Not long after that, the actor Morris Chestnut turns up as a lawyer. “Hey, you look like Morris Chestnut!”, someone says. Which is very funny. Especially if you know who Morris Chestnut is. If you don’t, then That Awkward Moment is way smarter than you for about two minutes. But then for its other 90 or so minutes it isn’t, so it balances out in the end. For about half an hour, That Awkward Moment plays like a post-Apatow romantic comedy....
1. Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902) Le Voyage dans la Lune follows the journey of some very ambitious astronomers as they fly off to the moon. They manage to fight off the moon people before returning to Earth as triumphant heroes. It is important to view this film in context. Science fiction novels had been around a long time but film was still in its infancy....
Now, on to spoilers that also include 2013’s Gravity. If you’re familiar with the movie, you may already know what I’m hinting at. As for Jaha, he’s still in orbit, trapped in one of the derelict stations. Finding a mysterious baby galvanizes him into rescuing both of them. And it’s here that comparisons to Gravity are inevitable. Again, spoiler warning if you still have not seen Alfonso Cuarón’s stellar survival film....
2.4 Many Happy Returns Clarke is back at Camp Jaha, for one, though Anya wasn’t so lucky. The decision to have Anya be the next casualty of this pleasingly kill-happy show is surprising given how much past episodes have asked the audience to invest in the relationship between her and Clarke, and I wonder what lasting effects their truce will have on both Clarke’s character and the relationship between our people and the grounders....
That said, the teams as usual didn’t really didn’t help themselves, particularly the boys’ side (which is called Empire if memory serves). Rocky, a 21-year old who runs 15 sandwich bars for a living, opted to lead the task, and the masterplan soon became clear. What the business gurus of the capital really wanted was crappy props, hairy men dressed in togas, and a loose 2012 Olympics theme. They could have perhaps got away with it had Margaret been following their team....
Really finding its stride in the late 90s when it became a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky was responsible for such memorable CGI sequences as the swimming xenomorphs in Alien: Resurrection (1997) and the talking penguin in David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999). Introducing the world to a hapless, acorn-obsessed rodent named Scrat, Ice Age was a huge hit, paving the way for a string of sequels and establishing Blue Sky as a major creative force in animated filmmaking....
This review contains spoilers. What’s that? An episode of The Big Bang Theory that doesn’t leave me frustrated and underwhelmed? Yes it’s true, I liked this episode. For the first time in a very long time, The Comic-Con Conundrum carries on a storyline from the previous week. Even more shockingly, it concerns Raj. Sheldon is going through Raj’s finances (inc. penguin sponsorship and Pink Cheeks intimate waxing) and he quickly realises that he’s going to have to make some huge changes to his lifestyle....
11.22 The Monetary Insufficiency Leonard, the experimental physicist of the pair, comes up with the method that could help prove Sheldon’s work (don’t ask me what that work is, I’m with Penny here), but the university is understandably reluctant to hand over half a million dollars to a guy who I’m sure they all think is nuts. Sheldon has a brilliant mind, but something tells me he wouldn’t be very good at keeping to a budget....
11.23 The Sibling Realignment This is probably where it would have been useful to be caught up on Young Sheldon, right? We open the episode with Sheldon on the phone with his mother, who is refusing to come to the wedding if her older son, George, isn’t invited. Because he loves his mother more than anything, Sheldon folds and flies to Texas with Leonard to convince him to come. The boys track Georgie down at his tire store – where he’s calling himself Doctor Tire, much to Sheldon’s annoyance – but the initial meeting doesn’t go well....
8.24 The Commitment Determination In a mixed eighth season of The Big Bang Theory, when even the best shows can be expected to start showing their age, the big achievement has been Sheldon. I don’t always think that, as with all the praise, fan-love and awards doled out to the character, he can sometimes be the series’ biggest flaw but, in this season at least, he’s been a great demonstration of its commitment to evolution....
Thus, The Boxtrolls adopts a tone that doesn’t land too far away from LAIKA’s previous pictures, Coraline and ParaNorman. Based on Alan Snow’s book Here Be Monsters! (although distilling just a small part of it), the film takes place in the land of Cheesebridge, a macabre looking place with the kind of imposing, shadowy buildings that stop motion seems to get across so wonderfully. It’s a place of two worlds, though....
Arkin (Josh Stewart) is the only person to ever escape from the clutches of The Collector, after a reaping at a rave where a wealthy man’s daughter gets kidnapped by the costumed killer in question. Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick) is the lucky survivor of The Collector’s rave of horrible traps, and her father isn’t going to let her just disappear into the night as another anonymous victim. Elena’s father puts together a team of mercenaries, led by Lucello (Lee Tergesen)....
1.13 Havenport One of the things that The Following has been doing well towards the end of this season is teasing at dissension among the ranks. Joe and Roderick, after all, have been butting heads for a while now, and before them Emma, Paul, and Jacob took the lead on the inter-terrorist squabbling during their time as babysitter for Joey. Even though the threesome has broken up, there’s still some residual conflict there....
1.9 Love Hurts That’s this week’s scheme du jour. In order to keep the FBI running and draw out the real Claire Matthews, one of Joe’s brilliant followers, Amanda (Marin Ireland) has decided that love hurts. Her husband cheated on her, so she killed him and the mistress. Since Joe’s wife cheated on him with Ryan, well… the natural response is to bring Joe and his wife back together by killing every other Claire Matthews she can find until real Claire comes out of hiding and the Followers can scoop her up....
My grandmother is a really nice Italian/Polish lady who spent most of her life in Central New Jersey before moving south to Florida. I don’t know if it’s because of her Jersey roots, relatively young grandmotherly age, or just sheer mental acuity but she’s always been a good hang. I rattled off some of my recent favorites, which lean toward streaming comedies like BoJack Horseman and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or recent “prestige” cable dramas like Better Call Saul and The Americans....
Baz Luhrmann’s movie is a Spinal Tap amplifier turned up to 11, and if you can’t handle being buffeted by a violently loud score, foleyed sounds like hammer blows, and the queasiest camera movements since Cloverfield, then I suggest you stay home. Michael Bay wishes he could create sonic thunder like this. It is punishing to the ears, or at least it was in the theater I attended, and no less hard on the eyes....
It takes a certain type of Western arrogance to make a play for the Chinese market through a fantasy reimagining of its greatest landmark’s history, but hey, this is Hollywood, baby. Consider the implications of a Chinese blockbuster pitched aggressively at American theatres, telling how Mount Rushmore was attacked by aliens but only survived because Michelle Yeoh defended it. But then: this is a US-Chinese co-production, shot entirely in China, with a mainly Chinese cast and by a Chinese director....
Conversely, Seth Rogen has shown real ambition in growing his career, taking a mix of bold risks and big projects. His leading performance in Observe And Report was a risky one, all but forgotten because the film itself didn’t work. Furthermore, in the past five years, five films have been released that Rogen has co-written, and this summer, we get his directorial debut with This In The End. This is not a man to stand still....
The House With A Clock In Its Walls wants to be the solution to that. Based on John Bellairs’ book series and brought to the screen by Supernatural’s Eric Kripke and Eli Roth, it’s a big, bold age-appropriate frightener that picks up where the early 00s left off and carves out something both decidedly throwback and thoroughly modern. Soon, after discovering that his uncle is actually a warlock (‘a boy witch,’ he says matter of factly), and the house is alive in a Beauty And The Beast (without the creepy curse) kind of way, Lewis insists on learning about magic himself and joining Jonathan and Florence in their search for the ominous clock left behind by bad warlock Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan) before it’s too late....
I finally caught up with James Bond and his shaken not stirred philosophy when George Lazenby was wielding the Beretta On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). It was certainly an experience. As far as I was concerned there had been nothing like it before. I was amazed that some of the critics were less than complimentary and nostalgic about Sean Connery. When I met Connery I confessed to him that I had never seen his take on Bond and he thought I was patronising him....
