Tag Archives: lost

Top 5: First Scenes (TV Dramas)

Some of my favorite television shows of all-time take awhile to get into.  Breaking Bad, The West Wing, even Game of Thrones have a lot of world-building to do and, while I can tell you exactly what the opening scene was to each, they didn’t immediately reach into my brain and addict me.  These five shows, from the very first scene (which I have done my best to include; in the case of Justified, you get the whole pilot with my compliments) light you up.  You want more; you want it now.  Whether it’s Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) delivering the best monologue in TV history, Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) having an old west shootout in very modern Miami, the chaos of ER and the plane crash of LOST, or Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) breaking a dog’s neck and the fourth wall.  You wanted more, and that is skillful writing.  Grab the viewer’s attention so completely within 3-5 minutes that you have them for the run of the series.  These five did the job and then some.

1. The Newsroom (HBO)


2. Justified (F/X)


3. Lost (ABC)


4. ER (NBC)


5. House of Cards (Netflix)

Top 10 Most Shocking TV Character Deaths

Sometimes a list cannot be contained to a Top 5.  When that is the case, a beacon lights the night sky and in swoops….TOP 10!  There’s no way you’d have written that I’m using 10 instead of 5 more dramatically.  You just wouldn’t have.  ADMIT IT!  All right.


First off, I have debated whether or not to even do this list.  That’s how incendiary it could be.  Let us be clear: THIS LIST IS NOTHING BUT BIG HONKING SPOILERS!  If you are in the middle of watching a TV show….really any TV show, this may spoil it.  I take no responsibility for that because I am warning you IN GIANT RIDICULOUSLY WARNINGISH TEXT NOT TO CONTINUE IF SPOILERS WORRY YOU ON THIS TOPIC!  If you want to continue, after the break, we’ll start talking about the most shocking, the most jaw-dropping deaths in television history. Continue reading Top 10 Most Shocking TV Character Deaths

Empire Magazine’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Photo Gallery

The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Desolation of Smaug, Lee Pace, Thranduil, Tauriel, Evangilne Lilly, Legolas Orlando Bloom

Earlier this week, Empire Magazine leaked their cover for their upcoming issue where they focus on the middle child of the The Hobbit trilogy – The Desolation of Smaug. The article is primarily elvish in nature; appropriate since I think we’re going to be spending a fair amount of the film in Thranduil’s Woodland Realm. Now, we have the pictures that accompany the article spotlighting both the elves and the barrel escape that eventually moves the Dwarven company closer to Erebor. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens December 14th and I included the trailer again because it is just that cool. You’re welcome.


Tauriel, The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Evangeline Lilly, Elf

Legolas, The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Orlando Bloom, Elf

Thranduil, The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Lee Pace, Elf

Tauriel, The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Evangeline Lilly, Elf, Legolas, Orlando Bloom, Thranduil, Lee Pace

Tauriel, The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Evangeline Lilly, Elf, Peter Jackson

 The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Dwarves, Barrel Escape, Peter Jackson

The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Dwarves, Barrel Escape, Peter Jackson, Bilbo Baggins, Martin Freeman

Details on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition

The Hobbit, The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey, Bilbo Baggins, Hobbiton, Martin Freeman, Peter Jackson

In the same Empire Magazine issue that features Thranduil, Tauriel and Legolas on the cover, Peter Jackson gives his first details on the extended edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  Now, I loved AUJ.  Loved it.  I’ve watched it several times in the theater and again on Blu Ray and it is just a joy.  The complaints about it being boring or too long, baffle me.  A movie is too long if you don’t have enough story.  A 90 minute film can seem like an eternity if you don’t have a story, but a three-hour film flies by if you’re invested.

If you haven’t read The Hobbit recently, it does start with an extended dinner party, which also serves in the film to introduce and begin to differentiate between the dwarves.  The Hobbit is a different pace than the LOTR.  Things aren’t so dire yet.  No one knows Sauron is back.  The ring has not been found.  In many ways it’s an allegory for a sleeping Europe in the 1930’s; ignoring or choosing to overlook the rising menace.  If someone took a hose to Radagast’s face, I’d go so far as to call it a perfect beginning.


The extended edition was coming; we all knew it.  It’s going to run 169 minutes, which is only nine minutes longer than the theatrical cut.  I’m intrigued by some of the scenes Jackson outlines below.  I don’t know that we need more dwarf crassness.  We get it.  They do not like elves and it is mutual.  But the bit with the black arrow and a bit of Thranduil sounds intriguing.  We’ll find out when the extended edition hits stores in November.

If Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey wasn’t long enough for you, then we have some goods news. The filmmakers have revealed some of the scenes you can expect to see in the extended cut of the movie.

“You are going to get some serious Dwarvish disrespect of the elves at Rivendell,” director Peter Jackson told Empire.

“You are going to get more of Hobbiton,” said producer/co-writer Philippa Boyens. “We always wanted to wend our way through Hobbiton, but in the end Bilbo has to run out of the door.”

“You are going to get more Goblin Town, and the Great Goblin singing his song,” said Fran Walsh. “It is a great song, but it was just another delay in terms of moving the story along.”

“We are putting things in the extended cut that are going to play straight into the second film,” Jackson continued, “like this character Girion, who is defending [the city of] Dale using black arrows against Smaug. And the black arrows play a part in an ongoing story, for they are the one thing that can pierce the dragon’s hide…There are also issues with [king of the elves] Thranduil. We get some of the reason why he and the dwarves had a falling out – to do with these white gems…”

The extended edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be releasd this November, just in time for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug which opens in 2D, 3D, and IMAX theaters on December 13, 2014.The Hobbit, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellan Tolkien

Desolation of Smaug Empire Magazine Cover – Legolas, Thranduil and Tauriel

The Hobbit, The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug, Desolation of Smaug, Lee Pace, Thranduil, Tauriel, Evangilne Lilly, Legolas Orlando Bloom

It’s all about the Woodland Elves on Empire Magazine‘s latest cover.  The cover features Thranduil (Lee Pace), the King of the Wood Elves; Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly).  It looks like from the trailer that we’ll be spending a fair amount of time in the Woodland Realm and I loved how the design motif seemed to mirror Lorien’s only in wood.  Tauriel, as has been much discussed on KT, is a character solely made for the movies and comes from no Tolkien lore.  I thought what we saw in the trailer looked really good; but we’ll see.  We’ll probably get one more trailer in October/November.


The second film in The Hobbit trilogy will bring us  Beorn!  Smaug!  Lake Town!  Bard the Bowman!  Wood Elves!  Spiders!  The Necromancer!  There’s no place I’d rather return to than Middle Earth.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug will release on December 13, 2013, and the trilogy will finish with The Hobbit: There and Back Again on December 17, 2014.The Hobbit, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellan Tolkien