This news is particularly saddening, since Black Swan is one of his best works to date, the product of a confident, skilled artist who is in total control of his talents. Here, young dancer Nina (Natalie Portman), is cast in the production’s lead role, and is tasked with performing as both the virginal White Swan, and the antagonistic, seductive Black Swan. Although, while she is perfectly capable of executing the poise and grace of the former character, she is lacking a certain something when it comes to the darker side of the performance, something beyond technique, which director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) pushes her to attain....

Taking a step back from the understandably plot-heavy first episode, The Ivory Tower sits back and lets us hang out with the characters for a while, as they deal with the ramifications of the events of the pilot. In doing that, we get to understand their motives that little bit more, and they prove to be not quite as clear as first appraisals may have suggested. Van Alden persuades his bosses at the FBI to switch their focus from New York mobster Arnold Rothstein to Nucky in Atlantic City, as he represents the real problem....

Aided by Andrew Chambliss, Jane Espenson, Drew Z. Greenberg, Brian K. Vaughan, Brad Meltzer, and others, Joss Whedon has created a world that has taken full advantage of the thin boundaries that the page provides. Were there times when that freedom has pushed the series too far? Moments that felt so distant from the show that this very much felt like a comic book adaptation and not something that was supposedly carrying a thread from one medium to the other?...

6.6 Get a Clue In last week’s episode, we saw the usual tension between Castle’s far-flung imagination and Beckett’s no-nonsense explanation. In most episodes, the truth is either somewhere in the middle between Castle’s theory of the crime and Beckett’s (usually favoring Beckett’s version) or clearly unrelated to both. In the first case, this allows Castle to maintain his position as crazy narrative smith without invalidating Beckett’s more pedestrian explanation (or vice versa)....

Michael Peña stars as a trigger-happy FBI agent from Miami who, on the trail of a group of bank robbers with a hidden connection to the Los Angeles police, goes undercover as Officer Frank Poncherello at the California Highway Patrol Division (or CHiPs). There, he meets Officer Jon Baker (Dax Shepard), a former motorcycle racing champ who’s only joined the force as part of a flailing attempt to win back the affections of his wife, Karen (Kristen Bell, Shepard’s real-life spouse)....

Oh dear. I had such high expectations for the Captain Awesome-centric episode, yet even with a few charming sequences it never really took off for me. The paths of Chuck and Awesome cross when a banana republic dictator, Premier Alejandro Goya, becomes a patient of the doctor after an assassination attempt. Team Bartowski must stop another attempt on his life, despite Casey being known as the Angel of Death in his country for his previous attempts on Goya’s life....

4.14 Chuck Versus The Seduction Impossible But I’ve noticed that, since then, he’s been mainly appearing in serious acting jobs, most recently on CSI:NY, after a stint on Boston Legal that lasted for 33 episodes. Some actors mature gracefully with age, and John Larroquette is certainly in that category. It all starts rather uncomfortably, with the whirlwind of activity surrounding baby Clara, and after two minutes of uncontrolled newborn adoration, most viewers would be reaching for the remote for a rapid escape....

It’s an approach the film just about gets away with, overcoming the slightness and familiarity of its main narrative with strong characters, a healthy dose of frenetic madness, and some of the most delicious looking food seen on screen since Stanley Tucci’s Big Night. It’s a dream come true for Flint, but not the kind of dream where he leaves his old friends behind. And in particular, that means we get more of his father, Tim Lockwood (voiced by James Caan), and hairy security specialist Earl Devereaux (with Terry Crews replacing Mr T on voicing duties there)....

Colony Season 2 Episode 1 If Colony had been predictable, this is how its pilot episode would have begun: chronicling the lives of its main characters right before the big alien invasion hit. Watching how they responded to the unexpected. Witnessing how they are transformed alongside the world around them. Seeing why they chose become who they chose to become when their day-to-day reality is replaced with an dystopian nightmare. Thankfully, Colony took a road less traveled....

1.3 Ken On E Cuckoo’s sometimes come across as a British person’s idea of a Californian hippie rather than a believable character; occasionally, the lines he was given didn’t sound quite right coming from the mouth of Samberg’s otherwise pitch-perfect creation. This week, it was fairly obvious that a certain amount of ad lib was creeping in, and it did the trick. The key to this episode’s success was the comic chemistry between Samberg and Davies, both of whom were absolutely brilliant here....

2.4 The Ends Of The Earth How you feel about the episodes depends a great deal on how you feel about the specific characters. For example, Papa Da Vinci and Lorenzo as a travelling pair. We don’t know a lot about Da Vinci’s father, but what we do know suggests he’s not going to be the best travelling companion. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as Piero is pretty funny in a bitter sort of way, if nothing else....

2.6 The Rope Of The Dead There’s also the necessary bending of reality that Da Vinci’s Demons seems to rely on as a major component of its show reality. As part of his marriage (?!) ritual with Ima (Carolina Guerra), who apparently holds the keys to Da Vinci gaining access to the Book of Leaves, he has to undergo a ritual. He’s bitten by a poisonous snake and fed hallucinogenic soup so he can slip between worlds and go on a spiritual quest, during which he’s confronted by several dead folks from his history....

But like most great superhero stories of the page and screen, such nuance is often forgotten as time goes on, and everyone learns the wrong lessons (see: Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Christopher Nolan’s superb Batman movie trilogy, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe). People remember the violent Superman/Doomsday slugfest, but not the way Clark’s supporting cast added to the drama and tragedy. They remember the novelty of the four “replacement” Supermen but not how the narrative was so well crafted that fans endlessly debated which one might actually be the real Man of Steel....

After I saw Grindhouse , I sped all the way home. Not just like a little speeding, I mean a lot speeding. I had the highway to myself, so I just put the hammer down. Not all the way, but farther than I usually speed. After watching Paul W.S. Anderson’s remake of the 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000 , I wanted to strap some .50 caliber machine guns onto the roof of my 1992 Buick four-door and drop a chunk of 6-inch-thick steel armor plating onto the jerk who tailgated me all the way home....

Which leads me to believe that there’s something larger at work. The Archive had to start somewhere. Someone had to found it, to shelve the first History, to craft the very first key to the very first door. It goes up higher than Agatha, and to be perfectly frank with you all, I can’t stop thinking about it and theorising. It’s taken me days to sit down and write this book club post because every time I try, all that comes out is a series of question marks and a fervent desire to read the sequel, The Unbound....

Really emerging in the back half of the season, LaGuerta’s hunt for Dexter becomes top priority and the focus in this season-ending episode, but is this the ending we wanted? Before talking about how the ending was executed, one must talk about all the things that were not executed well this season, like keeping up the pace and story momentum, the mishandling of potentially Dexter’s most formidable opponent yet, and the ill timed introduction of a love interest for Dexter....

A trailblazer and veteran of the video game industry with a sterling catalog of titles under his belt, Brevik has been a leader for most of his career. He was president of Blizzard North for ten years, founded Flagship Studios (Hellgate: London), and oversaw Gazillion Entertainment (Marvel Heroes), working with and managing dozens of the industry’s best over the past 25 years. But in 2018, Brevik now finds that…it’s just him....

Disenchantment Episode 6 Netflix Originals have no regard for the rigid running time requirements of conventional television. The length of a show can vary by a not insignificant amount from episode to episode and I don’t care for it. Films have more wiggle room because they’re self-contained one-offs (or at least they used to be, before Marvel enslaved humanity). A film tells one story with one setting and one stable of characters in the amount of time needed....

Appreciating that most of you know what’s going to happen in this episode, given that it’s a little secret Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are leaving Doctor Who, we’re still going to be extra-cautious not to give anything away in this review. As such, plot discussion will be minimal. Furthermore, the style, look and feel of the episode is exquisite. This week’s blockbuster theme is a good, detective film noir, and director Nick Hurran – along with the production designers – are clearly having a ball with it (as is Moffat with the script)....