The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

  • Title: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
  • IMDb: link

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is insane, in mostly good ways. I’m not sure it’s the most Nicolas Cage movie ever, but it’s not from lack of trying. Nicolas Cage stars as himself in a ridiculous adventure comedy that finds the actor during a downturn in his career accepting $1 million to attend a fan’s (Pedro Pascal) birthday party only to become pulled into a kidnapping case by the CIA.

Cage, playing a larger-than-life version of himself selfishly driven to be a movie star at the cost of his marriage to his ex-wife (Sharon Horgan) and his strained relationship with his estranged daughter (Lily Mo Sheen), is terrific here. Pascal is an inspired choice for the super-fan who, despite the warnings from the CIA, quickly becomes Cage’s best-friend as his undercover mission becomes all the more complicated. A celebration of Cage’s career and eccentricities with nods to numerous films, one could argue it’s the most professional fan film ever produced.

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The Endgame – Beauty and the Beast

  • Title: The Endgame – Beauty and the Beast
  • IMDb: link

The plans of Elena Federova (Morena Baccarin) have serious repercussions in “Beauty and the Beast” as the CIA search for the missing gold (whose real location is teased in a connection to the prison), Val (Ryan Michelle Bathe) searches for evidence implicating Federova’s latest target, and the Secret Service take control of Fort Totten allowing President Andrew Wright (Sasha Roiz) to torture Federova for information. The penultimate episode of the show’s first (perhaps only?) season doesn’t provide much movement on Sergey (Costa Ronin) and Owen Turner’s (Kamal Angelo Bolden) escape plans leaving quite a few loose ends to dealt with in the season finale.

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Moon Knight – Asylum

  • Title: Moon Knight – Asylum
  • wiki: link

The appropriately titled “Asylum” offers a lookin inside the mind of Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) and Steven Grant who find themselves in an undead construct of a psychiatric hospital on their way to the underworld by way of their guide Taweret (Antonia Salib). While putting recent events and their consequences on hold, the episode delves into connection between Marc and Steven and definitively explores which is the original personality of the man who would eventually become Moon Knight. Speaking of the hero, we don’t get to see him in action here, but we do get a flashback to Marc’s first encounter with Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham) and his acceptance of his new role.

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The Secret of Terror Castle

  • Title: The Secret of Terror Castle
  • wiki: link

Throwback Thursday takes us back to a mystery involving the Three Investigators whose mantra of “We Investigate Everything” leads them in search of a haunted house. The first book in the Three Investigators series introduces us to Jupiter JonesPete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews along with the Jones Salvage Yard, the trademark question marks, and the use of the vintage Rolls-Royce which are all part of the series from the outset.

Using a bit of chicanery to earn their first job of searching for a haunted house for a movie director (originally Alfred Hitchcock and in later additions changed to be Reginald Clarke), the young detectives hope the publicity of the case will help launch their new detective agency. Clarke isn’t exactly thrilled with the arrangement, or introducing the trio’s case for them on its conclusion, but The Secret of Terror Castle does what Jupiter Jones hoped it would do in launching the Three Investigators into business.

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