Category: 2019
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The best thing about PTSD is creator Guillaume Singlein’s action. He paces it beautifully. The book, when it doesn’t have dialogue but just people doing things… it looks its best. So it makes sense Singlein’s going to be good at the action too. Of course, whether or not PTSD should have action is a whole…
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“Batwoman,” at least for the pilot, gets a “Sure, you can maybe get away with this.” It’d be nicer if someone was excited about it. No one on “Batwoman” seems very excited. Except Rachel Skarsten as the villain, Alice (like in Wonderland). Skarsten’s awesome. So good you don’t even understand how it’s happening because there’s…
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They really did forgot Saru was dying last episode, didn’t they? Like, he’s a-okay for his first scene here, which is seemingly moments after the end of last episode. See, Tilly (Mary Wiseman) has been sucked into the fungus dimension and Sonequa Martin-Green is really sad so she has a voiceover about duty. It’s so…
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Wow, what an exceptionally bad episode of television. I noticed Alan B. McElroy (he wrote Spawn, he’s not good) in the titles last episode or maybe the one before, but I didn’t think much of it. Even though last episode was bad. I figured it was just lack of Anson Mount and any Mia Kirshner…
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Engaging, if questionably executed, thriller about cop Kim Mu-yeol teaming up with gangster Ma Dong-seok to take down a serial killer, who none of the other cops believe exists but tried to kill Ma only Ma’s a badass gangster who now wants revenge. If the script were, if the direction were better, it’d be a…
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Well-acted, until it’s not, “official” fan short about three survivors in an escape pod trying to figure out what happened to the big ship and what those slimy alien things were all about. Script craps out, which is too bad because it could be fine. Streaming.Continue reading →
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The Seeker is somewhere between somewhat disturbing and very disturbing. Creator Liz Valasco gets somewhere quite profound by the end, then dials it down a notch for the last story beat. It’s too bad, but sort of not surprising. It’s hard to say where Valasco could take for the finish to satisfy. Almost anything would…
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Probably rather confusing sequel to successful television show (made four years after the show finishes, but set a couple years later) about a troubled but surviving country house at the end of the 1920s. The family and staff have to prepare for a royal visit. Drama, action, romance, and comedy ensue. Good acting, brilliantly constructed…
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Stupid even for a RAMBO movie final entry in the series as star (and co-writer) Sylvester Stallone doesn’t want to action hero in his seventies. Story involves Stallone’s surrogate daughter Yvette Monreal getting into trouble in Mexico, but it’s all just setup for Stallone to get to Rambo-out. No headbands or grunting though, unfortunately. But…
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There’s that incredibly disappointing “Star Trek: Discovery” I know. Though not exactly. I had no quality expectations going into the first season so I didn’t have any disappointment, just dread of watching the show. But this episode perfectly encapsulates everything the show has done wrong until this point. It’s not really a victory lap of…
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Officially produced ALIEN “fan short” has a surprisingly good premise and strong production values, but a lousy script from director Miller and a wanting lead in Taylor Lyons. Some of the bad is Miller, some is Lyons. Good enough idea to be a disappointment. Streaming.Continue reading →
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Nine minute promotional commercial reminding audiences there’s another JURASSIC WORLD movie coming someday and they should be excited for it. Kind of dumb, kind of silly, but phenomenally executed dinosaurs versus American nuclear family. Streaming.Continue reading →
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Duh Ha-Ha is quick and lyrical. The nameless narrator sets up the ground situation in a page; she’s a listless early twenty-something who works in restaurant of some kind, probably not a chain. Her boss gives her a ride home and she thinks about what would happen if she his old bones. Would his gratitude…
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This episode certainly doesn’t do anything to “solve” the Anson Mount problem—i.e. Mount’s leagues ahead of anyone else on “Discovery,” past and present, as far as commanding the show. He’s a TV show lead. It’s almost depressing to see Sonequa Martin-Green in scenes with him because she’s already had the indignity of being the first…
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Cheaply animated adventure for DC Comics war comics hero, only he’s just in the periphery, it turns out. Shouldn’t disappoint any ROCK fans though, since Timm’s direction makes it a bad fifteen minutes. The stunt-casting of Karl Urban in the lead is also disappointing. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading →
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There’s a lot going on with the season premiere of “Discovery.” And not just the multiple teases related to the original series. “Discovery” gets out of addressing the time, technology, and costuming discrepancies with the original series and the reboot movies by bringing Captain Pike into the mix. Pike was the captain on the original…
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Is Anna Torv leaving the show? Because she might want to leave the show after this episode; she's pointlessly shoehorned in for a brief scene to remind the audience they haven't missed her. The boss comes back too in a similarly pointless move. A reminder of what came before and there's no need to remind…
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Visually breathtaking CG-rendered short. It’s an assortment of vignettes with recurring motifs, including yoga skeletons, aliens, and, yes, flying fish. The music and imagery help string the vignettes together. Very impressive. Streaming.Continue reading →
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Do you know why Anna Torv got a girlfriend story arc this season? Why we’ve been getting to know Lauren Glazier since the first episode? Is it to give Torv some character development? Because… there isn’t any. I mean, not enough—given how all of the characters function when they’re at work—so not enough to matter.…
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I mean, it’s well-acted but this episode’s pretty blah for a “Mindhunter.” Nothing happens. We get more hints at character development for Jonathan Groff and Anna Torv but no actual character development. Meanwhile Holt McCallany spends the episode getting later and later from home to work and back again. Stacey Roca instead gets all the…
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It’s back to Atlanta again for sure this time. And almost some Jonathan Groff stuff… but also some “is this ‘Mindhunter’ or a slasher movie prologue” stuff with Holt McCallany's home life. There's also another interview for Anna Torv and Joe Tuttle, with Torv once again having to lead the interview. Morgan Kelly plays the…
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Not only does this episode bring back Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton, who deserves all the Emmys) from Season One, who we haven’t seen since he gave Jonathan Groff a hug and sent Groff into a panic attack… it also brings in “Mindhunter”’s Charles Manson, played by Damon Herriman (who also plays Manson in Tarantino’s Once…
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It’s been a while since I read any Infinity 8, but it’s the perfect series to return to after a break since each arc is a different take on the same thing. Literally. Each arc has a different (far future) space agent who has a limited time to investigate why an intergalactic graveyard the size…
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It’s back to Atlanta for Holden (Jonathan Groff) and Tench (Holt McCallany); there’s been a kidnapping from someone with the same MO as the as yet unnamed Atlanta Child Killer and they’re calling in the FBI. So our leads are going to be in the background until they can prove (or at least convince someone)…
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It’s a little weird to see “Mindhunter” doing race stuff—and this episode does a lot, not just with it turning out Albert Jones’s Black Southern FBI agent gets on better with other Southerners—Black and white—than Jonathan Groff’s preppy white liberal—but also with Groff thinking he’s getting picked up by the beautiful (Black) hotel clerk only…
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Now this episode feels like “Mindhunter.” It opens with Holt McCallany going to Wichita, with some great “period” Wichita shots, and consulting on the BTK case. There’s a bunch with him and the other cop, a rather nauseating sequence where they walk the crime scene—“Mindhunter,” at its core, is basically just ‘What if “Criminal Minds”…
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I forgot what happened at the end of last season of “Mindhunter.” I remembered about three-quarters of the way through this episode, but not everything. It wasn’t until the second-to-last scene there was exposition covering it all. No wonder writing about TV is a full-time job. And not just because you either commit season finales…
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No spoilers, but Punks Not Dead: London Calling is obviously the last Punks Not Dead for a while. It’s the second Punks Not Dead series and it’s excellent, but it’s clearly finite when you’re reading the early issues. It’s a wrap-up series. It’s not growing. Writer David Barnett and artist Martin Simmonds are tying off…
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Could be worse, but should be a lot better based on a true story about a 1971 North Carolina school desegregation crisis. Sam Rockwell is the Klan leader, Taraji P. Henson is the (Black) community organizer. Will they somehow work together to make the world a better place? Henson and Rockwell have real thin parts–courtesy…
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Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is another of these YA graphic novels without any chapters or natural narrative breaks. The first time I came across one, I realized it was going to be a trend and yep, it’s a trend. The difference is last time it didn’t work, this time it works out…
The Stop Button 