Journal 6: Features to Die For

     “The Walking Dead: Complete First Season: When Featurettes Are More Plentiful Than Brains”, by Evan Sawdey covers the special features available in The Walking Dead season 1 special edition DVD package. While not necessarily about the show itself, I find it interesting how the review focuses in on its audience. Sawdey begins by revealing the hype that the show got when announced to air, as it was based on a popular comic book. He goes on to talk about the positive reviews it got and that other show writers on AMC began to take action against it. He then stats that the director, Frank Darabont, was fired, and that this could be good for the show. The remainder of the review focuses on the featurettes present in the DVD package. He considers the majority to be interesting and worthwhile, focusing particularly on the hour long documentary narrated by the cast of the show. He concludes by saying that the special features do not contribute to the story, they give meaningful understanding of how the film was made. While I have not seen the following seasons of The Walking Dead, and cannot review them myself, I have heard good things about it, and so Sawdey could be correct. I have, however, seen the first season, and loved it. The special features examined by Sawdey sound intriguing, giving fans many reasons to make the purchase.

Journal 5: A Sequel for Fans Alone

      In “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” by Nathan Rabin, it is reveals that the movie spent a lot of time explaining the story from the original film and the sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D. Rabin goes on to reveal that Adelaide Clemens is perfect playing the main part and then reveals the background to the film. He believes that as a sequel to a film based on a video game, it holds too true to that nature. He claims that the film is too broken up, and the scenes tend to work more like episodes. As a fan of groundbreaking horror films, and those with interesting stories, I loved the original Silent Hill. Because of that, this sequel struck my eye at first glance. Unfortunately I have not seen it, and this review gives me less reason to. As a horror film based on a video game, Silent Hill relates quite closely to the Resident Evil film series. As these films continue, they tend to move more from horror movies to video game adaptions themselves; and so it seems to be the pattern in this mini-genre. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D appears to have a similar pattern of going from horror to action. With the exception of people with a hatred for video game sequencing, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D has an appeal to those who enjoy action horror films.

Journal 4: Talented Comedian in Unfamiliar Territory

      “Louis C.K./Fun” by David Sims touched on a somewhat disappointing Saturday Night Live Episode. Sims spoke of how excited he was to see this particular episode with Louis C.K. hosting. He revealed that C.K. had no experience with sketches, but was chosen as a man of talent to perform under unknown elements. He said how C.K. appeared awkward during the majority of the show, and didn’t pull off as many sketches as Sims had hoped for. He explained how the beginning was good, the middle was uneasy, but the end was perfect. He considered the episode as a good one, but not the exciting one he was hoping for. I have never been a big fan of Saturday Night Live, aside from the best of compilations, and I did not see this episode; so attempting to judge the episode myself or compare it to others is out of the question. However, I am a major fan of Louis C.K., considering him one of my favorite comedians. Watching his stand up comedy is always a riot, and so imagining him doing any comedy show seems fitting for him. However, as Sims stated, C.K. performing on a sketch show seems rather, well, sketchy in itself. He has the talent to pull something like this off, but I can see it being difficult performing some of the unusual or parodical sketches. As for the ones he wrote, Sims revealed him doing quite well, and this has inspired me to look into his performance.