Game of Thrones episode 1

I finally got around to watching the first episode of Game of Thrones recently. This is the HBO epic fantasy drama that was made in Northern Ireland last year. It's a bit odd to think it was made where I live and not Vancouver or Prague. (I've read that some of season two was shot at Downhill Strand a week or two ago. That's just up the road from me.)

Anyway I enjoyed the first episode very much. There's not a lot of fantasy elements as such. To me it feels a litte more like Dune in the sense that you have different families, or houses as they are called, vying for power and influence. Sean Bean plays Lord Eddard Stark who guards the colder lands to the North on behalf of the king. The northern border is marked by the Wall, a vast man-made ice barrier that was built to keep something out.

There is a lot of back story to this tale. Some years previously the reigning Targaryen king was deposed and his family slaughtered. Across the sea Viserys Targaryen plots to be returned to the throne and marries his sister Daenerys off to the warlord Khal Drogo to gain an army. I felt very sorry for poor Daenerys as played by Emilia Clarke. I'm particularly interested in seeing how her story plays out.

The episode has a shocking ending but I won't give it away. Lets just say that some of the Lannister family are quite nasty people.

There are a few "naughty bits" in the episode, but it didn't feel like HBO were including them for the sake of it. It always felt important to the character and plot development.

I bought the tie-in edition of the novel a while back and finally got reading some of it. In fact I had pretty much read the material that was covered by the first episode. So what I'm going to try to do is read the book just ahead of each episode. I think I've covered the material of the second episode so I'll treat myself to watching it very soon!

Worth mentioning is the opening credits sequence. The music is memorable and the animation of the castles and landscape is pretty unique.  Here's a youtube video but it doesn't really do it justice. You need to see it on a widescreen TV with the volume up.

Lara Pulver in Sherlock

I'm happy to read that, as well as appearing in the upcoming series of Spooks, Lara Pulver will be appearing in the new series of the BBC's modern take on Sherlock Holmes.

She will be playing Irene Adler, a character that originally appeared in Conan Doyle's story A Scandal in Bohemia. If I recall correctly she has the distinction of managing to best Holmes. The first line of the story reads,

To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman.

I look forward to seeing how she is used in the new version.

Source: http://www.denofgeek.com/television/1002838/sherlock_series_2_casting_news.html

Captain America

I finally went to see the new Captain America movie last night. initially I was a bit “meh” about a movie based on this character but as time went on I wanted to see this movie more and more, I think partly to do with the world war two setting.


Some spoilers may follow but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum

I have a general knowledge of the character but nowhere near as much on say spider-man or the x-men. But I knew enough to hope that the movie might end with Cap being frozen in ice with a view to him being thawed out in time for next year’s Avenger’s movie. So I was surprised and quite happy to see the opening scene set in the present with a team in the Arctic finding the wreckage of a mysterious aircraft frozen in the ice.

Then we go back to the 1940s and encounter Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt, a Nazi looking for a cosmic cube left behind by the gods. He is head of an organisation called Hydra and harnessing the energy of the cube through science will give him ultimate power to remake the world in his own image. When he finds the cube in Norway there is a nice little nod towards Raiders of the Lost Ark when Schmidt says “and the Fuhrer is too busy digging for trinkets in the desert”.

Then over to 1940s New York where we meet a very weedy Steve Rogers is trying to enlist, somewhat unsuccessfully given his long list of ailments. There’s a nice glimpse of the Marvel version of the period with the Expo display of future technologies and Howard Stark's flying car. I’m very intrigued how they did Chris Evans as a wimp. I’ll need to look it up. It’s extremely well done though.

Eventually Steve gets picked for the super soldier programme and gets turned into a taller and less weedy version. It’s now that we meet Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter who works for the research organisation behind the super soldier program. It’s nice to see her with an English accent because it give the SSR an allied component rather than being purely American.

While he wants to serve his country on the battlefield it is felt that Steve would be of more use in the propaganda war. Cure a very entertaining sequence with Cap on tour to raise money for war bonds in a cheesy costume. It’s mounted as a full musical number in the middle of a World War Two superhero move. Wonderful!

While on tour to troops in Europe Steve finds out his old friend Bucky has been captured by Hydra and with a little help from Peggy and Howard Stark he goes alone behind enemy lines to rescue them. I’m not sure why Schmidt is so quick to blow up his own base when the prisoners escape but I’ll overlook it. It’s now that Schmidt is revealed to be the Red Skull, Captain America’s nemesis.

Some of the prisoners cap frees become his team, a combination of the Howling Commandos and The Invaders from the comics. I know because I looked it up.

The action moves to an embattled London where our heroes plan to take out the Red Skull’s other bases. Here I have a couple of niggles. For example a newspaper headline reads “London burns”. I think the people of London would have noticed. Later a voice is heard on a loudspeaker telling citizens to stay indoors until the all clear. Surely they would have known about the all clear after however many years of war. But those are nitpicking niggles.

Without giving too much away the Red Skull and Captain America are fated to meet again on a large flying wing aircraft. (Another Raiders reference I wonder?)

I was a little disappointed by the music by Alan Silvestri. There was no identifiable “Captain America” theme and it was all fairly forgettable.

Overall I enjoyed the movie very much. I think it stands as one of the best Marvel movies so far.

If you sit through the end credits you will be rewarded with a tiny glimpse of a movie coming out next summer. Plus you get to hear the musical number again.

Lucy Brown in New Tricks

Just a quick alert that Lucy Brown, formally of Primeval, is guest staring in New Tricks on Monday 4th July 2011 on BBC1.

http://www.locatetv.com/tv/new-tricks/season-8/7179173

Thanks to George for the alert.

Tron Legacy

I saw Tron Legacy on DVD a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to post my thoughts on it.

I can't say I'm a giant fan of the original. I do remember seeing it in the cinema as a child and I can remember doodling light cycle races on the page of my school exercise book when I should have been paying more attention to what the teacher was saying.

The new movie appeared in cinemas at the end of 2010 and seemed to get a good number of mediocre reviews. Therefore when I popped the disk into the player I had low enough expectations.

The movie opens with a scene set in the 1980s with a younger computer generated Jeff Bridges aka Kevin Flynn telling his son Sam a story about his adventures in The Grid. I noted the Black Hole poster on the bedroom wall! Flynn leaves and is never seen again. Two decades later and Flynn's company is making lots of money from their operating system. It's making Sam rich but he isn't taking an active part in running the company.

As you will have seen in the trailers Alan Bradley, played again by Bruce Boxleitner, turns up with the news that he was paged from Kevin Flynn's old phone that has been disconnected for 20 years. Sam zooms off to check out the old Flynn video arcade and promptly gets zapped into The Grid.

At this point I have to say I do like the look of The Grid. Everything is shiny and glassy. No, not quite glassy, but there is a pleasing almost-translucent quality to all the surfaces.

Sam's quest sees him try to make it to the portal that will let him return to the real world. Along the way he takes part in the games, including I am glad to say, a light cycle race. He also meets the young computer generated Bridges character CLU who informs him "I am not your father" in a nice reversal of the famous line from The Empire Strikes Back. Later Olivia Wlide's Quorra takes him to meet the older Bridges who is indeed his dad and has been trapped in the Grid by his own creation.

I found I liked the relatively minor character Gem very much. She is one of the 'sirens' who gives Sam his Grid type outfit for the games. Later she appears again and takes Sam to meet Caster in the night club place. I liked that actress's performance as there is always a little half smile on her face that suggests 'I know more than you do'.

There are a few surprise reveals that are not too surprising, namely the true identities of Rinzler, Quorra and Zuse respectively. I saw them all coming but maybe a kid would find them surprising so that's ok.

And I enjoyed the movie very much. I'd certainly rate it a lot higher than the mediocre reviews. it held my attention throughout, I connected with the characters, was suitably amazed at the visuals and it's also worth noting that I really enjoyed the music soundtrack. It's also nice to see the original design of the light cycle appear.

Any negatives? Well I thought the CGI Bridges was good but there was something not quite right with the eyes. But then he's a CGI creation representing a computer program, not a human, so maybe that's ok too. otherwise it was pretty amazing to see what they can do with CGI now.

Overall I liked it and right away it went on my list of movies to buy on DVD.

X-Men: First Class review

I may have mentioned it before, but I am a big fan of the X-Men movies, going back to 2001 when I rented the video (!) of the first movie. Actually I think I bought the DVD shortly after that. It was probably one of the first DVDs I did buy.

This week sees the release of the fourth (or fifth) X-Men movie and marks the return of Bryan Singer, the director of the first two, albeit in a producing capacity. It also marks the "return" of Matthew Vaughn who almost directed the third movie. Much has been written (or at least read by me) about the movie's 1960s setting, the new take on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the short production schedule and some deliberate nods towards a certain 1960s spy movie series.

So having finally seen the movie here are my initial thoughts, sans spoilers.

First of all I do have to mention the recreation of the opening scene of the first movie. It will be very interesting to watch the inevitable shot-by-shot comparison that will do doubt turn up on YouTube.

Much credit must be directed towards Misters McAvoy and Fassbender who did did great work playing Sirs Patrick and Ian. James McAvoy played the good professor in a way we have never seen him before, clearly making the most of the 1960s and a full head of hair.

Michael Fassbender as Erik went for it. The word that springs to mind is "intensity". There are a few scenes early in the movie that are gripping purely based on his performance and the sense of danger he exudes. Watch out for the scenes in the Swiss bank and the South American bar. And it's great to see Erik doing dangerous things with metal. At one point he finds an interesting use for a ship's anchor chain. If I have one complaint it is that I do think his Irish accent was becoming a bit pronounced near the end of the movie.

It's also great to see Charles and Erik become friends. In the original movie Erik and Charles do refer to each other as "old friend" on occasion. Here we see how their bond was formed and its nice that the chess games are referenced. Particular mention must be made of the "rage and serenity" scene.

However I do think the movie has a third lead, namely Jennifer Lawrence. This movie goes some way to make amends to Mystique by giving her more screen time after she was unceremoniously "cured" so early in the third movie. In a way the movie is as much about her as it is about Professor X and Magneto. We obviously know she'll end up joining Magneto but it's quite a revelation to see her first meeting with Charles and the bond that develops between them.

It was also nice to see Hank McCoy/Beast getting some screen time. Nicholas Hoult played him endearingly geeky.

In the previous movies the team used the X-Jet. Here they use a plane based on the SR-71 which is a nice nod to the comics and the period. I want to build that model kit now.

Kevin Bacon plays the villain of the piece, Sebastian Shaw, who has a link to what happened young Erik in 1944. He is perhaps the most villainous of all the bad guys we've seen in the movie series so far. January Jones played a suitably icy Emma Frost.

A couple of inconsistencies with the previous movies do now arise. In particular the first scene of X3 no longer fits into this continuity, but this is something I will happily ignore.

There were two surprise cameos from original cast members. One in particular had the audience in stitches.

So overall I enjoyed it and I will be hoping we will see a First Class series develop. If this is what they can do with a curtailed shooting schedule then I want to see what they can do with more time!

Lara Pulver joins Spooks cast

This unexpected news just landed in my inbox.

Lara Pulver is to join the cast of the BBC's spy drama Spooks when it returns for it's tenth series later this year. She will apparently replace the Sophia Myles character who only joined the cast last year.

Her character is described as “ambitious, hungry and determined to make her mark”.

I'm quite a Lara fan after her appearance in Robin Hood in 2009 so I'm looking forward to seeing her in the new series.

Source: www.expressandstar.com