CliqueClack

Aaron Ashmore’s not leaving WH13 for The Following

To the untrained eye — and to those who just don’t always pay close attention to casting details for new shows — if you watch FOX’s new mid-season show, The Following, and have been watching Syfy’s Warehouse 13, you may be seeing a familiar face. Sure looks like it’s Aaron Ashmore — Steve Jinks — right? Wrong. Fun fact that, well, at least I didn’t know until the other day: Aaron Ashmore has an identical twin brother, Shawn.

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Les Misérables is a surprisingly intimate musical epic

I love musicals, both on stage and on screen. Les Misérables is my all-time favorite stage musical because of the amazing staging, the catchy melodies and the incomparable voices needed to sing that incredible score. The show is a three-hour-plus epic spanning several decades of love, loss, a never-ending hunt and a revolution. To see this story performed on stage is what the theatrical experience is all about, and you’re really drained emotionally after it’s all over.

So how does one translate such an epic piece of stage work to the big screen? I think director Tom Hooper has come up with the perfect solution by keeping the film epic in scale while still making the performances much more intimate than they can ever be on stage while you’re sitting in a balcony seat a mile away.

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The Guilt Trip is a guiltless pleasure

We’ve all seen our fill of buddy comedies over the years with the buddies being in various situations, from the cops of 48 Hours to the boozing friends of The Hangover. And they all pretty much have the same formula: friends are put together for some reason, friends go on some kind of journey, friends get on each others’ last nerve and hate each other, friends learn a lesson, friends are best buds by the time the credits roll.

And The Guilt Trip is really no different … except the “buddies” this time around are a mother and son played by Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen. Probably one of the more unlikely pairings ever committed to film. The plot of the movie is pretty simple: Andy has developed a revolutionary new cleaning product and he’s taking a cross country trip to various retailers to see if he can pitch his cleaner and land an account. His mother Joyce is the typical cinematic Jewish mother, wondering when Andy is going to get married while still buying him underwear from The Gap, much to his chagrin. Except Joyce has a bit of a secret – she was in love with another man while she was dating Andy’s father, but the guy never wanted a committed relationship, so she married her second choice … and she named her son after her first true love.

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Why I still miss Doakes on Dexter

Say what you will about Showtime’s Dexter but I find myself strangely captivated by its dark and creepy tale about a serial killer that murders other serial killers. Isn’t that clever? Sure, it’s a little gory … and by a little I mean a lot, but it does boast some good writing. Well, at least it did. If you ask me, I think Dexter’s beginning to suffer from being on the air too long. For me, the show died when they killed off Rita … but I won’t get into that. Instead, I want to focus on the Dexter of yesteryear and would like to talk about a character that’s dear to my heart — bad ass detective James Doakes.

Alright, Dexter fans. Let’s do this. Hitch a ride in my DeLorean for a blast to the past. Let’s take this week’s Clacking in Color back to seasons one and two of Dexter when Doakes, who was played by actor Erik King, was alive and kicking. Surely I can’t be the only one that remembers him. Heck, the man was awesome and managed to keep the show a hell of a lot fresher than Dexter’s victims. For those of you who don’t remember who this character was, Doakes was a thorn in Dexter’s side, a real pain in the ass. He was the only one at that damn police station who knew that Dexter was odd … which, in my book, makes him the only character with an ounce of sense.

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A collection of current and classic TV shows on DVD for the holidays

As we run down the calendar to the big day, there are a few more TV shows coming to home video for some last minute gift-giving, from current series such as Shameless, Army Wives, Californication, and House of Lies to classics such as Here’s Lucy, Quincy, and Masters of the Universe. Have a look at our guide for the releases coming on December 18 (and one on December 21) for some last minute ideas, and click on a link for more information or to make a purchase. We wish you all the happiest of holidays!

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Home (videos) for the holidays

With the Christmas holiday rapidly approaching, Hollywood is tossing out a few more home video releases before the big day, and we want to help you get those pre-orders in now so Santa can deliver the good to the movie fan in your life. The biggest release for December 18 is the sleeper comedy hit Pitch Perfect, starring Bridesmaids scene stealer Rebel Wilson. Also on tap is the less-than-successful remake of Total Recall, and another entry into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise. December 21st brings Resident Evil: Retribution and Arbitrage, while the last video to hit before the holiday on December 24 is The Words. There are a few more titles of interest coming, so have a look at out guide to get some last minute gift ideas!

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A survivor is reborn in Tomb Raider

In the fall of 1996 we were first introduced to the adventurer Lara Croft when Tomb Raider launched on gaming platforms and instantly became an overnight success. Gamers welcomed the big-lipped, buxom, dual-pistol wielding female equivalent of Indiana Jones and the Tomb Raider franchise went on to spawn a huge cult following, multiple sequels, action figures, comic books and even two summer blockbusters starring actress Angelina Jolie as the iconic Lara Croft.

The Tomb Raider franchise’s revolutionary parade began to lose steam however in 2003 when the sixth game in the series fell short of commercial expectations and wasn’t received well by critics and fans alike, which in turn led key members of the development team to leave the company. The responsibility of the Tomb Raider property then fell into the hands of the Redwood City based game developer Crystal Dynamics, which after producing a couple above-average entries for the series barely managed to keep Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise afloat.

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Trilogy

I’ve already complained at length about the decision to split The Hobbit into three films; a decision which makes about as much sense as making Green Eggs and Ham into a 13 episode HBO series, or turning the game Hungry Hungry Hippos into a movie. Oh, anyway, An Unexpected Journey is finally here so it’s time to make an informed judgement. Well, a semi-informed judgement.

It seems that there’s simply not enough material in the novel to justify this money-making move to split it into three films. As Chuck explains in his great review, this first instalment feels aimless and meandering as a result; a gang of increasingly annoying dwarves go from place to place, battling CGI monster after CGI monster. By the time the credits roll (or whatever it is that 3D credits do; bulge, perhaps) it’s deeply unsatisfying, as if we’ve only watched a third of a film. Because that’s exactly what we’ve done.

This was never a problem for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, all three films of which were proper movies in their own right, each with a beginning, middle and end. After all, each one was based on a single novel. Yes, The Fellowship of the Ring ended with the beginning of an adventure, but there was still a sense of finality to the piece. An Unexpected Journey, on the other hand, feels like a chopped up portion of one movie.

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The Dark Knight Rises on DVD and Blu-ray

With the release of The Dark Knight Rises on DVD and Blu-ray recently, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is finally complete. If you’re a fan of the previous movies and own them on video, you’ll definitely want to pick up the new release … or perhaps go for the special trilogy pack if you’ve been holding out for a complete collection. I won’t review the film itself here, but you can have a look at a collection of reviews on the CliqueClack site from Jeremy Fogelman and An Nicholson, and an essay on the film’s shortcomings. My own take was a bit more positive than these, but with the passage of time I’ve started to rethink my initial reaction to the first advance screening that I attended.

Looking back while going through the Blu-ray, and after reading more and more reactions to the film, it doesn’t seem as great as I had thought initially, with nagging questions about the plot and characters (how does Bane eat?), and the distinct lack of Batman or touches of humor the previous films had. About the only real bright spot is Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman … excuse me, Selina Kyle. She at least brought a little lightness to the proceedings whenever she was on screen which was very welcome with all of the other heavy drama unfolding. Good or bad, I’m a completest so owning a copy of the Blu-ray was never a question.

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Another Dexter theory on Louis. Yes, that Louis.

I’ve said before that I was disappointed with the quick death of Masuka’s intern, Louis Greene. There was a lot of build-up to his character and his intentions, only to have him quickly killed off as though everything leading up to that moment was pointless. Why the fascination with Dexter all this time? Why the keen interest in the Ice Truck Killer? What was up with that serial killer video game? It all just fell on the floor, and Greene died before we ever learned any of it.

Did Louis ever have a better storyline planned before being killed, the writers later scrapping it because they couldn’t make it work? Or is there something more to come for the douchey intern? If this redditor theory has any meat to it, it could very well be the latter. The theory: What if Louis Greene is actually another Bay Harbor Butcher copycat?

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