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Misbehaviour

  • Title: Misbehaviour
  • IMDb: link

Misbehaviour movie reviewMisbehaviour looks back at both the 1970 Miss World competition in London and a handful of women involved with the women’s liberation movement who achieved overnight fame by invading the stage and disrupting the live broadcast. The script by Rebecca Frayn, who also directs, and Gaby Chiappe is a bit more nuanced than I expected. While the film certainly points out the numerous issues with the pageant objectifying the contestants for the public, it also showcases the good of Miss World offering opportunity to women all over the world and allowing both the panel’s judges and its audience the opportunity to consider beauty in different forms.

Keira Knightley stars as a college student and new member of the more disruptive chapter of the WLM (Jessie Buckley, Ruby Bentall, Lily Newmark, among others). The 1970 pageant was memorable both for the protest, which disrupted the live telecast, and for the fact that Miss Grenada (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) became the first black woman to win. Greg Kinnear is a bit hammy playing Bob Hope, who the organizers (Rhys Ifans and Keeley Hawes) recruit as this year’s celebrity. But, to be fair, he is playing Bob Hope.

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Justice Society: World War II

  • Title: Justice Society: World War II
  • IMDb: link

Justice Society: World War II Blu-ray reviewAfter some lean years where DC Animated had decided to explore the clusterfuck that was the New 52, things appear to be getting back on track. It’s amazing how easily and well DC can do when they make the Flash (Matt Bomer) the heart of the story (see Justice League: The New Frontier and Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox). And, thank god, the creators of the film knew enough to keep the character’s gorgeous simplistic design rather than the eyesore DC has been pushing on readers for nearly a decade now.

While fighting Brainiac (Darin De Paul) with Superman (Darren Criss), the Flash accidentally races so fast he enters the Speed Force and winds up in Germany. During World War II. On an alternate Earth. On this world, alongside the Allied troops, a group of heroes is fighting off the Nazis including another Flash (Armen Taylor), Wonder Woman (Stana Katic), Hawkman (Omid Abtahi), Steve Trevor (Chris Diamantopoulos), Hourman (Matthew Mercer), and Black Canary (Elysia Rotaru).

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The Host

  • Title: The Host (2006)
  • IMDb: link

The Host movie reviewThrowback Thursday takes us back to 2006 and a South Korean horror film from one of today’s best directors. Although writer/director Bong Joon Ho has reached greater heights with Memories of Murder and Parasite, his 2006 horror film Gwoemul, or The Host, about a mutated creature running amok along the Han River is still quite entertaining. We see the cause of the creature in the movie’s first scene when an American scientist (Scott Wilson) orders dangerous chemicals destroyed and flushed into the river (in reference to U.S. Military’s actions in Seoul in 2000).

The plot mostly revolves around a single dysfunctional family made up of snack bar owner Park Gang-du (Kang-ho Song) his father (Byun Hee-bong), his daughter Hyun-seo (Ko Asung), his sister (Bae Doona), and his brother (Park Hae-il). Present during the first attack, Hyun-seo is presumed dead although she was actually only taken deep into the sewers by the creature as the family, when not fighting each other or running from inept police and health officials, mounts a search.

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Mortal Kombat

  • Title: Mortal Kombat (1995)
  • IMDb: link

Mortal Kombat movie reviewThrowback Thursday takes us back to 1995 to the first attempt to adapt the Mortal Kombat video game into a feature film. Director Paul W.S. Anderson‘s Mortal Kombat is a flawed, but nonetheless enjoyable, B-movie. The story involves former Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Hollywood action star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), and Special Forces officer Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) being chosen by Thunder God Lord Raiden (Christopher Lambert) to defend Earth against an evil dimension in a tournament known as Mortal Kombat.

Each fighter has a different purpose for entering the tournament. Cage wants to prove his ability as a fighter (in a secret tournament no one will know about?), Kang is after revenge for the death of his brother (Steven Ho), and Sonya is chasing another competitor in the mercenary Kano (Trevor Goddard). The story is simply a loose structure to fit the various fight sequences, locations, and set pieces. An unapologetic B-movie memorable for Lambert’s mugging and some not too shabby special effects for the time, the film works as a tribute to the video game series without anyone in front, or behind, the cameras, or in the audience, taking the very ridiculous premise seriously.

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WWE Elimination Chamber 2021

  • Title: WWE Elimination Chamber 2021
  • wiki: link

WWE Elimination Chamber 2021 DVD reviewReleased on DVD, WWE Elimination Chamber 2021 includes all seven of the matches from this year’s Elimination Chamber PPV (although it’s stretching things to refer to two of them as matches) plus the Fatal 4-Way Match which was part of the kick-off show is included as an extra. Most of the matches are short (under 10 minutes each) and the PPV featured no woman’s Elimination Chamber Match for the first time since 2017.

The two Elimination Chamber Matches featured Daniel Bryan defeating Cesaro, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Baron Corbin, and Sami Zayn to earn a Universal Championship opportunity (and promptly get squashed by Roman Reigns) and Drew McIntyre successfully defended his title by defeating AJ Styles, Jeff Hardy, Kofi Kingston, Randy Orton, and Sheamus to retain his World Heavyweight Championship before being attacked by Bobby Lashley (who had lost the WWE United States Championship earlier in the evening) and then losing his title when the Miz cashed-in his Money in the Bank contract.

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