst to go around. They are imaginative, adventurous and on the verge of discovering the opposite gender. The two of them conspire to meet and run away for a few days while exploring both the island and young love.

The film boasts a star studded cast featuring Wes Andersons regular of Bill Murray while adding Ed Norton, Bruce Willis and Francis McDormand. Jason Schwartzman also has a bit part towards the end. The movie is full of Andersons’ typically meticulous yet playful sets and shots with every prop, detail and costume under his close stylized scrutiny. The dialogue is his usual quirky and dry writing while still offering profound insights into the lives of the characters.

The theme of the movie is the nostalgic, innocent young love most of us nerds longed for but never had. Suzy and Sam connect on an emotional and intellectual level, if not quite on a physical level yet.  Anderson sets up a brilliant contrast between the innocence and idealism of Suzy and Sam versus the human reality of every day struggles and failures that Suzy’s parents’ marriage is going through. Ed Norton and Bruce Willis both are trying to come to grips with the hard realities of being good, father like authority figures while coping with their own loneliness and inadequacies.

At first I walked out thinking that the movie was good but not great, but as I distance myself from it and think more about it, I am really beginning to love it. The heart of the show is Suzy and Sam and they shine in the roles they are given. The film is brilliant when it follows them. The last third of the film gets away from their romance which at first I didn’t like, but it still delivers in the end. My one real complaint is that Bruce Willis never really added much to the movie. Or rather he and Ed Norton basically play the same character. Willis the local police officer and Norton the scout master. I think you could have taken Willis and out just incorporated his plot arc into Norton’s.

Despite that, I really enjoyed the movie. I love Anderson’s sense of humor, dry dialogue and his off-beat visuals and it is good to see him hit another home run. I give this movie four a very solid 4 babbles.

Babble Bites…

Hello Dear Babblers, I thought today we would engage in some light reading that I like to call Babble Bites. Enjoy.

They have to be thinking R.I.P.

Killing Community:  One of our favorite shows, Community, more or less just got the death sentence. First Sony fires the creator/producer Dan Harmon for unexplained reasons. I don’t know if  Harmon is a little hard to get along with, or maybe TV execs are hard to get along with, or maybe both are. Whatever, the reason he was released (screwed over) from the show this weekend. Even with keeping the same writers, I have to think he is still the heart and soul of the show and it sucks to see his creativity get crapped on.  Equally as bad, Community is now being moved to Friday night, alongside the flailing Whitney.  Weirdly enough, this all comes on the heels of Community just having been renewed for a fourth season. One wonders why it would be renewed at all if they see such little potential in it. It’s a shame too, because it’s a great show and this season has had some of the best episodes yet (The Civil War documentary spoof, the Law and Order episode and the 8-bit video game episode.) Here is his blog about what happened.

SNL – This weekend’s SNL was definitely one of the best this season. Mick Jagger was the host and performed with the Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters and Jeff Beck (or rather they performed with him!) I have to admit, Mick looked good considering he is in his 60’s. As a host his acting was great and he never flinched or faltered. As a singer he can still rock it.  This is Kristen Wiigs last season and they did a really nice tribute to her at the end as well. Here is a link to it.

“We WILL make more money.”

Awesome Avengers – The Avengers continues to dominate the box office, garnering another $50 million this weekend and beating out two new releases in The Dictator (which I do want to see) and Battleship (which I do not want to see.) That puts The Avengers at a staggering $457 million domestically in 17 days! To give you an idea of how crazy this is, it took Dark Knight 27 days to reach that mark. It is now Disney’s biggest release ever and is fourth on the all-time world chart, behind only Avatar, Titanic and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2, once again affirming the adage “in Joss we trust.:  Come on Avengers you can take them down, we are rooting for you!

Game of Thrones – Not that anyone needs to rave more about this show, but it continues to be the best show on television. This season is even better than last year’s and the politics and intrigue just keeping building. I can’t wait for the Comic-Con panel!

A Creepy WonderCon Encounter with Lloyd Kaufman

So here is a creepy little story I have been saving for just the right time, and dear Babblers, the time is now.  I already wrote about how much I enjoyed WonderCon but there was one little incident I failed to report. Ironically enough, the same weekend the Anaheim Convention Center hosted WonderCon, it also hosted a high school cheerleading contest AND a high school volleyball tournament, so there were many high school girls running around, and many jokes being made about the new cosplay, how this was the same group of girls who used to pick on us, and how this is the safest place they could possibly be.  That is, until this little incident occurred.

Friday night fellow Babblers Johnny, Tony and I were standing in the hotel lobby waiting for the elevator and this wiry old guy walks up. He is wearing a sports jacket and bright tie and I had the feeling he was somebody but couldn’t place him. Tony leans over and whispers in my ear,” that’s Lloyd Kaufman. “ Ah cool, I thought to myself.

Lloyd Kaufman is a Hollywood writer, producer, director and occasional actor. He did some freelance work on Rocky and Saturday Night Fever, but he is most well known for starting the Troma Entertainment company. If you aren’t familiar with Troma, they are famous for making super cheesy, super sexual and super violent horror films that often pull from 1950’s and 1960’s genre flicks while usually adding a bit of social satire and commentary as well. Their biggest film was The Toxic Avenger (which inspired a cartoon and several sequels) but others like Class of Nuke ’Em High went on to moderate success. Troma is also where James Gunn got his start as a writer.

Back to the story: We get in the elevator with Kaufman and go up. It stops on the 5^th floor, the pool floor, and this high school girl in a bathing suit, flip flops, wet hair and towel wrapped her gets in. The door closes and a moment later, from behind me and to the left I hear a gravelly voice say:

This is a pretty standard face he makes..google and see.

“Very nice.”  Our eye brows lifted as we tried to pretend this didn’t just happen. The poor girl tensed up.

Again. “Oh yes, Mmmm.” Now it is getting awkward as we make eye contact with each other, wondering if it could get worse. The answer was yes.

“Oh yes, very, very nice,” he said.

Fortunately, at this point the elevator stopped and the girl hurried off.  A couple floors later Lloyd got off. I wanted to say “Lloyd you are a dirty, dirty man,” but he probably would have just laughed and agreed.  After he got off (the elevator that is)we all sort of took a deep breath and universally agreed that was just plain stalkerish.

Lloyd is a Hollywood guy and is probably used to young little starlets throwing themselves at him in hopes of getting any role they can. Still I always remember our creepy encounter with him and hope that from now he stays at a court ordered 100 feet away from all conventions.