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Reviews
Community Season Six: Grifting 101
So episode nine of Community is a bit…muddled. In my humble opinion. When the film started I was pretty instantly thrilled by an animated old west inspired opening shot. It immediately proved to be set… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 21 Review
It’s amazing what a little focus can do. “Al Sah-Him” is an episode of Arrow that’s trimmed away just about any useless parts. Even regular cast member Paul Blackthorne fails to make an appearance as… [more]
Descender #3: Early Review
It’s becoming clear what Descender is really about as we reach issue #3, and the good news is that it’s about something very interesting. This is really a story about “descent” in the biological sense… [more]
Movies You Should Watch: Network
Movie You Should Watch. In which the overly long motto is: The title of this article isn’t meant to be a command. It’s not “you” the reader so much as it is a proverbial “you.”… [more]
Avengers: Age of Ultron is Conflicted
I’m very conflicted about Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not about what sort of movie it is: this is a wall-to-wall headache-inducing, exhausting action-fest where lots of stuff blows up. I’m sure there are lots of… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 12-13, “The Ones We Leave Behind” and “Daredevil”
In the end, this first season of Daredevil was an origin story. It’s a form that’s grown tired over the past decade or so as nearly every new superhero story has felt compelled to tell… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 10-11, “Nelson v. Murdock” and “The Path of the Righteous”
Episodes ten and eleven of this first season of Daredevil slow things down a little; by necessity the show needs to take stock of itself before plunging ahead into the climax of the season, and… [more]
Community Season Six: “Intro to Recycled Cinema”
The sixth season of Community seems to be shying away from some of the high concept event episodes of seasons past. The latest episode, “Intro to Recycled Cinema” probably comes closest. The episode blends scenes… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 8-9, “Shadows in the Glass” and “Speak of the Devil”
Daredevil isn’t exactly breaking new storytelling ground, which isn’t saying particularly much since it’s simply a new version of a superhero story that’s been told before. What it is doing effectively is reinvigorating some of… [more]
Invisible Republic #2: From Strength to Strength
Science Fiction, it almost goes without saying, is replete with parallels and metaphors for real society and true history. Invisible Republic is literally about the process of making, recording and retaining history, told from two… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 20 Review
Despite all the problems with Arrow’s third season, “The Fallen” manages to work, tying together many disparate plots into one cohesive hour that is propulsive, full of emotion, and driven forward by the strong characters… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 5-7, “World on Fire,” “Condemned,” and “Stick”
Daredevil is pretty easily the darkest piece of storytelling that Marvel has ever attempted in live action. It’s brutal, bloody, and gruesome and while it was apparent the show would be going darker than prior… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 19 Review
Characters crossing over between shows is getting to be something of a pattern with both The Flash and Arrow. “Who is Harrison Wells?” marks the third straight episode that has featured at least one cast… [more]
Mark Millar’s Ultimate X-Men Vol. 1: The Tomorrow People
Mark Millar’s take on the X-Men is one of the most polarizing comics of the last decade. How does the debut of his reboot of the X-Men hold? [more]
It Follows: A New Horror Classic
If you have any interest in seeing the new horror movie It Follows just go see it. Skip my review and head out to watch it. It’s one of those movies that leaves an indelible… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episodes 2-4, “Cut Man,” “Rabbit in a Snowstorm,” and “In the Blood”
With the introduction of Wilson Fisk at the end of Daredevil’s fourth episode, the series completes putting its pieces in place. Fisk’s been behind the scenes up to his reveal at the very end of… [more]
Manifest Destiny #14: Facing Fear
The first few pages of the latest issue of Manifest Destiny have a great blend of the horrific and the absurd. The tension in the sequence is built around the fact that the men of… [more]
It Follows: A Review
REVIEW: It Follows Release Date: March 27, 2015 Writer & Director: David Robert Mitchell Staring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi Run time: 100 minutes Rating: 5 (of 10) SPOILER ALERT! I really love when… [more]
Community Season Six: “Advanced Safety Features”
I want to say something right away about the latest episode of Community. Yahoo did not work as advertised for the first time. Maybe it wasn’t their fault, maybe it was Chrome, maybe it was… [more]
Netflix’s Daredevil: Episode 1, “Into the Ring”
Daredevil wastes little time in establishing that it’s not quite what a viewer might expect. The series opens with the aftermath of the fateful accident that took Matt Murdock’s sight and gifted him with heightened… [more]
Sixties Cinema and Serial Killers: Violence at Noon
At some point while examining my stack of DVDs, many of which clearly display my Criterion addiction, I realized something odd. I own nearly fifty movies (not DVDs mind you, some of the DVDs have… [more]
Arrow Season 3 Episode 19 Review
“Broken Arrow” isn’t a cross-over episode in the strictest sense of the word, unlike the previous installment of The Flash where both Felicity and Ray dropped by for the entirety of the episode, the only… [more]
The Flash Season 1 Episode 18 Review
Some spinoffs attempt to distance themselves from their parent shows as quickly as possible or only start airing after the parent show has concluded, naturally separating themselves from the show that helped create them. The… [more]
Descender #2 Shows True Promise
In the second issue of Descender, the focus is on the robot boy, Tim, rather than our human protagonist, Dr Quon. While it might seem like Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen are borrowing too heavily… [more]