Daredevil Season 1

The Daredevil TV series is not the type of show you would want to watch with children. Netflix had the freedom to go darker. It is a show for the kids who grew up with the comics, who are now grown up. Expectations were high. Reviews by geeks on the Internet were favorable.

Charlie Cox (whose only movie I've seen was Stardust) is Matt Merdock, a blind attorney who lost his eyesight as a kid. His story is typical of comic books. I still loved it. Daredevil is one of my favorites as a kid. The Ben Affleck movie was panned years ago, but I kinda liked it too.

This Daredevil adaptation from Netflix is better. There was more time to explore and develop the characters. Foggy, Merdock's friend, keeps it balanced by giving us some good dose of comic relief. And Vincent D'Onofrio -- boy, he's good as Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. The Kingpin).

At first sight, we thought D'Onofrio was not fat enough. That's what I remembered. But from the head up, he was the Kingpin. There is a good deal of depth with his portrayal. I was expecting a more archetypal caricature of a villain.  Lately, there aren't any of them. But this version of Kingpin is miles better than the movie. It makes an amazing origin story. The socially awkward but brilliant criminal mind's meteoric rise and fall in this first season makes a compelling story. You may side with Wilson a little here.

Issues:

• Costume - I hated the final costume. I guess the evolution of the costumes from the start is interesting, but I liked Ben Affleck's costume more. Adaptations of comic books lack color. And the horns look a bit too ergonomic, not much like horns. I understand what they wanted, but I want devil horns! Dammit.
• Violence - There is plenty. There was a scene, where the typically calm Wilson Fisk loses it, then violently kills a Russian, by slamming a car door on him. It was gratuitous.

Despite my issues that will not be anything to most fans, the story was tight, the characters were interesting, and the fight scenes were pretty decent. I mean, compared to how fight scenes are choreographed these days, the dark theme was well-utilized to cut corners without being obvious.

American Gods on TV

There has been talks on the Internet for quite some time, years, of an American Gods TV series based on the book of popular fantasy writer Neil Gaiman.

It's an amazing book I read seven years ago or so. I am a fan of Gaiman's writing, especially those  written before the year 2000. American Gods was the most recent story from him that I just loved. Now that it is to be made for television, it's scary that other people's interpretation of the book could wipe out the images created by your mind.

It will be co-produced by Gaiman himself, or so we are told, and produced by American network Starz (Spartacus), so we could expect some adult material, which we're not complaining about. Showrunners and writers would be Bryan Fuller (Heroes, Pushing Daisies) and Michael Green (Gotham).

There are a lot of stories in the book that I hope would be maintained and explored. The difficulty would be finding the right actors to play the part. We are talking about gods here, and screen presence is imperative. There's a lot of gods in here.

The main character, Shadow, is a hard find. Some fans suggested Jason Mamoa or Kit Harrington on comments and forums. Then the character of Shadow's wife Laura is a tough find. [SPOILER ALERT] I envisioned a charismatic actress who can pull off being a walking corpse.

So, I am torn. Am I excited or not?  Anxious, more like it. I just loved American Gods. But I would still watch out for the series. Hopefully, they don't stray too much from the source material. It's a good book about gods from all over the world stuck in the United States, written by a British writer.

Alvin and Freaky Lalaloopsy

It was a lazy Friday night. Browsing through channels with boring shows, tired movies and reality shows, I ran across Nickelodeon and saw the made-for-TV ALVINNN and the Chipmunks.

The 3D animation was not very good, compared to how sophisticated some shows are, and the people were leaning a bit at the edge of the uncanny valley; but was still fairly amusing. In the end, I have a soft spot for those anthropomorphic rodents. And I still love the classic cartoon better.

Then the commercial of Lalaloopsy with stretchy hair.It's like a chant that played and lingered in my freaking head.

She is there with that artificial smile, waiting for the silly children to be ready, and when the adults are asleep...

Shit. I really freaked myself out this time.

***

Lalaloopsy is available in all major toy stores everywhere. So, you be prepared with some blowtorch.

Just Watch Anna Wintour be Funny on Late Night with Seth Meyers

Like the documentary "September Issue," on this sketch with Seth Meyers, Anna Wintour is acting like her "known" brutal cold self.

She can be funny. If not funny, we can admit she is amusing.

* * *

Then you can watch what she thinks of the people at the recent Met ball.




There should have been pictures of the three almost naked women, but I guess she's nice now.

Anna Wintour is a shrewd businesswoman. She knows how to capitalize on her brand. If not for Meryl Streep, she would have only been a scary figure in the fashion industry. She should have dinner with Lauren Weisberger and thank her. As powerful as she is, the writer did make her a household name.

Preponderance of Zombies

Zombies do not interest me so much. I mean, the modern depiction of zombies. It's not to say stories with zombies do not interest me, as there are some movies that I have seen that are fairly good; but on a creature-creation aspect, they are not as interesting as vampires and witches.

Besides, there's just too many of them on TV right now. There are very few people who has never watched The Walking Dead. That's us.

from top clockwise: The Walking Dead,  Resident Evil, 28 Days Later, iZombie, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland

Although I've enjoyed Resident Evil, 28 Days Later and World War Z, the interest lied mostly on the psychology and effects on the human condition, and of course, the fight scenes that ensued later.

Unlike romantic vampires and majestic witches, modern zombies lacked individuality which earns them no empathy. Most often, zombies are represented as mindless human shells with nothing in their heads but the instinct to eat.

One of the more surprising zombie movies I liked was Warm Bodies, another post-apocalyptic movie, that had sentient zombies. If it was marketed better, I would have seen it earlier. The posters and trailers felt Twilight-y.

In two weeks, iZombie will premiere in the Philippines. It's about a gorgeous but intelligent zombie that works in forensics, who helps solve crime by eating human innards (or was it brains) to see visions from the dead. It borrowed some elements of so many stories that it's ridiculous and brilliant.

Would I watch that? Probably not, even if it's based on an Eisner-nominated graphic novel. The title alone ruined it almost immediately. As much as I hate zombies, we like ours to be traditional.

Selecta Moo x Adventure Time

It was a typical day at the supermarket. I was about to grab a couple of cartons of milk, when girlfriend gushed at the sight of Selecta Moo's package with Jake of Adventure time.

We loved the show. We're crazy about it. If only they have more episodes shown on Cartoon Network, we could watch it over and over again.

As I was grabbing one, it was replaced by Finn. Who would choose Finn over Jake? She did. Finn looked sad, she said.

Selecta Moo has smaller snack sizes, too.

Dear HERO TV

I love anime. I grew up with it, and there was a time I badly wanted to be an animator, but I guess I am not talented enough.

There is an art in anime that very few people can copy. The storyline that accompanies them are often complex or hilarious and even both.

I take my anime-viewing very seriously. I've seen a lot, both dubbed in English or Filipino, and the subtitled. I love them.

My biggest complaint are the voices. We hear very few voices. It seems you have few people in your roster. Some change their voices to be older, pitchy or deeper, some change their intonation, which is good; but I don't think they are doing a good job at it.

People can tell that when one person is talking to himself. It's funny and frustrating.

We hear the same voices almost in every show. I don't think creating an identifiable voice for individual characters is a priority for you. Please do. There is a reason why We still remember Eugene's voice from Ghostfighter before.

Secondly, I hope you refrain from using overly used language or taglish. We think it's lazy. Look up a Filipino dictionary or get someone to polish the dialogue.

We appreciate you getting interesting shows, but it would even be better if the audience get a better viewing experience.

Your viewers love anime, and we think we deserve better. You know there are other means to watch anime elsewhere, please help us patronize your shows.

TV Today

I am awfully lazy. I am unemployed for now, and I still haven't received calls from my applications. So I watch TV more than I should.

I don't watch too much TV before, but I now have time to waste on shows like The Apartment and even Survivor. The last time I followed Survivor was like eight years ago, when there were still contestants who have moral issues about manipulation. There is none of that anymore.

Empire was a breath of fresh air. It's quite popular. It's an exciting story of a dysfunctional and twisted family.  Every episode hooks you up, getting more complicated week after week.

The two-hour season finale built up quickly with more twists, with an expected cliffhanger ending. I know it would be picked up for another season, but I was hoping for some resolution to at least half of the conflicts there. Instead, we have twice more in just one episode.

It could be tiring.

Speaking of tiring, The Americans is another show I follow. It is slow and somber like it's intended to be. You'll be surprised by how many developments happened after an hour.

It's hypnotic sometimes. Half of the time though, my mind wanders off and when I get back, they have a terrorist being burned alive.

Then I move to  Homeland, which I have not seen since season one. Despite that, I followed the story. And when I tuned in, Claire Danes is seducing the poor boy from Life of Pi!

Darn. I should pick up a hobby.