What I'm Watching...Game of Thrones Hiatus Hell...

Jun 05, 2017 01:55

My TV watching has been lax with the exception of keeping up with The CW’s “The Originals” and ABC’s “Speechless”. I think I’ve fallen too entranced with the binge watching method where I’m so impatient to wait weekly for a show that I rather rack up a few episodes so that I can then just knock them out. Two shows that I binge-watched recently are:


Good Behavior


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I remember seeing the trailer for it and not being impressed and thinking that Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey) was miscast. I was so wrong. She is stunning in this role which calls on her to be beautifully glamorous and also to strip down to all the ugly parts of oneself.

Based on the novella series “The Letty Dobesh Chronicles” Dockery stars as Leticia “Letty” Raines, a struggling drug addict and alcoholic who is trying to stay sober in a quest to regain custody of her son from her mother Estelle (Lusia Strus, “Wayward Pines”). In order to keep from indulging Letty substitutes the highs from drugs with the highs from stealing. A high-class thief with an inventive imagination she is able to get what she wants with wit and charm. In the midst of one of her crimes, she trips up the dealings of another criminal Javier (Juan Diego Botto, “Pulsaciones”) who forces Letty to work for him on a few jobs. What started out as a temporary partnership turns into something that could be more permanent as their initial attraction grows deeper as they bond over their mutual painful histories.

This role requires Dockery to be a f*cked up mess and it’s wonderful to see someone play a role so raw. And for me, that’s the appeal of the relationship between Letty and Javier which is the main draw of the show. These two people know the worst about each other and have seen the worst in one another and they accept it. It’s almost like a “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Sid and Nancy” type relationship except both strive to have a good influence of the other.

Also, their chemistry is through the roof.




Botto, looking like an Argentinian version of Eion Macken or Michiel Huisman brings a level of sexual danger that “Fifty Shades of Grey” thought they were invoking but weren’t. The sex scenes on this show aren’t as explicit as it would be on a pay cable service but damn, if it doesn’t get close. Come for the story and stay for the sex, or come for the sex and stay for the story (the sex is really in eps 1, 2 and 10. Not that I’m counting.).


Great News



With an uneven season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” I wasn’t considering watching another Tina Fey/Robert Carlock produced series, but out of boredom I did. I love “Great News”. An absurdist comedy in the vein of “30 Rock” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, the show’s creator and costar Tracey Wigfield blends the familiarity of both in the idea of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The show revolves around the shenanigans at a television news station with Briga Heelan (“Undateable”) as Katie, the show’s green producer (sweetly naïve like Kimmy Schmidt) who is trying to get respect from the station’s General Manager Greg (Adam Campbell, “Date Movie”). Her personal life and work life collides when her mother Carol (Andrea Martin playing a wacky character a’la Carol Kane in “Kimmy”…) goes back to college and becomes an intern at the station.

Katie has to contend with her mother’s meddling, a prima donna anchor (John Michael Higgins, “Pitch Perfect”, playing an Alec Baldwin type in “30 Rock”) who feels underminded and insecure about his young cohost Portia (Nicole Richie).


Shooter



Ryan Philippe stars in this TV adaptation of the Mark Wahlberg film which was an adaptation of a novel as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine sniper whose expertise is needed by his former comrade Isaac Johnson (Omar Epps) who is now a Secret Service Agent to prevent a presidential assassination only to be later framed by Johnson and a cover coalition for an assassination.

Bob Lee leaves behind his wife and daughter and goes on the run to prove that he was framed and to expose Isaac and the organization he’s working for. His quest puts a target on his back from Isaac and the FBI led by Nadine Memphis (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, “Arrow”).

Surprisingly good and an excellent role for Philippe. I never gave him any consideration beyond “Cruel Intentions” and turns out this dude is a good actor and even better at action. I loved the Mark Wahlberg film and Wahlberg is terrific at playing bad asses but Philippe not only has that badassery, but he handles the dramatic tension and emotional family scenes equally well. Wahlberg doesn’t have that.

Discovering “Shooter” made me discover Ryan Philippe on Twitter and dude’s actually a bit of fun.

And a total thot!









I’m gonna love you like I’m gonna lose you



With July comes the seventh season of “Game of Thrones” also known as its penultimate season. Yes, after this season there will be one more shortened season (a meager six episodes!) to close out the universe and to say goodbye to the characters we love. That is if they don’t die wretched, gruesome deaths in S7.







Praying to the old and new gods for the Starks







What’s up with the denizens of Westeros?

*Kit Harington has a mini-series in the pipeline and he’s moving in with girlfriend Rose Leslie.

*Aiden Gillen is working on this season of “Peaky Blinders”.



*Maisie Williams has joined her on-screen sister Sophie Turner in the Marvel Universe. Sophie was young!Jean Grey in “X-Men: Apocalypse” and Maisie will play another mutant student of Professor Xavier in the series “X-Men: The New Mutants”.

*Peter Dinklage has a long wrapped film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missourie” starring Frances McDormand coming out, he’s starting production on a Hervé Villechaize biopic playing you guessed it, Herve. He’s also a soon to be dad again as his partner is expecting their second child.

*Whether or not he lives or dies this season, Nikolaj is making sure he’s breaking Brienne and Jaime shippers’ hearts by playing with us them by going on his “Jaime loves Brienne” speaking tour saying that he wants Brienne and Jaime to have ten kids or that he wants his dying words to be “Brienne, I’ve always loved you”. These interviews have created a Battle of the Bastards between the Jaime/Cersei shippers and Jaime/Brienne shippers with the J/C shippers saying Nikolaj is pandering to the fans and that everyone knows J/C is endgame and he J/B shippers thinking that Nikolaj is actually giving away info about S7 as if his scenarios are actually going to happen.




It is laughable, Gwen. It’s as if the J/B fans have never watched “Game of Thrones”. There is no such things as happy endings or fan service on this show. If anyone actually gets a happy ending on this show I will gladly drink wildfire.

Another thing the J/B crow about is that Nikolaj and Gwendoline are close offscreen and while Nik and Lena surely get along, Nikolaj talks more about Gwendoline like promoting her role in S2 of “Top of the Lake”.




Sorry Jaime, I have a new OTP



Captain Phasma strikes back





Along with the other Star Wars cast members















The Force is with Billie Lourd



Anyhoo, Nikolaj’s movie “Shotcaller” is on Netflix.

Here’s Nik looking like Danny Trejo



And he’s been in South America as a Goodwill Ambassador



*My dear heart Iain Glen is making it officially. He and his longtime partner are getting married this summer.

He also has two films in the can, the soon to be released “My Cousin Rachel”
with Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin



and

The Flood with Lena Headey



*Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm) and that heaux Uncle Euron Pilou Asbaek have been cast in a Bad Robot film with the working title “Overlord”. There’s talk that it is the continuing sequel of the “Cloverfield” universe.

Pilou’s quite fun when he’s not being that evol Euron



The other “Game of Thrones” musician, my lovely Natalia Tena was in L.A for pilot season and her pilot was picked up! A crime procedural titled “Wisdom of the Crowd” starring Jeremy Piven and Richard T. Jones.

Natalia and new castmates



Due to her series commitment Natalia and her band Molotov Jukebox have had to scrap the rest of their tour for the year. My hope though is that her bandmates venture to L.A and they put on a show so that I can see her live.





Yes, she can! When the test screenings were going on for “Wonder Woman” the word was that WB was afraid that they had a bomb on their hands. I kept my expectations very low because I’ve been burned by the DCEU before and I with Zach Snyder being the godfather of the DC cinematic universe I really felt that Patty Jenkins would follow his formula and give audiences another dark film. Well, if there were rewrites as was rumored, then it worked because while not an outstanding film it is most certainly the best film out of the new DC cinematic universe.

“Wonder Woman” has beaten Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Doctor Strange, & Guardians opening weekends.

The men have to step it up



Sisters are doing it for themselves!



Picking up from a plot point in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” we encounter Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) reminiscing about the first non-Themyscirans she encountered and we see how it gave her an understanding on mankind.

Raised on Themyscira among Amazon warriors including her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen, “The Following”)




and her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright, “House of Cards”)




, young Diana is the only one who isn’t a trained fighter per the wishes of her mother, something Antiope disagrees with. Antiope secretly trains Diana and this training comes in handy when pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes onto the secret island with German fighters on his heels. In the ensuing battle Diana learns about war and about the secret that her mother told her about a threat against Themyscirans and her true origins.

Motivated to stop the threat to Themyscira and the outside world, Diana follows Trevor back to London to end the war which she believes has been engineered by Ares, the god of war.

Together with Steve and his cobbled together squad (Said Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock and Ewen Bremner),




They embark on finding and stopping Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya) and Ludendorff (Danny Huston) who are trying to stop a ceasefire in order to guarantee the war continues.



The film is a fish out of water tale just like “Thor”. It has humor, like “Thor”, a superfast love story like “Thro” but unlike “Thor” the story is actually compelling and Gadot and Pine have great chemistry unlike Hemsworth and Portman.




C-Hemmy gives props where its due



It also gives a nod to “Superman” (IMO) the greatest superhero film.





It was a much lighter film than any of the DCEU films and that light not only came from humor but from point of view. Diana was a much more optimistic character than Superman in “Man of Steel”. She had to have the scales fall from her eyes and see that there wasn’t a quick fix to humanity and instead of that breaking her it steeled her resolve to be better, to do better.

My complaint, as always with the DCEU films is that the CGI is hot garbage. I really think Zack Snyder’s cousin owns the graphic house they use because I don’t know why all of the films he’s associated with have CGI that looks like it comes from low-end video games. Also, Wonder Woman’s theme music was introduced in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” and it’s a horrible rock guitar riff so they had that playing underneath her fight scenes and it’s like Warp tour trash.

But those were mere quibbles.

Fierce Warrior dolls



~This is Why You Need a Secondary Account Part Deux: We all know Armie Hammer was put on blast by fans for liking and following BDSM blogs and that knowledge didn’t shame Armie at all

Doubling Down, my dude



I mean, the signs were all there






Obviously that knowledge caught the attention of plenty of his fans. Armie who keeps his DMs open on Twitter so that anyone can direct message him got a DM that somehow, his wife found out about. Knowing Armie he showed it to her for a laugh.

The missus was not amused



If he cheats I hope he cheats with a woman who hates flipflops like Elizabeth does.

A woman after my own heart



When he’s not posting pictures of his crotch and feet on Instagram (thanks for that, Armand), he’s promoting “Call Me By Your Name”, namely the infamous peach scene.




Armie who is no stranger to voiceover work having done voicework on “American Dad” and “Cars 3” (which he is now promoting) has recorded the narration for the audiobook of “Call Me By Your Name”.

~When Armie decided to stop trolling fans about playing Green Lantern he threw them a bone about a sequel for “The Man from U.N.C.L.E”. He revealed that there is a script that is being worked on and when Guy Ritchie and his producing partner was in town for the premiere of “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” he posted a pic of them together tagging Henry Cavill which made people think that the sequel is closer than it really is. Considering that it only gained great word of mouth once it made it to cable and Netflix and the underperformance of “King Arthur”, I don’t think WB is really angling to remake that film.

But Armie is reuniting with someone from “The Man from U.N.C.L.E”: he and Alicia Vikander have been cast in Ben Wheatley’s (Armie’s “Free Fire” director) next film.

~Hank Cavill needn’t worry about a sequel to “A Man from U.N.C.L.E”; he’s in the Tom Cruise business. Henry has been working on the sixth “Mission Impossible” film: the geniusly titled MI: 6.

Love the ‘stache



I don’t know how his pooch Kal feels about it



Can’t say that I like Hank as Superman. I think “Man of Steel” was awful and he’s pretty staid as Superman. But I do love that he loves Superman and he’s embraced the entire comic universe.




The superhero (actor) we deserve



His heart is as big as his badonk



Here’s Hank in Christopher Reeve’s suit



~”Aquaman is finally filming but “The Flash” seems to be stuck in some Flashpoint universe. No director and no agreed upon script. Meanwhile Ezra Miller is still a gift.

Ruby red is not your color. Try more of a berry or brick



The new pic on his band’s website



~Appropo of nothing: SPN hasn’t learned, huh? Mark Sheppard is not returning for SPN’s 13th “Scooby Doo” having season

Yes, “Scooby Doo”



But that didn’t stop SPN’s writer Jim Michaels’ from hinting that Sheppard’s Crowley will be back.

Sheppard shut that down, quickstyle



*It’s like when Kripke kept telling fans that JDM could come back and JDM finally got a chance to be interviewed about it and said not only had no one asked him back he wasn’t happy with how they portrayed Papa Winchester after his departure.

~I don’t know what ever became of Timothy Omundson’s character on SPN and if he’s still alive on the show to comeback but Omundson is making a comeback in a very real way. He’s recovering from a stroke.

His luxurious hair will return, I’m sure




armie hammer, #gameofthrones, supernatural, game of thrones, ezra miller, #dceu, #briennexjaime, henry cavill

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