4 Razors

Meru

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Meru
  • IMDb: link

MeruMeru documents not one but two attempts by experienced climbers (Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk) to scale the “anti-Everest” of Meru Peak in the Himalayan Mountains using the never-before completed “Shark’s Fin” route known by climbers as one of the hardest routes in the world given the complexities and challenges of the mountain.

With a mix of footage from both the failed 2008 attempt and the successful 2011 climb, the movie also documents the period in-between concerning Ozturk’s near-fatal accident and Chin being caught in an avalanche, neither of which deter either the men’s resolve to return to the mountain. The film also documents Anker’s loss of an earlier climbing partner and his struggle to return to his passion afterwards. Filled with breathtaking photography and first-account interviews taken before, during, and after the climbs, Meru captures the beauty and danger of mountain climbing while allowing the climbers themselves to explain their drive to do what they do.

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Agent X – Penultimatum

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Agent X – Penultimatum
  • IMDb: link

Agent X - Penultimatum

John’s (Jeff Hephner) decision to resign from the Agent X program is shortlived after he discovers Volker (Andrew Howard) has kidnapped Pamela (Carolyn Stotesbery). Forced to steal the Geryon, John is sent on a mission guaranteed to end in either the spy’s death or capture. Thankfully for John, even if he’s walked away from Agent X, he still has valuable friends in the right places.

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Doctor Who – The Husbands of River Song

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Doctor Who – The Husbands of River Song
  • wiki: link

Doctor Who - The Husbands of River Song

River Song (Alex Kingston) returns for the latest Doctor Who Christmas special in a story than connects to the events of “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” (her character’s first appearance) with what is likely the character’s final appearance on the show. The set-up of River having not yet met the The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) allows “The Husbands of River Song” to use a running gag of allowing the pair to travel together without River knowing the identity of the man she’s mistaken for a surgeon whose help she needs to remove a diamond from the head of her cyborg husband (Greg Davies). Allowing The Doctor to see his wife in an entirely new light, the episode stretches the gag well past its breaking point but does allow for an enjoyable payoff before all is said and done.

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Joy

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

JoyWritten and directed by David O. Russell, Joy gives us the story of a New York single mother and her miraculous invention that changed her life. Jennifer Lawrence stars as the title character Joy Mangano in a role that allows her to showcase far more of her talents than the Hunger Games franchise. The movie is completely built around Lawrence’s performance, and on her back it succeeds.

Fighting through every obstacle including her family (Robert De Niro, Édgar Ramírez, Virginia Madsen, Elisabeth Röhm), frustration, fear, money troubles, and those who attempted to steal her invention from her, Joy is a story of perseverance, determination, and conviction. If there’s a moral to Joy it’s that you have to fight for your dreams every step of the way.

Joy isn’t without its flaws, there are large parts of the story the script skips over (such as Joy’s jump to QVC’s main competitor HSN and the reasons behind it). There are also some notable odd editing and sound mixing issues, the most prominent of which takes place during pretty awful dubbing of Joy’s duet with her husband (Ramírez).

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Scooby-Doo! Team-Up #13

/ / Comics

Scooby-Doo! Team-Up #13Curious as to why the ghosts of the DCU have been disappearing, the Phantom Stranger and Deadman pay Mystery, Inc. a visit choosing to hire the group to get to the bottom of the mystery which leads to a deserted town in Nevada where an old enemy Tannarak is collecting ghosts to gain their power.

In terms of Scooby-Doo! I’m usually in favor of the classic set-up in which no ghost the team investigated was ever real. The original cartoons all featured a very human, and never supernatural, reason behind the apparent ghostly business that drew the Scooby Gang in. However, the very nature of Scooby-Doo! Team-Up allows for some leeway with that set-up outside of what can truly be considered Scooby-Doo! canon as ghosts and spirits do indeed exist in this shared universe.

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