Cool Shit 4/16

It kind of stinks when your big news about your show is about who is going to be killed off next. I feel like we've created an anticipation of who will die on the Walking Dead, rather than focus on why the show is good/bad.

Latest trailer for Mad Max coming out this summer - quite possibly my most anticipated movie. This trailer doesn't show much, but it does tentatively connect this movie to the old Mel Gibson ones.



An oral history of the Hubble telescope.

What Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme don't want you to know: it IS possible to make donunts at doughnuts at home.

Big fans of David Fincher here at the Popcorn Trick. Which is why we like this look back at his career:



The good news: Planet Earth is getting a sequel, called Our Planet. The bad news: it's going to take about four years to make.

Have a Roku? Then you've got access to these awesome streaming channels.

Cool Shit 7/22

I really hope by saying "studying how to control the weather," the CIA means they're just watching The Avengers over and over. And I'm not talking about the Joss Whedon one.

So wait, the glasses now can make things taste better?

Artistic renditions of world-ending disasters.

Apparently this is Dutch. As in, it aired on Dutch TV in the 70s during the Star Wars craze. Of course, if I gave you 5 guesses to name the country of origin, the Netherlands has to be in their, right?



Some tidbits about what we can expect in Season 4 of The Walking Dead. And if you haven't seen it yet, here's a trailer...

Catching up with TV: The Walking Dead and Hannibal

Life often gets in the way of the best intentions. And living in this "golden age" of television, means sacrifices have to get made. So, yes while I want to watch Justified, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and any number of other critically acclaimed shows, I find that there just isn't enough time in my life. 

Luckily for me, we also live in an age when pop culture is readily available in a number of different ways. The idea of "primetime" television is rapidly dissolving, with onDemand, web and DVD options filling the marketplace and allowing the viewer to customize his/her primetime. 

Which is exactly what I did with season 3 of The Walking Dead. 

I had no specific reason. I was/am usually home on Sunday nights when it airs. And I don't have a good explanation why I didn't stay up-to-date with the show when it aired "live," other than I missed the first two for whatever reason, and knew I could catch up all at once. 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that was a good idea. 

While overall I enjoyed season 3 of The Walking Dead, I felt it was radically uneven; peaking and valleying sometimes from episode to episode. Some episodes were great (Clear may be the best episode of the entire series, other than the premiere, and sadly made the season peak too early for me) while some seemed simply like transitional episodes to get from point A to B. Season 3 especially felt as though it slowly crawled along to the showdown between the prison people and the town of Woodbury. We all knew it was going to happen, and as a result, episodes lost their tension. Obviously, the show has shown few, if any characters are safe, but for Rick or the Governor to have died before the finale wouldn't have made sense. 

That said, the show did what it could and I'm happy we had more to deal with than zombies. I'm not sure how they're going to continue to develop and create meaningful story arcs for the show, but then again, that's my problem. I think it definitely took a step up after a plodding season 2, but they lost their showrunner again, and I'm not sure what that will mean for the future of the series. This article seems to suggest Robert Kirkman, the creator of the series, will at least get more control, which...I'm not so sure that's a great idea. Having read the comic (at least the initial run of 30 or so books) I felt Kirkman ran out of ideas and routinely tried to top himself with cheap gimmicks and absurd premises. It also got extremely bleak - way bleaker than the show has been - and that's saying something. So, while news that Scott Gimple, the writer of Clear, is going to be the new showrunner has some promise, I don't think giving the Kirkman more control is the best direction. Time will tell of course. It seems the public eats up zombies, regardless of the quality of this show. 

Another show I have caught up on is Hannibal airing on NBC. Starting at the beginning of the long sordid tale of Hannibal Lechter, this series aims to tell the greatest untold story of the Hannibal universe: how the man was caught. Now, entrusting such a juicy narrative to NBC to shepherd doesn't sound like a great idea, it seems, so far, that we're in capable hands. Hannibal's showrunner, Bryan Fuller seems not only like he knows what he's doing, but how to do it. 

Basing a show around serial killers is tricky. I've watched my share of Criminal Minds, and agree with Mandy Patinkin's take about the boundaries (or lack there of) that show. To show and develop new and different types of evil week after week, with no sense of morality or closure (I'm speaking more to the idea that every episode is going to trot out new evil, not that the people solving the crimes are evil or immoral) to me, got very boring very quickly. I've never seen Dexter but have a hunch that it works because Dexter, while being a serial killer has a code of morals (from what I have heard at least) and at least the majority of his killing is other bad people. This at least gives the viewer a moral compass to clutch onto while watching and justify the murders of people. 

Hannibal too has a fine line to walk, as it deals with not just one serial killer, but other cases the FBI's Behavioral Unit investigates. In fact, the show revolves around these cases, and has, to date, put the Lechter character off to the side, as a supporting story. But so far the show isn't simply about catching a serial killer...it's about what it takes to catch a serial killer and the trauma and pressures and emotions of the people behind the catching. Will Graham, the central figure of the show, is an emotionally damaged, possibly mentally ill person who happens to be good at "getting into the mind" of depraved individuals. This talent takes its toll on Will. With other shows, that might simply be in the three sentence blurb describing the show before he goes off willy nilly, guns-a-blazing to catch his latest target. But on Hannibal, it's a significant chunk of the show. In the three episodes so far, Will is a fragile individual, and not your typical hero whatsoever (It doesn't hurt that the actor, Hugh Dancy, is playing the shit out of him).

And notice I haven't mentioned Hannibal Lechter yet. That's because, while the show is named after him, it isn't about him. At least not yet. Fuller has done a great job utilizing Hannibal to flesh out Will Graham and to build suspense. I think Fuller knows that we, as the audience, already know Hannibal, and therefore don't want to see yet another story about how he is what he is, or how he became what he is. Because there's enough other material that already came along that did all that. So Hannibal can be more effectively used as a tool here to establish the other characters. 

Do I have concerns? You betcha!

While Hannibal has been judiciously used so far, it's only a matter of time before he gets some more playing time. And with the way Mads Mikkelsen plays him, while creepy and understated right now, I can definitely see some scenery being chewed on in the near future. Which is fine if it isn't a well they continually go to often. It's one thing to chew scenery in a 2 hour movie. It's quite another to do it in an ongoing television series. 

(This next part delves into some spoilers, so if you haven't watched yet, do it now and come back!) I'm also not sure what to think about Lechter involving himself in the one murder investigation. And by "involving" I mean carrying out a copycat murder and then helping a teenaged girl cover up a murder of her own - it seems a little excessive so early on. Now, can I talk myself into thinking he did it because he was testing Graham to see just how good of an investigator he really is? Yes, yes I can. But I feel like they may be moving just a little quickly, and would rather see some of these reveals develop a little more slowly and organically. Of course, they never came out and actually showed Lechter to be the copycat murderer, so I guess there's wiggle room, but...

They style Fuller uses on Hannibal is also something different than what us broadcast television viewers are used to, but that shouldn't be that much of a surprise coming from the creator of Pushing Daisies:

And yes, the show is violent and gory, but no much more so than some of the cable series from the recent past, nor is it any worse than FOX's The Following, a show that shows exactly how not to do a story about a serial killer. And again, the violence holds an additional weight with the characters on Hannibal, so none of it feels cheap or sensationalized.

So, if nothing else, I hope you at least check out Hannibal. I do feat that my enjoyment of this series will send it quickly to cancellation, just as my love for Life and Rubicon did.

Cool Shit 4/9

If you're a Ron Swanson fan, these 18 quotes will make you chuckle. And if you don't know who he is...for shame.

It comes up at least twice a day for me...how difficult is it to dissolve a human body?

If you have enough money, you can make your dreams come true and spend an evening with Alec Baldwin. I assume that's everyone's dream, right?

The Bounty was a tall ship that found itself in the middle of Hurricane Sandy. How did that happen?

Are The Walking Dead and Toy Story essentially the same thing?

A look at the "20 year plan" of the Wu Tang Clan. They're smarter than you.

Cool Shit 1/17

Oh nothing much, just a German love song dedicated to ALF.

Make a youtube short video, get to Hollywood.

New Walking Dead trailer for the rest of Season 3:



My theory: Meryl and Darryl will escape their death fight, go back to the prison, get taken in by Rick and crew, where Meryl will then turncoat and it will be revealed that was the Governor's plan the whole time.

Like music? These apps will help you find more.

Want to make sure your Superbowl party has something to eat for everyone? Check out this site.

Hopefully the actual show is as good as these credits...

The past few years have seen opening credit sequences become less of a way to simply vomit cast and crew information to the audience, and more of a way to show off some true artistic expression. In fact, here's one for the upcoming show Walking Dead...

THE WALKING DEAD "Opening Titles" from Daniel Kanemoto on Vimeo.

Pretty cool. Cooler once you find out that it was independently created by some guy who has no connection with the production of the show. And he has set a pretty high bar for the official opening credits. I'm not saying he can't be topped, but it's going to be pretty difficult. Regardless, I'm definitely anticipating the show, premiering Halloween night on AMC.

The Walking Dead

One of the more anticipated television series coming this Fall to AMC, is The Walking Dead, based on a graphic novel of the same name. Gory, unapologetic, and downright gnarly, the show is about how a small band of human survivors cope with a zombie world.

Reading the first 10 issues of the comic, I can't imagine how a lot of scenes will even be dealt with, due to the graphic nature. At some points, I thought the author (Robert Kirkman) was simply trying to create the most absurd, violent scenarios to see how far he could push the envelope. So we'll see. Here's a trailer for the upcoming series...

Not sure how I feel about it so far. As I said, the comic is blunt, stark, and in your face. To me, this trailer doesn't capture that exact feel. The soundtrack especially feels off. Still, I'm excited to see what they do with this, and how much is faithful to the comic and how much they change. It does seem they're trying to push as much as they can (the little girl zombie is a start) so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Still, there are only so many things you can show on television. Even if it is cable.

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead was a comic book (or, possibly a graphic novel series - I'm not sure what the difference is these days) about the zombie apocalypse. Gory, gruesome and a bit bleak (unlike all those G rated happy zombie apocalypse stories!) it of course is now being turned into a television series for AMC.

Enjoy a look at the cast here. Supposedly, it's going to stay true to the tone of the book, though I'm not sure how that would be possible on a standard cable channel. Let's just say I wouldn't get too attached to any of the characters.