Alan Rapp

Zero Dark Thirty

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Zero Dark Thirty
  • IMDB: link

Zero Dark ThirtyDirector Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Marc Boal‘s examination of one woman’s 10 year odyssey to track down Osama bin Laden is an amazing piece of filmmaking that earned the top spot on my list of the Best Movies of 2012. Jessica Chastain stars as the increasingly obsessed CIA agent who isn’t lacking in self-confidence or knowledge but could use better people skills. Plucked from high school after 9/11 the movie follows Maya’s mission to find the illusive courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (Tushaar Mehra) who she is certain will lead back to bin Laden.

Bigelow delivers a hard look at the successes and failures of the operation which finally bore fruit thanks to Maya’s (Chastian) dogged determinism. The movie doesn’t shy away from controversial issues such using torture to extract information, but it neither endorses or condemns the methods used over the decade long search for the man responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

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Guardians of the Galaxy #1

/ / Comics

Guardians of the Galaxy #1The new adventures of Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Gamora, Groot, and Drax begins with Peter Quill receiving a surprise visit from his estranged father and a warning that Earth has been deemed off-limits to all extra-terrestrials. Realizing such a bold pronouncement would only paint a bullseye on his homeworld, the Guardians of the Galaxy head into the Milky Way where they find Iron Man, in his spiffy new space armor, fighting off an entire battleship of Badoon.

After a pretty good reintroduction to Peter Quill (and his major daddy issues) the comic ramps up the action pretty fast as Iron Man and the Guardians work together to stop whatever the Badoon have planned. The good news is the group is successful. The bad news is the Guardians crash land on Earth, immeadiately violating the treaty his father just signed (which may have been his plan all along).

A strong first issue, even if Quill and (to a lesser extent Iron Man) get the spotlight shone of them far more than the rest of the team.

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Nikita – Inevitability

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Nikita – Inevitability
  • tv.com: link

Nikita - Inevitability

After the CIA installs the wrong man as the President of Chad (Jonathan Adams), Division is tasked with assassinating an out of control asset who plans to sell a list of the names of every overseas operative working in the oil industry to the Russians. When both Alex (Lyndsy Fonseca) and Birkhoff (Aaron Stanford) refuse to take part Nikita (Maggie Q) and a conflicted Owen (Devon Sawa), with Sean (Dillon Casey) as back-up, go in alone to assassinate the world leader and make it appear as if he died of a heart attack as Michael (Shane West) and Ryan (Noah Bean) try to keep the rest of Division from finding out about the mission.

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Batman Incorporated #9

/ / Comics

Batman Incorporated #9As Batman, Alfred, Nightwing, and Red Robin lay Damian Wayne to rest Grant Morrison’s craptastic Leviathan storyline continues. Talia, her overgrown clone of a son, and the Leviathan troops are in control of Wayne Enterprises and issue demands for Batman to be banned from Gotham City and all of Batman Incorporated’s operations around the world to cease immediately.

Sure I could sit here and rip apart Grant Morrission’s “plot,” such as how Leviathan could ever make good on their threats, or the near-impossibility of removing all likenesses of Batman from a city in eight hours. Or I could simply point out the writer’s usual brand of mumbo-jumbo that the writer uses in place of actual plot.

Or I might mention how ridiculous the events covered in this storyline appear when (aside from Damian’s death) are completely being ignored in EVERY OTHER BATBOOK. You’d think Gotham under siege of a terrorist organization run by Batman’s former lover might be something that would effect other Batman-related comics.

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XIII – Phoenix

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: XIII – Phoenix
  • tv.com: link

XIII - Phoenix

After being betrayed by Jones (Aisha Tyler) and loosing the weapon he fought so hard to obtain, XIII (Stuart Townsend) goes into hiding in the show’s Season Two premiere. After being shot and left for dead on the bridge XIII lays low, hiding out  in a peaceful Occupy-style rally, but when the members are brutally assaulted by the local police force XIII intercedes to save one of the protesters, Betty Barnowsky (Roxane Mesquida) who introduces her protector to the head of the protesters known as The Veil, a man named Vargas (Bruce Ramsay) in need of someone with XIII’s skill set to take down a company known as Synequanon who is testing an ecological damaging weapon in Alaska.

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