Contrary to what you might think, I am rarely in the mood to party after one of my Improv Comedy shows. Entertaining millions (yes, millions) of people really takes it out of me. So the other night, after another sold-out free show, I went to my room and enjoyed the luxury that is Netflix Instant.

The film that I watched was an Indie movie. I usually shy away from these sort of films, as I think film should be a form of entertainment, and frankly I couldn’t care less about “Art films.”

However, “one must not judge all films by the actions of a few.” These are words a very great man never said, but that doesn’t stop me from believing them. Here begins my review of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

This movie flips the standard slasher movie on it’s head. A bunch of hot young college students go camping, and are set upon by two stereotypical hillbilly murderers who capture one of their friends. At least, that’s what they think.

The aforementioned hillbillies are actually Tucker and Dale, two lovable rednecks who just bought a token creepy, broken-down cabin and are fixing it up to be their vacation home. While night fishing, they encounter the college kids skinny dipping (Classic!). When one of the girls is startled by the hillbillies, she falls off of a rock and hits her head. Dale pulls her out of the water in an attempt to save her, and as Tucker yells to the college students, “Hey, we have your friend!” the college students hear “WE HAVE YOUR FRIEND!!!!!!!! RRRRAAAAGGGHHH!!!!” and proceed to run away screaming. What follows is a hilarious series of mix ups and craziness definitely worth watching.

Any true-blue horror nerds will notice the laundry list of standard slasher movie tropes that this film satirizes. I will only list a few because I don’t want to spoil anything:

-Why the lead female conveniently and consistently gets knocked unconscious to service the plot

-Why one of the girls is always inexplicably wearing 4 inch heels in the woods

-How a character is somehow able to shake off a terrible, crippling injury as if it was nothing, especially right after someone dies

-Why there is always, always, always a chainsaw close at hand

-Why Nighttime + Lakes = College Students feel a base, genetic urge to remove their clothes

And many more.

The film stars Tyler Labine, an actor who has made a good living playing the fat best friend, as Dale, and Alan Tudyk as Tucker. Tudyk is known for playing Wash on Firefly , which earns him an eternity of nerd-cred. The role of Alison, the standard horror movie hot female, is played by the smoking hot Katrina Bowden, who you know as Liz Lemon’s gorgeous assistant Cerie, on 30 Rock. 

This is a great film, and it reaches a level of satire that I think the Scary Movie Series was aiming for but didn’t quite achieve. 

The entire cast does a great job in this very fun film. I highly recommend it, even if you are not a horror fan, because it transcends the genre.

***** Favorite 30 Rock Cerie Moment*****

Liz: Cerie, do I look okay?

Cerie: Okay. That’s exactly how you look.

It is taking most of my focus to NOT write about the new Game of Thrones Trailer for Season 2. Peter Dinklage has picked up an Emmy and a Golden Globe for all of the Tyrion Lannister Awesomeness…  or should I say “Impishness” … ugh, no, Awesomeness… yeah. It is all over the web, so just watch it. 

Instead I am going to talk about a movie that I saw last weekend, the latest Mark Wahlberg vehicle, Contraband.

I’m not going to go into all of the minutia of the plot for this movie, because I go to a hipster college, and I know a lot of people who, if they thought seeing it would be ironic enough, would think that this movie is a piece of crap. Don’t get your skinny jeans in a bunch though, because I’m not one of those people. 

This movie is a lot of fun. That being said, it doesn’t do anything particularly revolutionary, but it serves it’s purpose and serves it well.

Mark Wahlberg plays a former criminal who has laid down his …criminal paraphernalia, to become a family man. You can all see where I’m going with this. Plot device A leads to plot twist B, and in order to protect his family, he has to pull one last big job.

Oh yeah, the crime in this film is smuggling. Yeah, apparently that’s a thing, not just Han Solo’s profession.

Actually, the fact that the movie is about smuggling is the part that should draw you in, because it is the only part of the movie that is not paint by numbers. Unlike most other major crimes portrayed in films, a successful smuggling  can only be accomplished if you are smart and very thorough in you planning, and when that fails (and it will, since this is a movie) very fast in your improvisation.

I don’t know if it’s right to say a “smuggling”, but a “smuggle” sounds too sexual, so … yeah.

I have never seen a movie about smuggling, so it was an interesting change of pace, and the scripting of this movie is really solid. It reminds me of a sort of blue-collar version of inception … sort of.

This kind of movie is right up Wahlberg’s alley, so obviously he does a good job. Kate Beckinsale has somehow gotten even hotter over the years, so she really doesn’t have to do much at all, which is good, since she isn’t actually given much to do except be the ONLY WOMAN IN THE MOVIE! 

A few lesser known actors in this film do a great job in my opinion. Caleb Landry Jones, who is quickly proving that he has chops (he plays Banshee in the new X-men movies), does a really solid job as Wahlberg’s brother in law, fellow smuggler, and “the one who got us into this.” Another good performance is given by Ben Foster, who has made his money playing crazy people (see 30 Days of Night and Alpha Dog), who gives a very mellow, but still solid performance.

My biggest praise has to be to JK Simmons, who plays the captain of the ship that our heroes our smuggling their contraband on (see what I did there?). His character is hilarious, and I really admire JK Simmons. I have heard him dubbed a character actor. So. Very. Wrong. Look at his track record: He played a white supremacist convict on Oz, he played a loudmouth newspaper editor in Spiderman, and he played the humorous, down to earth Dad in I Love You, Man, to name a few. All very different characters, all perfectly executed by JK Simmons.  Bravo sir, bravo.

My one complaint is Giovanni Ribisi. He does a good job with his character, but the accent he uses is unacceptably weird. It is half southern redneck, half computer nerd, and half Rain Man. Yes this accent is so weird that the sum of it’s parts is an improper fraction (3/2 for those who skipped that class in 7th grade, 1 and 1/2, for those who skipped the next class about converting improper fractions to mixed numbers)

All in all, this movie is fun. It keeps you guessing, a little, but if I had to put a label on it, I would say that this is more a go to the movies with your bros kind of movie, but what do I know … I know who David O’hara is, and you don’t. So listen up kids, and let me learn ya somethin’ …

I talked to my development team, and I have decided to expand my reviews to also include the world of video games. Since I am the Screenwatcher, and video games tend to be displayed on screens, it makes sense to sieze upon the medium, so in the future, be prepared for some game reviews, but be patient, I am a busy man, and it takes a lot longer to finish a game than it takes to finish a movie.

It’s been a very long time since I have done a blog post. I have spent the last months buried under the mountain of my Senior Thesis, but since that is finally over, I will return to my passions of film and television.

Several nights ago I watched a movie that I think is not only one of the best fighting movies ever, but also might dethrone Brian’s Song as the ultimate guy-cry movie. That film is Warrior, starring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte.

It tells the story of two brothers, one in Pittsburgh, and one in Philadelphia, both former UFC fighters, who are training for huge MMA tournament, and each of them have their own reason for desperately trying to gain the 5 million dollar prize. Although the plot lines of the brothers do not intersect until the tournament, the brothers are united by their hatred of their father, a recovering alcoholic, who is also the trainer of the younger brother.

There are some problems with this movie, but this movie is so entertaining that any mistakes it makes are immediately forgiven. This movie consistently keeps you suspended in an internal debate, as both brothers are such sympathetic characters that you have no idea who to root for.

Brendan, played by Edgerton, is a standard family man. He is a physics teacher, and he and his wife each work two jobs to ensure that their daughters have the best life possible. He needs this prize money to keep the bank from taking his house. Tommy, the youngest, is a former marine, and in the ring, he is an animal. He fights to simply beat the crap out of his opponents (and another awesome reason that I won’t spoil).

Thankfully, the movie does not waste your time with a bunch of training montages, as the last hour of the movie is devoted to the tournament, and boy is it epic. It’s been a while since I actually found myself cheering out loud for a character in a movie, but I had to stifle my outcries since it was 2 am and my parents were asleep.

The brothers have a dark past with each other, and it all originates from their dad. It is never explicitly said what he did, but the film makes it clear that their dad did some unspeakable things, and it was enough for Tommy and his mom to walk out on his family, Brendan choosing to stay for the girl he loved and would later marry.

The performances in this film are simply wonderful, particularly from Tom Hardy and Nick Nolte. Remember when I reviewed Bronson and told you Tom Hardy was the next big thing, well, he is. He really should be nominated for an oscar for this film, although he probably won’t, and look forward to seeing him as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Nick Nolte is also spectacular, and really wrenches your heart as you watch it. You hate him for what he did to his kids, but he clearly also hates himself for it, and is trying so hard to make amends that it is so hard to not feel sympathetic for the man.

Honestly, I think this movie is better than Rocky, and it bums me out that this movie is probably going to get overlooked for the Oscars that it so truly deserves. If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend it, as it is probably the best fighting movie to come out in the last ten years. Don’t miss out on history.

This new, mini post is not a showdown, but I wanted to do it anyway.

One of NBC’s most interesting upcoming programs is a show starring Jason Isaacs called Awake.

You probably remember Jason Isaacs from playing the villain in Mel Gibson last good pre-insanity movie, The Patriot, or from playing Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. He icy stare and British accent have led him to lean towards playing villains in the past, but that all changes in his new NBC Drama.

Awake tells the story of a police detective who, after being in a terrible car accident, finds himself living in 2 realities, one where is wife died in the accident, and one where his son died. Whenever he goes to sleep in one reality, he wakes up in the other.

The other part of the show is that he is a detective, and he ends up working on different cases in both realities, but is able use knowledge he gains in one reality to solve the case in another. It is potentially risky in its complication, but if executed well by the show runners, could  be one of the most intriguing shows since Lost. 

This concept is probably one of the most interesting that I have seen on TV in a very long time. It explores the problem of this man not knowing what is real and what is not, and if he even cares. He realizes that, if he were to come out of whatever mental state he is in, that he might lose the person that he loves most of all, and that if holding on to his family means losing his grip on reality, then that is a price he is more than happy to pay.

More than any other show the fall, I hope this show is handled well by the network. It has the potential to be an emotional punch in the gut, and if it executes it properly, then audiences could really come to love this show 

This is the TV Showdown that everyone has been waiting for. Finally, another network has stepped up with their own musical program to challenge the demographic female 18-34 Juggernaut that is GLEE, and if NBC gets their way, those glee-clubbers are going home in body bags!

 … Sorry, I got caught up in my own theme.

Yes everyone, NBC has their own version of Glee, and they are really bringing out the big guns to try to steal some of the Glee hype. 

Let me get this out of the way right up top: I am a fan of Glee. It is my guilty pleasure, and I watch it every single week … deal with it. 

As a refreshing change of pace, this musical program is actually about musicals of the Broadway variety. Glee has a annoying habit of acting like it is a big broadway production while actually being in a crappy high school auditorium, but NBC’s weapon of choice, appropriately titled Smash, tells the story of a producer, director, and composer who are putting together a musical about Marilyn Monroe.

***That actually sounds like a good idea for a Musical in real life, but NBC wants to do it on the small screen, so whatever.***

As they are weeding through every single blonde with half a voice in New York City trying to find their Marilyn, they encounter a beautiful, talented, and totally genuine actress, played by the lovely Katherine McPhee, and the show continues as she competes against some other talented girls and  … well the trailer ends there, so I don’t know what happens … the plot ensues, I guess.

For those who don’t know, Katherine McPhee was the runner up of American Idol season 5, and ever since then has been in the background of Hollywood for the past few years. I remember seeing her in the underrated Anna Faris comedy House Bunny, where McPhee played a pregnant sorority girl, but other than that, she is relatively unknown. NBC apparently agrees with me since in the trailer they stich an ” Introducing” before her name.

Aside from McPhee, several other stars grace us with their presence on this show. Angelica Houston (The Royal Tenenbaums) plays the producer of the show, Debra Messing (Will and Grace) is one of the composers, and Jack Davenport (Commodore Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean) plays the director, and i imagine potential love interest.

Despite all of the Glee vs. Smash talk I dished out earlier, the only real similarity between the two shows is that they are musicals. The stories are very different, and frankly, I am excited for Smash. McPhee wowed me with her singing, and it was just a trailer. Frankly these shows really complement each other more than they compete, and although these shows are going to be publicized as competitors, I am pretty sure Glee fans are going to just watch both, as long as NBC doesn’t make another stupid decision and put the show on in the same time slot as Glee.

… Isn’t making up words the best?

This week is a big week for network TV. All the networks are announcing their 2011 Fall lineups, and along with it, releasing trailers of the pilots they have already shot and picked up for full seasons.

I couldn’t possibly write about all of them, I just don’t have the time, so I am going to try to do something interesting. A lot of the new shows have counterparts on other networks, and so I am going to do some nice little comparisons for you and tell you which shows I think you should tune in for.

IT’S AN ALL OUT CABLE TV SHOWDOWN!!!!!!!!

Grimm  (NBC) vs. Once Upon a Time (ABC)

That’s right folks, fairy tales are real, and they are all around us. These two shows are both airing this fall, and judging by the similarity of the content, one of them might go down quickly.

Grimm tells the story of a cop who is one of the last descendants of the Grimms (as in Grimm’s Fairy Tales for those who had empty, soulless childhoods). Being a Grimm, he has the ability to see the fairytale characters that are hiding in plain sight, and I guess solves the crimes that are committed by the aforementioned characters. The pilot is a little red riding hood story, so go figure. It was created by the executive producers of Buffy, and, more importantly, Angel, so a solid supernatural detective drama is well within their grasp.

Once Upon a Time is set in a midwestern town called Storybrooke (If you don’t get the pun, you don’t deserve to get it) where all of the fairy tale characters have been sent to, and they are unable to leave. As far as I can tell from the trailer, the story is sort of weird. The characters live double lives: one as the classic fairy tale character from their respective book, and the other as a regular modern-day american. It is written by two of the writers from Lost, so at least you know that these guys know how to deal with weird.

When I compare the two, I see strengths on both sides. Once Upon a Time, is riddled with stars, such as Jennifer Morrison (House), Robert Carlyle (28 Weeks Later), and Ginnifer Goodwin (Something Borrowed), who plays Snow White. However, there is a campy vibe to the show that takes away from the gravity of the story, so I have my reservations.

Grimm, on the other hand, looks cool and gritty. It is playing towards the darker side of fairy tales i.e. Little Red Riding Hood is a story about child abduction, which, if one was to study the original stories in an academic setting, which I have, are really pretty dark to begin with.

This one is sort of a toss up, and as much as I hate to turn against anyone that was ever involved with Lost, I am going to say that Grimm is the one to watch. 

If I do another comparison this post it will be super long, and since only NBC and ABC have released their schedules so far, I am going to do each showdown in its own post over the next few days. Until next time, my friends.

That title sucks, but I’m too lazy to come up with another one.

I have a final exam on Monday, and my last one was 3 days ago. I am dead in the middle of a 6 DAY STUDY BENDER!!!!!!!

I’m bored guys … really bored.

So, in the good name of procrastination, I decided to do the most productive unproductive thing I could do and that was to write a new blog post.

I was thinking of older movies that I have seen that I wanted to review and I thought of The Girl Next Door, starring Emile Hirsch, Timothy Olyphant and Elisha Cuthbert. That movie is really awesome, but that is beside the point. When I thought of this movie, a little light bulb flickered on above my head, and I thought, “Doesn’t Elisha Cuthbert have a new show?” 

Then the lightbulb turned off for a while as I googled around and tried to remember what the show was called, but I finally remembered that it was called Happy Endings, and its on ABC. 

I found the pilot on the internet, and 9 episodes later, here I am. 

(Yes, I did watch this show for 3 hours straight, go ahead and judge me. I don’t care. I spent 3 hours staring at Elisha Cuthbert. Haters gonna hate.)

Yes, Elisha Cuthbert is super hot, but you know what else? She is super sweet and charming and lovable, and I completely forgot that she was all those things. It is amazing. The show starts off making her the character that you are supposed to not like, and yet she wins you back almost instantly with her coolness and bubbly personality.

Now ladies, this is not just a show filled with hot girls. There is plenty of guy-candy for you who are into that sort of thing.

There are a lot of newcomers on the show, but names you might recognize are Damon Wayans Jr. bringing in the classic Wayans Bros. goofy charm, and Casey Wilson, who was on SNL for a few seasons before joining the cast of this show.

Despite Elisha in all her glory, my favorite character has to be Max, played by Adam Pally. Max is the gay friend on the show, but he is also the ultimate show. He is witty, sardonic, and the writing for his character is great. He consistently keeps me laughing with lines like, “Even I think rollerblades are gay, and I had sex with a dude last night.” 

I really hope this show gets renewed. From what I’ve read on the web, it seems to have a 50/50 shot, but my hopes are high since the ratings have been slowly climbing since the pilot. This is just a really refreshing sitcom … oh yeah, it’s a sitcom, by the way. I might not have mentioned that.

The writing is really tight, and none of the jokes feel stale. There is really a great chemistry between the characters. The relationships are relatable. The conversations that they have really remind me of the conversations I started having with my friends once we hired sitcom writers to spice up our bro-out sessions.

There is one thing that might bias me a little. They did an episode where the plot was: “Who would more likely survive a zombie apocalypse” while also making fun of hipsters, and as a zombie enthusiast that goes to a liberal arts college in Maine, I bought a first class ticket for that train to Amazing-burg.

My point is, I like this show, so if for no other reason, watch it so its gets more viewers and gets renewed, so I can keep watching it. 

Sort of.

It is my last week here in Denmark, and I am entrenched in studying for final exams. You may have noticed that, in the past few months, I have been reviewing TV shows rather than movies. This is for 3 reasons:

1) Netflix doesn’t work outside the US

2) I don’t feel like seeing the movies that I want to see in Danish

3) It is way easier for me to watch TV shows online than movies

I was going to write a review of this new TV show that I like called Breaking In, but I just found out today that FOX already cancelled it, so I would just be wasting my time and yours telling you to watch it.

So I decided to change it up a bit and just talk about a few developments in the world of film that I find very interesting. Don’t worry, I will review Thor when I get back to the motherland.

The first thing I wanted to talk about is the new Quentin Tarantino film that is currently casting. As of now it is called Django, and it is Tarantino’s version of a spaghetti western, even though in actuality, it takes place in the south, so it really should be known as a spaghetti SOUTHERN… . HA! I crack myself up.

The story takes place in pre-civil war America (Thats the 1840’s and 50’s for those who went out on dates with girls in High School) and tells the tale of a freed slave in who teams up with a German bounty hunter to rescue his still enslaved wife and take down the man who owns her. 

I am really, really excited about this movie. For one thing, the German bounty hunter will be played by the amazing Christoph Waltz, fresh off of his last oscar winning performance in Tarantino’s last film, but the even bigger news is the Will Smith is supposedly in talks for the role of the revenge seeking slave.

I am not a praying man, but every night I get down on my knees and I pray to ________ to make Will Smith take this role (This is a non-denominational blog, so fill in that blank with whichever God you want, they’re all the same anyway). Will Smith is such a great actor, but he has become so successful that he has acted himself into a corner, so to speak.

People love Will Smith. He is one of the last big movie stars that can bring in a massive audience just by attaching his name to a project. However, people only like him as the good-guy. Here is a little known story about Hancock, one of Smith’s more recent blockbusters,. The original ending to the film was much different to the final cut. Hancock didn’t get the same character arc. The film was dark, gritty, awesome, and guess what …EVERYONE HATED IT! Well, only a few test audiences saw it, but they hated it. In that version of the movie, Hancock was, and remained at the end, a complete a-hole, and audiences didn’t like that. They love rooting for Will Smith, and they hate hating him. So, Pete Berg changed the movie, and it made a billion dollars or whatever.

My point is, this is Smith’s chance to really act again. He makes bank, but he is a tremendous actor who hasn’t been in an Oscar movie since Ali, and that was ten years ago. This is his chance to get that statue. Tarantino knows how to make a good film, and he has chosen a time period in America that has gone nearly untouched by filmmakers. This time in America, particularly in the south, was a very dark time in our history. There were very few redeeming qualities to the American people. Slavery was in it’s heyday. Lynchings happened all the time, and people treated them like block parties. Tarantino has embraced this time as so many people try to push it under the rug. This movie is going to be dark, gritty, awesome, and everything Hancock was supposed to be and more. Will Smith will do justice-and-a-half to this role, and I want to see him do it more than anyone. 

Plus, Tarantino is notorious for convincing actors do do parts he has imagined for them. With Inglourious Basterds, he wrote the Lt. Aldo Raine part for Brad Pitt only, and guess who played the part. 

Wow, I sort of rambled on with this, so I am going to end this post, but next I am going to write about this new Peter Pan movie that is totally NOT a Peter Pan movie. Until next time.

***Inglourious Basterds fun fact: The part of “The Bear Jew,” played by Eli Roth, was originally offered to Adam Sandler, but he turned it down to make Funny People… True story, wikipedia told me so.

 No TV show has ever made me want to go read a book more than HBO’s new fantasy series Game of Thrones. Don’t worry, that is the highest compliment that I can give. I can’t describe how frustrating it is to be in Denmark, knowing that I have to wait for an entire month before I can get back to New York and buy an english version of A Song of Fire And Ice, the name for the books. It is the greatest shame in the world that Amazon doesn’t deliver outside of the United States.

Well, it is six days until the next episode of Game of Thrones is on, and since I can’t read about Eddard Stark and his family, I might as well write about them.

Game of Thrones is well on its way up there to be one of the best fantasy epics of all time. It is definitely the best one on TV. The last time I saw fantasy storytelling this good, it was in a tiny little trilogy called The Lord of the Rings.

I am serious about GOT being up there with LOTR in quality, and it is not just because Boromir is in both of them. Yes, Sean Bean is back as a badass warrior in a fantasy epic. So what, big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Some of my friends actually had the audacity to tell me that they wish Sean Bean would do non-fantasy movies. After hearing these sacreligious statements, I promptly slapped my friends across the face with my gauntlet and challenged them to a duel … and yes, I have a gauntlet. Seriously, Sean Bean is a great actor. He rocks in this, like he does in just about every other movie I have ever seen him in, but let’s face it, he belongs in fantasy. When anyone mentions Sean Bean to you, who do you think of, Boromir, or the bad guy from National Treasure? It doesn’t take a genius to know that you chose the bearded knight of Gondor every time. 

This is devolving into a love-speech so I am going to broaden the subject. The show is filmed in Northern Ireland, so naturally the scenery is beautiful, but I really believe that reading about how something looks is no way to make a judgement on it, so watch the show and see for yourselves.

Every actor in this series is awesome, and the cast is full of talented actors, a few famous, but many are unfamiliar faces.

The big name actors really bring it. Lena Headey, of 300 fame, really heats things up as Queen Cersei Lannister, and Mark Addy really sells you as her husband, King Robert. For anyone wondering who Mark Addy is, don’t worry your pretty little head, he IS famous. He is that guy whom you see in movies and say “Hey it’s THAT guy!” He was also in A Knights Tale and The Full Monty. 

Those guys are good, but with this show, what really hits you are the performances by the newcomers, and there are a lot of them, but the three that I find most impressive are Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who plays 7-year old Bran Stark, Kit Harrington, who plays Sean Bean’s bastard son John Snow, and Emilia Clarke, who is fresh out of acting school and already doing full frontal nudity for HBO as Daenerys Targaryen. Talk about rising stars. These kids all give spectacular performances in this series.

One thing that always makes me laugh about movies is when actors that are in their late 20’s or early 30’s play teenagers. In this show it is combined with the historical fact that in medieval times, girls getting married off at 14 is considered very late. Emilia Clarke is only 23, but she plays a 13 year old girl, and it might be immature, but a 23 year old playing a 13 year old just makes me laugh.

This series has literally dozens of important characters so let me quickly rattle of some appearances by dudes you might know.

• The villain from Resident Evil: Extinction
• The bad guy from the live action Speed Racer
• The Master at Arms from Titanic (Had to IMDB that one)
• Ronon Dex from Stargate:Atlantis (You’re welcome nerds)

Also, for anyone who caught Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, from the short lived TV series New Amsterdam, as Jaime Lannister … good eye.

Last, but certainly not least, comes Peter Dinklage playing the sardonic dwarf Tyrion Lannister. FYI he is not a Gimli, LOTR dwarf, he is a genetic birth defect dwarf, and, so I’m told, far and away the fan favorite from the book series, and it shows. Peter Dinklage is terrific as Tyrion, and I can’t wait to see what comes next for him.

I realized that I only talked about actors in this review, but they are that good, seriously. Also, I hate, HATE, writing spoilers; I don’t want to ruin anything, but if you want to know what happens, just watch it, because the story is deep and emotional, and full of twists and turns.

To sum up, this show is spectacular, and I can’t wait to see what comes next for the people of Westeros. If you don’t watch this show, then you’re not invited to my birthday party.

I just got back from spending a week in Prague, which was amazing, and now I am back in Denmark and ready to write. Actually, first I was ready to watch TV, but NOW I am ready to write.

You know, the networks have really gotten pushed into the background in the last few years. NBC continues to trickle out crappy shows and then cancel them after one season, and after Lost ended, there is really nothing of note left on ABC either. The death of the network signalled the rise of the … Other Channels, I guess. THe best TV was always on HBO, that was a no brainer, but as the years have worn on, I have realized that my favorite shows have not been on the networks, they have slowly been popping up elsewhere on my cable box. Burn Notice on USA, The League and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX, Mad Men and The Walking Dead on AMC, and Blue Mountain State on SPIKE. Now, A&E is stepping up to the plate with an awesome show that has become a New sunday ritual for me. Actually, a watch online on Monday ritual, but you know what I mean.

The show is Breakout Kings, and it packs a hell of a punch. The show is about two US Marshalls who form a task force to catch convicts that escape from prison. Yeah, apparently that happens often enough to need its own task force. The kicker is, along with the two marshalls, the other members of the task force are three cons who are currently serving sentences at maximum security prisons. In exchange for aid in catching prison escapees, the cons are transferred to a minimum security prison, and for every escapee they catch, they get a month taken off of their sentence. The show is gritty, dark, and hilarious. 

Everyone is great on this show, and the chemistry/animosity between the marshalls and the prisoners provides for quite a show. None of the actors on the show are particularly famous, the most famous probably being Domenick Lombardozzi, who some people probably know for playing a cop on The WIre. However, probably my famous character is the character of Lloyd Lowring, a paranoid but brilliant Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry who went for prison for gambling or something, and he is played by none other than … The creepy, gay, younger brother from Wedding Crashers! Yeah, be excited.

Rest assured, he is not a creepy goth prisoner who hits on the cops or something. He is just a genius and smart-ass professor who knows that as a small white man, he won’t last much longer in prison, so he is desperate to get time off of his sentence. 

Take this review for the love letter that it is, because I really like this show, and I am not a huge fan of cop shows. I love cop drama, but usually in movies, because i have found that most cop shows are really just regurgitation and re-imaginings of the same episodes over and over again. This show is only four episodes deep into it’s first season, but I can tell that it is going to be good, because there are characters. Most Cop shows are usually extremely plot heavy and the characters never really grow because they don’t have to. I am not going to name names **cough, Law and Order, cough, cough**, but those shows get boring real fast. The characters on this show actually have arcs outside of the plot of each episode, and as the characters grow, you grow to love them. 

Breakout Kings is a definite must watch in my opinion, and if you disagree, then watch the show anyway and PROVE ME WRONG!