June 2020

Green Lantern 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular

Green Lantern 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular comic reviewThe latest DC 80th anniversary issue celebrates various Green Lantern characters including Alan Scott (the Golden Age Green Lantern who isn’t part of the Green Lantern Corps) but there are some notable absences of fan favorites as well such as Ch’p, Arisia Rrab, Katma Tui, Tomar-Re, G’nort, or Sojourner Mullein (who is at least included in a one-page art insert).

Along with the Alan Scott story, we get Earth’s greatest Green Lantern Hal Jordan in stories involving being trapped on a desolate world with his power ring running out, a team-up with Green Arrow written by Dennis O’Neil, and a story featuring Hal, John Stewart (who also gets a solo story), and Kyle Rayner (who sadly also gets a solo story) set years in the future.

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Bloodshot

  • Title: Bloodshot
  • IMDb: link

Bloodshot DVD reviewBased on the comic of the same name, Bloodshot is a sci-fi action flick starring Vin Diesel as United States Marine Ray Garrison resurrected using nanite technology which can repair his body making him an ideal candidate to join the team of enhanced soldiers (Eiza González, Sam Heughan, and Alex Hernandez). Haunted by fragments of memory, Garrison leaves Rising Spirit Tech to kill the man (Toby Kebbell) responsible for his wife’s (Talulah Riley) death… or so he thinks.

The character seems tailor-made for Diesel with simple motivations (honor, family revenge) and a desire to kick-ass. The basic set-up works fine for an action flick, even if the value of the other soldiers is questionable. Then there’s the twist of the CEO (Guy Pearce) reprogramming and sending the half-cocked Garrison after targets by fabricating memories that never existed. The problem, of course, is once the truth is revealed the movie doesn’t really have anywhere interesting to go as it devolves into a basic shoot ’em up with hacking and science-driven subplots that get increasingly ridiculous as the film slogs its way to the finish line.

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Super Dinosaur – Go to Town

  • Title: Super Dinosaur – Go to Town
  • IMDb: link

Super Dinosaur - Go to Town television review

“Go to Town,” also known as “Jurassic Golf,” involves Super Dinosaur (Mac Heywood) using his new stealth suit to sneak along with Derek (Valin Shinyei) and the Kingstons for a round at a dino-themed miniature golf park. Along with the golf course itself, which provides opportunities for SD to show himself but be mistaken for a park attraction, the episode is notable for Tricerachops’ (Kathleen Barr) attempt to lure SD away from the humans and join the rest of the Dino-Men. She makes a pretty good pitch, and had Max Maximus (Marco Soriano) not shown up to start a fight with SD it’s possible Earthcore’s greatest asset may not have returned (though life under the thumb of Maximus would never be the T-Rex’s preferred vacations spot).

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Guilty Pleasure – American Outlaws

  • Title: American Outlaws
  • IMDb: link

American Outlaws Blu-ray reviewBy any objective standard, you can’t call 2001’s American Outlaws a good movie. The western is historically inaccurate in countess ways, features over-the-top performances from a number of actors, feels far too modern in tone and style, is punctuated with juvenile humor, and ignores almost any context for its characters’ actions and place in history. What you can say about American Outlaws is it’s dumb fun in the style of Young Guns (which obviously inspired it). Heavy on dumb, yes, but still fun.

Opening at the end of the Civil War, which involves some heroic foolishness by our leading man almost single-handedly winning the group’s final battle, the film stars Colin Farrell as Jesse James, Gabriel Macht as his brother Frank, and Scott Caan and Will McCormack as Cole and Bob Younger. The weary soldiers return home from war only to find railroad baron Thaddeus Rains (Harris Yulin) pushing families off their farms in the name of progress through bribes, theft, arson, threats, and murder.

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Once and Future #8

Once and Future #8 comic reviewOnce and Future #8 confirms both the identity of the old wizard we saw in the last issue steal the Beowulf manuscript as Merlin and explain why he has been working in the shadows to bring Bewoulf back into the world. Despite Bridgette’s assertion that Beowulf is nothing more than a poem, the now flesh-and-blood legendary warrior strolls both into Zombie Camelot and later finds his way onto the top of Duncan’s car (as Rose’s warning comes seconds too late).

Beowulf makes a powerful ally for Zombie Arthur and Merlin who trick the legendary hero and send him after Duncan and his Gran. I’ll be curious to see what direction the story takes. Will Duncan need to best the hero? Or merely make him see the truth?

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