Pop Culture Roundup 38 / The Superslice

It’s number 38 of the Pop Culture Roundup. We keep it movin’. How about that POTUS?! Congratulations, Barry, we had faith in you all of the way. Watch this, it will make the room dusty.

Anyway…

Amid reports and rumors of a troubled production, overblown budget, incoherent, underdeveloped script and in-fighting between its superstar (Brad Pitt) and its director (Marc Forster), who seems to be routinely in-over-his-head with big budget releases, the trailer for World War Z was released in the early evening, yesterday, and it created considerable buzz. It instantaneously went viral. As expected, there are mixed reviews. Fans and readers of Max Brooks‘ popular zombie novel have claimed it doesn’t resemble anything from its pages and have complained of its overuse of virtual effects. I don’t mind the frantic herds of CG zombies; they freak me out. Personally, even though I am a huge fan of the zombie genre, I have not read any of the books by Brooks; it’s on the to-do list; both Z and the Survival Guide are packed on my phone, unread. Check out the effective, gripping trailer at the header, complete with foreboding Inception doom roar.

The international trailer for Lincoln.

Arnie‘s The Last Stand

Speaking of zombies, how about a zombie love story? Here’s Warm Bodies.

Movie 43, red band preview.

The first trailer of Wong Kar-Wai‘s new masterpiece The Grandmaster featuring Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Zhao Benshan and Song Hye.

Maniac, red band international trailer, the owner of a mannequin shop develops a dangerous obsession with a young artist. Where’s Dexter when you need him?

The new documentary four-part series, Witness, which premiered on November 5th, catch the next parts every Monday at 9PM.

FIRST TWO FULL EPISODES of Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome

Machinma is releasing weekly episodes of the Battlestar Galactica prequel. Here are the first two episodes.

The funniest living stand-up comedian, Louis CK, hosted SNL last Saturday, here are the funniest bits are below. His monologue and the Lincoln sketch, a Louie spoof. Also, read his humble and touching letter that he wrote and sent out right before his hosting gig and amid the hurricane and flooding in the northeast.

Hello. Its louis here. I’m clacking this to you on my phone in my dressing room here at studio 8H, right in 30 rockefeller center, in Manhattan, new york city, new york, america, world, current snapshot of all existence everywhere.

Tonight I’m hosting Saturday Night Live, something I zero ever in my life saw happening to me. And yet here it is completely most probably happening (I mean, ANYTHING could NOT happen. So we’ll see).

I’ve been working here all week with the cast, crew, producers and writers of SNL, and with Lorne Michaels. Such a great and talented group of people.

And here we are in the middle of New York City, which was just slammed by a hurricane, leaving behind so much trouble, so much difficulty and trauma, which everyone here is still dealing with every day.

Last night we shot some pre-tape segments in greenwich Village, which was pitch black dark for blocks and blocks, as it has been for a week now.

Its pretty impossible to describe walking through these city streets in total darkness. It can’t even be called a trip through time, because as long as new york has lived, its been lit. By electricity, gas lamps, candlelight, kerosene. But this was pitch black, street after street, corner round corner. And for me, the village being the very place that made me into a comedian and a man, to walk through the heart of it and feel like, in a way, it was dead. I can’t tell you how that felt. And you also had a palpable sense that inside each dark window was a family or a student or an artist or an old woman living alone, just being int he dark and waiting for the day to come back. Like we were all having one big sleep over, but not so much fun as that.

This is how a lot of the city is still. I know people in queens, brooklyn, Staten Island, new jersey, all over, are not normal yet. And not normal is hard.

And here at 30 rock, these folks are working so hard this week. There are kids in the studio every day, because members of the crew and staff had to bring them to work. Many people are sharing lodging. Everyone is tired. But there’s this feeling here that we’ve got to put on a great show. I’m sure it feels like that here every week. But wow. I feel really lucky to be sharing this time with these particular good folks here at SNL.

In about 5 hours we’ll be going on the air. I’ll do a monologue. And we’ll show you some sketches that we wrote and try to make you laugh. I’m gonna look really dumb in some of this stuff. But I don’t care. Its awfully worth it. And I’m really excited.

Anyway. I just wanted to let you know. If you watch the show tonight, when Don Pardo says my name and you see me walking out, all the shit in this email is what ill be thinking. I’m a pretty lucky guy. I hope you enjoy the show.

Thanks.

Louis C.K.

Live. From new york. Its saturday night.

The monologue

Lincoln

(Director’s Cut)

I have to say that the Season 3, Episode 4: Killer Within of The Walking Dead was brutally heart-wrenching, a tour de force. I weeped and wailed like a baby at episode’s end. SPOILERS: Bravo to Sarah Wayne Callies, who did an amazing job on the show with a character that was terribly underdeveloped and underwritten. Her character, Lori Grimes, came off as an illogical (sometimes neglectful), one-dimensional shrew, at times, yet Callies did her best with what little she had. Her final performance on the show was touching and powerful; as well as Andrew Lincoln, Lauren Cohan and Chandler Riggs. We had a collective breakdown, in real time, as their characters broke down. Sarah Wayne Callies spoke with TV Line and AMC about the show and episode; TWD fans may find some closure with these interviews. Also, huge shout-out to IronE Singleton, Rest in Peace, T-Dog.

TEASERS and FEATURETTES

A Hitchcock featurette. Buzzfeed has some new images. Also, Share Your Scream!

Here’s bootleg footage of the intricate opening credits sequence of Skyfall.

SoundWorks Collection – The Sound of Flight

MASHUPS and SUPERCUTS

50 Years of James Bond: The Movie, approximately five minutes from each of the 22 Eon produced James Bond films have been cut together, in order and in sequence, beginning with the first five minutes of DR. NO (1962) followed by minutes 5-10 of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963), minutes 10-15 of GOLDFINGER (1964), minutes 15-20 of THUNDERBALL (1965), continuing on through each of the remaining 18 Bond features (accounting for variables in each title’s running time) culminating with the final five minutes of 2008’s QUANTUM OF SOLACE.