June 2015

The Newsroom – The Complete Third Season

  • Title: The Newsroom – Season Three
  • wiki: link

The Newsroom - The Complete Third SeasonThe final season of The Newsroom may not be as good as the show’s First Season but it is better (taken as a whole) than the show’s inconsistent sophomore outing. Nearly the entire cast returns for a final six episodes centered around an Edward Snowden-like figure whose leaking of classified documents to News Night gets Will (Jeff Daniels) in trouble with the United States Government and forces Neal Sampat (Dev Patel) to flee the country before being charged with espionage and treason. An examination of Snowden’s actions would likely have played better than the fictionalized account that, like Season Two, has several ups and downs.

There’s also a wedding, a romantic turn for Sloan (Olivia Munn) and Don (Thomas Sadoski), relationship drama, Maggie (Alison Pill) and Jim (John Gallagher Jr.) continue their dysfunctional dance, a hostile takeover of the cable news network’s parent company, and the news team mourns the death a major supporting character.

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Secret Six #3

Secret Six #3Four months after the release of the last issue the adventures of the new Secret Six continue with the recently thrown together team moving into the suburbs together. Needless to say they make quite an impression on their neighbors.

Although I’m still not completely sold on the make-up of the new team, writer Gail Simone has fun bouncing the various group members off each other under the same roof for the first time. While the comic doesn’t have much in the way of action it does reveal a traitor among the group as well as the true identity of Mockingbird this time around.

Sadly the issue does have its problems starting with the incredibly disappointing look at Catman in his new costume. The early scenes involving the bare-chested warrior (whose run in with the cop could have been toned down a bit) bring back the character Simone masterfully brought to the forefront of the DCU, but his new duds (making him look like a failed back-up dancer for a Michael Jackson tribute band) are the worst thing to happen to the character since Kevin Smith. For fans.

[DC, $2.99]

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Star Wars Rebels – The Siege of Lothal

  • Title: Star Wars Rebels – The Siege of Lothal
  • wiki: link

Star Wars Rebels - The Siege of Lothal

Season Two of Star Wars Rebels opens with a large space battle. Since we’ve seen them last the crew of the Ghost has joined the struggling Rebellion, a decision which doesn’t sit well with all members of the crew. Tricked into returning to Lothal to rescue Minister Tua (Kath Soucie) who offers them valuable intelligence for their assistance, the crew is lured into the first of two traps by Darth Vader (James Earl Jones).

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Blackhat

  • Title: Blackhat
  • IMDb: link

BlackhatAlthough less intentionally comedic than Hackers, the idea of Chris Hemsworth as one of the world’s most preeminent hackers is no less ridiculous than Angelina Jolie as one. The movie’s story revolves around the search for those responsible for cyber attacks in both United States and China which causes the creation of a joint task force and brings Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) to the United States to get his old college buddy Nick Hathaway (Hemsworth) out of prison to help with the search.

Along for the ride are Dawai’s sister Lien (Wei Tang) who wastes no time in taking a romantic interest in Hathaway (creating a problematic romantic subplot that has no hope of ever paying off), Holt McCallany as a Federal babysitter, and Viola Davis having fun as the one-note Department of Justice ball-buster who uncharacteristically chooses to help the criminal putting her own career and life in jeopardy when the plot demands it.

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