The Walking Dead 1.5 Wildfire by Joe Oesterle

Tensions were running even higher in camp this episode as the unit continues to get smaller by the week. This of course is natural. Any time I’ve been camping with a group of people for over 3 days, I start to get easily agitated by the slightest things. Someone’s not doing their fair share of the clean-up, someone else ate more than their allotted portion of bacon, or some walker wandered into camp and ate more than the allotted portion of my sister.

The Walking Dead review – 1.4 – Vatos

Four episodes in and this program shows absolutely no signs of sucking. This fact should come as no surprise, because Sunday night’s chapter, “Vatos,” was penned by the writer/creator of The Walking Dead graphic novel series, Robert Kirkman.

Followers of the books (like myself) have to be impressed with how fresh this creative team has managed to keep these stories. Characters who weren’t originally conceived for the comic pages have blended nicely with those who were fully realized for the print version and no one is crying foul. If anything we’re grateful for the brand new revelations. Two such departures from the books are redneck brothers Merle and Daryl Dixon. Merle is openly and aggressively racist, while his brother Daryl seems merely mildly bigoted, but it’s nice to see neither character is a walking hillbilly cliché.

The Weird Hollywood Unedited Clint Howard Interview

As a second grader, he matched wits with the formidable and worldly Captain James T. Kirk. Years later during his rebellious rock ‘n rolling high school days he introduced a young Vincent Van Patten to the pleasures of the opposite sex. He taught an animated man-cub how to march like a proper elephant, and he’s tangled with both Tango and Cash. He’s Clint Howard, and if you’re a fan of pop culture, you’re a fan of Clint Howard.

Howard picked up his first Hollywood gig at the tender age of three, acting opposite his older brother Ron on the Andy Griffith Show. Since then it’s been a steady stream of roles, many of them of the offbeat variety. I sat down with Howard at his favorite Cajun restaurant in Burbank (he recommended the spoonbread) to talk about his weird Hollywood experiences. He was kind enough to bring along a coupon for 8 dollars off the meal. (He must have gotten wind of my limited expense budget.)

WALKING DEAD – 1.2 – “Guts” Review

When we last left our hero, Rick, he was hunkered down in a military tank, right smack in the middle of “The Athens of the South,” surrounded by more Atlanta zombies than a typical Braves game. (That’s an indictment on that city’s baseball fans for those of you who don’t care for our national pastime.) Suddenly from the radio we hear the wisecracking gallows humor of a character who is certain to play out as this show’s comedy relief – Glenn. (Played with a perfect amount of reluctant bravery by Steven Yeun.)

The Walking Dead Review Episode #1

From the opening shot of a solitary survivor traveling a desolate thoroughfare, to the closing scene of that same man trapped in an army tank as the camera pulls back to a bird’s eye view of an entire city of hungry zombies honing in on their prey last night’s premiere of The Walking Dead was a tense, emotional and ghastly depiction of a world gone mad. Zombie apocalypse mad.

The series is an adaptation (and judging from last night’s episode, a faithful one at that) of Robert Kirkman’s black and white monthly graphic novel. The comic book series was launched in 2003 and is still going strong, so as long as they stick to the source material and deliver the same caliber of horrifyingly taut entertainment as last night, I have nothing but the highest of hopes for this program. If Sunday night is any indication of the level of programming we’re in for with this show, this is very good news for genre geeks as well as so-called normal fans of quality television. The writing, acting, art direction, special effects, make-up, stunt work and cinematography were all top notch.