2051 - True Blood: season seven

And thus, it ends.  Thank the sweet lord.  I felt like I was cursed by this show to be mildly interested in it, yet never really satisfied.  It had a really strong start, and I’m not entirely sure just where it went off the rails.  There started a pattern where there was a bunch of random stories that came together mid season - and that was always largely impressive.  I have to say that I felt that this season was both a somewhat decent swan-song, but at the same time becoming a bit too much of a soap opera and less of the fun exciting show that we started off with.  This final season was very devoid of any real conflict or stakes, except for the very end (pun very much intended). 

If someone were asking if they should start watching this series, I’m not entirely sure what I’d say.  I suppose I’d say it’s worth giving it a kick, especially for the earlier seasons.  Like so many series it just went on for the sake of going on, having lost it’s umph and way.  I never hated this show, but if I’m honest it was always a guilty pleasure at best.

2019 - Hannibal: season two

I'm all caught up!  Which sucks, 'cause my reward is having to wait and watch s-l-o-w-l-y upon the shows return.  I have to say, I liked the first season better than this one.  To explain why I'll have to get into some SPOILERS... so beware of the below...

I guess my concern is with the idea of having Will Graham ride the line - from a long-game perspective I suppose I get it - we want to know if he'll head over to the dark side or not and we want to draw that out as long as possible.  I guess, for me, I'm excited to see this play into the established stories of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs and, I suppose, Hannibal itself (although feel free to re-imagine that one all you want!).  The introduction of Michael Pitt and Katherine Isabel as the Vergers was pretty damn delightful, and I hope that storyline comes back down the line as it's meant to.

This season ended on a pretty great cliffhanger that allows the show to reboot when it returns next year, which I think is what will help keep it interesting and alive.  It's a new chapter and so changes need to happen.  I'll be there for sure.

2018 - Hannibal: season one

Dear Producers of Dexter, this is how you make a show about serial killers.  Okay, that’s a bit unfair given that clearly they’re different tones.  So I’m late to the game on this show, part of the beauty of that is I’ve been able to binge watch it and really just enjoy immersing myself in this first season.  It’s so damn impressive to see a network doing this kind of material and really going full tork with it.  It’s a visual feast and the gruesomeness is pretty high for a show that airs on a main network.  Kudos to everyone involved for having the balls to do this.

The 2nd part of this that makes me really gitty watching is seeing some Toronto actors that I know in supporting and guest starring parts (it’s shot in Toronto).  I like that this is a re-invention of the Hannibal Lector story to some extent, and we aren’t just seeing someone trying to do an Anthony Hopkins impression.  It’s a wise move and it works so well.  I’m excited that I can dive into the second season right away.  I really hope this show can keep up the quality.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens we it moves into the years of the story in which movies already exist for them… 

If you haven’t seen this yet and you like horror, suspense, or really just strong television than this one deserves your attention.

2002 - Bad Milo

We were catching up on episodes of Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, and so I felt like watching something puppet oriented and remembered that I had this in my netflix que.  It's the story of a man who has a creature living in his ass, and when people/life stresses him out, the little guy crawls out and attacks those who are causing him the stress.  It's a perfect and beautiful metaphor for human interactions (seriously).  This also calls back to some of the fun shlocky horror films of the 80's and early 90's that I watched in my youth.  Lots of great little creature moments.  Gillian Jacobs is the love interest here and I adore the hell out of her as per usual.  The creature is adorable and fantastically creepy all at the same design to kudos to whoever did the work here.
Story wise it's a pretty fun ride, there's a nice little twist at the end, more of an additional element that made me grin a lot.  This is a film full of great ideas and smart execution.  If you want to watch a really fun horror-comedy with just enough of social commentary then this is a must watch.

1998 - Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil

This was my selection for Canadian Film Day!  I wanted to watch something I hadn't seen before and I'm really glad I went with this one.  It would have been so easy for this premise to be terrible.  It's the story of two friends who get assumed to be redneck killers, and in the same confusion believe that the teens that think are being victimized are going after them (make sense?).
It's a really great (and bloody) comedy of errors and Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine are pure magic together.  Seriously - turn this into a Harold & Kumar-esque franchise and I am in for revisiting this world in a heart beat.  It's a bit over the top, but that's the point - this isn't the kind of film that's taking itself too seriously.  This is a really solid entry into the horror-comedy genre mix - and it's on netflix, so get on that!

The Walking Dead (Vol 20): All Out War (part one)

In my recent nerdy googling I realize that I had missed the most recent TBP of the comic coming out (though not by much).  As per usual - SPOILERs ahead…

So this has been brewing for some time, and like Rick mentions early in the story - they’re heading into war and there will be casualties.  Although no one really major dies here (I guess my definition of major includes people that have been around for half the series or more at this point) we still feel the devastation to come.  I love Rick’s plan for taking down Negan, I love that we see Negan scrambling a bit.  Because of the twists and turns that this book takes in general you don’t feel overly confident that everything will turn out for her heroes in the end - that’s the beauty of this story - devastation happens.  Part of me would like to think that the Negan storyline won’t be this short-lived.  I’ve said this before but what I love about Negan is that he’s practical.  He’s crazy, sure, but he understands that people need to work together - his only problem is insisting that he’s the head rooster, and the things that he does to other people.  His counter-attach using Holly was brilliant and smart.  I’m excited to see how the rest of this story arc plays out.  It’s going to be a bloody end…

1976 - The Walking Dead: season four - part 2

It should go without saying, but read this at your own risk of SPOILERS.  Walking Dead is a funny show for me.  There are few I anticipate watching as much as this when it comes to new episodes - but it’s also the kind of show where once I’ve seen it, I don’t really feel the need to revisit.  It’s very much popcorn and guilty pleasure for me.  I like that it’s nuanced in areas, but again - I get everything out of it the first time.  This isn’t a terrible thing - and I imagine once it’s completely over I’ll go back and marathon the entire thing, but outside of a few touchstone episodes, I haven’t done that.

So this half-season was a different feel than what we’ve seen before but I think it worked well.  We’re dealing with the aftermath of their major battle, and we needed time with each of these characters to regroup.  If the first half of the season was about “Can we come back from what we’ve done.” the second half answers it by asking “Can we come to terms with who we are now given what we’ve had to do?”

I love how this show adapts the comics for their own, often richer, purposes.  Having the young girls and Carol get the murder storyline that belonged to the twins and Carl in the comics worked quite well here.  Having the group that attacks Rick and Carl on the road be the ones Daryl finds himself with was clever as well.  And I can only assume that the folks at Terminus are the series version of The Hunters.  I imagine that’ll be the entire focus of the first half of the next season - I’d be surprised if they milked it any longer.  

I think this is the kind of show that gets better the longer it goes - and what’s really fun is now that we’ve lived in this post-zombie world for a while we’re starting to come across other people and filling in their history and stories is equally interesting.  I can’t wait to see what Terminus is all about.  Fall can’t come some enough…

The Walking Dead - Vol 19: March to War

So we're in the 19th volume of an ongoing series - clearly I still read this because I love it.  If you're not caught up to here, or only watch the TV show know that HUGE SPOILERS lie ahead here.  You've been warned..

...

Negan.  Everyone went on and on about The Governor, but he's got nothing on Negan.  For my money he's the most interesting character the series has ever produced, and easily one of the best villains in history.  His blend of charisma and sadism is pure delightful, as well as watching his thought pattern.  He's always surprising in good ways and bad, and he ups the stakes in major ways.  And just when I think I can't be shocked, someone like Negan comes along and does just that.  It would look as though we're gearing up for war and so it's hard to say if he'll stick around much longer - but I like the idea of it not wrapping up so easily - he'll be hard to top as a villain, and because I really do think that the series has to get around to the idea of rebuilding society, it's hard to see them all out on the run again.  The Walkers have barely been an issue for a long time in this series, and I'm fine with that.  The only thing that would satisfy me would be to see a horde come into play right in the middle of the two groups going to war - making them realize that they're not really prioritizing the real problems in this world.

This series still sees us mourning for Glen (which is the biggest and saddest death the series has had - largely just because he's been around since the beginning), but also giving us more depth to characters like Ezekiel (which was nice since he was coming off as a looney).  At first I thought Rick absolutely should have done what he did - seized the day, but I'm glad it worked out the way it did - upping the ante.  I'm super excited for the next trade to come out in the summer.  I want this series to go on forever, but I want them to keep it fresh.  I question if they'll ever be so bold as to kill Rick off (not that I need/want him to go).  I just have a hard time seeing this world go on without Rick and/or Carl.  Kirkman has stated he's got up to issue 300 roughly sketched out - which means at least another twenty of these trades or so.  Can't wait to see where he takes us.

1942 - Walking Dead: season four (part 1)

I like these mini seasons.  This one had a particularly strong theme with "Can we come back?  Are we too far gone?"  It's a great question to ask at this point in the series, given what they've been through.  What I also love is how it stays connected to the comic series, but giving us it fresh.  We still get the Governor charging the prison with his tank, and while the outcome is similar it's different and unique to it's own world.  I'm not as harsh a critic on this show as a lot are - I think it's a really fun show with decent enough characters.  I loved the little side-step to see what the Governor has been up to.  I thought it gave the proper weight to it, and we needed a break from the plague storyline (which I didn't absolutely love).  I thought the meeting between Rick and the Governor was smart - I believed that, perhaps, in this version of the story - maybe they do stretch it out and try to find a way to live together.  That said, what a great place for us to leave and have to come back from.  I can't wait to see where they go with the story in the second half of this season.  So many possibilities.  So exciting!  If you haven't heard of this show you're likely living under a rock - but if you haven't seen it - it's super easy to catch-up to on Netflix.  Enjoy!

1941 - Devil

I've wanted to check this out mostly 'cause my pal Zoie is in it, and she's actually got a fun little part.  It's based on a story from M. Night, but don't let that dissuade it for you.  It's not a great film, it's not bad.  It's helped a lot by good actors like Chris Messina, but it doesn't deliver on it's awesome premise - which is essentially that the devil is among us, and when the opportunity arises he traps himself within a group of people and tortures them before bringing them to hell.  The film largely relies on cheap tricks rather than real scares.  Like I said, not amazing, not terrible. 

1932 - The Blair Witch Project

This is the film that really started the big swing of docu-style horror films, and I think it was a stroke of genius.  Nothing spells fear more than something that feels personal - something that feels like it could happen to you.
I saw this film originally in the theaters, and because I was a big nerd I knew the backstory or how they made the film, but I was in a theatre packed with a lot of people who actually believed some of the rogue marketing and thought that they were watching a real found-footage film - and oh how delightful that was for me - and I think that's a lot of why I still adore this film: it did what the best films do and created a sense of magic around itself.  The marketing campaign was simply brilliant, and would be hard to do again now.  Bless them for taking a golden opportunity.  Shame the filmmakers haven't really lived up to what they showed talent for here. 
The story is simple: a young filmmaker wants to make a documentary about a witch in a small community - and while traveling through the woods to the locations she was said to haunt the threesome of filmmakers get lost, and never return.  And this is the footage they recorded whilst in there.  Very interesting stuff.  If you've never seen it give it a go.  Again, you kind of need the pop culture reference for this one - and at this point it's film history.  Bizarre.
p.s. the image at the top from the film was etched into my brain for DAYS after I saw this the first time....

1930 - Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

I picked this up on DVD in a bulk sale when Blockbuster was going out of business based on the strong recommendation of a friend of mine and I still really dig it.  If you’ve never seen it it’s one of the great lesser known gems.  It starts off as a pseudo documentary about a woman following someone who is about to become a serial killer in the vein of Freddy, Jason, etc… it’s extremely meta in a really delightful way.  It surprises me that Angela Goethals has’t done more - she’s very lovely and you fall in love with her a bit here.  Nathan Baesel is equally enjoyable, and if imdv is to be trusted he now works mostly in post-production.

I don’t want to give away any of the delightful surprises here.  Walking Dead fans will enjoy seeing Scott Wilson, and Robert Englund also has a pretty decent cameo.

If you’re a horror fan I can’t imagine you wouldn’t enjoy the inventiveness of this… give her a shot!

1929 - Paranormal Activity 4

I read a lot of smack about this instalment in the series, but it really didn’t bother me at all.  I found that Kathryn Newton was really interesting and natural and I was curious about how it was all tied in.  There was a mystery element to this one that worked quite well.  I can’t say I understand what’s going with the idea of the Katie character at this point - is she permanently screwed up now?  I like the twist about Hunter, that worked well, and I think this continues to build the series in the right way.  This one didn’t have as many scares, but it continued to find inventive ways to work the premise.  

1928 - Paranormal Activity 3

It’s Hallowe’en week and because I’m a bit of a cliche I’m watching some horror films and catching up on some I hadn’t seen.  I was pretty impressed by the first 2 of this series - they aren’t the most amazing movies by any means but they’re pretty cleverly made and inventive.  This one felt the most forced in terms of the set-up to get all the cameras in - that and I wasn’t quite sure how the events of this film weren’t felt more in the other two that come later.

THAT said, I liked it.  It made me jolt a bit in places as it should.  The panning camera on the ground floor was one of my favourite devices of the series, and it was also this film that decided to introduce the demon as a character ‘Toby’, which is just a clever way to really extend the franchise.  A worthy addition to the series.

1924 - Solo

I got to check this film out to a packed audience at Toronto After Dark Film Festival earlier this week.  Full disclosure - one of the producers of this film is someone I'm working with on some upcoming projects, however I would never write an ass-kissy review just because of it.
The premise of this film is that a young woman goes to camp to be a new counsellor - and part of her initiation is spending 2 nights on a nearby island.  And nerve wracking shit ensues.
What I liked about this as a thriller is it felt largely credible.  There's one moment where I has to suspend disbelief a bit, but even that I might just be being nit-picky.  Annie Clark is delightful as the lead - she's doesn't play it stupid or naive - she plays it like a smart young woman caught up in a really shitty situation.
It's the kind of film that keeps you guessing, keeps you on edge, and entertains at the same time.  That and it's just so goddamn pretty to look at - they really took great care in the visual.  It's being released in Canada in the near future - so pretty please check it out - especially if you like film that keep you on your toes!

1904 - Almost Human

I believe this is the only midnight madness film that I saw, and I went into it on a lark because it's screening time lined up with a window I had.  The premise is that a guy got abducted by aliens years prior and has returned and something's up with him.  Essentially he's an alien/human hybrid who reaks havoc on the community trying to further his new "species".  It's a fun premise, but the main issue with the film is that it feels kind of paper-thin and there's very little logic to how it all works, really.  From the acting to the writing everything kind of screams b-movie, but perhaps that's the point.

1886 - True Blood: season six

This show is another of my guilty pleasures - although I have to say that this was one of the show's strongest seasons over-all.  Typically True Blood has a lot of stray plot threads and don't come together till mid-season but the unifying theme of Humans Vs. Vampires was super strong and effective in really bringing everything together.  All of the characters were interesting and important, and we got rid of some who have over stayed their welcome a bit (although SPOILER ALERT... I loved Terry and the actor who plays him).
I liked the Warlow storyline a lot and how it shifted and you didn't really know where it was going to go good or bad.  What I love about this show at this point is that every single character rides the line between hero of villain depending what their current motivation is and it works really well for the most part.  I have to say that, like a lot of fans of the show, the ending of the series left something to be desired and it'll be interesting what they do with next season given what they've set up - the idea of humans and vampires needing to pair up.  Could be very interesting to see how those pairings go.
It was sad to lose Alan Ball after last season, but I think the shake-up has been a good thing for the show - which doesn't seem to have an end date at this point.  As long as this season wasn't the last we've seen of Erik I'll be happy.  I have no problem with killing off major characters, but if that was the way they took him out it would be pretty disappointing.
So there it is - another season down - if you haven't started yet I'm not sure where a good entry point is, outside of the start... to get the full experience you kind of have to go all the way back... enjoy!

The Walking Dead: Vol 18 - What Comes Next

It goes without saying, we're eight-teen trades into this series, so I'm going to spoil some stuff in this little mini-review - and if it's this far in you don't need my recommend to buy it :)
So hear we are in the post-Glen world, and our heroes are devastated.  I need to go back and remind myself what happened to Maggie 'cause I swear she's not here, but I also don't remember something happening to her last time...
We're deep into the Negan storyline, and Kirkman has done a good job so far of showing why he's different from the Governor - first of all - he's pretty damn charismatic.  He's the kind of villain that's really enjoyable to spend time with because he seems to have a code, fucked up as it is, and seems to be, as he states, "a reasonable fucking guy".  He's also created a trade network - or more like a stealing network - which is what you'd have to do in a situation like this.  I'd like to think this will go down differently than it did with our last big bad of the series.  It almost has to.  This book was a bit of a calm before the storm - and through Carl we got a good glimpse into the world of Negan and how that all works.  And we got to meet King Ezekial - which is all kinds of bizarre and awesome.  And now it's a long-ass wait until the next trade comes out, and the series is back.  Alas...

1827 - The Walking Dead: season three part 2

Holy shit. I just realized that I never wrote about this.  Huh.  So I'm a bit late to this commentary party but here goes… I think this season was largely the strongest season of the series.  I think it had a momentum that was exactly where it needs to be and go.  I love what the first half of this season did for setting up the second.  I love how they're honouring the comic series without feeling the need to subscribe to it.  The changes they did with Woodbury and The Governor in particular were smart - and I'm not sure how I feel about how they left it - I'll have a better opinion once I see where they go with it come season four.  I want to say a whole lot here, but I'm holding back for those who haven't seen the show yet.  And along those lines, I really do urge you to pick up the comic books - especially if you LOVE the show - it's a nice way to fill the gap between seasons!

1814 - Suck

I feel badly that it took me this long to get around to this film.  If you're into Canadian comedy then you're hopefully aware of Rob Stefanuik and his previous film, Phil The Alien.  This time out it's a rock opera about a band that'll do anything to become famous - including selling their souls and becoming vampires.  Outside of Stefaniuk in the cast there's also the amazing Jessica Pare, Dave Foley not to mention some fantastic cameos by rock legends such as: Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, and Moby. 
As usual I don't like giving much away, and I won't here.  But this is something unique and special.  It's fun, funny, and it looks goddamn great.  If you like dark comedies, vampires, and rock and roll then you really can't go wrong with this one.  Shit tonnes of fun.