Sure, the big headline is the fact that Michael Keaton is indeed back as Batman, and it seems that a chunk of this film takes place in the corner of the DC multiverse that Tim Burton’s Batman movies happened in. The very first shot of the footage is of Barry Allen arriving by cab to the same Wayne Manor we saw in Burton’s first Batman film, and throughout the trailer we hear Keaton’s Bruce Wayne interrogating Barry about his multiverse-hopping shenanigans....

Good news, The Flash fans: Our long national nightmare that was the Forces of Nature storyline is finally over. Granted, “Family Matters, Part 2” has many of the same problems as last week’s installment – the nonsensical sibling connection between the various Forces of Nature, the show’s insistence on calling them godlike beings even while treating them like Barry and Iris’s literal children, the general creepiness of Speed Force Nora’s existence, the cringe-y dialogue and awkwardly forced emotion....

It’s the end of an era. After the better part of a decade on air, The Flash season 9, currently set to go into production this Fall and premiere in early 2023, will mark the show’s end. It’s hard to imagine what a superhero television landscape will look like without this show, which has helped shape so many that came after it, thanks to its huge heart, bright tone, and empathetic storytelling....

“Are you ready?” they asked June, holding a red hot cauteriser over her bleeding gunshot wound. “No,” she said, but they jabbed her anyway. Hard relate. The Handmaid’s Tale has been away for almost two years, and now it’s back, are we ready for the pain? Of course not, but it’s happening. In any other show, episode one’s pain would have been been extreme. Esther’s story of a bloody act of revenge inspired by child sexual abuse would have been a rare depth plumbed, the culmination of a whole-series crime mystery, or a long-held simmering character secret....

The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t the kind of TV show that suits a binge-watch. Its heart-heavy dystopian story about a brutal theocracy that enslaves and rapes fertile women benefits from a little fresh air between episodes. On-screen torture and suffering are best delivered in small doses. It’s good news then, that after its first three episodes are released on Hulu in one batch on Wednesday April 28th, the remaining seven episodes of season four will be released weekly each Wednesday until June 16th, giving US viewers all time to digest....

There are countless characters who could serve such a role, from Doctor Doom to Magneto, but most of them are just too compelling to play second fiddle to the likes of Kang. In spite of that, there is one antagonist who has proven to be a valuable asset when it comes to pushing the street-level vigilantes to their limits in the pages of Marvel Comics. The MCU could be laying the groundwork for this villain’s arrival, and the organization he has so often been leader of....

Tooth fairy: not real. Baby-stealing bird man: not real. Group of middle class oddballs who dress up in ceremonial robes and practise occult rituals: surprisingly, real. While most of the supernatural cases featured in Netflix’s The Irregulars are drawn from myth and legend, one involves a real-life organisation that started life in 1887: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In episode three of the Sherlock Holmes-adjacent Netflix series, the Baker Street gang is enlisted by Mycroft Holmes to investigate a murder linked to the Golden Dawn, an occult organisation of which he’s a member....

The Mandalorian re-canonized a surprising piece of Legends lore in “The Siege.” We’re of course talking about those dark troopers teased at the very end of the episode. And in “The Tragedy” we finally see these heavily-armored elite combat droids in action, as they swoop in with their rocket thrusters during the shootout on Tython and steal Grogu from Mando. While this is the first time these Imperial units appear on screen in the Disney canon, the dark troopers have a long history in the Legends Expanded Universe of old as prime examples of the Empire’s willingness to experiment with new ways of oppressing the galaxy....

The Galactic Empire has fallen by the time of The Mandalorian, but the Imperial remnant left in its wake has plenty of fight left. Mercenary Mayfeld (Bill Burr) shed light on one of the remnant’s earliest offensives against the New Republic when he mentioned participating in Operation: Cinder in “The Believer.” Fans of the Star Wars Expanded Universe of books, comics, and games likely jumped at the reference. After all, Operation: Cinder effectively connects the Disney+ series to several other stories that go all the way back to the beginning of the canon reset....

The late James Gandolfini’s son Michael Gandolfini gets his button playing the teen-aged Antonio Soprano, as we hear his name called in the echo of his high school hallways. Tony seems to be a problem kid. He spends his time defending his rep on the street, or making trouble at school. Like a lot of kids his age, he doesn’t apply himself. He’s got a high IQ but would rather slack at home, listening to Humble Pie records through the earliest version of headphones: two huge speakers, one by each ear....

Something the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been able to incorporate well is taking certain ideas and building on them through the years, allowing them to balloon in importance until they go critical. Phase 1 was built around the novelty of a cinematic superhero team made of established characters. Phases 2 and 3 took the existence of the Infinity Stones and turned it into a massive, climactic two-parter. The finale to that story then opened Pandora’s box, giving us both time travel and the multiverse....

In Fear Street Part 2: 1978, we learn more about the past – bits about the history of Sarah Fier and how she might have managed to curse Shadyside and similarly how she might be stopped – by reuniting her remains with her severed hand. But there are also lots of moments in Fear Street ‘78 that reference and enhance Fear Street 1994. “There’s a lot across the three movies where we tried to recreate moments,” trilogy director Leigh Janiak tells Den of Geek....

The Orville: New Horizons Season 3 Episode 5 Orville fans this season have frequently discussed how much the show has departed from its original comedic roots, and that may be half true. No longer can The Orville be considered almost parody-like in its humor and no longer do audiences get the trademark Seth MacFarlane jokes at random times. But that does not mean the show has completely forgotten where it came from....

The TV landscape has always been ahead of movies when it comes to giving women—and other underrepresented identities—a shot. This is probably because there has traditionally been less money to be made on TV, so the rich, mostly white men who rule Hollywood have left TV to a slightly more diverse crowd of behind-the-scenes talent to tell slightly more diverse—especially on less “important” platforms like The CW. Action flick The Protégé, released in theaters last weekend, tells this story too well....

A couple weeks ago, bemused Simpsons fans adopted Pontius Comic Book Guy roles, virtually crucifying the show’s continuity minders for messing with the timeline of the 32-year-old series. The episode, “Do Pizza Bots Dream of Electric Guitars?”, flashes back to the 1990s, when Homer was a 14-year-old wannabe DJ. But the established timeline from previous episodes maintains that Homer and Marge met when they were teenagers in high school in 1974 (the year rock attained perfection)....

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 17 The Simpsons Season 32, episode 17, ” Uncut Femmes,” is a caper comedy, and criminals Sarah Wiggum (Megan Mullally) and Fat Tony (Joe Mantegna) steal every scene they are in. Over the course of the jewel heist parody at the center of the installment, we learn Chief Wiggum’s wife has a shady past, and the neighborhood mob boss has a paternal presence. They don’t have any scenes together, but they make crime pay off, and prove two or so wrongs can make a right....

The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 4 Love meant never having to say you’re sorry until The Simpsons’ “The Wayz We Were.” Moe himself puts it best at the ending, the song is pretty good, but the movie, well, he didn’t like it. That might explain why he is sadly miscast. Oh, he’s believable. For years we’ve watched Moe go from pug ugly to fugly and pug fugly to eating his own pickled eggs....

The Boston area was prime cinematic crime fields during the early 2000s. In Black Mass, Johnny Depp plays South Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, an Irish gangster who informed on the Italian mob to the FBI. Some of the scenes were shot on the real crime locations depicted. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed cast Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello, who was loosely based on Bulger. The city also set the scene for Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, and Affleck’s directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, both based on books by local crime novelist Dennis Lehane....

The impact was immediate, even before you could see his face. Aaron, missing after a long night of drinking and boar meat. Gabriel, hung over and searching for his friend. And there, at the end of a long row in a warehouse, backlit by the sun, stands an imposing figure wearing a hood and cradling the unmistakable profile of a rifle. Even before you see the man’s scarred face, he’s already established himself as someone to take seriously....

It didn’t take long for Silas to reach critical mass. The moment another competitor for Iris’s attention came along, the danger meter slowly began to creep higher with every passing moment. The Walking Dead: World Beyond hit that point with a hammer. Iris and Percy laughing in the foreground, Silas starting daggers at them in the background. The two making plans to meet up after dark for what sounds like a make-out session?...