I know what you are thinking: how did it take three whole posts before I got to my favorite actor, the one and only Ron Perlman? A classic character actor, Perlman has a gruff intensity that is unmatched (except by maybe Clancy Brown). Here are some my favorite roles:

• Hellboy: an obvious one. Perlman brings a real sense of humanity to this lovelorn demon that love cats and files his horns down in a futile attempt to fit in. Perlman is known for his makeup acting, including memorable turns in the mostly forgettable Star Trek: Nemesis, and in the role that made him a household name, Vincent in TV’s Beauty and the Beast. (he was the beauty, I think.)
• Clay Morrow (Sons of Anarchy). Think Hamlet’s Claudius on a motorcycle. His relationship with stepson/rival Jax is the linchpin of the popular FX drama.
• Reinhardt (Blade II). The Blade franchise has a history of scene-stealing villains (Donal Logue in Blade, Parker Posey in Blade: Trinity). Maybe the best vampire with a bomb attached to his head performance I’ve seen.
• Father Murphy (I Sell the Dead). Perlman chews the scenery as an Irish priest taking a grave robber’s (Dominic Monaghan) last confession.
• Fiery Blaze (The Tick). This macho superhero (and his sidekick, Friendly Fire) teaches The Tick and Arthur a valuable lesson in teamwork:

Where you should see him: There have been rumors of him having a role in the forthcoming Hobbit films (those might have cooled with Del Toro no longer directing). I’d personally like to see him as The Thing in the inevitable Fantastic Four reboot.

Get your own serving of Ron Perlman: Sons of Anarchy’s third season is airing now on FX. Everything else is available on DVD. Both Hellboy animated movies and the entire Tick series are available on Netflix instant.

When I think about the best or most interesting TV cops of the last 10-15 years a lot of obvious choices immediately come to mind: NYPD Blue’s Andy Sipowitz, The Wire’s McNulty, The Shield’s Vic Mackey. I think Charlie Crews deserves to be right up there on that list.

Who is Charlie Crews, you ask?

He’s the main character on NBC’s short lived series Life (2007-2009). Crews (played by Band of Brothers’ Damien Lewis) is a police officer that does twelve years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. When his name is finally cleared, he is awarded a multi-million dollar settlement from the city of LA and gets his badge back. Crews goes back to work solving crime all the while using his new-found riches and the police department’s resources to uncover the conspirators that set him up over a decade earlier.

The show’s format is semi-procedural, much like Burn Notice. About 75% of each episode is self-contained case, with the remaining 25% following the overarching conspiracy plot.

Crews is a fascinating character study. He’s not entirely comfortable with life on the outside. He’s a bit of a man out of time (there’s the fun bit of him learning how to use a cell phone). His coping mechanism in prison was to embrace zen meditation and he’s wrestling his desire for inner peace against his need for vengeance. He’s uncomfortable with his wealth – buying a giant house but leaving it empty of things. Oh yeah, and he’s really obsessed with fresh fruit.

The other great thing about Life is the supporting cast. Sarah Shahi stars as Crews’ hardass partner. As the show develops a real chemistry emerges between the two, and it never manifests in a “will they or won’t they get together” storyline. Donal Logue (star of the new FX show Terriers and onetime Blade goon) is their wildly inappropriate transplant from NYC police chief. Adam Arkin plays fellow ex-con Ted Earley – a twitchy white collar criminal that now manages Crews’ financial portfolio. (Arkin would later go on to play the villainous but genteel white supremacist Ethan Zoebelle in Sons of Anarchy). Gabrielle Union shows up toward the end of the series as a overachieving young detective.

There are recurring roles by great character actors like Titus Welliver (Lost’s Man in Black), Garrett Dillahunt (Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Cromartie), and William Atherton (the jerk from Ghostbusters, Real Genius, and Die Hard). Oh, and did I mention Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks? Like you need another reason (that sentence will be repeated in the eventual Firefly post).

Where I found it: Andrew Lee (of Here and There Travel) introduced it to me somewhere in the middle of season 1.

You’ll probably like it if: you like the neo-noir feel of shows like Veronica Mars; you want a cop show that is somewhere between the grittiness of The Shield and the case-of-the week formula of Law & Order.

Get your own serving of Life:

• The entire series is currently streaming on Hulu; but it looks like for only a few more days, so watch the first few episodes, get hooked, then
• Buy on Amazon.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I’m not talking about 2009′s “Rise of Cobra” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander and Channing Tatum (or is it Tatum Channing? I always get that screwed up) as Duke. No, I’m talking about the 1987 animated movie based on the television show and action figures so seminal to my youth.

This movie (finally on DVD) is the lesser known companion film to the  classic 1986 Transformers: The Movie (a future post will discuss the merits of this film more fully). G.I. Joe is in many ways derivative of its robotic counterpart, specifically in the way it pushes aside the franchise’s traditional heroes and villains in order to introduce new characters (and therefore new toys).

The most prominent of these new characters are Lt. Falcon (oddly, he’s Duke’s little brother, though you think if he’d be related to anyone it would be General Hawk) voiced by Crockett himself Don Johnson and the evil human-serpent hybrid ruler of the lost king Cobra-La Golobulus, voiced by Burgess Meredith, an actor probably best known for his role as Mickey in the Rocky films and the Penguin in the Adam West Batman series. Yes:

The most obvious comparison between the G.I. Joe and Transformers movies is the “deaths” of their respective main characters, Duke and Optimus Prime. I use quotes because while Optimus suffers a true heroes’ death after his battle with Megatron, Duke merely “goes into a coma” after being stabbed in the heart with a cobra that can turn into a spear. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZoMlDdccFI&feature=related

(The stabbing is around 5:45, Duke’s deathbed speech is at 7:00)

Apparently Prime’s death scene didn’t go over well with the kiddies and so Hasbro execs asked for Duke’s death to be removed, despite the movie already having been in the can. Hence the voice over line in the clip “He’s gone into a coma.” At the end of the movie *spoiler alert* after the Joes defeat Cobra, there’s another great voice over line “Hey, Duke’s come out of his coma!”

Still, there is much to love about this movie:

• Sgt Slaughter as, well, Sgt Slaughter
• The intense Lovecraftian undertones of the Cobra-La that went way over the heads of every child watching. So many tentacles.
• That boiled down to their basic forms, GI Joe (the good guys) were really just proxies for the military industrial complex and Cobra (the bad guys) were were just misunderstood environmentalists.

Where I found it: the depths of my childhood. And Netflix.

You’ll probably like if you like: Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man, America (you get the point).

More info: IMDB Page

April Smith’s music is a wonderful combination of old and new. Backed by instruments like accordion and upright bass, you’d think that she was right out of the 1930 or 1940s, yet her attitude is distinctly modern. She oscillates back and forth between between sultry femme fatale and mischievous pixie, sometimes mid song. Her voice is a powerhouse – I saw her perform at DC9 on U St a few days ago, and was amazed at just how good she sounded up close, live, and in person. (Aside: she’s also totally crushworthy)

Her album Songs for a Sinking Ship is a great listen. I tend to prefer the upbeat dance tracks like “Terrible Things”, “Colors”, and “The One That Got Away” to the mushier songs like “Beloved.” “Movie Loves a Screen” is on the short list for my “Now That’s What Dwain Calls Music: 2010 edition”, and “Stop Wondering” has one of my favorite sets of lyrics so far this summer:

“So if you ever wonder if I’m dreaming of you
in the night at my window by the light of the moon?
If you ever wonder if if I’m dreaming of you,
Bitch please…I’ve got better things to do.”

Like a lot of good indie artists, expect to hear this music in a car commercial and episode of Grey’s Anatomy sometime soon – “Terrible Things” has already been featured in promos for Showtime’s “Weeds” and she mentioned in her set the other night that another song is going to be featured in an NFL commercial soon.

Where I found them: NPR All Songs Considered Podcast (7/26/10 episode)

You’ll probably like if you like: Nellie McKay’s “It’s a Pose”, Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am”

Get your own serving of April Smith:

• Official website
• On Twitter
• Concert from the 2010 Newport Folk Festival (from NPR)