The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #11

/ / Comics

Returning to the Gotham Museum of Culture, where the series began, Batman and Mystery, Inc. reunite for another case. Our detectives are forced to shutdown a gala at the museum prematurely when a mask from the Detectives Exhibit is stolen and ghosts appear to scare off the guests. “Helping” on the case is the Creeper who was in the neighborhood to cover the gala as reporter Jack Ryder but transforms into super-hero trouble-maker/detective to solve the case.

The Creeper fits into the comic’s oddball characters even if the reveal our baddie (a former criminal, now working at the museum), is a little odd. Turns out he is responsible for the theft and appearances of ghostly apparitions inspired by classic detective story characters to scare off others from the exhibit.

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Naomi – Enigma

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Naomi – Enigma
  • wiki: link

After discovering that her parents knew she arrived from another world, Naomi McDuffie (Kaci Walfall) sets out to learn as much about her murky origins as possible. The flashbacks to “Enigma” are underwhelming to say the least, especially compared to how the reveal works in the original comics. I’m not sure if Naomi’s parents are still hiding more details from her (like say one of her parents also not being from this world) or if the episode’s writing is simply substandard and will continue to recon story and plot at random as the series has done repeatedly since the first episode to offer underwhelming reveals.

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Death on the Nile

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Death on the Nile (2022)
  • IMDb: link

Writer/director/star Kenneth Branagh returns to reprise his role as Hercule Poirot in this follow-up to 2017’s adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. The adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile isn’t as successful, in part due to source material not being as strong this time around and in part for some questionable creative decisions.

It takes far too long to get to the setting for our murder mystery, let alone the murder itself. By the time the body has dropped more than half the film seems to have already passed. In a somewhat defiant attempt to justify the character’s look in the previous film, Branagh opens with a flashback explaining the reasoning behind Poirot’s ridiculous mustache. After jumping forward, we are given multiple scenes setting up various characters, both in London and in Egypt, before finally get them all together on a ship sailing down the Nile River.

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Parallel Mothers

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Parallel Mothers
  • IMDb: link

For a film that centers around a plot point that would be right at home in any soap opera, Parallel Mothers provides a surprisingly strong drama. Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit are strangers who meet in the hospital, both giving birth to their first child. Each will take home a boy, but what they won’t realize for quite some time is that each mother was given the other’s son.

It’s Janis (Cruz) who begins to suspect the truth when the father (Israel Elejalde), a flirtatious archeologist with a wife and no real interest in a more permanent relationship with the photographer, sees no resemblance in the child to anyone in his family. A chance meeting with Ana (Smit) brings the characters back into each others orbit as Janis’ suspicions are realized and a gnawing guilt over the truth begins to color all that will follow.

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