Never surrender.

Hollow Man is playing on HBOZ as I type this very sentence.  It’s an awful film.  Josh Brolin is the third lead.

Josh Brolin: He of the epic Hollywood hot streak.

Careers ebb and flow.  Talent wins out in the end.  If you think you can do it, if you know you can do it…

Never surrender.

Random aside: This is an all-time stinker by Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Caine.  This makes my dubbed performance as Teddy Gordon look like the modern incarnation of Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire.

‘I’ve always had certain impulses. I just didn’t understand them until I met my Dad.’

He's behind you! John Wakefield's mystery assistant is finally revealed

So, the 13-episode ‘event’ that was Harper’s Island (CBS) has finally come to its grisly end in what was a thrilling, suspense-laden two hour finale. It turns out Henry, a.k.a. ‘The Groom’, a.k.a. (by me) ‘The Fit One’, was the killer-with-ick-inducing-incestuous-desire-masquerading-as-best-friend who had been secretely assisting oldtimer John Wakefield. It was always a fairly safe bet that Christopher Gorham was going to make it to the end of the series, with the Ugly Betty star being easily the most famous of the younger cast (and one of the better actors by quite a long shot) and all, and he was fan favourite for the killer, but I have to say I had been gunning for Sully to be the bad apple ever since he acted like a royal douche towards Cal in episode 2. Not being a die-hard fan of the show I hadn’t been paying much attention to all the little plot contrivances so for all I know his guilt had been ruled out long ago, but I was feeling pretty smug in my own correctness when Entertainment Weekly did not even bother including Sully in their ‘who’s the killer?’ pre-finale poll. So that showed me.

The reveal was disappointing on the count that Henry was always one of the more sympathetic characters on the island and really the only one left after sweethearts Cal and Chloe kicked the bucket last week. Episode 12 saw the first real moment of suspense for me when Henry left Trish in the shower to go and get his luggage. I actually found myself sitting up in my chair saying ‘no, please not Henry. Please not Henry.’ Though that might have been because his death would left me with no real incentive to keep watching. He was also the most fleshed-out of the bunch – despite her tortured past, Abby always felt like a bit of an unconvingly-well-adjusted-given-she-found-her-mother-hanging-from-a-tree-and-was-then-sent-away-permanently-by-her-father-who-could-hardly-bear-to-look-at-her blank slate. Jane Eyre she was not. Still, it could be said, for those same reasons, that the writers made a daring choice in Henry that more than paid off in the final hour, where we saw Henry repeatedly double-cross his friends, dashing back and forth across the island to make his kills, with Wakefield carting the bodies off into the shadows and Henry moving swiftly on to his next victim, definitively proving his serial-killer-mettle when he turned on his maker and stabbed John Wakefield in the chest, to John’s horrified surprise. More than anything else, though, the general awesomness of this episode only served to highlight the many flaws that the rest of this series has suffered from.

The show never strayed much beyond its original brief – that each week one or more characters would be picked off until only a few remained, one of which must be the killer. It sounds great as a pitch, but even the most gruesome death isn’t going to be stretched much past a few minutes, and then you’ve got another forty minutes or so to try and fill in the meantime without, for the first few weeks, being able to offer any rhyme or reason for the killings. It became apparent pretty early on that they had never really found a solution to this problem, and it does make you realise why, in most slasher movies, the kills come thick and fast and you don’t have time to think about how thin the material really is. It’s like those volunteers currently standing on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square as part of the One and Other project (that you can watch live here). They get up there keen as anything in their pigeon costume and wave a sign around with something witty written on it, and then you slowly see the enthusiasm fade from their faces as they realise that what seemed like a great idea when they started is never going to stay interesting for an entire hour. Watching their ever-more apparent discomfort can be gruellingly amusing for a certain kind of person (that I would count myself among), but I’m not sure it quite works as mainstream entertainment. And so is the case with Harper’s Island.

The other central appeal of the show was supposed to be that we were guaranteed to have all mysteries solved in the finale. That promise was met, but the problem is that once we found out who had been scheming in the background, and were able to watch him at work, we suddenly realised what we had been missing all this time. To Gorham’s credit, he played off the sweet-natured hero persona he has built up over his acting career in Popular, the short-lived Jake 2.0 and Ugly Betty to keep us rooting for him throughout  and then, when it finally bubbled to the surface in the final two hours, played his ruthless alter-ego to subtle and chilling effect. It is interesting to note, though, that in a way this dichotomy parallels how the entire series has unfolded. While we thought we were watching a trashy TV take on the slasher format, complete with two-dimensional cannon fodder and campily imaginative death scenes, the finale revealed that a much darker, deeper tale has been unfolding in the shadows that, to my infinite frustration, we were never actually allowed to see.

With what we now know, Henry is so obviously the most interesting character on the programme that it’s a crying shame that all we got were a few flashbacks to try and figure out what made him tick. The way that he manipulated the people around him was exciting and tantalising in the same way that Dexter (Showtime) can be at its best, with the added bonus of the promise of an open-and-shut case and character study within thirteen episodes and therefore minus the need to make us relate to the killer by being ‘arch’ all the time. He should have been revealed earlier. I would happily have watched him at work for at least four or five episodes. How brilliant to have seen him stab Trish’s stepmother while at the same time playing hero and dashing off into the tunnels to find Shay’s daughter – who he already knew was stashed away in a room down there. How fascinating, and terrifying, to have seen him in conversation with his mentor – to see how they planned and dissected their next kill, to understand their attitudes to their victims, or to watch him try to rationalise both the murders and his obsessive yearning for his own half-sister. This would also have given us a chance to learn a little more about the original island killer, John Wakefield, who never felt like more than a robotic murder machine, ironically made doubly disappointing by the same actor’s attractive and scary performance as Leoben the cylon in Battlestar Galactica. Henry’s interactions, once we knew he was the killer, with the other characters also gave them more depth than they had ever had before, as we peered more closely in order to observe how he played off their fears and relative levels of trust in him, and to listen out for any possible trips he might have made to expose himself.

Ah Danny. We never even knew you. Oddly.

But, instead, all we got was a show that was mildly entertaining for a Saturday night but fed us almost exactly  the same not-as-scary-as-we-would-like meal each week, divided only by the time when people didn’t realise there was a murderer on the island, and the point when they (finally) figured it out. Stupidly, the big advantage that a slasher tv show should have had over a slasher movie – to really explore all of the characters and make us genuinely fear for their safety, was completely missed as they went for cheap types and single defining characteristics (a fact overtly, if bizarrely, acknowledged in the marketing campaign, which identified each character by singularly uninspiring monikers. Cal, for example, was thrillingly referred to as ‘The Outsider’ – because, you know, he was British, ‘n’ stuff) – the fat one was selfish and inept, the bride was sparky but helpless, the best man was cowardly and obstructive, the stepmother was a nymphomaniac adulteress. Harper’s Island had pretensions of taking these characterisations to an extra level, but really did no more than you would expect from your slightly more upmarket slasher fare – think Deep Blue Sea or Hollow Man without the CGI. Or pace. Most of them were not only over-simplistic but also utterly unmemorable. It’s like that moment halfway through a series of Big Brother or The Apprentice when you look back at old contestants and realise you actually have no recollection whatsoever of half of them. Then you look at the remaining contestants and realise that you don’t know most of their names either. I was particularly impressed by their ability to keep Danny (I actually had to look up his name) going for an entire twelve episodes without imbuing him with a single outstanding personality trait, ensuring that Harper’s Island adhered to that most sacred of slasher-movie staples – the token black dude. Admirable, artistically motivated stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

This laziness was similarly transferred to their last-minute explanation of Henry’s motivation for going along with Wakefield’s plans for destruction, epitomised in the quotation at the start of this review, and their insistence that John Wakefield was just ‘born bad’. It annoyed me as much here as it did when it was used to explain Alpha’s killing sprees in the season one finale of Dollhouse (Fox).  The notion that, regardless of whatever else you strip away, the inherent evil of a person will always remain is at once facile, depressing, unoriginal and, worst of all, boring. It is also devastatingly disappointing when it it is being presented as the explanation for an entire season’s worth of atrocities. At least in Dollhouse, even if I don’t agree, it shows a certain consistency of philosophy as to the nature of the soul on the part of Joss Whedon, stretching back to his Buffy days. The writers of Harper’s Island have no such excuse. It just gave them a convenient way to write off a character’s actions in time for the close-of-play.

I didn’t hate Harper’s Island. In fact, I quite enjoyed it, and I hope to see more in the future from its largely talented cast. It’s also great to feel the sort of closure at the end of a season run that you usually only get with British dramas. I always feel more generous to a show when they’re only aiming to retain your loyalty for the length of a few pre-planned episodes rather than to keep you slavishly watching with the aid of a few contrived cliffhangers for however many years the network deems it worthy of staying on air. But as is the case with so many network TV shows these days, ambitions were set too low, the execution was lazy, and I was left with the feeling that in all the running and gunning, all the unconvincing motivations, half-cocked explanations and arbitrary conflicts, we had all somehow missed a much, much better story.

Links will be embedded in the next day or so…
Other good posts on the series finale:

The Rebel Prince: A bittersweet (mostly bitter) review

Entertainment Weekly: I now pronounce you man and…knife!

Television Without Pity: Notes of an assassin

Check this out peeps… Its one of those ones’s!

Shit, jag har varit dålig det senaste på att uppdatera. Ajabaja. Gör om gör rätt! Så jag gör en satsning nu dvs.

Min lillasyster har börjat gå. Roligt på en hög nivå. Jag försöker få henne att gå konstant. Så klart man är stolt över sina småsyskons steg ut i vida världen. I denna bemärkelsen bokstavligt. Heja heja.

Förutom det så var jag idag och besökte min morfars grav idag. Var riktigt länge sedan men det är riktigt viktigt att inte låta morfar falla i glömska. Han var ju min närmaste i blodledet som faktiskt hade mitt efternamn senast. Min mamma och moster osv har ju gift sig och stoltserar runt med sina svenska namn idag. Men men, att besöka gravar är intressant ur ett perspektiv iaf. Och inte det ur sexuella vinklar utan helt enkelt för att man normaliserar och gör ingen dramatik av att man skall dö någon dag. Vissa försöker undvika det genom att inte låtsas om det men jag tycker inte man skall vara så himla rädd för döden. Visst det är väl hemskt, men gör det att jag får ångest och blir deprimerad? Knappast. Jag lever på tills jag ramlar av pinnen. Och vad som händer sen låter jag vara osagt.

Har blivit konstigt förtjust i såkallade hood-videor. Eller helt enkelt musikvideor som är av den grövre gangsterversionen med folk i deras kvarter, åkandes runt i bilar, motorcyklar osv med stora folksamlingar som får tas för deras gäng. Här är två sådana:

Vill rekommendera denna också. Ingen video utan mer en slags avskalad version av det hela. Lite som att man spelat in det hela en “average day”.

Allt detta förde mig osökt in på denna videon av en slump vilket jag tycker måste rankas som hela förra veckans personliga favorit för mig.

En video som går igenom många av de gängen som finns och frodas i södra London. Ett London som är bra mycket farligare numera än vad till exempel New York är numera. Även om New Yorks glansdagar under crack-eran inte var i närheten av Miami och hur det såg ut där under samma period när colombianska och kubanska gäng var de som styrde. Såg en dokumentär om det hela som heter Cocaine Cowboys som jag tycker ni borde se. Se denna länk för närmare info:

http://www.tankafett.com/torrent/11620/Cocaine.Cowboys.2006.SWESUB.DVDRip.XviD-XadeR

Visst, jag kanske har en viss romantisk bild av det kriminella livet, mestadels skapad av den hiphop- och grimemusik man lyssnat på genom sitt liv. Men vem rycks inte med när de spelar en av filmmusikens bästa någonsin i en hiphopversion i den där south london gang-videon ovan.  Men va fan, kolla in Cocaine Cowboys. Hade lätt gjort allt de där bara för att leva det livet som de snubbarna levde under slutet av 70-talet och under 80-talet. Herrejävlar alltså.

Har de senaste dagarna läst lite info angående växthuseffekten, med anledning av den där Earth hour eller vad de nu kallade den. Jag börjar mer och mer bli osäker på att koldioxidutsläpp faktiskt påverkar miljön på det sätt som man vill få det att låta. Mycket pekar emot det. Det hela verkar vara lite av en myt eller så mycket mer förstorat än vad det egentligen är.

Annars så vill jag tipsa om denna låten som just idag har spelats en hel del.

Annars så är jag medveten om att detta inlägg är otroligt rörigt. Men det får ni leva med. Jag lovar att försöka skärpa mig till nästa gång.

Just in time for Mothers Day …!

I’m liking the two vids – 1st one is mad touching & The 2nd one is just funny the bra bit it the one! ‘No I’m not an animal but I rip bra’s Ummmm!’

Willem Dafoe & Kevin Bacon

Un brillant scientifique, Sebastian Caine, travaille pour les services secrets. Il vient de mettre au point une formule pour rendre invisible. Apres l’avoir testee avec succes sur lui-meme, il s’apercoit qu’il ne peut plus inverser le phenomene. Ses collegues tentent alors de trouver une solution. Mais Caine devient de plus en plus obsede par son nouveau pouvoir et se persuade peu a peu que ses collegues en veulent a sa vie. Desormais, Caine va sombrer dans la folie et representer une menace reelle pour son entourage. (Allociné)

J’avais donc acheté le DVD lors des soldes et maintenant je l’ai revu. Cela fait quelques années d’ailleurs que je n’avais pas fait ça. Je l’ai vu au cinéma et j’avais du le revoir su Canal+, mais ça doit être tout. Bref, ça a un peu vieillit, ce qui est souvent le cas quand on joue avec les effets spéciaux, même si ici ils restent plutôt correct. Je crois que c’est surtout dans le visuel que ça se voit (la tête des acteurs )

Il y a aussi la thématique, en 9 ans, les dérapages scientifiques sont moins d’actualité. Comme je le disais l’autre jours, aujourd’hui, c’est l’écologie que l’on nous sert à toutes les sauces, ça et la guerre, voir les 2 en même temps. Bref, les concepts et idéaux développés dans Hollow Man ne sont pas dépassés, bien au contraire, mais ils ne sont plus au coeur de l’actualité, car l’homme aujourdh’ui aime à se voilé la face derrière des choses qui le dépasse tellement que la responsabilité ne peut être celle que de quelqu’un d’autre. Alors l’histoire d’un homme à l’égo surdimentionné qui, avec une pointe de pouvoir, abuse de la société et est près à tout pour le conserver, on préfère parler d’autre chose.

J’exagère, mais c’est vrai qu’au cinéma, ce type d’histoire ne trouve plus sa place et a été remplacé par des choses qui sont dôtés de conclusions un peu plus optimiste.

Bref, Hollow Man a toujours ses forces, mais ses faiblesses grandissent avec l’âge, en particulier les routines scénaristiques et les rebondissements un peu téléphoné. Seul le côté vicieux du personnage de Kevin Bacon reste intact.

C+

Rhona Mitra makes the fur fly in ‘Underworld: Rise of the Lycans’

“When you’re a woman, roles don’t come along every day that let you be
a horsewoman, a swordswoman, a dealer of death in a sexy love story,”
says the British actress and B-movie sex symbol Rhona Mitra. “I mean,
you don’t turn that down.”

Mitra, 32, has had her recurring
roles on such hit TV series as “Boston Legal” and “Nip/Tuck.” But she
has walked away from each of them and never looked back. Whatever
limits the movies have placed on her career thus far, it’s not every
leading lady who can kick posteriors and take names.

In taking
roles in low-rent horror (“Skinwalkers”) and B-actioners (“Doomsday”),
“the ever-watchable Mitra gets to follow in the footsteps of fellow
Brit Kate Beckinsale or Milla Jovovich and franchise this
testosterone-driven femme fighting machine,” says Box Office magazine
critic Pete Hammond.

Besides, says Mitra, “I really got into
acting for the travel. Staying in one place, playing the same part over
and over again … can get into your head. You become a puppet.”

Thus,
her decision to tackle the prequel to the series that first put
Beckinsale in leather — “Underworld.” In “Underworld: Rise of the
Lycans,” Mitra is a half-woman/half-wolf, the fierce and dangerous love
interest of Michael Sheen (“Frost/Nixon”), daughter of Bill Nighy.
After all the attention vampires have gotten on screen in recent years,
this “Underworld” tips the scales toward the fur.

Vampires,
Mitra says, “are like rock gods. They’re like Keith Richards or Mick
Jagger — long-lived, timeless, sexy nocturnal beings who seem immortal
and very cavalier about it. I can see why young girls would get all
caught up in ‘Twilight.’ They’re sexy.

“Werewolves don’t command
the same sort of obsession, I’m afraid. They’re furry little things.
They’re not as sexy. Vampires dress better, too. You’d think that John
Galliano had dressed them. I tend to go for werewolves, myself, in my
life. None of these blood-suckers for me. Keep your fangs to yourself.”

Mitra
laughs. She says she was leery of taking on “just another ‘Underworld’
movie,” but realized it could be something special, being a
12th-century period piece and co-starring the estimable Nighy and Sheen.

“And we’d film in New Zealand. I loved traveling to New Zealand.”

So
much so that she shot another film there, the romantic drama “The Truth
About Men.” No swordplay or horsemanship in that one, “though the movie
parts I get do tend to be broader, more physical, more play-acting,
than the TV ones.” Mitra plays a cellist. And wouldn’t you know it,
she’s connected with the sexy side of that instrument.

“It’s a
sexy, seductive instrument, Mitra purrs. “Playing it, you feel you need
nothing else in life. It has this warm melancholy about it that is very
seductive. The sound reflects a feeling inside all of us that we don’t
have words for, this connective, deep, comforting warmth. It’s like a
quiet bass line, a hum that’s always in us.”

En générale, je ne “fais” pas les soldes. J’achète quand j’ai envie et que c’est au bon prix, mais cette année, allez savoir pourquoi, je suis allé sur CDiscount et j’ai pris quelques titres à 1€ (sauf un qui éétait à 3€).

Alors, nous avons du lourd !

1/ Baseketball. Un film de David Zucker avec Matt Stone et Trey Parker. C’est con comme ce n’est pas permis, et c’est pour ça que je trouve ça si bon.

2/ Mallrats aka Les glandeurs. Un film de Kevin Smith, celui qu’il a fait après Clerks, donc ce n’est pas récent. On y retrouve Jason Lee (je vous en parle plus dans le super portrait de l’acteur/skater, mardi prochain, sur Critictoo. Oui, je sais, je sais.).

3/ Children Of Men (clic). C’est bien celui qui coute 3€. Mais c’est l’édition collector 2 DVDs digipack, je pouvais bien mettre un peu plus dedans !

4/ Swimming With Sharks. Kevin Spacey en producteur de ciné abusif. Frank Whaley en assistant au bord de la dépression. Et Michelle Forbes (pas besoin d’en rajouter là. Il y a aussi Benicio Del Toro, mais je ne me souviens plus de lui dans le film. Preuve qu’il faut que je le revois.

5/ Airheads aka Radio Rebels. Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser et Steve Buscemi en groupe de hard rock qui prennent une radio en otage pour qu’on les écoute. C’était il y a 15 ans, ça fait des lustres que je ne l’ai pas vu, mais je suis sûr que c’est toujours aussi fun. (c’est certain que ça n’est pas devenu un chef d’oeuvre)

6/ Pour finir, Hollow Man de Verhoeven en édition superbit. Pas le meilleur film du réal, mais il vaut quand même l’€. Et puis, il y a Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Kim Dickens et Greg Grunberg.

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 10/16/2007 Run time: 123 minutes Rating: Pg13

In Paul Verhoeven’s appropriately shallow Hollow Man, Kevin Bacon plays a bad-boy egotistical scientist who heads up a double-secret government team experimenting with turning life-forms invisible. How do we know he’s a bad boy? Because he (a) wears a leather overcoat, (b) compares himself to God, (c) drives a sports car, and (d) spies on his comely next-door neighbor while eating Twinkies. Sadly, this is the most character development anyone gets in this undernourished action/sci-fi thriller, which boasts some amazing special effects and some amazingly ridiculous plot twists. After experimenting rather ruthlessly on a menagerie of lab animals, Bacon finally cracks the code that will turn the invisible gorillas, dogs, and so on, back into their visible forms. Does it work on humans? Faster than you can say “six degrees,” Mr. Bacon appoints himself human guinea pig, strapping down for an injection of fluorescent-colored serum. Thanks to some phenomenal, seamless and Oscar-worthy computer effects, Bacon is indeed rendered invisible, organ by organ, vein by vein. And what’s the first thing you’d do if you were invisible? Why, spy on your female coworkers in the bathroom and molest your comely next-door neighbor, of course! Soon, Bacon is thoroughly psychotic, and it’s up to Elisabeth Shue (Bacon’s coworker and ex-girlfriend) and hunky Josh Brolin (her current snuggle bunny) to defeat the invisible man, who’s picking off the science team one by one. You’d think this would be a prime opportunity for copious amounts of cheesy sex and aggressive violence–which Verhoeven served up so well and so exuberantly in Starship Troopers and Basic Instinct–but if anything, the director seems to tone down the proceedings, and really, who wants a muted Paul Verhoeven movie? Shue (who got top billing and a bad haircut to boot) and Brolin (who, yes, does take off his shirt at least once) generate little heat, and while Bacon does give an effective, primarily voice-oriented performance, his character is so underdeveloped that, well, you can see right through him. –Mark Englehart

Hollow Man (Director’s Cut) [Blu-ray] is available at Amazon for $16.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• The Fifth Element (Remastered) [Blu-ray]
• Underworld (Unrated) [Blu-ray]
• Troy – The Director’s Cut [Blu-ray]
• The Day After Tomorrow [Blu-ray]
• I Am Legend [Blu-ray]

The Hollowman

Actor and occasional criminal Christian Michael Leonard Slater has been cast in the latest Hollow Man movie. The film is imaginatively going to be called Hollow Man 3 and is set in Uzbekistan.

Filming has already begun and was set to be finished early into the new year with a straight to YouTube release planned sometime in February. However, there have been some issues within recent days with Mr Slater wondering from the set for hours on end for no apparent reason. He is currently AWOL and the director Michael Bay has been fuming at the star’s lack of appearances on set, with all of his scenes so far having to be taken from other Christian Slater films. Uzbek police have believed to have been bribed and are not cooperating with the current search. The last person to speak to Mr Slater was his personal genital therapist who Yeahboss.com had a word with:

He said he was going to buy some chocolate, I haven’t seen him since.

New in depth Interview with Giggs. Now I’ve met this brudda a few times now & think he’s mad cool & so I like this cos it just shows him for him, no hype, nothing, just a clam n relaxed talk with the Peckham resident. I was actually bussing up when he said football is wack cos I don’t support a football team neither. Enjoy!

I’m sitting in the corner of a small room located in the press office of the Excel centre in London waiting for the some of the cast of Heroes to arrive for a Q&A session. Looking at the line of chairs up against the wall I can’t help but draw a contrast between what I’m seeing and the classic ‘firing squad’ image… then I relalise that I’m playing the role of the marksman…. too late to back out now… they are arriving….

Greg Grunberg rolls into the room followed by Brea Grant, David H Lawrence, Ken Lally and Andre Royo. Within seconds Greg has already destroyed a camera stand. A grin creeps across my face as I realise this is not going to be the standard rigid press affair I choose to tolerate.

After the rest of the group has asked their questions and the press Q&A starts to wrap up I decide now is my time to corner ‘Grunny’ for a decent chat.

My first question was obviously… “Do you think you’re death in the film Hollow Man could have been better?”

Greg rolls into this one with ease:

“Man so much more could have been done with that film. The guy goes invisible and what’s the first thing he does?… goes and feels up a bunch of women, then goes crazy and kills people. So much more could have been done with that film. When he’s driving and scares the kids in the other car *Greg imitates the scene*, that’s the type of stuff that we should have been doing!…. and I’d have loved to be in the sequel too… but … oh… wait…. that’s right I’m dead!”

Suddenly my chat with Greg is cut short by one of the events personnel whisking him off to the main press office. I follow and after some ninja like sneakery I’m back to talking to Greg in the press office while the events staff work out how to get him out of there without getting mobbed by 30,000 fans.

So next we get chatting about his celebrity band. For any of you who don’t know Greg’s band is called “Band from TV” and all of the members are actors from various TV Shows.

The band’s members are Greg Grunberg (Drums), James Denton (Guitar), Jesse Spencer (Violin), Bonnie Sommerville (Vocals), Bob Guiney (Vocals), Teri Hatcher (vocals), Adrian Pasdar (Guitar) and Hugh Laurie (Keyboards).

I ask Greg if he’s planning to do any gigs in the UK, he replies: “Man we really wanna get that happening. Hugh was saying he wants to do a few performances in the UK… we’re working on it.”

At this point I committed to plugging the band on this blog (again) so as a man of my word – ALL OF YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT BAND FROM TV’S ALBUM “HOGGIN ALL THE COVERS“. IT’S FOR CHARITY SO IF YOU DON’T BUY IT I’LL BE POSTING YOUR NAMES TO GREG AND YOU WILL BE ‘ON HIS LIST‘.

Ok so now that I’ve plugged the band we can get back to the interview/chat. So we’re talking about the band and Brea comes down to get herself made up by the lovely make-up girls (who had been up since 4am – unlucky girls). Our conversation then goes a bit like this:

Patrick: “Hey man you should get Brea in on the band action”
Greg: “yeah I just found out she’s a drummer… she plays drums!”
Patrick: “You’re a drummer!”
Greg: “You know it’d be great to get her in for a song… like she comes on and sits on the drums and I sing a song that’d be huge”
Patrick: “Yeah or you could be on the drums and get her on the Bongos or something”
Greg: “Definatly!.. watch this space”

So there you have it.. now all Greg has to do is get Brea to agree… but I doubt that’ll be hard for him.

We then move on to the subject of mind reading… I ask him where he got the inspiration for the unique look on his face when he’s reading minds on Heroes. His response “Yea… cos if someone came up to you and did it *makes the face* you’d be like – what are you looking at?”

He then proceeds to fill me in on a few Heroes season 3 spoilers which I’m not gonna publish. Sorry peeps!

We then briefly move on to the subject of Twitter. Greg has gone Twitter mad since he was introduced to it last thursday and he loves the fact he can keep all his fans up to date with all his movements. Check Greg’s Twitter: HERE

So that’s it. Greg Grunberg at the MCM Expo and what a nice guy he is too! Again.. buy “Band from TV’s album!” It’s for charity!

COMING SOON: What Brea Grant has to say on Blogging, Auditions and raccoon attacks.



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You’ve got the gloves, the goggles, the scarf, the hat, and the long jacket. You’d love to “do the town” but there’s one problem: people can see right through you. Literally. Holing up in some motel, you plot your next course of action. Rob a bank? Get vengeance on those who avenged you? But how did you get here?

Stories of invisibility have been around almost as long as vampires and werewolves. In the beginning, only gods, angels, demons, and the like were able to become invisible, or actually be invisible. In Plato’s “The Republic,” a peasant finds a ring that provides invisibility, which he uses to get into the palace and seduce the Queen, plotting to kill the King. The Greek hero Perseus used a cloak of invisibility to kill Medusa. From this point, invisibility was kept primarily to objects such as rings, cloaks, and hats.

Skip way-forward to 1859, when author, playwright, and critic Fitz James O’Brien released the short story, “What Was It? A Mystery.” Although more of a playwright than a novelist (or short story writer), this piece of fiction was the first to deal with the subject of an “invisible monster.” About 22 years later then techno-writer Edward Page Mitchell released, “The Crystal Man,” an 1881 novel that is credited for the first use of scientific means to make a man invisible. These two literary sources led to “The Damned Thing,” by Ambrose Bierce (1894), where an invisible monster is loose in the Old West, and “The Horla” by Guy de Maupassant (1897), where an invisible being slowly drives the main character insane.

The same year H.G. Wells released, “The Invisible Man.” Not to be confused with “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, this story was about Griffin, a scientist kicked out of a university who pilfered money from his father and had been conducting experiments on invisibility until an altercation forces him to test it on himself. In being invisible, he robs banks in order to have money to continue finding a “cure” for invisibility. A pursuit by the police occurs and Griffin is killed. As he dies, his body slowly returns to being visible.

Horror author H.P. Lovecraft took the invisibility + monster idea and used it to craft his tale, “The Dunwich Horror” (1929). Hollywood, or rather Universal Studios, stepped in 4 years later and released, “The Invisible Man.” Directed by James Whale, “The Invisible Man” starred Claude Rains as Jack Griffin, a scientist who creates a new drug called “Monocane.” This drug allows him to be invisible, but slowly drives him insane. Trying to force his one-time partner Kemp (William Harrigan) to be a partner again and secretly seeing Flora (Gloria Stuart), things go awry. He’s captured and dies in a hospital, becoming visible again after death.

You’ve got the gloves, the goggles, the scarf, the hat, and the long jacket. You’d love to “do the town” but there’s one problem: people can see right through you. Literally. Holing up in some motel, you plot your next course of action. Rob a bank? Get vengeance on those who avenged you? But how did you get here?

Stories of invisibility have been around almost as long as vampires and werewolves. In the beginning, only gods, angels, demons, and the like were able to become invisible, or actually be invisible. In Plato’s “The Republic,” a peasant finds a ring that provides invisibility, which he uses to get into the palace and seduce the Queen, plotting to kill the King. The Greek hero Perseus used a cloak of invisibility to kill Medusa. From this point, invisibility was kept primarily to objects such as rings, cloaks, and hats.

Skip way-forward to 1859, when author, playwright, and critic Fitz James O’Brien released the short story, “What Was It? A Mystery.” Although more of a playwright than a novelist (or short story writer), this piece of fiction was the first to deal with the subject of an “invisible monster.” About 22 years later then techno-writer Edward Page Mitchell released, “The Crystal Man,” an 1881 novel that is credited for the first use of scientific means to make a man invisible. These two literary sources led to “The Damned Thing,” by Ambrose Bierce (1894), where an invisible monster is loose in the Old West, and “The Horla” by Guy de Maupassant (1897), where an invisible being slowly drives the main character insane.

The same year H.G. Wells released, “The Invisible Man.” Not to be confused with “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, this story was about Griffin, a scientist kicked out of a university who pilfered money from his father and had been conducting experiments on invisibility until an altercation forces him to test it on himself. In being invisible, he robs banks in order to have money to continue finding a “cure” for invisibility. A pursuit by the police occurs and Griffin is killed. As he dies, his body slowly returns to being visible.

Horror author H.P. Lovecraft took the invisibility + monster idea and used it to craft his tale, “The Dunwich Horror” (1929). Hollywood, or rather Universal Studios, stepped in 4 years later and released, “The Invisible Man.” Directed by James Whale, “The Invisible Man” starred Claude Rains as Jack Griffin, a scientist who creates a new drug called “Monocane.” This drug allows him to be invisible, but slowly drives him insane. Trying to force his one-time partner Kemp (William Harrigan) to be a partner again and secretly seeing Flora (Gloria Stuart), things go awry. He’s captured and dies in a hospital, becoming visible again after death.

The 1933 movie was followed by sequels: “The Invisible Man Returns” (1940), “The Invisible Woman” (1940), “Invisible Agent” (1942), and “The Invisible Man’s Revenge” (1944). TV series were created; “The Invisible Man” in 1958, “The Invisible Man” in 1975, “Gemini Man” in 1976. etc. “Hollow Man,” a film starring Kevin Bacon as the main character, was released in 2000 (it also has a straight-to-DVD sequel). And rock band Queen even had a song called, “The Invisible Man,” on their album, “Innuendo.”

Wow jus heard this! Fresh off the back of his BET UK Hip Hop Award win, the ‘Ard Bodied’ rapper has some shit to get off his chest!  The Hollowman is not happy! I don’t know the full ins & outs but i’m sure someone will phone me later & tell me everything!

All I can say is ’jheeze

Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (Hollow Man) has been approached by Relativity Media to direct The Untitled Wendy Miller Thriller, a film described as a blend of Risky Business and Fatal Attraction which follows a student who gets in over his head after sleeping with the principal’s wife.

This will mark the acclaimed director’s return to the “erotic thriller”, a subgenre surprisingly difficult to get right judging from its catalogue, but which Verhoeven mastered with the 1992 controversial hit Basic Instinct.

This project may take a while to get off the ground as Paul Verhoeven has quite a few other ones lined up since he returned to America after spending some time in Europe to make the Dutch World War 2 film Black Book which you should really watch, including the long-gestating sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair.

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American network ABC has picked up five shows to premiere mideason. According to Wikipedia:

In North American Television a midseason replacement is a television show that premieres in the second half of the traditional television season, usually between January and April. Midseason replacements usually take place after a show that was in the fall schedule was canceled, put on hiatus or had a shorter season than other shows and the timeslot needs to be filled. Some midseason replacements get canceled like the shows they replaced, but others have gone on to be very successful.

First up we have Castle, a drama created by Andrew W. Marlowe (Hollow Man) starring Nathan Fillion (Waitress), Monet Mazur (The House Bunny) and Stana Katic (Quantum Of Solace). Fillion stars as a writer of horror novels who helps the NYPD on some cases. Mmmh, sounds pretty standard but who knows? Castle’s pilot was directed by Rob Bowman (Elektra).

Next is The Unusuals, also a drama, created by Noah Hawley (6 episodes of Bones) and relating the daily happenings of a police station. The Unusuals stars Harold Perrineau (Lost), Adam Goldberg (2 Days In Paris), Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 1 & 2) and Jeremy Renner (28 Weeks Later), and its pilot was directed by Stephen Hopkins (The Reaping).

Third is Cupid, a drama created by Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars), who’ll be remaking his own, eponymous, failed show from 1998. Bobby Cannavale (Diminished Capacity) will play Trevor Hale, a man convinced he was sent to Earth by Zeus in order to make people love each other. Rounding up the cast are Camille Guaty (Las Vegas) and Sarah Paulson (Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip). It’s interesting that this project has been greenlighted as ABC is the network that cancelled the original show.

In fourth we have Better Off Ted, a comedy created by Victor Fresco (4 episodes of My Name Is Earl), about a morally upright man living in a morally corrupt world. The series stars Jay Harrington (Desperate Housewives) and Andrea Anders (The Class). The pilot was directed by creator’s relative Michael Fresco (12 episodes of Earl).

Last is Single With Parents, a comedy created by Kristin Newman (2 episodes of How I Met Your Mother) in which a thirty-something year old woman played by Alyssa Milano (Charmed) attempts to take control of her life by distancing herself from her family, friends and work. Beau Bridges (Stargate SG-1), Eric Winter (Days Of Our Lives), Amanda Detmer (What About Brian) and Stella Hudgens (Vanessa Hudgens’ sister) round up the cast. The pilot was directed by Michael Engler (6 episodes of 30 Rock).

I’ll give them all a try, but honestly, none of them seem that interesting to me, what do you think?

In related ABC news, it has been reported that Michelle Rodriguez (Battle In Seattle) will be back in an episode of Lost’s fifth season. Michelle’s character, Ana-Lucia Cortez, was introduced at the end of the popular show’s first season and played a prominent part in the second. It is unclear how Michelle’s appearance will play out, but knowing Lost, you can expect anything.

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