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7.24 The Status Quo Combustion While the writers of The Big Bang Theory have refused to give Sheldon a diagnosed condition, largely so that they don’t feel tied to representing such a condition accurately, it’s been clear from the start that he has some kind of autistic spectrum disorder, and one of the symptoms he has always manifested particularly strongly is a dislike of change of any kind. It isn’t surprising, then, that when Leonard makes it clear that he and Penny will want to live together without Sheldon once they’re married (oddly enough, Leonard doesn’t go for Sheldon’s suggestion that Penny should live with them one day a week for a trial period, except on weeks when she has PMT), Sheldon goes into a minor meltdown....

And yet, last Friday also saw the release of Rob Cohen’s The Boy Next Door, an erotic thriller that isn’t as sexually charged as it is accidentally hilarious. For all intents and purposes, the film plays like an episode of the How Did This Get Made podcast waiting to happen. Home alone one weekend, Claire gives into the sexual tension between them (such as it is) and they spend the night together....

It’s that time of year again. It may still be stomping around in the too-big shoes of the Hunger Games movies, but The Divergent Series: Allegiant marks the third of four instalments in the series of movies based on Veronica Roth’s trilogy of novels. You’d never know it from the way it’s been presented, but like Katniss and Harry Potter before, we’re in Part One and Part Two territory for the first half of Roth’s climactic story....

The Exorcist Episode 6 In “Chapter 5: My Most Grievous Fault” the show decided to tie up some knots and connect the original Exorcist to our current series. Angela Rance is Regan MacNeil and, well, no one cares. Okay, it’s not that no one cares, but it didn’t do much for the series. That “bombshell” really only made Angela a little easier to swallow with all her exorcism talk and real-world naivete....

The Exorcist Episode 8 Last week’s episode “Father of Lies” dealt with Father Marcus and Father Tomas trying to secretly save Casey — with the help of Mother Bernadette — while the Rance family struggled with Casey’s disappearance and Angela’s descent into madness. Also, as a B-story, Brother Bennet managed to find some evidence for what Maria Walters and the Friars of Ascension have been up to. In trying to help Fathers Marcus and Tomas exorcise the demon, Angela gets herself caught in a little long-awaited reunion with Captain Howdy....

The Exorcist Season 2 Episode 10 There is a changing of the guards on The Exorcist season 2, episode 10, “Unworthy,” several actually. We see a change in the family dynamic, in the satanic mechanics and in the clergy’s social fabric. The season finishes with an open-ended closure, but the episode begins with an open mind. Tomas has a special relationship with demon Nicole (Alicia Witt). She’s been inside him, and he wants to pay this forward....

If you’re unfamiliar, The CW’s televisual version of The Flash is a terrifically fun experience. If there’s a comic book movie comparison, it would probably be Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. This isn’t a dark, gritty superhero story, but an introduction to a character who clearly loves his new powers. One of The Flash’s biggest strengths besides Barry is the supporting cast, particularly Barry’s triumvirate of father figures: his actual father, the incarcerated Henry Allen (John Wesley Shepp from the classic The Flash show); his endlessly supportive adoptive father and police co-worker, Joe West (Jesse L....

The Gifted Episode 6 It’s kind of interesting that The Giftedhas established itself as a plot-heavy action show well enough that an episode where mutants using their powers to break into a federal building, steal a ton of data, and then hold back a hail of bullets while making a big rig fly and disappear is a quiet character episode. But that’s what the show is now, and since we didn’t spend the whole show in a shootout with Sentinel Services, there was a lot more time to spend exploring some of the relationships that sustain it....

The comparisons have not been kind. The setup is dealt with quickly, and shows a trust for the audience that The Good Dinosaur doesn’t always follow through on. The meteorite that supposedly struck the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs misses, and thus we move forward a few million years, to see them still roaming the Earth, even as other species – humans, specifically – begin to evolve. Taking fragments of stories that we’ve seen told many times before, The Good Dinosaur centres on Arlo, the smallest and youngest of his family, and thus the one with the most to prove....

But here’s the thing: it isn’t. The film is quick to put its foundation blocks in place. Seth Rogen (who co-wrote the script) is Britt Reid, the hard-partying layabout son of disapproving newspaper proprietor James (played by Tom Wilkinson). Yet, Britt’s life turns around suddenly when his father dies, leaving him in charge of the newspaper (with the help of the underused Edward James Olmos), and suddenly having to work out what to do next....

This Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers. A strength-building plan (say, 20 reps of blasting a horror movie soundtrack while watching Fox News) might have been a wise undertaking in advance of this new run, which is just as brutal as the first. Not a newton of tension has been released for season two. Gilead is the same barbarous prison, and its zealots, as typified by Ann Dowd’s monstrous but compelling Aunt Lydia, are every bit as dangerous....

Since the US summer release of Tate Taylor’s film adaptation, The Help has done similarly good business, beating superheroes, cowboys and aliens to a three week spot at the top of the American box office. The Help is the story of Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), who agrees to tell Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), about her experiences as a black maid to white families, for a book written from the perspective of the titular help....

The suspension of disbelief is what cinema is built upon. Whether it is simply accepting one person can pretend to be another, or something as grandiose as believing a man can fly, films are nothing without it. And this suspension of disbelief is one step closer to being ripped away by High Frame Rate (HFR). It essentially makes most of the film look completely unrealistic and fake, which in a grand fantasy film is not something you want....

I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the ‘sport’.. The crowd screaming, the poor half dead bull standing there waiting for what the matadors call ‘El momento de la veridad’. Pretty sickening on one hand. On the other: I guess if I was a bull I would rather die in a towering rage with the chance of getting a horn stuck into one of the pestilent, fancy dressed wimps giving me grief than be poll-axed in some greasy building smelling of death....

Supernatural drama has an unfortunate history in the UK. Pricy visual effects and otherworldly locations make broadcasters nervous to commission it, and even more nervous to re-commission it. As a result, British supernatural shows have often been frustratingly short-lived. That trend could be set to change. Original Netflix drama The Innocents has the atmospheric, intimate feel of The Fades, but is backed by the comforting cushion of the international streaming giant’s cash....

Anyway, del Toro’s Lawrence Talbot is explicitly hirsute and having gone through ‘the change’ and broken out of the asylum he scales the heights of the British capital howling out for blood. Eerie mist and full moon luminescence aside, the sequence sent me flying back to childhood memories of supernannies and chimney sweeps tap-dancing across the roof tiles for a cheery musical number. For a split-second, it’s just like Step In Time....

1.1 Method and Madness It’s not that long since it was all but impossible to read or write about Clive Owen without encountering the words ‘James’ and ‘Bond’. A perennial favourite to pick up the Walther, his claim seemed solid. Conventionally tall, dark and handsome but possessed of a rugged grit he has the quality, shared by Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton, of looking like he knows which knife to use during the fish course and which to use when slitting a man’s throat....

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel is his Mona Lisa; his Symphony #7; his Citizen Kane. It is the most gripping tale that I have ever read. The book tells the story of a young Indian boy named Piscine Patel, aka Pi, and his unfortunate circumstance of being lost at sea. So, what separates this story from all of the other lost at sea survival novels? Here’s the kicker–he’s stuck in a lifeboat with a massive Tiger, as well as some other wild animals from his father’s zoo, such as a hyena, orangutan and a zebra with a broken leg....

FBI Director James Comey was fired in May 2017. Deputy Director Andre McCabe resigned/was pushed out in January for the crime of…not wanting to obstruct justice, I guess? The department tis he subject of a House GOP memo that accuses them of political bias. They’re a favorite punching bag of the President and his conservative media apparatus. Even liberals who find themselves in the unenviable position of defending of FBI can’t quite do it without an obligatory “I’m no fan of the FBI but…” On its surface that description doesn’t sound like it would be the manna from heaven that the FBI currently needs....