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Black Rain

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Black Rain
  • IMDb: link

Flashback Friday takes us back to 1989 and the story of an American cop stumbling into a gang war in Japan. Sitting in the middle of Michael Douglas‘ run as morally ambiguous protagonists, Black Rain casts Douglas as NYPD detective Nick Conklin under investigation from Internal Affairs who gets roped into a trip to Japan after witnessing the Yakuza gun down members of the Mafia in New York. Assigned with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia) to escort the killer (Yûsaku Matsuda) back to Japan, only to lose him just after landing, the pair of detectives are forced to stay in the city with a chaperone (Ken Takakura) but no other help from the local police in finding the killer.

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Almost Paradise – Deus Ex-Wife Machina

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Almost Paradise – Deus Ex-Wife Machina
  • IMDb: link

The problem with introducing a character’s ex on a show like Almost Paradise is the narrow focus on the current contentious relationship without also providing a glimpse of how these characters ever got together. “Deus Ex-Wife Machina” introduces us to Lisa Brenner as Claire who arrives on the island with her new fiancé (Josh Adamson) to force Alex (Christian Kane) to sign divorce papers. Realizing she needs something from him, and he could drag out the process preventing her new marriage, does she come in cordially playing up their history? No, she goes immediately into the ball-busting mode of the cliched ex giving neither Alex nor the audience a reason to offer her the benefit of the doubt. After being married to Alex for long enough to have a child together, she’d definitely know she’s picked the wrong tact.

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Justified: City Primeval – Backstabbers

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Justified: City Primeval – Backstabbers
  • IMDb: link

Recent events force Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) into making an unpopular decision about his daughter Willa (Vivian Olyphant) while local police roust the various suspects in the judge’s murder hoping to uncover the two illusive pieces to the puzzle in the missing murder weapon and motive for the crime. “Backstabbers” also picks up the thread of Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook) and Sandy (Adelaide Clemens) stealing from their Albanian mark which is a decision that will likely have consequences for all concerned. The episode does have a treading-water feel to it throughout with the only notable movement happening at the very end, leaving consequences to follow, and drawing out the story a bit more than necessary.

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Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
  • IMDb: link

Set between the events of Bumblebee and Michael Bay’s first Transformers movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beast pulls in characters from Beast Wars: Transformers and The Transformers: The Movie without a basic understanding of either one while  not making much use of any of them. Instead, events around a genius archeologist intern (Dominique Fishback) and a former soldier on hard times (Anthony Ramos) who attempt to keep a magic crystal out of the hands of the Terrorcons who want to use it to bring forth Unicron (Colman Domingo) who is somehow trapped in another region of space.

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My Adventures with Superman – My Interview with Superman

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: My Adventures with Superman – My Interview with Superman
  • wiki: link

“My Interview with Superman” highlights one glaring issue with the otherwise strong series in its weak and thoroughly uninteresting choice of villains. After being scooped by Perry (Darrell Brown) assigning the Superman story to other reporters, Clark Kent (Jack Quaid), Lois Lane (Alice Lee), and Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid) begin looking into various unremarkable thugs from Intergang using the same alien tech they’ve seen before which includes sneaking into the prison to look for clues. However, Lois plans to use the chaos Intergang is causing to ultimately get her interview. Strong episode when focusing on the interactions between Lois and Clark (and later Superman), but the reporter introductions are a bit too goofy and Intergang is a disappointment.

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