It’s great news for fans of the James Bond franchise this week as its been officially confirmed that Daniel Craig, who in 2006 signed up for his licence to kill in three bond movies has now signed to star as Britain’s favourite secret agent in another two, which like the previous ones will be financed by MGM and Sony pictures. The movies will put Daniel Craig into third on the list behind Roger Moore, who played Bond seven times and Sean Connery who played Bond on six occasions (plus one unofficial Bond movie Never Say Never Again). Craig will make it five movies taking over his predecessor Pierce Brosnan who made four.
Personally I see this as great news, for me Daniel Craig has totally re-invented the Bond franchise. I wouldn’t say I’ve been the biggest fan of Bond movies in the past, in fact I haven’t seen most of them. My main squeeze would have to have been the Sean Connery era if any, I’ve only seen Die Another Day from the Pierce Brosnan days and I made my feelings clear on that one a while back now.
2006’s Casino Royale really saw Bond taken back to how it should be, no silly gadgets just pure kick ass action with an actor in Daniel Craig who really did look like he could kick serious ass, the love story was still there as it is in all Bond outings but being the prequel it showed us why Bond dealt with the lady’s in the latter (although made before) movies. Two years later 2008 saw the release of Quantum of Solace, panned by some critics as disappointing and not as good as the first, I don’t share that opinion I think Quantum of Solace was every bit as good and you can check out my thoughts on proceedings here.
In October this year Craig’s third outing as Bond will be released in the UK. Skyfall comes four years after Quantum of Solace and in the mean time Daniel has been off getting married to Rachael Weisz and making other movies such as The Invasion which I reviewed a while back, an unusually long break thanks to MGM’s financial troubles of late, however writers and producers are glad of the break as they feel they’ve had more time to do a “proper” job on the movie which I posted the trailer for a while ago, all the regulars will be back including Judi Dench as M. New people are coming into the mix with “Q” back in the Bond franchise for the first time since the days of Brosnan and will be played by Ben Wishaw, and there is a new bad guy in the shape of Javier Bardem.
Personally I can’t wait for Skyfall, one of 2012’s most anticipated movies and Daniel Craig signing on for another two Bond movies is not a bad thing in my opinion.
Great news for fans of hit TV show Touch this week as Fox have just renewed it for a second season, proving un-doutably once and for all that Keifer Sutherland is the king of TV (along with Hugh Lawrie and Michael C. Hall of course). Touch premiered in January to a massive 12 million audience, the latest episode only attracted 6.7 million viewers however this show airs in the earlier slot of 8pm from the recently cancelled Alcatraz and The Finder. Fox have also green lighted Kevin Bacon’s new serial killer thriller The Following.
I watched and reviewed the “Pilot” episode of Touch and I was impressed with what I saw but couldn’t really get away with it at the time, don’t get me wrong it was a lot better than the afore mentioned Alcatraz but I just didn’t feel quite invested enough to keep going back for more, following the second episode I haven’t seen any of the others. How about you? Are you still watching Touch? Maybe you are watching it along with the UK audience on Sky1, if so let me know what you think, should I be catching up with the first season on Box set or should I just leave this one and focus on new shows that maybe will interest me more?
One of those new shows I’m talking about is Fox’s new thriller "The Following" starring Hollywood A-Lister Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy and Maggie Grace, the show has been given a 15-episode order by the network and is due to start airing in Fall 2012, I’m not American but I believe that’s about September time, please correct me if I’m wrong.
The show was originally named The Mastermind and will follow Kevin Bacon who plays Ryan Hardy, an FBI agent on the hunt for serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), a diabolical serial killer who uses technology to create a cult of like minded people.
There aren’t to many details on the show right now but make sure you come back and I’ll keep you informed on the latest, personally I think anything starring Kevin Bacon is well worth a look, the guy is a really good actor and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can bring to a weekly TV show.
Well, would you believe it? Yeah of course you would, American TV network Fox have cancelled Alcatraz and The Finder. It comes as no surprise really both shows were heavily advertised and a lot of money had been spent on production and casting, they expected to make big impacts with audiences, unfortunately that never really worked out for either show.
Alcatraz went down as one of early 2012’s most anticipated TV showswhen we done the list back in January and it premiered to a massive 10 million audience on May 11th, however it quickly became apparent that the show was not the J.J Abrams master class which Lost had provided us for six season and by its season finale Alcatraz’s ratings had dropped to just 4.75 million. I watched the entire first season of the show and can’t say that I’m disappointed about its cancellation, although J.J Abrams must have thought it would get that second season as the show never really provided the answers as to why all of these prisoners from 1963 were returning to modern day San Francisco.
The show was bought by UK TV and is currently airing on Watch, a subscription digital channel which doesn’t quite get the eyeballs to it just yet, they are working on it no doubt as they have bought quite a few big US shows including supernatural hit Grimm, currently in the UK we are up to “Guy Hastings”, hate to break it to the UK audience but things don’t really get any better from here, still watching the show? Then why not check out all my Alcatraz reviews HERE.
Fox have also cancelled The Finder, the show which was created as spinoff from hit Bones. The Finder “Pilot” attracted quite an audience, no doubt due to the massive hit that is Bones, however it never really managed to keep its audience and was re-scheduled in Fox’s line up. I watched the first couple of episodes of the show and thought it was ok, but it was all just a little to cheesy after a while and I quickly gave it the brush off.
Alcatraz is produced by J.J Abrams' Bad Robot production company which means that other networks will have the opportunity to buy the show, on those viewing figures I don’t see that happening but maybe they could sell the idea to someone like Netflix who would see it as a flagship show to attract more subscriptions. The Finder on the other hand won’t have that luxury and will simply join TV’s scrapheap.
It's a pretty decent week down at your local cinema and as always Movies Music & Television is here to give you the low down on what's worth your time going to see. Last week saw the release of Avengers Assemble and although this week is good, it's going to take something pretty special in order to take the top spot away from what will surely be one of the highest grossing movies of all time. So, take a look below as a bunch of American teenagers reunite, a couple are in a love story, Jason Statham kicks ass and Elisabeth Olsen is scared sh*tless in some creepy house.
I'll start as always with the weeks top release, in all honesty it could have been one of three but in a throw back to my teens I'm going with American Reunion starring Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Sean William Scott, Chris Klein and Tara Reid.
Cast your mind way back to 1999 when four geeky high school kids were on a mission to loose their virginity, now they are back in their home town of East Green Falls, Michigan for the weekend and their about to learn what each other have been up to in the last decade. Thing is, now there is a new girl in town named Kara who is a mighty cute high school senior looking to give away her flower.
No doubt this will be hilarious and it's great to see the original cast back together, the American Pie movies have spawned a mass of straight to DVD sequels non of which were really any good. Personally, I think they should have left it at the American Wedding otherwise known as American Pie 3, but I'll definitely be giving this one a go.
A romantic drama to mention now named The Lucky One starring Zac Effron, Taylor Schilling, Blyth Danner and Riley Thomas Stewart.
Don't really know a lot about this one, but basically it's the story of a Marine (Zac Effron) who has served for his country in Iraq, he returns to America and travels to Louisiana where he searches for a girl who he believes was his good luck charm whilst he was away serving in the forces.
Not really interested in this one at all, it's a slushy chick flick which I'm sure my wife will love. For me, well its a little to girly and to think that Zac Effron has been in the Marines is just a little to unbelievable for me.
Kick ass time now and it's a movie which I gave you the trailer for months ago now, Safe starring Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, Chris Sarandon and Robert John Burke.
Jason Statham plays Luke Wright a former elite agent who becomes involved in a situation which is not really of his own doing (always seems to happen to Statham!), what results is a Chinese girl who is abducted by the Triads before Statham rescues her. From there he must keep her "safe" as she knows the code to a very important safe, something like that anyway.
I love Jason Statham movies, for me they are just great popcorn flick and this will be no different. He always plays a former elite agent, but he always kicks ass so for that reason Safe gets my vote.
Last one to mention now it's Silent House starring Elizabeth Olsen, Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens, really it's just Olsen.
In what looks like a psychological horror Elisabeth Olsen plays a young girl who goes to her family lakeside retreat with her father, from that point things quickly spiral out of control and she finds herself unable to get out the house or contact the outside world, creepy right?
Yeah well you know me by now, I'm a total wuss when it comes to stuff like this so I will be avoiding whichever movie screen is showing this, but not to worry there is still plenty others to choose from, and I haven't seen Avengers Assemble yet.
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