Told through the use of an unpublished memoir found after her death, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg looks back at the life of model, actress, and Rolling Stones' muse Anita Pallenberg with a large section of the film devoted to her relationships with Brian Jones and Keith Richards. The documentary from Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill is most notable for the vintage photos and video footage of Pallenberg's life incorporated into the film.
Sisters is the theme of "They Slug Horses, Don't They?" as Louise (Kristen Schaal) and Tina (Dan Mintz) get in an escalating argument after Louise borrows Tina's toy without asking, and then breaks it when attempting to give it back to her sister. Her attempt to avoid apologizing by creating a cartoon of them as the characters of each of their toys (Louise as a slug and Tina as the horse) that blames Louise for everything only escalates the argument further. Unexpectedly, it's Gail (Megan Mullally) who plays peacemaker between the girls providing an example of her own struggles with their mother.
Although it provides almost nothing for the assistants to do, other than to laugh at Owen's (Arash DeMaxi) fandom, I enjoyed the main story of "Stan by Me" featuring Alec (Jesse L. Martin) and Rose (Karen David) working together to solve the murder of a fan one of her former clients, a renown K-pop star (Kirstin Leigh) who becomes the prime suspect. Sadly, I was far less interested in the B-story involving Marisa (Maahra Hill) and her struggle getting along with her new boss at the FBI which, in procedural fashion, fixes itself by the end of the episode and thus turns out to be mostly pointless.
When the old Gotham Opera House becomes haunted by the Phantasm, preventing the sale of the property, the owner reaches out to Mystery, Inc. to investigate. One of the potential buyers, Leslie Thompkins, also reaches out to an old friend to lend a hand leading to another team-up between the gang and Batman. Splitting into pairs, with Batman this time working with Velma, the group discovers the truth of what's happening at the theater.
The primary focus of "Sick as Our Secrets" deals with Gibbs (Austin Stowell) and Randy (Caleb Foote) being assigned the protection detail for a priest (Jonah Wharton) who knows the identity of a killer but cannot share it because it came through the confessional. The episode really exists to explore the guilt Randy has been carrying around for months, volunteering for every protection detail, after another agent took his place protecting Gibbs' wife and daughter. As for the case of the week, it's fine, and includes an interesting segment of Gibbs and Randy mistaking a pair of robbers as killers, but ultimately anticlimactic as the pair end up not protecting him from the killer and the priest simply gives them the name (meaning no one is asked to solve a crime).
The idea of pitting Black Canary against Lady Shiva has been done before, most notable during Gail Simone's Birds of Prey run. I'm all for a single issue to see the warriors square off, under the right circumstances with motives that make sense for both characters, but a six-issue mini-series setting up a prize fight seems a bit much.
While Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) continues to use the Delivery Guy disguise to gain access to the police department looking for the evidence of his brother's case which is set to be destroyed, Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet) struggles in attempts to connect with Green (Lisa Gilroy) hoping to avoid becoming more than the latest in the line of recurring characters replaced after a few months. Through his disguise, Willis manages to make real friends in the department who were originally hostile to him. However, despite the number of free meals he delivers, he's unable to find the evidence before it gets destroyed. Thankfully, with the help of his new friends, he'll find a way to level up at the end of the episode into "Tech Guy."
After producing The Acolyte, what would become the most divisive Star Wars series (and one that I enjoyed for the most part), it appears Disney has retreated to more familiar territory. Skeleton Crew feels like a Disney Channel series with a Disney+ budget. The opening episode, "This Could Be a Real Adventure" introduces us to Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), his best-friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), and a pair of slightly older girls in Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and KB (Kyriana Kratter) who, at least so far, is the only useful member of the foursome. Most of the premiere sticks with Wim giving us the basic dreamer/screwup son disappointing his father (Tunde Adebimpe) who isn't a bad guy but far from a great dad.
Based on true events, The Order is a solid drama about burnt out FBI Agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) sent to the Pacific Northwest to take it easy in an assignment where nothing ever happens... until he connects a series of robberies with a radicalized offshoot of a white power organization with a charismatic leader (Nicholas Hoult) and big plans for changing the world.
The new Netflix series opens with a triple murder and a mystery as to the reason behind it before introducing us to Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), the wife of the British Defense Secretary (Andrew Buchan) and potential future Prime Minister who also happens to be a spy working for a shadowy organization know as Black Doves. On of the three people murdered one turns out to be Helen's lover. Also, something about the proceedings figures into the death of the Chinese Ambassador and his missing daughter (Isabella Wei). In an attempt to keep Helen alive, and her lucrative cover intact, her overseer (Sarah Lancashire) sends an old friend in roving assassin Sam (Ben Whishaw) who steps foot in his home country for the first time in 7 years.
Of all the Disney+ series created for the MCU, Hawkeye is easily my favorite. Casting two likable stars and throwing them together in an odd couple pairing at Christmas with an entire city's underworld after them provides humor, action, thrills, and tons of fun especially once it also begins to mix in Yelena (Florence Pugh) as well.
On their way up the river to find the dino facility, Ben (Sean Giambrone), Kenji (Darren Barnet), Darius (Paul-Mikél Williams), Yaz (Kausar Mohammed), Sammy (Raini Rodriguez), and their new friend Zayna (Anaiya Asomugha) run into trouble first from a hippopotamus and then from a Suchomimus. In the chaos, Yaz gets separated from the group who discover too late she is missing forcing her to stay alive on her own until they return for her creating some of the creepier moments of the season.
Tied into the launch of Justice League Unlimited, The Question: All Along the Watchtower focuses on Renee Montoya being hired by the league to be the sheriff of the Justice League Watchtower while also looking into a feeling of some of the core members of something being wrong with the new version of the League (also foreshadowed in Justice League Unlimited #1).
While offering flashbacks to a past mission involving a scientist in which Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) goes missing, "Spy Game" features those after Honey and Nadia (Kashvi Majmundar) catching up to them at their safe house (which it turns out wasn't all that safe). The sequence provides the bulk of the episode's action with Honey taking out the attackers by a variety of means. Despite being injured, Honey makes it out with her daughter with the assassins still after them and Bunny (Varun Dhawan) and Chacko (Shivankit Singh Parihar) still too far behind to help.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3 continues the trend of focusing on a single turtle after the brothers split and scattered across the world, eventually bringing Leonardo back into contact with both Raphael and Michelangelo, leaving Donatello to be the focus of the fourth issue. We find Leonardo in India on the banks of the Ganges River looking for peace and enlightenment, and perhaps death, among the corpse-eating mud turtles of the region.
The focus of the second episode of the show's Second Season remains split. Although we see Jinx (Ella Purnell) make peace with Sevika (Amirah Vann) as the chem-barons war amongst themselves for control of the undercity, and breakdowns after she see's her sister leading a group of enforcers to kill her, her story doesn't advance much and given that no characters of real importance died in the explosion from last season the focus of the episode is stretched to the limit attempting to work in all the various storylines necessary to keep events moving forward.
In an episode that sees Simon (Max Lloyd-Jones), Owen (Arash DeMaxi), and Phoebe (Molly Kunz) struggling to find a new status quo all working together, Alec (Jesse L. Martin) is approached by an employee of a company which uses science-forecasting for predictive analysis who believes a train disaster is imminent. While the company's owner is against any action which she believe might cause greater harm, Alec and the others look for ways to bypass the disaster which they discover someone close to the company is helping along.
The new volume of West Coast Avengers introduces a team led by Tony Stark (wearing some classic, if underpowered, armor) including War Machine, Spider-Woman, Firestar, and a pair of former villains in the Ultron and the new character Blue Bolt (showcasing the idea for the team to try and reform villains and turn them into heroes using their powers for good). The result of the teams actions in the field, so far, are mixed. And as for Ultron... it seems the redeemed robot has a new hobby not likely to win over new friends.
The season finale of Murder in a Small Town picks up the thread of the unsolved murder of the woman posed in the woods by delving into the same suspects suggested the previous week. The suspicious behavior of Cassandra's (Kristin Kreuk) friend from out of town Roger (Lucas Bryant) makes him the leading suspect, but stumbling into a connection between the art on display in the gallery and previous victims pushes Karl's (Rossif Sutherland) focus to the high school art teacher (Noah Reid) whose behavior towards Devon (Alisha Newton) also takes a dangerous turn leading to a standoff between the chief and the killer.
Far from a flop, but not the box office family comedy smash the fledging DreamWorks Pictures was hoping for, Galaxy Quest came and went in the winter of 1999 and early 2000 with marginal success. Those lucky enough to see the film in the theaters were in for a treat that stayed around the top 10 of the box office for several weeks earning positive reviews from critics and earning back double its production costs. Without really knowing what they had on their hands, bungling the marketing of the film and hamstringing its release, DreamWorks had nevertheless produced the best Star Trek movie ever made.
"One Flew Over" is more memorable for the Gibbs' (Austin Stowell) storylines than the murder of the week involving an elderly woman with dementia found dead in the woods. For Gibbs we get a present involving him taking care of an injured bird while flashbacks tie back, in an not-so-subtle metaphor, to the soldier's early interactions with Franks (Kyle Schmid) after returning home and his frustrations with the murderer still roaming free. Before the end, we'll also see Franks being unable to let a personal case go providing some understanding and commonalities between Franks and his probie.
Taking a page from the Justice League Unlimited TV-series, Justice League #1 reboots the Justice League as a worldwide group of heroes helping to fight threats around the world from the Watchtower. After a quick tour of the tower by the Flash for newbie Air Wave, a group of members (Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Lightning, Firestorm, Kid Flash, and Star Sapphire) is sent to deal with an issue in South Africa involving a terrorist group calling itself Inferno (who it appears will be sticking around for awhile).
The second episode of Interior Chinatown begins to explore the rules of the world as we see the limitations put on both Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) and Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet) who seem stuck in small supporting roles to a larger story. While Lana can offer insight and advice to Green (Lisa Gilroy) and Turner (Sullivan Jones), she is stuck firmly in the role of a sidekick. As for Willis, the pair ignore him completely and his access to parts of the city (here the police department) is blocked. However, after spending most of the episode unable to get into the department, Willis uses a stereotypical Asian role to gain entry, opening the door a bit wider to his access in the world.
Offering more of what was delivered in Moana, albeit without a memorable musical number, Moana 2 delivers more adventure for the titular character in continuing her journey into the wider world. After bringing her people out of isolation and back to the ocean, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) continues to search for other people leading to her next quest following the footsteps of her ancestors' greatest wayfinder Tautai Vasa in searching for the lost island capable of reuniting the people of the ocean.
Following the same format of the previous issues, Jenny Sparks #4 splits time with another Jenny Sparks flashback (this one dealing with the Spirit of the 20th Century taking out some aggression on corporate greed contributing to the housing crash of the late 2000s) and her present situation still attempting to talk down the deranged would-be god who just knocked off the Justice League.
The Second Season of Arcane: League of Legends picks up immediately after Jinx's (Ella Purnell) attack which managed to somehow only kill the minor supporting characters leaving Jayce (Kevin Alejandro), Caitlyn (Katie Leung), and Mel (Toks Olagundoye) largely unscathed and the other counselors only wounded - although Caitlyn does suffer the loss of her mother. Not knowing about his friend's secret experiments, Jayce blames the attack for Viktor's (Harry Lloyd) unusual condition.
After a couple of weeks with no murders within the town, "Family Concerns" offers two with the unrelated murders of two women found in the woods. The explanation of one turns out to be obvious enough with Karl (Rossif Sutherland) uncovering an affair and an unfortunate escalation of a disagreement between the victim and his lover's daughter (Natalie Malaika) which left the woman dead. Despite the father's (Ryan Allen) attempts to take the fall, after failing to pin the crime on the murderer of the earlier victim, the truth is far too easy for Karl to see once the facts emerge.
Reveling in 80s style, writer/director Ti West completes his X series with MaXXXine featuring Mia Goth reprising her role from X. Having built up a name for herself as a pornstar, Maxine Minx finally gets her big break in an auteur's (Elizabeth Debicki) horror film but that's when her past comes to call in the form of a degenerate private investigator (Kevin Bacon) and his mysterious employer (Simon Prast) who know the secrets from Maxine's past she wants to stay buried.
Saoirse Ronan stars in director Nora Fingscheidt's stylish memoir based on Amy Liptrot's true story. Jumping around her timeline to showcase various moments of Rona's (Ronan) life from childhood to present provides context to how she ended up one one of the most remote Orkney Islands fighting her addiction with alcoholism and building a new life. While following her inner journey, the film also examines life on the island and nature beyond as her relative isolation brings her a peace she hasn't seen in years.
But, why? Fans of 2000 film will remember that both the primary protagonist and antagonist die in Gladiator. Usually everyone being dead is a pretty good reason not to have a sequel. Not only that, but Maximus Decimus Meridius' entire quest to avenge the death of his family and remove control of Rome from the hands of a corrupt emperor succeeds in every way imaginable. The self-contained story is complete. So why, more than two decades later, are we getting a sequel?
While being so riled up with his wife's killer fucking with him, and working on finding the missing phone which is now in the hands of the dead man's baby mama, Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge) nearly shoots his daughter. And the poor girl, distrustful of anyone who could actually help her, runs into a hitman staying the same hotel who eventually gets bored of waiting and just kills her. So, it's not a great week for the master detective. Meanwhile, our serial killer (Ryan Eggold) targets his next victim which will complete the bizarre recreation set by targeting her at a coffee shop and over a dating site. However, a clue found by Cross will allow the actual investigation to get started.
Well that was anticlimactic. After being bested by Charles Devereaux (Richard Armitage) at every turn, Lara Croft (Hayley Atwell) faces off against the man who has acquired all the stones and (literally) become a monster... and she just beats him rather easily abruptly ending the threat and story in a single episode set within a secret bunker belonging to The Light. Aside from the victory, which Camilla Roth (Zoe Boyle) helps on, the episode is also notable for Lara finding some inner peace (Shifu would be proud) in a short coma at the beginning of the episode. With the threat neutralized, the series moves forward to its final episode of the season acting as both an epilogue and, no doubt, setting up for the show's next season which may actually see Lara use guns.
"Anatomy of the Fall" allows for the conclusion of Phoebe's (Molly Kunz) separate story and her return to the department. Before that, however, we'll get a case of suicides on campus which Alec (Jesse L. Martin) is asked to look into. What he finds, with the help of Marisa (Maahra Hill), is the latest suicide was anything but as a young woman's death was covered up by her sorority sisters attempting to avoid bad publicity. The episode is notable for the experiment playing on how peer pressure can force someone to go against what they know to be true, the case hitting home for Simon (Max Lloyd-Jones) given his brother's death, and Alec's interactions with the girl's father (Blake Robbins) allowing them both a way to honor the young woman's memory.
Adapted from Riot Games' League of Legends universe, the First Season of Arcane: League of Legends focuses on origin stories for sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell) while exploring the class struggles between the utopian city of Piltover and the oppressed underworld city of Zaun. The first thee episodes of the series provide examples of the girls' childhood and how that life ended badly for all involved while the rest of the season picks up years later bringing the two sisters, each believing the other died years ago, together again. Also explored is the rise of scientist Jayce Talis (Kevin Alejandro) and his Hextech technology which will change the world.
Set in a heightened reality, the opening episode of Interior Chinatown introduces us to waiter Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) in a world that feels more like a police procedural than real life with Willis cast as nothing more than a background actor. Witnessing an abduction brings Willis to the attention of Detective Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet) who reveals to Willis his older, and far more talented, brother who disappeared years ago was helping her department get to the truth of what is going in Chinatown. Lana offers Willis the same opportunity.
Mean Girls with a side of fantasy? Adapted from first act of the Broadway play, Wicked: Part I covers the childhood of Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and her enrollment at Shiz University where she'll be partnered with the mean but popular Galinda (Ariana Grande). It's also where Elphaba will discover that her magical ability is even rarer than her bright green skin eventually leading to trip to the Emerald City and an audience with the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).
The relaunch of a new main G.I. JOE title offers us a team of Duke, Rock 'n Roll, Stalker, Cover Girl, Clutch, and (most surprisingly for those who didn't read the Duke mini-series) the Baroness. The new series continues the story started in the various mini-series introducing key characters to merging G.I. JOE into a shared universe with the Transformers. The first issue introduces the team and points out early on that despite their skills they are far behind the group who has yet to be revealed as Cobra who is already maximizing Engeron to bolster their forces and the unknown threat of transforming robots from another world.
Gibbs' (Austin Stowell) first undercover operation is more notable for it continuing to build up the importance of Dominguez (Mariel Molino) to Gibbs during Mark Harmon's narration than anything that happens in the field as the two's attempt to buy stolen missile plans nearly goes south due to the slow response of their FBI backup. The episode continues to highlight Lala's struggles with the boys' network and second-thoughts about moving in with her boyfriend leading to getting frisky with a stranger outside the local bar. As to the foreshadowing, the show sure seems to be leading up to something tragic in the not-too-distant future.
The second episode of Citadel: Honey Bunny overs three threads. We get Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) finding her daughter Nadia (Kashvi Majmundar), which turns out to take less time than expected (and provide more context to the rules Honey has set up with her daughter in case of such emergencies), and relocating to a safe house with more pursuers on her trail. We see Bunny (Varun Dhawan) reconnect with his old friend Chacko (Shivankit Singh Parihar) and make a run on one of the enemy's bases coming up empty on the attack. And, in the past, we see Honey begin her training as a spy against the reservations of the misogynistic Guru (Kay Kay Menon) despite her obvious talent for the work and her relationship with Bunny turning romantic.
The character of Psylocke has had a complicated comic history. The new series centers not around the original Psyclocke Betsy Braddock but on Kwannon (think Elektra but a mutant and a bizarre body-swapping past). After a bit of off-the-books action to open up the comic's first issue, the former Hand assassin finds herself benched by Cyclops telling her she needs a vacation. Who wants to bet we aren't getting a bunch of issues of her lounging on the beach?
"The Madness Method" offers a twisty tale of a murder's psychiatrist (Paula Patton) warning the department he's (Keenan Tracey) on his way to Gibsons. Sensing something off about her story, and the woman herself, Karl (Rossif Sutherland) has his department dig into her background while they prepare for the killer's arrival. This leaves the department stretched thin when he arrives, but it also gives Karl the necessary information to know who is actually behind the attacks and prevent any more loss of life (even when he storms the department).
Playing with various versions of Transformers continuity to craft something new, Transformers One gives us the rise of both Optimus Prime and Megatron... eventually. The lack of recognizable characters may have played a role in the film's box office struggles, but fans missed out on what is easily the best Transformers movie in decades.
When Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped days before Christmas, the head of his security (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) will team up with a snarky bounty hunter (Chris Evans), whose actions led the kidnappers to the North Pole, in order to find Santa and save the holiday. Geared mostly towards preteens and teens, Red One is exactly what you would expect for a family Christmas action film with a big budget to blow on stars and special effects and far less time spent on plot.
1964's Topkapi is an odd film. Starting with a psychedelic opening in which a character breaks the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience, a device which is never seen again, the film then vacillates between a heist film and a farce before finally settling in as a serious heist film (with an admittedly farcical epilogue). The story involves a thief (Melina Mercouri) who recruits an old partner and lover (Maximilian Schell) and a collection of amateurs for a risky heist in Istanbul. Their plan relies, in part, on smuggling the tools needed into the country through the use of unaware small-time hustler Arthur Simpson (Peter Ustinov).
I really want to like this new Amazon series starring Leverage's Aldis Hodge as James Patterson's super-sleuth Alex Cross but I'm finding it quite hard to become emotionally invested in the story of a great detective getting the runaround by not one but two uncatchable serial killers in separate storylines that only somewhat overlap. My issues have more to do with Patterson and the structure of his work, always focusing on making the killers as genius and unstoppable as possible (and here throwing in two!) than Hodge or any member of the cast which also includes short appearances from Alona Tal who I would happily watch more of.
The second episode of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place is a by-the-numbers episode of Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) screwing up with magic, accidentally revealing their father's magical past to Milo (Max Matenko) and Roman (Alkaio Thiele) and then making half of each invisible, all while attempting to fit in leading to various shenanigans. Meanwhile, in attempts to cover up everything, Justin Russo (David Henrie) lies to his wife (Mimi Gianopulos), badly.
Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #4 offers three more tales of Spider-Man in his black costume, although none of the trio of stories collected in the fourth and final issue include the symbiote. My favorite of the stories, "Past Lives," takes place long after Peter's time with the symbiote and his return to the classic red and blue costume. However, when he needs to break into the Latverian embassy and doesn't feel right doing it in his classic colors, he reprises the black look once more while also hitting up Black Cat for help harkening back to a specific time in Peter Parker's life.
After the reintroduction of Brooklyn (Kiersten Kelly), the show moves forward splitting the focus between Brooklyn and the rest of the Nublar Six who will eventually all reach the same location by season end. We see some of Brooklyn's time with the DLN, explaining what she was doing with the rather dim eco-terrorists using them to find the Broker (Dichen Lachman) and nearly getting eaten by her pet raptor. We also see Brooklyn's call with Ben (Sean Giambrone) and the reasoning behind her decision to stay disconnected from her friends. The tension in Brooklyn segments work really well, as she barely escapes for her life, but this also marks the end of her story making any sort of sense for the remainder of the season.
The return of Freddy Freeman's powers, and a new attitude to go with them, is the focus of SHAZAM! #17. At the Rock of Eternity, Billy and the Captain meet Hephaestus who built the talisman Freddy found there fashioned from an alien and meant as a test to determine the worthiness of a hero and whether or not they can be corrupted by great power. So... what are the chances Freddy is found wanting?
Catching up to Charles Devereaux (Richard Armitage) in Iran, Lara Croft (Hayley Atwell) manages to save Jonah (Earl Baylon) but ends up even further behind her competition as Devereaux finds another stone. Highlights of the episode are Lara's skydiving into Iran and the fight on the bullet train. The episode is also notable for Lara being unable to talk Devereaux down from his obsession and for Camilla Roth (Zoe Boyle) discovering that the Light are up to something as it appears another player is about to enter the game.
