Alan Rapp

Americana

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

Set up as a number of interlocking stories all centered around an expensive rare Native American ghost shirt and the desperately stupid people who want it, writer/director Tony Tost‘s Americana is an interesting exercise even if it doesn’t all quite fit together such as the extended lull in the backstabbing Mandy Starr (Halsey) returning home. The highlights here are Sydney Sweeney as stuttering waitress Penny Jo (although the controversy of her American Eagle ad isn’t likely to help the small independent film at the box office), Paul Walter Hauser as the lonely cowboy, and young Gavin Maddox Bergman as a mixed up kid who has watched too many cowboy movies claiming he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull. As ridiculous and culturally inappropriate as he is, the kid proves surprisingly good with a bow and arrow.

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Space Ghost #1

/ / Comics

Relaunching the series with a new volume but keeping the same creative team for no real reason (who does Dynamite Entertainment think they are, Marvel?), Space Ghost #1 gives us the Toymaker‘s attack on Playtopia Prime turning the amusement park into a death trap and threatening the lives of all the hostages. Intercut with the comic’s B-story, we get a lot of hero and and villain wisecracking to each other as Space Ghost challenges the Toymaker to a game where, thanks to the help of Blip, he wins.

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Nine Puzzles – Episode 5

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Nine Puzzles – Episode 5
  • IMDb: link

Episode 5 primarily deals with Yoon E-na (Kim Da-mi) and Kim Han-saem (Son Suk-ku) working the poisoning of a factory worker whose son died in an industrial accident a year prior. Although the pair solve the case, E-na isn’t troubled by motives she doesn’t understand. In terms of the larger puzzle mystery, the episode will also start a trend of one or the other visiting Miyoung (Aria Song) while attempting to connect the various puzzle victims together. Their work on unmasking the unlikely killer in the poisoner case finally finishes building trust between the pair leading to them to look at the larger case in earnest together while working out of Han-seam’s apartment. And while their connection still isn’t clear, although a big clue will be discovered next episode, E-na deposits a theory as to why the seemingly unrelated victims may have all been targeted.

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War 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: War 2
  • IMDb: link

A direct sequel to 2019’s War, although other films within the shared YRF Spy Universe take place in between, War 2 returns Hrithik Roshan as Major Kabir Dhaliwal who, by all appearances, has been working as a mercenary for hire while only his longtime friend Colonel Luthra (Ashutosh Rana) knows is still putting India first even if it is no longer as an official member of the R&AW. The first thing you notice from the film, in an extended action sequence in the mountains of Japan, is how much sleeker and polished it looks compared to the first film (having more than double the budget than the original War).

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War

/ / Home Video
  • Title: War (2019)
  • IMDb: link

Part of the shared YRF Spy Universe, 2019’s War stars Hrithik Roshan as Major Kabir Dhaliwal, the best agent of R&AW who goes rogue forcing his prized pupil Captain Khalid Rahmani (Tiger Shroff) to go after him. Kabir’s struggles with initially training Khalid (although the film is dripping with homoerotic overtones regardless whether they are working together or opposed in any individual scene), and his reasons for later going rogue, are shown in extended flashbacks finally uncovering the motivation for the spy’s killing spree and ultimate goal.

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