Well for a start, you get Aaron Sorkin to write, David Fincher to direct and Trent Reznor to score it.  There, you have my attention..

Favourite trailer of the year so far by a country mile.  Just love the feel of this - the two teasers have been brilliantly understated too.  Casting looks spot on, say what you like about Timberlake but Jesse Eisenberg does the twitchy geek better than anyone.  I doubt Mark Zuckerberg will be flattered, and it's based on a pretty contentious book, but as I said, you already have my ticket.

About time for another catch-up of upcoming movies of interest (to me anyway, I know no-one else reads this).

JJ Abrams new "secret" project -"Super8".  This is being virally marketed much the same way that Cloverfield was.
Only a teaser so far but looks interesting at least:




Fresh insanity from Japan, for an upcoming animated TV show called "CatShitOne".  Based on a Manga series called "Apocalypse Meow", it's basically a war movie with cute animals representing different countries.  There is more details on the Wikipedia page




Very excited about this next one.  It's Luc Besson's latest project "Les Aventures Extraordinaires D'Adèle Blanc-Sec", and looks like a female Steampunk Indiana Jones, with dinosaurs.  It's French, but the trailer is subtitled.  Personally I think this looks amazing:

Next is George Clooney's latest "The American".  Clooney is one of my consistent favourite actors, he really has that "old Hollywood" charm about his work and this is no exception as it feels very much like something from late 60s / early 70s in tone and style.  Sign me up for this one:




I know next to nothing about The Green Hornet, except for the Bruce Lee conection to the old TV series.  Main draw for this is the director, Michel Gondry, who was responsible for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and a number of amazing music videos.  There are a couple of flashes of his trademark camera tricks here, and the trailer looks quite good fun, but we'll see:




"Predators" is the sequel to the 80s classics.  Hopefully going to wipe away all memory of the AvP movies and get back to some great action - starting with a good director and a stellar cast is a positive start I think.  Adrien Brody, Lawrence Fishburn, Danny Trejo... I'm there when it opens next weekend




Finally, this just landed today - teaser trailer for the latest from David Fincher.  Called "The Social Network", it's the story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.  Just having Fincher attached guarantees my ticket:

So my beloved TV Tuesdays have come to an end for another year - well, for a few months until things start up again anyway.  I figured I'd get some of my thoughts down about what has gone by and what is to come, and besides I'm putting off doing some real work so this seems as good an excuse as any!  I've been spotting ex-BSG cast quite regularly this year too, popping up in various guises, so just for fun I'm keeping a tally - let me know if I've missed any. 

When you're done here, check out my good friend Captain Kibble's take on all things TV - funnier and with pictures! Kibblemania

24
This one hasn't quite finished in the UK yet.  It's Jack Bauer's final TV outing, and as I've never been able to watch 24 week-to-week as it's just too damn tense, I saved it all up and watched it over 4 days after the finale became available online.  Have to say it's one of my favourite seasons up there with 1 & 3; yes it's still really silly and unbelievable and they did decide to push Jack completely over the edge this time, but they did a great job with the direction.  There is a terrific shot in one of the finale 2 eps (forget which one) where they don't even bother showing you Jack fighting, they just pan across a room showing the trail of destruction and dead bodies, which just tells you everything you need to know.  And I have to say they have set it up well for a movie I think.

BSG rollcall: 2


Caprica
I was quite surprised by Caprica.  Seemed to be as far away from BSG as you could get but it turned out to be very well written and actually some of the best "real" science fiction seen on TV for a long time.  Both technically and philosophically it hit the marks and I can't wait until it comes back.


Castle
Just got better and better - Fillion and Katic make very charismatic leads, the writing is solid and it gives you exactly what you'd expect.  Yes it's very much light drama but sometimes that's all you want and it's very easy to get this mixture wrong, but it's been consistently great.  Picked up for a third season, so roll on Autumn!

BSG rollcall: 1


Chuck
Chuck was really very clunky for a good half of the season I thought - they bought in Brandon Routh (seemingly just to be able to make the "Who do you think you are? Superman?" joke) and kept him around WAY past his sell-by date.  Terrible actor.  I know Chuck is not going for serious thespian performances but even so...  Second part of the season was lifted by Yvonne Strahovsky constantly wandering around in her underwear and Sarah Lancaster getting even more gorgeous, and Julia Ling re-appearing!  Works for me!  It ended strongly, with a surprise introduction for next season.  Not sure if the new character has been cast yet, but going on Chuck's previous form of playing to the geeks I'm hoping for Mary McDonnell.

BSG rollcall: 1?


Dexter
I touched on this in a previous post so I'll be brief; brilliant show, best season yet, and the final 4 episodes were the best 4hrs or so of TV I've seen this year full stop.  Genius.


Flashforward
They cancelled it.  Damn, just as it was getting good!!!  Admittedly it probably killed itself with the first half-dozen episodes where everything was happening without any explanations and it was lumping character upon character, but after the hiatus it cam back strongly with a terrific double episode which just threw the doors wide open, and carried on from there.  I guess that the audiences didn't come back with the show.  I am so pissed off that this has been cancelled while "V" gets another season.

BSG rollcall: 1

Heroes
They cancelled it.  Thank God.
I'd sit there watching every week, wondering WHY I was watching.  The show was great until the finale of the first season which was one of the biggest let-downs in TV history.  I think I (and seemingly millions of others) kept watching in the hope that maybe, just maybe it could get back to where it was.
But no.  I think it ended in a good way, where they could close the door and let you imagine where it would go but without a massive cliffhanger.  It doesn't need any TV movies, please just let it end there.


House
Confusing season, confusing ending.  But oddly I think this may be the one season that I'll want to re-watch.


How I Met Your Mother
Running out of ideas.  Barney is really the only reason for watching this now and even he isn't the same as he was.  Maybe has one good season left in it I think.


Stargate Universe
For the love of God someone push Chloe out of an airlock.  Even stranding her on a planet only lasted 2 episodes before she came strolling back through the gate in an occurrence that is still not being explained...
Other than that it's been pretty good, and I feel that the writers have some good ideas in the wings.  I will keep watching.


The Big Bang Theory
Slightly hit and miss this year, but for the funniest show on TV that still leaves it way ahead of the pack.  Totally worth it just for the physics montage and Sheldon in the ball-pit.

BSG rollcall: 2

The Pacific
Not a patch on Band of Brothers.  Rambling, too talky, overly gory when there was actually some action, and it explained very little about the actual campaigns.


V
I'm getting the "Heroes" vibe with this one.  NOTHING happens, nothing is explained; unlike the 80s series where you knew why the aliens were here and exactly why they were a menace, all they've done so far is heal a lot of people.  I'm sure the writers were trying to convey them as being cold and emotionless but it's really not coming across.  Elizabeth Mitchell lights up the screen whenever she's on it but all the others might as well be played by shop window dummies.  It had better all kick off in a big way when it comes back or I'm off...

I've saved up some shows to fend off the summer drought, so I have still to watch "Treme" from David Simon who wrote "The Wire" and "Generation Kill"; "Breaking Bad" is now in season 3, and going on the first 2 seasons there is little to worry about, fantastic show.

And coming up?  Well, "Burn Notice" is back and has been given 3 more seasons, making 6 in total which is fantastic news.  "True Blood" is back this month, as is "Entourage", hoping for more good things from those.  Biggest thing on the horizon is of course "The Walking Dead" from AMC, who also make Breaking Bad.  More on that as it gets closer.

No spoilers, honest!

A sequel to one of my favourite movies of the past 5 years was always going to be pretty high on my "Must See" list - the first movie was great fun and just plain entertaining from start to finish.  It was both a terrific movie and a great origin story from which to build up the myth and begin the road towards the Avengers in 2012.  This second one is also very entertaining but doesn't quite hit all the high notes of the original IMHO.

Sequels always seem to have to "one-up" the original, which usually for comic-book movies means cramming in as many bad-guys as possible.  Thankfully that isn't really the case here.  You have Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko, aka Whiplash, a man out on a revenge trip following the death of his father who helped Howard Stark (Tony's father) design the reactor which Tony subsequently miniaturised.  Ivan's father dies a drunken failure, and Ivan is out for revenge, leading to a spectacular sequence at Monaco during a motor race.

Also we have a couple of more realistically human antagonists - Justin Hammer (the brilliant Sam Rockwell) who just really wants to be Tony Stark in every way but cannot pull off the playboy act anywhere near as convincingly.  Garry Shandling also turns up as Senator Stern... boy he's really put some weight on!  Cannot say the same for Scarlett Johannsen though... wow, just... wow!  As Tony says, "Can I have one?".

Robert Downey Jr once again steals the show, and I suspect a good portion of the film is improvised dialogue as with the first.  This does mean that it can be a little hard to follow and pick out the wheat from the chaff as RDJ is babbling on to himself a good portion of the time.  It's very funny to watch however, you just have to pay attention and hopefully not have a twat sitting behind you who insists on narrating the film as well...

Finally a word about the special effects - absolutely top-drawer.  The single complaint I had about the second Hulk movie (with Ed Norton) was that I lost interest when the two monsters started throwing cars at each other, it lost me and lost all I had invested in the plot and characters.  No such problem here - the final act is terrific and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.  Nothing looked stupid or fake, and the action was well directed enough to not cause my eyes to bleed, unlike say the first Transformers movie whose action I just found it impossible to follow.

All in all a great fun action film.  As I said, I didn't quite think it was as good as the first, but that is a high bar to reach again.  It keeps me interested in the upcoming Thor, Captain America and Avengers movies too - particularly now Joss Whedon is getting involved.  Oh, speaking of the upcoming films, you should stay until the end of the credits if you have any interest at all in where this series is going.

8.5 / 10