beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth reading list

Once Upon A Time’s best season premieres have an intriguing premise to keep us hooked for the rest of the season. Last year’s “Dark Swan” meandered a bit, but had a satisfying payoff with evil Emma strolling in to the dismay of her family and friends (unfortunately, she didn’t turn out to be nearly dark enough, but that’s OUAT for you). The show’s season six premiere—and really, it should know better by now!—is a similar mish-mash, but without the satisfying payoff. We already knew the Evil Queen was bound to show up sooner rather than later.

We won’t be doing regular reviews of OUAT this season, and I have to say, after this premiere, I’m kind of glad, even though I’ve been reviewing this show off and on since 2013. The last premiere I was this lackluster about was the ...

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Monday, September 26. All times are Eastern.

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Regular Show (Cartoon Network, 8 p.m.): Finally, the return of Fall TV slows down. Last week was rough, wasn’t it? Sure, there are still some new episodes, but nothing’s really premiering here tonight. Thanks, Ob… er... Clinton and Trump. Oh wait, now here’s a show that’s premiering this week. Thanks for keeping it real, Regular Show. Also, enjoy it while it lasts, because this is the final (and eighth) season of Regular Show. But luckily, this season is starting off with the things people want to see. First, in “One Space Day At A Time,” “after the events of ‘Rigby’s Graduation Day Special’ the 7 (including Eileen) get sent into space.” So of course the series isn’t just Regular Show anymore—it’s ...

In Let’s Playlist, the Gameological staff assembles a themed lineup of video game music and packages it in a YouTube playlist. But we’re just providing the start. It’s up to you to nominate your own candidates and fill out the list (with a YouTube link if you can find it, please). We’ll choose our favorite nominations, add them to the YouTube playlist, and present the final collaborative compilation in the Keyboard Geniuses column at the end of the week. This installment is dedicated to the music Castlevania, which celebrates its 30th anniversary today.

The first Castlevania game was released in Japan 30 years ago today. Known there as Demon Castle Dracula, Konami’s melding of 8-bit action and monster-movie horror stuck, and the resulting series became an industry staple. Through nearly 30 games and several major overhauls, one of Castlevania’s most consistent qualities has been ...

A single television episode can exemplify the spirit of its time. A Very Special Episode presents The A.V. Club’s survey of TV at its most distinctive.

What did we expect from Johnny Depp? When he first started appearing on our television screens regularly in 1987, looking impossibly pretty as undercover policeman Tom Hanson in 21 Jump Street, who imagined him as a future Oscar nominee, or as one of Hollywood’s preeminent weirdoes? Who saw him as anything other than an unusually soft-featured and soft-spoken model of young American masculinity? Who, that is, besides Depp?

Back in ’87, Johnny Depp was a 23-year-old nobody: a high school dropout and unemployed rock guitarist who’d made a minor impression in the movies A Nightmare On Elm Street and Private Resort, but hadn’t shown any of the intensity, charisma, or restless intelligence that he’d bring to TV. 21 ...

In Page To Screen, we compare a movie or TV show to the book that spawned it. The analysis goes into deep detail about specific plot points—in other words, you’ve been warned.

The biggest difference between Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and its film adaptation is obvious from the start. The novel is narrated by “Chief” Bromden, a half-Native American mental patient who pretends to be deaf in order to avoid interacting with the outside world. Bromden’s paranoid fantasies take center stage immediately, establishing a perspective full of metaphors made literal and psycho-sexual, racially tinged terror. It takes a page or two for the reality of the situation to sink in, and even then, the reader spends much of the first half of the book working to translate Bromden’s fever dreams into a more level-headed narrative. The result is a ...