This is, without apology, a story about Cap trying to operate in the modern world. Punching Nazis might’ve been enough in the 1940s, but things are rarely so straightforward in the 21st century. The message we’re consistently given by those in power is that good people have to do bad things to keep us safe, and the world of Captain America now reflects and challenges those areas of moral uncertainty....
Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Episode 3 The pacing of this episode is wild. We not only have two Clear Cards to capture but also setting up more of the mystery of who that person in Sakura’s dreams is. It’s a lot and the episode can’t quite manage to tie it all together. All three of these plots felt like they existed in separate episodes. Why do we need to be reminded of the time Sakura and Syaoran were in a play together?...
CASTLE has had an interesting run so far in its sixth season with Beckett in Washington and Rick staying in the Big Apple. But the strain of the distance is starting to really hurt the gelling of the show. Can we really continue this long distance relationship? Before we get to the rug-pull of an ending, Den of Geek dives right into this week’s murder. The Feds and guys at the 12th merge on the death of former child star Charlie Reynolds....
6.7 Like Father, Like Daughter It’s not just a matter of the recent spat between Castle and Alexis over the ubiquitous Pi which then led to Alexis telling her dad to give her some space. Nor Alexis’s insistence that she’s ready to move out of the familial home into one of her own (well, with Pi, that is). Like Father, Like Daughter also dealt with the hinted-at coolness between Beckett and Alexis, a recurrent theme in series 4 when Beckett was shot, making the teenager forcefully aware of the danger her father’s relationship with the detective puts him in....
6.23 For Better Or Worse One of the ongoing problems on Castle is that the basic writing tends toward the cliché or formulaic. Something being cliché or formulaic doesn’t necessarily make it bad. It is entirely possible to use a cliché in a way that is entirely entertaining, and when Castle is good, this is usually what it’s doing. The show has never been anything other than derivative (I’m not unconvinced that the writers don’t go to TVTropes....
It’s a film that, in the screening I caught the film at, seemed to divide the audience into those who could laugh broadly at what was happening on screen, and those who got a growing sense of unease. Whichever camp you start in at the beginning of the film, and there’s no right or wrong here, it’s likely that your viewpoint will have shifted several times by the time the credits roll....
Knightmare was the ultimate kids’ TV game show. Perfectly capturing the contemporary crazes of the late 80s, the programme took its influences from the embryonic computer games scene and the immense popularity of pencil-and-paper role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, added a few fresh ideas of its own and turned it all into one of the most watchable contestant-participation events ever. The dungeon was a dark and dangerous place, but not without the odd friendly face or two....
Horses should be held on that one, of course: you don’t expect it to smash any box-office records. But it marks a point in his career: he’s the star, and essentially the only reason anyone, other than big fans of director Pete Travis’ Dredd, is going to see it. It all hangs on him. This past is one of City’s more successful elements. Tommy and his friend Lovely, and old flame Shelley, grew up around here drinking cider on the swings and playing football with Coke cans, and the flashback scenes feature excellent acting from the mainly inexperienced young cast, with a particularly eerie dead ringer for a younger Riz in Reiss Kershi-Hussain....
I told you Class was full of helpful messages for its young audience. This week’s episode ended with the implicit reminder that, when shagging an almost total stranger in a cabinet, it’s a good idea to use protection unless you want to be left with a souvenir. Quill (Katherine Kelly, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways) brought back a fair few souvenirs from her metaphysical mini-break: a scar, a gun, a new ‘do, her free will, and an instant-bake half-shapeshifter/half-quill baby that, if it’s a stickler for tradition, may just eat her corpse upon arrival....
The gambit, however, paid off for Columbia. The early release not only allowed the film to plug directly into a base audience still babbling with Star Wars delirium, it also provided a whiz-bang payoff for another kind of mania that had consumed the nation for much of the previous decade. The first wave of saucer madness began shortly after the end of World War II, with the Roswell incident and a series of UFO sightings in the Pacific Northwest....
Well, you know what? Turns out Jim Rash’s writing style for Community skews more heavily toward what the show used to feel like than any of the rest of Season 4 has. In other words, this was easily the best episode of the season and I know I’ve said that again and again through Season 4, but it’s always been in a smarmy “but that’s only because the bar is so low” kind of way....
Ah, Halloween. Surely the perfect excuse for a movie obsessed TV show to stop referencing and actually become the movie they always wanted to be. And so it is for Community, with their seasonal offering of a night/dawn/Shaun of the dead zombie smorgasbord. Not only do zombies abound, but there’s a b-story involving Troy’s shedding of his nerd affiliations due to the lack of female interest in his homemade Ripley costume....
After last week’s emotional rollercoaster of an episode, Community ratchets up the tension yet again with its latest offering, Conspiracy Theories And Interior Design, a tale of intrigue, fake identities and a pillow fort. For reasons that remain glaringly obvious, the bag of smarm that is Jeff Winger still can’t quite bring himself to do the very small amount of work required to pass his classes at Greendale, and has taken to faking up courses....
After the highly anticipated season opener, Community’s third season continued with something of an oddity. Geography Of Global Conflict saw some of the nerdiest behaviour ever witnessed at Greendale, some of the creepiest father/daughter dynamics ever witnessed at Greendale, and a pop at the United Nations. Never has comedy been quite so bizarre… Suffice it to say that Jeff is the driving force behind the only plausible solution to Annie’s immaturity problem: the world’s first ever model UN off....
As you probably all know, the most recent episode of Community will be our last visit to Greendale for a good long while. Whatever the rights and wrongs – mostly wrongs – of that decision, it’s more than fitting that our favourite study group (temporarily) left us with a prime example of what makes this show so special. Of course, a more suitable title for the episode would be something along the lines of Oh!...
In “A Minute Changes Everything,” the audience must picks sides. We have to decide whether the cop who shot Rebecca Kent-State-style is culpable or not. We have to decide whether to defend Carlos’ heart-first approach to law enforcement or Kiera’s blind-justice, future-tech system of investigation. And we have to decide which Alec to root for as one skulks around like Gollum and the other parts his hair and begins his oligarchic rise to power....
1.7 The Hierophant It’s a very interesting wrinkle in an otherwise pretty boring episode. It’s fun to see Leonardo come face to face with something he can’t understand via scientific means. Perhaps he’ll just have to take something on faith for once. It’s an intriguing countermeasure to the show’s desire to be rational and to deny the existence of the supernatural to have Leonardo come face-to-face with the miracles of the Book of Leaves and the other blessed treasures in the Vatican Archives during a breaking-and-entering mission to recover the missing half of the key....
2.9 The Enemies Of Man Da Vinci has proven that he’s a clever character many times over. In certain fights, he gets the advantage over his opponents with his ambidexterity. When he’s facing a fellow ambidextrous fighter, he turns to other means to get an advantage. When he faces the villainous Duke of Urbino, who is a significantly better fighter than he is despite having one eye, Da Vinci uses his superior brain power to best his opponent using cleverness....
3.1 Semper Infidelis & 1.2 Abbadon Da Vinci’s Demons has struggled on all fronts. After a good debut season and a solid second, the third season bowed to a quarter of the viewers the show received in its first episodes, and it seems as though Starz is done with the show (a sure sign your show is doomed is when it gets moved to air on Saturday night). I remember seeing promos for the first and second seasons every time I flipped the channel to Starz and its offspring; the third season of Da Vinci’s Demons caught me completely by surprise....
The basic set-up we’ve seen many times before. We’re introduced to an everyday family, battling money troubles and trying to make ends meet. It’s the lack of cash that fuels much of what the characters do, which lends Dark Skies an instant believability. This is all effectively set up, and Stewart clearly has the knack of the slow build. He’s got a low budget, certainly, but he ably makes the most of the house where much of the film is set, and while there’s always a sense of the familiar in what he’s doing, as it puts its pieces together, there’s a lot to like about Dark Skies....
