31 days of Halloween / Tokyo Disney sea Skeleton friends
31 days of Halloween / Wolverine vs Freddy Krueger
31 days of Halloween/ Creepy PSA
31 days of Halloween / Adult Halloween costumes
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!
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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.
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