Gypsybelle

I just now watched Brimstone...not sure why I didn't see it when it was first released. Honestly, I'm more a fan of Science Fiction and Action flicks. Brimstone is a very powerful film in the Genre of Tragedy. Guy Pierce was downright terrifying as The Minister. The film was well cast. Dakota Fanning (Joanna and 'Liz') and Emilia Jones (young Joanna) both gave riveting performances. The character of Joanna (later AKA Liz) is one of the most tragic characters I've seen in a while. Joanna never had a really happy life until she becomes 'Liz', marries and has a daughter...and that portion of her life is short-lived. The acting and overall storyline will draw you in and elicit levels of emotion that you might not have felt for a while, if at all. I was totally crushed by the ending and haven't actually cried while watching a film for a long time. This one really got to me...If you are getting tired of all the re-boots being done by Hollywood today (due to an obvious lack of creative writing abilities), then Brimstone is highly recommended.

I've been a big fan of Supernatural so I wanted to watch 'The Winchesters' as a prequel when it came out. I finally started watching it today. So far I'm on Episode 4, Masters of War. Overall, I'm liking it so far. I love that they are using songs that go along with the setting of 1972. The characters are compelling. I love that Jensen Ackles is narrating as 'Dean Winchester'.

BUT - Wow! On Episode 4, John Winchester and Carlos are in a therapy group for Veterans...Carlos was evidently in the Navy. The lack of research and continuity here is that both of them were discharged from service and should never have showed up to therapy in uniform! And in the dialog, Carlos calls himself a 'Navy Medic'! NO WAY. In the Navy, Carlos would have been a Navy Corpsman. The Air Force and Army had 'Medics'. I was a Navy Corpsman so I do take a bit of objection to that in the script. They didn't take the time to do the right research in writing the dialog for the script. The Writers need to get your facts right! Take pride in your career...Otherwise, seems like a good show so far. I will continue watching.

I initially gave it a 1 star. I tossed in a bone for 2 stars. Why, oh why, doesn't SYFY get the talented teams that created some of SYFY Networks most wonderful commercials to develop some original series and movies for them? Z Nation would be a very low grade film, so making this into a 'series' is a major shame and waste of time and money. The story line could have been interesting (from a post apocalyptic point of view), if the dialog and character development were any good, which they are not. Dialogue is cheesy (not in a fun way either), and the actors are very bland. The video quality is also horrible and very stale to the eyes. Anything worth making is worth making right. Sheesh. How hard is that?

Z Nation is no where near as good as The Walking Dead! TWD has interesting sub-plots with the characters, delving into what happened before and after the Zombie Virus broke out so you can really see how this has changed all of them (for worse or better). I don't care about ANY of the characters in Z Nation so far, except maybe Citizen Z (DJ Qualls) and his dog. OK...the Zombie Baby was kind of creepy fun; albeit fleeting.

SYFY has failed miserably with launching Z Nation. What kind of 'Kool-Aid' were their executives drinking?