Spider-Man, Walking Dead, Fringe and more

Fringe 101
As I've mentioned, I like Fringe. It's a solid show with a solid cast who play solid characters. Other reasons include: my nerdy love of the occult and "fringe" science, it's smart science fiction and, also, see picture above. I was really happy to hear that Fox gave the show an early confirmation of a third season pick-up. Fox is also upping its support ante (surprisingly) by setting up this Fringe 101 site in advance of the show's return from break on Thursday (April 1). The site features any and all info that viewers new to the show or those thinking of finally checking it out should know --  including what the creators consider the four episodes of the series that you need to see. Seriously, guys, it's a good show. Check it out.

Walking Dead
Zombie movies? Played. Zombie adaptations of classic literature? Ugh. AMC's adaptation of zombie comic Walking Dead? Fuck yeah.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Spider-Man video games haven't been the greatest. Shoot, even Activision's CEO admits it. That doesn't mean they're just going to throw in their web-shooters and give up, though. Enter, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, the latest gaming incarnation of the Wall Crawler. Looks, uh, interesting?

Lazy Teenage Superheroes
This kid made this video for, like, $300. It's sort of a parody of Heroes. Main differences: 1) it's good and 2) I actually want to watch this on a weekly basis.

Knight and Day
This action-comedy thing starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz is strange. Like, strange as in kinda off, like the smell of fried liver. It sort of feels like it should be a movie within a movie or something like that. I don't know, is it just me?

And finally…
Instant CSI. That is all.

Spider-Man go bye-bye

Spider-Man 4 epic clusterfuck action
Wow. Well, I guess that was one way to go with it, Sony. Most would have gone the "we want to make truckfuls of money AND a good movie" route, but I guess siding on the "fail-arity ensues" tip is something, too. While one might now segue to this story about Tobey Maguire's extracuricular hobbies involving the Spidey suit and mock, I think this is pretty awesome.

Yvonne S. talks Mass Effect 2
Chuck actor Yvonne Strahovski talks a bit about her (chunky) role in the upcoming BioWare extravaganza.

Conan, Leno, Letterman, the Incredible Hulk
It seems everyone has an opinion on this Leno-Conan-NBC thing. Seriously. Everyone. David Letterman? He has an opinion. The Incredible Hulk? He, too, has an opinion. Me? Do I have an opinion? Sure. I guess I think NBC are stupid poopy faces and Leno is a jerky man. Conan is ok, though. I think he should quit the network and it should go something like this.

Transformers
Even before Michael Bay and all that shizz, I was never much of a Transformers guy. I was more of a G.I. Joe guy, so, really, this isn't about being cooler than anyone, it's just a matter of taste. And, really, the use of that word to describe it all is tenuous at its most tenuous. Regardless, the new Transformers: War for Cybertron game is starting to look and sound pretty tasty. It's not up there with the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages of the gaming universe for me, but I'm looking forward to checking it out, definitely.

Fringe
I like Fringe. I've become a fan of the show and its paranormal shenanigans. Dunham is intense. Peter is Pacey with a gun. And Walter is one of the coolest characters on TV right now. I watch it on a regular basis and watch when it is airing so I get my Anna Torv the way she was meant to be seen: in HD. Fox moved the show -- somewhat controversially -- from Tuesday to Thursday this season, where it goes up against, like, every popular show on TV at the moment. Still, it's apparently doing well, according to Fox, and it looks good that it will get a third season. I like how Fox is all obtuse about it. But still, good news, I guess? And producer J.J. Abrams seems enthusiastic enough to talk about looking into the show's future, too.

And finally…
If you watch Lost, or ever have, you'll probably get a kick out of this.

“I made a touchdown!”

No-no
If you know (and love) your baseball, you'll love this. But hey, if you love funny shit, animation and great (true!) stories you will, too.

Alien Legion
Alien Legion was a cool, somewhat obscure comic book graphic novel series from the late '80s, early '90s. Basically it was the foreign legion in space with aliens and humans killing shit across the galaxy. Bonus: the commanding officer was half-snake. It was an enjoyable romp that sometimes did the whole thinly-veiled allegory for contemporary issues thing but overall it was about who these people (and aliens) were before and who they became after joining the legion. And it was pretty violent. You could probably pick up a whack of issues for next to nothing, I would think. And you might want to do it quick because, according to this article, they're looking to turn it into a film/franchise. Could definitely work.

Fringe
I haven't made my love of Fringe a secret. The show's characters and world appeal to me and I don't care who knows it. It's cost me friends and family to do so (it hasn't) but that's the way it has to be -- I am a passionate man in my passions. Now Fox is hoping to attract new viewers to the show with its latest viral campaign. It uses the mysterious (and bald!) Observers and they've been turning up across various Fox properties -- even NFL football! It's all gonna culminate on this week's episode. Sounds good to me.

Awesome long fights
How long will you watch two dudes pummel each other? Answer: probably a lot. With that in mind, here's a great list of the 10 longest, awesomest movie fight scenes of all time.

Hawkman, unfortunately
Sometimes staying true to a super hero's costume can be a mistake. Exhibit A: Hawkman's appearance on Smallville.

Decade
NME has released their top albums of the decade. Yeah, it's a little Brit-centric and, yeah, the Strokes are number one, but it's hard to argue the majority of the choices. Well, maybe Klaxons.

And finally…
The year 2008 was a year where Fallout 3 was released (along with Fable II, GTA IV, Gears 2 and other huge titles). And, still, I think Ubisoft's Prince of Persia reboot was my favourite. Maybe not overall, but as a concept from top to bottom it was genius. One of the greatest things about it was its enigmatic ending. An ending so unique, it's inspired debates ever since. Now Destructoid elloquently opens up the debate again -- and I thank them.

My Spider sense is tingling (Maybe some other parts, too)

Black Cat
Some big rumors afoot in Spidey-ville. Here's the breakdown: it looks like one of the Wall Crawler's adversaries in the fourth film is going to be Black Cat. Sure, she's basically a Catwoman rip off, but a lot has been done and a lot could be done with her. As a character, too. (And I thank you...) Anyway, let's set our mood organs to "positive" for this, so far. The rumors get more specific with actress Romola Garai (allegedly) auditioning and (wait for it) Rachel McAdams as well. I don't know, Rachel McAdams as a femme fatale feline anti-hero? Meh. Not seeing it but maybe? At least she can act. And is cute as a button, of course. (I think my Canadian citizenship gets revoked if I don't put that in there -- it's bad enough I use US spelling.) Remember though, these are all rumors -- including Black Cat even being in the film. Still, as a love interest of Spidey's, 'Cat has the potential of impacting his personal and super-heroic life. That's the sort of stuff Sam Raimi liked using in the first two movies. Oh, all right, I guess he tried to do that in the third one, too.

Good.
Steven Spielberg and Will Smith's planned remake of awesome Korean film Oldboy has (thankfully) been shitcanned. I'm not being a typical bloggy hater dude who's cheering because some obscure thing I like is not being made into a bloated Hollywood abortion. I do that sometimes but not now. Promise. I like Spielberg and have been known to like Smith on occasion, but there's just no way they would have been able to do this film. Sorry. They just couldn't. There's just too much over-the-top stuff -- and the twist at the end? Come on. No way. Let 'em do some other kind of fancy movie magic together. Some sci-fi or something like that maybe.

Mad Men
Did you watch the season finale of Mad Men this week? What did y'all think? Some huge stuff going on, right? Looks like next season is shaping up to be a doozy. Ambiguous enough for all you spoiler-free types? Good. Here's an interview/season 3 post-mortem with series creator Matthew Weiner. There's spoilers, by the way.

Fringe
So, J.J. Abrams is all cheery about Fringe taking some ratings hits thanks to being placed in a hyper-competitive timeslot, huh? Not sure I would be. Especially now that EW's Michael Ausiello is circling it and dropping the C word. Considering Fox moved the show to a night and timeslot that is killing it, I would say maybe they should take responsibility and move it back or somewhere better, no? Although, the almost-assured cancellation of Dollhouse is a good thing if you're a Fringe fan, I guess. After all, Fox does need to have at least one sci-fi show to hold up when everyone is crying over Firefly Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Dollhouse, right?

Oh my.
What happens when Sir Ian McKellan drops in on the ladies from The View? Wow. Just wow.

Saboteur
Upcoming WWII open world game The Saboteur looks like a lot of fun. Instead of your usual one man v. the Nazis you... well... sure, you're still one man v. the Nazis, but this time you're Irish! And a saboteur! And you wear a leather jacket and a cool hat! Plus, you get to whore around Paris. Slap Nazis in the face. Shoot zeppelins out of the air. All that shit. And you get to do it whenevs and howevs you want. The game is launching before Christmas, which gives me some hope that it just might be awesome. Oh well, at the very least it'll be the best Irish WWII saboteur video game of the year -- and that's something, right?

And finally…
Did you want X-Men 3? Yes, yes you did. Did you like the X-Men 3 you got? No, not one bit. But really, why was that? In a nutshell, the dudes who had made the first two films weren't involved in the third one. But what if they were? How would it all have turned out? Curious? Hmmm? (sorry) Well, X2 writer Michael Dougherty has revealed the direction in which he and original X-Men series director Bryan Singer were headed. Gotta say, I like it.

Wha happened to: Diora Baird in Star Trek, the Fallout MMO and more

Fallout MMO
Last year-ish, there was news that Interplay was cooking up a Fallout-based MMO. This seemed like a no brainer, except, of course, that Bethesda owned the rights to anything Fallout-y and had just released the critically-accliamed Fallout 3. So, yeah, they were understandably mad, to say the least and lawsuits ensued. With the legal slugfest underway, we're starting to see what Interplay had in mind and, well, it looks like they get the whole post-nuclear war look the game is known for.

Diora Baird
It's pretty easy to see why dudes like Diora Baird. That needs no discussion. And, actually, it would probably be creepy to discuss it anyway, so it's best we skipped that chat, my friends. When it was announced that Diora would be joining the also easy-on-the-eyes Rachel Nichols as Orions in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, nerds jizzed in their pants the world over -- even before the various "scenarios" one might imagine occuring between the comely Misses Baird and Nichols in green make-up and little clothing. But again, it wasn't a surprise that Diora would be cast as a sexy green chick. But then a double decker surprise chop sandwich gets served up as J.J. not only cuts out her scene but he cast her as the Orion with the clothes in the first place. WTF?

Sci-Fi TV
Here's an analysis of how science fiction shows are doing on TV this fall. I was happy to see that Fringe may not be in as much trouble as has been discussed recently.

Mass Effect 2
Check out this video of the upcoming BioWare title, which emphasizes combat. While I didn't hate on the original's combat as much as others do, this looks much improved. Also, if you know anything about the original, the new and improved (read: frightening) husks are chilling. I'm not really sure how you would make those more frightening than they already were, but I guess BioWare did it because I am NOT looking forward to that level at all, man.

Batman
This is a great list of the top Batman: The Animated Series episodes. Can't say I can argue with it. And it makes me want to rewatch them all, too.

And finally…
Speaking of Batman, do you watch Community on NBC? If not, you're missing the funniest show on TV right now. Shame on you. This whole sequence based on the Caped Crusader isn't even the sixth funniest part on their recent Halloween episode.

Generic Thursday blog post

Dragon Age: Origins
Man, I have a buttload of games to review. First off and for the record: That's not a complaint. It is the truth, though. I have six games I'm at varying stages of playing that all should get reviewed soon-ish (if not already). Shoot, I still have to get deep enough into NHL 10 to start forming some opinions and when did that come out? Like, months ago, it seems (it wasn't.) It's sad. And the worst of it? After Nov. 3, I'm pretty much just playing Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware continues to tease some amazing details like this social network-style element the game uses. Also, this reviewer has outlined the use of sex (which is pretty frequent) in the game. My favorite tidbit from that is that the sex becomes an element "around the 60 hour mark" of the game. Awesome.

Uncharted
Nolan North, game voice actor extraordinaire has dropped that Hugh Jackman is everyone's fave pick to play Nathan Drake in a big screen adaptation of Uncharted. I guess that works. I like Jackman, a lot actually, but him as Drake isn't a slam dunk for me. Nope, it isn't.  After recently playing all of Uncharted 2 and revisiting a bit of the original for comparitive purposes (yes, I'm just that thorough), I was feeling Bradley Cooper as Nathan for some reason. He sort of has that cocky-wry thing going, he would probably put a lot more into the franchise than someone who already has one going, and, he really sounds like North/Drake. Then again, maybe Drake needs the Indiana Jones style weight that someone like Jackman has. I don't know. It's probably best that I don't cast giant Hollywood adaptations of video games for a living, isn't it?

Alien prequel
Ridley Scott is doing a prequel to Alien. Whether or not you think that's a good idea, it's happening. Hey, it's better than Brett Ratner doing it or who-have-you, but still, yeah, there's going to be some nervousness there for all of us out here. Scott has started to drop some details about his idea -- well, very vague ones, anyway. Mainly about when the film would take place in relation to the original.

Avatar
Here is the first, full Avatar trailer. So, what did you think? It looks rather plush, doesn't it? To me, it also looks like it will be kinda bad and here's why: the dialogue/story we're allowed to see. It just all seems a tad too simple, doesn't it? Shouldn't a futuristic tale of morality have some complex moral choices in it? Then there's the (possibly ridiculous) Braveheart-slash-St. Crispen's Day speech that all epic films seem to have and all I could say was: Wow. As in: Wow, that's bad. My dad and I were talking about the movie at Thanksgiving and he was like, "If they can put people's consciousness into another entity, why don't they have the technology to repair the guy's body?" The trailer sort of hints that maybe there's a reason, but still, I'm really getting the no feeling from this one.

24
Do you still watch this? I don't.

And finally...
Networks keep giving science fiction shows the green light. There are a bunch out there in TV land. Some are great. Some are just good. Some are Stargate. Regardless, networks have a tendency to kick science fiction shows in their special parts any chance they can get. Moving them around. Putting them on hiatus. Reducing their budgets. Etc. Well, it's about time they stopped. And figures that as soon as I get into Fringe, it's now considered a bubble show. Face palm.

"Unless you have an IQ higher than mine, I am not interested in what you think"

Anyway, it's Thanksgiving here in Canada this weekend. Time for some turkey and awkward family interactions, right? I'm doing my best to keep this thing going, so, instead of leaving at a decent time, I'm dropping a quick entry. I hope you appreciate this.

Mass Effect 2
I am a huge fan of space RPG Mass Effect. That is an understatement of epic proportions. To say I'm excited about the upcoming sequel to the BioWare game (due out in early 2010) would be an understatement of equal epic-ness. So, when I read this IGN piece on how the upcoming game is the "dark chapter" of the trilogy akin to the Empire Strikes Back, there might have been a quiet fist-pump in celebration. Seriously, this one is looking like a contender for game of the year 2010.

Oddworld
Speaking of cool video games, anyone remember Oddworld? Well you're going to be able to get a bundle of all the games off of PSN and Steam. Sweet! Now if they could just revive the series for this generation of consoles.

Fringe
You know what? I'm a big fan of J.J. Abrams and co.'s chronicles of the unexplained show now. I recently got the season one Blu-ray and have just caught up on the series and enjoyed the fuck out of it. Great characters, good acting and an engaging plot. And get this: unlike the X-Files (which it will always be compared with) it seems to know where it's going. Anyway, here's an interview with Leonard Nimoy -- who plays mad-lord scientist billionaire William Bell on the show -- talking about the new season.

And finally…
Seriously, where is this stuff?