The Back Row

I'm a man of few words. That is all.

The Goon is a film project that's been in my periphery for a long time now, having been announce in 2008 and involving a fair amount of talent - including voice work from Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown, and with David Fincher as a producer! There was a trailer released in 2010, but then there was a long stretch with no word on the status of the film...and it turns out it's right where it was before - looking for money, but steadily working towards something. I love the look of this new trailer. Mr. Fincher, get this thing on Kickstarter and take my money!

This has to be one of the most disappointing episodes of Beer and Board Games that I've ever seen, because while it certainly lives up to the "beer" portion of the title, the amount of time spent actually playing the Game of Thrones board game is pitiful! It wouldn't be so bad...except I friggin' love the Game of Thrones board game, and it sucks that it's not getting its due screen time. Hrumph. But still, this is pretty damn funny, since this is probably the most drunk I've ever seen these guys get.

Click here for more Beer and Board Games!

With the release of Dark Shadows, it seems like people are beginning to tire of the collaborative trio of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter, and yet Tim Burton's last film - Alice in Wonderland - holds the record of the tenth highest-grossing film of all time. It seems like this conflict runs throughout fans and non-fans of Tim Burton's work, as people love his whimsy but hate his overcommercialized style of recent years. Still, the majority of Burton's filmography boasts terrific movies like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Ed Wood, and it's hard to argue that the man has talent. On this episode of Shouts From the Back Row, Gill, Robin, and TK discuss the career of Tim Burton, charting his films from his early shorts all the way up to the present with Dark Shadows, and list off their favourite (and least favourite) Burton films along the way. Click here to download the episode!

Music for this week's podcast was composed and performed by our very own Vince Nitro!

Here's a nice case of a celebrity showcasing their own "Before They Were Stars" footage as Ellen DeGeneres played an old commercial she appeared in back in 1992 on a very recent episode of her talk show. The commercial is for the now-defunct telecommunications company, US West, and it's hilarious to see Ellen poke fun of the way she shilled such cutting-edge technology as a wrist pager and a brick-shaped Motorola cell phone.

Oh yeah! That guy! Karel Roden is a Czech actor who has been active in film and television since the mid-1980s, but who has only made the transition from Czech cinema to North American cinema within the past twenty years. One of his more prominent North American roles was in the Robert De Niro film 15 Minutes in 2001. He followed it up with prominent roles in films including Blade 2, Bulletproof Monk, The Bourne Supremacy, Dead Fish, Hellboy, RockNRolla, Orphan, and A Lonely Place To Die. Roden has also voiced a character in Grand Theft Auto IV and played numerous television roles, with credits on shows such as Missing and The Philanthropist. Karel Roden turns 50 today.

This is a test of the omni theater sound system. Leonard Nimoy!

D'awwww! Here's a sweet little belated Mother's Day present for all the moms out there: a new teaser for Brave! Brave is rapidly becoming one of my most anticipated movies of the summer, and I fully anticipate to get all choked up watching it. Sigh. Oh Pixar, you know just how to tug at the heartstrings.

Brave comes out June 22, 2012.

Naughty Dog's new game The Last of Us has a new trailer clip thing, and it's a doozy! This could easily pass for the preview for some kind of I Am Legend sequel, and it looks very, very cool. I haven't got much to say about it beyond that, since we have yet to see any gameplay footage, but, as always, if I have one complaint, it's that this game is only for Playstation 3.

The Last of Us doesn't have a release date yet, but word round the web is that we'll see it sometime in the summer of 2012.

This hilarious 8-bit rendering of the Community characters playing the video game versions of...themselves...is apparently a clip from the upcoming episode titled Digital Estate Planning. I have no idea how this stuff will fit into the episode, mind you, but hopefully the whole episode will look like this, 'cause that would be amazing. Even if this sequence only lasts a couple of minutes, it's still awesome.

One of my earliest "Before They Were Stars" features showcased John Travolta singing a happy song in the shower with two other guys in a Safeguard Soap commercial, but in sharp contrast, here's another old John Travolta commercial for Mutual of New York that's one of the most depressing ads I've ever seen! Basically, the message is that because Travolta's father died before setting up a life insurance policy, all the poor kid's dreams are shattered forever and he will now be relegated to a lifetime of running his dad's shitty luncheonette.

Matthew McGrory stood 7 feet, six inches tall and wore size 29.5 shoes. Because of his great height, McGrory rapidly became the go-to giant in movies and television, playing looming characters in Bubble Boy, Big Fish, Men in Black 2, Constantine, House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, Malcolm in the Middle, Charmed, and Carnivale. Unfortunately, likely due to health complications as a result of his size, Matthew McGrory died on August 9, 2005 at the age of 32. My favourite role of his was definitely as Karl the Giant in Big Fish.

Alan Rickman doesn't just drink tea. He rules it.

A self-described "Four Minute Super Preview" for The Amazing Spider-Man has landed online and...well, it sure doesn't feel like a new trailer. Instead, it feels more like the past three previews stitched together, and I honestly can't remember what footage in this trailer is "new"...it's the bit with the kid, right? Considering this trailer is four minutes long, it hasn't succeeded in raising my interest levels in The Amazing Spider-Man one iota. And - not to nitpick here - the special effects are decent, but not stupendous. A minor quibble, since there's still time for them to iron them out before the film is finally released, but, as usual, I find myself less than amazed by The Amazing Spider-Man. Is anyone out there really excited for this?

The Amazing Spider-Man comes out July 3, 2012.

Warning: This review contains mountains of spoilery spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead, as well as the graphic novels that serve as source material for the series.

[Comic from rockpapercynic.com]

Before I begin, I just want to note how exhausting it was writing this extremely long review. Having reviewed the entire first season of The Walking Dead on an episode-by-episode basis, I wanted to make sure that my look back on season two of the series gave my full thoughts on things, and that no stone was left unturned when it came to my opinions of where the show has gone since its inception. It wasn’t easy. The Walking Dead’s second season actually reminded me of the second season of Heroes. After setting things up amazingly in a killer first season, both shows fell flat when they tried to deliver similar magic with their second seasons. There were the odd fun moments, but the majority of the episodes felt a bit…tedious. Let’s get right into it…

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