Haibane.info

Category: Movies and Television

  • Cumberbatch is Smaug! (h/t @Sherlockology)

    Buried at the end of this tidbit about Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch being cast as principal villain in the next Star Trek movie, is this awesome news: Cumberbatch will be the voice, and the body (based on motion-capture) of the mighty Smaug in The Hobbit!

    Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as the principal villain in the sequel to 2009’s Star Trek, according to Variety and trekmovie.com.

    A source is quoted as saying that the 35-year-old impressed director JJ Abrams and his team with an audition that “blew them all away”. Benicio Del Toro had been previously considered for the role of chief adversary but talks apparently broke down about a month ago.

    Cumberbatch’s most recent big-screen projects include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and War Horse, and he will also be providing the voice and motion-capture for Smaug the dragon in Peter Jackson’s forthcoming Hobbit film. Filming is expected to begin on the Star Trek sequel in a couple of weeks, with the movie scheduled for release in 2013.

    Frankly the Star Trek news is less interesting, though the movie will be better for having Cumberbatch run amok in it. I discount the rumor that the baddie is Khan as the timeline would require it to be Space Seed and not Wrath, and let’s face it, Space Seed was pretty lame. Also, I personally believe that the events of Star Trek: First Contact created the new timeline well before Spock’s return, which is why suddenly we had an Archer-captained Enterprise come into existence, and so the entire Trek prehistory is probably askew anyway. And if they are going to use Khan anyway, then there’s absolutely no excuse for not using an Indian actor – my preference is Shah Rukh Khan, but Fahran Tahrir would also do nicely. But I digress. Cumberbatch! Smaug! OMFG!

  • My review of the #TerraNova finale

    I’ve been getting my money’s worth on my Hulu Plus subscription by watching Terra Nova and Grimm – and I was surprised to see that the former is not getting any critics’ accolades the way the latter is. Let’s get this straight: TN is a high-cincept show, and as such has to walk a more general line to draw a broadened demographic in to justify its expense. Grimm has a darker tone and is more narrowly focused. It’s the truism of TV that the former type of show are just aren’t considered “artsy” the way the latter are, but in many ways the Big Idea script is the one that has the freedom to tell a more interesting story. I love Grimm, but ultimately it’s about as relevant to society as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. TN on the other hand has a message. Whether you disagree with that message or not is not relevant, it’s about the debate as well. You could make an argument quite easily that the Villains in Terra Nova have the moral upper hand in their goals and it’s the colonists under the messianic ministry of Taylor who are on the wrong side of history. Whether the show is permitted to explore that gray area is of course solely dependent on whether the show survives season one. But I challenge anyone to watch Encounter at Farside and not wince, especially in comparison to Yesterday’s Enterprise or The Inner Light.

    So: the finale deserves a lot more respect, in my opinion. (spoilers follow).. (more…)

  • Sherlock returns Jan 1st 2012

    The Grand Moffat just tweeted the news:

    Sherlock returns, Sunday,Jan 1st, 8.10pm, BBC1. First the woman, then the Hound and then, of course, the fall…

    The reference to “the woman” is the classic Holmes story involving Irene Adler, A Scandal in Belgravia. Sherlockology has a spoiler-free review of Scandal that will whet your appetite!

    The fall, I assume, is a reference to Reichenbach.

  • The Doctor and the Ultimate Question

    Q. Doctor Who?
    A. 42

    And so Season 6 ended, not with a bang, but with a wedding… (more…)

  • Sherlock soon

    Man, I cannot wait for this to get started. I’ve also caught up on Torchwood: Miracle Day, and Doctor Who is rolling along as well, and Warehouse 13. This may well be the golden age.

    Also discovered the site Sherlockology which is definitely going to be handy 🙂

  • WTF @Syfy? #Eureka canceled

    Good grief.

    “After painstaking consideration, we have had to make the difficult business decision to not order a season six of Eureka. But Eureka is not over yet. There is a new holiday episode this December and 12 stellar episodes set to debut next year, marking its fifth season and six memorable years on Syfy. The 2012 episodes are some of the best we’ve seen, and will bring this great series to a satisfying end. We are very grateful to Bruce Miller and Jaime Paglia, their team of incredible writers, and an amazing cast and crew who have consistently delivered a series we continue to be very proud of. We thank the fans for their support of this show and know they will enjoy its final season in 2012.“

    The marginal good news in this is that I’ve never sat down and done a full watch of the series in order, so this gives me a chance to catch up. But still, what the hell, SyFy?

    This makes me really nervous about Warehouse 13. It’s easily the best show on SyFy and rivals BSG in my opinion.

    At some point SyFy will have no science fiction left and the only game in town will be the BBC. Perhaps any television industry where profit margin comes first is doomed to sacrifice plot and regress? Actually that kind of explains the anime industry too, come to think of it…

    UPDATE here’s SyFy executive Craig Engler’s tweets about Eureka on August 5th, just 4 days ago:

  • Rory Williams, destroyer of worlds

    This is hysterically funny.

    (assuming you’re a fan of the Matt Smith Dr Who era)

  • Sherlock returns this winter

    Excellent.

    Details just revealed by co-creator/writer, Mark Gatiss, has the three proposed episodes as A Scandal in Bohemia, Hound of the Baskervilles and The Final Problem. Gatiss went on to explain that he will adapt ‘Hound’ for television, while co-creator Steven Moffat will write the series premiere. “Steven wanted to do the twisted love story [of ‘A Scandal’] because he likes that,” he said. “I’m doing the gothic horror, and Steve Thompson is doing ‘The Final Problem‘. Originally set to begin filming this month, it was pushed back a bit to allow Martin Freeman to complete filming on Peter Jackon’s, The Hobbit, which had experienced its’ own filming delays earlier this year.

    The Grand Moffat teased everyone with a simple tweet: “… it begins” and a photo of a very famous door. I really think that the first few episodes of Sherlock were better than the new season of Dr Who thus far – though not by a large margin. It seems that as Syfy wanes, the BBC waxes. I do miss Stargate but the Brits have plenty for me on tap. Just need to be patient until Fall… and, Warehouse 13 just returned, so I have something to keep me occupied till then 🙂

  • The Supervan

    ok, forget Sienna or Town and Country. I want the SUPERVAN

  • Ferris Bueller turns 25 today

    Happy birthday, Ferris Bueller!

    The best scene in the entire movie: