The Walking Dead – “Days Gone By”

by Leonard Pierce

AMC is taking a big chance with The Walking Dead.  Coming at a time when the risk of zombie fiction over-saturation is very real, the network is betting that the quality of the series—based on a comic book that began before every other book written in the U.S. was about the undead—will overpower the genre burnout that’s beginning to take hold.  They’re also hoping that audiences will take a chance on a largely unfamiliar cast and on a show that will air on one of the richest nights in television.  The Walking Dead is an extremely expensive show, with location filming done in striking 16mm, elaborate makeup and effects, and one of the most prominent directors in Hollywood, Frank Darabont, acting as show-runner. 

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Austin Film Festival: Day 8

by Scott Von Doviak and the AV Club staff

Greenlight
• As one-time band member Jason Isbell puts it early in the Drive-By Truckers rockumentary The Secret To A Happy Ending, a Southern rock-influenced alt-country band with three different singer-songwriters (with an age range stretching from 20s to 40s) simply shouldn’t work.

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Screengrab Archive #3: Halloween Edition

(Originally posted 10/30/08)

This may be the scariest Halloween in recent memory.

Whatever happens in the election, it’s going to be a nightmare for tens of millions of Americans. But until then, we’ve got a few days to dress like Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, drink pumpkin-flavored beer and relax with ghosts, vampires and zombies instead of all those scary talking heads on TV.

There was some debate here in the Screengrab Crypt regarding whether this was a list of the BEST horror films of all time or the SCARIEST (or if there’s a difference)…which naturally got us thinking about just what makes a film scary in the first place.

Austin Film Festival: Day 7

by Scott Von Doviak and the AV Club staff

Three topics of conversation that are of interest to you and no one else: your dreams, your fantasy football team, and your psychedelic experiences. Seriously, nobody wants to hear about the time you stared at your hands for a thousand years until the puzzle-patterned door opened to reveal the infinite staircase of cosmic unconsciousness.

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Austin Film Festival: Day 6

by Scott Von Doviak and the AV Club staff

If Woody Allen had been born 50 years later and grown up to be a tall, gangly Gainesville hipster, his first movie might have looked a lot like New Low. With its cast of twentysomething slackers, video-store and dive-bar settings, and focus on relationship issues, writer-director Adam Bowers’ feature debut bears some surface resemblance to the greatest hits of mumblecore.

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The One Movie You Should See This Week (10/28/10)

by Andrew Osborne

Saw 3D

You know how kids who torture animals have a higher-than-average chance of growing up to be serial killers or Republican vice presidents? Well, what happens to all the kids who grow up watching torture porn? Do they eventually lose interest in agony and death and go on to lead healthy, productive lives? (And, if not, how many more crime-scene investigators, morgue attendants, sadistic trap designers and future Saw sequel directors does America really need?) Me, I prefer my 3D suffer-tainment to be self-inflicted and comical (like Jackass) — but I suppose if one must watch gruesome grand-guignol butchery, this tired old series at least attempts to be clever about it.

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An Austinites’ guide to the Texas Rangers

by Scott Von Doviak

So you’re vaguely aware that the Texas Rangers have made it to their first World Series in team history, but that’s the sum total of your knowledge about this largely un-storied MLB franchise. Still, you’d like to sound reasonably informed when the subject comes up while you’re in line at Torchy’s or waiting for Bad Brains to take the stage at the Mohawk, and The A.V. Club is here to help. Here’s our handy guide to everything you need to know about the Rangers (or at least, just enough to get by).

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Caprica: “False Labor”

by Scott Von Doviak

After four episodes, the overall shape of season 1.5 has yet to reveal itself, even as “False Labor” offers more food for thought than the last couple of weeks worth of wheel-spinning. Once again, the focus has shifted completely from the previous episode, as none of the various Zoe permutations that dominated “Things We Lock Away” are anywhere to be seen.

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Nick Schager Reviews The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy” and its Swedish cinematic adaptations present a rigged game: Their critique of societal sexism is made via a convoluted, one-dimensional thriller narrative in which men are either heroic crusaders or dastardly misogynists, with the latter all secretly allied in maintaining an omnipresent anti-female agenda. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third and final chapter in Larson’s bestselling series, is no different in this regard, expanding the serialized story’s scope to reveal how institutionalized violence against women is a crime traceable all the way to the country’s prime minister, who’s in league with a secret group of nasty old white guys dubbed by insufferable know-it-all journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) as “the Section.”

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Austin Film Festival: Day 5

by Scott Von Doviak and the AV Club staff

Pass

• Adiós Mundo Cruel won the Best Narrative Feature award on Saturday, but I couldn’t tell you why. It’s not a terrible movie by any means, but whatever superior qualities the jury recognized in it were lost on me.

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