Perception – Curveball

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  • Title: Perception – Curveball
  • tv.com: link

Perception - Curveball

Perception returns from its mid-season break with Kate Moretti (Rachael Leigh Cook) bringing Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack) in on a case involving an autistic train-obsessed teen (Nate Hartley) who is facing murder chargers after he stole a train and ran over a train yard security guard (Andrew Lawrence). Although Pierce sees no intent in the young man’s actions he is forced to go to Donnie (Scott Wolf) for a legal excuse to save the young man from a life sentence (which turns out not to be necessary as the episode quickly abandons the autistic killer plot thread in favor of a more complex, but ultimately less original or interesting, murder).

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The Wind Rises

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Kaze tachinu
  • IMDB: link

“All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.”

The Wind RisesOver a lifetime in animation Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki has made a name for himself as one of the premiere filmmakers of his generation. Although I haven’t always loved his films, I found Princess Mononoke too bizarre for my tastes and a bit unwieldy with its 133-minute running time, it’s impossible to come out of any Miyazaki film without a profound respect for the talented man who brought them to the screen.

For his final film Miyazaki delivers a love story to aviation in the fictionalized biography of Japanese aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi (Hideaki Anno), a young man with dreams of building beautiful flying machines who would design the Mitsubishi A5M and Mitsubishi A6M Zero which Japan used during WWII. Adapted from the novel by Hori Tatsuo, The Wind Rises may not quite be the all-ages adventure some might be hoping for, but it beautifully captures the fire of imagination that drives Jiro in his designs and the lively but ill Naoko (Miori Takimoto) whom he falls desperately in love with. As he approaches his life’s ambition he feels the other great love of his life slowly fading away.

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Arrow – Time of Death

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Arrow – Time of Death
  • wiki: link

Arrow - Time of Death

While throwing Sara (Caity Lotz) a welcome back from the dead party, Oliver (Stephen Amell) also asks for Black Canary’s help to take the mastermind behind meticulously-planned robbery of Kord Industries of a skeleton key which can be re-purposed to break into any bank vault. While Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) struggle with Sara’s inclusion in Team Arrow, her impressive skill-set, and Sara picking up her romantic relationship with Oliver, Felicity also attempts to find the Clock King (Robert Knepper) who always seems to be one-step ahead and have one more ace up his sleeve including hacking into, and destroying, the vigilante’s computer network.

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Mind Games – Pilot

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Mind Games – Pilot
  • IMDB: link

Mindgames - Pilot

ABC’s second attempt at a mid-season replacement in the same time slot (replacing the cancelled Killer Women), Mind Games stars Christian Slater and Steve Zahn as the Edwards brothers struggling to prove their start-up company can make good on its promise to control and manipulate fate to achieve their clients’ desired outcome. As premises go it’s actually pretty good, although the Pilot episode features a lot of the characters struggling to convey the idea to both investors and the audience and might do well to incorporate some slick CGI work to visually help get their point across (like Numbers, Intelligence, or a number of other shows).

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Glee – Frenemies

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Glee – Frenemies
  • wiki: link

Glee - Frenemies

Friends become enemies as Sue (Jane Lynch) pits Jake (Jacob Artist) and Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) against each other for class valedictorian and in New York Santana (Naya Rivera) puts her relationship with Rachel (Lea Michele) in jeopardy becoming her understudy for Funny Girl (because she’s the same age, and not in any way the same type, of the girl the producers chose despite thinking she was too young for the role?), and then taking credit for all of Rachel’s success. Meanwhile Kurt (Chris Colfer) frets over Starchild’s (Adam Lambert) influence over the band and New Directions settles on solos for Nationals.

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