Author Archives: Leo Choy

About Leo Choy

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Leo Choy stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Leo can see and hear. And so, Leo finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

The Hunt for The Amazing Spider-Man is On!

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What began as a launch for the new trailer for the upcoming movie, The Amazing Spider-Man, has quickly turned into a scavenger hunt gone viral.

Within the trailer, obscured by quick moving lights and explosion of sound, there were hidden words that read, “Mark of the Spider-Man” If you go to the website for “markofthespider-man.com”, you’ll end up at a website with six static filled screens and the new rebooted spider-man logo. I’m not sure who’s goal in life it is to find these things, but day-uhm! There’s no way I could have seen that with my ADHD. This type of marketing has been reminiscent of last years viral treasure hunt for the movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Using the same words, you can find the site’s matching Twitter feed @MarkofSpiderman, which has been tweeting longitude and latitude coordinates for several major US cities. Each of these coordinates pointed to a comic book shop accompanied by the message, “Propery of Peter Parker… Lost”.

In a turn of luck for one comic book reporter; not me, never me; one of the shops turned out to be a local area distributor, Secret Headquarters in Silverlake, Los Angeles. The SuperHeroHype’s reporter made a quick sprint down the street to find a discarded backpack.

Yes, secret hidden messages, codes to break, a country that is overtly suspicious of packages and then a discarded backpack in one of six major U.S. Cities.

Instead of returning the backpack or trying to find them; it clearly says Property of Peter Parker on it; the contents were looted. Inside contained: Safety goggles (They do nothing!), Physics and Chemistry textbooks, keys, a MetroCard, a notebook loaded with class notes, sunglasses, drawing pencils, a pencil sharpener, a sketchbook, a binder, film canisters, photo contact sheets and a small canister of what appear to be watch parts; probably to make his web shooters look all steam punk. There are even running shoes in the bag, all modified of course for, uhm… special needs. I would like to take this opportunity to note that the sketchbook which contains preliminary drawings of the Spider-Man costume has a mask that looks like Strong Bad’s of Home Star Runner. Also the bag does not contain any sewing equipment or space age costume material that I have gripped about. You can read that article here.

Parker also collected some well crafted Daily Bugle clippings about a certain masked vigilante, including one that reads, “This letter will be the first of many, and the first letter is always key.” When applying the cipher of first letter to the black block of text, it reads “slashprepare” which I can only assume is a reference back to the viral website. So here I went typing in /prepare. This sent me to a a screen that looks like its telling you to click on the six screen in a particular order.

I did that. Nothing. Turns out that it’s already been triggered and each screen now shows the name of the cities in question and an ominous countdown timer for each.

Meanwhile, in another part of town… The film is set for release on July 3rd and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field. Directed by Marc Webb; heh, Webb of Spier-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man arrives with a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt, based on the Marvel comic by Stan Lee.

Here’s the official movie synopsis for The Amazing Spider-Man:

The Amazing Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents’ disappearance – leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans), his father’s former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors’ alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.

Check out the images of what they found over at SuperHeroHype

 

Twilight is Evil: How is this a Surprise?

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"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Pat Robertson; not to be confused with Rob Pattinson of Twilight fame; says that watching Twilight will lead to demonic possession. This would have been better if it were punctuated with his fingers wiggling in the air to simulate how spooky it was. The famous, yet controversial televangelist, and voice of the 700 Club laid into Twilight Saga franchise.

This all officially started when Robertson was asked by a viewer on his CBN talk show whether watching the Twilight movies will lead to demonic possession.

“Yes, I think those vampire movies are evil. There are no vampires. The whole thing is demonic.

Surely this can’t be off the cuff and Robertson must have been somewhat prepared for this oration, because he goes on to add:

“And it may give you some kind of a thrill…a spooky supernatural, but it will open the door into the occult. And you don’t want to open any doors because you don’t know what kind of a demon’s out there who says, ‘So you opened the door, you gave me permission.’”

I guess with his hatred for vampires, I’m sure Robertson’s more a Team Jacob kind of guy.

According to Media Matters, Robertson’s also not a fan of the Harry Potter series, preferring his stories to contain a little bit more of Jesus allegory such as in The Chronicles of Narnia. Kids pointing sticks and saying made up words are bad. Kids working alongside creatures with cloven hooves to point real weapons at each other and wage warfare is good.

“Well, Narnia is different. It’s not glorifying magic and the occult,” said Robertson back in July, referencing to author J.K. Rowling and alleging “the lady who wrote Harry Potter, I understand, was deeply involved in some of the occult things.”

He noted that Harry Potter is also “dangerous…it is seductive.” Now he’s just getting creepy. I just pictured the old man from “Family Guy” saying that with his whistle like voice. If Harry Potter was dangerous because it was seductive, this must make Twilight by comparison a Rapture level threat.

How can 81 year old Robertson have any informed opinion about literature aimed at adolescent females? Probably because someone, far above him told him all this… Via prepared statements at what will get the best knee jerk reactions from a team of writers. This is the same thing as what Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh did in their own demographics, which is a bid to get attention. This is what happens when you realize that your career is sinking and you’re willing to do or say anything to remain relevant.

Robertson doesn’t really think Twilight is evil. He thinks it’ll just get him a little bit more attention before his time is up. This is the same guy that said:

“the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Yeah, it gets better. Robertson also said:

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”

I invoke Godwin’s law on the last one quote. So forget these kind of guys and let them fade away from your memories. They just want to annoy people in the most trivial ways possible so they can make a buck. Which brings me to my question.

Do you really want to know why Twilight is evil? It’s a reboot of Dazed and Confused, a movie about coming of age for teenagers. Now picture Edward the vampire with a mustache and mutton chops smoking a cigarette and saying, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” Twilight is a story saying that it’s okay to date high school girls no matter your age. Even if you’re 112 years old.

 

Romance-Horror Genre Leaves More Warm Bodies

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Summit Entertainment, the force behind the Twilight Saga films isn’t done yet with the Romance-Horror genre. Though television, film and especially novels have seen a drastic increase in the last two years, there’s apparently still a lot left to milk, and milk it they will! Next year get ready for Hollywood’s finishing move with the adaptation of Isaac Marion’s novel, Warm Bodies.

The film will star a pretty boy, Nicholas Hoult, with Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco, Analeigh Tipton and John Malkovich.

I’m going to break it to you right now. Warm Bodies in a nutshell is a Zombie-Romance story.

The first existing demographic that producers hope to feed upon are the ones that liked Twilight. That’s an easy sell. The movie which was originally slated for August 10th, 2012 release has since been moved to February 10th, 2013. This means that the the film is no longer going to ride off the wake that World War Z will leave behind. As the film is expected to debut February 2013, that should give Twilight fans just enough time to go into withdrawal.

The second demographic are for the nerds that enjoy the zombie genre. The only problem is that not all zombie fans are necessarily Twilight fans and vice versa.  So why would some zombie fans that have a hate on for Twilight, subject themselves to such a movie?

In one word: Addiction. We’re gluttons for punishment. We’re the ones that see a bloody car accident and know we shouldn’t look but we do anyways. Yes, we’re a subculture that will watch almost any type of zombie related film. I’ve watched zombie stripper films to Italian zombie films I didn’t understand. We’ll sit through it and make comments like, “My survival plan is better.” “Get rid of him, they’re a threat to your survival!” and “Why is that zombie proficiently using a gun?! We’re dead! Game over man! Game over!” If we were to have an Olympic Sport, it would be Speed Bitching. It could be about the movie, plot, or how we would have done it better.

I myself don’t want to see this film, knowing full well that I would help perpetuate a wheel of romantic nonsense bridged by faux-horror. Yet, I need to know how bad it’s going to be!

Here is the official description of Warm Bodies from Isaac Marion’s website:

 “R is a young man with an existential crisis–he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories, noidentity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.

After experiencing a teenage boy’s memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim’s human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world.

Scary, funny, and surprisingly poignant, Warm Bodies is about being alive, being dead, and the blurry line in between.”

R, the Prettiest , well done up zombie.

I read this out loud and near the end, felt bile rising in my chest. My friend whom I was reading this to at the time was outraged. She was nearly frothing at the mouth shouting things like, “Twilight is to blame!” It was like I got hit by a drunk driver, so many thoughts collided in my mind that I can’t even list them all. I was pissed with the author. It’s like Marion had said to himself, “I’ve decided to name my version of Juliette, Julie. Now all I need is a name for the Romeo zombie. Oh well, I’ll just type R for now and fix it later when I come up with a good R sounding name.” I was upset at Summit for unleashing this upon the world. Why do this when there is so many better written works of fantasy that appeal to nerds and romantics.  What about Patrick Rothfuss’ “Name of the Wind”?!  Huh?  HUH!?!

(Calms himself down)

Though it nearly made my physically ill, in the darkest recesses of my mind, a ghost of a thought whispered to me. It said that I should acquire the novel and read it. Even though I’ve already passed judgment on it, I should read it to truly ensure the complete destruction of my psyche. Only then could I stand to be reborn, to transcend to the next level.

Vampires that sparkle. Pretty zombie boys. These were the portents of the end of days.

This must be what going mad feels like.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: A Hollywood Reboot of Rebecca

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Hollywood seems to still be on its “reboot” phase as they add yet another classic to the list to be remade. Daphne du Maruier’s 1938 novel Rebecca is reportedly on the upgrade hit list which will be re-adapted by Steven Knight who is responsible for providing the 2002 screenplays Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises. Rebecca was first brought to the silver screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940.

The story is about a young woman who is never named, attempt to fill the role of Maximilian de Winter’s deceased wife, Rebecca. When Maxim takes his new bride to Manderley, his country house located in Cornwall, England, the servants accept the new Mrs. de Winter as the lady of the house. One exception is the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers who was fiercely loyal to the first Mrs. de Winter. Mrs. Danvers unleashes psychological warfare and backhanded pettiness on the second wife, drawing comparisons between her and Rebecca, indicating that she would never have the style and sophistication that Rebecca had. In the update, I somehow picture the maid saying “slut” in between coughs. The torment nearly drives Lady de Winter Mark II to suicide. And that’s just the first half of the movie. The rest of the mystery of Rebecca is unraveled as Maxim finally tells his wife what really happened to his previous one.

Hitchcock’s version opened the first Berlin Film Festival in 1951, and starred Sir Laurence Olivier as Maximilian de Winter, Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers and Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs. de Winter. The film was nominated for eleven Academy awards, winning two, one of which was Best Picture. Du Maurier’s story has had many stage and TV adaptations and has inspired two Bollywood movies – 1964’s Kohraa and Anamika, directed by Anant Mahadevan and released in 2008.

Despite the success of Hitchcock’s version of Rebecca, it looks like fans are not anticipating the remake of this classic. With comments such as, “For the love of God! Why are they even attempting this? Haven’t they learned you can’t replicate or out do Alfred Hitchcock’s original film versions. They tried it with “Psycho”, “Rear Window” & so forth. It’s pointless,” and “Why take a movie that is a classic (definition: Judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind), and pretend it can be improved upon? If they know they can’t improve it, why waste the time and money? Terrible idea,” its seems as though fans are readying themselves for Hollywood’s favorite gift to the people, “disappointment.” The one comment I whole-heartedly agree with is this “Trying to think of someone with as much grace, innocence and beauty as Joan Fontaine. Hmm no can’t really come up with anyone.” Which is why I won’t be surprised with Hollywood goes for the like of Megan Fox to play the role.

As Hollywood continues on this trend of recycling and rebooting, one can only hope they don’t destroy Rebecca in their Invader Zim like attempts to make it “better”. I can’t think of one remake of a classic that ever turned out well. Remember, I said classic. Not redo a horrible movie.

There really is only one thing that can be said about this. You cannot outdo Alfred Hitchcock. He is one of the masters of horror and suspense. He pioneered many of the techniques used today in horror and psychological-thriller genres. Hollywood relies to heavily on computer graphics and wires to achieve the visual and emotional content for a scene, Hitchcock used lights, cameras and, whats that? Oh, he used actors! He knew exactly what he wanted from his scenes and his actors and was able to achieve it often in one or two takes. The man was a genius when it came to movies and plots. Let’s see you do that with CGI!

Let the Twilight Games Begin!

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It’s official, there is no deity out there looking out for our best interests. All viewings of The Hunger Games in theaters will be preceded by a trailer of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2.

This move was announced by Lionsgate to investors during a hoity-toity third quarter business call.

I’m sure this was to assure investors that yes, we’re still doing our absolute best in milking our target demographic. Or to infer that the success of one movie will transfer by osmosis and contribute to the success of their latest venture. The basic message, “You’re guaranteed to make money on this!” This was an expected marketing move as Lionsgate recently acquired Summit Entertainment, which previously distributed the “Twilight Saga” films.

Lionsgate Chief Executive Officer Jon Feltheimer said:

“We’re very excited about the opportunities created by our recent acquisition of Summit Entertainment. The February 11 home entertainment release of ‘Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn 1,’ the March 23 theatrical release of ‘Hunger Games’ and the November 16 theatrical release of ‘Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn 2’ lead a strong combined slate that we believe will enable us to deliver increased consistency, profitability and value to our shareholders.”

As with all corporate goons, I picture someone wearing a Bela Lugosi vampire type costume while talking about the value of money. Possibly with a fangy accent.

The Hunger Games is another fantasy novel aimed at young female teens, but while Twilight is a fantasy novel where men act the way woman want them to, the Hunger Games is more like the Japanese cult classic film, Battle Royal; where the worst school children are shipped off to an island with exploding collars and issued random weapons to kill one another. So both films; Twilight and the Hunger Games; feature female leads in weird love triangles… So I heard. I swear I haven’t read the books.

As there are twice as much women in the world as men; that live longer by feeding off of us; these contemporary, “Chick flicks” do their best to cash in on the myth that love is real. I won’t be surprised if these movies are remastered in the future using the George Lucas method; slowly re-releasing with never seen before cut footage in special box sets.

Why would they do this? For this I examined what Mina Kelly of Boomtron had to say about Twilight products,

“Fans will likely look past all the blood and gore focusing more on the love story of Bella and Edward. Rewinding and Fast-forwarding to their favourite bits and pieces of the movie which DVD’s and Blu-Rays lend very well to. The idea of the romantic vampire and immortal love is indeed held in very high esteem by the young adult. While everyone likes a good love story, I remember when vampires were brutal, undead killing machines, not sparkling pretty boys.”

When videos used to be rented on VHS, I recall getting movies that would play at weird speeds at certain scenes.  As if someone had rewound it to that spot and paused a countless number of times for some unwholesome reason.

Oh yes, fans will see it in the theater and buy it as well, many, many times over to come. What a gullible fan base. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Star Wars remastered lego clone animation on Blu-Ray to watch.

Oblivion on the Horizons for Morgan Freeman

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Freeman will join the cast that includes Tom Cruise as the lead role of Jak, Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko in this Universal release.  This film was conceptualized by and to be directed by Tron: Legacy User, Joseph Kosinski.

With the rise of movies adapted from popular teen novels and comic books, the crafty director has gone one step further and is creating a comic book to be released before his movie. The comic book which is called Oblivion will be released sometime in 2012 by Radical Comics, to be co-written by Kosinski and Arvid Nelson, creator of Rex Mundi. A preview of the graphic novel was released at the end of 2010 Comic-Con with some rather snazzy concept art.

So this will be Radical Publishing’s first venture beyond comic books. The comic will be done in a format that features 40 fully painted landscape images that will accompany the prose. So more like a Winnie-The-Pooh old school children format, rather than frame by frame comic book style that we’ve come to expect. I believe that this is how the movie 300 started as a comic book. Ow, my mind just got a visual of Pooh wearing a Spartan costume. So bad!

Kosinski film adaptation of this unreleased comic was originally turned down by Disney, telling him that they will not produce this film and essentially told to shop around some more with other studios and producers. Oblivion was later picked up by Universal Pictures.

It’s unclear what role Freeman will play in this apocalyptic science fiction love story (Is there any other kind of love story?) but even if it’s the disembodied narrator’s voice, it’ll still be cool. “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

The official description of the story on Radical Publishing website:

“futuristic science fiction love story that takes place in an apocalyptic future where most of the population lives in clouds above an earth surface that has been rendered for the most part uninhabitable. An earthbound soldier — stuck there repairing drones that patrol and blast a savage alien life form — encounters a beautiful woman who crashed in a craft, and they have an experience that forces him to question his world view.”

Reading the many variations of this description online, this is what I’ve cobbled together and predict the story will go.

Jak, the main character of the story, is a war-weary repairman with a military background. His sole function is to repair and maintain robots that fight for the User; cue Daft Punk playing in the background. These drones act like terminators on an alien species, who are referred to as scavengers. The scavengers stalk the ruins what appears to be a polluted and destroyed Earth, doing what they can to survive. While somewhere beyond the clouds is the human race, living on a low orbiting spaceship and being all overlord like.

Jak then discovers a spaceship with a hot actress inside. With her help, he slowly pieces together that the planet is either not Earth or a planet filled with savage aliens, but an alien civilization filled with vengeful aliens that humans have nearly wiped out; because they want the resources or to colonize.

Freeman will play the philosopher like leader of the space humans and attempt to stop Jak from reprogramming all the drones from stopping the badness.

For the M. NightShamWow ending, the crashed spacecraft is really a burrowing vehicle where other humans; the poor; live far underground in Zion, while the rich aristocracy live in the clouds.

Billy Connolly Goes to Middle-Earth in The Hobbit

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Actor-Comedian Billy Connolly joins the cast of Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated film The Hobbit. Adapted from J.R.R. Tokien’s books of the same name, The Hobbit serves as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings series which Jackson also directed.

The Hobbit which has been split into two films, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again are currently in production and being shot back-to-back in New Zealand.

Connolly is known for his roles in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Last Samurai and of course as Il Duce; the one man army; in The Boondock Saints. In the Hobbit, he will play the role of Dain Ironfoot, the warrior dwarf who is lord of all dwarves and second cousin to Thorin Oakenshield; maybe he’ll even become crowned King under the Mountain one day after Oakenshield.

Director Peter Jackson welcomed this news of Connolly bringing the firefight to Middle-earth:

“We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the staunchest and toughest of Dwarves, than Billy Connelly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of ‘The Hobbit’ is now complete. We can’t wait to see him on the Battlefield!”

Connolly’s presence as a warrior will be greeted with just as much excitement as other notable members of this eclectic cast.

There’s the healing aura of Sylvester McCoy who is known for his role as the seventh Doctor in the Doctor Who series; The last lead to have his face in the Doctor Who opening titles. McCoy will play the role of Radagast the Brown, a member of the order of wizards specializing in animal lore.

Aidan Turner; the non-sparkly vampire from the original U.K. version of “Being Human”; will be playing the role of Kili. Kili is one of the nephews to Oakenshield and is one of the youngest Dwarves in the Company who is always seen with his brother Fili.

The central role of Bilbo Baggins will be played Martin Freeman; Arthur Dent in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dr. John Watson on the BBC show of Sherlock.

Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey from the Lord of the Rings trilogy; which is just another overpowered character that Mckellen plays like Dumbledore and Magneto.

I knew that the Hobbit was coming out but I never took a look at the cast until now. Even if we were to remove the Tolkien Fantasy element; a most appropriately used description; a handful of the cast alone generates so much geek cred that it could band together to defeat Peter Jackson’s ego once and for all.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is slated to be released beginning December 14, 2012. The second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is planned for release the following year, beginning December 13, 2013.

Kit Harington Joins the cast of The Seventh Son

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Kit Harington, who is best known for his role as Jon Snow on Game of Thrones has joined the cast of The Seventh Son, Variety reports.

The film which is to be directed by Sergei Bodrov; Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan; is slated to be released on February 15, 2013. The script from Matt Greenberg and Chuck Leavitt is adapted from the first of Joseph Delaney’s book series, The Wardstone Chronicals called The Spook’s Apprentice; for Americans it’s titled The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch. Yes, a little like switching out switching Philosopher and Sorcerer in the Harry Potter series but more blatent.

The movie which was previously titled The Last Apprentice, will have Harington joining a cast that already includes the Dude, Jeff Bridges; The Big Lebowsk, Tron, True Grit; Ben Barnes, Jullianne Moore and Alicia Vikander.

The official description of the The Spook’s Apprentice:

“For years, the local Spook has been keeping the County safe from evil. Now his time is coming to an end, but who will take over? Many apprentices have tried… Some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive. Just one boy is left. Thomas Ward. He is the last hope. But does he stand a chance against Mother Malkin, the most dangerous witch in the County?”

So to avoid confusing anyone, the class title “Spook” invokes a lot of confusion based on the etymology and slang in the American culture. To book which is written by a British author does not invoke the same annoyances using the word in the United Kingdom as it does in the states. So instead of Spook, it’s turned into, “You’re a wizard, Harry!”

So while it was culturally insensitive stateside, the changing of Spook to wizard or sorcerer has in turn annoyed avid fans of the series in the UK.

If the title or occupation was to be changed to something more apt, it should have been to Priest or Exorcist. For now, let’s call it a specialist position. Tom the main character; played by Ben Barnes; is taught by the specialist; Jeff Bridges; to defeat witches, boggarts and how to keep the world safe from great evil. Set to the backdrop of 1700’s semi-medieval creepiness, the old priest and the young priest need to excise the witch played by Julianne Moore.

Thomas J. Ward is special because he was born the seventh son of a seventh son. Based on an old folklore that the seventh son of a seventh son would have special powers; magic powers, healing, preternatural senses and hopefully eye beams; if he comes from an unbroken line with no female children born between. So with supernatural abilities, Tom furthers his training with the help of a learned Spook/Sorcerer/Wizard/Priest/Exorcist.

So the magic is powerful based on the principle that rarity equals strength. The more rare the occurrence, the stronger the energy.

I bet you Kit Harington didn’t know any of this. Want to know why? Because “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

The Walking Dead Game: Dead Reckoning

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Celebrating the return of TV’s scariest show “The Walking Dead”, a flash game have been released online in anticipation of season 2 beginning this weekend. In this game you control Shane Walsh; played by Jon Bernthal.

The game starts off establishing that before the television adventures that fans are familiar with, there was the untold beginnings. Set at the earliest stages of the outbreak, you help Officer Shane Walsh Keep himself and his people safe from harm. The two objectives: “Prevent people from being killed or turned into walkers…and keep yourself alive!”

This game is more like a pick your own adventure comic book. Though the sounds are creepy, the options you’re given are limited.

  1. Do something stupid that you’ll know will end up getting you or someone killed
  2. Do something counter to Shane’s character and try being reasonable.
  3. Do something that wastes your time and brings you right back to the other decisions.

While I played this game I kept thinking, “Where’s option 4? Flip out and be loud?”

 Set during the earliest stages of the outbreak, you run around as Shane and wonder more how this person ever became an officer of the law to begin with. A side story involving one of Shane’s exes reveals a little of what we suspect from the television show. While flipping out and being loud, Shane asks his ex why she lets her current boyfriend beat her. She replies with “You were no saint either when we were together” which suggests that he’s exactly how we picture corrupt police enforcement.

While Rick’s lights are still out in the hospital, it’s up to Shane to run the rest of the law in town. When responding to one of his co-workers advising him to be careful, he says, “Of course. I don’t have my head stuck up my ass like you.” Again, Shane is just not likable. Check out the game Dead Reckoning at the AMC TV website.

This brings me up to one of my pet peeves about the show. Why is Shane still alive? Forget that this show is based on the graphic novel of the same name; Though I do love the tank scene in the pilot of the show, the scene was spot on visually to the comic. Also forget that like the comic book, Shane’s character doesn’t make it out of the Atlanta camp; read the comic if you want to know why, it’s epic. If it wasn’t for these little changes, I wouldn’t be surprised by the show and we wouldn’t have Norman Reedus; a freakin Boondock Saint! ; on the show throwing around all sorts of Spiritus Sancti ass kickery.

Why is Shane alive when he’s clearly a liability to the survival of the rest of the crew? He’s not the bad ass of the group that the rest can say, “At least he’s our bad ass.” No, he’s a douche with a gun. Other than flipping out and being loud, there is no real function for him within the group that someone else can’t step in to take over; video games taught me to shoot. So let this be a lesson to you when; not if; the zombie apocalypse comes down.   Make like a tree and use the Shane-types as your Redeker Plan.

*Apologies as only those that have watched Boondock Saints and read World War Z will get the last line.

New Victims for James Wan’s The Warren Files

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The director that brought us Saw; the short which lead to the first awesome movie, not the rest of the franchise; and Insidious, James Wan is currently in pre-production on a new supernatural thriller. The film which was formerly called The Conjuring, has since taken the title The Warren Files.

It’s a good thing that they’ve opted to change the name from The Conjuring. Had they not, I would have automatically thought that it was a sequel to The Prestige where Batman and Wolverine battle it out with stage magicks again.

The production of the film claims to be taking its cue from a subjectively “true” case of paranormal activity with the Perron family.  Adapted by Chad and Carey Hayes, the book it was drawn from, “House of Darkness, House of Light: The True Story” is by Andrea Perron as an account of the life she lived in the house.

Here is an excerpt from the biography of Andrea Perron that I would like to comment on.

“It was the perfect place to raise a family, according to the owner, though he failed to disclose a crucial element of the experience he endured as an occupant.  The day we moved in, he told my father: “…leave the lights on at night.” A rather cryptic message.”

The book which is set in the 1970’s allows for the excuse that maybe people weren’t that suspicious back forty years ago.  If the film adaptation is to be more contemporary then the general reaction should be to be more inquisitive about such a remark, or draw conclusions quickly and high tail it out of there.  I can almost picture the audience in theaters shouting, “Oh Hells No!”

“For almost a decade our family lived among the dead.”  Less than a minute is all I need to be convinced to leave.  I’d either abandon my belongings or send for it.  Even if I got my hands on my things again, I think I would have to recite a few cleansing cantrips over them just to be sure.  Laugh now, but doing little rituals outweighs taking the chance of being wrong.

Children actors Mackenzie Foy; the Dark Knight Rises; and Joey King have been cast in the film as two of the five Perron children; probably whittled down to two instead of five by the adaptation or by evil spirits.  The adult Perrons; Roger and Carolyn; were cast last month and will be played by Ron Livingston who continues to experience each day as the worst day of his life; Office Space; and Lili Taylor.  Patrick Wilson; Watchmen; and Vera Farminga; The Departed; will play Ed and Lorraine Warren, two paranormal investigators who take on the Perron case.

This movie seems to be catching the tail end of the supernatural year in television.  Running the gamut of paranormal investigative faux-reality series out there, I’m almost annoyed that I haven’t seen any of these TV shows take a crack at the Perron house.

After The Warren Files is complete, Wan may be moving on to the next life with Insidious 2.  The movie is currently being written by Leigh Whannell.