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Showing posts from April, 2024

Twin Peaks: Season 3, Part 8 "Gotta Light?" Review

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 "This is the water, and this is the well." -Woodsman Part 8 picks up with Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) and Ray Monroe (George Griffith) driving away from the prison in South Dakota.  Mr. C discovers three tracking devices on their car.  He deactivates them and gets them to track a truck driving in front of them instead.  Mr. C asks for the information he asked Ray to get.  Ray says it will cost him.  When they pull over for Ray to go to the bathroom, Mr. C pulls a gun on Ray to get the information, but discovers it's unloaded when he tries to shoot Ray.  Ray shoots Mr. C instead.  A group of Woodsman appear and rip into Mr. C's body and pull out a dark ball with the face of BOB (Frank Silva) on it.  Ray flees and calls Phillip Jeffries (Nathan Frizzell) to tell him that he thinks Mr. C is dead.  However, Mr. C is revealed to still be alive. At the Roadhouse, the Nine Inch Nails perform. On July 16th, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb is detonated in New Mexico.  Thi

Survivor 46: Episode 9 "Spicy Jeff" Gameplay Analysis

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 "I'm not trying to have a Jurassic Park sequel right now." -Ben Katzman It's always fun when you find yourself yelling at the TV screen during an episode of Survivor .  I was absolutely yelling at Hunter to plays his Idol.  It's frustrating that he didn't listen to me, but it was still an exciting episode of Survivor that leaves the door wide open for some craziness next week.  Let's take a look at who played well and who sucked! Who Played Well: Taking Hunter and his Idol out of the game is good for everyone and everyone, except for Liz and Q, was in on it.  The Siga 3 continue to keep the spotlight off of them and Charlie also managed to win Immunity.  Unless the other players get wise, the Siga 3 could roll over the rest of the completion. Finally, I loved that Tiffany told everyone she was going to play her Idol, but didn't end up playing it.  That's a classic strategy that probably won't work again, but I always love to see it in action. 

Abigail (2024) Review

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 "I like playing with my food." -Abigail A crew of criminals kidnap a young girl with the plan of holding her for a large random.  Unfortunately for them, they discover she isn't trapped with them, but they are trapped with her...and she is a vampire. What Works: This movie has a an excellent cast who play a wide variety of shady characters.  Even though they're all criminals, most of them are still likable and all of them are interesting.  They have great chemistry and it's fun watching them interact with each other and try and solve the problem, even while butting heads.  Melissa Barrera does a great job as our protagonist and its easy to become invested in her character.  Dan Stevens is wonderful as the slimy jerkwad.  And both Kathryn Newton and Kevin Duran are hilarious and really likable, even if they aren't great people.  I just enjoy watching these characters hang out and that's huge in a horror movie like this.  So many similar movies have boring

Survivor 46: Episode 8 "Hide 'n Seek" Gameplay Analysis

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 "Long live Jelinsky." -Jeff Probst I love how much of a trainwreck this season is becoming.  There are so many chaotic personalities that you never know what's going to happen next.  This is a really fun cast, and while this Tribal Council may have been dumb, it was certainly entertaining.  Let's get into who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: Let's start with the remaining members of Siga.  For Ben, Charlie, and Maria getting rid of Tevin is a great move.  It weakens Nami and might keep the spotlight off of the them for a while.  I also really like how Ben handled returning to camp after Tim was voted out.  Charlie also managed to get into the Plus 1 alliance and then immediately realize how flimsy of a group it was and turn against it. I've been saying for a while that Liz can't win this game unless she starts taking big swings.  Well, she started that tonight.  She realized that she wasn't seen as a person that was making moves and change

Twin Peaks: Season 3, Part 7 "There's a Body All Right" Review

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"Who's Laura Palmer?" -Beverly Paige Part 7 picks up with Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) extremely stoned in the woods.  He calls his brother, Ben (Richard Beymer), and tells him his car was stolen and he doesn't know where he is. Hawk (Michael Horse) shows Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) the pages he found in the bathroom door.  They are pages from the diary of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee).  They describe a dream Laura had about Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham), who told Laura that the good Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) was trapped in the Lodge.  Hawk suspects the pages were hidden by Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) and that someone else left the Black Lodge in place of the good Cooper.  Frank tries to bring his brother, Harry (Michael Ontkean), in on the case, but decides not to when he learns how sick Harry is.  Instead, Frank calls Dr. Hayward (Warren Frost) who explains that Cooper was acting very strange and that he may have visited Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) a

Survivor 46: Episode 7 "Episode Several" Gameplay Analysis

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 "How did you get inside my head?" -Charlie Davis I don't love the placement of the double boot episode here.  I'd really like at least one normal episode between the Mergatory and the double boot just so we get a better understanding of the full tribe dynamics.  That said, I still really enjoyed this episode and watching some of these dynamics play out.  There's plenty to talk about here, so let's get into who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: Hunter was put into a potentially disastrous situation by being the only Nami in the orange group.  However, he managed to get in with the Yanu group and make it through the vote while also managing to hold onto his Idol. Kenzie had a strong episode starting with a very nice human moment where she helped Ben through his panic attack.  She also won Immunity and knocked Tim out of the game.  Since she has a closer connection Ben than Tim, this was the right call for her.  On that same note, Ben having that mome

Twin Peaks: Season 3, Part 6 "Don't Die" Review

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 "We are living in a dark, dark age, and you are part of the problem." -Janey-E Jones As Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) continues to stare at a statue of a lawman, a police officer gets him back to the Jones household.  Janey-E (Naomi Watts) is starting to get concerned with Cooper's behavior and plans to take him to see a doctor.  That all changes when an envelope showing Dougie Jones (Kyle MacLachlan) with Jade (Nafessa Williams) is delivered to the house.  Janey-E is furious with Dougie and when the people who sent the envelope call, she agrees to meet with them the next day. Mike (Al Strobel) appears to Cooper to try and get him to wake up.  Then small beams of light appear on Cooper's case files and Cooper follows the light with a pencil and marks up all the files.  At work the next day, Bushnell Mullins (Don Murray) dismisses the scribblings at first, but then realizes that they reveal something to do with one of his other employees, Anthony Sinclair (Tom Sizemor

Survivor 46: Episode 6 "Cancel Christmas" Gameplay Analysis

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 "I'll send her ass back to Canada." -Q Burdette That was a solid Mergatory episode!   It had a nice dash of chaos, but it was never hard to follow and their wasn't any production interference to make the episode feel gimmicky.  Just like last week, there were two key names being tossed out and good reasons to get rid of both.  All that was left was for us to guess who was going.  Again, this is what an average episode of Survivor should be.  Let's take a look at who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: Hunter, Tevin, Kenzie, and Q all managed to win Immunity and Tiffany picked the correct team to win, which earned her Immunity as well.  All five of them are set up nicely going forward, especially since they were able to take out a member of Siga.  Hunter also managed to get his hands on an Idol.  Plus I like the way Q talked to Maria before talking to Tim about the Journey 6 alliance.  It made him rightly skeptical of Tim.  I do think he is playing a litt

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

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 "Is that a mini-Kong?" -Bernie Hayes As Kong explores the Hollow Earth searching for his family, he uncovers an ancient foe of Godzilla that threatens to plunge the world into a new ice age.  A group of humans do their best to help Kong and Godzilla set aside their differences to come together and defeat the Skar King. What Works: The most important part of these movies has always been the bouts between the gigantic monsters and that is exactly where this movie shines.  The showdowns are a ton of fun with some bonkers and over-the-top action.  It's exactly what you want to see in a movie with both King Kong and Godzilla.  It's epic, badass, and occasionally hilarious.  In one scene, Kong uses a smaller ape as a weapon and it's the most I've laughed at a movie all year. Tom Holkenborg returns from Godzilla vs. Kong to do the music, and it's a high point of the movie.  He uses a lot of synth, which really works for the film.  This is a case where I think th