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Covert Affairs – The Complete Fifth Season

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  • Title: Covert Affairs – Season Five
  • wiki: link

Covert Affairs - The Complete Fifth SeasonAnnie Walker‘s (Piper Perabo) spy adventures come to an end in the final season of Covert Affairs. The Fifth Season introduces a new love interest for Annie in Ryan McQuaid (Nic Bishop), whose guilt or innocence in a terrorist plot against the United States takes up a big chunk of the season, and sees Annie leave the CIA over medical issues the Agency feel could compromise her effectiveness in the field.

Highlights include the season premiere which introduces McQuaid and brings Annie back into the CIA following her takedown of Henry Wilcox (Gregory Itzin), Annie going to work for McQuaid, Amy Jo Johnson joining the cast to investigate the Chicago bombing, Annie and McQuaid’s trip to Caracas, the final appearance of Eyal Lavin (Oded Fehr), Auggie (Christopher Gorham) getting lost in a conspiracy, the struggle to prove McQuaid’s innocence, Auggie’s abduction and torture by Aleksandre Belenko (Shawn Dowyle), the revelation of how Annie spent her summer, the return of Natasha (Liane Balaban), trips to Paris and Azerbaijan, and the final two episodes of taking down Belenko.

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Batman vs. Robin

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  • Title: Batman vs. Robin
  • IMDb: link

Batman vs. RobinThe sequel to 2014’s Son of Batman inserts Batman‘s (Jason O’Mara) contentious relationship with Damian (Stuart Allan) into a streamlined version of the Court of Owls arc from DC’s new 52 featuring a secret society of zombie ninja assassins and their 1% overloads all clad in an owl motif. Oh, and they’ve been around ruling Gotham from the shadows unnoticed for decades and have a giant maze in their basement. Yeah, it’s as ridiculous as it sound.

Truncating the unwieldy long arc and motivation of the Court of Owls helps sell the story but the real meat comes not from the new villains but from the struggle of Bruce and Damian to properly connect both as father and son and as Caped Crusaders. Building on events from Son of Batman, Batman vs. Robin may not be as strong as the former but it does continue to develop the relationships set-up in the first film, offers some visually interesting fight sequences, and is a far shade better than DC’s other attempts to turn problematic New 52 stories into features.

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4 Film Favorites: Movies that Rock

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  • Title: Rock of Ages, School of Rock, Detroit Rock City, Empire Records
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

4 Film Favorites: Movies that RockCollecting four movies with plots revolving around music 4 Film Favorites: Movies that Rock includes Rock of Ages, School of Rock, Detroit Rock City, and Empire Records.

Although none of the four are standouts, the highlight of the collection (in terms of both star power and musical performances) is likely the theatrical adaptation of the jukebox stage musical Rock of Ages starring Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Malin Akerman. Read the full review.

Empire Records is a B-movie version of High Fidelity starring Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Robin Tunney, Renée Zellweger, Ethan Embry, Liv Tyler, and Johnny Whitworth as employees of a struggling record store. School of Rock stars Jack Black as a struggling musician who takes over the job as a substitute music teacher. Detroit Rock City stars Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Edward Furlong, and Sam Huntington as four teens struggling to make it into a KISS concert in 1978.

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Sharky’s Machine

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  • Title: Sharky’s Machine
  • IMDb: link

Sharky's MachineA product of its times Sharky’s Machine feels every bit the early 80s cop drama it is. Adapted from William Diehl‘s novel of the same name Burt Reynolds stars as Police Sergeant Tom Sharky. In the movie’s opening scene the reckless hero cop is demoted from Homicide to Vice after a drug bust goes bad. Stuck in the lowest rungs of the department, Sharky begins investigating a string of high-priced call girls one of whom (Rachel Ward) he falls for while surveilling for weeks.

Slow-moving with much of the plot centered around surveillance of a prostitute’s apartment where not much actually happens, Sharky’s Machine is an R-rated film that could probably be shown today on prime-time network television today except for language and a dark final act involving the torture of our hero. It’s also filled with bizarre WTF? moments (such as when a police informant is killed by ninjas). And it features some old school Bond-style romancing of damsels in distress by slapping them around a bit when necessary.

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Eddie and the Cruisers Double Feature

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  • Title: Eddie and the Cruisers / Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

“I want to be remembered for the music or not at all.”

Eddie and the Cruisers Double FeatureReleased in 1983 Eddie and the Cruisers was a box office bomb despite a hit soundtrack that got the film a second theatrical release the following year. A rock and roll mystery, the film told the story of frontman Eddie Wilson (Michael Paré) through flashbacks and interviews with the other members of the band (primarily the keyboard player played by Tom Berenger) by a reporter (Ellen Barkin) hot on the story of the band’s missing second album and questions as to what really happened to Eddie Wilson. Despite it’s lack of response from both theatrical audiences and critics the movie has become a cult hit that even spawned a sequel in 1989.

Where the first film focused on the fallout of Eddie’s disapperance to those he left behind, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! picks up the threads of the first film finding Eddie Wilson alive in Canada pushed to give music a second chance thanks to the release of the Cruisers lost “A Season in Hell” and an Eddie Lives! campaign by the studio that ruined his life.

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