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Chronicle

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  • Title: Chronicle
  • IMDB: link

chronicle-blu-rayI like super-hero movies but I’m far from fond of found footage films which present events from the perspective of characters documenting their own adventures. Chronicle stars out with a really good idea as it shows us what might happen if three high school misfits (Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan) found themselves with super-powers. However, the execution and thinly written characters produce mixed results for a movie that should have knocked my socks off as the shaky-cam pseudo-documentary style narrative is far from the film’s biggest problem.

The action sequences are impressive, especially the final battle between two of the super-powered teens, and the realistic way in which the kids used their powers (basically to screw with people and for their own enjoyment) worked well, but every time the film attempted to put the super-human powers on hold in favor of high school drama the film stalled.

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Gone

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  • Title: Gone
  • IMDB: link

gone-dvdOne year after Jill (Amanda Seyfried) was kidnapped by a serial killer her sister Molly (Emily Wickersham) disappears without a trace leaving the excitable young woman to believe the kidnapper has returned. The police (Daniel Sunjata, Jennifer Carpenter), who could find no physical evidence to back up Jill’s story of the first kidnapping once again believe the young woman with a history of mental illness is simply letting her imagination get away with her.

For Gone to work both stories need to be given equal weight, but despite Jill’s increasingly erratic behavior (which only grows because everyone refuses to help her) we know something has happened to her sister and Jill isn’t simply imagining the situation. The film follows the same movie logic of plenty of thrillers where dumb movie cops aren’t able to solve a crime for an entire year but one woman with no training is able to track the killer back to his lair in a single day. She also proves to have a remarkable ability to elude detection when an entire city’s police force is looking for her.

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Coriolanus

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  • Title: Coriolanus
  • IMDB: link

coriolanus-posterFor his directorial debut Ralph Fiennes chooses a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare‘s Coriolanus. To help, Fiennes enlisted the help of screenwriter John Logan (Hugo, The Last Samuari, Sweeney Todd, Rango, Gladiator). It’s an ambitious project to be sure but despite some solid performances the film hits some snags when adapting the story to modern day.

Fiennes stars as Caius Marcius Coriolanus, a legendary general of Rome who cares little for politics, and far less for the troubles of the common man. Despite his disinterest he agrees to run for the Senate to please his mother (Vanessa Redgrave). This action, far more than any risk ever taken on the battlefield, will prove to be his undoing.

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Sherlock – The Complete Second Season

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  • Title: Sherlock – The Complete Second Season
  • tv.com: link

sherlock-season-two-blu-rayFormer Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who does double duty by playing Sherlock’s brother Mycroft Holmes) continue their reimagining of Sherlock Holmes in modern day London. The Second Season starts out with one of Holmes’ most famous cases and the introduction of “The Woman,” followed by a demon hound loose on the moors, and ends with the fall, and apparent death, of the detective at the hands of Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott).

Of the three episodes from this season, the first (“A Scandal in Belgravia“) is my favorite. The episode introduces the character of Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), the only character to ever best Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories. Pulver makes a deliciously conniving Adler and brings out a side in this version of Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) we had not seen before.

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Chuck Versus the Fifth (and Final) Season

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  • Title: Chuck – The Complete Fifth Season
  • tv.com: link

chuck-season-five-dvdThe final season of Chuck finds the Intersect in the head of Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez) and our super-CIA spies entering the private sector as Carmichael Industries. As Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) enjoy married life, Casey (Adam Baldwin) gets a girlfriend (Carrie-Anne Moss) and goes to jail with Lester (Vik Sahay).

This year’s missions include a computer super-virus, the return of old foes Decker (Richard Burgi) and Shaw (Brandon Routh), and an even deadlier new one in Nicholas Quinn (Angus Macfadyen). We’ll also learn Sarah’s darkest secret and meet her mother (Cheryl Ladd), Chuck will briefly return to his hacker roots, and two members of the team not named Chuck will have adverse effects from the Intersect as the super-computer begins to melt their brains and alter their personalities. And in the series’ final arc Chuck finds himself at war with a wife who doesn’t recognize him and a vengeful former spy who wants the Intersect for himself.

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