Hiddleston Latest In Cast Announcements for Aardman’s ‘Early Man’

hiddlestonnickparkBy James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

It’s been made official, the man known for playing the villanious Asgardian god Loki from Marvel’s The Avengers, will be playing the ridiculously pompous Lord Nooth, Governer of Bronze Age Town in Aardman Animations’ feature film Early Man. In a press release Aardman described Nooth as “a money-loving tyrant and rival to the film’s Stone Age hero, Dug [voiced by Eddie Redmayne].”

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Thoughts on Crimson Peak’s Paranormal Heritage, A Movie Review

crimson-peak-movie-poster-largeBy Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Crimson Peak is hardly melancholy as most Gothic pieces of literature flow. The tale here moves in Jane Eyre fashion, focussing on a romance, with bits of The Turn of the Screw and Fall of the House of Usher mixed in. When Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is introduced as a confident young woman wanting to become a writer in the same vein as Mary Shelley, just what’s odd is her sudden conversion naivety as she’s swept away by the loving charm of Thomas Sharpe (charmingly played by Tom Hiddleston), a gentleman inventor from England. He’s arrived in Old Boston, circa 1890, to convince a board of rich businessman to invest in his operation.

There’s this rich red clay on his land that can be a boon to the construction industry. These bricks can be tough as nails when properly mixed, but it’s also symbolic to a detail that ties this film together. The deep crimson quality suggests something else. Writer and director Guillermo del Toro makes sure all the symbolic interpretations of this colour are examined. From warning, love, courage and hate, just what exactly this brick like tone represents depends on the individual and culture. For Edith, if only she understood the signs. She should have. As a writer, she has to know that the world can be explained with allegory and metaphors. There’s the potential for anything she sees or experiences to contain a deeper meaning. She’s smart for one-act and is dumb in the remainder. Perhaps that’s because of the poison that’s working through her system to numb her senses. A lot of thought is required to process the story that del Toro has penned with Matthew Robbins. Not every detail is properly explained for some people to understand. Some of them might be mistaken for plot holes.

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The Best of the Entertainment Industry’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Videos

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Updated August 23, 2013

alsa_logoMany celebrities are taking on ALS’ ice bucket challenge to bring awareness to the world to what Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) is about. This neurodegenerative disease affects the brain and spinal cord, where it causes muscles to atrophy. Victims in the late stage can lose the ability to speak and swallow food. Fortunately, there is treatment to this muscle numbing disease. But in what can be done so far, all current medications can offer is to “relieve symptoms and improve the quality of life.”

Research is ongoing for better ways to tackle this disease. To help raise funds, many celebrities from various aspects of the world of sports and entertainment have stepped forward to allow themselves to get drenched in ice cold water in a symbolic statement of what the feeling must be like to suffer from ALS. The numbing sensation is not pleasurable. But to their reaction is entertainment enough.

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Explaining the Myths behind Thor: The Dark World and A Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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The Aether may well be what the scientists of Earth would call Dark Matter if audiences needed a clearer definition. A better explanation is that it is a fifth element that the many forces in Thor: The Dark World are after. Some seek to control it and others want to bury it.

In this latest Marvel Universe movie, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has to protect the Nine Realms from being destroyed by it. Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) is out to control this quintessence but in the last great war in the realm of Asgard, Bor (father of Odin), sealed it away and tossed it out into the multiverse for it to be lost forever. This introduction sets up the rest of the tale, and viewers are best advised to make notes of everything, or see this film again in 2D.

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D23 News: Tom Hiddleston the Disney Lounge Singer

This one is mostly for you ladies out there. I know what you think of Tom Hiddleston, the actor who’ll be portraying Loki in the upcoming Thor: The Dark World and the Avengers sequel. You love his looks and you love his acting (okay, I’m with you on this one) but will you love his singing?

At Disney’s D23 held at the Anaheim Convention Center, Tom was just one of the celebrities to make an appearance in front of thousands of fans. Perhaps he made the female geeks swoon with his good looks but were they swooning to his singing. If not they were at least swinging along as Tom snapped his fingers while giving his rendition of the tune “Bear Necessities” from Disney’s The Jungle Book. Jack Benny Show alumni Phil Harris originally breathed life into the 1967 song as the voice of ‘Baloo’ the Bear.

Now tell me ladies, which version do you prefer?

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