July 2014

Batman – The Last Laugh

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Batman: The Animated Series – The Last Laugh
  • wiki: link

Batman - The Last Laugh

In honor of Batman‘s 75th Anniversary we turn out attention back to the Dark Knight’s more memorable moments on the big and small screen with another episode from Batman: The Animated Series. Drawing on both the mix of a classic comic story and the set-up of the climax of Tim Burton’s Batman, “The Last Laugh” brings the Joker (Mark Hamill) back to Gotham on April Fools’ Day to gas the entire populace using an innocuous-looking garbage scow which allows the villain a free run at mischief, mayhem, and robbery.

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Graceland – The Unlucky One

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Graceland – The Unlucky One
  • wiki: link

Graceland - The Unlucky One

The morning after Mike‘s (Aaron Tveit) somewhat hollow victory that threw a wrench into the Solano Cartel’s drug smuggling operation, but netted the FBI no big fish, the harsh light of day brings with it news of Jakes‘ (Brandon Jay McLaren) arrest and Paige (Serinda Swan) taking the place of one of the human trafficking victims who is now lost in a system Mike and his team know almost nothing about. Already keeping Lawrence (John Kapelos) locked down in a safe house not knowing who the identity of the Solano’s mole inside law enforcement who disrupted the operation and not knowing who to trust, Mike decides to use the uncooperative insider to get any information out of Lawrence which might lead the team to Paige, but to do so he will need Briggs‘ (Daniel Sunjata) help.

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The Pretender – The Better Part of Valor

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Pretender – The Better Part of Valor
  • wiki: link

The Pretender - The Better Part of Valor

Jarod (Michael T. Weiss) becomes a firefighter in order to investigate a series of warehouse fires, the latest of which killed a local firefighter. While befriending the victim’s father (Patrick Cronin) and fighting with another member (Isabel Glasser) of the “Fighting 16th” who blames herself for the death of the only other female firefighter on the squad (and Jarod for replacing her) the Pretender uncovers an insurance scam which is not only responsible for the increased number of arsons but also the murder of the firefighter who stumbled onto the situation in the line of duty only to be killed by another firefighter (Michael O’Neill) to hide the truth.

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Lucy

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Lucy
  • IMDb: link

LucyFalling back on a long debunked myth Hollywood fell in love with years ago that somehow a person only uses 10% of their brain, the latest movie from writer/director Luc Besson casts Scarlett Johansson as a completely unexceptional young woman whose mind is opened up by a designer drug allowing her to access more and more of her “unused” brain. The result feels very much like a script where only a fraction of 10% of a person’s brain power was used to write it.

Unapologetically becoming more and more like The Matrix as Lucy’s intelligence grows and gives her access to the hidden code of the world (which is never adequately explained despite the narration by Morgan Freeman‘s character) and various super powers, Besson’s story never differentiates between the ability to absorb knowledge and knowledge itself. Just because Lucy suddenly has a bigger brain doesn’t mean she still wouldn’t have to learn the knowledge or skills (including advanced computer coding and foreign languages) to properly use them.

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Perception – Inconceivable

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Perception – Inconceivable
  • wiki: link

Perception - Inconceivable

Kate (Rachael Leigh Cook) calls in Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack) to help work an unusual case involving a grieving mother and the woman (Sadie Stratton) who stole her fake baby doll. Where one woman was a grieving mother who had the doll made to resemble the son she recently only to lose him when the dollmaker (John Hans Tester) sold him to another customer the other would-be mother honestly believes the baby doll to be completely real. When one woman turns up dead, with the baby missing and the other woman with an ironclad alibi, one of the show’s more unique murder investigations begins and only gets stranger when they discover a real missing baby is at the heart of the entire sordid mess.

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