Tom Hardy’s James Keziah Delaney is a man seeking revenge in Taboo, the new FX series Hardy produced along with his father, “Chips,” and Ridley Scott. When he arrives back in London, 1814, after being in Africa for a decade and presumed dead in a shipwreck, Delaney knows his very existence is going to throw some best laid plans into a tailspin.
But he doesn’t care. He’s seen some shit.
Taboo is a vehicle for Tom Hardy to show off his always captivating crazy side. Delaney lumbers about town in a top coat and hat, scars telling the stories of his past. He makes his presence well known in town for good reason. His father has recently died, leaving him a shipping empire and a piece of land in the United States that is vital for the success of the rival East India shipping. The company, headed by Stuart Strange (Jonathan Pryce), thought that had all of their ducks in a row; they didn’t account for this duck coming back from the dead.
Delaney discovers just how upsetting his appearance is at every turn. His father’s servant is happy to see him, but apprehensive about his desire to dig into his father’s death. His half sister, married to a monster, may very well be happy to see him, but cannot express such emotions. He shows up at his family offices to discover they have been turned into a brothel by Helga, played by an unrecognizable Franka Potente. Then, a late night autopsy tells him what he probably already knew: his father was poisoned. And so the stage is set for a great deal of conflict over the next seven episodes.
While the madness Delaney experienced in Africa has not yet been fully explored, certain terrifying visions and ghosts of the ship he presumably died aboard have reared their head. Taboo is a series heavy in style. 1814 London is incredibly detailed, textured, sometimes beautiful amid the pollution and grime. It’s a fascinating show to simply observe, and Tom Hardy has such an animal magnetism to his every movement, I could watch him read the phone book for an hour. His Delaney is all menace and small twitches, a man on a mission with no time for platitudes or courtesy. He sees through the bullshit, and he has a plan.
It’s great to realize we will get at least seven more weeks of Hardy in this character and this setting.
In 2011, comic fans were introduced to Loose Ends, a Southern crime story told in four parts. However, only the first three issues were published, and the final chapter has been hanging in limbo ever since. Now, Loose Ends returns with a new home at Image Comics, and the creators promise to give the story its long awaited finale.
Sonny Gibson is a military vet living in his home state of North Carolina. He’s fallen on hard times, and gets roped into running drugs by an old Army friend. But before embarking on the trip to Florida, Sonny stops off at an old watering hole to make some amends. Things go south quick, and Sonny finds himself on the run with a waitress named Cheri.
This may sound like a familiar story, and it is. But it’s a familiar story with a strong twist from the creative team that makes it feel funky fresh.
Jason Latour writes an intelligent script. A lot happens in this first issue of Loose Ends, and some important details are revealed in cutaways and flashbacks. Latour doesn’t hold the readers’ hands through these moments, and he doesn’t use clunky expository dialogue. He simply tells his story and trusts that the reader will follow along. This trust is what sets Latour’s work above the rest.
However, as gripping as the script is, the art is the what makes Loose Ends #1 worth your $3.99. Chris Brunner’s pencils are raw and gritty like a crime comic should look, and Rico Renzi’s colors crank things up a notch. Renzi adds a vibrancy to the scene. Certain scenes, like Sonny’s drunken stupor, become all the more intoxicating. It’s a style that can only be described as “funky,” and it’s what keeps Loose Ends from being just another crime story.
Loose Ends #1 – The Bottom Line
Loose Ends is back and better than ever. Be sure to pick up issue one when it rereleases on January 25, even if you already gave it a shot the first time around. You’ll get the finale that you’ve been waiting six years for, along with a new format, new covers, and a few other updates. “But don’t worry,” said Latour in a recent Image+ interview, “Han still shoots first.”
Urban Myths is a UK TV show that features, among many other strange and confusing things, Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson.
You see, according to a Vanity Fair article, shortly after 9/11 Michael Jackson took a road trip with Elizabeth Taylor (played here by Stockard Channing) and Marlon Brando (Brian Cox). Totally crazy, and deserving of a completely batshit TV series like Urban Myths apparently is. And if that weren’t enough, this show appears to have actors portraying many other famous and infamous people.
Just… see for yourself:
https://youtu.be/le7214gXqB0
Fiennes had this to say about his controversial role in 2016:
“[Jackson] definitely had an issue, a pigmentation issue, and that’s something I do believe. He was probably closer to my color than his original color… [It’s] not in any way malicious. It’s actually endearing.”
Channing and Brian Cox look spot on in their roles. As for the rest of the cast, they look fine I guess. I don’t really know what to say or do after watching this. Is it offensive having Fiennes play Michael Jackson? Or is this entire thing just offensive and weird and totally insane? That’s probably the right answer.
However, Iwan Rheon, a.k.a. Ramsay Bolton, as Hitler is an inspired bit of casting. There’s no word on when Urban Myths gets going across the pond, so keep your eyes peeled for updates.
Probably elsewhere… I can’t post anymore of those pictures.
Assuming the report is true, we should be getting casting information extremely soon.
ABC ordered The Inhumans as a television series that will premiere this year. The first two episodes will shot with IMAX technology, and showed in movie theaters on September 4.
Are you looking forward to the show? Let us know in the comments below!
In November, Oak Park Brewing Company celebrated its two-year anniversary. In those two years, it’s become one of the region’s most celebrated breweries and restaurants which isn’t bad considering it was all started by four friends brewing in their garage with little to no restaurant experience. Ask anyone about opening a brewery and they will tell you it’s a risky endeavor, tell them you’re planning on opening a brewpub and they’ll probably call you crazy. I sat down with Bonnie Peterson, Tom Karvonen and Dave Estis to find out how they were able to make it work, even when the odds were stacked against them.
ON GETTING STARTED
Tom: We started as homebrewers, in (Bonnie and Dave’s) garage. Started doing these brew day parties, we called them big brew days. We’d invite people over, we’d do barbecue and Dave and I would brew. We always jokingly called their garage “Oak Park Brewing Company” never thinking at the time that we were going to open a commercial brewery.
After entering some contests and winning contests with their beer, Tom, Dave, Bonnie and Shannon decided they would open a real pub. The next question: where?
Bonnie: When we were looking for buildings we looked all over the Sacramento area and at one point we were going to do that industrial park model with a food truck. It’s funny, every time we looked at a building I’d have some excuse for why it didn’t work. I think all of us want to be a neighborhood space that people can come and enjoy themselves. I love Oak Park
Dave: I argued many nights with people that it really wasn’t worth looking anywhere else unless we change the name.
Bonnie: This building came up for sale actually. The broker that was helping us look for buildings contacted somebody who would be interested in buying it. He bought it with us in mind and did the remodel on the historic façade. We did all the remodels on the inside. Having a building owner like that who was so engaged and willing to help was really important. We wouldn’t have been able to do both, a remodel of a building like this and put the money into the brew house if we had to do it on our own.
TAKING ON A BREWERY AND A RESTAURANT
The initial plan never called for opening a restaurant. They were probably going to open a brewery in an industrial area like many of the other breweries in the region. Only they didn’t. They opened a brewpub in the heart of Oak Park. So, how’d that happen? None of them can say exactly, it just sort of ended up that way.
Bonnie: I like to say we got sucked into it.
Dave: I definitely didn’t want to do it.
Bonnie: None of us had it as our main goal; it just kind of evolved into that. Originally the building was going to be leased by a restaurateur and we were going to lease next door. And then it just sort of evolved into use sharing the space. And then they had some trouble coming up with their investment so we ended up building the kitchen. And then, once you put everything into it, you end up running it too.
DON’T FORGET THE BEER
At the heart of Oak Park was still the beer. It was the beer where it all began and it was still the beer they wanted to be most known for.
Tom: We decided early on, we’ve been saying British and Belgium ales with a West Coast edge, we didn’t want to just try to be another IPA house. Our main thing is doing more balanced beers. That’s one thing people like about our IPA. It’s more like an East Coast IPA than a West Coast IPA.
Bonnie: I think the other kind fun thing we kind of do, and maybe it’s because we started brewing in the garage, we really don’t take the styles too seriously. We let our brewers have fun.
Tom: (We want our beer to be) something a little different, something that’s a little more balanced and drinkable than a lot of the wreck your palate IPAs that are out there.
RUNNING A BREWPUB
You’ve got good beer and good food. On paper, those are all the ingredients you need for a brewpub. But as the four friends would discovery, running a brewpub is a whole other challenge. Dave and Tom had been project leaders and managers in their previous professions, but neither had ever run a restaurant.
Dave: It was 7 days a week, 16 hours a day for a while. It was bad.
Tom: Everyone told us you’re going to have to hire twice as many people as you think you need because half of them are going to suck so bad.
Dave: We had an initial general manager who put a really good team together and trained us how to do the restaurant side.
Tom: We have two sets of employees. We have our restaurant employees and our restaurant employees. We lucked out and got some really good people on the team early on and made (running Oak Park) possible.
OPENING WEEKEND
Oak Park Brewing Company now has around 45 employees. Dave and Tom pretty much split the business with Dave running the restaurant side of things and Tom handling the brewing. None of this made opening day weekend any easier.
Dave: Opening weekend, two days, 12-hour a day shoulder-to-shoulder the entire time, it was that packed the entire time. You didn’t have time to think. You just did what you possibility could.
Bonnie: We knew it would be difficult if we got big crowds. We knew we couldn’t do the full table service that was ultimately going to be the plan and our staff was trained for.
So was Dave nervous?
Dave: I wouldn’t say nervous. I tend to have a, “it’s too late to be nervous” attitude about things. Once it’s started and happening, it’s happening. There’s nothing you can do about it. All you can do is keep pushing forward.
PUB DESIGN
One of the best things about Oak Park is the feel. It’s a lot of brick and steel but yet feels welcoming.
Dave: Kind of Victorian-industrial, steam punkish look without trying too hard to do steampunk.
Bonnie: I think the other thing we can’t leave out is that a lot of the credit for the style of the building goes to our fourth partner, Shannon (Karvonen), who’s not involved in the day-to-day basis. She did most of the interior design herself, she really has an eye for that just came up with some really creative things we wouldn’t have been able to do on our own.
Pretty much everything you see in here is designed to look like it was here, but it’s all new.
Dave: It’s just supposed to be kind of a community place, where you can go and have some food, hang out with some friends, have a few drinks. You know that third place.
Tom: First place being home, second place being work and then third place being the pub.
EVOLVING ON THE RUN
The Oak Park owners had a team and an ambitious plan of running a brewpub with what they described as a white napkin menu. But you know what they say about best-laid plans.
Bonnie: A little too ambitious for our location and for a brewpub. Anybody that has visited us from the beginning until now has seen we shifted a lot.
You’re making really good food and you’re working really hard, and you’re not making any money on it. We had some really creative chefs that came up with amazing food, but when we started to push back because it wasn’t making financial sense to continue with that really amazing food, we lost some people.
Tom: We had to change the food around to be a little more friendly. We have some great dishes, seared ahi with wasabi mashed potatoes and stuff like that, but we definitely added a lot more things like sliders and wings.
And it’s not just the menu that’s evolving. It’s the location and their approach to the business as well.
Bonnie: We did the little beer garden area in the corner that now you can just seat yourself and come in and order at the bar. And that was in response to a lot of people who didn’t want full table service and didn’t want to wait 45 minutes for a table in order to have a beer.
That’s one of the adjustments we made to accommodate both sides of the equation and really make it a more pleasant experience.
WHAT’S NEXT
It’s fair to say that Oak Park has been a success. Call it a combination of offering something a bit different plus a unique location. Not the team is looking toward the future. They are bottling and selling their beers in the stores and are looking to expand their production facilities.
Dave: We’ll continue to building the brand. Continue refining the pub itself, while saving up to do a production facility. Kind of the ultimate goal is to be a regional brewery, kind of like Track 7.
Whatever the future holds its clear Oak Park Brewing Company plans to stay a part of the neighborhood where it all began.
Bonnie: The four of us always held our ownership in the brewery separately. It really was something each of us wanted to do. I don’t think any of us would give this up because it’s ended up being such a special place in the neighborhood, I love Oak Park.
In a timely move, Marvel announced the return of the politically villainous Secret Empire, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The comic publisher released a teaser image for the series, which features no information beyond the name of the series and Captain America’s shield. The image included the tagline “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand”–a quote appropriately borrowed from President Abraham Lincoln concerning the American Civil War. “Secret Empire” follows on the heels of Civil War II, a line-wide event that tore the Marvel Universe apart.
Secret Empire And Tricky Dick
Secret Empire has popped up in Cap comics before, most notably in Steve Englehart’s 1973 run on Captain America And the Falcon. Without showing his face or explicitly naming him, “Number One” turned out to be the POTUS. 1973 was the heart of the Watergate scandal that eventually lead to President Nixon’s resignation. Even beyond Nixon’s resignation in ’74, political events continued to show up in Englehart’s writing.
Nick Spencer, currently writing both Captain America titles, has similarly included politics in his writing. This combination, while logical, has drawn plenty of criticism from fans and detractors alike. Considering the Presidential Inauguration is only days away, it’s likely Spencer will use Secret Empire’s pedigree to comment on current events.
Spencer is still in hot water with many Marvel fans for introducing Hydra-Cap last year. While the story line has taken a few twists and turns since its inception, fans are still divided. However, it does present a unique opportunity. Secret Empire’s leader is more a figurehead than a person himself (think Dread Pirate Roberts a la Princess Bride). Perhaps this time around Rogers is the real Number One.
David Lynch’s Twin Peaks is aiming for a May 21st premiere on Showtime. David Nevins, Showtime CEO, states viewers can also watch the episodes through Showtime On Demand.
As IndieWire reports, the two-hour premiere airs on May 21st at 9 p.m. Showtime will then stream the third and fourth hours. Fans can also view them via Showtime On Demand.
“The version of Twin Peaks you’re going to see is the pure heroin version of David Lynch,” Nevin says.
During the second week, the third and fourth hours will air back to back. Then the rest of the series will air one hour per week.
Lynch is going to direct all 18 episodes. This marks his first TV series since Inland Empire.
With a little over two weeks before the premiere of the long-awaited Riverdale series, a collection of new character photos has been released by The CW (via CBR). The portraits, displayed below, were shot by acclaimed photographer Frank Ockenfels III and show (in order) the moody teens, Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Josie and Cheryl in an otherwise empty diner, a location we saw in the trailer.
The series is based on the characters created by Archie Comics, written by their chief creative officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and executive produced by Greg Berlanti. The show is a subversive take on Archie and his friends, a group of teens negotiating small-town life and a bubbling weirdness complete with love triangles, teen angst and murder:
“Riverdale may look like a quiet, sleepy town, but there are dangers in the shadows…”
After months of waiting, the second season of Voltron: Legendary Defender is about to come out. Before it does, Monkeys Fighting Robots has been given the unique opportunity to check out the first three episodes of the new season and review them for the public. Needless to say fans have a lot to look forward to and this review will try not to spoil anything too thrilling which came from this small sample of what’s to come.
Across The Universe
Picking up from the moment when the first season ended, the team is thrown into a wormhole which causes them to be separated from one another. Keith and Shiro wind up on a savage planet which wishes to tear them appear, Pidge land in space junk, and Coran and Allura wind up in a reality bending loop. Of the three, its Coran and Allura’s adventure which turns out to be most entertaining. The episode also features a moment which truly calls back to the original series. No spoilers of what it is because it’s too good to wreck. This episode is the perfect balance of action, drama, and comedy and starts the season off on a very high note.
The Depths
Next up is Lance and Hunk’s turn as they go under the sea. Stuck on a water planet they meet a race of merpeople who welcome them into their safe and warm society. Unfortunately, it’s far from a perfect utopia and the pair must find a way to get out before it’s too late. Just as it seems like there won’t be much development, it takes a turn, and makes the episode one which shouldn’t be passed up.
Fans will notice Weird Al and Mae Whitman (Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender) providing their voices in this episode. They do such an entertaining job, fans will no doubt be hoping they show up again later in the series.
Shiro’s Escape
The title is a little misleading for this one. A flashback to Shiro escaping from the Galra empire is mentioned but from there it instead explores another element introduced in the flashback. The team also confronts Allura about Zarkon being the original paladin of the black lion but it doesn’t get flushed out nearly as much as it should. Also the show names Zarkon’s creatures Robeasts, the original name for the large monsters from the original series. Probably a good idea as the fan community have already been referring to them as such since the series began. This episode is filled with far too many revelations to discuss any further but it leave this reviewer wanting the rest of the season to be here as soon as possible.
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Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 2 will premiere on January 20th. Are you looking forward to more action staring the paladins of Voltron? Leave a comment below and let us know.
JJ Abrams told People Magazine on the Golden Globes red carpet that his relationship with reboots, sequels and franchises has run its course, and that he wants to tell original stories from now on, according to Screen Crush. Abrams was at the Globes on Sunday representing Westworld, for which he is executive-producer, the hugely popular sci-fi thriller nominated for three awards including Best Television Series – Drama. When asked what he plans to do next, he said he hopes his future lies outside the world of non-original content:
“You know, I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten involved in things that I loved when I was a kid. In fact, even Westworld, which we’re here for tonight, is one of them. But I don’t feel any desire to do that again. I feel like I’ve done enough of that that I’m more excited about working on things that are original ideas that perhaps one day someone else will have to reboot… You know, I do think that if you’re telling a story that is not moving anything forward, not introducing anything that’s relevant, that’s not creating a new mythology or an extension of it, then a complete remake of something feels like a mistake.”
Besides his singular departure from trend with Super 8 in 2011, Abrams has focussed his attention on sci-fi and thriller franchises including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Trek (multiple) and a handful of Missions Impossible. He concedes that he is incredibly lucky to have been a part of the projects that have been part of pop culture for decades, but he’s looking forward to developing new stories that might even be revived by others one day.
It has to be said, Abrams has put himself in a great position to do so. If it hadn’t been for all the sci-fi spectacle that he has directed, produced and written in his career so far, he’d have no hope of getting original content near the cinema. But Abrams has dealt with the Hollywood machine admirably, producing popular movies and television, and earning reputation and acclaim to support his ambitious future.
Before we get to see what his future holds, however, we still have an Abrams-produced Star Wars: Episode VIII to look forward to on December 15th 2017. Then in 2018 we can expect an untitled Star Trek sequel and a summer release of Mission Impossible 6.
What sort of “mythology” do you expect to see JJ Abrams create? Let us know in the comments.
Spencer is still in hot water with many Marvel fans for introducing Hydra-Cap last year. While the story line has taken a few twists and turns since its inception, fans are still divided. However, it does present a unique opportunity. Secret Empire’s leader is more a figurehead than a person himself (think Dread Pirate Roberts a la 
