More Roles Are Cast For A Series of Unfortunate Events

We already know that Neil Patrick Harris is going to be betraying the villain, Count Olaf in the series, but which other roles have been cast?

Jude Law was cast as Lemony Snicket in the 2004 film, but for the series, Patrick Warburton (Rules of Engagement) has been cast for the role of Lemony Snicket. Even though we don't know if Warburton will just be a voiceover or whether he will actually be in the film is still unknown.

Joining Neil Patrick Harris and Patrick Warburton are 13 year old, Malina Weissman (Supergirl) and Louis Hynes as Violet and Klaus Baudelaire.

Is it me, or do they seem really young?

Barry Sonnefeld (The Addams Family) is directing the series.

First Trailer for Netflix's Luke Cage

For those of you who follow the MCU religiously (or for those of you who don't) you may have heard about a certain Luke Cage having his own Netflix TV show.

Luke Cage was a character in Netflix's Jessica Jones who is superhuman. He will also make up part of the team: The Defenders.

The trailer is only 20 seconds long, but we can get a good feel to what the TV show is going to be like. Much like Jessica Jones, it feels like it's going to be dark but comedic at the same time.



Trailer:

Luke Cage will be available to stream worldwide on Netflix from September 2016.

Jessica Jones S1E9 AKA Sin Bin Review

This wasn't as good as last week's episode; which is surprising since it had all of the components needed to make a good episode. It had gore, manipulation and problems that are just messy and need to be sorted out.

The one thing that just still doesn't make sense is Jeri Hogarth's (Carrie-Anne Moss) part in all of this. The fact that her only point in this show is her divorce and how she calls on Jessica (Krysten Ritter) whenever she "needs" her to do something dirty. Of course, in this episode we see Hogarth tempted by Kilgrave's (David Tennent) power - she wants to use his mind control to sort her divorce out - but as she's so close to releasing Kilgrave, Jessica comes back and Hogarth has to act like nothing has happened. What is her point in all of this?

How much better would it have been though if this was a picture of Wendy - Hogarth's ex-wife?  They look similar and that would have made the Hogarth story line more interesting if Wendy was Kilgrave's Mom

Another scene that could have been better was the ending scene. Everything happened so fast. One moment Jones had found Kilgrave's parents (which seemed way too easy) and the next minute everything is going wrong and Kilgrave forces his Mom to stab herself, tries to get his Dad to cut out his own heart, tries to get Trish to shoot herself (luckily she had ran out of bullets from shooting the hermetically sealed tank that Kilgrave was in), Kilgrave makes Detective Clemons force himself out of the handcuffs and stop Jessica from catching him.

Now. That was hard to write. So can you imagine watching all of that happen in a matter of a minute?It was crazy.

One interesting thing that happened in this episode was seeing the character of Will Simpson (Wil Traval) transforming into his comic-book character: Nuke. The red, blue and white pills are introduced and in proper Nuke style, he loves the red pills (which increases his adrenaline). In the comics, Nuke has a second heart and takes the different coloured pills so that they can have different effects on his body. The blue pill brings him down from his adrenaline rush and the white one keeps his body balanced in between his missions, except Nuke doesn't like taking the blue or white pills. Is this storyline line going to carry on throughout the rest of the show? Hopefully.

Watching Jones trap Kilgrave in the hermetically sealed room, fill it with water that she could use to electrocute him if he stepped out of line was good because we finally saw the hero win at something. Of course that didn't last long.

What wasn't nice was the feeling of sympathy that we got for Kilgrave. Jessica had set up the videos of his parents experimenting on him in the back of his sealed room to torture him; you could see Kilgrave roll around on the floor covering his ears because it pained him to hear the videos and the voices of his parents. Whether this was supposed to make us feel sympathetic we don't know. But it worked really well. We got to see another side to Kilgrave and a slightly different side to Jessica. It was a nice change.

There was a lot that could have been better with this episode, it was too fast-paced and the Hogarth storyline is boring now but now that Kilgrave is free again and Jones realises that she cannot be controlled by his mind-control, everything is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

Neil Patrick Harris To Star As Lemony Snicket's Count Olaf

Neil Patrick Harris announced on his Twitter account on 16th January that he would be portraying the role of Count Olaf in Netflix's rendition of the books.

These books were most people's - 18-25 age group mainly, considering the first book (A Bad Beginning) was released in 1999 - childhood and they were magnificent. Lemony Snicket (actual name, Daniel Handler) created a world that was frightening yet brilliant, it was magical.

The film 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' was released in 2004 and starred Jim Carrey and Emily Browning. It wasn't that good. They tried to fit three very detailed and very genius books into one film and it didn't work.

So far all we know is that Netflix have had this show under production since 2014, but has been slowed down due to the man that was supposed to be running the show - Mark Hudis - left, leaving no replacement. That was a pain. Barry Sonnefeld joined the show's crew last year as a producer and may even be a potential director. Daniel Handler has also come on board the show to be an executive producer.

Netflix has already ordered a first season for the much-anticipated TV show - but how many episodes there will be in the first season is unknown and the release date is also unknown.

Knowing how good Netflix have made Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Orange is the New Black and more original Netflix shows, hopefully they will delve into the darkness and the grittiness of the books instead of making it a PG family film. Only by making it dark will they truly show the horror of what this orphans went through.

The set of 13 books follows the journey of three orphans: Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire who are trying to escape the clutches of their evil relative, Count Olaf. He pretends to be all kinds of different people throughout the books to try and capture the children so he can have their fortune that their parents left them. 

Jessica Jones S1E8 AKA WWJD? Review

This is the best episode of Jessica Jones so far. Nearly the whole of the seventh episode concentrates on Kilgrave (David Tennent) and Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) apart from showing a slice of Hogarth's (Carrie-Anne Moss) drama with her ex-wife and Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) being the go-to-person whenever Jessica is in trouble. 

What stands out the most in this episode is the chemistry between Ritter and Tennent. They have amazing on screen chemistry and it's captivating. It doesn't matter if Jones hates Kilgrave and can't stand him being in the same house as her, but the back-and-forth dialogue between the characters is mesmerising. 

We also see Kilgrave (sort of) change his psychopathic ways for Jones when we finally get to see what was on that yellow memory stick Kilgrave had Jones dig up the night she murdered Reeva. It was a memory stick filled with videos of when Kilgrave was a child and his parents were doing scientific experiments on him - mainly neurological. Was that a glimmer of sympathy that we saw on Jessica's face?

It's also brilliant of Scott Reynolds - who wrote this episode - to let us as an audience start to explore Kilgrave's past and what made him who is today; it was a fantastic addition to the show and even though it was inevitable for writers to at least show glimpses of his past, to add it into this episode was perfect. 

We see the horror that Kilgrave had to face as a child

Even though we knew that Jessica's plan to hopefully balance out Kilgrave's killings in the past - with him helping people for a change - wouldn't work (he's too much of a psychopath to change), it was nice to see Jones have a tiny bit of control of him for once. She got him to save four people's lives.

What is unclear at the moment is what her intention was during the episode. She wanted to help him be good, but then she injects him with sufentanil whilst they're having dinner together. What does she have planned for him? 

It was a good plot twist to end the episode on and to mirror that action by Jones with Kilgrave pre-conceived plan to give Will Simpson (Wil Traval) his bomb back (which is a live bomb) and kill Jessica's neighbour, Elizabeth De Luca (Kathleen Doyl). The shot of her arm at the very end just lying on the pavement is what Netfflix teaming up with Marvel is all about. Adding gore and grittiness to the Marvel world like they did with Daredevil.  

This is was an excellent episode and hopefully, the next 5 episodes will be just as good.

What did you think of Jessica Jones? Anything that you would like to see? Anything that you want the writers to change? Leave a comment below.

Jessica Jones S1E7 AKA Top Shelf Perverts Review

Jessica Jones continues to impress with it's dark and gripping seventh episode.

In this episode, Kilgrave (David Tennent) makes his dramatic appearance and it feels right. This is what the previous 6 episodes have been building up to; us seeing Kilgrave in the background psychologically manipulating people, then slowly becoming a bigger role by buying Jones' (Krysten Ritter) childhood home, to having a full five minutes on screen with Jessica.

We see how evil Kilgrave can also be, as he manipulates poor but odd Reuben (Kieran Mulcare) to kill himself as Reuben is lying on Jessica's bed. All Reuben wanted was to being Jessica some food. As soon as Jones comes back to her apartment and sees Reuben dead, she knows that enough is enough. She tried to get herself locked in Supermax prison - "Supermax only houses the worst criminals: top-shelf perverts, cannibals, serial killers who make mosaics out of their victims fingernails...It's living hell", as Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) describes.

Hogarth's presence in the show is still not fully understandable and her storyline with her divorce and Jones helping her finalise it makes another appearance in this episode. The writers surely must have a proper plan for Jeri Hogarth and her storyline and hopefully not just make her scenes filler episodes and a useless subplot.

Another part that is starting to lose it's effect is that of Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor). We get it, she's now having sex with Will Simpson (Will Traval), but that's all her scenes seem to be at the moment; that, and trying to convince Jessica not to do the wrong thing for a few minutes. Hopefully, she has a better character development further on into the show.

This episode is based around Jones finally realising what's making her crazy: when she murdered Luke Cage's (Mike Colter) ex-wife, Reeva under Kilgrave's mind-control. The grief is suffocating her and she realises that as long as she's around in the open air, she's also open to Kilgrave holding people that she loves against her to get what he wants. Getting told by Luke that she was a "piece of shit" at the end of the sixth episode has caused her so much emotional distress that she just wants to put things right: Jessica Jones style. 

It's when Jones goes to the police station with Reuben's severed head (yes, Jones actually pulled his head of his dead body) that she starts to put her plan into action - not knowing that it's going to fail. She proves to Detective Oscar Clemons (Clarke Peters) of her superhuman strength to try and get herself into Supermax because she's "dangerous" and that's when another officer walks in to tell her that she's free to go.

Turns out that Kilgrave knew that she was turning herself in and had mind-controlled everyone in the police precinct to hold a gun to their own head or a civilians - it's nice what a man will do for a girl's attention isn't it? No. It's scary. He's scary. It's here when he confesses his undying love for Jones, he's "yearning" for her and wants her to feel the same. 

So Jones does what she thinks she has to do. She surrenders to Kilgrave and meets him at her childhood home that he bought; hopefully she's going to develop a new plan to take him down whilst she's spending 'quality' time with him. 

We're also introduced to a new character. Trish's Mom and Jessica's foster Mom, Dorothy Walker (Rebecca De Mornay). We learn that she's the reason that Trish got addicted to drugs and that she's basically a terrible mother that only cares about herself and uses her daughter and took Jessica in to gain the media's attention. She's a nasty character, but it was interesting to see Jones go and see her. Why was she introduced now? Hopefully Dorothy will get some character development of her own throughout the series. 

This was a very good episode as it showed a new side to Jones that was essentially for the story to develop and have her continue on her path. It was fantastic for Tennent to finally showcase his talent as Kilgrave in an actual scene of conversation with Jones and for some reason, Malcom's (Eka Danville) character is becoming more and more loveable.

Bring on the eighth episode!

What do you think of Jessica Jones? Is there anything you wish you would've seen in this episode? Anything you think shouldn't have been in this episode? Leave a comment below.

Pretty Little Liars S6E11 Review *SPOILERS*

Before you read anything...
 *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS*

So Pretty Little Liars is back and we're on episode 11 of season six and boy, was I happy being back in the world of Rosewood and the Liars.

A few things that we've learnt about the characters first:

• The wine mom's got out of the basement, but how?! No Ella to be seen anywhere though...
• Hanna is working as a fashion intern

• Spencer is in Washington DC as a lobbyist

• Aria is in Boston working for a publisher

• Emily is in California as a barista because college didn't work for her

• Emily's Dad died and now her mom has started seeing other people
• Alison is a teacher in Rosewood High 

• Radley has become a hotel/bar (?!)
• Ashley Marin is running Radley

• Hanna is engaged to someone who isn't Caleb

• Aria is in a relationship with someone who isn't Ezra
• Ezra has become an alcoholic 
• Spencer isn't with Toby
• There is a 'Brotherhood of Ex-Boyfriends' 
• Charlotte is released from the hospital
• Mona is working in politics too (?!)

• Veronica Hastings is in politics now as well
• Did we see syringes and drugs fall out of Emily's bag? I don't know

• Charlotte was murdered

I can't even keep up... So much was announced that I might have missed a couple of things out but it was a brilliant winter premiere episode. You feel like you've just fallen back into the lives of the characteres that you know and love but you also feel a bit disconnected because so much has changed in the past 5 years.

It's nice to see all of the familiar faces and it was mostly a happy and cheery episode which was nice. It was nice to see 'drunk Spencer' again and her exclaiming how much she loves the other 3 girls, it was nice to see them mostly laid back and (now they're of the legal age to drink) getting drunk and suffering with mega hangovers the next morning. 

During the winter premiere episode, it nicely paralleled the first couple of episodes of season one. The death of Charlotte reflects Allison's "death" in the pilot episode and how the four girls are at the funeral. The girls turn around to see a mystery person walk through the door - in this instance, we now know that it's Black Widow/Sara Harvey/Shower Harvey.

There's the same credit sequence that we love (even though I heard a rumour that there was going to be a different theme song?) except now Allison's in it which is good since it's about time she made an appearance in the opening. 

Also, can we talk about how good Spencer looks with bangs? All of the girls look so good and even though - in reality - no time has passed during filming, hair and make up have done a fantastic job of making the girls look more mature. 

Even though all of our OTPs are no more, (Ezria, Spoby and Haleb) one of them have to get back together right? There's something weird going on with Caleb and Spencer that I'm quite curious about but then we also see Hanna look at her engagement ring after she has a talk with Caleb. Is she second guessing her engagement?

Aria showed how much of a strong character that she is when she stood up for herself at the court hearing about if the hospital should release Charlotte or not. All the other girls lied to the judge about how safe they would feel if Charlotte got released but not Aria. Aria told the truth and just like Spencer said: "you are small but mighty".

If I wrote about everything that I loved about this episode, it would be the longest article ever. But!! This was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Everything was on point apart from Lorenzo still being in Rosewood?! Can't he just leave? Also... Sara Harvey? Do we have to do this again? But I did no see Charlotte getting murdered coming. At all. I think that might be one bad thing to be honest. Couldn't they keep her alive for a one more episode? I mean, she did just get let out of the hospital...

But no, bring on next Wednesday because I'm ready for my weekly dose of PLL. 

What did you think of the winter premiere? Leave a comment below!

Shadowhunters Pilot Episode Review

Based on the bestselling series by Cassandra Clare, this disappointing first episode doesn't live up to it's amazing paper counter-part.

There were high hopes for the Shadowhunters TV show and the 2013 film: The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones, was better than the TV show - which is apparently saying something since the film was a flop at the cinemas (personally, I liked it).

The first few minutes of the pilot episode were like an action music video, introducing three of the main characters - Jace Wayland (Dominic Sherwood), Isabelle Lightwood (Emeraude Toubia) and Alec Lightwood (Matthew Daddario) - whilst blasting pop music until your ears bleed.

Matthew Daddario as Alec Lightwood

Emeraude Toubia as Isabelle Lightwood

Jace Wayland played by Dominic Sherwood

#SQUAD

After the opening few minutes, it's a bumpy road for the rest of the episode. The scenes with Clary Fray (Katherine McNamara) and Simon Lewis (Alberto Rosende) are just about watchable, with their casual conversations and Simon hinting that he's in love with Clary. Rosende is probably one of the better actors in the pilot. Even though he's not one of the main characters, he steps up to the plate to take on the slack that the other actors have left. 

Alberto Rosende plays Simon Lewis

Simon, Clary and Maureen Brown (Shailene Garett)

The acting just doesn't seem to be brilliant. They seem stiff. Now of course, it's the pilot episode and nearly every pilot episode is bumpy and not the best, but the acting shouldn't be bad. It just shouldn't be. The one line that seems to be the worst of all is when Katherine McNamara grabs ahold of a demon (she has no idea) and says "somebody works out. Cool contacts." As a viewer, you're just staring at the screen, mouth agape and just screaming "NO! NO! NO!" It's more of a bad script than anything. There's only so much actors can do with a bad script. But that was just one example where you just want to facepalm at the bad lines and acting. 

The worst of all is the club scene in Pandemonium. Again, pop music blasting and it's too fast-paced, there's too much going on and it's hard to keep up. This seems to be a regular occurrence throughout the episode. Too much happens, we're introduced to too many characters and it ruins it. 

The "oops I accidentally stabbed someone" move

Magnus Bane (Harry Shum Jr) is introduced and so is Valentine Morgernstern (Alan Van Sprang) and it's too early to introduce these characters. It's the pilot episode! The writers need to remember that they aren't doing a movie, they don't have 90 minutes to tell a story. They have 13 episodes. That's pretty much 13 hours. They can take their time, they can have the first story just setting up the first few main characters and then have the second, third and fourth episodes slowly bringing in the extra characters.

Harry Shum Jr portraying Magnus Bane

Alan Van Sprang as Valentine Morgenstern

Even though most of it is negative, the casting is brilliant. They got it right for the 2013 film and they've got it right for Shadowhunters. I was particularly impressed with the casting for Magnus Bane; Harry Shum Jr is brilliant so far at depicting the character. 

The pilot episode was a fail, even though it raked in a 0.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 1.82 million viewers in the U.S alone. Obviously the hype was too much. We'll have to see what the ratings are like for the second episode. 

Hopefully, the show will come back and be brilliant like it should be. The second episode has to be better. It has to be. They tried to cover too much ground in the first episode so let's hope they slow it down for the next couple of episodes.

What did you think of the pilot episode? Leave a comment below!