Check Out Episode One of SyFy's The Expanse NOW!

What's a TV addict to do? The Walking Dead wraps up tonight (until 2016 at least), and maybe you haven't started in on Jessica Jones yet (what's wrong with you?!). So you're in need of something to fill the cold nights, maybe something...as cold as the deep vacuum of space?

Fans of good old fashioned hard science fiction have been eagerly anticipating the SyFy channel's return to form, and the premiere of The Expanse, adapted from the novels by James S. A. Corey. The trailer promised a faithful adaptation of the books, and folks who've read the novels know what a sprawling canvas this story occupies.

The series formally debuts December 14th, but SyFy has made the pilot episode available NOW on numerous formats, including online and cable OnDemand. Definitely check it out. SyFy's going for a definite Battlestar Galactica feel - with a dollop of Game of Thrones. It's a hybrid of far-flug space opera and detective story. The cast is engaging, though there are a lot of characters for non-book-readers to get to know. Numerous title captions explain the necessary backstory, which is a bit of a mouthful. It's 200 years in the future and the solar system has been colonized - there are numerous factions and resentments. Just go from there. The writers gave us Iron Man and Children of Men, so that ought to inspire confidence. Overall this first glimpse feels like SyFy has done a solid job of making a large story accessible and intriguing for a broadcast audience. It feels like it may take an episode or two to get their momentum truly up and running, but I'm intrigued enough to see more, and I have a feeling that acceleration and inertia are coming. See what you think!

Jon Snow Get His Jesus On For Season 6

Rumor had it the 6th season of HBO's Game of Thrones might be debuting later than normal this year, which the network confirmed this morning with a striking single-word poster - "April," accompanied by a single, attention-getting image: Jon Snow, bloodied, head bowed - and back. 

We see what we want to see, and fans clearly read into this image that Jon Snow has returned from the dead. The image has a lush Biblical quality, that will have many theorists nodding and making check marks: "Betrayed and murdered by those he trusted?" Check. "Resurrected with new purpose, inspiring followers?" Check - well, almost, anyway. It sure seems we're heading in that direction. Just in time for Easter.

Cinemachines: NECA Rolls Out New Vehicle Line

At the New Jersey Comic Expo this weekend, the tireless folks at NECA unveiled their new line of 6" vehicle replicas, known as the Cinemachine series. The line begins with a quartet of vehicles from the fan favorite Alien(s) series, with an expected debut of February 2016.

The 6" size is comparable to Galoob's old Action Fleet line of Micromachines, though these look to be even more detailed, made from diecast metal and plastic. NECA main man Randy Falk hinted that future waves may include vehicles from the Terminator and  Predator film series, with a retail price point under $25.

Preorders are rumored to begin as early as this week, so keep your eyes peeled! This looks to be a fantastic expansion from the dependable NECA crew.

 

 

Branagh Both Passenger and Engineer in Orient Express

We've known for a while that Kenneth Branagh would be directing a new adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. But now we've learned that in addition to helming the feature, Branagh will also portray detective Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels.

Sidney Lumet directed a big adaptation of Orient Express back in 1974, with an all star cast including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, and Albert Finney as Poirot. David Suchet embodied Poirot on British television for two decades.

I like this immensely, as the classic nature of the story really suits Branagh's sensibilities as a director, as he proved beautifully with Cinderella. And with his enduring run as Wallander, he's got more than enough detective experience to match wits with the longest trainload of killers.

Looking forward to this one!

SPECTRE: Shaken! Stirred...?

Spectre opens in spectacular fashion. Bond films have always been famous for their pre-credits action sequences, and director Sam Mendes serves up a whopper. Beginning with a Touch of Evil meets Goodfellas tracking shot that's simply mindboggling, as James Bond (Daniel Craig) makes his way through a ravishingly elaborate Dia de los Muertos parade in Mexico City, culminating in the most amazing helicopter stunt sequence in the history of helicopters. It's a scene most movies would kill for in their finales, and Spectre dares to start there. So it's a hell of a shame the rest of the movie never quite matches that sublime start.

Designed as a direct sequel to the superior Skyfall, Spectre also aims to knit-up threads from all the previous Daniel Craig Bond outings - to suggest that one nefarious entity has been pulling the strings all along. Great concept. And for the first fortyish minutes, Spectre is downright engaging and entertaining. In an obvious bit of casting, the minute we lay eyes on Andrew "Moriarty" Scott, we know he's going to be in league with the larger Shadowy Them. There's a crackerjack car chase with the new Aston Martin DB10, and Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography (Her, Interstellar) is sensational.

But we've got script problems. Not quite Quantum of Solace problems, because at least Spectre is trying everything but the kitchen sink. But the good will of that first act quickly evaporates and we're left with a very muddled segue into a frankly daft and silly grand finale. Part of the problem is actress

Léa Seydoux, who I'm sure is a perfectly lovely person, but who takes a quantum step backwards in the lineage of useless Bond-girls. She's no Rebecca Ferguson, that's for sure.

 

The hands of way too many writers are painfully evident here, as the tone careens all over the place. A mid-point airplane stunt pales woefully in comparison with that earlier helicopter work. Dave Bautista is exudes threatening charisma as a villain cobbled from the Jaws/Oddjob mold. There's a tremendous fistfight on a moving train that very deliberately tries to out-punch the threat level of Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love. And that's a big part of the problem with Spectre - it's so deliberate and intentional in its repeated call-backs to earlier Bond motifs that it starts to feel less like a movie and more of an exercise in generating Easter Eggs for audience recognition. Where that was done with aplomb and wit in Skyfall, here it seems to be pandering broadly to the cheap seats, which is likely why the lackluster reviews haven't hurt the box office. Spectre absolutely looks and walks and mimics all the iconic beats of a classic old school James Bond movie, but it feels like Bond-by-committee, and loses enormous swaths of the grounded realism the previous Craig films have worked so hard to establish. A gag involving a slow-moving car and an airbag sends us careening right back into Roger Moore territory.

 

We tend to judge a Bond picture by its villain, and Christoph Waltz gets a great introduction that hearkens back to the heyday of Thunderball. Bathed in shadow, indistinct, Waltz radiates quiet menace that's genuinely unsettling. Which is what makes his later transformation to sockless wide-eyed clown all the more baffling. He never recaptures that initial threatening stillness, and his keyboard torture of Bond is just completely off-putting and lame.

And we haven't even made it to the end yet. Yes, the title song is as lackluster as you've heard, and the love interest is just a crashing bore. I don't fault Daniel Craig here, as he's resolute and convincing, while more glib with the dialogue than we've previously heard. But he sells it, and it's very likely his star quality that's pushing the movie past its eye-rolling impediments into box office success. If this is his last outing as Bond, it's a bit of a shame, as Spectre's something of a buzz-kill after the seamless intelligence of Skyfall.

 

Spectre is a fun night out, and you could do a hell of a lot worse. It's crazy entertaining at times. And crazy-crazy at others. Bond fans should definitely check it out and decide for themselves. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

 

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown!

It’s hard not to be a little nervous when cherished franchises of old are repurposed for a new generation. As movie fans – and parents – we take a deep breath and wince a bit, hoping to be spared another Garfield or Alvin and the Chipmunks trip to the dentist.

 

Thank goodness The Peanuts Movie exceeds expectations in nearly every way. It’s a delightful rendering of Charles Schulz’s classic characters and is clearly made by people with tremendous affection for the look and feel of the original, determined to introduce it to a modern audience in a way that preserves the spirit of what makes Peanuts so beloved.

 

Written by Charles Schulz’s son and grandson, and directed by Steve Martino (Horton Hears a Who!, Ice Age: Continental Drift), while the technique of The Peanuts Movie may be 3-D Computer Animation, great care has been taken to maintain the look and feel of the old animated specials and comic strips. Background objects like trees remain stationary, and the characters move with a slight flutter, evoking the hand-drawn quality of the old shows. It gives the movie a real warmth and charm that might seem intangible, but which really comes across. Small nods of affection are peppered throughout – a moving truck bears the name “Mendelson & Melendez,” after the original producers of the animated specials. 

 

You get the feeling that rather than set the stage for a massive new franchise, the folks at Blue Sky Studios (along with Paul Feig) had the attitude that “…if we're only ever going to make one Peanuts movie, let’s make it the best that we possibly can,” and that really shines through. The music of Vince Guaraldi, the voices of the kids (and the always unseen “wahh wahh wahh” adults), the Bill Melendez recordings of Snoopy and Woodstock – everything is comfortingly familiar, while seeming fresh and vibrant all at the same time. Charlie Brown just wants the Little Red-Haired Girl to like him and be noticed. And no matter how many setbacks he endures, he never seems to let failure stop him. He perseveres and tries again, which is incredibly endearing and a wonderful lesson in character for smaller audiences. The film gets the tiniest bit over-inflated when Snoopy’s imagined dogfight with the Red Baron threatens to escalate into a full blown retelling of The Blue Max, but The Peanuts Movie is overwhelmingly the most charming family film since Paddington. Very highly recommended.

 

Triple 9: How's this for a cast...?

In Triple 9, a gang of dirty cops are blackmailed by the Russian mob into pulling of a nigh impossible heist. In order to draw attention away from the crime, they set up an officer-down situation (Code: 999), setting up an unsuspecting rookie to die. The rookie has other ideas.

Check out this cast: Casey Affleck (the rookie), Woody Harrelson, Chewitel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet, Norman Reedus, Anthony Mackie, Gail Gadot and Aaron Paul. The script is from Matt Cook, with John Hillcoat (The Road) directing.

Reedus! Up first quarter, next year.

Hide the Baseball Bats: Negan Confirmed for The Walking Dead!

It's gonna get ugly. Really, really ugly. Confirmation has arrived that by the end of this current season, AMC's The Walking Dead will introduce infamous comic book villain Negan, and they've already cast him - Jeffrey Dean Morgan. No stranger to comic adaptations, Morgan previously appeared in Watchmen, as sociopathic crime fighter The Comedian. 

For those who haven't read the comics, we'll stay spoiler-free here, but just know that Negan was Robert Kirkman's notion of a way to "Out-Governor" The Governor, and introduce a villain of even more menacing brutality, infamous for committing one of the most notorious acts of violence in the book's history. 

Especially in light of recent events on the show (or not...), Negan may be different than he was in the comics. The Governor certainly was. But it looks as though next season is going to find our intrepid band dealing with the mother of all monsters, who'll be rearing his head - and his bat, by this season's finale. Wash that man's mouth out with soap!

Unwrapping the Best Movie You Haven't Seen - Joel Edgerton's The Gift

We live for those surprises - the ones you never saw coming. Films you'd never really heard of, that had virtually no advance word, that come out of nowhere and knock you for a loop. If you're a fan of thrillers and like having your expectations wildly surpassed, go seek out The Gift immediately.

As presented by the marketing, you're in for an obsessive stalker threat-to-the-family nail-biter that hearkens back to Fatal Attraction or Pacific Heights. And there's no reason you shouldn't just go on thinking that. It's produced by Jason Blum, so it must be a straight-up horror shocker, right? A happy suburban couple (Rebecca Hall and Jason Bateman) moves into their new home, only to run into a dimly-remembered old classmate from the husband's high school days - Gordo, played by Joel Edgerton. Seems like a nice enough guy, but soon his eagerness to reconnect leads beyond the token housewarming gift to showing up at their home unannounced, leading to - what, exactly?

And this, my friends, is where I leave you. Because if The Gift is anything, it's about surprise, and about things being very, very different than appearances would have you assume.

In addition to playing Gordo, Joel Edgerton (Warrior, Zero Dark Thirty) also wrote and directed The Gift, and it's simply brilliant. Not a word I toss around lightly. As a creator, Edgerton establishes himself here as a master craftsman of suspense. He does a phenomenal job of subverting genre expectations and using conventions against the norm to unnerve the audience. Cinematographer Eduard Grau is a wicked conspirator, who knows how to use space to manipulate mood.

Bateman is amazing here. I made a lot of assumptions based on seeing his name in the credits and his character work here is complex and redefining. But Rebecca Hall is a revelation, and joins Rebecca Ferguson and Alicia Vikander in delivering one of the three best breakout parts of the year. It's a quiet, layered performance, and she does a remarkable job of leading the audience down paths we never expected.

But it's Joel Edgerton who's the man. To possess the confidence and objectivity to inhabit a lead role in your debut shot as a director, that's a guy with a lot of control and discipline. The Gift will unnerve you in a major way, while never insulting your intelligence or stooping to cheap shocks. Put this one right up there next to Prisoners and The Guest on your list of stealthy, must-see films that know how to mess with you in the best possible way. Very, very highly recommended.

The Groovy Gore of Ash vs Evil Dead!

It’s been 23 years since the last adventure of chainsaw-wielding demon-slayer Ash, in Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness.

Since then, Ash has become a bonafide cult icon, propogating comic books, action figures – hell, there’s even a “live” touring production of Evil Dead The Musical…!

All this is evidence that star Bruce Campbell’s fanbase (of which I count myself an avid member) is thriving and has been hungry for more splatter.

Gang, your patience has been rewarded.

The reckless folks at Starz have gleefully unleashed Ash vs Evil Dead, and it’s everything fans could have hoped for, and more.

It’s an unusual and possibly brand new genre – the 30-minute horror comedy. But everything we’ve been craving is there, and then some.

Make no mistake, it’s the Bruce Campbell show – THANK GOD. As Bruce is at his raised-eyebrow, lantern-jawed finest as Ash. He’s squeezing into a corset to hide that gut these days, but he’s still working as a glorified stock boy, still driving the same Oldsmobile. And thanks to a pilot directed by Raimi, still annihilating Deadites in explosively gory fashion. Raimi and Campbell make sure you get equal doses of the same two key ingredients – laughs and splatter – and we get plenty of both. We even get Ash’s first sex scene! Yikes! 

Why are the Deadites returning? Well a lot of it seems to be due to Ash needing to find some poetry to read to a gal he’s hot for, so in his drunken zeal, he reads aloud from the Necronomicon. Look out!!! The makeup is exellent – and prolific. Lucy Lawless appears briefly in the pilot, who we’re bound to learn more about shortly. Plenty of mayhem ensues, backed by Deep Purple and The Amboy Dukes, no less! 

This is a ballsy and really smart move by Starz. They’ve wisely kept the same fairly low budget sensibility and gleeful affection for practical effects that folks love about Evil Dead. They’ve clearly got a hit on their hands, as they renewed it for a second season even before its Halloween debut last week. Best of all, they’ve kept it short. “Thirty minutes a pop, baby.” Ash vs Evil Dead is fun, and if you’re already a fan, this new chapter’s a no-brainer! Catch it on Starz, Saturday nights.

To Boldy Stream with Synergistic Marketing

Raise your deflector shields - news broke today that CBS is developing a new Star Trek TV series, scheduled to premiere in January 2017, presumably driven by the momentum of next years' Trek 50th Anniversary and the new Star Trek Beyond film, due to be released July 22nd.

What this new show will look like is anybody's guess, but the Executive Producer will be Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote both the J.J. Abrams Star Trek features. CBS aims to air the series on its digital subscription service, CBS All Access. Will it take place in the same "reimagined" Vulcan-annihilated universe of the Kurtzman movies? It's a bit of a predicament - the prospect of launching a new installment sans Kirk and Spock is a pretty daunting one - but to recast those iconic roles again...? Will today's audiences tune in - excuse me, stream a series that doesn't feature the U.S.S. Enterprise?

For all we know, new elements are in place in the Star Trek Beyond feature to springboard directly into the new series. That's just guesswork, but I wouldn't bee to surprised to see movie Kirk dealing with a brash young Lieutenant who "reminds me of me." The CBS press release does state that the new series, "...is not related to the upcoming feature film Star Trek Beyond," and does make a point of mentioning new characters. So let the speculating begin.

After a dozen years, Trek is returning to TV. Here's hoping they can make it fresh and addictive enough to stay relevant in the modern Game of Thrones/Walking Dead landscape, while staying true to the spirit of what's always made the best Trek tick.

The Raw Frontier of Bone Tomahawk

 

 

Here we were, all ready for a Kurt Russell western with December’s Hateful Eight, when out of the blue we get Russell in another one – and when I hear you’ve got a western that throws in a strong dose of horror elements, you’ve definitely got my attention. 

 

Bone Tomahawk is the first film directed by screenwriter S. Craig Zahler, and it’s a hell of a thing – made for less than $2 million, Zahler’s managed the near impossible feat of realizing a tough-sell period genre with a pretty amazing cast – Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson (currently on TV’s Fargo), Matthew Fox and the great Richard Jenkins, among many others. 

 

In the small frontier town of Bright Hope, Wilson is recuperating from a leg injury, being cared for by his wife, Lili Simmons (Banshee), while the town Sheriff (Russell) has apprehended a suspected brigand. One night, intruders brutally attack the town, abducting Russell’s deputy and Simmons. Bone Tomahawk uses The Searchers as a launching point, with Russell, Wilson, Fox and Jenkins setting out to rescue the captives. The peril comes by way of The 13^th Warrior, when we learn that the abductees have been taken by a clan of cave-dwelling, Native American cannibals. It’s a pretty awesome premise, and Zahler generously devotes plenty of time to his characters, giving them abundant wry dialogue, particularly Richard Jenkins, who steals the picture as Russell’s aging “backup deputy,” a man without a filter and no shortage of opinions. He makes a fantastic counterpoint to the grim determination of the other characters. 

 

The problem is Zahler’s a little too generous when it comes to time. The stupendous concept and casting are undermined by a frustrating deficit of pacing. The film ambles along at an incredibly laconic pace. It grabs you by the lapels in the opening scene and has a soberingly intense third act – but in between, things dawdle and meander and cry out for a substantial rewrite. At 132 minutes, the film is easily 40 minutes too long. A stumbling block that prevents Bone Tomahawk from finding the classic cult status it very nearly attains. A judicious rewrite and tighter editing and people would not be able to stop talking about this film. Zahler really knows his western tropes, and has a fondness for eighties cinema that reveals itself with some affectionate cameos by Sean Young and Michael Paré, which sadly do nothing to advance the story and end up feeling more like stunt casting. Zahn McClarnon (also in Fargo with Wilson) makes a much stronger impression in his brief role. 

 

The casting saves this picture. Patrick Wilson has simply been awesome in everything he’s been in lately, and he’s the real protagonist of this movie, despite an immobilizing physcial handicap, turning in a heartfelt, painfully good perfromance. You feel tremendous empathy for his character. Russell’s Sheriff is likewise fantastic, a classic lawman of capable determination. Between these two and the humor peppered by Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox ends up seeming like an extraneous character. 

 

But as much as the plodding pace threatens to derail things, Zahler delivers a finale that’s not likely to ever be forgotten by anyone who hangs in there. The troglodyte tribe is a truly horrifying menace, and stand warned – there are acts of violence depicted in that cave that are so brutal and disturbing, the bar has now been raised to a new level that’s right through the ceiling. It’s a hand-in-your-mouth third act that’s brutal, nightmarish and flat-out suspenseful. 

 

In addition to a limited theatrical release, Bone Tomahawk is available OnDemand and on Amazon Instant Video – and at the end of the day, if Zahler can will this kind of package together and make a movie this good this cheaply, it deserves to be seen as a win. He’s achieved the nearly impossible, and unleashed a scene that makeup artists will be trying to out-carnage for years to come. In Bone Tomahawk, the Western is alive and kicking – just wished it kicked a might faster.