4.5 Razors

Spencer

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Spencer
  • IMDb: link

Set at Christmas of 1991, Spencer offers a peek into the holiday with the Royal Family during a tumultuous time between Diana, Princess of Wales (Kristen Stewart), and her husband Prince Charles (Jack Farthing). With her husband’s affair and her marriage at a breaking point, Diana is forced into the traditions and expectations of the holiday which she begins fighting in her own way to try and avoid a death of one-thousand cuts.

The movie is most notable for the lovely performance of the fragile Diana feeling trapped on all sides and even haunted by Anne Boleyn (Amy Manson), whose similarities to her own situation have become a bit of an obsession. Stewart is perfect here in a role that requires a tremendous amount of vulnerability to carry a film with very little actual plot through until the end.

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The Human Target #1

/ / Comics

As part of DC’s Black Label, the noir-ish The Human Target #1 opens with the death of Christopher Chance in an empty hotel room before jumping back a dozen days to Chance playing the role of Lex Luthor at a LexCorp press event where a terrorist will inevitably attempt to make an attempt on the life of his client.

The sequence, beautifully rendered by artist Greg Smallwood, works well as an introduction to Chance’s line of work by taking the place of his client and putting himself in danger. As the title suggests, Chance makes his life as a Human Target.

The sequence, narrated by Chance, also keys us into a few aspects of an older Chance, less carefree than his early days, and less discerning on his choice of clientele. And that may have just gotten him killed.

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Once and Future #21

/ / Comics

Once and Future #21 is overflowing with goodness. We get to meet Rose‘s parents, who our heroes set-out to rescue. There’s also a Gorgon turning everyone to stone and a knight of the new Arthur who Bridgette wants nothing to do with. Our intrepid heroes makeshift plans to deal with the Gorgon are terrific. First with tin foil, and later playing on the knight’s virtues to force the pair of obstacles into battling each other instead of them.

Along the way there’s also plenty of fun banter as Duncan finds himself quite outnumbered by those who know more about legends and myths. After rescuing Rose’s parents and seeing them to shelter, our heroes set out again alone to keep the others safe and hopefully not attract either Arthur’s attention. But in a world turned upside down by magic and myths brought to life, is any place truly safe?

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Come from Away

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Come from Away
  • IMDb: link

“We honor what was lost, but we also commemorate what we found.”

Twenty years after 9/11 and 14 months into the COVID shutdown, Broadway reopens for a performance of Come from Away featuring many of the original Broadway performers for a live recording on the musical about 7,000 strangers from all over the world stranded in the small town of Gander for five days. While originally planned to be a more traditional film, with scenes filmed in Newfoundland, the live performance of the first returning Broadway show brings its own kind of magic that is wonderful to watch unfold.

Based on true events, the Canadian musical by Irene Sankoff and David Hein offers plenty of both laughter and tears over its 106-minute running time featuring a small cast playing multiple roles of both the shaken visitors and incredibly hospitable locals. And director Christopher Ashley knows just how to frame each sequence, giving us the best seat in the house. 

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Only Murders in the Building – The Boy from 6B

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Only Murders in the Building – The Boy from 6B
  • IMDb: link

Without any spoken dialogue, Only Murders in the Building answers some very large questions while providing on hell of an episode. First, we discover who killed Zoe (Olivia Reis) all those years ago and who the other person was on the roof that night who Tim Kono (Julian Cihi) saw and why he never came forward. Second, against all odds, Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) confirm the podcast’s latest crazy theory about their sponsor which turns out to be true.

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