My Review of Superman (1941)

 

Written by Seymour Kneitel And Isadore Sparber

Directed by Dave Fleischer 

Clark: "This looks like a job for Superman."

Am I really reviewing a ten minute animated Superman movie? Yes, yes I am. How could I not? After all, it's one of the first debuts for the character, cinematic wise. It's also a rather straightforward enough story.

There's Clark Kent (Bud Collyer). He's a reporter living in Metropolis and working for The Daily Planet. He's also the superhero known as Superman and the latter had a villain to take out in such a short space of time.

The villain in question was known as The Mad Scientist (Jack Mercer). He's got a deadly Electrothanasia-Ray that he intended to use on Metropolis. Superman to one side, the other obstacle for The Mad Scientist was a certain reporter.

In the early days, Lois Lane (Joan Alexander) really was the stereotypical damsel in distress and that's pretty much her function here. She's smart enough to work out where The Mad Scientist but still ended up being captured by the villain and needing Superman to rescue her.

The battle between Superman and The Mad Scientist was fairly straightforward too. The Electrothanasia-Ray got easily destroyed, the baddie defeated while Lois got her scoop and no one was the wiser on Clark's true identity. 

- Apparently there's seventeen of these short films on the character. They're in the public domain. This short is available on YouTube.

- Perry White (Julian Noa) also appeared while Jackson Beck voiced the narrator and a radio broadcaster.

- The catchphrase "Truth and Justice" popped up here.

- Chronology: 1940s Metropolis.

Superman (1941) told a pretty straightforward story and told it rather well. It's a great debut with some gorgeous animation and strong voice acting.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

Another Seaside Town Of Doom

It's been a while and there's some omission that will surface at a later but here's a rundown of recent shows that I've been watching.

9-1-1: Season 9 has probably been the weakest season of the show and there's a part of me that doesn't want to continue watching but I might. I do think Buck going from being kidnapped, having an addiction and now potentially being a father to his dead friends rambunctious son were all storylines that needed more time to breathe. Instead they're all rushed. As for Athena, I guess I am curious to see how she'll fare as a detective next season.

9-1-1: Nashville: Let's be honest, the rivalry between Blythe and Dixie might be repetitive every episode but it's one of the few times where the show's campiness actually works in it's favour. The diss track saga might even be the best story from this largely uneven first season. It even led to a fricking cat fight cliffhanger with the pair.

Daredevil: Born Again: A classic example of wanting to like a season, liking certain aspects but being largely bored with it as it further went along. At this point, I am well and truly over Matt Murdock vs. Wilson Fisk and if this show has any hope of going beyond next season, it needs to get over it as well. There was a decent rivalry between Karen and Heather, death for Vanessa and Daniel, the welcomed return of Jessica Jones but too often this season felt like it was sleepwalking.

The Boys: Season 5 hasn't turned out to be grand epic final that most fans were hoping but it's not quite been the Game Of Thrones style misfire. It's mostly been in between and would fall into "serviceable" at best. Too much time did seem to focus on setting up on Vought Rising and that much hyped Supernatural reunion amounted to very little. Homelander had too much plot armour as per usual but at least we're free of both him and Butcher. I've never been happier to see two main characters die than those two. I will not be covering that prequel series. After this final season, I'm definitely out of interest in this universe.

Widow's Bay: Matthew Rhys continues to build himself as an underrated king of television and his latest show would be one in my current favourite genre. Well, it's more horror comedy and the first half of the season has seen a lot of crazy shit happen in a seaside town. Rhys himself has proven to be well cast as the town's slightly inept Mayor doing his best to help his town and there's a good slew of characters for him to bounce off. I can see this show ending up in a few favourite lists towards the end of the year.

• Dan Stevens and Brian Cox will play different killers in the second season of Dexter: Resurrection. Uma Thurman and Desmond Harrington will also return.
• Sky have acquired the rights to the new Baywatch. The show will premiere on FOX from January 2027.
• A Texas based spin-off for Grey's Anatomy has been commissioned at ABC.
• Vision Quest will premiere on Disney+ from October 12th.
• HBO limited series The Chain has found it's lead in Jodie Comer.
• The Vampire Lestat will premiere on AMC from June 7th. An After show will also air alongside the new season.
• Season 6 of Only Murders In The Building has now gone into production.
• Stuart Fails To Save The Universe will now premiere on HBO Max from July 23rd.
• Scrubs has been renewed for an eleventh season at ABC.
• Netflix have renewed Running Point for a third season.
• The White Lotus has replaced Helena Bonham Carter with Laura Dern. Season 4 is now filming in France.
• Bridgerton will premiere it's fifth season in 2027.
• The final season of The Bear will premiere on FX from June 25th.

My Review of I Killed My Mother aka J'ai tué ma mère (2009)

 

Written And Directed by Xavier Dolan

Hubert: "What would you do if I died today?"

Chantale: "I'd die tomorrow."

Well, this one's been on my list for a while now and given that it's been seventeen years since it's released, I finally got around to seeing it. I can see why this has developed the following it's gotten.

Our protagonist was a man named Hubert Minel (Xavier Dolan). Hubert had something of a frustrating relationship with his mother, Chantale Lemming (Anne Dorval). Hubert for the most part loves his mother but also hated being her son. There's something believable in that sort of family dynamic. 

I think on Hubert's case, it's probably not helped by the fact that both him and his mother seem to clash a bit too easily and that the latter had a tendency to publicly embarrass Hubert as well. In fact, it's down to this that Hubert told his teacher, Julie Cloutier (Suzanne Clément) that his mother was dead. 

On top of that obvious lie that Julie quickly debunked, Hubert actually wrote an essay about Chantale being dead. It turned out that Hubert craved his family home as a child and that was where he ended up by the end of this movie. There's even a nice scene where it seemed like Hubert and Chantale came to some sort of truce with one another.

Another big part of this movie was Hubert's relationship with his boyfriend, Antonin (François Arnaud). The latter by contrast had a much healthier relationship with his own mother, Hélène Rimbaud (Patricia Tulasne) and even pointed out Hubert's selfishness in a way that actually made Hubert take note.

There's some legitimately strong chemistry between Xavier Dolan and François Arnaud with Antonin doing a lot to temper some of Hubert's worse qualities. That didn't stop Hubert from cheating on Antonin with Éric (Niels Schneider) in a minor subplot. Saying that, I'm glad both Hubert and Antonin were together by the end of the film.

- We did briefly meet Hubert's father, Richard (Pierre Chagnon). Hubert lashed out at him.

- Xavier Dolan wrote the script when he was sixteen. Hubert was sixteen for most of the film.

- Standout music: André Hébert's Des roses rouges pour toi maman.

- Chronology: During Hubert's teenage years in suburban Montreal. There's black and white scenes to an older version.

For a first time look into Xavier Dolan's filmography, it's not hard to see why I Killed My Mother (2009) would be held in such high regard. It's an impressive debut with strong central performances and a complex look at a mother/son relationship. I really liked this one.

Rating: 8 out of 10

My Review of Macabre (1980)

 

Written by Pupi Avati And Roberto Gandus And Lamberto Bava And Antonio Avati

Directed by Lamberto Bava And John Gayford

Opening Title Card: "Inspired by a series of actual events that took place in New Orleans a few years ago..."

Prior to yesterday evening, I didn't even know this movie was even a thing. Funny that. Anyways, I'll say that it's title though turned out to be rather justified, so points for that.

In this movie, you've got Bernice Stegers as the rather dissatisfied housewife Jane Baker. Despite living in a nice house with a seemingly nice husband, Leslie (Fernando Pannullo) and two kids, she's been sleeping with a man named Fred Kellerman (Roberto Posse) at a boarding house, owned by a nice woman named Mrs. Duval (Elisa Kadigia Bove) and her blind son, Robert (Stanko Molnar).

Anyways, Jane's affair was on the verge of being exposed by her bratty daughter, Lucy (Veronica Zinny) and the death of her son, Michael pretty much ended her marriage. There was also her affair being exposed and her lover dying in a grisly accident that she managed to survive.

The majority had Jane living with Robert at the boarding house as Robert's mother died off screen. Jane had been mostly distant with Robert until she tried one attempt of seduction. Then there's also how she coped with Fred's death. She didn't deal with it at all.

Nope, she dedicated a shrine to her dead lover and keeping with the macabre side of things, she kept his head. Worse than that, she often cavorted with it as well in some genuinely sickening to watch scenes. It also didn't long for both Robert and Lucy to discover this, though how they dealt with this information differed.

I knew there was something off about Lucy and felt vindicated when she confessed to killing her brother. Trying to trick Jane into eating Fred's earlobe was gross and Jane's reaction certainly pushed things into very dark territory. The ending with poor Robert. That man really suffered having to deal with that mother and daughter duo.

- John Gayford directed the English version. It's an Italian movie despite not being set in Italy.

- Lucy drowned Michael and Jane ended up doing the same to her. Robert got attacked by Fred's head, which came to life.

- Standout music: Norberto Gil Ventura's Jane In Love.

- Chronology: A year happened during the New Orleans set movie.

Macabre (1980) definitely lived up to it's title. It's definitely a rather messed up movie with some truly unhinged moments. Robert aside, I wouldn't say it's a movie with many sympathetic characters but isn't it amazing how awful both Jane and Lucy were? 

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Twinless (2025)

 

Written And Directed by James Sweeney

Dennis (to Roman): "You know how people say "just be yourself"? Like, what version of me? I hate most of them. But the version of me that was just hanging out with you, I... I wanted to be him all the time."

I'm going to start this review by pointing out that I'm a twin myself and the polar opposite of my siblings, though we do share some things in common. The premise of this movie certainly intrigued me.

Dylan O'Brien as an actor has definitely done his best to shed his teen heartthrob identity from his Teen Wolf days by taking on of a variety of different roles. In this movie, he's a set of twins. There's Rocky, who's gay and Roman who happened to be straight.

Then there's Dennis, played by writer and director James Sweeney himself. Dennis was briefly involved with Rocky until the latter ghosted him for George (Chris Perfetti). Dennis was also one of two people who last saw Rocky alive before the latter got hit by a car.

Now that wasn't strictly Dennis's fault but everything else from that point onwards absolutely was. No one told Dennis to wear a wig and attend Rocky's funeral and no one told Dennis to befriend Roman under false pretenses. These were things that Dennis chose to talong with lying about having a dead twin.

It's a pretty messed up lie because the sad thing was that under different circumstances maybe Dennis and Roman would've been friends. They enjoyed grocery shopping together and each others company. However it was Dennis inadvertently pairing Roman with his co-worker, Marcie (Aisling Franciosi) that saw the big lie unravel.

I do like that in spite of his growing resentment towards Marcie, Dennis knew that he couldn't lie to Roman any longer. I don't like that Roman's reaction was a violent one, even if the movie made a point of highlighting his anger issues. There's a rather bittersweet final scene between Dennis and Roman that ended the movie on a complicated note.

- There's a few strong support performances from Lauren Graham as Rocky/Roman's mother, Lisa, Susan Park as Dennis's boss Sage, Tasha Smith as twinless twins group woman Charlotte and Francois Arnaud as Roman's gay friend, Sammy. Katie Findley also appeared.

- Dennis's "twin" was called Dean. He pretended he wanted to be a lawyer, worked for a book company before switching to real estate after being fired.

- Standout music: Haim's Leaning On You and Evan and Jaron's Crazy For This Girl.

- Chronology: The movie was mostly set in Portland, Oregon and briefly in Moscow, Idaho. Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day all factored in.

Twinless turned out to be an interesting second effort from writer/director James Sweeney (I may or may not watch his debut, Straight Up at a later date). Solid enough chemistry with Dylan O'Brien and a rather murky story, it did make for an interesting experience.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Half Man: "Episode 4"

 

Written by Richard Gadd 

Directed by Eshref Reybrouck

Ruben (to Niall): "I'm the soundtrack to your greatest moments and it pains you to know that all of your achievements fill you with a void whereas a smile from me fill you with all the fucking energy you need."

What a fucking episode. Earlier in the year, I said the Dear Henry episode of Industry Season 4 was my favourite due to the toxicity of the Henry/Whitney ship but that's starting to look relatively tame compared to the absolute insanity of Ruben/Niall.

We've left the younger versions of both men behind and it's now Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell back at the forefront. We're also into more recent history with Ruben and Niall having very different lives where one turned out to be a more successful than the other. In some ways, it's not actually that surprising.

Prison seemed to be the making of Ruben in a way. He did some reading, showed a little self reflection and while he contemplated getting revenge on Niall, he actually avoiding interacting with him. Until Niall literally forced his hand into doing so. Niall really was his own worst enemy.

Niall's post trial life was mostly shit. He wrote one book that barely sold 100 copies and his editor Daniel (Tim Downie) wasn't impressed with his recent follow up efforts. He also made himself vulnerable to blackmail when Glenn (Mark Kydd) caught him having sex with men in the bathrooms of the library.

Niall's life was such a car crash that Lori had no choice but to admit that Ruben's been bailing Niall out for a while. Niall trashed Ruben's car and scared the latter's wife. Then there was that whole hospital scene.

I'm trying not to be too hyperbolic here but if Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell don't get Emmy nominated for this episode alone, I will be genuinely shocked. Both men give such visceral performances as Ruben and Niall tore into one another. Both men made valid points at each other and both seemed to come to some form of an understanding as well. It's incredible television. 

Cutting back to the present day, Ruben commanded the wedding speech and certainly unsettled both Niall and Alby. As for the last scene, I didn't see that coming and it's gonna be interesting to see how that will transpire on screen.

- Lori kept saying she wasn't homophobic but the way she treated Niall, it did seem like she didn't like him being gay.

- Maura tried to kill herself while Ruben was in prison. I'm not surprised the trial broke Lori and Maura up.

- Niall's former bully Gus (Sandy Batchelor) turned out to be gay but was married to a woman and had kids. Joanna (Kate Robson-Stuart) had her own kids and got an apology off Ruben off screen.

- Ruben married Mona (Amy Manson) and told Niall that Maura referred to him as King Rat. Ruben also sexually assaulted Niall in hospital.

- Standout music: Devastations The Saddest Sound.

- Chronology: The flashbacks were set in 2008. Niall had quite Oxford and was sectioned after having a breakdown.

The fourth episode set a high bar for the last two episodes. It's an incredible piece of writing, acting and plotting. Both Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell were utterly sensational throughout. 

Rating: 9 out of 10 

Doctor Who - AMC+ Acquire US Streaming Rights

I was hoping the next time I'd do a Doctor Who blog it was going to be revealing information about this year's Christmas special but apparently not yet. 

With the Disney+ deal well and truly over, it's been revealed that the 2005-2022 era of Doctor Who will exclusively stream on AMC+ for US audiences from June 11th. I can't say it's entirely a shock.

There was rumours for a while that the show would land on that particular service. Could this mean that the BBC have a potential new streaming partner from 2027 onwards? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

As for this year's Christmas special, it looks like we're going to have to wait a while before any news coming to light.

Meanwhile Big Finish and fans of the Fugitive Doctor in general can enjoy the multimedia event, Circuit Breaker. This event will also include a novel written by Jo Martin herself, due for release in September.

As for The War Between The Land And The Sea, I think we can safely assume that Disney+ will never release this show. It's been five months since it aired on BBC1 and not a sign yet they're bothered with it.

I'll post more Doctor Who stuff when new information comes to light.

My Review of Juice - Series 2 (2025, BBC3 Series)

 

Written by Mawann Rizwan And Nabhaan Rizwan And Emily Llyod-Saini

Directed by Eros V

Winnie: "Welcome to adulthood, Jamma."

Jamma: "I don't like it."

Winnie: "No, it's not very nice."

I watched this last year but I had forgotten about it until the other day. I went back to rewatch it and I'll admit that it's a bit of a patchy second series of the zany show that got better as it went along.

The rest of the first series saw Jamma (Mawann Rizwan) and therapist boyfriend Guy (Russell Tovey) break up. In between that time, Jamma also decided to become an actual clown and in no surprise whatsoever, he's rather bad at it. He also really missed being with Guy, so most of this series was Jamma trying to get back with him.

For Jamma, this meant becoming the very thing he dreaded more in thr world. He became boring for half the series, courtesy of making a deal with Kevin Eldon's Majal character. This would be something that have some rather unique consequences as the series went on.

It also turned out that making deals to change yourself was a family trait. Saif (Jeff Mirza) had made a similar pact and it was partly a reason why he was avoiding divorcing Farida (Shahnaz Rizwan). When he plucked up the courage, things took another shift between the pair.

Then there's younger brother, Isaac (Nabhaan Rizwan) and flatmate/friend, Winnie (Emily Llyod-Saini). They get some fun moments in the series, including a realisation that they're not compatible as a couple. On the other hand, Isaac's quest to find his trauma certainly had an amusing final outcome.

Going back to Jamma and Guy. It was obvious that they would reunite before the show ended but both characters needed to get their shit together so their reunion would feel earned. Guy also spent a lot of the series promoting a book and dealing with some past family trauma of his own.

- Episode titles were Sup, House Sh*tting, Emporium's New Clothes, The Bullfighter And The Egg, The Storm Is Coming and Last Chapter.

- Mark Gatiss guest starred in the penultimate episode as Guy's father. Julien Ovenden's Nigel was teased as a love rival but he turned out to be straight.

- Standout music: Shik Ma Van by Mawann Rizwan.

- Chronology: Six months since the events of the first series. 

Series 2 didn't initially land as well as the first series but I'm glad I did a rewatch of it. Seeing it a few months again later gave me a better appreciation for this show. That last episode also felt like a neatly wrapped series finale to me.

Rating: 7 out of 10