Some sad news today, as Andy Hallett, the actor who portrayed lovable lounge-singer demon Lorne on four seasons of Angel, passed away for heart failure at the age of 33.
Apparently, Hallett had been battling heart disease for over five years, so while it's a good thing that his suffering is over, it's sad to see such a young man pass away.
Having read this book a few times to the Nerdlet, I'm pretty excited to see this trailer, which looks amazing. Spike Jonze is such an interesting filmmaker who doesn't make nearly enough movies as far as I'm concerned. Plus, I love the use of Arcade Fire in the trailer. Very cool song.
After four years of wandering through the cosmos and reflecting modern society through an only slightly heightened lens, BattlestarGalactica ended its run last night. I was turned onto the show by my friend Scofe relatively early on; after the miniseries but before it became a critical darling. Over four years, I was often thrilled, sometimes challenged, and occasionally frustrated, but I remained engrossed throughout.
So, did the finale live up to the high standard the series set? While the high points of the finale easily matched any of the other high points in the show's history, there were some missteps that I wasn't so wild about. Spoilers follow, so consider yourself fairly warned.
First off, I loved that they wound up on prehistoric Earth. Great shout out to one of the original show's central concepts but done in a completely new way, with our Earth being the "second" Earth. Very cool. Then came the idea that everyone was going to forsake their tech and their old lives and live among prehistoric, pre-verbal humans as some sort of.......mentors, I guess. Breeding partners? Gods? Not really made clear. The thing that didn't work for me was that I had just spent four years watching this society turn on itself and argue and disagree at every point, and now they all just make one big decision to live like reallllly dedicated Survivor contestants for the rest of their lives. No one refuses? No one decides to hide a gun in their knapsack? No one keeps their wristwatch? This show was known as the anti-sci-fi show for the way it made issues more complex, and yet they go for a resolution that seems a little too pat, a little too free of complexity. Also, 38, 000 people dressed in synthetic fibres with buttons and snaps and plastic are walking around during a time when loincloths were hautecoiture and there's no trace of them left? Surely we'd have dug up Chief Tyrol's belt buckle somewhere and gone WTF?
Next comes the spiritual stuff. Unless it was used in an allegorical or metaphorical way to comment on our own society, I have never cared one iota for any of the spiritual stuff on the show. To me, it smacked too much of every other sc-fishow's obsession with creating a slightly cheesy mythology, a la Star Trek, Babylon 5 and what have you. So, when Kara Thrace disappeared, apparently an agent of "God" since her resurrection, I felt a little gypped. Firstly, her whole thing doesn't make sense. She dies, and "God" resurrects her to lead the Colonials to Earth, right? She slowly has to go through a whole emotional journey to gain the inner strength to follow her calling, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, if "God" was going to zap her away once she finished her task, why make her go through the journey at all? Why make her have to work so hard to make sense of the info her phantom dad was giving her? The only reason to make her do any of that is to make her grow as a person, which is kind of wasted when you zap her back into the afterlife or whatever. So why do it? To keep the audience interested and guessing. I believe it would have worked much better had she stayed, but was now completely untroubled by how she survived, or what she was. Because if she was simply an agent of "God", meant to accomplish a task and no more, then why make her uncertain at all? What does that teach any of the other Colonials? What does it teach her? Just seemed like they had no idea how to explain her resurrection, and wanted to inject some ambiguity. All of which is fine, but it felt forced and arbitrary to me.
Still, the vast majority of the finale I absolutely loved, don't get me wrong. Those couple of things I didn't like will always bug me a little, but there was so much more to enjoy. One of my favourite moments had to be when Baltar broke down after admitting he knew how to farm. Even though he was a weasel, it was a really great journey we went on with Gaius, and I was moved to see him finally at peace, finally a decent man who was happy with who he truly was.
Finally, enjoy the clip below, which merges my favourite element from the 1970s BSG and the modern series:
So, over at Newsarama, DC Universe Executive Editor Dan DiDio sat down to talk about a few things, the most exciting being the way that the Batman corner or the DCU is changing in the wake of Batman: RIP and Final Crisis.
For those of you that don't know, at the end of those series, Bruce Wayne fought the reincarnation of an alien god named Darkseid. So it was a guy with a really cool tool belt versus a God. Did not go well. Basically Darkseid zapped Bruce Wayne back to prehistoric times where he was last seen carving a bat into a cave wall. Seriously. If that seems ridiculous, well, it kind of was.
Now there's a miniseries going on called Battle for the Cowl, where a bunch of candidates are set to scrap over taking over the mantle. The candidates are: Dick Grayson, the original Robin who now goes by Nightwing; Jason Todd, the resurrected second Robin and all around asshole; Tim Drake, the current Robin and nerdy virgin; Harvey Dent, former Two-Face; and some sort of unknown psycho who is killing criminals. Along for the ride is Damien, the illegitimate son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul. This annoying ten year old was raised by a league of assassins.
The photo included here shows the new Batman and Robin, as drawn by Frank Quitely. He worked with Grant Morrison on All Star Superman, and they're teaming up again on the new book. From the look of things, I'm betting our new dynamic duo is either Dick Grayson and Damien or Jason Todd and Damien, but certainly Damien looks to be the new Robin. And what of Tim Drake? He'll be the new Nightwing, I'm betting.
Here's how DiDio says the new Gotham City will shake out:
The Batman titles that are coming out in June – a reader asked if there will be a cohesion between them once they all launch and start rolling in the post Battle for the Cowl world as we see in the Superman titles after New Krypton?
DD: There’s a cohesion in a sense that it’s clear that they’re all coming from the same place. There is a new Batman, that’s pretty clear, so that character will be reflected in all the series and the ramifications of the change in the character will be reflected as well. But each of the series comes from a different point of view – Batman & Robin will naturally focus on the new team of Batman and Robin, Batman will focus on the new Batman, Detective Comics will focus on the new Batwoman and her role in Gotham City as she tries to affect change; Streets of Gotham will focus on the supporting cast members of Gotham’s world and how they interact with Batman; Gotham City Sirens will be dealing with Catwoman, Ivy and Harley Quinn and their adventures, many of which may dovetail in with other adventures that are taking place in other places in other aspects of Batman’s world; Outsiders deals with Alfred who will be seen in other books, but this is Alfred’s mission and directive and is about adventures that take place outside of Gotham City and Batgirl will be featuring...well, we’ll leave that for another day.
The best holiday for people who wish they were Irish or people who have drinking problems is here once again! Get out your green, curse the fuckin' English, drink yourself into oblivion, and get in a fight with a stranger!
Here's a sample from the only band that provides a perfect soundtrack for all the goals listed above.
The Pogues:
Perhaps the finest preventative measure against alcoholism: Shane MacGowan!
Some sad news, as actor Ron Silver has passed away from cancer at the age of 62.
Silver was a Tony Award-winning actor and outspoken and committed social activist. He spent most of life advocating Liberal ideals and supporting Democratic candidates, but in the last years of his life became what he called a "9/11 Republican", going so far as to make a speech at the Republican National Convention.
Silver first gained fame as an actor in the early 1980s after appearing on Broadway in the original production of Hurlyburly and then originating the role of Charlie in David Mamet's Speed-the plow, for which he won a Tony award. His notable film appearance include Garbo Talks, Enemies: A Love Story, Blue Steel, Silkwood and Ali, but his most celebrated role was that of Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune. On television, he made many appearances, most notably as political consultant Bruno Gianelli in several episodes of The West Wing. He'll be missed, and not just for his talent, but for his fiery devotion to social causes.
Read a very nice obituary here. And below you'll find an example of his talent in this little speech from The West Wing:
Okay, Gervais and a Muppet - that's comedy gold right there. But for some reason, whenever they show Muppet outtakes where the Muppet acts like a real person it makes me lose my shit. Hilarious.
Combine that with Ricky Gervais' regular hilarity and the way that funny things make him cackle with glee and you've got awesomeness!
