2.5 Razors

The First Pitch Insufficiency

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Big Bang Theory – The First Pitch Insufficiency
  • wiki: link

The First Pitch Insufficiency

Fretting about throwing out the first pitch at an Angels game, Howard (Simon Helberg) enlists the help of Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) and Raj (Kunal Nayyar) in an attempt not to make a complete fool out of himself. Despite all the practice he can stand, Howard is forced to admit his shortcomings. His out-of-the-box solution, while novel, doesn’t exactly endear him to the fans.

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The Equalizer

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Equalizer
  • IMDb: link

The EqualizerBased on the 80s television show of the same name, The Equalizer stars Denzel Washington as a retired military officer with a mysterious past attempting to live a normal life. That normalcy is shattered when an acquaintance (Chloë Grace Moretz) is hospitalized by her pimp (David Meunier) sending Robert McCall in search of justice which will lead him on a one man crusade against crooked cops and the Russian mob.

Washington feels a bit out of place here in a script by Richard Wenk more befitting Steven Seagal in the prime of his B-movie action days. Unsure at times whether it wants to be a drama or old school action/revenge flick, The Equalizer is at its best when it allows McCall to take off the gloves and get to work (such as the movie’s climactic sequence involving several inventive deaths using various implements at the Home Depot where McCall is currently employed).

Eventually the ridiculous scope of what McCall’s quest gets the better of the screenwriter as the script ends in a ludicrous epilogue following the retail warehouse final battle. When it keeps McCall’s actions smaller, and a bit more plausible, the movie has more success.

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Assault on Arkham

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Batman: Assault on Arkham
  • IMDb: link

Batman: Assault on ArkhamPurposely made to resemble the look and tone of the Arkham Asylum video games (which are more fun to play than watch) and featuring the New 52 version of the Suicide Squad (widely regarded as DC’s worst comic over the past three years), Batman: Assault on Arkham is something of a mixed bag. The character designs are drab, the character interactions are particularly one-note, and the logic of the script is rather weak (sending Task Force X into Arkham not to find a dirty bomb but to retrieve a questionable source of information).

The straight-to-DVD movie does offer us Kevin Conroy reprising the role as Batman, but the rest of the voice cast, while not awful, is quickly forgettable. The squad itself is made up of Deadshot (Neal McDonough), Killer Frost (Jennifer Hale), the least impressive version of King Shark possible (wasting the talents of John DiMaggio), a particularly slutty Harley Quinn (Hynden Walch), the argumentative Captain Boomerang (Greg Ellis), the rather nondescript Black Spider (Giancarlo Esposito), and the quickly-dispatched KGBeast (Nolan North) whose unfortunate early exit is rather disappointing.

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Doctor Who – Deep Breath

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Doctor Who – Deep Breath
  • wiki: link

“Nothing is more important than my egomania!”

 

Doctor Who - Deep Breath

Post-regeneration episodes are tricky. By and large the first episodes of the new actor as The Doctor focus either on an exhausted and confused Doctor trying to discover his himself for the first time (“Time and the Rani“) or resting and being out of action for much of the episode (“Castrovalva,” “The Christmas Invasion“). My main takeaway from “Deep Breath,” other than the fact that the jury is still out on just what kind of man the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) will be, is reminding me how well-constructed an episode “The Eleventh Hour” was. The Fifth Series premiere works as a strong story apart from the novelty of introducing a new actor into the series’ starring role. By contrast, while “Deep Breath” isn’t awful, it’s a far cry from the strides Matt Smith took in his first episode as the Eleventh Doctor.

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Teen Titans Go! – Knowledge

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Teen Titans Go! – Knowledge
  • wiki: link

Teen Titans Go! - Knowledge

Tired of constant misunderstandings between herself and her teammates, a despondent Starfire (Hynden Walch) enlists the help of Raven (Tara Strong) to learn about human culture (despite the rest of the Titans worrying that Raven will turn Starfire into a total bummer). When the use of a Schoolhouse Rock! musical performance doesn’t make odd human idioms any more clear, Raven relies on magic to transform her teammate by offering her all human knowledge – with disastrous results.

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