Chas obtains his 47 lives as a result of a drunk John Constantine casting a protection spell made famous by Merlin himself. The spell in question makes the recipient invulnerable and the target of the spell absorbs the soul of anyone who dies around them during a 24-hour period. Unfortunately, Chas is present during a club fire and 47 people die. Now, he has 47 lives, and Chas plans to make the most of these lives in order to honor the people who died that gave him his pseudo-immortality.
Who is Lillian Axe?
Lillian Axe takes the stage at the club that caught on fire two years ago, and they are a real hard rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana. John has roots in NOLA, so the inclusion of a local band makes perfect sense.
Chas and Rene sitting in a tree
Like the TV show, this power couple doesn’t make it in the comic either, but there may be other forces at play. The demon Nergal temporarily possesses Chas, but even though the demon gets exorcized, shards of the demon remain in Chas and this alienates the two lovers.
The Fennel of Love?
Yes, John Constantine has a medium friend named Fennel in the comics. Medium doesn’t denote size or extent; it means someone who can communicate with the spirit world. Fennel appears briefly in this episode and unwittingly acts as a conduit for evil.
Felix Faust, we hardly knew ye. Actually, we do know you.
Felix Faust has appeared in DC Comics since Justice League of America #10 in March of 1962. He’s sold his soul countless times and has played roles in Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, and has even signed up for the Secret Society of Super Villains.
What’s a Karabasan?
We get close and personal with a monster drawn from Middle Eastern lore, the Karabasan. It’s known as the Sleep Demon, so it makes sense that it stalks the victims of Faust’s coma spell.
We did a Know Your Roles for Marvel movies a couple of weeks ago, but there’s plenty more where that came from. Some of these guys had cameos or were even featured in movies that have already come out, and there’s even one whose casting may have broken the internet for an hour or two, so this week should easier than the previous one.
Can you match the following actors with the roles they play?
Yesterday we covered the games with movies that are already in some stage of production. Today, we’ll list the games we think should have their own movie but no plans exist – yet – to turn the game into a film.
5) Pandemic
We begin our list with a game concept that might get lost in the overall Hollywood shuffle. There have been a lot of movies that have focused on a regional epidemic or global pandemic – both zombie and otherwise – but Pandemic does enough to set itself apart from the pack. In the game, there are four diseases originating in different locations that converge to become a superbug. Pandemic is a thriller featuring three to four acting troupes filmed in multiple locations waiting to happen.
4) Gloom
To say that Gloom has character is an insult. The kooky families that make up the world of Gloom have more issues than Time magazine. There isn’t a screen big enough to contain the bevy of bizarre these four families possess when you have a family reminiscent of the Frankensteins, an Addams family offshoot, a serial killer family, and the world’s most pathetic freak show. While you could split up the group, I’d like to see a director perform this insane juggling act.
3) Galaxy Trucker
I almost added a couple of other Vlaada Chvatil games (Space Alert and Mage Knight) but had to go with Galaxy Trucker. We’ve seen space pirates, space knights, and space princesses, but we haven’t seen space truckers. There might be a reason for this. Still, Galaxy Trucker is the perfect engine for a comedy set in space that doesn’t focus on the usual fare. The game does have its share of space pirates and other spacefaring tropes, but Galaxy Trucker’s flavor of self-deprecating humor screams comedic masterpiece.
2) Forbidden Desert
This is another game that has a familiar movie concept: a group of friends get stranded in the middle of a desert and have to find their way out. Heck, C-3PO and R2-D2 wandered the desert planet Tatooine. But Forbidden Desert gets our nod as the second tabletop game that should have its own movie because of the game’s world. The flying contraption our group has to construct in order to escape is something straight out of Jules Verne. Given the proper treatment, a movie based on Forbidden Desert could be a steam punk classic.
1) Kittens in a Blender
JK – Just Kidding. No matter if a movie based on Kittens in a Blender is live-action or animated, you have to be really sick to want to see cute, cuddly, frappe kitties.
The Real 1) Kill Doctor Lucky
You could say that Kill Doctor Lucky already has a movie in a roundabout way. This game is the reverse of Clue. But while Clue begins gameplay after the death of Mr. Body and the players compete against each other to solve who committed the murder, Kill Doctor Lucky pits players against each other to see who will commit the murder. The cinematic version of Clue dabbles with this concept a bit, but it’d be great to see a full-fledged Kill Doctor Lucky in all its zany glory.
Did we get the list right? Let us know which games you’d include in this Top Five or suggest ideas for new Top Fives.
Hollywood has repeatedly tapped the comic book well, converted TV shows to movies, and retreaded classic movies. Always looking for the next big thing, the big screen has turned its attention to tabletop games. We may have gone ten years between Jumanji (1995) and Zathura (2005), but the silver screen shortened time between tabletop game movies with films like Battleship (2012) and Ouija (2014). More movies are on the way in the not-so-distant future, but I’ll be the first to say that not every tabletop game needs its own movie. Here’s our pick for most the anticipated movies based on tabletop games that you could see soon in a theater near you.
5) Candy Land
All we know about the upcoming Candy Land movie is that Adam Sandler stars and plans to co-write the script. The real question is will Sandler play King Kandy, cross dress as Gramma Nutt, or switch between both roles?
4) Risk
We know a little bit more about Risk. Sony hired John Hlavin (Underworld 4) to write the script in 2012. Overbrook Entertainment is set as the production company, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Overbrook is owned by Will Smith, so we know who one of the actors will be. My big question is what will make Risk different from all other war movies? It has to have something that at least hints at the board game.
3) Monopoly
This is another tabletop game movie where I question how the film will differ from all other tycoon films. Obviously, they’ll set Monopoly in Atlantic City. But will they portray Rich Uncle Pennybags as he appears in the game? Will they make the flick a period piece? Will they animate it or use live-action? Ridley Scott doesn’t do animation and he wants to direct the film. Scott even hired writers in 2011. I wonder if we should send a search party, since no one has heard from these writers. Perhaps they went to jail, directly to jail.
2) Hungry, Hungry Hippos
You heard right. Hungry, Hungry Hippos is getting the big screen treatment. Film studio Emmett/Furla confirmed in 2012 that they’re bringing the blubber, citing that the upcoming film will be “a playful adaptation of the game, featuring murderous hippos.” This flick could plummet, succeed as artful camp, accurately portray one of nature’s most deadly animals, or even devour the box office. We’ll have to wait and see. But one thing’s for certain. You’ll fear the hippo. You will.
1) Monsterpocalypse
We know the most about this film, so that should be a good sign. Dreamworks acquired the rights to turn this fun beat-em-up into a movie in 2010. There’s a script flying around and someone even shared a synopsis.
Monsters attack Earth, get defeated and burrow beneath the ground to recuperate, sending a signal into space for reinforcements while licking their wounds. Meanwhile, Earth forces construct giant robots to fend off the anticipated attack.
If this sounds like Pacific Rim, you’re right. Pacific Rim (2013) borrows more than a little bit from Monsterpocalypse (2008). But I’ve been saying for a couple films already that you have to separate this movie from others of its type, so how will Monsterpocalypse accomplish this? Three words. Full. Frontal. Burton.
Tim Burton is set to direct this film and you get three things with that: the patented Burton aesthetic, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Johnny Depp.
Did we get the list right? Let us know which movies you’d include in this Top Five or suggest ideas for new Top Fives.
Amazon Instant Video started this year’s first wave of pilot seasons. Last year’s yielded the award-winning Transparent, so there’s plenty of anticipation for this year’s crop of would-be television series.
Here’s how it works. Amazon releases seven television pilots, and fans vote on which one gets picked up for its own series. There are a lot of heavy hitters this year, and while I have my favorites, I’m not sure which one will make the cut. Here’s the skinny on all seven pilots.
The Man in the High Castle
Kyle’s Review
You don’t even need to watch this pilot to know it’ll bring geeky goodness. Hollywood has given us Phillip K. Dick appetizers for decades – A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, and Total Recall to name a few – and now it’s time for the main course. Sweetening the pot further is the involvement of producer Ridley Scott who’s no stranger to Dick novels. He directed Blade Runner which was based on Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Now, he takes on Dick’s Hugo award winning The Man in the High Castle, his magnum opus.
The Man in the High Castle fills these immense shoes. After the opening credits which features an ominous rendition of “Edelweiss” and shows us the Germans taking over the Eastern United States and the Japanese conquering the Western United States during an alternate world’s World War II, it drops us into this bleak reality.
The performances are crisp and spot on, the action doesn’t give you time to breathe, there are so many double and triple twists that you’ll have to watch the pilot a couple of times to catch everything, and the ending hooks you. In short, The Man in the High Castle earns its spot as my Amazon pilot front runner.
It does tweak the story a bit, but so did Blade Runner and that didn’t detract from the movie’s greatness.
Check out the aforementioned opening.
Verdict: The best of the Amazon pilots, The Man in the High Castle is a must see even if you have to wait until it goes to DVD.
Salem Rogers: Model of the Year 1998
Kyle’s Review
Salem Rogers is another big debut but of the half-hour comedy variety. It also offers more of Leslie Bibb (About a Boy) and Rachel Dratch (SNL) than we ever had before. Both of these comediennes are underrated and it’s great to see them fuel their own series, but they’re playing familiar characters. Bibb is an abrasive supermodel, making Dratch’s put-upon assistant’s life hell. You could also look at Bibb’s Rogers as one of the grown, nasty teens from one of director Mark Waters’ earlier projects Mean Girls.
Despite the retreading of old roles and stories, Salem Rogers delivers enough laughs to make it a solid competitor in the Amazon Pilot war. I like the way they tell the story, too. There’s a six month time gap between what we see during the pilot and the pilot’s opening and ending, and I think the show has plenty to work with should it get picked up. You also can’t go wrong with Bibb and Dratch. The show knows where its strength is.
Verdict: A solid if not predictable installment by actors Bibb and Dratch, and director Mark Waters.
Down Dog
Kyle’s Review
I’m not sure if Down Dog was supposed to be a comedy or a coming-of-age story. It doesn’t work as either. That’s not a knock on the actors involved, they gave some good performances. Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) and Lyndsy Fonseca (How I Met Your Mother) create a decent love triangle with newcomer Josh Casuabon, but they weren’t given much material.
The dramedy – I guess I’ll call it a dramedy – is set in a Los Angeles yoga studio and throws as many unfunny comedy gimmicks at us as it can. The main character and lead yoga instructor is the product of a mother who smoked dope while pregnant. And of course we get to see the character in utero: take that, Look Who’s Talking. According to Down Dog, a stoned fetus equals a laidback, handsome adult offspring, but I say that genetics and environment play more of a role.
We hear a flat narrator break down the yoga instructor’s life so far. Yawn. The instructor has equally snooze inducing sex. It takes talent to make sex look that boring. Brewster and Fonseca inject some spice but it’s not enough to reconcile the lack of laughs and lifelessness of this bore of a dramedy. Yeah, I think it’s a dramedy.
Verdict: Too bad Brewster and Fonseca got stuck on such a lackluster offering. Too bad I can’t ask for those thirty minutes back.
The New Yorker Presents
Kyle’s Review
This pilot is the most difficult one to categorize. The New Yorker Presents does an amicable job of converting The New Yorker, one of the most respectable magazines, into a television series.
I enjoyed the episode. Many of the articles were familiar to me and I loved how this series made the material accessible to a wider audience. There’s a moment during the documentary where someone mentions – and I’m paraphrasing here – that information needs to be available and accessible to a wider audience because what people don’t know can hurt them. Even with this lofty goal, I can see why voters on IMDB rated the program so low. It’s still The New Yorker.
No amount of cartoon interludes could jazz up – and boy, do they ever jazz up – a program that has limited appeal or has the appeal for an audience more likely to tune into PBS instead of Amazon. Still, the pilot is wonderful. It has balance and depth. You get a short film (that feels a bit out of place), a documentary, an interview, and even the recitation of a poem. The latter has some unsettling camera shots of a bearded Andrew Garfield (Amazing Spider-man), but outside the lone willies moment, The New Yorker Presents offers a lot to viewers. It deserves to get picked up somewhere even if it doesn’t make it on Amazon.
Verdict: A great conversion of The New Yorker into a television show. This could open the fabled magazine to a wider audience.
Mad Dogs
Kyle’s Review
Truth time: I’ve never watched Cris Cole’s original UK series of the same name, so I can’t compare the two. I do know that Ben Chaplin, who plays Joe in this version, played Billy Zane’s role in the UK version. I also know that Cole worked with Shawn Ryan (The Shield) to bring Mad Dogs to the United States. With that out of the way, I’ll start by saying that the US version of Mad Dogs is a pressure cooker.
It starts out with a hint of comedy, glossed over something sinister. Steve Zahn (Dallas Buyers Club) and Romany Malco (Weeds) have a knack for playing off-beat characters, and their talents shine here as do the talents of Chaplin, Zane and Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos). The estranged friends, who are now 40-somethings, have gathered to Belize to celebrate their friend Milo’s (Zane) early retirement.
Milo owns the greatest villa this side of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and it’s all fun and games until the gloss of chuckles begins to crack. Milo’s in more trouble than you can shake a spear at and his friends don’t know a hundredth of what he’s gotten into until they find themselves in the middle of a murder conspiracy.
The acting, directing and writing work in this pilot. The US Mad Dogs has me interested in the UK version, but I don’t know how much story there is to this series. Clearly, there’s a lot of shady things going on, but there’s only one clear conflict and while I think they’ll do a good job of complicating the central conflict, I don’t know if they can add anything else that’s as juicy as murder—except more murder.
I enjoyed this episode and I think it could work as a series, but in a strange way, it works as a standalone.
Verdict: Another great Amazon pilot but this episode stands out because it has the strongest sense of character. You feel like you’ve known these characters as long as Milo.
Cocked
Kyle’s Review
Cocked was a lot of fun, but the story was okay. Just okay. I expected more from a show that features Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) and Sam Trammell (True Blood). The supporting actors featured character actors that I hold in high regard: Brian Dennehy (Montague in Romeo + Juliet) and Mark Christopher Lawrence (Chuck’s Big Mike). All of these actors gave their all but this story about a dysfunctional, gun-peddling family is so nuts that it’s weird for the sake of being weird.
The prodigal son (Trammell) gets roped back into the family business after his life’s threatened (by an unknown assailant). He floats a new campaign that’ll get these gun nuts back in black, but his ads that focus on “Guns for Gays” comes off as pandering. The majority of the family hates the idea because they work in a macho business, but the writing didn’t commit to an honest dialogue. When the new commercial succeed the characters involved either didn’t care to the issue in the first place or they’re too stoned to care. In fact, the script devolves into breasts, bullets, and blow.
There’s plenty of room to make a stand and/or express both sides of the gun control issue, but Cocked plays lip service, opting to have fun instead. There’s nothing wrong with fun. I just think they missed a great opportunity.
Verdict: Despite the heavy subject matter, Cocked uses gun control as a backdrop for a dramedy that pushes sex, drugs, and metal slugs.
Point of Glory
Kyle’s Review
To say that Point of Glory was difficult to get through would be an understatement. They do an adequate job of the history, but the rest of the show was one hot mess: a dash of modern slang, half-hearted attempts to show other reasons for the war besides slavery (yes, there were other reasons the two sides fought), and cardboard cut-out characters. I’d stick with other Civil War offerings.
Verdict: Skip it. There are countless other Civil War movies, TV shows, and mini-series that do a better job.
The debut of the second half of season 1 did a nice job of diving back into the tension that was created before the break. We got a lot of character development for Barry, both in terms of dealing with the fallout from his revelation of his feelings for Iris, as well as his internal struggle to build on his abilities and prepare to take down Reverse Flash.
A bit of a struggle for Barry’s soul is beginning between Joe and Wells, with Dr. Wells pressing Barry for a more pragmatic approach to training, and Joe not wanting Barry to lose the part of him that is uncompromisingly good. It’s an interesting internal struggle for Barry, and it also gives the show’s two strongest actors a chance to bounce off each other.
The supervillain teamup between Heatwave and Captain Cold wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. The solution to defeating them came a little too easy, though the Ghostbusters reference was worth a smile. The actors overplayed their parts this time, but honestly, I almost found them to be incidental to the story this week.
Verdict: A strong way to pick up the back half of the season.
Kyle’s Take
Tom Cavanagh (Dr. Wells/Reverse Flash) and Jesse L. Martin (Joe West) are TheFlash’s best actors, but we haven’t seen them bounce off each other too much…yet. They bounce off of Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen more. Both give Gustin a lot to work with and that’s one of the reasons why I think The Flash has trumped Arrow this season. But Gustin’s done a great job in his own right and that comes through in this episode.
Dr. Wells also wants Barry to take a more pragmatic approach to how he uses his powers (training always has some level of practicality; just ask Allen Iverson about practice), but of course Wells’ emphasis on Barry’s training is self-serving.
And Captain Cold overacted in his first episode, so it doesn’t surprise me that he, Heat Wave, and the actors around them were dropping Batman and Robin level groaners: “Freeze,” “The flame or the frost,” and “Your partner’s a real hot head.” These lines work in the context of the show not taking itself too serious, but something that doesn’t work for this episode is the title, “Revenge of the Rogues.” This is misleading. Only one rogue has it out for The Flash.
Overacting aside, this was one solid episode, filled with plenty of action.
I wondered if Arrow could survive without Ollie. This episode answered, yes. I liked that they gave Diggle and Roy some much needed screen time. Roy has mattered so little this season that I’m surprised he’s still on team Arrow. They had a couple of great action sequences, and Diggle wore the Arrow suit for one of the missions. I don’t know why he didn’t wear the suit again.
Emily Bett Rickards (Felicity) flexed her acting muscles this week, and her interactions with Roy Palmer (Brandon Routh) tied into Ollie’s story a lot better than the midseason finale. In turn, Roy fit more with the overall story instead of something the creators tacked on. Felicity has seen the dangerous of costumed crime-fighting, and Roy neither has the power or the training to save Starling City, yet.
I also liked the use of flashbacks, but it’d be nice if Arrow’s creative team could use these flashbacks as more than explaining the events of the current episode. Yes, Maseo owed Ollie a favor and that’s why he saved him from the cliff, but this entire season has suffered from a lack of a slow build. Heck, this episode didn’t leave any doubt as to whether or not Ollie survived his fight. We saw Maseo dragging Ollie’s carcass in the snow.
And who’s the big baddy? ARGUS, League of Assassins, and Merlyn have dropped in and dropped out on many occasions. We knew what the show’s final battle would be the prior two seasons but we can’t get a handle on which direction Arrow wants to go this season. While this sounds like a good thing on paper, it comes off as a lack of focus.
Speaking of focus, is it just me, or did Merlyn look like Quickie Koala, suffering from ADD? He popped into the Arrow Cave one moment, then he zipped over to Nanda Parbat and did a half-cheeked job of looking for Ollie’s body (note: a half-cheeked job of something is half of a half-assed job). Then, he showed back up in the Arrow Cave and finally, warned Thea of impending danger. As far as Merlyn knew, the League thought Ollie killed Sarah. Little of what Merlyn said or did made sense.
But one villain did make sense. I loved the introduction of Brick. Vinnie Jones provided the charisma needed for the unstoppable, powerhouse kingpin, but I can’t help but wonder if he’ll play into this season of Arrow’s end game.
I tried to avoid it as long as I could, but Laurel donned the Black Canary outfit this episode. She blew her big moment but not in the way I thought she would. She spouted a stuck on stupid line: “I’m the justice you can’t run from.” If you’re going to be Canary, shut up and smack down.
Despite the issues that have plagued Arrow for most of the season, this was an enjoyable episode.
Did you catch a glimpse at Barry’s comics? Apparently, he read Space Ghost. Yay! If The Flash maintains DC’s Silver Age continuity, we’ll learn that some of these comics chronicle the real adventures of Earth 2’s superheroes. Does this mean that the original Flash, Jay Garrick, might make an appearance?
Jason Rusch
The guy Caitlin Snow visits is none other than the third Firestorm. We also find out that Firestorm is an acronym just like Arrow’s Atom. I wonder what they’ll convert into an acronym next. How about Bizarro? Oh, wait. That’d mean that the CW’s DC Universe would have to acknowledge the existence of Superman, and we can’t have that.
The Fastest Reader Alive?
I’m sure Barry could flip through the pages of a book at lightning speed. But he can comprehend what he sees? Does this mean that he could become the Smartest Man Alive? We’ll have to wait and find out.
Who is Lisa Snart?
In the DC Universe, Leonard Snart (Captain Cold) does have a sister. Her name’s Lisa and she becomes the Golden Glider. We see Snart’s sis break Cold out of an armored van at the end of this episode. I’m not sure if Glider’s ice skating power – yes, her special ability plays off of Cold’s power – is enough to crack open a prison transport, so it wouldn’t shock me if The Flash deviates from the comics.
We haven’t seen the last of Lisa. Sources say that she’ll be back in episode 16 (six episodes from the one in which she makes a cameo), entitled “Rogue Time.”
The Prodigal Son Returns
Did anyone else notice Police Captain David Singh’s conspicuous cameo at the end of this episode? We haven’t seen him in a while, but we might see a lot more of him. Many sources say that the Pied Piper will make an appearance in next week’s Flash.
In the comics, the Pied Piper dates Captain Singh and from what I hear, he does in the TV series, too. But the show ratchets up the tension by making the Pied Piper Dr. Wells’ prodigal son. How will they make this web more tangled? We’ll have to see next week.
Brick is a bulldozer of a Green Arrow villain, but he also has the brain to match the brawn, and that makes him more dangerous. While Arrow’s Brick deviates a lot from its red-skinned comic book counterpart, there are plenty of similarities: Brick does elevate his role of a low level enforcer to a boss, and he does have an interest in the Glades in the comics.
He’s also able to shake off a gunshot to the head, but his aforementioned brain is what makes him particularly tough. I don’t think Brick has taken Mirakuru; he’s too in control. In the comics, Brick is a metahuman, and I think that’s the implication. We may have another Arrow villain with ties to The Flash.
He’s got a Demon Head
Malcolm Merlyn refers to Ra’s al Ghul by one of his many monikers, “The Demon’s Head.” This is actually a variation on the Arabic translation of Ra’s al Ghul’s name.
jkgeekly.com 