4.5 Razors

The Old Man – XII

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Old Man – XII
  • IMDb: link

The Old Man - XII

After the death of Morgan Bote (Joel Grey), Harold (John Lithgow) takes Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) and Zoe (Amy Brenneman) home with him leading to revelations and unexpected bonding over the tragic end of events in Afghanistan. There’s a scene in the middle of this episode featuring four people in a dark room on a phone call with someone half a world away, unable to do anything but listen, that hits home for each of them, and for the audience, as frenzy of uncertainty gives way to finality and leaves Dan Chase with only regret and revenge.

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Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #2

/ / Comics

Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #2

Another anthology issue offers three more stories of Spider-Man wearing the black suit which looks terrific in each of the stories presented here. Still new to the suit, in “The Edge of Rage” Spider-Man loses control with Morbius, beating him unconscious, and also later threatening Flash Thompson. We witness his recognition and shame for events but we also see the symbiote’s interest in Peter giving into his darker impulses.

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The Authority #1

/ / Comics

The Authority #1

Wayback Wednesday takes us back to a higher Authority. Like most of the characters who made up the new WildStorm super-team, Jenny Sparks didn’t premiere in The Authority #1. She was introduced a few years before in StormWatch (a comic I’ll freely admit never really worked for me). However, the twelve-issue run which reintroduced her as the leader of the Authority stands up against as one of the best in comics.

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Mr. Monk and the Earthquake

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Monk – Mr. Monk and the Earthquake
  • wiki: link

Mr. Monk and the Earthquake

Monk Monday takes us back to San Francisco and the toils of the defective detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub). “Mr. Monk and the Earthquake” offers extra opportunities for Shahloub to have some fun when Monk finds himself temporarily in a dissociative state spouting gibberish while attempting to communicate. As Dr. Kroger (Stanley Kamel) suggests, the condition is temporary allowing Monk to return to normal in the middle of the episode but it does reoccur after an aftershock producing one of the more humorous sequences of the series as Monk launches into his “here’s what happened spiel” without anyone being able to understand him and struggles with directing a cabbie to Sharona‘s (Bitty Schram) apartment during the climax.

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Shaun of the Dead

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Shaun of the Dead
  • IMDb: link

Shaun of the Dead

Returning to theaters 20 years after its initial release, Edgar Wright‘s horror comedy Shaun of the Dead still entertains. Written by Wright and star Simon Pegg, the film gloriously celebrates and mocks both zombie films and romcoms alike in this tale of a zombie apocalypse descending on London while many people are too busy to notice until it’s too late. Who best to survive? Bet you didn’t have your money on a group led by two of the laziest men in Crouch End. I’ll also note that viewing this in a post-COVID world also adds a different flavor to the film (as does viewing any zombie film highlighting humanity’s stupidity).

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