4.5 Razors

Superman #18

/ / Comics

Superman #18 comic reviewWhat’s so interesting to me about Superman #18 isn’t how it fundamentally changes the character going forward in a major way but how well writer Brian Michael Bendis presents the idea as a natural evolution for Superman. While the issue jumps around a bit here and there, including nice moments of Clark Kent’s separate conversations with Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, the main focus in a press conference Superman calls in front of The Daily Planet revealing his dual identity to the world. That isn’t to say Clark Kent is going away, he’s remaining at The Daily Planet, it’s just now his co-workers (and the entire world) know that he’s also Superman.

A staple of the super-hero genre since it’s inception, the alter-ego has been used to allow heroes to lead something of a normal life while not in tights and to protect their loved ones who might become targets from their enemies. Let’s face it, Lois Lane is already getting into life-threatening situations and the realization that she’s married to Superman should actually make her safer. As for a normal life, that’s the interesting twist which Bendis delivers here centering on the character’s internal moral compass and the first word in his slogan “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

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Parasite

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

Parasite movie reviewA family of con artists living together a cramped semi-basement apartment set their sights on a wealthy and gullible family in writer/director Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite. Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) is the first through the door as a tutor for the teenage daughter Da-hye (Ji-so Jung). Next comes his sister Ki-jeong (So-dam Park), as an art teacher and art therapist for the couple’s son (Hyun-jun Jung). Together the pair are able to replace the family’s driver with their father Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song) and the housekeeper (Jeong-eun Lee) with their mother (Hye-jin Jang) all while hiding the familial relationship behind the Parks’ (Sun-kyun Lee and Yeo-jeong Jo) new employees.

The insidious nature of the clan and their slow takeover of the household is fascinating to watch. What’s interesting, despite their lies and deceptions, each proves fairly good at their jobs. I won’t get into the film’s dark turn or reveal what happens in the film’s second-half other than to say the house of cards is threatened by a discovery deep in the heart of the Parks’ home in the dead of night leading to a climactic sequence of events playing out in the middle of a family celebration.

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The Farewell

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Farewell
  • IMDb: link

The Farewell movie reviewBased on a true story, writer/director Lulu Wang‘s film showcases a major cultural difference between China and America in dealing with life-threatening illness. When the oldest member of the family (Shuzhen Zhao) is diagnosed with cancer in China, the family chooses not to reveal her condition. Instead, the family orchestrates a wedding as an excuse to bring the full family back to China. However, the gathering’s true purpose is to say farewell.

There’s a philosophical question at the base of the film that Wang refuses to loose herself in. While showcasing a very different view of medicine and death (even the doctors in China help the family to hide the old woman’s condition), Wang doesn’t attempt to argue one method is better than the other. Instead, the movie focuses on how Nai Nai’s (Zhao) condition, and the decision to hide her prognosis from her, effects the entire family – primarily her granddaughter Billi (Awkwafina) from America who isn’t brought over with her parents because her family fears her ability to keep the secret (but who comes anyway to spend time with the grandmother she loves).

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The Flash – Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Three

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Flash – Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Three
  • wiki: link

The Flash - Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Three television review

Since the creation of The Flash the writers have foreshadowed the character’s death in a Crisis set in the not-too-distant future. “Part Three” sees those events come to pass. Again, pulling from the original source material, we get the Anti-Monitor’s canon and the one hero whose speed can stop it and save the Earth. Knowing that The Flash wasn’t looking to kill off Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and permanently leave a hole in the show left the writers looking for an out, and they found one that might even work better than Gustin’s Flash giving his life as it plays on well-developed themes of Barry seeing those he loves die and hits just the right nostalgic notes for fans of the original Flash television series. While one Flash does dramatically sacrifice his life to stop the anti-matter wave, it’s actually the Flash of Earth-90 played by John Wesley Shipp reprising his role from the 90s television show (complete with a flashback and use of The Flash‘s opening score).

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Marriage Story

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Marriage Story
  • IMDb: link

Marriage Story movie reviewOffering as much commentary on divorce at large as its effect on his two main characters in Marriage Story, writer/director Noah Baumbach explores the dissolving marriage of theater director Charlie Barber (Adam Driver) and actress Nicole Barber (Scarlett Johansson) who struggle through change in humorous and heartbreaking ways. While their separation is mutually understood from the opening scene, a particularly good use of narration that allows us to get a sense of both characters, Charlie seems less able to deal with the changing realities of the family dynamic while Nicole relocates from New York to Los Angeles with their son Henry (Azhy Robertson) for work on a television pilot and begins to take the lead in the divorce by hiring a ball-busting attorney (Laura Dern).

There is still affection between the pair, but there is also hurt, resentment, and anger which only increases as the divorce becomes more litigious. Providing some of the film’s more humorous scenes, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta both appear at times as Charlie’s lawyers taking on Dern’s character in court (proving the old adage that the only ones who win in divorce proceedings are the lawyers).

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