Psychoville II

I’m only 3 episodes into the new season, but what a great, twisted little tale it is, and I’m loving it as much as the first!

I’m so glad to hear that this show was well received in England, enough so that it had been renewed for another year. 

From The League of Gentlemen creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, they bring you season two of this British dark comedy. 

•             Psychoville is a dark character comedy mystery in which five different characters are strangely linked.

The main characters are: Mr. Jelly, an embittered one-handed clown who makes balloon animals with his hook; Joy, a desperately misguided midwife; Robert, a love struck dwarf; Mr. Lomax, a blind avaricious collector; and David Sowerbutts, a serial-killer-obsessed man-child.

All five are at first seemingly unconnected, but we know they share at least one thing in common... despite having different backgrounds, different interests, and coming from different parts of the country, they have each been sent an anonymous, black-edged card marked with the words: "I know what you did..."

As the series progresses, we learn more about the background of the main characters, and discover they all spent time together at Ravenhill Hospital.

In Series 2, a locket with the letter 'K' on it becomes key. Police Detective Finney and shadowy Grace Andrews are amongst those who are desperate to get their hands on this item of jewelry.

 I’ve really taken a liking to this series, and can’t wait until I finish the rest of the episodes for this year.   I was hoping that I could find them available all online to watch, but so far have only found the first 3 episodes.  I really wish that I knew all of the inside references to other movies and TV shows, apparent in this series, as I’m slowing cluing into them, and could appreciate it even more if so.  If you haven’t had the chance to check this series out, do yourself the favor and do so, and make sure you check out their Halloween special as well, which doesn’t exactly fall within the story line of season one, but rather, uses just some of eclectic group of characters to tell some smaller tales of horror. Ala: Twilight Zone-esque

It’s great that a show like this can exists in a different country, because the truth is that it would never have had much of a chance here in the states.  I don’t know what it is, but it seems like outside the norm shows don’t hold up in America, outside of a one year run.  With the exception of shows like “Lost”, can you think of any highly revered American shows within the last few years that fall within the unusual category that are continuing strong?  I suppose shows like Metalocalypse, Venture Brother’s, ATHF, Squidbillies fall into this category, but they are definitely of a lower budget, and relying on much smaller audiences for their success.  Other than that, no prime time shows come to mind for me, if you can think of any please let me know as I’d love to check them out.   

I think that Psychoville’s dark sense of humor is what would be the ultimate factor of failure in America, completely off base with the typical state side viewer.  However, I still do appreciate that channels like Comedy Central  and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim have made attempts to license these types of British odd ball shows, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, League of Gentleman, Mighty Boosh, Look Around You, Little Britain)   but still without much success I’m afraid to say.  

Oh well, at least we can always rely on England for bizarrely dark humor.  Cheers!  

Gantz the movie

         
             I saw the live action movie Gantz a few weeks ago.  Ever since then I’ve really wanted to discuss it, but since I have very few friends familiar with the series, I thought it best to openly blog about it, and share this really likeable film with as many people that I can.

            Well, for those of you not well acquainted with the story, I’ll give you a description in brief from what I sourced from Wikipedia.

             “Gantz tells the story of Kei Kurono and his friend Masaru Kato who die in a train accident (saving someone else that fell onto the tracks) and become part of a semi-posthumous "game" in which they and several other recently deceased people are forced to hunt down and kill aliens armed with a handful of futuristic items of equipment and weaponry.” 

              Following their deaths, Kurono and Kato find themselves transported to the interior of an unfurnished Tokyo apartment. The pair soon realize others are present and find that they are not able to leave the apartment. At one end of the room there is a featureless black sphere known as "Gantz". After some time in the room, the Gantz sphere opens up, revealing a bald naked man with a breathing mask and wires attached to his head, and three racks protruding from it, that offer various items for them to use. These include the custom fitting black suits Gantz makes for each of them, giving them super-human abilities, a controller which acts as a radar and stealth unit, and three types of guns. When the Gantz sphere opens, green text appears on its surface, informing those present that their "lives have ended and now belong" to him.”

             Confused yet? Well you have every right to be, but for as much as this series is shrouded with mystery and rather loosely abstract concepts, I find it very addictive to watch, and mostly because of those same reasons.  There are so many unusual aspects to this series, that it somehow seems so appropriately balanced by the straight forward action and violence of it all. I must point however that I am mostly familiar with the Anime series and not the Manga.  There may be some more explanation involved in the series that I’m unaware of, that reveals who the man is inside Gantz.  I do, however, like to think of the series as a bit of mindless fun, just taking certain things for granted.  All of life’s mysteries are in fact not explained, so there doesn’t really seem like there needs to be one for this concept either I suppose. 

              I’m still pretty amazed in how they were able wrap up the entire first 13 episodes of the anime series into one live action movie.  Of course there were some sacrifices made in doing so.  By removing aspects of some minor characters, or not having them in there at all, some of which I really wish they could have shown in the movie, I feel they did strip a bit of humanity out of the story.  There was always a really good diversity in the characters that were brought into the context of the story, bringing with them a broad range of reactions, emotions and decisions.  But overall, I think they did a really excellent job with this movie and I’m absolutely looking forward to the next installment.  It was great to see Ken'ichi Matsuyama (most recognized as “L” in the live action Death Note Series) as Masaru Kato, a role that he really gives heart to. 

               I wonder though, how viewing this movie, without seeing the Manga or Anime will it truly diminish the series aspects, or rather, if someone else will enjoy it as much as I did.  Let me know

SighCo ad, great company, with great shirts!

Porcupine Cake

Behold, the "Porcupine Cake", made for our dear friend Christine.
We know, it looks more like a Hedgehog. :)