Game of Throne's Melisandre (Carice van Houten) is no stranger to the dark arts.

The second season of HBO's Game of Thrones is just around the corner. We will soon get to see two of the pivotal character's introduced in the second volume of George R.R. Martin's gripping series—Stannis Baratheon, Robert's brother and possibly rightful heir to the throne and his mistress, Melisandre, priestess of R'hllor. Both roles have been filled using actors with genre experience, which seems to be the rule rather than the exception on Game of Thrones.

Stannis, the humorless, downright grumpy middle Baratheon brother will be played by Stephen Dillane, who nerds might remember as Merlin from the Clive Owen King Arthur. Of the new actors joining the case, this is the only one that gives me pause. Dillane is a fine actor who has been good in some good movies and the best thing in some awful ones (I'm looking at you Red Mist), but he doesn't seem a good fit physically for Stannis. Of course, his acting chops are more important than his physical presence, especially since that is something that can be pretty easily faked, so I'm certainly willing to give the guy a chance to prove me wrong.

 

More spot on is the casting of Carice van Houten as Melisandre. Not only is she a perfect match for the Melisandre I pictured while reading the novels, she has also had solid genre experience (in a film with poor Eddard Stark, nonetheless). The Dutch actress first came to my attention as the purported necromancer in Christopher Smith's underrated Black Death.

As a pagan sorceress protecting her village from the encroaching plague, van Houten is alternately charismatic and frightening. It is not too hard to imagine the producers of Game of Thrones watching Black Death and seeing this beautiful woman in red sacrificing Christians and thinking, “There's our Melisandre!”

As we approach the premier of season 2, we will be continuing our look at the new cast members.  Check back soon.

Fox strands Terra Nova residents in the distant past...

 Just when Terra Nova was starting to get interesting, Fox today announced that they were canceling the ambitious, but flawed, show. I watched every episode, feeling obligated to support the kind of show I wanted to see more of, even if it took them awhile to get rolling.The Shannon's react to news that Terra Nova has been canceled.

I should have known better than to get interested in a big-budget science-fiction television series, especially one on one of the big-four networks. The list of shows that I enjoyed for a brief run before they met their early demise is vast and goes back to the 1970's. Some of the shows were actually great and deserved more attention (Firefly, Jericho, The Event); others were not as good as I would have wanted them to be, but were still fun and ambitious (The Dollhouse, Surface). Terra Nova is in that latter group. There was a lot to love about the back-to-the-land-of-dinosaurs eco-fable, but they writers and producers wasted too many early episodes on side stories and one-off events. Had they jumped right into the larger conspiracy they may have been able to hold on to the above-average audience numbers that watched the premier. As it is, I wonder if the cancellation marks the end of ambitious, big-budget science-fiction on the networks at least for a while.  

Review: Chronicle (2012) Dir. Josh Trank

Chronicle Review

One of my favorite comics of the last few years is Robert Kirkman’s Invincible. It tells the story of a regular teenager coming in to his superpowers. The comic eschews normal comic book conflict in favor of real, human problems. Chronicle takes a similar approach but goes one step further, stripping away all but the most necessary components of a super-hero story (the super powers themselves). This is the story of three young men who discover they have super powers and have no one to turn to for help other than each other.

The characters in Chronicle are cut from a pretty broad cloth. The three teens fit nicely in to familiar categories: the troubled outcast, the jock, the preppy. The jock (Matt) provides the connection between the others; he is the cousin of our troubled teen (Andrew) and friends with the preppy (Steve). When these three get super powers after discovering a mysterious object, we would have to be pretty vapid not to know where things are going. Give a troubled, abused teen super powers and things are bound to get bad before long. Chronicle doesn’t have much in the way of surprises for us. The teens behave like we expect movie teens in their situation to behave. There is inevitability to Andrew’s decline that permeates the film even during the festive scenes when the teens are discovering all of their new abilities. I’ve heard it suggested that the film could have been improved simply by changing which character goes “bad,” but that doesn’t work for me as it isn’t too uncommon to see a jock or a preppy go bad in genre films, which tend to celebrate the outcasts and vilify the popular. I think the characters, as archetypal as they may be, work well enough, thanks, mainly, to solid performances by the three principal actors.

The film is the first for director Josh Trank and writer Max Landis, who both come to the project after beginning in television. It is an auspicious debut for both. Though I would certainly have rather seen Trank abandon or, at least, supplement the “found footage” format, he keeps things moving briskly and provides the viewer with dozens of memorable images. The action scenes and big set pieces are especially well-handled, but the small, intimate scenes also play well.  Perhaps that is helped along by Landis’s screenplay, which puts words in the characters’ mouths that you could actually imagine them saying, a rarity for genre films, and gets the core emotions of all three protagonists just right.  Here’s hoping we can keep both of these gentlemen working in genre film for a while at least.  Does the Invincible project still need a director? a sceenplay?

Chronicle isn’t a perfect picture by any means.  I really disliked the poetic license the film took in order to get a camera in every scene (though the blending of hand-held and security cam footage was handled well).  Every character not among the main three was completely flat and uninteresting.  Still, despite those problems, the film was very enjoyable.   I especially enjoyed the section in which the teens were learning what all they were capable of, and, especially, the amazing talent show.  With any luck, getting such a solid genre picture in the wasteland that is February releases means we have a very good year to look forward to.   

Score:  8.5/10

Twisted Metal Demo Impressions (PS3)

Twisted Metal (PS3, Releases Feb 14, 2012)

Seriously, how cool does this look?

Quick Demo Impressions

                I’m not afraid to say that about half-way through my first online deathmatch with the new Twisted Metal demo, I was giggling like a demented clown.  These days, I play a bit of Halo, COD, and Battlefield 3 for my multi-player fix, and I enjoy them, for the most part, but I never really get engaged with the action to the point that I want to get any better than I already am (read: mediocre).  Turns out I was waiting for a new Twisted Metal game even if I didn’t know it.

                I loved the PSX era Twisted Metal games and count Twisted Metal: Black as one of my favorite games of its generation, so it isn’t as if the joy that is the new Twisted Metal was a huge surprise.  There is something very appealing for me in the barely controlled chaos of vehicular combat.  I get far more of a visceral thrill from ramming a vehicle that I’ve just caused to stall and hitting it with a succession of missiles as it flies away from me than I do from camping with a rifle and waiting for some poor fool to come into my crosshairs.  The almost choreographed ballet of explosions and crashes and missiles and bombs and special weapons is incredibly satisfying. 

                But, enough with this general love fest.  How about some specifics?

• ·         Graphics:  The game looks great and moves smoothly.  I noticed a slight bit of slowdown in the middle of massive firefights, but I imagine the demo split off a while ago and the slowdown is rare enough that I can’t imagine it will be an issue in the final games.  With a limited amount of levels to look at, it is hard to comment on the art design, but it is likely safe to say that the game isn’t as stylized as TM: Black.  Not as stylized, but much brighter and more colorful.  The buildings all have a real-world design and everything appears to be destructible.  I didn’t run into instances of triggered environmental effects like those featured in TM: Black, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in the full game.  I found those really appealing, so I hope they make the cut.  (Clarification: I’ve been keeping myself in a Twisted Metal news bubble because I want to come to the experience with fresh eyes.  It is very possible that the company has released tons of footage of scripted environmental elements all over Youtube).  Also, the vehicles look great and I can’t wait to see the ones not present in the demo.

• ·         Controls:  I have some issues here.  If you could train a chimpanzee to control the game using both hands and both feet, he would still envy the monkey players with prehensile tails.  Seriously, this game requires the use of every button on the Dual Shock and you will often be using most of them simultaneously.  Undoubtedly, the game is going to have a serious learning curve. Did I mention the game even makes use of the accelerometer (just for boosting, but, still)?  Sometimes complex controls exist because the designers didn’t put enough effort in to streamlining them.  That doesn’t seem to be the case here.  The game lets you have a lot of control over every aspect of driving and combat, and that requires the use of lots of buttons.  For the record, I was using the Classic control scheme.  The one time I switched to the alternative scheme, I found it to be very unwieldy.

• ·         Gameplay:  The demo includes two modes: Deathmatch and the capture-the-flag variant, Nuke.  I haven’t played enough Nuke to get a good grasp on it as I had trouble connecting to games during matchmaking.  Deathmatch, on the other hand, suffered from no such problem, so most of my matches were played there.  How does it work?  There are lots of other vehicles driving around and you try to kill them before they kill you.  As I said early, the game is visceral, explosive fun.  It has been a while since I last played TM:Black Online, but it is safe to say this game is going to seriously raise the bar for vehicular combat games.  The speed, precise controls, and great physics engine allow for multiple strategies while the ridiculous special attacks keep players from getting too “thinky.”  The cars seem to take a lot of damage before going down and health power-ups abound, so I never experienced the annoying spawn-into-death so common in current gen shooters.  

• ·         Questions:  I have a lot of them, but they are going to be answered soon enough.  Will the single-player “campaign” be meaty enough to hold my interest?  Will online play be smooth?  Are there enough players that still care about Twisted Metal (or can the franchise attract enough new players) to make for a vibrant online community.  Will the complex controls turn off players?  Will I ever master them?  How many billions of matches will I have to play before I win one? 

Happily, I only have a week to wait to get these answers (more, possibly, for that last one).  I’m only interested in a handful of games this coming year and Twisted Metal tops that list.  The demo did nothing but make me more excited.  Expect a review of the full game in a couple of weeks.

Doctor Who: The Movie--let the gnashing of teeth begin

The first thing I saw when I got up this moring was an exchange of fearful messages from some online friends based on the news that "Hollywood" would be tackling a Doctor Who film franchise led by director David Yates.  If you haven't seen the original article from Variety, click here (it pops) to get caught up.  A good deal of the fear about the film will come from the fact that it isn't being made in Britain, but given that everyone involved at the moment from Yates to BBC Worldwide are British, I doubt we are going to get an Americanized version of the Who story.  Nobody wants that.  Of course, I reserve the right to change my opinion when they cast Will Smith as The Doctor.  

That said, I'll be watching the production closely as it moves forward.  My big fear is that the franchise is due for a failure.  Russel T. Davies did such a brilliant job re-imagining the mythology and Moffat has followed up with darker and even more brilliant stories that hearing Yates say that the film would be a whole new re-imagining of the property doesn't feel me with confidence.  It is hard to imagine that Yates has the passion for the character that Davies and Moffat have exhibited.  Throughout the run of the current show, fans have been able to remain confident that The Doctor was in good hands.  Now, we have to wait and see.  

What really interests me, being the nerd I am, is whether the Doctor from the film franchise will count as one of The Doctor's twelve regenerations or, like Peter Cushing, he will be relegated to an alternate reality separate from the television series.  I'm sure it will be the latter but one could hope for further exploration of the Time Lord mythology.

So, what do you think about the proposed film series?