Posts

The Exorcist Season 2 Episode 1 Exorcists Father Tomas (Alfonso Herrera) and Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels) are taking it on the road, and they’re doing it in a hurry in the opening segment of The Exorcist season 2 premiere, “Janus.” The priestly pair open the episode on the run from something more devilish than the demon-mommy-to-be in labor in the back of their pickup truck: Men with shotguns and a whole lotta gas gaining on them in a road rage race in rural Montana....

The Expanse Season 1 Episode 2 A good amount of the tension in this episode comes from the crew aboard the Knight shuttle, stranded after seeing the Canterbury destroyed. It’s refreshing to see that travel in space has real dangers which the show’s science fiction status doesn’t explain away with force fields and AI computers. The debris from the ship can and does actually cause major damage to the fragile shuttle....

2.13 Welcome To Earth-2 If we’re judging The Flash by the standards of other television shows, which is honestly a foolish thing to do, the relatively swift introduction of the multiverse appeared at first to be a convenient cover for a lot of the time-travel shenanigans it was attempting to pull off. Was it just a way for the show to have its cake and eat it – as with the death of Harrison Wells not actually leading to the absence of Harrison Wells – or a legitimate tactic to open up more storytelling opportunities?...

3.14 Attack On Central City The beauty of how The Flash has utilised Grodd over the last two seasons is in how they’ve used him sparingly. You don’t just jump right in with a Gorilla City story, and I loved Barry’s realisation that Grodd is evolving, just as the show’s ability to deal with the challenges of a character like this are. It’s been nice having Grodd around sporadically over the last year, but I feel like these two episodes finally nailed the spirit of the character in a big way....

To be fair, The Happytime Murders as a concept has an admirable ambition. Long having wanted to invest in an honest “alternative” appeal for their puppet expertise, it’s easy to see why the Jim Henson Company was attracted to writers Todd Berger and Dean Austin Robertson’s pitch for a raunchy noir “thriller” with puppets. Almost as long ago as Avenue Q, Trey Parker and Matt Stone had fantastic success with a gross and grossly hilarious satire of Bush era jingoism via naughty marionettes in Team America: World Police, and the noir setup proved to be one of the greatest virtues of Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit?...

Hooray for Simon! His social standing is in ascent. Last series he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with Carli, but now he’s in love’s first bloom with Tara, the cool indie girl. Being the all round good mate that he is, he’s also managed to set up a blind date for Will with Tara’s friend Kerry. If only she and Will could see eye to eye. Will, however, isn’t particularly thankful to have the attentions of Kerry, seeing as she’s not only a good foot taller than him, but also more clingy than cling film from the home planet of the Klingons....

It is also the day that you can look back on the previous week and acknowledge that things didn’t go quite as planned. That is all in the past. Now there is only the golden future. All it depends on is sauntering down to the newsagent, putting half a dozen crosses in the little white squares and Rudolf Valentino is your Uncle. (Rudolf who?) Winning the Lotto is a simple calculation....

Aligned with the chi, coffee, on the other hand, isn’t my cup of tea (you know what I mean). I personally don’t like the taste, plus I’ve heard the horror stories about caffeine-induced cardiac arrest. I’ve got visions of someone sitting in Caffè Nero and having a freakout like something out of The Thing after downing several espressos and an overpriced raspberry muffin. Drink too much coffee and you end up like a twitchy extra in a spaghetti western....

That might be something as mundane as “I’m going to go and get a milkshake!” (Pulp Fiction and There Will Be Blood could inspire that decision) or something significant, like being convinced to completely change direction on one of life’s crossroads and pursue an alternative path. Movies could potentially open the door to your destiny and urge you to step through. For me, personally, watching Whip It made me want to become a roller derby transvestite....

Last year, Los Angeles was invaded by aliens in the Brothers Strause special effects showcase, Skyline. Once the descending extraterrestrial space hoovers had subjected the city to blue lighting and a blast of shock and awe, their intentions became clear. They came from outerspace for our brains. The spacelings couldn’t possibly remove the grey stuff that sits between the ears of the archetypal jarhead and recycle it as a power source....

In The Rite, Anthony Hopkins’ character, Father Lucas, makes a similar suggestion about the nature of the Beast through an allegory about a burglar not leaving the lights on. Unless the robber is really incompetent or has a bizarre desire to bump up their victim’s electricity bills, Hopkins has a point. Even so, it’s hard to be infamous if you’re always out of plain sight and I’d say that constant secrecy doesn’t suit the Great Demon....

After considering all strategies and plans of attack, Korra decides to surrender herself to Zaheer to save the airbenders. Not willing to just give her up, a three-pronged attack is proposed. Korra will meet with Zaheer, while Lin, Su, her metalbenders, and Tonraq head up the cliffside as back-up. While this is going down, Mako and Bolin will treat with Ghazan to secure the airbenders. Naturally, nothing goes quite as planned....

The Magicians Season 2 Episode 6: “The Cock Barrens” That last one might be a tall order that could take many episodes, especially since it appears that Alice is not, as it first appears, seeking Quentin’s help with anything other than punishing her parents by forcing them to enact a a completely superfluous summoning spell. Granted, the ritual may have helped Stephanie realize how her self-centeredness made it hard to understand her daughter and made Daniel confront his fears and his tendency to retreat into denial, but the big surprise is what Alice’s manipulation means for Quentin....

2.10 Trial And Punishment So this is it, the end of series 2. It’s been a fair old journey with some excellent highs and fortunately not many lows (not to mention far too many interruptions – damn you sport and charity!). The series finale often seems to linger, perhaps unfairly, as the one remembered by most and considered a yard stick for the run as a whole. In that respect, Trial And Punishment (written by Simon Allen and directed by Nicholas Renton), is a fitting end to what has been a really strong season....

So too is Arinze Kene’s Ade, and the film first introduces us to them rooming together in a European hotel the night before their first ever game for their (unnamed) team. It’s a Champions League game, and so it’s a fair bet they’re not playing for Birmingham City. But this does not dull their anticipation. Debut director Ben A Williams is working with tight resources in putting the story on the screen, and its to his immense credit that most of the time, you barely notice....

As a disclaimer from the get-go – I am a technical layman. I don’t read into the software architecture or dive into all of the different things I can plug into a console. I just want to play the damn thing and have a reasonably streamlined experience while navigating the dashboard. If you’re looking for something extremely technical, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m only here to tell you how easy/entertaining the console is to use....

The Purge Episode 3 When The Purge debuted, it wasn’t exactly full of back story about the hows and whys of the Purge. Over the years, that information has slowly been filled in by sequels and prequels, but while the genesis of The Purge was revealed in The First Purge, one question remains: how long has The Purge been a thing in this universe? Clearly, it’s been long enough to go from a novelty—needing bribes to get people to participate is a thing of the past—to an integral part of the New Founding Fathers of America’s agenda....

5.6 The Man Who Never Was Part 2 It’s not the largest-scale threat the Earth has ever seen, and I’m sure that whatever Russell T Davies had planned for the show’s eventual finale would’ve been much bigger. But a smaller, more personal threat is fitting for a series which has always shown so much heart. After all, The Sarah Jane Adventures was never about big epic battles. It was about family and friendship, and most of all, making a difference....

4.14 Down the Rabbit Hole The fact that we don’t know what we’ll be seeing next week might be great for tension and building fan theories, but it also demonstrates how much The Vampire Diaries has changed over the last couple of years. Judging by the slow-motion and dramatic soundtrack that accompanied the scene, Jeremy has been killed, but the truth is that he’s died so many times that without these obvious signifiers, we wouldn’t be worried at all....

3.14 Prey There are three episodes of The Walking Dead left in the third season, and thus far Glen Mazzara has addressed a great deal of the show’s difficulties. He’s sped up the plot, turned the zombies back into threats, introduced a brilliant human threat in the form of the Governor and his Woodbury cronies, as well as two of the most-wanted characters from the comic book, and he’s resurrected the show from its second season doldrums....