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Frankie and Johnny (1991, Garry Marshall)
Besides the sex scene, set to Rickie Lee Jones singing, “It Must Be Love” (which means Al Pacino sings it later as he gleefully reminisces), Frankie and Johnny avoids revealing too much about the private tenderness between Pacino and romantic interest Michelle Pfeiffer. At one point, he says something to her as their first date… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e10 – Bedtime Story
There are a lot of stories you can only tell in sci-fi. For instance, only with time travel can you have young mom Kacey Rohl wake up after two thousand years of cryo-sleep and be paired off with her unknowing son, Tom Stevens, now grown up. Yuck. It’s unclear why you’d want to tell this… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e09 – Walcott Prep
Wayward Pines, the town, is in dire straits. The creatures outside the wall have destroyed their food supply, and they’re out of MREs. They’ll only survive another thirty days (or, more precisely, two episodes). So teen dictator Tom Stevens decides everyone’s going back in cryo-sleep for fifty-seven years or whatever. Only Djimon Hounsou then discovers… 📖
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Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma)
Scarface is a film with a lot of problems. Most consequentially, there’s no character development for Al Pacino; any time there’s ostensibly character development, the film cuts ahead a month or three, or there’s a montage sequence. But the film is incredibly hands-off with Pacino’s character and arc. It leaves Pacino to vamp throughout to… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e08 – Pass Judgment
So, with “Wayward Pines” entering the season’s final act—there are only two more episodes after this one–it’s unclear where they’re going, but it’s clear they aren’t going to get there gracefully. This episode’s all about female creature Rochelle Okoye escaping and wreaking havoc around town, including leaping between the buildings on Main Street. There’s also… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e07 – Time Will Tell
After an inglorious character arc in the regular story, Djimon Hounsou finally gets his own episode, albeit a flashback one. Turns out Hounsou’s job—before “Wayward Pines: Season Two”—was to wake up every twenty years and take care of the people sleeping in cryo-pods for two thousand years. He also tested the soil, played chess with… 📖
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Selected Declarations 22.02.21
Since the nineties, I’ve been a big fan of movie recommendation engines; my video store had a system called “Clair V.” It was a touchscreen interface; I think you logged in with your phone number. They got the initial data set from customers; I remember filling out worksheets with movie ratings. Lots of semi-colons in… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e06 – City Upon a Hill
Vincenzo Natali directs this episode. I’ve never seen any of his movies, but he’s far and away the best director of the season so far. He even knows how to do a Toby Jones cameo—as few lines as possible, as short of a scene as possible. Jones shows up at the beginning for a flashback… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e05 – Sound the Alarm
Toby Jones is back this episode, which has a flashback subplot about how architect Nimrat Kaur actually designed Wayward Pines, the town, and lied to husband Jason Patric about it when he asked a few episodes ago. Jones looks much older in the flashback than he did last season on the show when he was… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e04 – Exit Strategy
It’s like “Wayward Pines” heard my complaints there weren’t enough bad performances on the regular and felt the need to deliver. This episode features the return of Tim Griffin from season one, who was an entirely personality-free white man and goes on to one-up him with Josh Helman, who’s got even less personality and might… 📖
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Resident Alien (2021) s02e04 – Radio Harry
This episode has six plotlines going. Or maybe five and a half, since kids Gracelyn Awad Rinke and Judah Prehn kick off the A-plot, which has Sara Tomko suspicious Alan Tudyk’s alien radio is actually a bomb. The first scene has Tudyk trying to bully the kids into returning his silver alien ball—he’s only got… 📖
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The Rider (2017, Chloé Zhao)
The Rider is a harrowing experience. The film establishes its stakes from the second or third scene; rodeo cowboy Brady Jandreau is recovering from a head injury. His horse threw him and stomped on his head, requiring a metal plate. He can never ride again, except his entire life has been about being a cowboy.… 📖
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Maggie and Hopey Color Special (1997) #1
Maggie and Hopey Color Special (or Maggie and Hopey Color Fun, per the cover, not the indicia) delivers exactly what the cover title promises—a fun Maggie and Hopey comic in color. The comic’s not just the Maggie and Hopey feature either; creator Jaime Hernandez does three different strips, all of them showcasing the color, including… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e03 – Once Upon a Time in Wayward Pines
“Wayward Pines: Season Two” really is committed to the bit. There’s a scene where schoolmarm, monster researcher, and psychotherapist Hope Davis tells a group of girls there’s nothing wrong with them not having their periods yet. They just don’t get to participate in the Davis-supervised orgies with the other thirteen-year-olds yet. Not in those words,… 📖
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New Love (1996) #6
As expected (and predicted), creator Gilbert Hernandez delivers a fantastic close to New Love. And even though I figured he had it coming, Beto makes a bunch of surprise moves and callbacks, making New Love a cohesive series instead of just an anthology. First comes the “Letters from Venus” entry, which I’m tempted to call… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e02 – Blood Harvest
Djimon Hounsou arrives this episode as the town farmer. He’s supposedly a protege of first-season villain Toby Jones, though there’s no explanation why he wasn’t around before. It stands out, of course, because Jones’s villain was pretty plainly racist; the whole project—in the first season—was about breeding white babies. In the second season, the show’s… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s02e01 – Enemy Lines
The season two premiere opens with Charlie Tahan, set up as the new lead in last season’s finale, narrating a recap of the first season. It’s a terrible recap, writing-wise. It does not bode well. But then the first real scene is Jason Patric in Hawaii, in the middle of a spat with wife Nimrat… 📖
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Dancing Pirate (1936, Lloyd Corrigan)
Dancing Pirate has multiple awkward points: the omnipresent brownface, the astounding action conclusion (not astounding in a good way), or just the charmless lead performances. The film tells the tale of Bostonian Charles Collins, who—on his way to visit a relation—gets kidnapped and taken aboard a pirate ship. Hence the title. Collins is a superb… 📖
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Selected Declarations 22.02.15
I’m thinking about headspace today. I rushed to write the last three posts for “Wayward Pines: Season One” so they’d be cleared out if we started “Season Two” tonight. We did. More on it soon, but it’s a marked, bewildering improvement. Though the lead acting is also better. And evil Wesley Crusher’s good. In addition… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e10 – Cycle
This season finale has four credited writers. First, there are the Duffer Brothers, Matt and Ross, who certainly haven’t been credited on the show’s worst episodes. Then there’s show creator Chad Hodge, who has been credited on the show’s worst episode. And finally, there’s source novel series author Blake Crouch, who’s had some credits and… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e09 – A Reckoning
Second-to-last episode of the season, and it turns out “Wayward Pines” has waited this long to introduce the fascist teenagers who want to shoot the normies. Tom Stevens plays the leader. He’s both too much and just the right amount of despicably intense. Unfortunately, the show doesn’t really know what to do with him—introducing him… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e08 – The Friendliest Place on Earth
Tim Hunter directs this episode, which is notable for a couple reasons. First, it means he’s been directing Matt Dillon for almost as long as Dillon’s wife on “Pines,” Shannyn Sossamon, has been alive. Hunter directed Dillon in 1982’s Tex (but also wrote Dillon’s 1979 Over the Edge); Sossamon was one when Edge came out.… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e07 – Betrayal
Thanks to the insurgency plotline—and who gets put in danger—this episode’s more compelling than most. Also, there’s less Toby Jones, which helps a whole bunch. Plus, Melissa Leo stops acting hacky around Matt Dillon, another plus. The episode begins with Dillon telling Shannyn Sossamon about how they live two thousand years in the future, and… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e06 – Choices
“Wayward Pines” makes a lot more sense now. Not because of the revelations in this episode, but because of what’s better and what’s worse. Well, who’s better and who’s worse. Unfortunately, the show’s got no idea when it’s good or what makes it good. Also, can’t forget–the racism’s intentional. More on that delightful aspect in… 📖
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Resident Alien (2021) s02e03 – Girls’ Night
I kept wondering why they weren’t using any recognizable licensed music during this episode, even though it’s about (as the title suggests) a “Girls’ Night.” They’re listening to music multiple times, and then there’s a sequence with an accompanying song, but nothing big. Then the finale uses a very famous, very recognizable theme song, and… 📖
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One Night in Miami… (2020, Regina King)
I fully expected One Night in Miami to end with a real-life picture of the film’s historical subjects. The film recounts—with fictional flourish—the night of February 25, 1964, when Muhammad Ali (then still Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston to become the world heavyweight champion. He celebrated his win with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e05 – The Truth
There’s so much going on this episode I didn’t even realize Carla Gugino isn’t in it. It’s a brand new day in “Wayward Pines,” with Shannyn Sossamon starting as a realtor—working with caricature male chauvinist pig Michael McShane, which is actually fine; the show couldn’t even manage caricatures before. Son Charlie Tahan is still in… 📖
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New Love (1996) #5
I’m trying not to be too hard on this issue of New Love, but it definitely seems like the one where creator Gilbert Hernandez ran out of momentum, if not enthusiasm. It’s strange because last issue had a teaser for the stories in this one, then these strips are kind of blah. There are some… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e04 – One of Our Senior Realtors Has Chosen to Retire
Okay, so it’s way too little, probably way too late, but “Wayward Pines” might rally into mediocrity. This episode plays like the first episode after a pilot, meaning the first three episodes of the season, with the movie stars and former movie stars, were just the setup. Now we’ve got the actual show, which seems… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e03 – Our Town, Our Law
Despite a gory exit last episode, Juliette Lewis is still in the opening titles. It initially made me wonder if “Pines” is going to kill off a main actor every week and just leave them in the titles to remind who’s already gone. She shows up for a moment later, no lines; I wonder if… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e02 – Do Not Discuss Your Life Before
Once upon a time, Reed Diamond appeared on a show, but just the pilot. Even though he was billed in the regular cast, his death was meant to shock viewers. “Wayward Pines” waits until the second episode to kill off one of its “regular” cast (though if the show’s just going to keep going killing… 📖
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Wayward Pines (2015) s01e01 – Where Paradise Is Home
My favorite part of this episode is when M. Night Shyamalan’s name comes up for the director credit because there have already been so many terrible shots, it seemed like it had to be a named terrible. Shyamalan’s direction throughout the episode will be godawful, both with his composition and the direction of the actors.… 📖
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Selected Declarations 22.02.09
I don’t know if I’m having a bad day, but I’m definitely having a disappointing and frustrating day, so I’m trying to relax. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to actually relax and still write this post, so I’m hoping the post manages to chill me out a bit. Because I should’ve written the post yesterday… 📖
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New Love (1996) #4
New Love #4 doesn’t really have a feature story. There’s a “Letters from Venus,” where creator Gilbert Hernandez checks in on the latest drama surrounding the strip’s young protagonist, and it’s six pages (twice the length of any other strip); it just doesn’t feel like a feature. The episode’s a grab bag with some echoing… 📖
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Legends of Tomorrow (2016) s07e11 – Rage Against the Machines
One of “Legends of Tomorrow”’s greatest strengths—which I don’t think started until the second season—is finding these absurd, literally comic book relationships between characters and then having actors ably essay them. For example, Olivia Swann has a subplot this episode where she’s being overprotective of Amy Louise Pemberton and showing it through rudeness to Pemberton.… 📖
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Seobok (2021, Lee Yong-ju)
The first act of Seobok is an espionage thriller (or the first act of one), the second act is a buddy action road picture, the third act is a Sturm und Drang superhero movie. Well, superhuman movie, at least. The best part is the second act when spy-who-tried-to-get-out-but-they-pull-him-back-in Gong Yoo is teaching new charge Park… 📖
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The Color of Money (1986, Martin Scorsese)
The Color of Money opens with a brief narration explaining the pool game variation nine-ball. Director Scorsese does the narration, which is the most interest he ever shows in the game of pool for the rest of the movie. The narration serves a straightforward purpose—it lets the audience know when to know the game is… 📖
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Resident Alien (2021) s02e02 – The Wire
This episode allays sophomore slump concerns, maybe completely. While there are still leftover plot threads from last episode and season, the show seems to be going full ahead with sheriff Corey Reynolds and deputy Elizabeth Bowen investigating Alan Tudyk as a serial killer. There’s a very funny moment when they confront Sara Tomko about it;… 📖
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Batman/Catwoman Special (2022) #1
I’m a sucker for Catwoman and Batman as marrieds stories. I blame that Earth-2 story in Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. The feature in Batman/Catwoman Special is one of those stories. It’s got a gimmick—it follows Selina Kyle through life but only on Christmas Day. And it’s Elseworlds Selina Kyle. Or Black Label Selina Kyle.… 📖
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The Nice Guys (2016, Shane Black)
I recently joked to a friend I wanted to claim “audacity” as a complementary phrase, but just for Stanley Kubrick. Something simple like, “Stanley Kubrick: Audacity can be a compliment.” But then she called me on it being gross. The Nice Guys is basically, “Shane Black: Humility is for [slur we’re allowed to use because… 📖
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New Love (1996) #3
Creator Gilbert Hernandez starts the issue with the “Letters From Venus” entry, the second feature (as in the second half of a double feature). At six pages, it’s the second-longest story. Besides the A feature, “Venus” is the only other story longer than a page. Beto’s got two and a half other single-page strips in… 📖