The Endgame – Pilot

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Endgame – Pilot
  • IMDb: link

Feeling like it was inspired more than a little by The Blacklist, the first episode of NBC’s The Endgame introduces us to a super-criminal (Morena Baccarin) in control of a vast global network who allows herself to be captured the the United States Government to further her own plans and put herself in the path of a single agent (Ryan Michelle Bathe). While the heads of the various agencies are at first smug at the prize they’ve snared, they soon realize who is in a trap when Elena Federova (Baccarin) masterminds a number of bank heists across the city while still under FBI lock up.

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Usagi Yojimbo #26

/ / Comics

The second-half of the two-part “Crossroads” finds Miyamoto Usagi catch up to the honor-less warriors who have been attacking and robbing those on the road, and decides to take all six of them on by himself. We’ve seen Usgai beat better odds before, but he underestimates the warriors and without the timely arrival of Yukichi things might have turned out differently for our hero.

We do get a longer segment between Yukichi and Jei which teases a confrontation that never arrives. However, Jei does manage to deal with the one samurai who manages to escape Usagi’s wrath. As for a confrontation between Usagi and Jei, we don’t get one here (which I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed), although the rabbit ronin is shocked to learn what held up his cousin from arriving earlier with his aid.

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Dragons: The Nine Realms – First Flight

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Dragons: The Nine Realms – First Flight Part 1 and Part 2
  • wiki: link
  • wiki: link

Well this is an unexpected series? Set more than a thousand years after the various movies and TV-shows that make up the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, comes Dragons: The Nine Realms. Set in present day, our main character is precocious teen Tom Kullersen (Jeremy Shada) who relocates with his scientist mother (Julia Stiles) to the ICARIS research station investigating the Kullersen Fissure which holds a secret no one has guessed: a pathway to a world of dragons. Obviously a modern interpretation of a very familiar character to the franchise, Tom will be the one to discover a dragon and unearth a whole new world. Or, to be more precise, a much older one.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #89

/ / Comics

Ben Reilly has disappeared. Beyond‘s Queen Goblin is still attacking The Daily Bugle. After leaving Peter in the hospital, convinced he’s still not ready, Black Cat arrives to make the save. However when that fails, Peter arrives in the nick of time to save both Black Cat and Mary Jane.

Although we don’t see him in action, other than a quick save to save a confused Black Cat from taking a 60-story swan dive onto the pavement, The Amazing Spider-Man #89 offers us Peter Parker back in costume for the first time in several issues. With his stand-in missing, the comic falls back on an old Spidey trope with our hero out-gunned and his back against the wall. Can Spider-Man, still far less than 100%, save the day? Or will his return be short-lived and need an even longer hospital stay to recover this time?

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Roxanne

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Roxanne
  • IMDb: link

Cyrano de Bergerac, the 19th Century play by Edmond Rostand, has been adapted more than two dozen times over the years for film and television (including a new version starring Peter Dinklage). By far, my favorite take on the story of the remarkable man with wit, cunning, athleticism, the heart of a poet, and an comedically large nose that keeps him from sharing his affections with the one he loves, came in the form of 1987’s Roxanne released in theaters 35 years ago.

Steve Martin stars as Charlie “C.D.” Bales, the fire chief of one of the most inept fire departments in the country. Into his life walks Roxanne (Daryl Hannah), far more than a pretty face, as a beautiful astronomy PhD student renting a home in the small town from C.D.’s god-daughter Dixie (Shelley Duvall) while mending a broken heart and searching the stars for a comet.

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