Monthly Archives: December 2016

Theater of Life review

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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by Thom Yee

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Theater of Life images courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada and Triplex Films International

You may think about homelessness on occasion, but, by and large, it’s not typically one of those things we usually consider on a regular basis. In a country like ours, Canada, most of us have the luxury of thinking about homelessness as a hypothetical rather than living it as a reality, contemplating it mostly at certain specific times of the year that encourage charity and caring for your fellow man [like now], but that doesn’t mean it just goes away or stops being a problem when you’re no longer paying attention to it. An extensive 2013 study from the Canadian Homelessness Research Network shows that at least 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in a year, and at least 30,000 Canadians are homeless on any given night. Continue reading →

Nocturnal Animals review

17 Saturday Dec 2016

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Family unfriendly? Anti-romantic? Nihilistic? With disturbing nudity? Finally, the perfect Christmas movie!

by Thom Yee

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Nocturnal Animals images courtesy of Focus Features

Okay. It’s the 17th. Of December. It’s almost Christmas. So here’s a review about the effect a sadistic, cruel book has on a lonely, isolated, and unhappy woman. It also starts off with a deeply unsettling sequence of fairly explicit nudity. And it’s December 17th, almost Christmas. Man, we gotta plan these things better. I guess there’s always next year.

In a lot of ways I think December is actually the best time of year for new movies, with a mix of low-brow, seasonally oriented fare and critically acclaimed features being released in near equal measure. While Oscar season — that time of year when the studios pump out their most prestigious, most award-worthy material in a vain attempt to eke out a profit from films that might not have been otherwise noticed — unofficially starts in November, by the time we get to December, we finally have a real measure of what the overarching narrative will be of that year in movies. We’ve had or will soon have the chance to see most of the films we’ll ever see in that year, and we can begin to make out the shape of the Oscars to come. Continue reading →

Everyone says I love you on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Flash, the Legends of Tomorrow talk effortlessly, The Walking Dead show their guts, and an announcement from us — Superhero Showdown episode 10

12 Monday Dec 2016

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — The Laws of Inferno Dynamics

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

Wait a minute. The Darkhold is a book? The bad guy is Uncle Eli? The Book of Eli? Wow, that’s a little weird.

So anyway, in the midseason finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., everything gets tied up, which, in and of itself, is a bit of a feat considering we had a new S.H.I.E.L.D., a new S.H.I.E.L.D. director, rogue agents, an anti-Inhuman agenda sweeping the nation, a Spirit of Vengeance, an artificial intelligence, and a bad guy who could seemingly make something out of nothing. Which, of course, Simmons and especially Fitz refuse to believe because of the laws of thermodynamics. Continue reading →

The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are back, it takes an Invasion(!) to bring the Arrowverse heroes together, and The Walking Dead are entirely too predictable — Superhero Showdown episode 9

05 Monday Dec 2016

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — Deals with Our Devils

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

This week Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. makes its long-awaited return after a three-week hiatus and—honestly, it’s getting a bit hard to remember why we watch this show other than it’s on TV. That’s not to say that “Deal with Our Devils” was a bad episode, it wasn’t and I don’t think any of this year’s episodes have been actually bad, but now that we’re in the show’s fourth season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has gotten to the point where you kind of just watch it to watch it. You know what this show is, you know what this show isn’t, you know what this show is probably never going to be but would like to be (i.e., important to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe), and if you’ve gotten this far with the show, you’re most likely going to stay on this train for as long as the track will last. Continue reading →