The Flash Season 4 Episode 5 Review Girls Night Out

The Flash Season 4 Episode 5 OK, so maybe I was wrong a few weeks ago. “Girls Night Out” continues the momentum of the excellent “Elongated Journey Into the Night” and the overall feeling is of a show settling into a more comfortable rhythm than what we had in the earlier episodes. While the jokes are still plentiful, The Flash feels slightly less self-aware, maybe a little less in-your-face with its declarations that “this is our new tone, get used to it fast!...

December 26, 2022 · 5 min · 1052 words · Annamarie Hopkins

The Gilded Age Episode 4 Review A Long Ladder

After the rise in tension in last week’s episode of The Gilded Age, “A Long Ladder” may feel like a letdown. However, this episode is clearly the beginning of Russell’s transition from being outsiders to insiders. Although new developments are introduced for several characters, the unanswered questions from the last episode are just underneath the surface, making for a solid mid-season installment. Peggy finds out The New York Globe is interested in publishing her short story....

December 26, 2022 · 6 min · 1194 words · Betty Ellingwood

The Grinch Review

Thus enters the third adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas! since its publication in 1957. The first was the 1966 animated television special narrated by Boris Karloff while the second was the 2000 live-action film directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey in the title role. Now, these two forms have merged into a 3D-computer animated feature from Illumination Entertainment, the studio responsible for the Despicable Me films and the 2012 adaptation of Dr....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 768 words · Bonnie Salisbury

The Handmaid S Tale Season 4 Ending Explained

It’s going to take June Osborne some time to get Gilead out of her system. Season four of The Handmaid’s Tale may have finally brought her to Canada, but the years of abuse and violence she’s suffered, not to mention her forcible separation from her daughters Hannah and Nichole, have taken a deep toll. The season four finale showed June let down by international law and forced to seek vigilante justice for the pain caused to her by Commander Fred Waterford....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 832 words · Douglas Chiles

The Handmaid S Tale Season 4 Episode 2 Review The Nick Blaine Mystery Deepens

“A messy bitch who takes the big swings but doesn’t think about the consequences.” You could do worse for a description of June Osborne. In ‘Nightshade’, Moira’s words proved right when June followed her instinct that a brothelful of sitting-duck Commanders was too good an opportunity to miss. One bottle of homemade poison and David Bowie’s Suffragette City later, and Gilead had suffered another blow. That was the big swing....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 764 words · Christopher Haas

The Haunting Of Bly Manor Mike Flanagan Discusses Standout Eighth Episode

When developing Netflix’s 2018 horror hit The Haunting of Hill House, writer/director Mike Flanagan always intended to film an episode that flashed back to the history of the titular house and spent time with all the former inhabitants before the Crain family arrived. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. “We didn’t get to do it,” Flanagan said in a roundtable interview with Den of Geek and other outlets. “We’d written it, we’d cast it, we’d scheduled it....

December 26, 2022 · 5 min · 997 words · Joseph Leavitt

The Haunting Of Bly Manor Cast Where You Ve Seen The Actors Before

Henry Thomas – Henry Wingrave Thomas’ most famous role came at the age of 10 when he played young lead Elliott in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (see his terrific audition tape here). In recent years, Thomas has been a frequent collaborator with writer-director Mike Flanagan, playing the young Hugh Crain, father to the five Crain children and husband of Olivia Crain in Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House....

December 26, 2022 · 5 min · 919 words · Louise Gerardi

The Last Kingdom Netflix Movie Title Calls Back To A Book Prophecy

Excising the scene in which Uhtred seeks out ancient witch Aelfadell to hear her predictions on his future though, left The Last Kingdom without what some consider a key moment in the Saxon Stories. In the sixth book, Uhtred pretends to be Cumbraland lord Kjartan, and pays some monks to access the wise woman of Buchestanes. In her cave, she drugs him and he wakes up with his hands bound after a night of drug-fuelled ‘dreams’....

December 26, 2022 · 3 min · 483 words · Lottie Cohen

The Legend Of Vox Machina Captures The Joys Of Role Playing

Clearly, the fans of the podcast would follow the cast to the animated adaptation. But what about viewers who’d never listened to the extensive campaign? They might find some value in the venture as well…after a few episodes. As the animated series starts, the heroes are a down on their luck band of adventurers, known as Vox Machina, who have a poor reputation and are better known for their drinking than for their heroics....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 712 words · Rubin Throop

The Losers Chris Evans Idris Elba And Zoe Saldana S Forgotten Superhero Movie

Produced by Joel Silver, The Losers centered on a team of elite, black-ops Special Forces operatives betrayed by their handler. Director White connected with the material immediately. “What appealed to me about The Losers was that it wasn’t the typical superhero-with-superpowers thing,” White told MTV. “It was based on real characters—realistic characters—and based in reality, like a lot of the European graphic novels that I had grown up reading.” The director worked with creators Jock and Andy Diggle to refine the script and lend their expertise with design to give the film a distinct visual palette that changes with new locations....

December 26, 2022 · 5 min · 1052 words · Roger Johnson

The Mist Episode Season Finale Review The Tenth Meal

The Mist Episode 10 The Mist, episode 10, “The Tenth Meal,” should probably be watched on an empty stomach. It’s not that the gore effects will put you off your food, but people can be so unappetizing. Stores have run out at the mall, and the people stranded there are feeding the surplus to the mist. The cop sacrifices his son to depths of the hungry fog. His breakdown would almost be heartbreaking if he wasn’t the idiot listening to the crazy old lady....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 693 words · Debbie Cole

The Promised Neverland Season 2 The Major Changes Made From The Manga

While Netflix-watchers eagerly anticipate The Promised Neverland Season 2, fans who watch the anime on Hulu or elsewhere are five episodes into the second season, and—for the most part—are increasingly nervous about the series’ narrative choices. After the latest episode (Season 2, Episode 5), The Promised Neverland anime seems to be making major changes from the manga… and, by “changes,” I mean skipping entire arcs of the story, seemingly without any plans to replace them with narrative that bridges the beginning of this story with the end....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 828 words · Iris Stepnowski

The Queerness Of Gunpowder Milkshake

Gunpowder Milkshake has many strong qualities, but the movie’s character work isn’t one of them. The Netflix film is visually vibrant featuring crisp and clever fight sequences, but drops the ball when it comes to story, forgetting to make a case for why we should care about the group of woman assassins at its center. It’s a shame because the film brings together an incredible cast of women—including Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, and Carla Gugino—to play the queer found family ostensibly at the heart of this story....

December 26, 2022 · 4 min · 720 words · Carmen Stassinos

The Secrets Of Marvel S Eternals

It’s not hard, when a Captain America or an Iron Man movie hits, for Marvel to have a comic on shelves that new fans can be pointed toward as an accessible way to get to know the characters. The same can’t be said for The Eternals. In a lot of ways, Jack Kirby’s most bizarre creations – god-like beings, created by the all-powerful Celestials to do battle with the deformed, wild Deviants – have endured despite their relative scarcity....

December 26, 2022 · 12 min · 2548 words · Phillip Rush

The Sopranos Owes A Lot To James Cagney And The Public Enemy

On The Sopranos, Paulie often opens friendly chats with the phrase, “What do you hear? What do you say,” which was the street salutation of Rocky Sullivan, the mug Cagney played in Michael Curtiz’s 1938 gangster movie classic, Angels with Dirty Faces. Like Sullivan’s relationship with the Dead End kids in the film, The Many Saints of Newark sees Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) mentor both a young Paulie and a teenage Tony (Michael Gandolfini), who’s got an East Side Kids gang of his own....

December 26, 2022 · 7 min · 1346 words · Lisa Stoneking

The Suicide Squad Amanda Waller Is The Greatest Dceu Villain

If you’ve spent any time in the last few years among comic book fans, be it socially or online, then it’s easy to remember one of the most repeated criticisms leveled at the tangled madness we call the DCEU: The villains are terrible. This critique is not without merit. Despite DC Comics being home to some of the greatest villains of comicdom—who have in turn inspired some of the greatest movie baddies like Heath Ledger’s Joker, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, and Terence Stamp’s General Zod—Warner Brothers’ more recent DC Extended Universe has struggled to live up to that legacy....

December 26, 2022 · 5 min · 1049 words · Johnnie Elsey

The Trial Of The Chicago 7 Review The World Is Still Watching 50 Years On

Premiering on Netflix just before the U.S. presidential election, but months after a summer of civil unrest, The Trial of the Chicago 7 feels both tailored for our moment and almost transported from another universe. The irony of the timeliness is not lost on Sorkin, who filmed Chicago 7 a year before the death of George Floyd ignited a new wave of protests across the country (Sorkin also began writing the movie during the Bush administration)....

December 26, 2022 · 5 min · 1033 words · Kenneth Beauchamp

The Upside Down Being Frozen In Time Is Stranger Things Season 5 S Key Mystery

When the Stranger Things gang needed weaponry to fight off the Upside Down’s demobats in Season 4 Vol. I, they stopped off at the Byers house to pick up Nancy’s gun collection. There, they made two major discoveries. The first was how to communicate between the Upside Down and the normal world through lightbulbs, like Will did in Season 1. The second discovery was that the Upside Down – previously thought to be a copy of the normal world where time ran in parallel – was stuck in the past....

December 26, 2022 · 3 min · 471 words · Eileen Ralston

The Walking Dead Laura Return And Origin Explained

The Walking Dead season 10 finally came to a close with “Here’s Negan,” an episode based on the comic book storyline of the same name that takes a deep dive into the villain’s past. How did a high school gym teacher become the ruthless leader of the Saviors? The episode answers that question and shows how his villainous turn directly ties into his attempts to save his wife Lucille (Hilarie Burton) from cancer....

December 26, 2022 · 3 min · 492 words · Edward Tressler

The Walking Dead The Commonwealth Is A New Kind Of Threat

The story starts in rural Georgia with the closest analog to a villain being Rick’s best friend, Shane (issues 1 – 12). Then Rick’s crew moves on to a prison, where they are attacked and victimized by the overtly evil Brian Blake (a.k.a. The Governor) and his town of Woodbury (issues 13 – 48). The gang then hits the road for a bit and encounters minor villains like “The Hunters” before settling in the Alexandria Safe-Zone....

December 26, 2022 · 8 min · 1606 words · Linda Buckingham