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Showing posts with label television reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television reviews. Show all posts

The Spartacus Awards

The tale of Spartacus and his slave rebellion against Rome never seems to get old. The 1963 version of the movie about him propelled Kirk Douglas into super-stardom. The new Starz series (there are about 4 of them now) about Spartacus have decided to take a unique approach to telling the tale however; one that focuses on the shock and awe of life in Rome circa 75 B.C. Starz has taken the movie Gladiator, added some 300 and mixed in some of HBO's Rome for good measure. All this has been used to "spice up" the old story a bit. Well, it is so spicy we're thinking that it has broken new ground in a number areas for television (even for a cable network). For that reason, we've decided to put together an awards tribute for these shows - it's called the Spartacus Awards because we're pretty sure that they're aren't many other shows that could even compete in these categories...

The new Spartacus (the original actor from season 1 passed away)
Our award categories are as follows:
  • Best Blood Gushers - Slow-mo shots of blood gushing out of wounds (mainly inflicted by Spartacus).
  • Best Blood Splattering - It's almost poetic the way they do it on this show; there's a lot of love put into it. 
  • Best Sword Through the Head - (actually The Walking Dead season 3 could compete in this category if we included machetes, samurai swords and garden tools) 
  • Most Gratuitous use of Male Frontal Nudity - And the bigger the better seems to be their motto.
  • Most Annoying use of Accurate Latin Grammar - So, Latin doesn't use definite or indefinite articles (the for example) - ok we get it already.
  • Best Roman Orgies - No contest here.
  • Most creative use of the words Cock and Cunt - The shows must have a rule that one or both words are used several times in every episode. It can be quite challenging to find ways to insert this language into nearly any type of scene. 
  • Best Entrail Spilling - And we thought the Japanese and King Henry VIII had this market cornered...
  • Best Gladiator Music - We've included an example below. 
  • Least use of Wardrobe - The Spartacus series certainly qualifies as Green. There must be relatively little laundry to do given the sparse amount of attire employed.
  • Most evil Roman Bitches - There's several who jockey from season to season for the top spot.
  • Best Trident Impaling - The groin area is especially popular.
  • Best Slave Humping - It's seems as though this is all the Romans ever did.
  • Best Whorehouse Massacre - Worthy of its own movie.

Spartacus Vengeance - a new lead but lot's of the same action



Best Gladiator Music award



Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

American Horror Story - Certifiably Scary

Somehow we missed that American Horror Story "Asylum" had launched before Halloween, otherwise we would have included it in one of many celebration of horror posts a month ago:


We blame it on the fact that we forgot where the FX channel was on our cable because we hardly ever use it (last time we clicked over there was for last year's American Horror Story). Lucky for FX they have at least one decent show though. American Horror Story is perhaps the most original, most exciting and scariest horror show on television in a long time. This season is not a continuation of season one. The second season sports an entirely new location (a looney bin) and premise but has retained several of the key actors (not characters though) from the first season, namely:

  • Jessica Lange (this time as the nun who runs the Asylum)
  • Zachary Quinto (a psychiatrist with extreme mommy issues)
  • Evan Peters (this year as a suspected serial killer who is being framed)

This season's extra creepy logo for American Horror Story
This season brings a number of new cast members as well, most notably:
  • Joseph Fiennes - As the Monsignor of the madhouse
  • James Cromwell - As the Josef Mengele wanna be
  • Lily Rabe - As the good nun gone bad

Fiennes, who is also playing Merlin in the new Showtime Camelot series, is back to old form and adds some heavy duty acting skills to the cast. James Cromwell does a good job at being a villain (although he's had practice before) but he doesn't seem as convincing as a Nazi war criminal.   

Sister Jude has bad habits
Placing this year's cast in a mental institution (circa 1964) was a great idea as everyone knows that insane asylums have a larger amount of ghosts and evil energy on average than even Indian burial grounds. We used to have an insane asylum in our town that was abandoned and everyone considered it haunted - but they turned it into condos - so perhaps the ghosts there are happy now with all the Direct TV and Wii's laying around. Anyway, the ghosts, the patients and the keepers of the Boston Asylum in the show had no such amusements to occupy them. Instead, they turned to other pursuits such as making lamps out of human skins, creating Tuberculous monsters and otherwise delivering their dialog in those crazy Boston accents. 


Season 2 Trailer

Season 2 of American Horror Story is an amalgam of a huge number of horror plots, including but not limited to:

  • The Exorcist
  • The Diary of Anne Frank
  • Saw
  • The Omen
  • Silence of the Lambs
  • Taken (the UFO mini-series)
  • Friday the 13th

There's more going on than that and of course the season isn't over either, yet so far all the many plot-lines and horror references seem to blend together quite well. This show is fairly adult in its themes though so definitely not appropriate for kids under 17 or people who might be easily offended by sexy, killer nuns who act Nazi collaborators. The series did a good job of transitioning to an entirely new plot and like last year remains both exciting and scary. There's less blood and sex than the new Spartacus (on Encore) but lot's of gore and disturbing horror imagery to keep most horror fans glued to their sets (not literally we hope). Just don't attempt the electro-shock therapy or lobotomies at home.


Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved