If you’re looking for some holiday binge-watching to satiate your Game of Thrones addiction, Netflix have their fingers crossed you’ll turn to Marco Polo. The series–originally intended for Starz before Netflix and the Weinstein Company swooped in–uses its thirteenth century setting to present a historical drama that’s been widely compared to Game of Thrones. The…
The generations that lived through the ‘Great War’ are, by-and-large, no more, and the stories told about the war begin to become just that, blurring the line between fact and fiction as the war moves from lived experience to history. Testament of Youth is adapted from a testament itself: Vera Brittain’s memoirs of World War…
When you turn up to your local multiplex and fork out for a bucket of popcorn and a couple of tickets to Hercules, you’re not going in expecting a cinematic masterpiece. This is, after all, a film about Greek demi-god Hercules with The Rock – sorry, he goes by Dwayne Johnson now – in the…
Daenerys of House Targaryen, Stormborn, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Dothraki, First of Her Name arises from her bath. She affixes the brazen mercenary Daario Naharis with an unblinking stare. He has brought her the heads of his former allies and an offer of his loyalty. Daenerys is naked but unashamed; she…
If I’m being honest, I’m pretty well out of the loop when it comes to modern anime. The last time I was seriously invested in the medium was just over a decade ago, where my girlfriend at the time’s anime obsession incited me to explore a range of anime titles. Since then, I’ve mostly lost…
“The Mountain and the Viper” is a reminder that in George R.R. Martin’s unforgiving Game of Thrones universe, some things are inevitable… …bloodshed, for example. Or that whenever there’s a cursory shot of buff, shirtless men… …there’ll be a series of leering close-ups on naked women shortly afterwards. (Not that I’m especially complaining about getting…
Game of Thrones – and the book series that inspired it – is renowned for its high bodycount. What defines the series, of course, is not just the number of characters its happy to kill off, but the choice of characters and the timing. Ned Stark is the Ur-example; the shining paragon of nobility who…
“The Lion and the Rose” is a timely reminder of why Game of Thrones is excellent television. Not because it dispatches one of the most detestable fictional characters in recent history, but because it continues its trend of subversion. George R.R. Martin is infamous for his predilection for dispatching his characters en masse, often unexpectedly.…
Six months after ccpopculture began, I hit my two hundredth post and commemorated the “event” by making a few changes to the site. I changed the name (from Carbon Copy to ccpopculture), and introduced both Extended Cut and Double Feature as alternative posts – up until that point, every single one of my posts had…
10. Spartacus: War of the Damned – “Victory” Not the last finale on this list, “Victory” is a triumphant conclusion to a slightly overstuffed season of the great, underrated Spartacus. With a substantial list of casualties, “Victory” was defined by tragedy and, yes, victory, even if that victory was a moral one, not born of…
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