I was never more interested in movies and filmmaking than I was in the early ’90s, when I was coming out of high school.  As far as movies go, it was an interesting era, in that the major studios were lavishing unheard-of sums of money upon productions that were clearly destined to wind up being utter shit, while off in the periphery, what would become annoyingly known as the “independent film movement” was just starting to catch its footing.

Among the guys at the forefront of this movement were Robert Rodriguez, who had submitted himself to medical testing to raise the money for his first micro-budget movie, El Mariachi, and Quentin Tarantino, who on the heels of Reservoir Dogs, was being pursued by every big-name actor in town for the privilege of providing him their services at union scale.

It was in an interview with Tarantino that I first heard of John Woo.  Or maybe it was just an allusion to an exchange between Tarantino and somebody else.  Anyways, the subject was John Woo, who was making noise overseas with films like The Killer, which had been widely in video stores across the country, as well as Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow.  Whatever the context of the conversation, the person to whom Tarantino was speaking said something to the effect of “Woo sure knows how to direct an action scene,” to which Tarantino famously said, “Yeah, and Michelangelo sure knows how to paint a ceiling.”

Which is a long way to go for a reference, I realize.  Point is, that’s how I first became aware of John Woo.  From there, I got my hot little hands on The Killer, which I dug immensely and found it, at least on an aesthetic level, to be worthy of the hype.

Then Woo came stateside, and everything went to shit.  First up was Hard Target, which presented Woo with the unenviable task of making Jean Claude Van Damme (at long last) a commercially viable action hero.  While the hallmarks of Woo’s native work were on display, the movie itself was shit at the core, and forgettable even in the short run.

After that bit of awkwardness, Woo went on to generate a nice little hitting streak, helming Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and the first Mission: Impossible sequel.  All three were hits.

Then, after directing the Ben Affleck vehicle, Paycheck, Woo fell of the map of mainstream Western film.  For a while.

I never saw Paycheck, or frankly anything else he has made since.  My feeling with Woo is that, as much as he dazzles with his sense of style, he starts to grate on you after a little while.  I’m not just talking about the doves and all the slow-motion silliness, but there is an over-the-top approach to each and every scene that goes beyond spectacular.  And I think the human brain can only take so much spectacular in a given period of time.

Over the past several years, Woo has worked away steadily on a slew of films about which I know virtually nothing.  Next up on the dockett will be a Yakuza-based English language film that goes by the name Day of the Beast, a remake of a 1963 film called Youth of the Beast.  According to Deadline, the film will be produced in part to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Nikkatsu, the company the produced both the original and the upcoming remake.

Suddenly, I’m interested.  I feel like Yakuza is one arena in which it’s difficult to go too far over the top.  While this production certainly has all the earmarks of a straight-to-Blu-Ray release, at least in the States, it’s one for which we will certainly be keeping our eyes open.

CBS has announced its lineup of new shows for the fall premiere slots. I am not impressed. What merit I see in these three crime shows and single comedy, I have to squint to make out.

Sure, they all have enough talent to at least earn them air time. Nothing that will be blowing off wigs any time soon, though. The names Lucy Liu, Nicholas Pileggi and James Mangold just don’t have the draw they used to.

Of the upcoming shows, we have Partners, Elementary, Vegas and Made in Jersey. You can probably deduce which one is the comedy, Watson.

Hint, hint – it’s not Elementary. As we covered previously, that’s a Sherlock Holmes reincarnation set in modern day NYC with the master detective and his therapist, Lucy “Dr. Watson” Liu, solving crimes. It has “depressing, understated sibling to Castle” written all over it.

But hey, who could go wrong with a crime show called Vegas? Sin City’s rife with intrigue, right? Sure, but it’s been nearly done to death. The smartest thing that the most successful Las Vegas crime show ever did was not mentioning Vegas in its name, CSI. Then again, the Vegas trailer is far-and-away the most attractive of the trio. And, let’s not forget, James Mangold, Walk the Line director, is all over this doggy as Executive Producer and Director.

Then we have our bronze medal entry, Made in Jersey. Guess what this is about. If you guessed “the mob,” you guessed wrong – at least until, I’m sure, the season finale reveals their involvement. No, it’s about the other characteristic Jersey trait, being yokels in the shadow of Manhattan. A “blue-collar” Jersey girl heads to the Big Apple to make good and live her dream as a lawyer and we all know how that’s going to go: With her abducted and killed in the first episode. Or maybe I’m mixing that with The Killing in order to improve the premise of the show.

In any event, it has accents and sexual tension and Kyle MacLachlan. So here you go:

Edge of your seat stuff, right, kiddos? I know I’m being a touch harsh on this lineup preview, but I just smell doom in the air.

NBC has released a video tease via TVline  for tomorrow night’s Community season 3 finale, an episode titled “Digital Estate Planning.” I”m sure that Community heads already know, but tomorrow night will feature THREE brand new episodes of Community, with NBC going all in with the show for during May sweeps.  As we told you previously, starting a 8pm (est) you will be hit with “Introduction to Finality” and “The First Chang Dynasty” (in between is the 30 Rock season finale), and the season finale will air at 9:30.

After tomorrow, Community fans have nothing to worry about though as NBC re-upped it for a fourth season for 13-episodes, though it did get moved to the sometimes dreaded Friday slot.

related:  COMMUNITY’S CURRICULUM UNAVAILABLE – CLIP SHOW SEQUEL TOPS ORIGINAL

Community “”Digital Estate Planning” Episode Summary - Pierce (Chevy Chase) is summoned to Hawthorne Enterprises to discuss his inheritance with his deceased father’s former right-hand man, Gilbert Lawson (guest star Giancarlo Esposito, “Breaking Bad”). The study group goes with him for moral support and must all pitch in to play the video game of their life on Pierce’s behalf – or risk losing his inheritance.

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus seems to be able to do no wrong, having released nothing during its promotional campaign period that doesn’t build on the seemingly universal, at least on the nerd-quadrant of the internet, anticipation for the Alienish-esque film. The latest is called “Quiet Eye”, another viral job, this one from Verizon FiOS, which features Noomi Rapace as Prometheus‘ Elizabeth Shaw.

related: RIDLEY SCOTT’S PROMETHEUS – TWO NEW TRAILERS WITH RAPACE AND FASSBENDER

Rapace will be joined by what sounds like a stellar cast in Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba (who earlier today we told you would be returning for Thor 2), Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron when Prometheus hits theaters this June.

Enjoy the new tease!

Kate Beckinsale, star of the insanely popular Underworld movies (or most of them, at any rate), has just signed on to star in a legal drama where she plays a lawyer named Cate McCall.  This is a big stretch, playing a character whose first name has one different letter, but Ms. Beckinsale has never been one to back down from a challenging role.

The news over at Deadline is that The Trials of Cate McCall is to begin shooting soon, with screenwriter/director Karen Moncrieff at the helm.  In the film, Beckinsale will play a young hotshot attorney who threw her career down the tubes to become an addict of some sort.  I suppose we can guess it’s drugs she’s addicted to, though it could also easily be shopping, on-line gambling, chocolate, or even love, as Robert Palmer once demanded we might as well face.  It could also be an addiction to using the word “hotshot” to describe a person who has enjoyed success in his or her chosen field at an early age, as many synopsis writers seem to suffer from that particular addiction.

Anyways, Cate’s making a comeback, and in order to recharge her career and win back custody of her daughter, she must take on the appeal of a woman wrongly convicted of murder.  How exactly that will get her daughter back into her custody is also unclear.  If the family courts these days are deciding custody issues based on a parent’s ability to right a legal wrong, then I’d say they’ve really let their power go to their heads.

Even more vaguely related is exactly what roles Nick Nolte or James Cromwell are to play, but the smart money says one will play her kindly mentor, a law professor perhaps, and the other will be the heavy, a particularly sober judge or one of the crooked cops with whom Cate McCall must battle.  I like to imagine both guys showing up on the set the first day, flipping a coin to see who will play who, and then each going back to their respective trailers to nap until lunchtime.

Stay tuned for further developments of The Trials of Cate McCall that we can snidely look down our noses at.

The Avengers, including Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, is still thundering away past a billion so it’s only right bit of casting for other MARVEL films start circulating. Earlier today we pointed you to a bit of news letting you know that Idris Elba would be returning to Asgard for Thor 2, and now we have an addition to the third Iron Man to note.

Variety is reporting that former Lord of the Flies islander and Pacific (loves the ocean, apparently) star has nabbed the role Eric Savin, a military man who in the comics becomes Coldblood, a cyborg soldier who debuted back in ’89 in the comics.

related:  SCARLETT JO BACK FOR IRON MAN 3?

Iron Man 3 is very interesting to me because it’s the first of the Iron Man films not directed by Jon Farveau, and is instead being helmed by Shane Black.  Black, who is also co-writing the screenplay, directed a film called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which could be described as hell of awesome, and also starred Downey Jr. Word on the street is that the film will be influenced by the Extremis arc from the MARVEL comic, which is great idea, because pilfering ideas from Warren Ellis just always is.

Iron Man 3 is scheduled for a May 2013 release.

Capitalizing on both the current geek tv passion and the annual mecca destination for then, The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman has announced a special treat for fans of his comic and AMC  show this year at San Diego Comic Con. During SDCC  ( July 12-15) , at San Diego’s Petco Park fans will witness A Walking Dead Zombie Obstacle Course, called The Walking Dead Escape, and even that  will celebrate the 100th issue of the IMAGE comic book series.

related: WALKING DEAD SEASON 3 TEASES

Fans can pre-register for the The Walking Dead Escape now at the official site. THR reports that the gambit will feature 3 challenges:

 be a survivor and race through a zombie-infested evacuation zone; be a walker who joins the ranks of the undead; or a spectator who watches from the sidelines during an Escape Party.

For those that can’t or just don’t want to make to SDCC, The Walking Dead is scheduled to return to AMC for its third  season this October, for a 16 episode order, ready to build off a  season 2 finale that crushed the cable competition.

]]> http://www.boomtron.com/2012/05/walking-dead-creator-cons-up-zombie-apocalypse-walking-dead-escape/feed/ 0 http://www.boomtron.com/2012/05/burn-notice-season-6-taps-desperate-housewives-and-one-tree-hill-for-villain/ http://www.boomtron.com/2012/05/burn-notice-season-6-taps-desperate-housewives-and-one-tree-hill-for-villain/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 16:05:57 +0000 Brody Gibson http://www.boomtron.com/?p=141484

Richard Burgi is a man of many talents, my favorite of which was his talent of being shirtless for the majority of his screen time on Desperate Housewives, and now he’ll be demonstrating his knack for portraying villainous characters when he guest starts in an episode of Burn Notice Season 6. His ability to find work so quickly after wrapping his time on Housewives and One Tree Hill is worthy of applause and there’s no doubt in mind that he’ll flesh out a very memorable character during his brief stint on the USA series. Maybe he’ll go the extra mile and be a shirtless villain.

related: SONS OF ANARCHY PENNY AND A SCRUB GET BURNED

It was reported by TVLine that Burgi would be appearing in Episode 7 of Burn Notice’s sixth season as a man named Morris. Morris is described as a duplicitous, backstabbing loan shark with a vile temper who’s looking to move up the criminal ladder. He certainly sounds deplorable, doesn’t he? In my mind, I can see him as the type of bad guy just waiting for the moment to blow up and let his rage destroy whoever gets in his way. That’s a villain worth watching. He might even be worth going back for a second viewing.

Also popping up this season is Brandon Eaton, who will be playing a naïve punk with a large ego, which doesn’t quite match up with his small amount of experience in life. While it isn’t at all clear what episode Eaton appears in, I’m equally as excited about this character as I am for Burgi’s. There’s something wonderful about a little punk finding out he’s not all he thinks he is. I love seeing obnoxious people put in their place. It’s just feels right. I could be getting ahead my self though. There’s no saying Eaton’s character will go through a storyline like that, but I can hope.

Burn Notice returns July 14^th.

We just got a new True Blood Season 5 trailer to get us prepped for the upcoming new season, but the author whose novels inspired the popular HBO vampire romp is hanging up the Bon Temps stomping grounds after this year. Charlaine Harris took to the facebook to tell everyone that next year, specifically May 2, 2013, the 13th and final Sookie Stackhouse book will hit shelves, carrying the title Dead Ever After.

Dead Ever After, like all of the previous Southern Vampire Mystery novels by Harris, will be published by ACE (Penguin).

HBO’s True Blood is based on Harris’  The Southern Vampire Mysteries, a series that next year will have been around for a dozen years. Harris was kind enough to participate in one of our round-table Synergy features, and if you’re interested in finding out what the author’s own favorite childhood scare story is, go read her answer and that of several other writers.

The next episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones is “Prince of Winterfell”, and it looks like Jon Snow meets the Lord of Bones, in his poorman’s General Kael get-up.  Tyrion is threatening family over whores, Tywin is on the move, and Arya wants someone dead. On the latter, I wonder if the tv show veers from the book and has Arya use one of her death wishes on the obvious target. We also see a glimpse of boyking Joff, strolling around probably being an ideal  and terribly misunderstood, king. That also looks like my ginger girl from the great Downton Abbey again, playing  Ygritte.

related: GAME OF THRONES – SEASON 2, EPISODE 7: “A MAN WITHOUT HONOR” REVIEW

After “Prince of Winterfell”, Game of Thrones will be down to just two more episodes in the second season, including the penultimate episode “Blackwater”, which is written by George R.R. Martin himself.

Game of Thrones “Prince of Winterfell” teaser - At Winterfell, Theon receives a visitor and holds down the fort. Arya calls in her final debt with Jaqen (Tom Wlaschiha) in a way that displeases him. Robb is betrayed. Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and Varys (Conleth Hill) find common ground. Dany ignores Jorah’s (Iain Glen) advice. Stannis (Stephen Dillane) and Davos (Liam Cunningham) approach their destination, and Davos is offered a reward.

A new teaser for the House finale has hit the web, entirely focused on Hugh Laurie’s titular character, though the finale will include and return past House stars like Jennifer Morrison, Amber Tamblyn, and Olivia Wilde (though no Lisa Edelstein).  FOX has a two hour event planned to give House fans proper closure and the show a proper send off, in the form of an hour long retrospective to air with “Everybody Dies”.  Earlier, Hugh Laurie released a video talking about the finale and keepsakes, and I wonder if any pf the mementos Laurie asked for and anyone sent in will be part of the retrospective.

The House festivities being at 8pm Eastern on Monday, May 21st.

House “Everybody Dies” Episode Summary - In the emotional series finale, which is preceded by an hour-long retrospective, treating a drug addict patient (guest star James Legros) results in House examining his life, his future and his own personal demons.

Idris Elba should be starring in some MARVEL movie, but for now he’s good with confirming that he will return for Thor 2. Speaking with Collider, the actor who played Heimdall in the first Thor movie shared that he plans to revisit the character in the “my man in a suit film” after he gets done portraying Nelson Mandela. Elba goes on to add  he has not yet read a script, but would like it if his character was a bit more dimensional this time around, citing fan’s excitement over Asgard in the first film.

Coming sooner, Elba is part of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which, even as a comic book fan, interests me a hell of a lot more than Thor. Why? Well, because if you’ve already seen  The Avengers, you know who’s coming, and how much of a badass he is, so all they extra are fodder about to get sunned by him (a movie I DO want to see). Considering the Asgardians present a high powered but negligible commodity, seems like a good opportunity for them to get crushed, while my boy goes and collects a trinket of his they may be holding.

Glee has yet to finish off its third season, yet reports are already coming in of celebrities being cast for parts in Season 4, with the first actresses to be hired being Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Hudson. For Parker, this will be her first time on television since her days on Sex and the City, while Hudson hasn’t been on television since her 1997 appearance on EZ Streets. They must have worked out a very nice deal to secure them both so early on. Parker I’m not as surprised with, but Hudson has never seemed like someone who would do a stint on a television show. I was actually surprised to learn she was even on EZ Streets.

Yet TVLine reports it’s true, with both actresses signing on for multiple episodes. There was not an exact number for Parker, but Hudson was said to have a six-episode arc on the Fox series. Both will be playing mentors of sorts, Parker for Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Hudson for Rachel (Lea Michele), which means they will be featured in the new New York City setting. It could be interesting to see how the personalities of Kurt and Rachel mesh, or more likely clash, with the people they meet at NYADA.

Even though Kurt and Rachel are graduating from McKinley High at the end of the current season and are being whisked away to NYC, we’ll still spend plenty of time with the other gleeks. In case you haven’t heard, Glee is adopting a new “show-within-a-show” format, which basically means it’ll focus on two distinct storylines. We’ll have the setting of McKinley and the New Directions, which we’re all quite familiar with by now, while also following the adventures the graduates in the Big Apple. It’ll be likely watching two different show’s at once, which could be really awesome or a terrible idea. Also affecting the series is a surprise move from Tuesday to Thursday nights. Fox said the move was because Glee would feel more at home with the likes of American Idol and X Factor. Whatever the reasoning, it is pretty clear Season 4 is going to be a whole new kind of Glee.

A mob of The Amazing Spider-Man movie starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone goods have hit the web recently, and we them all neatly here for you in one place. First, as you can see, are the two posters featuring New York, NY cityscape and Garfield. Along with those are two videos, below, one a 4-minute “super” preview that Sony aired on America Got Talent, which features what looks to be an extension of and older trailer/clip, but features some really good Lizard, the villain up for this Spidey movie, moments. I have to admit I’ve never been sold with the Lizard, even when it was being talked about as being prominent in the Raimi films. Marc Webb looks like he may have done good here.

related: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN TRAILER WITH GARFIELD AND EMMA STONE

Speaking of Webb, the other video is a featurette that shows him talking a bit about his process, along with bits of interaction with his Amazing Spider-Man cast and crew. Spidey swings back into theaters during the holiday weekend, debuting on July 3rd.

One of the sure delights of staying in Japan is taking your lady or gentleman, lover, partner, whatever, to a love hotel for a tumble between some bizarrely-themed sheets. I’ve talked before of my genuine affection for love hotels, designed, so they say, for lovers to engage in some well-earned carnal privacy instead of worrying whether or not  their neighbours can hear moans of pleasure behind their paper-thin walls. I believe they actually exist solely to facilitate and monetise infidelity, but that’s me. I’m a cynic.

In any event, following a fire in Fukuyama City’s The Hotel Prince last week that saw seven people tragically die, it appears that safety standards in Love Hotels really are not what they should be. In the case of The Hotel Prince, the last time it was visited by the fire department for a safety inspection was 2003, despite the fact that visits are supposed to take place twice a year.

Alarmingly for an enthusiast such as myself, The Tokyo Reporter has run an article suggesting that the most basic of safety standards are not being met in hotels across the country.  A Fire Rescue Worker has suggested that fellow enthusiasts choose hotels that are not isolated from public view (the Hotel Prince was located in a back street) and that you should be on the lookout for two fire exits and emergency ladders as well as rather sensibly choosing rooms on the first two floors (which is a bummer if the weird room with the caged-in circular bed you’re keen to try out is higher up). 

The problem for foreigners is that the love hotel experience is a very private one – you either push a button and pay a slot machine for your room or you deal with a faceless staffer behind a security door. It’s not as if you can question a helpful concierge whether or not your room has fire extinguisher – you are essentially anonymous.

Adding to the possible panic, the Reporter quotes an “unnamed source” who claims that no love hotel in the country has a sprinkler system.  However, if I were you, I’d be less worried about this and more worried about remembering to pack some antibacterial lotion – I once picked up a weird rash from instant contact with some hotel sheets that had me convinced I was somehow in an early David Cronenberg movie. Fire could be the least of your worries…

Rumors had been circulating about Robert Pattinson (rare occurrence there, I know) regarding a photo shoot he did with French Premiere magazine for his upcoming David Cronenberg film, Cosmopolis. The word was that the Twilight star, for the love of Kristen Stewart, put the smack down on parts of shoot that would have involved a hot model going beyond the standard rubdown and to nipple licking. In other words he wasn’t have near as painful an experience as Kristen Stewart recently had. But, have no fear people who vicariously  live through the non-Twilight  Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart relationship, Nipplegate is being reported as not actually having occurred.

related: NEW COSMOPOLIS TEASERS: ROBERT PATTINSON, SEMI-NSFW STYLE

What it does leave us, however, if the image can even be trusted, is a picture that Gossip Cop reports was an homage to the aforementioned Cronenberg, part of a set that encompassed all of the slightly more “sexy” scenes that were related to Cosmopolis specifically. If nothing else, this strengthens any hope someone can have that Cosmopolis lives up to at least what it looks like – a badass vehicle for Pattinson.

Cosmopolis, based on the Don Delillo novel, will be featured in Cannes this month.

Word spread pretty quickly when pop star queen Britney Spears was announced to be joining Simon Cowell as a judge on Fox’s X Factor, and it was rumored Miley Cyrus or Demi Lovato would be asked to do the same. Surprisingly, the rumor appears to have been true because now news is circulating of Lovato’s hiring as the other judge. I honestly did not think they would go with someone so young, but I guess I must have been wrong. This certainly is a different direction. I just hope it pays off in the end, unlike the show’s first season, which ended with the firing of most of the judges and the host.

Technically this Lovato business could still just be a rumor. According to TVLine, Fox president Kevin Reilly would not confirm Lovato’s involvement, or Spears’ for that matter. It’s certainly an interesting choice to bring in the Sonny With a Chance star. Most are familiar with her troubles (specifically going to rehab for emotional and physical issues), which I guess weren’t surprising given her status as a Disney star. That bunch always seems to find themselves in trouble spots. It must be the pressures of being a role model. That can easily go to your head and psych you out. It can’t be an easy life to live, no matter who you are.

So why would Fox want her to be a judge on X Factor? She certainly doesn’t have the experience Cowell and Spears have, given her young age (she’s 19), but maybe her musical knowledge isn’t what they’re after. Maybe it’s a simple ploy to bring in a younger audience. I’m not going to pretend I have any answers. In all honesty, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but if Fox thinks it’s a good idea then we might as well let them try it out. I’m a big believer of waiting and seeing, so let’s do just that.

Kristen Stewart talks Bella Swan, specifically her final experiences as the character while conducting Twilight: Breaking Part 2 reshoots. Sitting down with MTV after the last month’s final touches, Kristen Stewart recounts reshooting a scene running through the woods and the rust and painful conclusion, including some choice words that probably won’t be making the Breaking Dawn Part 2 final cut! You can watch the video of Kristen telling the story herself below.

related: BREAKING DAWN PART 2 – KRISTEN STEWART, ROBERT PATTINSON, TAYLOR LAUTNER STARE DOWN

Of course, Kristen has been keeping herself rather busy post-Twilight, with Snow White and the Huntsman, a film she  stars in with Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth, looming as well as an adaptation of Jack Kerouac beatnik bible, On the Road, which she’s featured in along with Sam Riley and Garret Hedlund.

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2, the second half of the fourth and final chapter of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, hits theaters this November.

In a strange way, I almost wish How I Met Your Mother’s seventh season had ended with just Part 1 of “The Magician’s Code.” It certainly felt more like a finale, what with the birth of Marvin Wait For It Erickson being a big enough moment in the story for things to end. Having things carry on into Part 2 and revealing Barney’s bride sounds good on paper, but it just didn’t work out the way I had hoped. For all the twists and turns that happened, the ending wasn’t at all a surprise. The show tried so hard to be unpredictable that it ended up being completely predictable.

Let’s start with Part 1. Delivering a baby is a classic episode, especially in sitcoms. Every show needs to do this at some point, and with the more classic comedies it usually happens in the later seasons when the characters have gotten old and started settling down. Getting Marshall, who was last seen completely wasted in Atlantic City with Barney, to be at the birth of his son was a feat in and of itself and could have easily satisfied me as the finale. The jokes were funny on both ends of the story, with Robin and Ted recounting stories from over the years, some one-note, others told in multiple parts, and Barney doing his best to find a way back to New York for Marshall, which at one point involved stealing a motorcycle and riding it in the casino. It wasn’t the show’s most ingenious episode, but it provided the necessary moments to keep me involved in the proceedings. This could have very quickly gone down a bad road, as can happen with baby delivering stories of this type, but the show stuck the landing. It even managed to make Chris Elliot’s Mickey tolerable in a weird way. He’s such a difficult character to work with. By his very nature he’s a terrible father, so it’s nice to see him do things right from time to time.

Getting Marshal home ultimately serves as a reminder to Barney why he loves Quinn. I like Quinn. She has charisma to match Barney’s, so getting the two of them back together is a must. Unfortunately, they don’t reconcile until Part 2 gets rolling, when things start to get messy. It became immediately apparent the second Robin mentions Victoria we’d be seeing Ashley Williams at some point in the episode. She’s always welcome on the show, but this entire half of the episode felt like it should’ve been pushed to next season’s premiere. Or maybe just changed entirely. I like what they’re doing with Victoria; it makes sense. Ted needs to cross off the women in his life he may have a chance of happiness with before he can find the mother. He has eliminated Robin, and now all that’s left is to finish things with Victoria. So in a sense, I’m glad she came back, but I’m disappointed it was at the expense of her marriage.

It’s like Ted said; he was left at the altar and he just couldn’t do that another man. The right for him to do was to let Victoria go and marry this other guy. But this is the point when the episode starts needlessly throwing twist after twist at us. First Ted decides to run away with Victoria, then he doesn’t, and then he does again and the two ride off into the sunset together, hand in hand. It all happened so fast. They should have gone to the wedding and confronted the groom, or something! But they didn’t. Now we have to deal with the consequences.

Barney and Quinn’s storyline was highly amusing, as Barney is taken in by airport security for refusing to reveal what’s in his magic box because a magician never reveals his tricks. “It’s the magician’s code,” he says. From there we’re treated to some pretty funny scenes, but the cherry on top is the eventual reveal of Barney’s trick. I enjoyed how self-impressed Barney was at his magical prowess. And then of course the trick had to lead to him having a ring to give to Quinn, asking her to marry him. This is all good so far. I want Barney to marry Quinn. And then we flash foward.

We’re back to Barney’s wedding day and Ted is called away by the bride. Predictably, the bride ends up being Robin and my heart sinks. I knew in that moment I did not want Barney and Robin together. Seeing him in his tuxedo, nervous for his big day felt right. Seeing Robin in the same way, but in her wedding dress, was just wrong. That’s the only way I could describe it. It left me feeling so so wrong. Not only that, but it cheapens Barney’s proposal to Quinn in the present. Now we know they’re going to break up. We know Ted and Victoria are going to break up. These twists and turns can be exciting, but we know the end game already. All the fun gets taken out of the twists if you know what the end result is. If they had revealed Quinn as the bride, it would have worked because they showed the proposal in the present first. That would’ve strengthened what we see in the future. Instead, it just weakens everything.

All I can say at this point is I’m about tired of all the misdirection and curveballs. This show has been on too many years for it to go on like this indefinitely. Season 8 had better be the last year and it better end with Ted finding the mother. Or I’ll cry, loudly and obnoxiously.

And shouldn’t Ted’s kids already know who Barney marries? How can that be something they don’t know?

We’ll call it the flip side of The Good Wife just to keep within the parameters of the pithy analogy.  ABC’s upcoming drama, Red Widow, puts a new spin on the whole behind-every-good-man-is-a-good-woman concept.  Only, rather than focusing on the life of a dutiful wife standing tall for her flawed husband, who is a sitting public servant, Red Widow will follow the dutiful wife of a drug-ring middleman who is a dead body out in the driveway.

Yeah, probably a whole different paradigm there.  Whatever.  It’s late.

The gist of the story, as revealed in the Washington Post, is as follows:  The daughter (Radha Mitchell) of a Russian mob heavy (Rade Serbedjiza) loses her shady husband to a shady deal with a rival gang, and will now use everything she learned growing up in the family business to protect her children and bring her husband’s killers to justice.  Here’s the trailer:

Thus far, the only thing I don’t like is the fact that Red Widow will air on network television, which is no way to treat the Russian mob.  Especially not in the post-Eastern Promises world in which we now live.  I suppose I’m also not so into Mrs. Mob’s children mucking up my gangland epics with all their playdates and gummy fruit snacks.  And I guess if I’m going to be completely honest, I’m probably not all choked up with the idea of a female lead in this particular idiom in the first place, anymore than I’m into Pam Ward announcing college football games.  Not trying to be a chauvinist.  Just takes me out of the moment, that’s all.

And maybe, just maybe, I’m not willing to spend ten more minutes watching Rade Serbedzija light up the screen with that crazy energy until he washes his goddamned hair.

Okay, so maybe I’m not into the whole Red Widow thing at all, and maybe it’s for all the wrong reasons.  But they’re my reasons, and I’m sticking to them.  At least until somebody tells me I’m wrong.

This week at the finest purveyors of sequential art: Hold me closer, tiny blah blah; Jingoistic pulp at its finest; Two-way wrist radio not included; Maybe I was born to die in Berlin.

Dancer #1–I still have not read anything by Nathan Edmondson, though I’ve mentioned him in this here column once, if not twice.  If I remember correctly, though, I ordered this because Image had a flurry of intriguing crime titles solicited in Previews.  Or maybe I didn’t order it for that self-same reason–I get so many books as it is, and I’ve consistently been three weeks behind since March or so.  Anyways, this sounds like a peach: A retired assassin is in Milan with his ballerina girlfriend when (natch) his past comes back to haunt him in the form of an unknown sniper.  It may have been done, but I always like the juxtaposition of a cold-blooded killer and a warm innocent, especially if that innocent is also an artist of some kind.  It allows the creators to explore both the notions of crime as art and of good and evil.  Of course, that’s pretty easy to screw up and make all sentimental and sappy.  I guess we’ll find out this Wednesday.

The Shadow #2–I suppose I could  have guessed that Garth Ennis would set his Shadow story during the opening days of the Second World War.  Not just ’cause that was right around the golden age of pulp heroes, but also because Ennis is quite the obvious WWII buff.  What I’m really enjoying about this book so far though is that he’s characterizing the Shadow as this kind of jingoistic right-winger.  Which to my understanding fits in fairly well with the original, not to mention quite a number of other pulps.  The Yellow Peril was everywhere back then, and though the sub-text is quite discomforting (and so far nothing has been in-your-face about this; it could even be that I’m reading all this into the material myself), it’s nothing less than I would expect from Ennis: unflinching and honest.  I really hope he sticks with this for a while, especially since The Boys is nearing its finale.

Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy hardcover, volume 13–I turned 12 the summer that Disney’s live-action Dick Tracy hit the theaters, and so was in a prime position to swept up in Tracy fever (as opposed to the Dick-itis I succumbed to in college)(hardy har har).  But as it turns out, I was far more interested in the brand-new Roger Rabbit short cartoon that played in front of it, as was the case with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.  I did receive a big paperback collection of old Dick Tracy strips for my birthday that year, though, and I read a good chunk of it.  It didn’t really do it for me, though I hung on to the book well into my 20s, until I finally broke down and sold it in one of my rare purges.  All that said, I’m really glad IDW is taking a page out of Fantagraphics’s book, so to speak, by reprinting these fancy hardcover complete editions, like Fantagraphics’s Peanuts books.  I’m just more looking forward to Titan’s next Beetle Bailey collection this fall.

The Coldest City hardcover–Antony Johnston is a name that should be on your radar if you’re into comics at all. Wasteland is likely his most popular book these days, though I’ve never read it because I am pretty post-tolerant of the post-apocalypse these days.  I never much cared for his adaptations of Alan Moore’s stuff over at Avatar, but!  I happened upon a copy of his western, The Long Haul, with art by the legendary Eduardo Barreto, and that slim(-ish) volume was enough to sell me on the guy as a solid writer.  This is another, similarly formatted book, which I’m also not sure I ordered.  It’s 1989, and the Berlin Wall is about to come down, but some last minute spy shenanigans have commenced, not the least of which is a dead MI6 agent.  Espionage agent Lorraine Braughton has got to go in and put the kibosh on this powder keg.  I go back and forth on Cold War stuff these days, but you see so little of its later days in spy and/or crime fiction, that my interest is definitely piqued by this li’l book.

Also due out this week is the latest issue of Thief of Thieves that I’d hoped would be out last week, the second issue of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’s The Secret Service, and the new Scalped, which leaves us with only three more issues of that soon-to-be-sorely-missed book.  So you got no excuse this week, soldiers.  Get out there and buy some comics.  Tell ‘em the Complex sent you.

Kurt Sutter likes bad people. And apparently, the feeling is mutual. In Outlaw Empires, Discovery Channel’s recently premiered show and Sutter’s brainchild, hardcore criminals sit down with Sutter’s camera to talk about life outside society.

Sutter’s area of interest isn’t limited to pubic-bearded fat men with a highway-centric death wish. Outlaw Empires‘ season 1 spans six robust episodes that cover a variety of gangs.

Diversity has long been Sutter’s strong suit. Time on The Shield put plenty of notches on his belt.

Los Angeles will do that to you – it’s a southern California salad bowl of distinct cultures mixed up together. The Echo Park cadre of cops featured in The Shield ran afoul of Cartel thugs, Eastern European syndicates and local-grown sickos. Sutter even played the role of an Armenian hitman, in one of the greatest tangles that Vic Mackey’s anti-gang unit ever got into.

His hit creation, Sons of Anarchy, features every stripe of bad-ass to every sully the Golden State: The Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club (SAMCRO) themselves, Mexican Mafia, gangbangers from the inner city – even Irish gun runners. It’s this rogue’s gallery that Sutter picked from for Outlaw Empires:

Crips, the South Boston Irish, 1% Motorcycle Clubs, the Gambinos, Nuestra Familia and the Aryan Brotherhood are all slated for an appearance.

Once under the camera, these self-proclaimed criminals will break the convention of what a crime documentary show should be.

They’ll be talking about slice-of-life and culture as much as they will about ass-kicking. The idea of Kurt Sutter’s Outlaw Empires is to veer away from the melodrama of a show like Gangland, where stock footage and brooding music are quick-cut into a succession of jailbirds fronting about their glory days. These men and women will discuss what it was like on a daily basis, what the allure of the lifestyle was and what the upswing of the culture held for them.

I’m excited to see Outlaw Empires. Kurt Sutter is the Caesar of crime TV for this generation – he has fortune and glory on his side. Better yet, he has some friends in low places on his side too.

This is a big day in history for me, so pardon me if I sound a little insensitive and harsh, but CSI: Miami has been canceled after 10 years of being on CBS! I really wish I could say both Miami and CSI: NY were canceled, but at the last minute NY received a renewal, which I guess is okay. In my eyes, NY is definitely the lesser of two evils. Both have been on the bubble when it comes to renewal time for the past couple years; so I’m not surprised Miami had to go. It’s just not that great of CSI show, let alone a regular show. I mean, come on, it receives tons of ridicule online. That’s not a good sign.

related:  CSI: MIAMI CANCELED. CALLED IT!

TVLine, like everyone major news outlet, reported the story, but it was EW.com that pointed out Miami went out without a proper series finale. The last episode of the series aired on April 8^th, and while they were given enough warning to make the episode feel sort of final (they had the main cast, minus Emily Procter, all meet at a bar), it was not necessarily supposed to be a series finale. And CBS isn’t about to cough up a bunch of money to allow the long running series to film a legitimate finale, though even I can admit that would be nice for fans of the series to have.

I mostly feel bad for David Caruso. He alone is at the butt of most jokes regarding the series, though I like to think they’re jokes made out of love. The whole putting on the sunglasses while doing a one liner thing is endearing. The series may not have been good television, but it was entertaining. I’m a little sad we won’t have any more classy moments with Horatio Caine. Caruso, I’m sure, feels the same way and has been very kind to his fans, going to the trouble of thanking them all on Twitter.

While we here at Criminal Complex aren’t afeared of the odd high concept televisual entertainment (heck, our own Josh Converse has a mighty love affair with the sadly cancelled Awake), network offerings like these can leave us mighty puzzled.

While it isn’t for us mere mortals to comprehend the hefty decision making that goes into what appears on our screens, I figured I’d give it a crack, anyway: due to their long-honoured agreement, Fox has yet again summoned their High-Concept Griffin into their production rooms. Just in time for their new season, the pesky Griffin has expurgated plotlines for two series from its “crime-thriller” cauldron.

As is the Griffin’s want, Fox executives have begun shooting the shows, and released trailers for each. And both look, well, lacking, to be honest.

Let’s first look at The Following – the place to get your RDI of Kevin Bacon (that’s a freebee, Fox marketing). This Kevin (Scream, Dawson’s Creek) Williamson show follows Bacon as a disgraced former FBI agent who comes back into the field when the serial killer he caught years ago escapes and, of course, goes on a rampage. The best (and worst) part of The Following looks to be its central conceit, which is that serial killer Carroll (James Purefoy) has got an army of serial killers who will do his work across the country, like some sort of… of… emulating… or perhaps, some sort of… supporting…

Well, wherever they got the title, The Following has its work cut out making me not think that its plot looks stupid. It features all the clichés one expects of a “gritty” cop thriller made in the wake of Seven and James Patterson – shots of Kevin “I’m not an agent anymore” Bacon sneaking booze on the job; tense Silence of the Lambs-esque interrogations where the killer Turns The Tables; apparently the serial killer was “making art” – which is said with such po-faced dickery that Kevin Bacon needs to get an Emmy for making it seem like this is a reasonable thing a person would say, ever. But hey, Justified’s Natalie Zea is here, fulfilling some sort of contractual obligation to always play the bitter, sassy ex-wife.

There is a part of me that hopes this show could give in to its more bug-nuts nature, and could turn into a Western Death Note, but then I realise that No.

Now, the other show that we’ve got previewed has a bit of a cooler (and less ridiculous) premise that doesn’t require me writing 400 words to summarise, in fact, just two: mob doctor. It’s even called The Mob Doctor. Perfect. Simple. Clean. There. Sold. Fucking cool idea, make a million dollars, guys.

Oh, wait? Watch the trailer? Ok, sure, I can’t see why that would… oh… oh dear.

This one starts off okay enough, some all right dark humour, but like The Following, it feels the need to layer its cool premise (MOB DOCTOR!) with what looks like a horrible medical dramedy and dialogue from that sounds like cliché factory seconds.

It seems that our perfect Dr. Perfect has a deal with the mob to save her fuck-up brother, that causes her to lead a double life tending to the mob’s sick. Even Complex-favourite, William Forsythe, doesn’t appear to be able to save this one.  Although, having said that, this one looks like it could end up being okay once it finds its feet. So, let’s not be too hasty with judgement. Solid premise, nice cast, but the tone of that trailer is pretty grating. So let’s muster leavened dampened enthusiasm for The Mob Doctor!

While it’s possible that some rock hard shows are presiding beneath the awful pants of these trailers (although, The Mob Doctor seems to have more chance of that than The Following), both shows appear to have arrived feeling tired.

But then again, maybe that’s the point – the whims of the High-Concept Griffin aren’t for you or I to know.

“Because there are rules.” That is Dream’s reply to Matthew, who wonders why one of the most powerful creatures in the universe has to give in to the demands of the Kindly Ones and risk his entire existence.

My immediate response, perhaps because I share a name with the raven, was to whine to myself: “But why!?!”

Rules and traditions create limitations, and that’s the point. In a story full of magic and fantasy, where, conceivably, anything could happen, it’s important that there be some basic rules to keep the possibilities from being infinite. Rules ground and govern our expectations; if the storyteller could have absolutely anything happen at any moment, suspense would be impossible and surprise would quickly stop being surprising. If my sentences here were not connected to each other by at least general (perhaps tenuous) rules of logic and transition, you might grow exasperated and stop reading, because what rules could possibly explain why the sentence after this one is, “Just a year later I saw him, working at the stand; then, again, he was gone.” Just a year later I saw him, working at the stand; then, again, he was gone.

The rule that put that sentence there was not a rule but an impulse. The sentence is from The Motion of Light in Water by Samuel Delany, and I stuck it here because the book happened to be sitting on my desk. I opened randomly to a page and copied down the first sentence I saw.

That’s a technique that can be interesting in poetry and certain types of experimental fiction, places where chaos and, especially, randomness can produce compelling results when placed up against the often invisible conventions and traditions of more regulated literature, but even then, such techniques are rarely randomly random. Sometimes, in fact, they are the result of strict rules. Consider Walter Abish’s book Alphabetical Africa, where every word in Chapter 1 begins with the letter A; in chapter 2 with A or B; in chapter 3 with A, B, or C, etc. Or Georges Perec’s La Disparition (translated as A Void), a novel written entirely without any words containing the letter E. Such rules create fierce constraints and are as inexorable as the rules that seem to be leading Dream to his doom.

We don’t (or, well, I don’t) generally think of dreams as realms of rules — I would not be surprised to dream about writing a Sandman Meditation, for instance, in which I suddenly and with no reason wrote a random sentence, and never commented on it. (Just a year later I saw him, working at the stand; then, again, he was gone.) But we do seek to understand our dreams, to reflect them back on our lives. Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams is an attempt to find, or perhaps impose, some rules.

Our desire for rules and our hatred for randomness and chaos fuels both science and superstition. We seek to understand the universe we are part of, and so we study it, we experiment, we poke and prod and measure to find the meaning behind events and behaviors. We hold onto superstitions, even if we’re not the superstitious type, because they help make meaning, they stand as bulwarks against the possibility that all is random. It’s not even that we fear purposelessness, though plenty of people do — I am, myself, perfectly comfortable with the idea that the universe has no discernable purpose, but I would never say it’s all just random. There are too many rules.

Stories are appealing because they fight against randomness, they impose order. The words in a story are chosen to follow one after the other, the sentences work together to build images and characters and plots. The rules may come from the writing itself, or they may be dictated by genre or other expectations, but they are there, and they are both comforting and entertaining. A story full of inexorable fate will keep us turning the pages, as will a story like The Sandman that challenges our expectations, because without rules we would have no expectations to be challenged.

My own understanding of how the realms of The Sandman work — my expectations — provided an unexpected moment of emotional response at the end of Part 12. For at least a few chapters now, it has seemed that Dream will not escape the Furies, that he will have to suffer some great loss, that he may be destroyed. I did not think I was particularly emotionally attached to this character, because he isn’t exactly the sort of creature to inspire warm and cuddly feelings. When he told Matthew to go and get his sister and to send her to him, I knew, of course, that his sister is Death, but what he was asking didn’t really register until the final panel. “He wants you to go to him,” Matthew says to Death. It was a shivers-down-the-spine moment for me. I truly caught my breath. The slow progression toward this moment had, it seems, put various expectations in place without my even knowing it. The rules of stories and this story converged at that one moment to let me realize what it meant for Dream’s sister to go to him then.

Plenty of previous Sandman moments have proved my expectations wrong — have, indeed, deliberately built up expectations only to complicate them — but I would be especially surprised if my expectations here are wrong. Too much has gone into creating them. Sometimes, fate truly is inexorable, even in dreams.

Because there are rules.

<—Go back and read Sandman Meditations: The Kindly Ones part 11

Move on to Sandman Meditations: The Kindly Ones part 13—->