Review: ‘WandaVision’ is delightfully weird and intriguing

At the end of Avengers: Endgame the entire Marvel universe had been shattered and re-assembled. Half the universe was wiped from existence and brought back five years later. A few casualties stuck, one of whom was Paul Bettany’s Vision, the android created by a combination of The Avengers, their enemy Ultron, and the power of one of the infinity stones.

WandaVision is the first new entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in over a year. The first new entry to be a TV series features the return of Vision and his paramour Wanda Maximoff to a world that looks a lot like a TV sitcom. It’s weird, and it’s delightful.

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Review: ‘Soul’ cements Pete Docter as one of our great storytellers

Soul

Pete Docter is one of the best directors of animated features working today. That might sound like hubris, but it isn’t. Each of his films is adorable, approachable, and visually stunning enough to warrant the praise, but each also has a core of love and acceptance that makes them universal. The marriage montage in Up! or the simple truth that sadness plays a key roll in our lives from Inside Out, Docter makes movies that tell truths.

Soul, his latest film, is no different.

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Recap & Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Episode 8: ‘The Rescue’ pulls out all the stops in the name of fan service

Well, friends here were are, together at the end. The Mandalorian’s second season has been mostly good so far, and this last episode has some big promises to fulfil. Let’s see if it does so.

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Recap & Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Episode 7: ‘The Believer’ couples good action with good character development

The Mandalorian

I’m a little later in posting this recap than I would like to be thanks to some real-life concerns, but this weeks episode of The Mandalorian is one of the best of the season so far, with both the return of Bill Burr as Mayfeld and some solid character work from Pedro Pascal.

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Review: ‘Safety’; The first Disney+ sports movie is a safe bet

Safety

There are a few subjects more perfectly suited to the medium of film than the sports story. Sports provide a built-in context for storytelling: a team that functions as a surrogate family, conflict baked in, and fans and supporters alike to help move the plot along. In terms of setup, they are effectively unmatched. Sports movies provide a framework upon which you can hang a story about characters overcoming odds and achieving greatness, either professionally or personally.

Ray “Ray-Ray” McElrathbey’s story is seemingly also perfectly designed for the cinema. After gaining a full scholarship to Clemson University to play football, he ends up also taking custody of his eleven-year-old brother Fahmarr after his mother relapses. There’s a lot of potential for story and character there, and the resulting film does its best –for better and for worse– to tell as much of it as possible.

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Recap & Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Episode 5: ‘The Jedi’; Ahsoka Tano, I presume.

Ahsoka Tano

This weeks episode of This he Mandalorian has been one of the most anticipated of the entire season for one reason, and one reason only: it is the live-action debut of Ahsoka Tano, former Jedi and Padawan to Anakin Skywalker. A mainstay of the animated universe created by Dave Filoni, and original creation of George Lucas himself, she is one of the most popular characters in the franchise. She’s a total badass, too.

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Recap & Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Episode 4: ‘The Siege’ brings back some fan favourites

The Mandalorian

As of this week, we’re officially at the halfway point of this new season of The Mandalorian, and so far each little side quest has revealed something about the bad guys master plans. This week is no different, and it brings back Carl Weathers, Gina Carano, and Horacio Sanz as Greef Karga, Cara Dune, and Mythrol from season one.

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Recap & Review: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 3: ‘The Heiress’ is a shorter, but more intense episode

The Mandalorian

This week the father and the child end up on an ocean planet and join up with some familiar faces in what might be the most intense episode of the series to date. It turns out that Fan Service: A Star Wars Story leans way harder into the Dave Filoni created television shows than the films. Also, one revelation that I find super intriguing. Let’s take a closer look at The Heiress.

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Review: ‘The Real Right Stuff’ revels in the heroism of the first American astronauts

The Real Right Stuff

Recently, in reviewing the recent Disney+ / National Geographic series The Right Stuff, I commented that while it was competently made, the new adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s seminal book didn’t really bring anything new to the table, or the story. In hindsight, that may have been unfair. It’s true that the story is not new and that I have seen it before, but it did at least bring us the story of seven men rather than seven heroes.

The Real Right Stuff, a documentary about the same seven men and the Mercury Space Program, is in some ways a perfect follow up to that series. Using previously unreleased stories, audio recordings, and footage, it takes an in-depth look at the first American men to fly in space and what they had to go through to get there, and casts them once again as heroes.

In effect, the mini-series and this documentary form two parts of a whole. The former giving us a closer look at the men themselves, and the latter giving us a more complete overview of the mercury program itself.

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Recap & Review: The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 2: ‘The Passenger’ is all The Child, all the time.

The Mandalorian / The Passenger

Last weeks western-inspired desert monster hunt sure was a ton of fun, but it did leave a lot of people asking “what about the kid?” It seems like they must have realized that the episode was light on The Child because this second episode is non stop Child-related hijinx.

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Recap & Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Season Two, Episode 1: ‘The Marshal’ is a fun western action-adventure

The Mandalorian, Season 2

The Mandalorian is back for new adventures! The second season premiere is packed with action as Mando and The Child head back to Tatooine in search of other Mandalorians. Fair warning, spoilers for the episode to follow.

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