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For good or bad this is a Marvel movie. It stars Chris Pine as a rogueish balladeer with a heart of gold and a tragic backstory. He gathers of a team of quirky heroes and including a chaotic good wizard, a neutral good warrior, a lawful good paladin, and a neutral good druid. Together they…

I know, I know, I’m an easy mark for this stuff. But I want you to know that this one is better than the others. You probably had to be a really serious superhero comic fan to watch all (or even most) of the CW Greg Berlanti superhero shows. All of those shows followed a…

Writer/Director James Gunn takes the characters he made famous through one final, musical and emotional adventure that delivers everything a fan could want. Gunn once again proves that he can make esoteric superhero and science fiction material and turn in a story with heart and a few laughs. This is a movie that confidently rests…

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 is not the greatest superhero movie ever made but it is my favorite superhero movie. Briefly: The best superhero movie ever made is Spider-man 2 (the Sam Raimi one with Doc Ock). The most important superhero movie ever made is Joss Whedon’s Avengers. Vol. 1 goes from a stunning…

Charlie Wilson’s War is not quite a bullseye but second tier Aaron Sorkin is still full of crackle and wit.  Sorkin is a screenwriter, like David Mamet, Quentin Tarantino, Jane Espensen and Kevin Smith who’s style is so distinct that I can pick it out with my eyes closed.  Most of us who write are…

I have spent, perhaps, too much time thinking about Adam Sandler movies. The original Murder Mystery was one of those light surprises you find sometimes in the world of streaming cinema. Jennifer Anniston and Sandler had interesting married couple energy and the jokes mostly landed. I didn’t exactly rush to my tv to see the…

To answer the headline, they are all shows I am watching right now and they are so tense that I, at times, couldn’t take it. Spoilers for a lot of this, including a major spoiler for Succession as we get going. In the third episode of the fourth and final season Succession played the Ace…

Ben Affleck is going to mess around and have a directing career as storied as Clint Eastwood. Affleck’s Air is a dramedy about the men at Nike who figured out before his rookie season that Michael Jordan would be one of the great NBA players of all time and made a big bet on landing…

Spotting a trend is always asking for trouble. You think you see where the culture is going, or where it’s coming from, and then it darts into a different alley and leaves you in blood and tears. However, the last few years seem to show that the creatives who can get mystery stories up on…

My pal David Ginsburg started a podcast nearly a decade ago. Tales From the Fandom is a kindhearted visit to various fictional worlds with passionate fans of everything, everywhere, and quite a few things you may have never heard of. David occasionally gives me time to rant, mainly cause he’s a nice guy and also…