31 days of Halloween/ Chucky vs Rick Steiner
The Walking Dead Season 11, Episode 7 “Promises Broken” Review
This week’s episode of The Walking Dead just debuted one of the most hated characters in the comic book series. That is, Sebastian.
If you are not aware of who Sebastian is, he is Pamela Milton’s son. Sebastian killed Rick Grimes on issue #192 of The Walking Dead. Now that he is on the main show, the question that will be drawn out for another year is who will take comic book Rick Grimes’ death!
The actor Teo Rapp-Olsson does a great job of bringing the spoiled kid to life on The Walking Dead. From his scenes with Eugene, to the scene with Mercer and Lance, I am sold on Teo Rapp Olsson playing this character. Now on to the episode itself!
There were some good things that I did like on “Promises Broken.” The Maggie and Negan saga that has been ongoing this whole season, finally reached a point where I am glad that these two had a conversation. Negan admitted that he would have killed the entire group when they first met was cold! Not as cold as to why he told Maggie this in-front of her face. The point for this scene, is that these two needed to talk no matter if they liked it or not.
Another thing I did like is that Negan learned something from The Whisperers as he taught Maggie how to herd walkers. I got a laugh out of Maggie wearing a Whisperer mask. Believe me! I did felt that it was random for Elijah to finds his sister as a walker at the end of the episode. That is just me.
Everything with Daryl and Leah I did not care about. The Walking Dead is seriously forcing these two to have scenes together to build a lost bond. But it does nothing for me. But at least they found some survivors. The survivor’s wife went out in a horrible and sad fashion.
I will also have to say that Yumiko’s character progression is a bright point for this first half of the final season. It will take some time for her to get used to the old ways before the apocalypse hit. Yumiko is going to be a central figure in The Commonwealth. And she even saw the real Stephanie! And I can say that I am happy that Ezekiel is feeling much better! Next week is the last episode of The Walking Dead of 2021!
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content.
Movie Review: The Many Saints of Newark
As a huge Sopranos fan, I was disappointed by the movie. What made The Sopranos so great was the organic character development where you’d see beefs and alliances develop between characters over the entire season, snappy dialogue, and motifs/devices that injected a touch of the supernatural/fantastic (think Chrissy’s crow, the ghouls following Paulie around, Tony’s many dreams) while also helping to explore the complex psyche of Tony Soprano.
The Many Saints of Newark is not that. In many ways, it feels like a parody of the show – many have already commented about the cartoonish characterization of the young Silvio (his first appearance in the film is cringeworthy, and borders on parody on the level of an SNL skit), Paulie, Pussy, and Junior (how many times does Junior say “Your sister’s ****”?) which often feel jarring in the moment.
I felt as if I was brought to a Sopranos themed amusement park, where the main attraction and draw is seeing the characters in their youth, played by actors whose main performance notes seem to be exaggerations of whatever mannerisms the characters had on the original TV series. This experience might be delightful to some – personally, it was charming for a second before it descended into camp.
The plot is largely unremarkable – there’s a lot of screen time given to Giuseppina, who mainly exists to be a Helene of Troy-type deal for the male protagonists despite all of her talk of wanting to be an independent woman; there is a half-assed, exposition-heavy exploration of how African Americans fit into the organized crime scene, and a few scenes depicting the 1967 Newark Riots that felt very much like the film was reaching to strike a historical note, in the same way Godfather 2 did with the Cuban Revolution.
The difference between MSoN and Godfather 2 (and the problem with MSoN) is that Many Saints of Newark seems to never be sure of what it wants to be – it perpetually seems to be stuck between the three modes of pandering shamelessly to fans of the franchise (like the Star Wars sequels), making a statement/paint a scene of the racial tensions in Newark in the 1960’s, and exploring the character of Dickie Moltisanti, the movie’s eponymic protagonist.
With no clear direction and emphasis on the second and third desires, the movie ultimately ends up as little more than a trip to Sopranos-land, and the end credit score feels like another grab at the fanboys more than anything else.
There is something to be said about how Many Saints of Newark was marketed – as a movie focusing on Tony Soprano’s young self. Like many other fans of the show, I expected many scenes form Tony’s youth alluded to in the TV show – the jacking of Feech’s card game, Tony’s brush with his football coach, an exploration of his relationship with Young Carmella. We see none (or very little) of that in the movie, and I couldn’t help but feel taken advantage of.
Overall, the only “prequel” for the Sopranos are still Scorsese’s mob hits like “Goodfellas” or “Casino” for me – especially “Goodfellas,” for its influence on The Sopranos, not to mention the number of casting overlaps between the two. For a fan, I think Many Saints of Newark is still worth a watch – but if asked if the movie stands alone by itself, I would have to respectfully disagree.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content.
31 days of Halloween / The pumpkin who couldn’t smile
31 days of Halloween / Monsterizer
31 days of Halloween: It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
The Walking Dead Season 11, Episode 6 “On The Inside” Review
The Walking Dead just delivered one of the most scary episodes of all time!
That is right! A mini psychological horror film graces our screens with “On The Inside”. Lauren Ridloff and Kevin Carroll did an outstanding performance on bringing the tone of a horror movie to this episode. This ranged from how they acted, to the exchange of communication between the two characters, and the clever use of the sound design.
The Walking Dead is usually great with their sound. But here, it is on another level because there were multiple times that they switched to Connie’s perspective on how she is dealing with the creepy house they were in. I was also caught off guard by the well-timed jump scares.
If you were to tell me that there would be humans that would act like they came out of that film The Ring in a zombie apocalypse, I would have thought the idea would be crazy. They were used in such an amazing way on The Walking Dead! Too bad that there was no story to why they became like that, but maybe that could open the door for this on a future Tales of The Walking Dead episode.
There were also subplots that involved Daryl being part of an interrogation sequence to prove his loyalty with The Reapers while also helping them search for Maggie, Negan, Gabriel, and Elijah. Though these short adventures move the plot along, I remain uninterested in The Reapers. All of them just have “get off my TV” heat with me!
Kelly’s search for Connie has also been a long one since early in the previous season of The Walking Dead. I can say that I am glad that they resolved this at the end of this episode. The trail of clues that Connie left for Kelly to follow throughout the episode helped Kelly find her. It was smart for Connie to do this as she knew that they would find her.
“On The Inside” is a great example of The Walking Dead being a television show in the horror genre. It is easily now in my top 10 favorite episodes and on e of the most memorable in the series. I give it my high praise as an awesome episode!
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content.
Let’s have fun with Star Wars commercials / Story time
The Walking Dead World Beyond Returns With a Confusing and yet Enjoyable Second Season
The Walking Dead World Beyond’s first season concluded with a cliffhanger that will be explored on the second season. The reception of the first season has been mixed. I, for one can agree with the reception as I felt like it was a chore at times to get through the first season with the exception of the last half of the first season.
With all of that aside, I got a chance to watch the first two episodes of the second season. Here are my non-spoiler thoughts broken down by each episode.
Episode one titled Konsekans, follows up with the end of the very first episode of the series in a massive way. Although I cannot say what happens at the moment, but there are missing items from the first season about CRM that are addressed right away. The thing here is, why was this moment not shown on the first season of World Beyond? Elizabeth is also heavily featured on the first episode as well as she wants Hope to work with CRM.
My take on some of the dialogue exchanged between Elizabeth and Huck is that the two actresses do not have good chemistry on screen together. But I am sure that it will get better more episodes into the second season of World Beyond. Speaking of following up, Will told Felix and Hope the story of what happened to him prior to the season one finale of World Beyond. It is an interesting story. However, I wished it could have been fleshed out more for me to care about the character.
There are things that do get a bit confusing with one of the character’s hallucination sequences. Get ready because it is there for the majority of the second half of this episode. The end of this sequence is satisfying though. It is just how it begins and what happens in between is what boggles my mind.
Iris became my favorite character on this episode. Especially towards the end when she does something major. In the universe of The Walking Dead, we are used to seeing adults and kids doing this whether if they are in a community, or not. Here on World Beyond, it strikes different because everyone never left their community before to deal with doing what needs to be done at that moment. It is a good scene!
If you take out the hallucination scenes and watch this episode of World Beyond, it is enjoyable. The second episode titled Foothold is better than the first episode. There are a large number of things I cannot spoil, but you will learn more about CRM on this episode than the entire first season of The Walking Dead World Beyond.
I can also say that the plot is moving very fast this time just on these first two episodes alone that is keeping me engaged to learn more. There is also dialogue that is still suited for a high school play. But not overbearing like the first season. Overall, this season starts off stronger than the last even though parts are hard to follow.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content.