I’ve been writing on this blog, on and off, for about five years now.
Sometimes I’d write about life. Sometimes I’d write about films. Sometimes I’d write about travelling.
But as my life moved in different directions, my usage of this blog changed substantially. During my Masters, in particular, it became less prominent in my life, as I started working on a second blog, New to Comics as part of two of my projects. After I left university, both sites took a bit of a hit. But last year, I’ve made an effort to revive N2C, and now it’s this site’s turn.
Rather than just writing anything and everything, and promptly losing steam, I’m going to curate a collection of reviews and just general thoughts, new and old, based around all the nerdy things I love and have loved.
In the past year or so, I’ve started listening to Collider‘s various podcasts and videos alongside my usual intake of The Weekly Planet and Mr. Sunday Movies. I will often listen to Collider Live, am an avid listener of Jedi Council and have also become a big fan of the Rule of Two spin-off podcast.
During last week’s episode, Mark Reilly and Marc Fernandez counted down their top ten favourite Star Wars moments and encouraged listeners to do the same. And after listening to the podcast yesterday, I’ve opted to do just that.
Like Reilly and Fernandez, I’m also just going to be sticking to the movies, otherwise, this list could become overwhelmed with Kanan Jarrus moments.
Following the ‘Red Wedding’, we now have the ‘Purple Wedding’. This review is going to be a bit more heavy on spoilers (or rather, one particular spoiler) than the last three, due to the fact that a major death kicks off the plot-lines of the season.
RELEASED: April 6th 2014 – June 15th 2014 SHOWRUNNER: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss WRITTEN BY: David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman & George R. R. Martin DIRECTED BY: D. B. Weiss, Alex Graves, Michelle MacLaren, Alik Sakharov & Neil Marshall MUSIC BY: Ramin Djawadi STARRING: Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Charles Dance, Natalie Dormer, Jack Gleeson, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, John Bradley, Rose Leslie, Kristofer Hivju, Rory McCann, Gwendoline Christie, Jerome Flynn, Sibel Kekilli, Iain Glen, Liam Cunningham, Stephen Dillane, Carice van Houten, Alfie Allen, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Ivan Rheon, Conleth Hill, Aiden Gillen, Hannah Murray, Ciarán Hinds, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ellie Kendrick, Kristian Nairn, Michael McElhatton, Lino Facioli, Kate Dickie, Michiel Huisman, Dean-Charles Chapman, Finn Jones, Diana Rigg, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Daniel Portman & Pedro Pascal
This season is an interesting one, in that, so far, it’s probably had the largest collection of great episodes, but at the same time, a lot of the season doesn’t quite live up to the overall greatness of season three.
This season we reached the famous ‘Red Wedding’. I finally understand. So much so that season two seems slightly worse in hindsight (that review has been edited ever so slightly to reflect that opinion).
Anyway, same as last week, I’ll try not to spoil anything from this season, but there may be some spoilers for season two below.
RELEASED: March 31st 2013 – June 9th 2013 SHOWRUNNER: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss WRITTEN BY: David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Vanessa Taylor, Bryan Cogman & George R. R. Martin DIRECTED BY: Daniel Minahan, David Benioff, Alex Graves, Alik Sakharov, Michelle MacLaren & David Nutter MUSIC BY: Ramin Djawadi STARRING: Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harrington, Richard Madden, Iain Glen, Michelle Fairley, Aiden Gillen, Charles Dance, Liam Cunningham, Stephen Dillane, Carice van Houten, Natalie Dormer, John Bradley, Jack Gleeson, Sophie Turner, Oona Chaplin, Sibel Kekilli, Rose Leslie, James Cosmo, Jerome Flynn, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Maisie Williams, Alfie Allen, Joe Dempsie, Rory McCann, Conleth Hill, Ciarán Hinds, Kristofer Hivju, Diana Rigg, Finn Jones, Daniel Portman, Art Parkinson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ellie Kendrick, Natalia Tena, Iwan Rheon, Kristian Nairn, Tobias Menzies, Clive Russel, Michael McElhatton, Gwendoline Christie, Noah Taylor, Ed Skrein, Jacob Anderson, Nathalie Emmanuel & David Bradley
This show really starts taking strides this season. While season two was mostly just build-up, a lot of season three is the pay-off. The War of Five Kings highlights some big events. Stannis Baratheon and his ilk make some power plays. Even Bran Stark gets a destination. In fact, the only character who perhaps does not progress this season is Theon Greyjoy, who spends the ten episodes as a captive of a mysterious torturer. And I’m willing to forgive that because I don’t much care for him anyway.
Now that I’ve finally got around to re-watching Wonder Woman and writing up a review to slot safely between Suicide Squad and Justice League, it’s finally time to rank ALL SIX WORLDS OF DC MOVIES!
Which, to be honest, compared to the ‘Ranking All 20 Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies’, doesn’t sound quite so impressive. But still, it’ll be fun, and the list will obviously grow with the release of Shazam!, Wonder Woman 1984, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) and The Batman.
When I first saw this movie, I actually enjoyed it. Oh, how times change. Upon repeat viewing (of the extended cut, this time around), I realised this film is ruddy awful.
The proximity to Dawn of Justice‘s release at the time must have coloured my opinion, because watching this film on its own highlights that it’s poorly paced and poorly written, with terrible characters and an absolutely awful villain. Yet another CGI mess comes to terrorise our heroes – why? And why Enchantress’ brother of all people? Who’s greenlighting this nonsense?!
And then, on top of all of that, the film also somehow manages to be really boring. The first fifteen minutes are fun, but after that, this film is a huge slog.
A bit later than everyone else, but I finally got round to seeing Glass. The Unbreakable review will follow at some point, I’m sure.
RELEASED: January 18th 2019 DIRECTED BY: M. Night Shyamalan WRITTEN BY: M. Night Shyamalan PRODUCED BY: M. Night Shyamalan, Marc Bienstock, Ashwin Rajan & Jason Blum MUSIC BY: West Dylan Thordson STARRING: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clarke & Charlayne Woodard
Rejoice! This movie wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be. It was actually kind of enjoyable. But also, like Split, pretty stupid.
Set two weeks after the events of Split, Glass sees David Dunn, now known as the Overseer, on the hunt for the super-powered serial killer known as the Horde. However, before the two can settle their differences, they are caught by the authorities and taken to the mental institution housing terrorist Elijah Price, the infamous ‘Mr. Glass’, where they are presented with the possibility that they are not actually superpowered beings, and their ‘abilities’ are all in their heads.
RELEASED: January 20th 2017 DIRECTED BY: M. Night Shyamalan WRITTEN BY: M. Night Shyamalan PRODUCED BY: M. Night Shyamalan, Marc Bienstock & Jason Blum MUSIC BY: West Dylan Thordson STARRING: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, Brad William Henke, Sebastian Arcelus & Bruce Willis
I’ve never particularly been a fan of this series. Prior to Glass‘ release, Unbreakable and Split were amongst the only three M. Night Shyamalan film’s I’d seen (the third being The Village) and none of these films had left a lasting or favourable impression on me.
However, with Glass now in cinemas, I decided to go back and explore the prior films, starting with Split (because I seem to have lost my copy of Unbreakable and Split is on Netflix).
Split sees three young girls abducted by a man named Kevin Wendell Crumb. Crumb has dissociative identity disorder, and some of his split personalities have united to kidnap these girls as a tribute to an oncoming twenty-fourth personality, who is known only as ‘The Beast’.
Being so late to the game, I understand that spoilers are everywhere when it comes to Game of Thrones, and avoiding them can be a difficult task (I literally just had an event in season 4 spoilt for me while sourcing pictures for season 2).
However, due to season two of Game of Thrones building off the big events of season one, I can’t really discuss it without discussing spoilers for season one. So this is a spoiler warning. I won’t spoil anything that happens in season two, but unfortunately spoiling season one seems to be a necessary evil.
You’ve been warned.
RELEASED: April 1st 2012 – June 3rd 2012 SHOWRUNNER: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss WRITTEN BY: David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Vanessa Taylor & George R. R. Martin DIRECTED BY: Alan Taylor, Alik Sakharov, David Petrarca, David Nutter & Neil Marshall MUSIC BY: Ramin Djawadi STARRING: Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michelle Fairley, Emilia Clarke, Aiden Gillen, Iain Glen, Kit Harrington, Liam Cunningham, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Richard Madden, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Alfie Allen, John Bradley, Jack Gleeson, Rory McCann, Stephen Dillane, Carice van Houten, James Cosmo, Jerome Flynn, Conleth Hill, Sibel Kekilli, Natalie Dormer, Gethin Anthony, Gwendoline Christie, Finn Jones, Patrick Malahide, Gemma Whelan & Charles Dance
