3 Razors

Bad Words

  • Title: Bad Words
  • IMDB: link

Bad WordsAs with most of the Bad Santa imitators which have popped up in recent years Bad Words is, at best, a mixed bag. Far better than the unfortunate (and best forgotten) Bad Teacher, this film directed by and starring Jason Bateman about a middle-aged man-child entering a national 8th grade spelling competition to deal with his own personal issues certainly provides its share of laughs along the way.

When we first meet Guy Trilby (Bateman) he’s already worming his way into a qualifying round of a local spelling bee with the help of a blogger (Kathryn Hahn) and a loophole in the guidelines which allows anyone who has not yet graduated from the eighth grade entry into the bee.

To call Trilby a self-serving prick isn’t really doing justice to the man determined to make a mockery of the competition on national television much to the dismay of countless parents and those in charge of the spelling bee (Philip Baker Hall, Allison Janney). By the time the film gets around to revealing Trilby’s reasons (which are as self-serving as every other piece of his character) it doesn’t really matter as nothing could possibly justify the actions we witness.

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Batman ’66 #9

Batman '66 #9Along with a best-forgotten back-up story involving the world’s greatest detective and his protege being duped by Alfred‘s nefarious lookalike relative taking his place inside Wayne Manor, the latest issue of Batman ’66 pits the Dynamic Duo against Zelda the Great who Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson find masquerading as a stage magician in Gotham City while on a double-date.

Despite the fact that Zelda isn’t breaking any laws, Bruce and Dick ditch their dates (one of whom is Kathy Kane and the other who Zelda will later take on as a potential apprentice of her own) to don their tights and promptly be taken hostage by the villain and her minions.

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Intelligence – The Event Horizon

  • Title: Intelligence – The Event Horizon
  • wiki: link

Intelligence - The Event Horizon

While performing a cyber-render of the murder of the Deputy Director of FBI and a retired intelligence officer Gabriel (Josh Holloway) finds evidence that implicates him as the assassin. That along with Gabriel’s hazy recollections of the previous night and the fact that one of the men killed was responsible for letting the man who killed Gabriel’s wife go free and that’s more than enough for both Weatherly (Tomas Arana) and Tetazoo (Lance Reddick) to step-in, take control of CyberCom from Lillian (Marg Helgenberger), and put Gabriel in holding under suspicion that someone may have hacked the chip and forced Gabriel to commit murder.

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Atlantis – Season One

  • Title: Atlantis – Season One
  • wiki: link

Atlantis - Season OneThe BBC version of Atlantis comes to DVD and Blu-ray in this collection of the show’s First Season. Featuring the misadventures of lost wanderer Jason (Jack Donnelly) along with his new-found Atlantian friends Pythagoras (Robert Emms) and Hercules (Mark Addy), most of the show’s initial season sets up the workings of the world and various supporting characters including an Oracle (Juliet Stevenson) who knows far more about Jason’s destiny than she’s willing to share, the standoffish King Minos (Alexander Siddig) and his evil wife Pasiphae (Sarah Parish), and the beautiful Princess Ariadne (Aiysha Hart) who captures the hero’s heart.

Among the uneven First Season’s highlights are the opening episode involving Jason fighting The Minotaur, a goofy episode involving Jason being cursed by the goddess Hectate, Jason entering a hero’s tournament to prove himself to Ariadne, Hercules’ attempt to sacrifice himself for the woman he loves, and the two-part season finale which finally reveals Jason’s true parentage.

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Transformers: Regeneration One #100 (of 4)

Transformers: Regeneration One #100 (of 4)Way back in 1984 Marvel Comics commissioned a four-issue mini-series for the popular toy line. Lasting 76 extra issues, the original Transformers came to an end in 1991 with Transformers #80. Returning to complete the unfinished tale, writer Simon Furman and artist Guido Guidi have put together 20 more issues of the story culminating in this extra-sized 100th issue finale.

As a rousing finale Transformers: Regeneration One #100 is good, but not great. Several characters get little time despite the extra pages (many of which are used not for the story but various supplemental material) as the final issue races through Galvatron‘s subplot spending nearly the entire issue on Rodimus Prime and his battle with the Deathbringer in Zero Space and a somewhat convoluted ending involving a Multiverse of Transformers.

Fans will certainly want to pick this one up (despite its price-tag), but it is a little light on action (other than Galvatron’s defeat) while relegating several key characters such as Grimlock, Shockwave, and Starscream to small roles or cameos. For fans.

[IDW, $3.99]

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