So, here we are, at the fourth episode of The Event. Generally, the fourth episode of a new series is where a show finds its feet and the audience is either committed to it or tempted to jump ship. For me, I’ve stuck with the show this far and I was curious to see whether the fourth show would cement my viewership or signal me giving up on it. First up, Sean is still on the run with the erstwhile FBI agent trying to find Leila....
You remember how with “Going Rogue” I joked that I could tell how a Flash episode was going to go within the opening few minutes? Yeah, well…I had a funny feeling about “Plastique” right out of the gate, and what we got was a rather uneven, uninspired episode. Any time Barry becomes “friend zone man” in his internal monologue, I get nervous, even though, for the most part, the show has done a fine job of keeping the Barry/Iris dynamic from getting creepy....
1.15 Out Of Time Because if this had been the season finale, not only would the reveal of Harrison Wells as Reverse Flash, Iris’ discovery of Barry’s secret identity and the death of a major character make sense, but they would also have been somewhat expected. This is episode fifteen, and all of those things have already happened, blowing our expectations for the rest of the show’s first season wide open....
The Flash Season 3 Episode 19 “The Once and Future Flash” is a nice way for the show to come back from its spring hiatus. I didn’t even realize how much I had missed this season until things kicked off, when suddenly I was reminded that, oh yes, The Flash Season 3 has been very good. By this time last year, the warning signs were everywhere, and it was right about now that I started to really skewer this show for what I considered to be some cheap shots and easy ways out....
The Flash Season 4 Episode 22 What an incredible turnaround from the insipid nonsense of “Harry and the Harrisons” to this week’s opening moments. The first few minutes of “Think Fast” were the best looking, most imaginative, downright cinematic of the entire season. For the first time all year we got a true sense of the scope of DeVoe’s powers, and the genuine menace that Neil Sandilands can project as the character....
One side is purported to be the real-life Abigail Tyler, and the other side is the Mila Jovovich version of Dr. Tyler, with both talking over one another. It’s terribly distracting, especially when there’s a big difference in acting quality, as there is throughout most of the movie. Even when the (bad) writing is the same on both sides, the difference in delivery is shocking. It’s bad news for a movie when your big, shocking reveal scenes get laughs....
This suggests that the ‘grumpy hat’ has been kicked under the drawing table for the cats to play with, for the moment at least. And if or when it does re-emerge, I imagine it will be in need of some laundering as a result. So, while the leaf dries out and I adjust to the new atmosphere, I am not in the mood to complain about punctures in my ‘innertubes’, as a Cheezfreind calls them (Internet world wide web lolspeak … you do the math = ‘innertubes’ )....
It’s also a marker for what to do with Steve Carrell when you’re not having him be the put-upon everyman, the sad sucker forced to deal with more than he wants to. In Anchorman, his Brick Tamland was like a pre-cursor to Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk in Avengers Assemble: ‘Hey, let’s give this guy the movie’s killer moments, but not have him be on screen that much’. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a Steve Carrell film that deviates from this Steve Carrell norm, but, sadly, it’s no Anchorman....
I should think she wanders around the savannah worrying about her waistline and sampling different vegetation in the hope of finding some miracle mixture which will reduce the size of her bum. Mice on the other hand have a whizz bang relationship which calumniates 20 days later with a splurge of multiple births. Mrs Mouse obviously remembers which quick-fire rodent she should avoid in the future if she wants to enjoy a relaxed middle-age....
I was becoming well established as a Premiere Queen. One of that large underbelly of actresses who has done enough to make them interesting but not enough to give them confidence in their own ability. These are sort after by the PR crowd to stuff an audience. It’s all very formalised. You get an invitation to a premiere, borrow a posh frock from one of the couture houses that cater to this sort of thing, have an expensive hair-do then turn up on the night and hope to be noticed....
Oh, no more! Will someone please step in and save Natalie Portman from further suffering? Hasn’t she been through enough in her career? It’s high time that caring arms embraced the actress, wrapped her in a cosy cotton blanket and protected her from all the cruelty. I like the Black Swan star and I don’t mean ‘like her’ in a schoolboy crush or dirty-old-man-ogling-on-the-subway sort of way. She’s an attractive and sophisticated person who, alongside a varied and interesting stage and film career, speaks multiple languages and holds a degree in psychology....
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.” – Budd in Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (but the Masters of Reality were vegans and decided to take a lie in instead of sampling breakfast à la David Carradine) It was only when the writer and poet, Edgar Allan Poe, realised that life was “a dream within a dream” that human beings started to question the truth of the world around them. Just over 150 years ago in Baltimore – before it became America’s homicide capital and the home of Hairspray – the man who scribed The Raven, The Pit And The Pendulum and other masterworks, eventually turned into Roger Corman B-movies, changed our understanding of existence forever....
Classic Hollywood convention has it that good things come to virtuous, pure and decent characters and the despicable villains will be brought down, defeated and receive due comeuppance in the end. Real life only pays lip-service to Hollywood convention,, though. The good guys win? Yeah, right… In real life, Pandora would end up totally pummelled, the entire planet turned into a vast unobtainium mine and the Na’vi rendered extinct (apart from the one that used to be a paraplegic marine....
Now that you’ve adopted the expression of an Easter Island statue you’re ready to trip off to the cinema and watch all the sobering films that are being screened. Indeed, if you look at the release schedule for the next few weeks you’ll found that there are a lot of solemn affairs on the slate and making their way into movie houses to exert an ominous presence. Expect much misery and many attempts to manhandle massive issues of lofty social importance on screen....
Tonight, “Crutchfield” ties up loose ends, and sets a definite tone for season two. Poor Gallinger. What does he have left? In one season he has lost his career, two babies, and now his wife. I would love to see him turn his life around in season two, but can someone survive so much trauma? It will come as a shock to no one that Robertson ends up getting an abortion from the Sister and Cleary....
4.2 Save Royston Vasey The credits have rolled on the second instalment of The League Of Gentlemen’s Christmas Special and, cor, where to start? The tone of the episode is considerably different from the first, as instead of reintroducing much-loved characters the show is now neck-deep in drama. Terrible deeds are afoot and everyone is in their own personal hell, be it living with trauma or in a literal living death....
Barney is a deeply sad character, one who life has passed by without any great affection ever being lavished on him, and Carlyle portrays him sympathetically but realistically. He’s not an unheralded saint but a flawed and spineless man who still comes across as unfortunate. As a barber, all he’s ever wanted is to cut people’s hair by the window, but due to his complete absence of patter it’s not to be....
I like this connection we see between Jim and Michael. Michael, as we saw when he got a second job, has a great deal of Jim in him deep down, and as we find out later in this episode, Jim has a whole lot of Michael inside him. Take that for what you will, but I doubt Jim likes it too much. I also doubt that Michael knew, in his younger days, that he’d end up being like he is now....
The Realt is all about our dreams. But these aren’t the kind of waking daydreams we have where we imagine winning the lottery or finding out we have superpowers. Instead they’re the dreams we have deep in sleep, where everything is twisted and weird. In those moments it’s possible to cross over into a land called Tourmaline, and to do immense damage to that place, bringing nightmarish creations from our subconscious with us....
