The cards clogging up your postbox are just another thing that gets the Christmas spirit going. It’s palpably omnipresent now and there is no escape as shops blast out Christmas pop hits, the TV schedules cram in as many tinsel-flecked flicks as possible and fake Santas hold court across the department stores of the country. Even the most hung-up misanthrope gets hazy and can’t help but be overwhelmed by this Christmas atmosphere....

When several people including Jinora get trapped in the Spirit World, Korra attempts to get in to free them, but isn’t able to cross over. She merely enters a vision where she relives her fight with Zaheer. Realizing she needs to finally confront him, she goes to his prison in the mountains, finding help from the last source she’d expect, Zaheer himself. Disgusted with the rumors he’s heard about Kuvira, Zaheer finds himself aligned with Korra’s interests and helps her to enter the Spirit World, where she reunites with Raava and frees Jinora and the others, finally moving past her block completely and returning to full strength, both as Korra and as the Avatar....

In 1918, war veteran Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) seeks solitude after his experiences in battle, and finds it in a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, off the coast of Tasmania. This doesn’t last long though, when he falls in love with local girl Isabel (Vikander). After a long and flirty correspondence through letters, the two marry and get on with starting a family on Janus. In some ways, Cianfrance’s films Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond The Pines feel like a lay-up for his adaptation of M....

We first meet Firth’s Crowhurst as he’s desperately trying to sell his nautical navigation device the Navicator. Punters won’t bite, and there’s a sense that his business is failing. Crowhurst himself is an amateur weekend sailor and, inspired by Francis Chichester’s (Simon McBurney) around the world journey, he decides to enter the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in a bid to claim the prize money and turn his fortunes around....

1.10 Musketeers Don’t Die Easily The real question is – did it stick the landing? In many ways Musketeers Don’t Die Easily is representative of this first season; at times it was great, at times it lost its way but it was generally good value throughout. Musketeers Don’t Die Easily picks up the threads left by last week’s foiled assassination of the Queen, albeit after a period of some months....

I had my reservations as to whether the flashback setup that started the season – with Will’s band of journos fielding questions from a team of high priced lawyers – would pan out. It has left gaping potholes in the roadmap of season two, most visibly the timing of Maggie’s gaudy short red hair. In last week’s climatic episode “One Step Too Many,” the flashbacks proved me wrong – finally providing an excellent bridge to what promised to be an explosive resolution to the Genoa arc....

1.7 Adèle Skipping ahead to its closing moments, Julie and Laure’s silent discovery that they were mystically trapped in the town was similarly understated, and so much more effective than a dialogue-driven scene might have been. Around the cursed dam they drove, through the same tunnel again and again, only to arrive back, helpless, wordless, where they’d started. I hesitate to invoke the ‘L’ word as it’s become hollow through overuse, but swap Victor for a backwards-talking dwarf, and that scene would have been pure Lynch....

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it was based around a hypothetical World War III situation that saw the United States being invaded by the Soviets and Cubans. The film followed a group of Midwestern teenagers (Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Lea Thompson) who become a resistance group called The Wolverines (after their high school mascot), who proceed to lead an insurgency against the invaders. Most recently, it has influenced the Homefront computer game, which Milius has penned the script for....

This The Simpsons review contains spoilers. The episode opens with Homer watching a DVD of the best of college football mascot wars, which turns out to be very exciting actually. Especially the part where one mascot’s head pops off and we see there’s a person under it. Who would have thunk? Not Homer, obviously surprised at the mascots’ long-time masked charade. Homer should know this, of course, having once been a mascot himself and hanging with the Capitol City Goofball himself....

Not every Simpsons episode is a classic. The ones that are classics have redefined television already so they can coast. Season openers on The Simpsons aren’t usually anything particularly special except when they get delayed by football so long that they have to open with one of their “Treehouse of Horror” episodes. That’s how it is with “Homerland.” It’s good, not great. Not a classic Simpsons, but still better than the best episodes of most network comedies....

The Son Episode 5 “No Prisoners,” raises a red flag. Not on the series, which has been picking up steam as tension mount a fast horse, but on the first family of Texas. A red flag means no prisoners will be taken in battle. The episode explores loyalty in both the 1910 and 1849 arcs. The budding Mexican revolution that seems to be taking place on the McCullough property turns out to be costly, but the expense can be written off as an investment in oil futures....

1.11 Rumble Now, Julian’s back as the monster of the week, and apparently he’s such a Bad News Bear that both Ultra and the Tomorrow People see him as a huge threat, because a) he loves to torture people for the thrill of that obnoxious static swell noise that plays when they get close to death and b) he’s pretty open about using his powers whenever and wherever, rending the fragile veil that separates the masses of saps from the next step in human evolution....

4.6 We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes I’ll start off with the love triangle, since it’s still a point of interest for most fans who haven’t tuned out yet. At the end of season three, Elena chose Stefan. Then she turned into a vampire and everyone assumed this would lead her to Damon’s brooding arms. When that didn’t happen, Stefan and Elena’s rekindled relationship was more weird and co-dependent than ever, and this week sees our heroine finally make a definitive choice for herself, rather than whining about how hard it is to have two handsome immortals love you....

5.10 50 Shades Of Grayson Then again, while there’s certainly a legitimate fear that we might be watching a show without Katherine Pierce come 2014, I’m not sure they would have introduced a traveller get-out-clause if they weren’t intending to use it. Might we get Katherine residing in someone else’s body? Maybe Elena’s? There might be a few fans left who would be upset to lose their protagonist but, for me, I’d much rather see Katherine as the primary Petrova doppelganger....

5.8 Dead Man On Campus Before we discover this, however, there’s Jesse to deal with. As we know, he’s the latest test subject for Dr. Maxfield, and he’s been MIA because Wes has kept him asleep for a fortnight. As Damon uncovers during a particularly creative torture session, the grand plan here is to get vampires hooked on other vampires’ blood – thus removing the threat of monsters by making them kill each other instead of humans....

6.21 I’ll Wed You In The Golden Summertime So, when we have an episode that promises to show him human, getting married and expecting twins, it’s a given that something’s going to go horribly, tragically wrong. The show doesn’t even really need to do any heavy foreshadowing, because the audience knows what to expect from a wedding episode – especially Alaric’s. So now we’re living with a doozy of a cliff-hanger until this week’s finale – Kai’s back, Jo (and her twins) have been stabbed and our entire casts’ lives hang in the balance....

This Is Us Season 2 Episode 1 A synopsis is in order for season one for those unfamiliar with the show. At its core, This Is Us, is about imperfect people, improbable situations, and second chances. Where but on television, in the movies, and in books do African American male babies abandoned at fire stations get adopted by well-meaning white suburban parents? The show traverses time, locales, and various viewpoints in hopes of presenting fulfilling character experiences and justifications for their behavior....

This Is Us Season 2 Episode 5 Brothers fall into a hierarchy regardless of birth order, age, or education. We are a reflection of our fathers, biological or adoptive. We consciously and subconsciously measure ourselves against our parents. Who and or what we might become as adults if we dare to dream or challenge their predetermined roles and trajectories for us? We don’t always like each other or get along, but somehow brothers manage to love each other when it counts the most....

This Is Us Season 2 Episode 6 Tonight’s episode, The 20s, was directed by Regina King who I’ve admired as an actress and also over the last few years as a director. I hope I’m not reading too much into the episode having been directed by an African American woman, however, it felt different during my two viewings. This Is Us usually pulls on our heartstrings, but this chapter made me do the Oprah Winfrey ugly cry during the same scene, and I knew it was coming the second time....