‘Castle’: Are Beckett and Castle Finally Getting Together?

On ABC’s lighthearted murder mystery series Castle, Nathan Fillion’s (Firefly, Serenity) titular author and Stana Katic’s Detective Beckett have been circling each other since the very first episode. Many fans are tired of the song and dance, but their patience may soon be rewarded.

Recently, Katic teased that the January 10th episode would bring the two characters “closer than they’ve ever gotten before.” Considering the steamy conclusion to the second season last Spring, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for speculation.

When Entertainment Weekly spoke to Katic before the American Music Awards last weekend, she was eager to spill some plot details – but before doing so, Katic wanted to reassure Castle fans that having the two leads in a close personal relationship wouldn’t ruin the fast, chatty dynamic the show has enjoyed so far.

“They are meant to be. I think they can be a couple and still be spicy and funny. Everyone else is like, ‘Oh no we can’t do that. That will ruin it. That will kill the show.’ [A Moonlighting] curse has come up. But no way, man. Don’t believe in it at all.”

Despite Katic’s protestations, it’s hard to believe that a monogamous relationship between Castle and Beckett wouldn’t fundamentally change the show. The banter between the talky manchild and the hard-boiled detective has helped differentiate the series from the crowded space of procedural crime shows, and a dynamic-shifting love story can spell doom for a young series. That said, the sexual tension between the two characters has gotten pretty extreme, especially after the second season’s revealing finale. Fans may not care about the long-term implications if Castle and Beckett can just get a freakin’ room.

Some writers and producers have been reluctant to pair off tentpole characters ever since Moonlighting in the ’80s, when a steamy relationship between Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd’s characters destroyed the successful show in its third season. Many have speculated that this stigma is what kept the leads on the competing Fox series Bones apart for so long.

It’s not as if such a move has never worked, and the writers should be comfortable and confident enough in their characters to give it a try – assuming Stana Katic isn’t just toying with us. The coming addition of Laura Prepon may play out in the arc surrounding movie versions of Castle’s novels next year.

The answers to your burning questions will be revealed on Castle in January.

Castle airs Mondays @10pm on ABC

Source: Entertainment Weekly
Footer Image Source: michygeary on DeviantArt

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Google Docs is rapidly getting better: now with drag and drop file uploads

November 24 2010 by admin in News |

Google has been making a major push with Google Docs recently, and it’s been pretty interesting to watch. We’ll list the recent improvements in a minute, but first, here’s the latest improvement: drag and drop file uploads.

Is this mind-blowing? No, but it should make uploading files that much easier, and – along with the recent addition of adding images to documents via drag and drop – it shows a direction that we really like seeing: easier integration with the desktop.

Google also announced “compact controls” today, which basically takes away the Google Docs header, displaying your email address, etc, at the top of the screen so that users of smaller screens have more screen real estate to work with.

As we said above, Google has been going all out on Docs over the last six months. Here are some of the most important new features:

Of course, Google is trying to cyphon away as many users from Microsoft Office as possible, and we could see an even greater adoption if Chrome OS becomes an enterprise hit (we’re pretty skeptical of Chrome OS right now though). That said, Docs is a very useful collaboration tool that we’re glad to see getting better, and fast.

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‘Battle Royale’ Finally Getting U.S. Release (In 3D)

Have you seen the Japanese cult classic film Battle Royale? If you answered “No” to that question then do yourself a favor: open a new tab to your Netflix account right now and bump the movie to the top of your que.

For those of you who HAVE seen Battle Royale and truly appreciate it for the savage fun it is, we have good news for you: after nearly a decade the film may finally be released on American soil – and in 3D, no less.

In honor of its ten year anniversary, Battle Royale undergone a 3D conversion for a Japanese theatrical re-release. Nippon Cinema reports that Anchor Bay has snagged the rights to the film, the 3D version and the sequel film, Battle Royale 2, and could release them stateside at long last.

For those who don’t know, Battle Royale is based on the novel by Koushun Takami, about a future in which the Japanese government has collapsed and the youth have become disenfranchised and hostile. A disgruntled ex-teacher working for the government kidnaps a class of ninth graders and deposits them on an island to wage war against one another in a last-man-standing battle to the death. The students are fitted with explosive collars and, like any good video game, a variety of weapons (ranging from bats to guns)  are distributed across the battlefield. If the students don’t kill each other off in the allotted time, the explosives in their collars will detonate, killing them all.

Battle Royale was a simple, savage, unapologetic premise that worked very effectively as a genre film – hence why the movie is now considered a cult-classic and has spawned any number of imitators (The Condemned, I’m looking at you!). However, Battle Royale was released in 2000 – just on the heels of Columbine murders – needless to say, a movie about school children killing each other was not something America was looking for at the time. There are several conspiracy theories about why the film has been kept out of U.S. theaters (was it the will of Japanese production house, Toei, or U.S. distributors?) but the bottom line is that only a small portion of American moviegoers are aware of the flick.

Hopefully Anchor Bay is planning to release the film in America sooner before later. The thought of seeing Battle Royale in an actual theater is very appealing – though I’m not 100% sold on the idea that a 3D release  is necessary (though that’s the more likely scenario for a U.S. theatrical release).

If Battle Royale is released in American theaters, would you go see it? Do you think enough time has passed for a movie like this to be released in the U.S. without controversy? After all, if The Hungers Games can get the Hollywood movie treatment, why can’t this film?

Battle Royale 3D hits theaters in Japan on November 20th; a U.S. release is being planned for sometime in 2011.

Source: Nippon Cinema via Twitch Film

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