Supergirl premiered on CBS Monday night setting a Fall series record of 14 million viewers. It was an undeniable teen hit with both boys and girls. And of course we watched it too.
But as critical fans of all things being superhero-y while female, did we enjoy it? Duh. But was her costume Tweeks Approved too? How does this show stack up against Agent Carter? Considering the middle school pressure to blend in would we keep their superhero powers a secret? Watch our review to find out the answers.
James Bond endures, with the 24th film, Spectre, scheduled to open November 6. The sinister organization has plagued 007 from the earliest films but have yet to rear their hoary heads in the current incarnation with Daniel Craig as Bond.
For those who are new to MI-6 and international espionage, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment want you to come up to speed. To that end, they have released seven of the films in special edition Blu-rays, DVDs and collectible box-sets.
The Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbooks spotlight the six films featuring the SPECTRE organization (From Russia With Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, For Your Eyes Only) and the three recent features (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall) each featuring packaging inspired by the films’ iconic opening title sequences.
For those who own these in some other high definition incarnation, you won’t need these. They contain the same special features although they do come with Digital HD codes.
The Steelbooks are solid, durable and visually attractive. Each one is distinctive just like their title sequences, carrying on the Maurice Binder tradition.
So, how do the films hold up? Sean Connery set the tone all others have attempted to match with varying degrees of success. The Cold War tensions infuse Russia along with some thrilling, authentic action sequences. A real sense of spectacle can be found on Thunderball, given all the aquatic Deering-do. Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by a variety of actors, menaces Bond time and again but the worst may well be in On Her Majesty’s Secret service, the once-reviled George Lazenby vehicle. It is far better than its rep and packs an emotional wallop.
Roger Moore’s more erudite and comical Bond shows up in For Your Eyes Only and is among the best of his outings.
It is currently up to Craig to carry on the tradition and despite looking nothing like Ian Fleming’s prose descriptions, he brings the right danger and gravitas to the role as the franchise received an overdue freshening. The rebirth cycle took three films with Spectre tidying up loose ends.
If you don’t want the entire 23 films (and some are clearly lesser offerings), the Steelbooks are not a bad sampler to have.
If you missed Bond 50, there is also The Ultimate James Bond Collection features all 23 films together in one Blu-ray box-set, which includes a 24th space for Spectre. This one also offers “Everything or Nothing”, a 90-minute documentary on the untold story of 007 and a pocket-sized James Bond 50 Years of Movie Posters book including the best posters from Dr. No through to SPECTRE. This collection will is exclusively available at Amazon.com.
Too often filmmakers interpret or reinterpret works from other media, nowhere near often enough creating new characters and situations. Look at Tim Burton, for example, he started off taking Pee Wee Herman and producing a feature version of his television series. He returned with the original and still funny Beetlejuice before tackling his version of Batman. Since then, he has not given us anywhere near enough original fare but all can be forgiven if you pause to consider Edward Scissorhands. Thankfully, 20th Century Home Entertainment has seen fit to cause us to consider the film since it has released Edward Scissorhands: 25th Anniversary on Blu-ray.
When it opened a quarter century back, I adored it, calling the Johnny Depp vehicle as a modern day fairy tale and it still holds up. I last watched it two years ago, showing it to my 9th graders as part of a film unit. They were taken by the visuals and the story, the timeless look of suburban America and the universal theme of fear of the unknown.
Up on the mountain outside the small community, an inventor (Vincent Price) has created life but lacked the ability to complete the boy (Johnny Depp), giving him a variety of shears for hands. In time, just before he could apply the hands as a birthday gift, the man dies of old age and Edward lives in the musty castle all alone. That is, until local Avon saleswoman Peg Boggs finds him and decides to bring him home to live with her family: husband Ed (Alan Arkin), shy daughter Kim (Wynona Ryder), and son.
Once they and their neighbors see Edward can use his bizarre appendages to design gorgeous topiary, they flock to be near him. He goes on to become a much-desired hair dresser, revealing new aspects of each woman’s personality. Along the way, he continues to long for Kim, who is freaked out by him, and prefers the company of her stoner, small-minded friends.
Then things take a turn for the worst and suddenly Edward is haunted, haunted, and literally run out of town for being too different. It is very much representative of the 1950s mindset although the pastel color scheme has a more timeless feel. The lovers are separated by fear and hatred giving us a bittersweet ending, without a happily ever after.
The film is narrated, much like a good old fashioned fairy tale, by a grandmother, and frames the tale as something magical.
Visually, the movie has Burton’s usual quirky sensibilities but they’re strong and totally appropriate to the subject matter. The Danny Elfman score is also pitch perfect.
Fox has remastered the film and it sparkles in its AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 track is a match to the visuals and it is a joy to watch.
Given the film’s age, there’s little surprise that the special features are a meager lot. It starts with a standard EPK package (4:39). We also have Theatrical Trailers (4:17). There are commentaries on separate tracks from Burton and Elfman, which can be interesting but far from revelatory. An anniversary package deserves a little more TLC so it’s a wee bit disappointing but overall, this is well worth having.
The most painful thing about The Last Witch Hunter is how clear it is that Vin Diesel is passionate about the material and is having an amazing time. Almost every profile piece I’ve ever read on Diesel has mentioned his love of Dungeons & Dragons, or that he wrote the introduction for their 30th anniversary retrospective book, or that his character in xXx had a tattoo with the name of his D&D character on his stomach; his nerd credentials are beyond reproach and they’re on full display in this film. Unfortunately instead of turning that knowledge and experience in to a quality fantasy movie, we’re given a film that is about as interesting as listening to the guy behind you in line for Star Wars tell you stories about how amazing his character is in his buddy’s D&D game.
The Last Witch Hunter suffers immensely from a lack of stakes. It features an immortal badass killer, Kaulder, who not only can’t die but any injury he suffers heals instantly Wolverine-style. All of the supporting characters are seemingly introduced immediately before being put in peril so you have to really bond with them quickly to feel anything at all for them. Michael Caine, the only actor in the cast capable enough to overcome this script problem, is imperiled off-screen and is afflicted with some kind of curse that is barely explained nonsense seemingly designed so they could have their emotional moment but still bring Caine back for the sequel. Things ramp up dramatically toward the end of the movie when they strip Kaulder of his immortality and directly imperil the entire world or maybe just New York City (and honestly is there even a difference) but by then I was just too far-gone to care.
Reportedly, this script came about from Vin Diesel telling one of the screenwriters about one of his Dungeons & Dragons characters. While I’m not sure any movie should come about through a story like that, it makes his investment in this movie palpable. He believes in his character and every silly nonsense word that comes out of his mouth. In a weird way, it’s one of my favorite performances of his career because he’s trying to put this movie on his back and just make it better through sheer force of acting. Diesel isn’t on that rare level where he can make a movie better just by trying harder, but I can appreciate that effort even if it isn’t quite enough.
There isn’t enough original stuff in this movie to make it feel worth the time and effort of making it. Fantasy is so well trod these days there’s nothing in the flashback scenes that I haven’t seen in Game of Thrones, or Lord of the Rings, or even How to Train Your Dragon. The contemporary stuff at its very best feels like a slightly reskinned version of Men in Black and at worst like an episode of Charmed. I sort of liked their take on a bar for witches (even if that’s not exactly new ground) but my enthusiasm was dashed when the place is destroyed within five minutes of being introduced on screen. Nothing feels like a fresh take, or a new use of metaphor, or a deeper look at a theme, it’s just recycling stuff we’ve seen and hoping the new arrangement proves compelling and it doesn’t.
I often complain about movies feeling too compact or too drawn out, and The Last Witch Hunter is in a strange limbo in between. Everything feels too rushed and there isn’t any space for the story to breathe or for the characters to reveal themselves to us, but also I left that 106-minute movie convinced it had been two and a half hours long. It might be an impossible task to make this a compelling film narrative. This is a story that would work much better in a novel: it would have proper space to build, internal monologues could make exposition a little less clunky, and the stakes could be more clearly defined.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I would want to read that novel either.
Given its setting during the Christmas season and with “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” playing as the credits rolled, Die Hard rapidly became a beloved Holiday classic. So, it’s no surprise to see 20th Century Home Entertainment kick off the Holiday gift giving season with the release of Nakatomi Plaza: Die Hard Collection. All five films in the series along with a bonus disc are packed into the base of a plastic replica of the famous locale of the first film. The structure measures 15″ high, mounted on a base which measures 7 1/8″ square and will stand proudly atop your mantle or bookshelf, a reminder of the series; enduring popularity despite the premise wearing thin with each installment.
The first, with Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis), attempting to stop terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) from killing everyone at a holiday part attended by his ex-wife (Bonnie Bedelia), is riveting, taut, and filled with some wonderful human moments from the major characters. McClane is world-weary everyman merely trying to survive, risking all to save the woman he still loves, encouraged by a lone cop (Reginald VelJohnson) via walkie-talkie.
Adapted by Steven E. de Souza and Jeb Stuart from Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever and The Detectives, the film was expertly directed by John McTiernan. The critical and box office success led 20th Century Fox to order up a sequel.
Set in a deserted airport terminal, McClane is called to do the impossible a second time and with less satisfying results although it was nice seeing Dennis Franz play a different kind of cop.
The third installment followed the then-popular trend of mismatched buddies and they wisely paired Willis with Samuel L. Jackson, playing a different kind of everyman. They ran from one end of Manhattan to another, avoiding a sniper who turned out to be Gruber’s brother (Jeremy Irons), seeking revenge.
The last two focus more on John and his children, one at a time, in increasingly hard to swallow premises, made good only by the interplay between father and offspring.
So, if you already own either the wonderful Die Hard Collection, Die Hard: 25th Anniversary Collection or the Die Hard Legacy Collection, do you need this one? Well, do you have room for the tower? Do you want the bonus disc with an hour of stuff? The box containing the discs also comes with a 32-page booklet with some BTS photos and there are collectible cards featuring the antagonists.
For the record, the box contains the Blu-ray versions of Die Hard, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Die Hard: With A Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard (includes Unrated Version), A Good Day to Die Hard (includes Unrated Version) and a code for their digital HD versions. The bonus disc is not available digitally.
Decoding Die Hard (1:47:01) contains seven featurettes: Origins – Reinventing the Action Genre; John McClane – Modern Day Hero; Villains – Bad to the Bone, Sidekicks – Along for the Ride, Fight Sequences – Punishing Blows, Action – Explosive Effects; and, The Legacy – The Right Hero for the Right Time. All of these are repurposed from the Die Hard: 25th Anniversary Collection.
The collection in one form or another is well worth having as Bruce Willis is always fun to watch regardless of how preposterous the premise.
In almost four years of reviewing movies the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been in a movie theater was watching Mama, the 2013 horror movie produced by Guillermo del Toro. I remember very few of the particulars of that movie but what I remember quite viscerally was scene after scene of being transfixed by the action on the screen and wanting nothing more than for it to be over. Crimson Peak is the first movie since then to recreate that feeling so precisely, when the movie wanted to scare me I was consistently scared to what I believe to be the maximum level I can be scared while watching a movie. No matter what else I thought about the movie, it was completely successful at its objective and that’s worth a lot.
Guillermo del Toro seems as if he was put on this earth to make a movie set in a decaying Victorian manor house full of ghosts. It takes a little while to get to the titular setting, but once we’re there the movie is consistently breathtakingly beautiful. The house is falling apart, the roof is barely present in the main hall, the pipes run with blood red water, and the house is sinking in to a foundation of soft red clay and every little detail is the perfect visual metaphor for the story at hand. Crimson Peak has the perfect gothic look and it seems so effortless; like what Tim Burton would do if he could let go of being quite so precious.
I suppose if we keep the Burton metaphor alive, then Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain feel more than a little like a redux version of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, but that’s not giving either actor enough credit. Neither makes me feel quite as weary playing well-worn gothic archetypes, although between this and Only Lovers Left Alive, Hiddleston should probably watch his step. Chastain is especially good in this and is playing so far against her normal type that she becomes almost completely enveloped in the role of Lucile. Lucile is a magnetic character that demands attention whenever she’s on screen, and while she never has to share the screen with one of the film’s grotesque ghosts I would say she’s even more arresting in the frame.
I’ve said that this movie is terrifying, beautiful, and has standout acting, but unfortunately the story is a little thin. The actual plot is very straightforward, and anyone who has regularly consumed any media at all in their life will know all the twists and turns of the plot in the first half hour or so. All roads lead in one direction and the film happily chugs along that path with no real diversion and a handful of pit stops to show off some horrifying ghost effects. It doesn’t make the movie less enjoyable to watch, it’s always the journey more than the destination with any piece of narrative, but it would have been nice to be surprised by something that wasn’t a specter bursting through a wall or floor.
I’m deeply impressed by Crimson Peak, and I sincerely hope that del Toro goes and does a few more things before returning to horror. I would love to see a Pacific Rim sequel or another Hellboy movie or if he still has the desire to do an endless fantasy epic after his adaptation of The Hobbit fell through I would gladly watch that. I could use another 30-month break before I have to squirm through a collection of scenes as scary as I was given in Crimson Peak or that he influenced in his work on Mama. I’m delighted to get to watch a master work the way del Toro makes horror movies but I’m afraid I just don’t have the constitution— and more than that, I’m afraid to see what he’ll do to scare me next time.
The Final Girls is a movie that came to a crossroad about what kind of movie it wanted to be, and instead of making the choice stayed at that point reading the signs until it wasted away. There’s a good madcap comedy in there spoofing the Friday the 13th series and slasher movies in general, but it feels a little superficial when you consider that horror parody has been a persistent genre over the last two decades. Likewise, there’s a good metaphor in here about getting over grief and moving on after the death of a loved one, and at times it feels like the film wants to be very powerful on this topic, but it only feels like it exists in the scenes specifically designed to deal with it. Without walking down either path quite far enough, we’re left with a journey that never feels complete.
There’s not a lot of new space to make jokes about slasher movies. Scream gave everyone a full rundown of many of the clichés, but the genre has been firmly entrenched in self-parody almost from the very beginning. To point out that there are specific character archetypes or that certain behaviors will often lead to character death isn’t clever anymore and it’s only fleetingly funny. The bits that do work usually work because one of the better actors is delivering the material. Adam DeVine is a transfixing comedic presence that makes bad jokes seem good and good jokes seem amazing. Alia Shawkat is similarly magnetic in her screen time and it’s unfortunate that her character seems to fade further and further in to the background as the movie progresses and it becomes clear that her relationship with the main character is not the important one.
The main character, Max, is perhaps the biggest source of my frustration. I’m not entirely clear if the problem is the part is underwritten or if Taissa Farmiga is just in a bit over her head, and it’s probably a little bit of both. Max is supposed to be consumed by grief, and while that might explain her tendency to drift through the events of the film it doesn’t make her feel like a compelling character. At the end of the film the only things I felt like I knew for sure about Max is that she was sad a lot, she has a crush on a boy, and she was capable of remembering a pop song from the 80s. Farmiga also feels like a less compelling screen presence than her co-stars, particularly Malin Akerman, DeVine, and Shawkat. More than anything else, the poor casting underscores that this is an indie movie, and is stuck in my craw as a great “what might have been” for the film.
I am probably being too harsh with The Final Girls, or at the very least underrating how pleasantly surprised I was that this wasn’t another horror movie parody that’s really about sex politics. I don’t mean that there isn’t a place for those kind of critiques, but I feel like they’ve been done to death and I’m a little tired of them from a narrative sense. Instead, The Final Girls is about grief and the struggles to move on from an important loss, and the decisions made around this theme are so much more clever than the jokes they string up to hold the plot segments apart. The looping events and paradoxical geography of the camp are something I’ve never seen used before to talk about the feelings one can get stuck in after the loss of a close family member. It felt so much fresher than some of the other stuff, and I wish that whoever made the choice thought that stuff was more interesting that another round of jokes about how alcohol is always around cursed campgrounds.
It goes without saying that the 1970s cannot be recounted without examining certain cultural phenomena. The Godfather and star Wars certainly helped redefine filmmaking and both had major impact on pop culture. But then there was the growth of cult cinema, which endures to this day, and was sparked by the arrival of a 20th Century Fox flop, a failed adaptation of a British stage play that gained some cred when it moved to Los Angeles. Little did anyone suspect that when New York’s Waverly theater began screening The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight, it would engage a generation.
I had heard of it soon after the screenings began but didn’t see it for the first time until my college roommate showed it in our dorm room so I could see and hear it for myself before it screened on campus with complete audience participation. I was taught which lines to repeat, when to throw toast, and the rest.
Thanks to home video, the film’s popularity has never waned as subsequent generations have discovered it and made it a part of their experience. So, here we are marking its anniversary with The Rocky Horror Picture Show 40-th Anniversary Celebration. 20th Century Home Entertainment has released it in a variety of formats but even its most basic single-disc Blu-ray edition is packed with wonderful stuff.
Richard O’Brien never expected his twisted homage to science fiction films would ever grow beyond the Royal Court Theater. Working with director Jim Sharman, they were clearly in sync and having fun. Anchored n stage by Tim Curry, the show gained a nice following, crossing the ocean to play at the Roxy Theater where core members of the film cast assembled, It was so enthusiastically received that a bidding war for film rights erupted.
The movie was shot cheaply and quickly, as befit its story, and opened in England on August 14, 1975 and at the UA Westwood in Los Angeles on September 26. Mainstream audiences and their critics didn’t get it. More, they didn’t like it and it was quickly yanked from its limited release. The Waverly began their screenings April 1, 1976 and finally, it found its intended audience.
In the current Entertainment Weekly, Curry (Dr. Frank N. Furter), Patricia Quinn (Magenta), Meat Loaf (Eddie), Barry Bostwick, and Susan Sarandon were reunited and in their reminiscences you got a sense of the organized chaos surrounding the production. It probably helped that Bostwick and Sarandon were new to the production, as were their characters Brad and Janet.
The story doesn’t always make sense but boy, does it look sharp and have a great soundtrack. The performances were spot on, with tongue just firmly enough in cheek so they got the joke and shared it with the audience. The combination of Sci-fi tropes, rock score, and amazing visuals helps keep it entertaining on repeat viewings. The high definition edition is crisp, matched with a strong audio track.
The single Blu-ray disc offers the film in in its USA and UK release versions along with Audio Commentary by O’Brien and Quinn. Most of the special features are repurposed from previous editions but is nice to have them here. Many of these can also be downloaded to your computer. These include:
Rocky-oke: Sing It!
Don’t Dream It, Be It: The Search for the 35th Anniversary Shadowcast, Part I
An-tic-i-pation: The Search for the 35th Anniversary Shadowcast, Part II
We haven’t had a good old fashioned disaster movie in ages. The timing for San Andreas is interesting in that most Californians have stopped worrying about the big earthquake, focusing instead on the drought and/or the wildfires. But the seismologists have never stopped fretting that a quake, more devastating than the 1906 San Francisco event, is imminent. After several decades of “imminent” waiting, I can see how attention has wandered.
The Dwayne Johnson-led action film is a brutal reminder of just how much devastation is likely to result from such an earthquake. With CGI effects to enhance the imagery, this is a visual feast of destruction. And like every good epic in this genre, we follow the impossible efforts of one man not only to survive but to rescue his family despite the odds. As a result, the horrific reality is undercut by the muscular heroics. We know they’re going to nearly die but survive, the nuclear family intact, as San Francisco vanishes around them.
The movie, out now on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment, is exciting and entertaining despite stretching credulity, As with so many of this films, the scenes of death and destruction are sometimes hard to watch and always prolonged beyond necessity. Whereas you could get to know the cast aboard the vessel trying to land in Airport or survive The Towering Inferno, the editing is much faster so it changes the pacing and tempo and you can get lost in the debris.
The story begins with the scientists at Cal Tech, led by Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti). They believe they have perfected predicting quakes so of course, their equipment is immediately tested with the Bog One, which is bigger than most worst case scenarios imagine. We watch as Hoover Dam and Los Angeles get smashed as the wave heads north up the San Andreas Fault line.
Enter rescue helicopter pilot Ray Gaines (Johnson), abandoning his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), to do his duty around Los Angeles. She accompanies her soon-to-be stepfather Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd) and her mother Emma (Carla Gugino) into and out of danger until dad has come to the rescue. They wind up being accompanied by Daniel’s sister Susan (Kylie Minogue) and things continue to move at a breathless clip.
You root for everyman Johnson to save the day time and again, because that’s all these movies want you to do. There’s no room for discussions over safety inadequacies or the general nature of human behavior. Instead, our core characters stand in for mankind and we munch our popcorn, hoping they survive without too much trouble.
Director Brad Peyton (Journey 2) keeps things moving along, sometimes too quickly, but rarely taking his eye off the family that gives the film a heart more recent efforts like 2112 skipped. We’re left reassured we will survive and rebuild.
The high definition transfer is excellent at 1080p, 2.40:1 so every bit of concrete and steel, every drop of water, and every fleck of blood is sharp. The Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless soundtrack is a peerless match the visuals making this one satisfying home viewing experience.
There are only a few special features included, which is surprising given the scope of the project. The Audio Commentary from Peyton offers up many a nugget of interesting information about the filmmaking process. Then there are some relatively short pieces starting with San Andreas: The Real Fault Line (6:23), as cast and crew recall shooting specific moments; Dwayne Johnson to the Rescue (9:24), as the star recounts making the film’s opening and closing sequences; Scoring the Quake (6:13), with Composer Andrew Lockington; Deleted Scenes (4:40), a collection of eight scenes, with option commentary from Payton; a Gag Reel (1:22); and, a Stunt Reel (2:56).
Arrow was the first serious approach to superheroics based on the DC Universe in quite some time. There was little risk picking a second tier character that some but not many may have known about. Producer Greg Berlanti assembled a team consisting of Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg to sift through nearly 70 years of Green Arrow material and figure out how to turn it into a weekly series for the CW.
Once they figured out it was a story of redemption, of Oliver Queen’s journey from spoiled rich kid to a man avenging his father’s death and maturing into the man he was intended to be, they hit pay dirt. The series was rich with nods to the DCU and the adaptations from the source material served to make the show strong and fascinating.
They hit pay dirt with the casting of Stephen Amell as Queen but even better was the amazing chemistry he had with his supporting cast, notably Emily Bett Rickards, originally brought on for a bit role, but grew into the series’ heart and soul.
Season one was all about coming back to Starling City and Queen atoning for his sins and his alter ago, the Hood, reclaiming the metropolis. Season two was a journey towards becoming a hero as his support team grew, but the price that came with his newfound role was steep. Season three, out now on Blu-ray from Warner Home Video, was all about identity.
Across the 23 episodes, every member of the main cast had to reassess their role on the team, their connection to Queen, and their personal goals. We saw his kid sister Thea (Willa Holland) grow up, trained by her biological father, Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), to become a capable fighter. We saw Sarah Lance (Caity Lotz) die in Merlyn’s game for power with his former liege, Ra’s al Ghul (Matt Nable), who had come calling to Starling City. Her death propelled her sister Laurel (Katie Cassidy) to stop her alcoholic spiral and train to become the new Canary, complete with sonic cry.
The season’s meta arc was Ra’s wanting Queen as his heir, to wed his daughter Nyssa (Katrina Law), and relocate to Nanda Parbat. The others had to protect the city while trying to help Queen. But there were many a distraction along the way. Queen Consolidated was bought out by Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), renamed Palmer Technologies, and we watched the eager, affable Palmer build a suit of armor nicknamed A.T.O.M. to protect his city. More time was spent with the new spinoff series, Flash as members of that cast casually dropped by for teamups and shakes.
Additionally, there were side stories about Diggle (David Ramsey), his wife Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson), and their Argus work which also involved the Suicide Squad.
As a result, things sprawled and grew diffuse, robbing Queen of the spotlight. His journey was constantly being obscured by everyone else’s. Even the main supporting team seemed to be losing screen time to other threads so across the season things were engaging but messy. What really hurt were the ludicrous flashbacks, taking Oliver Queen off his island exile and actually bringing him to Hong Kong and even a secret visit to Starling. If they are done with the island, maybe they should be done with the flashback device and move on.
By the end of the season, Arsenal (Colton Haynes) was gone, Laurel was accepted as the Black Canary and Thea suited up as Speedy. Palmer’s armor seemed to work better when he was miniaturized. And Merlyn is the new Ra’s al Ghul as his opponent Damian Darhk has set his sights on the ravaged Starling City – all of which sets up the new season beginning tonight.
The show has never looked stronger with terrific set designs for Nanda Parbat, sleeker, more appropriate costumes. The production and effects team deserve their kudos which come with some nice bonus material on the final disc
The high definition transfer is sharp and the sound good. The episodes are spread across four discs, each one with episode-specific deleted scenes. Disc four has a nice package of features starting with “Second Skins: Creating The Uniforms of Arrow”; “Nanda Parbat: Constructing The Villain’s Lair”; “The Man Beneath the Suit – Atom’s First Flight”; the ever-present Gag Reel, and the well-traveled Warner TV panel from 2014’s Comic-Con International (also found on several other releases this fall).
, the 2013 horror movie produced by Guillermo del Toro. I remember very few of the particulars of that movie but what I remember quite viscerally was scene after scene of being transfixed by the action on the screen and wanting nothing more than for it to be over. Crimson Peak is the first movie since then to recreate that feeling so precisely, when the movie wanted to scare me I was consistently scared to what I believe to be the maximum level I can be scared while watching a movie. No matter what else I thought about the movie, it was completely successful at its objective and that’s worth a lot.
