Shadow of the Dark Tower

Yes, this is the best one in the series. No, I don't only post pictures of half-naked women. Just mostly.

I don’t know how many of you have read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, but it is one of the more amazing collections in literature.  King is a master craftsman (yes, not everything he churns out is gold) and The Dark Tower is his master work.  I haven’t gotten into the graphic novels as of yet, but I’ve heard they are fantastic as well.  I doubted that anyone could ever properly make the Dark Tower into the masterpiece that it should be and was skeptical when I heard that Ron Howard was moving ahead with the project.  The series is so long and it is all so critical to the story that you could never leave anything out.  Could they make seven movies like they did successfully with Harry Potter?  Sure, they could conceivably, but the Dark Tower does not have the type of following that HP does (sadly) and in order to make this the right way the movies would all probably be 3 hours and extremely budget heavy.  My thought was always that in order to be made right, it had to be a mini-series.  As weird as it is to say, the major TV networks have always done a pretty decent job of their King mini-series and their version of The Stand remains one of my favorite things ever put on celluloid.  The more and more I thought about it though, the thought that kept coming back to me was that it would make the perfect HBO series.  There is plenty of material in the series and graphic novels (if you wanted to go there) to fill years of episodes and if you’re being honest, only the pay channels can do it properly.  ABC is fine, but you cannot make The Dark Tower and cut out the violence or any of the other “not fit for TV” parts that make it what it is.

It seems now that Howard’s whole project is teetering on the edge of being called off altogether.  It’s too bad as it seemed like they actually had a decent idea.  The books were going to span two full movies from Universal and two mini-series from NBC, all starring Javier Bardem who might just be one of the most perfect characters to play Roland unless Christopher Lloyd is able to travel back 30 years and bring us a 40 year old Clint Eastwood.  “Marty!  He shot me Marty and then lit his cigar from my boot.  He left me there to die Marty and stole the Delorian!!!!!!  What will happen to your kids?”  Aaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back.  In any event, there are conflicting reports all over the web about the project’s status, but AICN is usually pretty accurate when it comes to this kind of stuff.  We’ll just have to stay tuned and see.  Personally, I am still rooting for an HBO series.  I would rather they never make it at all than make it half-assed.  Bob out.

AICN and The Dark Tower

Community Chest

First off, I just want to note here that it would have been very easy of me to make an Alison Brie reference and post a pic of her skimpy costume from the finale.  By the way Alison, bravo.  Instead, I’m going the intellectual route and tossing a few tidbits of Community info IN THE CHEST.  See, didn’t that come together nicely?  Man, you guys have such a low opinion of me.

First off, I just want to talk about the two-part Community season 2 finale (spoiler alert).  The idea came as reiteration of the brilliant paintball episode from the middle of season 1 that became so popular that they used it as the climax for season 2.  I thought part I was brilliant.  It took last year’s idea and turned it into a completely new concept, namely the wild west.  I love Westerns and I thought that everything was extremely well done, from Danny Pudi’s pitch-perfect (as usual) Man With No Name, to Brie’s long female gunslinger.  Even the twist of having Lost’s Josh Holloway (who is actually excellent and should be in something else by now by the way) playing the role of the bounty hunter was an excellent touch.  I loved every minute of it, enough so that I saved it on my DVR (very coveted space) so I could re-watch it.  The ending had a nice twist of introducing the real enemy, though they did not give away his identity.  I was honestly very psyched for part II.  After watching part II though, I have to say I was underwhelmed.  Perhaps it was how great part I was (shouldn’t that have been part II?) or maybe it was just the idea that was not pulled off to perfection.  Part II moves from a western to a star wars-themed episode and brilliantly Pudi notes it right at the beginning of the episode, though I have to disagree with him when he says that he wished the switch had happened sooner.  I wish it hadn’t happened at all.  I love Star Wars and fully appreciate any good parodies of it, though this was barely Star Wars themed.  Pudi played the role of Han Solo and Brie a Leia-like character that slowly falls for Pudi’s as Abed as Solo.  The hired “guns” by City College’s Dean do resemble storm-troopers and sound exactly like them, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.  I suppose you could make the argument for the ice cream truck and its gatling gun as the Death Star of the piece and Britta (really?) as Luke, but that is really stretching it.  Overall, I thought it was a decent episode and appreciated the twist of Pearce winning, then leaving at the end, but I was a little disappointed that part II could not hold a candle to part I.  I guess that I’m thankful for part I at all though as it was truly an exceptional episode.  Plus, did I mention Alison Brie’s outfit?

Bob’s grade – Part I 84% & Part II 70%

Secondly, here is a little piece from an EW.com interview with creator Dan Harmon.  They talk briefly about season 2 and what lies in store for season 3.  Community has developed nicely over the last two years and has become one of my favorite half-hours of TV.  I hope that it continues along the same path, though it seems that they are in good hands with creators like Harmon and obviously the amazing cast.  I am looking forward to seeing where they take this from here, though upset that I have to wait until September.  At least I have my DVR’d finale part I.

Interview w/ Dan Harmon

Ok fine, here you go.