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Young Justice: Invasion

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  • Title: Young Justice: Invasion
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Young Justice: InvasionSet five years after the show’s First Season, the Second Season of Young Justice introduced older versions of the original show’s characters while expanding the team with a new set of young heroes as well. Invasion‘s overall arc involves the behind-the-scenes manipulations of The Light as well as the arrival of The Reach on Earth whose true purposes are far more nefarious than the aliens let on.

With Dick Grayson moving onto the role of Nightwing (Jesse McCartney) the team gets a new Robin (Cameron Bowen) along with Batgirl (Alyson Stoner), Wonder Girl (Mae Whitman), and Impulse (Jason Marsden) all becoming a part of the team. Aqualad (Khary Payton) and Artemis (Stephanie Lemelin) will both spend a large portion of the season undercover with The Light, the truth about Red Arrow & Arsenal will be discovered, and another founding member of the team will give his life to save the world from The Reach in the series finale.

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The Skeleton Twins

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  • Title: The Skeleton Twins
  • IMDb: link

The Skeleton TwinsWritten and directed by Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman The Skeleton Twins, is a holiday release staple of a awkward family dramedy starring Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader as estranged twins who both contemplate suicide on the same day.

Brought back together after Milo’s unsuccessful suicide attempt, Maggie and Milo get to know each other again after being apart for nearly an entire decade as Milo struggles to fit into Maggie’s life with her optimistic go-getter husband (Luke Wilson) while discovering his sister’s life is just as fucked-up as his own as she continually cheats on the man she professes to love while hiding the fact that she’s still on birth control as they try to get pregnant.

Neither as dramatic nor humorous as you might first assume given the subject matter and its two former Saturday Night Live stars, splitting the difference The Skeleton Twins mixes in some dark humor to balance out the siblings’ poor life choices which lead them both to consider taking their own lives.

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Snowpiercer

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  • Title: Snowpiercer
  • IMDb: link

SnowpiercerI had a very mixed reaction to writer/director Joon-ho Bong‘s Snowpiercer. One one-hand I’m increasingly tired dramas using the trappings of sci-fi to offer up dystopian futures and thinly-veiled class struggle that offer no message other than the fact that such inequality is wrong and ultimately disastrous to the human species. My rebelling against the form isn’t really Snowpiercer‘s fault other than the fact it adds to the glut of similarly-themed films in recent years. On the other hand the film certainly embraces the literal interpretation of rising above your class to offer a bizarre struggle of less fortunate train passengers attempting to climb their way upward.

At its worst Snowpiercer feels preachy and overreaching in its visual style presenting each train car as a bizarely impossible worlds for the voyagers to walk through. It’s also not well served by a performance so over-the-top by Tilda Swinton it’s amazing she doesn’t hit her head on the roof in every scene. At its best the film does serve its message and offer Chris Evans a role as a would-be hero forced to face the deficiencies in both himself and the world he hopes to make more equitable through his struggle.

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A Most Wanted Man

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  • Title: A Most Wanted Man
  • IMDb: link

A Most Wanted ManNotable for being the final non-Hunger Games role of Philip Seymour Hoffman, A Most Wanted Man is a slow-burning espionage thriller involving a secret German anti-terrorism unit tracking a potential suspect (Grigoriy Dobrygin). Although it’s based on the work of the same author, sadly, it’s not Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (which surprisingly moves at a far better pace than A Wanted Man).

The main takeaway from the film is how little actually happens in surveillance and much of what we do see (including a flailing romantic subplot) isn’t always that interesting. The cast is well chosen, and Hoffman leads a group of talented actors (Robin Wright, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe) each providing strong performances, but the movie lacks the will or motivation to put them to better use than we see here. It’s certainly not a bad film by any means, and is certainly worth viewing for the performances alone, but the end result is less than the sum of its parts.

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How to Train Your Dragon 2

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  • Title: How to Train Your Dragon 2
  • IMDb: link

How to Train Your Dragon 2Set a few years after the events of the first film, How to Train Your Dragon 2 continues the hero’s journey of Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless and the rest of the dragon riders of Birk as Hiccup finds his long-lost mother Valka (Cate Blanchett) and squares off against a dragon army led by the villainous Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou).

How to Train Your Dragon 2 works as well for me on Blu-ray as it did in theaters (and some of the emotional beats even work better a second time). Given the quality of the first two films, I hope we see this series continue for a long time. For more on the movie, check out my original review.

The Blu-ray includes DVD and UV digital copies of the film along with a half-hour short explaining the creation of Birk’s dragon races, deleted scenes, trailers, and short featurettes on Hiccup’s inventions, Drago’s weapons, the various dragons in the film, and Birk.

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