4 Razors

The Neon Demon

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Neon Demon
  • IMDb: link

“Beauty isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

The Neon Demon

In what is likely going to be one of the more divisive films of 2016, the latest from writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) casts Elle Fanning as a naive 16 year-old girl just breaking into the model business in Los Angeles. Blessed with an ineffable quality no one can quite explain, Jesse (Fanning) soon becomes the hot new girl, much to the dismay of a pair of models (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) seeing their careers flash before their eyes.

Jesse’s journey will lead her into contact with a wide variety of people including her creepy apartment manager (Keanu Reeves), jealous models, designers, photographers (Desmond Harrington and Karl Glusman), and a makeup artist (Jena Malone) all of whom want something from the young woman.

Refn’s film is a metaphor for how the modeling industry celebrates physical beauty in the absence of any other quality while slowly devouring the very objects of their devotion. The film takes the metaphor one step too far in the final act leaving the film with an ending that satisfies the movie’s message but not necessarily the audience.

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Green Arrow #1

/ / Comics

Green Arrow #1Picking up the storyline from Green Arrow: Rebirth #1, Green Arrow and Black Canary continue to investigate the underground human trafficking ring of homeless victims in Seattle. An altercation on the docks leads Ollie to also raise questions about his company which, from what we see teased here, has been corrupted by the shadowy movements of the Court of Owls.

Along with comic stealing some Bat-villains to set-up it’s initial story arc (an interesting choice), Green Arrow #1 also gives us Ollie and Dinah together both in and out of costume (although their romantic sparring still seems fairly new to them both). Fleshing out the cast we also meet Ollie’s half-sister Emiko Queen (think Arrow‘s Thea if she had been raised by someone as homicidal as Malcolm) and the appearance of Emi’s mother: Shado.

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Preacher – Monster Swamp

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Preacher – Monster Swamp
  • wiki: link

Preacher - Monster Swamp

As Jesse (Dominic Cooper) begins putting his new powers to good use, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) stalls Fiore (Tom Brooke) and DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) while failing to impress on Jesse the danger the preacher is in from two wayward angels. The episode also provides our first flashbacks to Jesse’s childhood and his relationship with his father (Nathan Darrow) and introduces Jackie Earle Haley as the town’s most influential man, Odin Quincannon, whose attendance at church in the episode’s closing scene is crucial to Jesse’s plan to grow and save All Saints’ Congregational Church.

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Wander Over Yonder – The Sick Day

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Wander Over Yonder – The Sick Day
  • wiki: link

Wander Over Yonder - The Sick Day

When Wander (Jack McBrayer) gets sick, Sylvia (April Winchell) struggles to get her best friend to take it easy and rest while attempting to take care of his long list of chores which include hitting Lord Hater‘s (Keith Ferguson) snooze button and preventing the universe from coming to an end. “The Sick Day” has a simple premise of Wander learning how to let someone else help him for a change (although it takes quite a bit of his increasingly sickly attempts to help for the message to finally sink in). As for Sylvia, she proves capable of stepping in to Wander’s shoes (although she is quite surprised by the number of regular duties her best friend performs without her).

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Finding Dory

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Finding Dory
  • IMDb: link

Finding DoryPixar’s first sequel since Cars 2 returns audiences under the ocean for the follow up to 2003’s Finding Nemo. This time our story is centered around Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the Pacific regal blue tang suffering from short-term memory loss who helped Marlin (Albert Brooks) find his lost son Nemo (Hayden Rolence) in the original film. With her dim memory sparked, Dory sets out to find her parents with Marlin and Nemo in tow. However, it’s not long before Dory and her friends are separated and she must fend for herself.

Although I enjoy Finding Nemo, if I rank my favorite Pixar films it’s always near the bottom. The sequel, however, surprised me. Making Dory, rather than Marlin, the main character of the film makes for a more engaging story with a far more likable lead. The supporting cast surrounding Dory is also more vibrant the second time around including an ill-tempered scene-stealing septopus named Hank (Ed O’Neill), a near-sighted whale shark (Kaitlin Olson), a beluga whale (Ty Burrell) with performance issues, sea lions, the odd loon Becky, and the most adorable bunch of sea otters you’ve ever seen on film.

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