Thursday, June 21, 2012

Ketchup

I've been working away in lovely Toronto Canada on Hemlock Grove and failing to keep up with my blogging duties, so how about a little catch up?

So first, Hemlock Grove, which will be appearing via Netflix sometime early-ish next year.  Starring Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott and a dazzling array of other excellent cast members, we're going for something that is NOT your father's horror show with this project  Scary, sexy, dark and yet occasionally funny -- this one's definitely going to raise some eyebrows.  Eli Roth directs the first episode, then this train is officially on the tracks.

So how about that Falling Skies premiere?  Since Canada doesn't get the show on a regular (non-Super) channel, I haven't seen the show(s) yet but I saw many cuts and hopefully they looked even better all scrubbed and polished.  I also wrote the penultimate episode of F.S. season two, introducing a whole new host of problems for the beleaguered 2nd Mass, and will appear in the "2nd Watch" segment following that episode.  Keep yer eyes peeled.

So how about that Prometheus?  As writer of the first ALIENS comics way back when, I have more than a mild interest in that world, and Prometheus is an interesting prequel... though evidently there has been a lot of argument in fan circles over whether it actually IS a prequel.  Your requisite science majors have been picking apart so-called logic holes, but as a compelling story with some great sequences (I'm looking at you, Noomi Rapace) I got my $17.00 (Canadian) worth.  And what a look they created here... forget the planetscapes and space-ships, the delicate 3-D graphics aboard the ship are dazzling.  

That's all I know today... more soon!

5 comments:

Muldfeld said...

I still haven't returned to my folks' place to check out my Season 1 DVD of "Falling Skies", but I was just in Wyoming and Montana with them and kept seeing ads, but hoped I wasn't getting spoiled because these were ads for Season 2 and I haven't even seen Season 1.

Noomi Rapace is a great actress -- so much better than the curvy American woman who played her role in the US version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- but I strongly felt this film lacked texture and quality dialogue of many great works in the genre (say, "Moon" by David Bowie's son or a little show called "Battlestar Galactica") and the faith thing felt tacked on and nonsensical like a Season 5 "Lost" episode. I just didn't care about the characters at all and all the dynamics were lifted from the superior Alien 1 and 2. I didn't like it when I was a young teen, but, as I look back, "Alien 3" was pretty good. The visuals were good, though, but that just made me upset that they didn't put more effort into fleshing out the characters and find real connectable meaning.

Muldfeld said...

I remember watching "Alien" when I was 12, after seeing "Aliens" when I was 8, and being awed by how frightening it was, even though there were far fewer aliens. It's such a well made film.

I hope you're able to deal with Toronto's disgusting weather. I miss the complete lack of humidity of the mountainous regions of Wyoming and Montana. No wonder there are so many conservatives in these places: there's no reason to complain about the heat. I've been living in a continental climate (Quebec and Ontario) since I was 4, and have NEVER gotten used to it.

When I was 12 or so, my big brother says I threatened to punch him when he took our one fan that I usually monopolized in the middle of the night, shouting "give it back!" He also says that, one time, when he was hugging me when I was asleep, I opened my eyes long enough to punch him in the face before immediately falling back asleep. I remember none of this...

Muldfeld said...

I just saw this scary thriller called "388 Arletta Ave." with my father, who's visiting me this week, at Carleton Magic Lantern cinema, which is independent, but has pretty good air conditioning. I think you might like it. We both really enjoyed it, but the score was poor on Rotten Tomatoes; which leads me to another criticism of the over-dependence on Rotten by many; it only measures popular mediocre enthusiasm for a movie (the awful "In Bruges" and "Paris, je t'aime" got very high scores, not intensity of love by fewer critics. It's Canadian but stars the very good Nick Stahl.

http://rainbowcinemas.ca/A/index.php?theatre=Carlton&synopsis=true#388_Arletta_Ave

The closest subway station is College and it's on the same block as the cinema. Tuesdays are a bad day because it's a cheap day and lots of low lives who talk and even sleep and snore during films show up. Otherwise, the clientele is very well-behaved; lots of smart old folks.

I also saw "Cosmopolis" yesterday, which had interesting ideas about modernity and capitalist excess, but it was typical David Lynch pretension with unrealistic behavior and confusingly quick dialogue; the guy's so over-rated.

Muldfeld said...

388 Arletta Ave. won't be playing after today, but I'm sure you can catch it in L.A. I can't imagine how awesome your indie cinemas must be there.

Rasenna said...

The first two hours of Falling Skies was very, very good... though that one thing in the second hour was a little creepy. I look forward to the rest of the season.