Category: 2019
-
So “Batwoman”’s Crisis crossover is rather instructional, at least in understanding what’s going to go wrong with it (the crossover). The writing. “Batwoman”’s script is all right. Not great, but leaps and bounds over the previous one. Even if the performances get a little shaky and they’re trying too hard to foreshadow, but Don Whitehead…
-
With the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, the CW Arrowverse achieves one of those DC Comics’s successes—they promise they understand, they promise they get it, they promise they’ll do it right, then it’s terrible. Not just regular terrible but also profoundly inept in some manner. See, you know, DC Comics’s comics for the last… twenty…
-
This episode actually surprised me, which I didn’t realize “Evil” could do, but I was wrong. I really didn’t expect the show to head-on confront the Catholic Church enabling, supporting, and facilitating child rape with it being a-okay and turning their number one “defending child rapists” lawyer Renée Elise Goldsberry (from the show creators’ previous…
-
So series executive producer Dave Filoni, who apparently unmemorably directed the first episode, is back here. He’s writing too, making it the first “Mandalorian” not written by series creator Jon Favreau. So The Gunslinger doesn’t feel like Favreau playing with his Return of the Jedi Kenner toys, instead it now does feel like someone playing…
-
I’m not sure what would be a more unpleasant way to spend an hour, listening to “Watchmen”… “creator” Damon Lindelof talk about Alan Moore or listening to him talk about way too influential screenwriting professor Robert McKee. McKee has some profoundly insipid advice on writing and the creative process in general, which Lindelof seems to…
-
The episode opens with Supergirl flying to Lena’s secret base to try to reason with her but Lena ignores her because Lena’s already got the bestest friend she could ever have in Andrea Brooks, who used to be Ms. Teschmacher but is now the AI Lena created to keep her company when she planned on…
-
Okay, when I said “All Rise” reminded me of “Major Crimes,” maybe I shouldn’t have cursed the show with an Ever Carradine guest star. Carradine plays an old defense lawyer nemesis of Simone Missick’s, who’s got an appeal—she wants to get alt-righter, white supremacist Ben Leasure out of jail—and Carradine’s confident because she’s up against…
-
It’s a really good thing the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) has seen Seven Samurai, otherwise he’d have no idea he and new pal Gina Carano (as a former Rebel shock trooper) would be able to train the villagers to take on the raiders out for their crops. The villagers hire Pascal, who’s on this backwater planet…
-
So unlike previous seasons, the CW “Arrowverse” showrunners—at least on “Flash,” “Supergirl,” and to some extent “Batwoman”—are doing a pre-Crisis arc and a post-Crisis arc, which might end up making a lot of sense depending on how Crisis goes… so this episode is the big finale to the comically godawful Sendhil Ramamurthy arc. He gets…
-
“The Flash” seems to be in a race—no pun intended—to see how bad it can get before the Crisis crossover. This episode gives Grant Gustin his first showcase all season and instead of giving him scenes opposite the regular cast, like his wife, dad, friends, sticks him in a battle of the wills. On one…
-
So Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) gets his own episode and it’s, for some reason, a James Bond send-up. He and Grant Gustin are in tuxedos trying to stop Bond villain wannabe (literally, the guy wants to be a Bond villain, it’s part of the narrative) Carlo Rota from selling a doomsday laser to some one percenters.…
-
This episode has Sam Littlefield’s character—just the character, not Littlefield himself, which is great because Littlefield’s awful—but Littlefield’s character is impersonating Dougray Scott, who’s also terrible. Only when Scott’s pretending to be Littlefield pretending to be Scott, Scott’s almost all right. Scott has some regular scenes too. Big weepy scenes where a better actor would…
-
In an incredible turn of events Mitch Pileggi as the big bad—Leviathan—is actually kind of fun. Pileggi’s a millions of years old alien (he was around to see the dinosaurs get it) who for some reason has hung out on Earth and run a secret society. It’s not clear why. It’s also not clear why…
-
There’s a road trip to Vegas this episode, which feels like a trope. It’s not a particularly engaging Vegas road trip, possibly because Wilson Bethel and J. Alex Brinson don’t have any chemistry together, possibly because the whole thing hinges on Brinson having to talk to a sheriff’s deputy Black man to Black man after…
-
So this episode has—you guessed it—two dads in it. Well, it’s probably got more than two dads in it, but only two where it’s important they’re dads. The first dad is Vondie Curtis-Hall as Mike Colter’s dad. They estranged because it’s TV and there’s no way a guy’s not estranged with his dad if he’s…
-
All of Star Wars, all the movies, all the cartoons, books, comics, games, toys, socks, The Holiday Special, underwear, blankets—all of it—has been building to this episode of “The Mandalorian,” where they’re finally able to make Boba Fett adorable. Yes, Baby Yoda is adorable but of course he’s very adorable—and I was wrong, the scientist…
-
So the first couple episodes of “Watchmen” have only hinted at having an actual Watchmen character in it; it took until this episode for the show to confirm, in fact, Jeremy Irons is playing architect of the end of the world and therefor its savior, Ozymandias. He even puts on the costume. And, you know…
-
Oh, good, just what “Batwoman” needs, a whole episode dedicated to the acting stylings of Meagan Tandy. Sadly, I’m being facetious. This episode gets into Tandy’s knowledge of Batwoman’s identity and her not entirely forthcoming marriage to Greyston Holt (she neglected to every tell him she had a three year romantic relationship with a woman).…
-
FAST AND THE FURIOUS spin-off staring franchise scene-stealers Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham; they’re an unlikely duo (Johnson’s ‘Murican good guy and Statham’s British super-assassin), which the movie uses for a lot of humor, but only provides so much mileage. Luckily Idris Elba’s the bad guy (giving a good performance in a silly movie) and…
-
This week’s “Evil” is a sixty-forty split between “why Catholics don’t get the mental health care they need” and “how to make an incel.” There’s more to both, obviously. The main plot is about possessed Annaleigh Ashford (who should sue her agent for malpractice) confessing to a triple homicide of Hispanic tween boys. She gives…
-
Maybe even more than the first episode, this one’s a commercial for Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm. The adorable sight of Boba Fett playing Lone Wolf and Cub with a baby Yoda, what could be more PG+ Disney. Sure, the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) isn’t actually Boba Fett—though it’s unclear if he’s another Fett clone—but he’s better…
-
Outstanding comedy about overachiever seniors Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever determined to finally break bad–the night before high school graduation–and show their classmates (and themselves) just how much fun they can be. Great performances from the leads and the supporting cast; the film’s a mix of good writing, great acting, and ambitious, thoughtful direction from…
-
“The Mandalorian” is either like reading seventeen year-old Jon Favreau fall 1983 post-Return of the Jedi fan fic or it’s like playing his intricate, verbose Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game campaign–oh, wait, SWTRPG didn’t come out until 1987. So, no, it’s more like watching Jon Favreau play with his Jedi toys. A lot. But the…
-
“Batwoman” has a Dougray Scott problem. The show keeps giving him material he can’t do or does poorly (versus Ruby Rose, who sometimes doesn’t even try when the material isn’t working with her). It’s getting particularly annoying as Rose is getting better and Scott’s going to screw up her character development. Some of Rose’s improvement…
-
Boring Catholic propaganda pretending to be a cross-genre action horror picture. Park Seo-joon is an MMA fighter who has renounced God, Ahn Sung-ki is an exorcist who can’t find young priests willing to partner up. But then Park gets stigmata–a magical kind able to zap demons and they team up to take on demons. Not…
-
Okay, so Steven Bauer is Julie Gonzalo’s dad, who’s been mentioned since the first episode of the season but never seen. It doesn’t appear to be a great part for Bauer but whatever, he’s fine. Though he does act to launder a bit of Gonzalo’s performance. He’s able to make it at least seem legit…
-
How is this show so boring… so much happens yet so much of it It’s a very strange Cisco episode. Barry and Iris go on vacation before the Crisis crossover (possibly to film the Crisis crossover) while Cisco holds down the front. Now, I can’t remember the last time Carlos Valdes was charming but I…
-
So in addition to Christine Lahti becoming bride to the unclean one through some really good third grade poetry imagery because “Evil” is really condescending to its target audience, the Christians who vote blue, the episode also confronts the whole “child rape” thing with the Catholic Church. Confronts as in lapsed Muslim skeptical charming aloof…
-
As good as “Watchmen” gets at dissecting the comic book, learning from its anatomy, figuring out how to adapt it to live action—though this episode is nowhere near as uncanny as the previous one with composition—the show, pardon my French, fucks with the viewer. Alan Moore comics don’t fuck with the reader, they explore and…
-
Hurried, too short horror short (it clocks in under three minutes) about commuter Ariel Fullinwider and a creepy woman (Merlynda Sol) smiling at her. Director Magaña’s got mostly good instincts, but rushes through his shots. Streaming.Continue reading →
The Stop Button 