Five Great Alan Tudyk Performances

Alan Tudyk has, for years, been the working man’s character actor. He’s pulled in performances from all sorts of mediums, voicing characters in animated series, and animated movies, he’s played side characters in comedies like “Dodgeball,” did a bang up job as a supporting character in the sitcom “Suburgatory” and is still going strong today, beginning his new show “Conman” and continuing to work on various modern hit films. Though you may not know he’s there, he’s been in many hit films, playing the Duke in the monster hit “Frozen,” the weasel in the monster hit “Zootopia,” and oh yes, he played one of more interesting rebel heroes in 2016’s “Rogue One,” yet another monster hit movie.

Here are five great performances from Tudyk’s large resume. If you haven’t seen these, be sure to give them a shot. If you have, check them out again, since Tudyk is scary talented and very funny.

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Chasse-Galerie La Légende (2016)

La Chasse-Galerie, or the Flying Canoe (aka The Bewitched Canoe) is a well-known legend from Québec about a group of travelers making a deal with the devil to get home.  In this cinematic version of it set in 1863, a group of men travelling home are slowed down by a snow storm.  After they request help, the devil gives them a flying canoe to take them home but with some conditions that come with harsh punishment if not followed.  After one of them cheats the devil, vengeance is taken on his descendant 25 years later.

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Max Steel (2016)

I wish Mattel would stop forcing Max Steel on the unsuspecting American public. After many years, the company insists on introducing this action figure line in its new forms, and it’s exhausting to say the least. Back in 2000, Mattel re-introduced Max Steel in a very entertaining CGI cartoon with the main character as a cybernetic spy–because CGI and spies were big in the early aughts. When trends shifted, Mattel re-re-introduced the character in 2013 in to a younger character and in the mold of a pseudo-Iron Man since Iron Man has changed how movie studios approach science fiction now. After that failed, Mattel has given us Max Steel once again, and turned him in to a cybernetic superhero with an enigmatic past. This Max Steel is an amalgam of Guyver, Iron Man, and Star Kid, and is an infinitely grating, and ugly kids film.

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Entertainment That Puts Me in the Holiday Spirit

What puts you in the Holiday Spirit?  What puts me in the Holiday Spirit?  Honestly, as I grew up in and near Montreal, Quebec, Canada, some of my traditions are a tad different from those I live surrounded by now in Southern California.  Growing up, every Holiday Season, some movies and TV shows were broadcast in Quebec for all of us to watch as an odd little community spread out over a huge, snowy territory.

Nowadays, these movies and TV shows help me get in the mood for the Holidays and as I am having a hard time getting in the Spirit this year, I figured I’d watch a bunch of them and share them with you all.

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Tim Burton: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work [Hardcover]

For the respective Tim Burton enthusiast comes “Tim Burton: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work,” a comprehensive biography and study of the master’s work by author Ian Nathan. Courtesy of Aurum Press, the book is a hardcover encyclopedia of everything Tim Burton, chronicling pretty much every film he’s ever made, from his short films in school, to his work in animation, right down to major projects like “Batman Returns” and “Dark Shadows.” Fans of Burton will be pleased to read about the interesting life Burton has led, and how he was often drawn to the Gothic and ideas about the outcasts in “normal” society.

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Warning: Spoilery and long review by a self-admitted Star Wars fan (with Stormtrooper tattoo to prove it).

A small group of rebels sets off to go retrieve the plans to the Death Star after receiving a communication that seems to indicate that they will be the downfall of the Empire in this sequel/prequel/side story to the Star Wars prequels/original trilogy.  Touted as the first standalone Star Wars, Rogue One is heavily entrenched in the Star Wars lore and fills in gaps and what could have been considered plot holes in the past.  The story here is easily to follow for people who may have never seen a Star Wars film, but it feels like a story built for the fans of the franchise.  The story feels like a Star Wars one and the characters feel like they belong in the universe with many cameos and full presences by some very familiar faces and names.  This leads the story to feel familiar and yet the changes, the connections that could have been or the additions or who knows make it feel like something is missing to the story.  Rogue One is a hard one for this review to fully embrace while wanting to, which is an odd place to find one’s fan brain in.

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