My Review of American Horror Story: Cult - Holes

Written by Crystal Liu
Directed by Maggie Kiley

Meadow: "It’s a cult, Ally. It’s a sick cult. And everyone’s in it. The police. My husband. Your babysitter. Your wife.”

And if you're the weak link of the cult, you are basically gone from it. Am I surprised that Meadow emerged as one of two weak links in this cult? Nope but I am a little sad to lose her even if she did try to do the right thing and actually warn Ally about who exactly is involved in the cult itself before she was inevitably killed off screen.

The cult members themselves - last week revealed Kai's group to be Harrison, Meadow, Beverly and Gary. This week we can add Winter, Ivy, Jack (the detective guy) and RJ as we did a brief flashback to the couple that got buried alive while in the present day they banded together to murder anchorman Bob after the latter fired Beverly and the gang realised they needed to up the ante in order to create more terror in the community.

Bob's death was grisly but not really. Yeah, he got bound and gagged and had Beverly finish him off with an axe to the head but what made it grisly was the gimp that he had on hooks prior to his death and the poor latter getting killed as well. Tellingly, it was both RJ and Ivy's reactions that ended up putting the both of them in the firing line with Kai this week.

In Ivy's case, she was forced to demonstrate her loyalty in a rather brutal fashion as RJ was designated the weakest link and was subsequently killed by the gang with  nail gun to the head. I'd mourn RJ's death but the show did very little to develop him as a character but still, what a horrible way to go though.

I do find it interesting that dissent has happened so early in Kai's cult and I can see both Ivy and Beverly posing problems for Kai as the season progresses. Ivy herself seems unsure about the cult in spite of her growing hatred of Ally and bonding with Winter while Beverly was able to cut through Kai's bullshit and get him to admit to something real. That in itself means that Beverly may be the one to usurp him if she's got the mind to.

The real thing being the deaths of Kai and Winter's parents back in 2014. The murder/suicide was done well enough but the nice shocker was having Rudy revealed into being Kai and Winter's brother and covering up the parents death. I'm not sure Rudy himself is a part of the cult but he's definitely passing information that Kai has been using for his own murderous intentions, that seems to be clear.

As for Ally - a little really has gone a long way with the character. Last week, she was better written because we were seeing her in pre-Election flashbacks and this week, despite her weepy moments is showing some improvement as a character. I felt bad for her this week but I'm hoping that Meadow's warning will finally charge into action as well.

- The gimp and the blood play slave that Bob had in his attic even surprised me. Easily the worst death of the episode to be honest. Bob got off lightly compared to his slave and RJ.
- Rudy seems to love Kai but hates Winter. We definitely need a scene with the three of them together very soon.
- The clowns are three penises (Kai), Pentagram (Beverly), Elephant head (Ivy), Ballgag (Meadow), Holes (Harrison), Brains (Jack), Jigsaw (Winter) and Blond one (RJ).
- Chronology: It seems a couple of weeks have passed since Neighbours From Hell but we've also had flashbacks to 2014 and September 2016 in this one.

Well, this one was a doozy. Holes definitely could go down as one of the show's most violent of episodes (and there's a fair amount of competition there) but gruesome moments to one side, the season is finally progressing and it's so much better now with less focus on Ally and more on the cult itself. Am I surprised that Ivy is a member though? Not really but at least there's some conflict with her.

Rating: 8 out of 10

My Review of Empire's 4x01: "Noble Memory"

Written by Brett Mahoney
Directed by Sanaa Hamri

Jamal (singing): "Yesterday I had a dream we were family. I woke up and you weren't next to me."

Sorry for the delay but with so many shows back on at the moment, I've only just caught up with the season premiere of Empire and to be fair, I really enjoyed this one. It's not the show at it's classic but it certainly had it's moments.

Last time we saw Lucious, he saved Cookie from a car explosion and lost his memories. Fast forward a few months later and it's not just his memories he's lost but also a leg. I have to admit to be genuinely surprised that the show went there but it's an interesting move nonetheless. However the focus was more on Lucious's memory loss and Empire's 20th anniversary for the Lyons this week.

Seeing the softer Lucious and his interactions with Cookie, Jamal, Hakeem and Andre was interesting, especially when he got visibly upset over more negative memories of his past (like not crediting Cookie for a particular song) creeping into the mix and the behind the scenes at the 20th anniversary for the Empire was handled well enough as well.

It's hard to tell if Lucious is genuinely unable to remember everything or is faking it to sniff out who nearly killed but either way, along with the quiet scheming of his nurse Claudia, I am finding this storyline great. Demi Moore in particular is bringing in a nice subtlety as a possible antagonist, compared to Diana being more blatantly soap opera villain this season.

Diana popped up in enough scenes to remind Hakeem that she's watching him while warning Warren to up his game with Jamal. I'm still somewhat enjoying Diana as a baddie but I do wonder if she can be sustained beyond the first half of this season. As for Jamal and Warren, despite the deception, there might be some potential with those two. Either that or I am being far too optimistic.

As for Andre, he was largely on edge as Shyne took out one loose end to finish up the episode. Either way, it doesn't seem like their great big scheme has actually worked out well for either one of them at this rate. It was also the least interesting aspect of the episode. I'm just bored of Shyne and I'm really hoping we lose him early this season as well.

- Bit of a crossover with Lee Daniels other musical series, Star as Queen Latifah's Carlotta appeared at the start of the episode and mentioned her girl group. Jamal popped up in their show.
- Both Warren and Tory have been upgraded to regulars this season. Anika and Leah also sat this episode out.
- Standout music: Love Me, the song that Cookie wrote and Jamal and Hakeem performed at the anniversary party.
- Chronology: Five months since Toil & Trouble Part 2.

Noble Memory kicks off the latest season off with an engaging starter. It's not the most explosive opening episode we've had but it's definitely an engaging one with lots of nice character moments and great music along with the earlier timeslot that doesn't seem to have effected the writing for the series either.

Rating: 7 out of 10

My Review of How To Get Away With Murder's 4x01: "I'm Going Away"

Written by Peter Nowalk
Directed by Jet Wilkinson

Annalise (to Keating 4): "We don’t need each other anymore. So it’s time we went our separate ways."

This felt oddly quiet for a season premiere. I mean, don't get me wrong, there was certainly a lot going on in the episode itself but compared to the more booming openers we've had in the previous seasons, this felt more subdued until the main mystery presented itself in the last minute.

The mystery itself - who's taken Laurel's baby? Right now, the obvious answer would be either the Mahoneys or Laurel's father herself. She's definitely convinced that the latter had something to do with Wes's death and she also lied to him about having an abortion but saying that as well, it's also pretty obvious that we're not done with the Mahoneys either, so the next eight episodes are probably going to be throwing a lot at us before we get the answer.

It was interesting though that the two people who came to Laurel's aid as she realised her baby was missing was both Frank and Dr Isaac (Jimmy Smits) - the latter whom is also Annalise's therapist in the current day but appeared in the flashforward. Could he also have a role in the disappearance? I'm intrigued that Isaac will now factor into both Annalise and Laurel's storylines this season.

As for Annalise, this was definitely a challenging episode for her. On one hand while the threat of being disbarred on a permanent basis lingered throughout the episode, it was resolved rather quickly and then resulted in Annalise writing her Keating 4 and Bonnie recommendation letters as she let them all go, much to all of their anger except for Connor.

The biggest challenge in the episode though was Annalise, her sister and father handling Ophelia's  Alzheimer's and it was certainly the strongest and hard hitting parts of the episode. Some beautiful performances from both Viola Davis and Cicely Tyson made the scenes tough to watch but utterly absorbing nonetheless. I do sadly have a feeling that the next time we see Ophelia though, it will be with her dying.

As for the Keating 4 themselves - Michaela and Asher seem to be in a rather happy place when the latter wasn't ranting about Annalise abandoning them while Laurel was in a darker place and that was before the flash forward. Connor and Oliver didn't actually get engaged but we did get a nice commentary on straight girls fetishizing gay men (pay attention, Tumblr) and they're also in a happy place while Bonnie went to work for Denver and Frank tried to get an office space in his quest to redeem himself with Annalise.

- Viola Davis's real life husband appeared in this episode as a near conquest for Annalise named Desmond. Annalise also used Bonnie as pseudonym.
- Aside from Alfred Enoch (Wes) no longer credited, there's no dramatic changes to the cast for this season.
- The ratings were less than four million for this episode, which is not a good sign.
- Chronology: About a month since Wes left off.

I'm Going Away wasn't the strongest opening episode we've had but it was definitely a good one, especially for the family scenes and setting up the main mystery. I'm not sure Annalise will be able to stay away from her former team for long though and to be honest, I wouldn't want her to either.

Rating: 7 out of 10

My Review of Gotham's 4x02: "The Fear Reaper"

Written by Danny Cannon
Directed by Louis Shaw Milito

Jonathan: "How did you do it? How did you defeat the toxin, it's impossible?"
Gordon: "I overcame my fear."

I just realised that I either should've rewatched Batman Begins or some of the Scarecrow episodes of Batman: The Animated Series before watching this episode. Not that it would've impacted my review or anything but more for funsies than anything else. As for this episode, it certainly had enough in it's favour but the main plot seemed a little underdeveloped.

I was really looking forward to seeing the Scarecrow wreak some proper havoc after the brilliant transformation Jonathan made at the end of last week and while there was some great moments during his invasion into Arkham, I kind of felt his overall reign of terror was cut a little too short by Gordon 'overcoming' his fears so quickly.

I guess like Bruce, Jonathan is in the early stages of his 'career' so it makes sense that his toxins aren't going to be completely effective as of yet and that water turned out to be a good way to combat them. On the other hand, Jonathan did manage to get his own back on that awful warden from last week while Gordon also got to outsmart Oswald and get over his demons about ruining Leslie's life, though I felt that latter bit had been dealt with last season. Overall, I liked the Scarecrow plot but wished it had been a little better fleshed out.

Speaking of Oswald, he really does need to get a clue at times too. He underestimated Gordon and got himself played. He's aware that a returned Barbara has a backer and continued to intimidate her and his treatment of Ivy has now seen the latter down some deadly toxins of her own so her own transformation into Poison Ivy is virtually complete. Also with Nygma's inevitable thawing out, Oswald is going to have more problems on his hands of his own doing soon enough, not to mention Gordon's game plan to get Falcone back into the mix.

Getting back to Ivy, I did feel a bit bad for her this week. Both Oswald and Tabitha treated her with disdain and while Selina and possibly Barbara seemed a bit sympathetic, neither one of them really stepped in to listen to her. Then again, with all the heavy handed hinting of this particular plot, all of them will probably be vying for Ivy's attention soon enough though.

As for Barbara, I liked that the episode didn't waste time in reintroducing her into the mix and I certainly liked the Sia-esque wig/hairdo she's rocking but her calmness seemed eerie to me. Both Oswald and Tabitha had no problem in threatening her throughout and Babs just took it with little reaction. That said, given that the episode gave no details as to how she's still breathing and given her silence over her backer, you don't have to be a genius to realise who's funding Babs's weapons for hire gig that Selina and Tabitha decided to join.

As for Bruce, well he didn't get hit with the fear toxin (maybe next time) but he was making a fair amount of mistakes in this episode and putting himself into repeated danger. I did love that Lucius saw through Alfred's rock climbing excuse and gave Bruce his own proto Bat suit, which to be honest, looked pretty great to be honest. This plot shouldn't work but it actually is for now.

- Aside from the hallucination, Leslie is still not back in the show and Tabitha is unnerved by Barbara being around, just wait until she catches up with Butch again.
- Zsasz really is getting the funny lines this season but I am hoping they delve a little further into him than that as well.
- Absences this week included Butch, Nygma and Ras. Sofia will be making her debut in next week's episode though along with Selina's proto-Catwoman look.
- Chronology: From where Pax Penguina more or less left off.

Not quite as good as the opening and my hatred for Oswald/Ivy's deteriorated friendship to one side, I did like enough of The Fear Reaper though. Babs's return was nicely enough, Crane vs. Gordon worked a treat, Bruce and Ivy embracing their destinies were highlights too but I do want to see more of Ras and soon too.

Rating: 7 out of 10

My Review of American Horror Story: Cult - 11/9

Written by John J. Gray
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton

Kai (to Harrison): "To live is to suffer."

Holy shit, we finally hit the jackpot! One day I will probably do a list of some of the best episodes of American Horror Story and guaranteed, this episode will be somewhere on the list because it's one of those episodes that truly captured how incredible the show can be when it cuts through the bullshit and gets to the actual goal of the season itself.

Eschewing Ally and her hysteria for one week, the focus was more on Kai and his formation of a cult that we have yet to properly see engage in action. I sort of get the feeling that the clowns may be part of something else but I could be wrong with that too. On the other hand, the way Kai manipulated certain people and situations was nothing short of disturbing and breathtaking in one go.

First of all, there was Harrison who we got to see as a personal trainer at the gym bonding with Kai while at the same time being ritually humiliated by his boss Vinny into cleaning the showers after guys had masturbated in them. Now, Harrison could've just quit his job and worked somewhere but between Meadow making him homeless and Kai truly getting into his head, Vinny soon ended up a dead body that Harrison had to hack away.

I kind of got the impression that while Kai sought out Harrison, Meadow was somewhat collateral damage along the way. Kai did praise her talent for drawing clown masks and the like but at the same time, it didn't seem like Kai was as interested in getting Meadow on side as he was with Harrison and two other members this week.

The second member pulled into Kai's craziness was reporter Beverly Hope. I loved Adina Porter last season and I'm really glad they got her back this year because she's arguably going to be even better. We got see Beverly's breakdown over those "grab them by the pussy" morons ruining her segments (I had no problem with her beating the shit out of one of them) while at the same time having to deal with anchorman Bob's (Dermot Mulroney) misogyny and up and coming reporter Serina Belinda (Emma Roberts) also taking delight in undermining her at every turn.

It's no wonder then that Beverly talked to Kai about her rage and how he was able to use it to hook her into his way of thinking. That scene with them was particularly chilling while Serina herself soon came afoul to a bunch of stab happy clowns in broad daylight. On the plus side, at least the adorable puppy she was holding at the time survived.

Then there was Gary Longstreet himself. Briefly seen in the first episode, we got to see a rather unpleasant side to Gary at a protest where he literally grabbed Ivy and Winter ended up being her knight in shining armor. Putting aside that Winter and Ivy have prior history with each other before the Election, there was also the fact that they kidnapped Gary and Kai manipulated the latter in cutting his own hand off in order to go and vote.

As for Ally, the decision to relegate her to a handful of scenes this week was for the best. Not only did it give Evan Peters the moment to truly shine as Kai while at the same time fleshing out Harrison, Meadow, Beverly and Gary as characters along with that Winter/Ivy reveal but the bits we saw of Ally were actually of her at her most engaging. The fact that she openly challenged the idea of Hillary being entitled to be president was a nice move along with her Trump comments pre-Election mirroring my own. Can we please have this Ally for the rest of the season?

- Another new character to watch out for was James Morosini's cameraman, RJ. He must be important as they gave him a character poster.
- Kai spun lines about being a computer programmer and being in the army during his recruitment scenes with Harrison and Beverly. Meadow is also possibly the ball gag clown.
- We got to see who various characters voted except for Rudy for some reason.
- Chronology: November and December 2016, both pre/during/post Election Night.

11/9 was easily the best episode we've had this season and hopefully it's the start of an upward swing for this current season. The fact that it was largely flashback heavy worked in it's favour and again, relegating Ally to a handful of scenes worked in it's favour but it's time to see what the cult are really up to now.

Rating: 9 out of 10

My Review of Batman And Harley Quinn (2017)

Written by Bruce Timm & James Krieg
Directed by Sam Liu

Harley Quinn: "You think I'm just some dizzy airhead that don't know nothin'. Do you know what I am?"
Batman: "My punishment for dropping out of med school."

I should've reviewed this one last month but after the overwhelmingly negative reviews for it, I wasn't particularly in a rush to watch and I certainly had no intention of buying it either but with Gotham back, it got me in the mood to finally seek it out and eh, I wish I hadn't bothered.

The main plot involves a team up between Poison Ivy (Paget Brewster) and Floronic Man (Kevin Michael Richardson) coming up with a diabolical scheme to turn the whole planet into plant creature based on the same formula used on Swamp Thing (John DiMaggio) and in order to stop them, both Batman (Kevin Conroy) and Nightwing (Loren Lester) have to team up with an unlikely person. Actually, a very likely person considering the title of this animated movie.

Yup, because the character hasn't had enough with last year's Suicide Squad (where she was endlessly enjoyable) and the current DC Rebirth comics shoehorning her into as many releases as possible, Harley Quinn finds herself reporting for duty and grudgingly helping the Dynamic Duo to stop her former BFF from completing her insane scheme with Woodrue.

Voiced by Melissa Raunch from The Big Bang Theory, this version of Harley Quinn is certainly a bit hard to take at times. While the manic pixie girl element of the character is somewhat toned down, the more bolshy and aggressive side certainly got ramped up throughout this movie. There's one particularly unpleasant tryst scene with Nightwing that wasn't needed or added anything to the story and the scene where Harley is passing wind in the Batmobile also takes things to a new low.

On the other hand, she does keep both Batman and Nightwing on their toes and there's a nice moment in a dive bar in Bludhaven where she gets to strut her vocal chords in one genuinely entertaining scene. Other than that, the movie really goes overboard with Harley's petulant side and Batman's a bit too joyless even for him at times.

As for the main plot, neither Poison Ivy nor Floronic Man are given much to really do. Their scheme is bonkers and while Harley's method for getting through to Ivy at least makes some sense given their relationship, the mostly off screen way of dealing with Floronic Man, coupled with a disappointing cameo from Swamp Thing just ends the overall plot on an extremely poor note. One of the worst resolutions I've seen in a bit.

- This is meant to be set within the Batman: The Animated Series universe, specifically around The New Batman Adventures era.
- Harley was seen working in the sleazy Superbabes bar. On the plus side, I did love the allusions to Batman 66 during her musical moment here.
- Nice glances at both STAR labs and ARGUS pretty early into the story as well as a few brief cameos from previous animated series.
- A post credit sequence sees Harley getting her own therapy talk show, which definitely wasn't earned. I assume Ivy was sent back to Arkham.

I get that Harley has been flavour of the month for quite a long while but surely, a much more compelling story could've been forged here with her and the Dynamic Duo's pairing. I'll give it points for not actually featuring the Joker or barely mentioning him at all but it's easy to see why so many fans took exception with this particular movie. It's not exactly The Killing Joke in terms of controversial but it's also a massive misfire and waste of it's main characters. Batman And Harley Quinn could've been a fun addition to the particular animated universe it inhabits but it's too much of a mess for even that. A really poor cash in. If you have to watch it, download but don't buy it.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Details On Arrowverse 2 Night Crossover/The Ray Cast

Yup, we've finally got some details on the CW's DC Arrowverse four show/two night crossover and it sounds even better than last year's Invasion!

Titled Crisis On Earth X (I assume this is for all four episodes), the two night crossover which will start in Supergirl before continuing into Arrow, The Flash and concluding in Legends Of Tomorrow, will centre on the upcoming wedding between Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) and Iris West (Candice Patton) but it seems that the Earth X version of Barry along with Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and Kara Zor El (Melissa Benoist) will also be appearing as the four shows and their main players band together to stop the villains from Earth X, who decide to crash the wedding while having their own deadly agenda.

Joining the cast for this crossover event will be Russell Tovey. The actor who has recently appeared in both Looking and Quantico has been cast in the role of gay superhero/reporter, The Ray/Raymond Terril. The character also set to appear in his own upcoming animated series, Freedom Fighters: The Ray on the CWSeed, which has yet to be given a release date. I was really hoping that the CW would cast an openly gay actor for this particular role and Tovey's casting is absolutely sublime. I just hope this won't be the only time we see The Ray in live action though.

Press Release: http://www.spoilertv.com/2017/09/crisis-on-earth-x-dc-cw-crossover-event.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1506105654

The Crisis On Earth X crossover event will air on the CW from November 27th and 28th. UK viewers should get it shortly after on Sky1. I'm hoping a release date for Freedom Fighters: The Ray is imminent too.

My Review of Gotham's 4x01: "Pax Penguina"

Written by John Stephens
Directed by Danny Cannon

Jonathan (to Grady): "Jonathan Crane isn't here anymore. It's just the Scarecrow."

Even since the trailer was released for this season at Comic Con, I've been getting the sense that Gotham could be heading towards an end date in sight. I don't mean that to alarm people but this episode alone and following the events of the previous season finale has certainly pushed things further along than expected.

Apparently the first half of this season will be lifting stuff from The Long Halloween along with the second half delving into Year One territory and if this one is anything to go by, we've got a lot of crazier madness to be sifting through for the series fourth season. Alone several plots were nicely set up or hinted towards.

First of all, there's Bruce himself. The guy has just become a proto Batman with Alfred advising caution and Bruce not entirely taking on board what his butler is telling him. For the most part, Bruce does seem to be decent enough at it but his confrontation with Oswald over one incident at the newly renamed Iceberg Lounge and a moment towards the end does show that Bruce has a bit of a way to go before he can truly excel in his future role.

Of course, I do like that Bruce is showing his initiative and his cordial challenging of Oswald's "licenced crimes" route was far better than Gordon's hamfisted attempts of manipulating both Oswald and Merton (played by Michael Buschemi), which only ended up with Oswald actually getting infected by the Crane fear virus, leading to the bigger part of the story.

All summer long we've heard about the Scarecrow finally coming to the city and this episode certainly set things up nicely as poor Jonathan (Charlie Tahan) was terrorised into helping Merton's gang by the corrupt warden at Arkham. I actually loved that Jonathan then embodied the very thing he feared and got some revenge on Grady at the very least. I can't wait to see what terror he's going to bring in next week's episode.

As for the rest of the episode, there were some noticeable absences but things did move along nicely enough. I did like that Tabitha and Selina decided to join Oswald's act while at the same time, Ivy's sudden turn against Oswald seemed a little off too. As for Gordon, he was consistently reckless but he had some nice moments with both Bullock and Bruce, so I'll let that slide for this review at least. The Bruce and Selina interactions were also pretty well handled, even though there's still a little distance between the two of them as well.

- The subtitle for the first half of this season is now A Dark Knight.
- Absences this week included Barbara, Leslie, Butch and Lucius while Ras had a brief cameo and Ivy is now a recurring instead of a regular character this season. I did find the Nygma lie Oswald was peddling rather amusing too.
- The show now has a new mayor and commissioner along with Arkham having a new person in charge.
- Chronology: Three months since the events of Heavydirtysoul.

Pax Penguina was the start of a lot of things for the show's narrative - Bruce/Selina's respective destinies, Oswald's way for dealing with crime along with the birth of the Scarecrow and all of them have gotten off in interesting ways so far. Along with some nice music, sassy one liners from Victor Zsasz and the beautiful cinematography, I'm really glad the show is back again.

Rating: 8 out of 10

My Review of American Horror Story: Cult - Neighbours From Hell

Written by James Wong
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton

Meadow: "Hello les. I think you're a horrible racist."
Ally (to Ivy): "That bitch hung up on me."

In this episode, Ally's accidental killing of Pedro could've had more consequences for her but it didn't. Basic self defense laws (in spite of Pedro being an innocent man) meant that she didn't face any jail time for her actions but it certainly brought about a lot of ire as she became labelled the "lesbian George Zimmerman" and incurred the wrath of her quirky neighbours from hell.

The Obama hating, gun collecting half gay/straight coupling of Harrison and Meadow decided to spend a chunk of this episode being suitably vile to Ally by calling her out on cultural appropriation (hilarious when they were wearing the sombreros themselves), putting up some horrible ads on Craigslist and giving Oz a pet guinea pig, which later came to an unpleasant ending that wasn't entirely shocking for this show.

Ally tolerated some of their new neighbours torments but the last one was enough to make her slap the shit out of Harrison before threatening to kill both him and Meadow. In those moments, I quite liked Ally. For the rest of the episode, the character still grated at times that when Ivy slapped her over the whole Winter situation from last week, I actively cheered the latter on.

However, whatever animosity there was between Ally/Ivy and Harrison/Meadow, the episode ended with them both set up as future targets for the killer (that smiley face in blood) and with Meadow supposedly missing as well. I don't know if Meadow actually is missing but I do know that both her and Harrison are linked to Kai and he certainly seemed to working on turning the pair against each other during his pinky scenes this week.

Kai mainly seemed to be taking a bit of a backseat this week but at the same time, it's like every episode has to go out of it's way to find some way to have him and Ally interact though. This week he was commending her for defending herself while trying to protect her from an angry mob. I have no idea what their next encounter is going to look like but I get the feeling that Kai will sink his hooks into Ally pretty soon as she's further isolated from Ivy.

- Rudy the therapist definitely seems to be involved with the cult in some way as that couple at the start were trapped in coffins to die pretty soon after his session with them.
- We properly saw Beverly Hope this week in at least two scenes and next week another familiar actress is back. Also are Harrison and Detective Samuels an item too?
- So is who is spraying the gas on Ally and Ivy's lawn in the middle of night and why hasn't Winter been fired yet?
- Chronology: From where the previous episode left off.

Bit of an oddball episode for me. Neighbours From Hell didn't advance the cult stuff too much and again, Ally's hysteria is beginning to lose my sympathy for her, even if she is being gaslighted by certain people. The scene where she talked about "cisnormative pet names" was some of the most vomit inducing dialogue ever spoken on the show. On the other hand, next week's episode looks really good.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Halloween 2018 Movie: The Night Laurie Strode Came Home

Yeah, you heard right, people. Even Michael Myers can't keep the most iconic final girl in the horror franchise down and he's certainly spent several decades trying to.

Yesterday through her own Twitter account, actress Jamie Lee Curtis (and on Instagram too) tweeted the following ....

"Same porch. Same clothes. Same issues. 40 years later. Headed back to Haddonfield one last time for Halloween."

Despite the fact that Curtis's character, Laurie Strode was murdered by relentless killing machine, Michael Myers at the start of 2002's Halloween: Resurrection, it seems that she will be appearing in next year's untitled Halloween movie, which could mean anything. Perhaps Laurie's death will be ignored or maybe she'll be some kind of ghost but seeing Curtis kitted out in her original costume in the picture above certainly generated a lot of buzz online. It has been rumoured that the movie will be a sequel to Halloween 2 though I thought 1998's Halloween: H20 somewhat covered that.

The original Halloween movie came out in 1978 with seven sequels spawning between 1981 and 2002, before the franchise was rebooted (rather pointlessly) by Rob Zombie in 2007 and 2009 with Scout Taylor-Compton in the role of Strode and plenty of unwarranted backstory to boot and other unpleasantness, because you know it's from that director. As you can tell, I'm not big on those particular movies, which deserve to be purged from existence.

The new movie will be made by Blumhouse, Miramax and Trancas. The director of the original movie/co-creator of the franchise, John Carpenter will executive produce along with Gordon Green and McBride’s Rough House Pictures. Danny McBride will be scripting the movie along with David Gordon Green.

Also because of this news, I'm gonna have to speed up and complete my reviews for the remaining Halloween movies I've not reviewed yet. I'm absolutely delighted by this news. I never thought we'd see Laurie Strode in a non reboot movie again and now we are. How cool is that?

Press Release: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/jamie-lee-curtis-returning-halloween-franchise-1039687

The upcoming/untitled Halloween movie will be released on October 19th 2018.

My Review of American Horror Story: Cult - Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

Written by Tim Minear

Directed by Liza Johnson

Ally: "That's not true, those numbers don't seem right to me. Where are you getting your information from?"

Kai: "Facebook!"

Ah yes, because the instant reactionary that is social media evidently is the best to make an argument for virtually anything. I'll give Ally points for calling out Kai on his readiness to believe random statistics from Facebook but everything else about the character is starting to grate on me a little.

I get that she's got fears (clowns, holes, bees etc) and that she's on the edge and while I definitely think Sarah Paulson is doing a commendable job nonetheless, unless something happens really fast, then Ally is going to further grate on me as a character. There's only so much the show can milk out of the character's growing paranoia and two episodes in, it's starting to feel like we're already at saturation point with her.

This week though when Ally wasn't freaking out about seeing clowns in bed with her, she also had the misfortune of finding her chef's dead body in the restaurant and ended the episode by accidentally shooting Pedro when the power went out and her new neighbour intensified the paranoia with his talk of terrorist threats.

Speaking of the new neighbours - this week we were introduced to married couple, Harrison and Meadow Wilton (Billy Eichner and Leslie Grossman) and already, I'm both fascinated and a little creeped out by them. Both besties - the gay beekeeper and his cancer surviving/pharmaceutical saleswoman wife certainly gave us a lot of information about themselves which managed to send Ally into something of a tizzy at times. Still though they did add a bit of colour to an episode that felt a bit beige at times.

Keeping with the inappropriate for a moment, I genuinely cannot decide what Winter's game actually is. While Kai used his 'beating' to garner some public support and a bid to run for city councilor, Winter seemed more intent on playing mind games with both Oz and Ally for her own amusement. She forced the former into the pinky thing that her and Kai have going on while trying to seduce the latter with a bubble bath. The only person she hasn't manipulated so far is Ivy but I'm sure that will happen soon enough.

As for the political commentary - eh, it was still OTT at times here. I think had this season aired earlier in the year, a lot of the themes (fear, immigrants, walls/bridges etc) would have been a lot more effective but despite some of the show's best intentions, a lot of it is simply not coming together as strongly as it should be.

- Harrison/Meadow aside we were also introduced to Adina Porter's reporter, Beverly Hope for a brief moment this week.

- Oz is short for Ozymandias, which seems appropriate for this season. We also got another Twisty cameo this week.

- Both Ivy and Rudy seemed like they could be planning another solution for Ally if they figure out that she isn't taking her medication.

- Chronology: From where the end of the previous episode left off.

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark was solid enough but again, the show needs to move away from the election commentary because at the moment, it seems to be holding it back. It's time to really embrace the horror and go mad with the clowns and get the actual cult theme up and running instead of treading the post Trump political blues.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Aladdin - Further Casting & New Roles Created

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the castings for Aladdin, Jasmine and the Genie for the upcoming live action reboot of Disney's Aladdin, directed by Guy Ritchie. Now further casting has been revealed and one in particular is a rather controversial choice too.

In a role not featured in the movie and where the controversial bit comes in, Billy Magnussen has been cast in the role of Prince Anders. A newly created role for the movie, the Into The Woods actor will play a potential suitor for Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) from the fictional place of Skanland. Already this casting decision has seen accusations of whitewashing for the movie and while I'm not sure the movie actually needs the character, I also don't think Anders will be taking any spotlight away from the main characters.

As for the villain of the piece, it seems the role of Jafar will be going to Marwan Kenzari. The actor known for his roles in The Mummy and the upcoming Murder On The Orient Express will play the evil vizer of the Sultan who will scheme to take over Agrabah while also taking on the title character himself, as played by Mena Massoud. I got to admit that Jafar looks pretty hot, casting wise.

As for the Sultan himself, the role will be going to Navid Negahban. The actor who has appeared in Homeland as Abu Nabir and in the US version of Mistresses will be the father of Princess Jasmine, trying to marry her daughter off while also falling fowl to Jafar.

Meanwhile it seems that the villainous Raoul is either being replace or simply renamed as Numan Acar will be playing the role of guard Hakim, who seems to be Jafar's right hand man in the movie. I hope this doesn't mean we're losing Iago though.

The last bit of casting for now (but revealed weeks ago) is Nasim Pedrad. The Scream Queens actress will be playing an original character in the movie named Dalia, who has been described as a handmaid and confidante for Princess Jasmine.

I think that's probably it for casting announcements now. Filming for Aladdin should be starting within the next few months for released on May 24th 2019.

My Review of American Horror Story: Cult - Election Night

Written by Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk
Directed by Bradley Buecker

Kai (to Mr Chang): "I said there is nothing more dangerous in this world than a humiliated man."

Okay, I've had some mixed feelings on this upcoming season to be honest. On one hand, I'm surprised it's taken the show until it's seventh season to actually do a season involving cults but on the other hand, I cannot be the only one who has become fatigued by Trump infecting the media.

I hate the guy as much as the next person and I certainly think he shouldn't be president either but sifting through this first episode alone as our lead female character of the piece Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson) and her wife, Ivy (Alison Pill) watched the results of the orangey one's victory back in November and despite sympathizing with Ally's reaction, I also found it as cringe inducing as Kai Anderson's (Evan Peters) more elated reaction to proceedings.

Seeing the contrasting reactions would've been more interesting had I not seen the same thing over social media for the last ten months, so I kind of feel like we've already done this even before the episode was ten minutes into proceedings already. What we didn't see were the more neutral or muted reactions to the election but with ten episodes left to go, it's likely we will at some point.

Trump becoming president however is a part of this season's narrative and also motivating both Ally and Kai's actions in this one and for the season. Ally seems to be driven by fear, mainly of clowns as she freaks out when she catches her son, Ozzie reading a Twisty The Clown comic book while imagining clowns everywhere she goes, including one volatile moment in the supermarket, much to Ivy's own frustrations.

Kai on the other hand, when he wasn't taking pleasure in forcing his sister, Winter (Billie Lourd) in making some confessions and throwing coffee over Ally and Ivy also took the time to spread some racist rhetoric around town while also getting himself beaten up for a scheme that we should see the results fairly soon I bet.

As for the gross out moments of the moment, we did get to see Twisty murdering another couple in the comics while a group of clowns also broke into the Changs home and murdered them, which gave some justification for Ally's triggered fears of them. Then there was also Winter becoming Ozzie's babysitter and being all kinds of inappropriate by showing the kid gruesome videos online and gaslighting him in front of his concerned parents. Safe to say that Winter is just as unhinged as her 4Chan inspired sibling is to be honest.

- Other characters we saw in the episode briefly were Gary Longstreet (Chaz Bono), Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson) - Ally's therapist and Detective Samuels (Colton Haynes).
- Ally and Ivy run a restaurant called The Butchery On Main. This season is also set in Michigan. I also found it interesting that Ally didn't actually vote Clinton either. Nice enough twist there.
- Is Twisty going to be kept to comics or will he actually surface in the present day?
- Chronology: November 2016 before swiftly moving into early 2017 it seems.

Election Night wasn't the strongest opening episode we've had and while the commentary is timely, it has been so prevalent on social media that I think part of it's impact didn't quite land as it should have done. Still though, there were plenty of great moments in the episode and if we can move away from the Trump/Clinton bits and focus on the clowns that would be nice.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Titans - Cast Members For Upcoming DC Digital Series Announced

I've been waiting to do a blog on this one for a while and now seems like the right as three cast members have been announced for the upcoming DC Comics Digital Service series, Titans.

Brenton Thwaites, recently seen in Pirates Of The Caribbean 5 has bagged the role of Dick Grayson. However the press release has started that he will be the future leader of the Titans, while also giving up life as a cop to resume his heroics. I got to admit I'm surprised with Thwaites's casting. I honestly thought if he were going to be involved in the DC universe, it would be on the big screen but this is an interesting development. As for the controversy with Thwaites casting, I can see both sides of the arguments but I'd rather give the guy a chance before writing him off though.

Meanwhile Anna Diop has been cast as Starfire. The actress who recently appeared in 24: Legacy will play the orange skinned alien and there has been some comments on her casting. Having not really seen her in action, I have no informed opinion but I'm sure Diop will be great as Starfire.

The last bit of casting for now is that Teagan Croft will be playing the role of Raven for the digital series. The upcoming series is being spearheaded by Arrow universe showrunner Greg Berlanti along with Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns and Sarah Schechter. I'll post more updates when Beast Boy and the rest of the series main players are cast.

Press Release: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/brenton-thwaites-star-greg-berlantis-dc-drama-titans-1034338

Titans will be released on DC Comics streaming services in 2018.

Defenders Assemble But Not Yet Though

Yup, this one is a bit of a Marvel/Netflix special in some ways as I completed two of their shows and started the other one though.

Game Of Thrones: The last three episodes of Season Seven certainly ramped up basically everything, didn't it? We had some welcome deaths (Littlefinger, you won't be missed), some shocks (Viseron being taken over by the Night King) and that melee with Jon, Daenerys and Cersei as the latter took her self preservation to a new level, which meant even isolating Jaime of all people. The reveal of Jon's heritage from last season got more expansion during the worst/most clickbait grabbing moment and with six episodes left before the end in 2019 (the current rumour for the eighth season to air), the final moments as the White Walkers make their biggest attack yet was a hell of a way to end an overall excellent penultimate season.

Iron Fist: The weakest of the Marvel/Netflix shows still, but I'll admit things did pick a little in the second half of the season. Adding both Bakuto and Davos into the mix livened up the interactions between Danny, Colleen and Claire as the Hand storyline took something of a brief pause in the finale while Ward and Joy both had to deal with the fallout of Harold's increasingly unhinged behaviour. While I do think there were times where Finn Jones struggled a bit in the role, I am hoping that between The Defenders (which I've just started) and this show's proposed second season the show gets a better handle on Danny. There's certainly potential for that.

Luke Cage: Like it's other Marvel series, this is a show that could do with better pacing but saying that, the second half was pretty solid stuff. I liked the Mariah/Shades team up after Cottonmouth was taken out of the picture along with Luke and Diamondback finally going head to head. The finale didn't feel quite like an event compared to other ones but it was a good way to end the series. I also have to give props to both Misty and Claire, both of whom got better as the series went along, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of them next season.

Midnight, Texas: I've been sticking with this show and while it's not gripping as True Blood was back in the day, it's still a lot of fun to watch. Focusing on characters like Lemuel, Olivia and Fiji certainly doesn't hurt the series as they're easily the three strongest of the bunch but there isn't anyone I actively dislike. Manfred and Creek's budding relationship isn't hugely compelling but it's nice enough and the mix of baddies like a Succubus and that biker gang does keep things moving along at a nice pace along with the arc hints here and there. Just five more episodes to go.

Orange Is The New Black: I've loved this season and given that the riot arc could've easily wore thin after a few episodes, I'm genuinely surprised that the writers managed to get a whole season's worth of a story out of it. Of course it had to come to an end but with the cliffhanger we've got, there's also the chance we might lose a character or two going into the show's sixth season. In terms of flashbacks, I quite enjoyed Piper and Alex's (even with the return of Larry) and their engagement was rather sweet. Next season should be very interesting.

The Defenders: Blitzing through both Luke Cage and Iron Fist in the last week meant getting to the first two episodes of this team up and so far, so good. I've loved seeing the various characters from each show interacting with one another and while we've only had half the gang interacting so far - Luke and Danny, Matt and Jessica, the build up has certainly been rather fun to see. As for Alexandra/Madame Gao/The Hand stuff - at least it's actually going somewhere now and with Elektra and Stick in the mix, I can imagine a lot of bad shit is about to go down in the remaining episodes of this crossover series.

- Ben Platt will be guesting in Will & Grace while Minnie Driver will also reprise her role as Lorraine in the upcoming season.
- Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose will be returning for Season 11 of The X Files.
- Lena Dunham will be playing Valerie Solanas in American Horror Story: Cult. Emma Roberts will be playing a newscaster named Serina Belinda for an episode. Angela Bassett will direct the ninth episode in the upcoming season.
- UK viewers will be able to see The Gifted on FOX from October.
- UK viewers also can see the first season of Star on 5* from this Thursday. It's also been rumoured that Empire will be moved there as well instead of E4 for it's upcoming fourth season.
- Jane The Virgin's fourth season will now be 17 episodes.
- Richard Flood will recur in Shameless's eighth season.
- Kevin Ryan will guest in Once Upon A Time's seventh season.
- Anna Diop and Teagan Croft have been cast as Starfire and Raven respectively for the upcoming live action Teen Titans TV series.
- Katee Sackhoff has a recurring in The Flash's fourth season as the villain, Blacksmith.

My Review of The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

Written by Seth Grahame-Smith & Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers & Jared Stern & John Whittington
Directed by Chris McKay

Batman (to Joker): "There is no "us." Batman and Joker are not a thing. I don't need you. I don't need anyone. You mean nothing to me. No one does."

After the more dark depiction of the Dark Knight in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, it seems that Lego felt compelled to do their own spin-off on the Caped Crusader with a version that's more of a gently mocking commentary on the brooding hero than anything else.

Will Arnett reprises his role as Batman, living the high life in Gotham City, catching the bad guys and enjoying the admiration that comes with it but at the same time, he's a Batman that has some serious issues with letting people in. Even the poor Joker (Zach Galifianakis) finds himself being rather friend zoned by Batman and that results in something truly interesting.

As we all know, the Joker is a man who clamours attention and when Batman himself is too emotionally closed off to admit that the Clown Prince is his greatest enemy, the Joker's only choice is to surrender himself and virtually everyone else in the Rogues Gallery to new Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson).

Of course Batman suspects that something's afoot and along with his adopted son, Dick Grayson/Robin (Michael Cera), he's soon breaking into the Fortress of Solitude, attempting to distract Superman (Channing Tatum) while his new protege steals a projector in order to send the baddies into the Phantom Zone.

However, what Batman didn't bargain on was the Joker actually wanting to go there in the first place where he manages to escape but not before bringing the likes of the Daleks, the Wicked Witch of the West, Sauron, Godzilla, King Kong, Agent Smith and Voldemort to name a few in order to destroy Gotham once and for all while invading Wayne Island and breaking into the Batcave. That moment led to a hilarious mistake as the Joker assumed that Batman and Bruce Wayne were roommates.

With the new set of baddies reigning chaos on Gotham City, this finally meant that Batman had to put his "working alone" mantra to one side as Barbara became Batgirl, Robin became useful and Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) was just generally awesome as the new team and the Rogues Gallery worked together in order to stop the Joker's latest scheme.

That said, the biggest theme of this movie was getting Batman to accept that he wasn't alone and while it took nearly the end of the movie for him to embrace having a new family as well as a best enemy, it was still a fun journey to see unfold. The moment where both Batman and Joker admitted to hating one another is without a doubt one of the funniest and touching moments we've seen in that 75+ year relationship.

- I loved the various nods to previous Batman movies during this one. I also liked how the likes of King Tut and Condiment King also appears along with the usual suspects. Oh and the Shark Repellent bit too was hilarious.
- Mariah Carey popped up for a few scenes as the Mayor of Gotham City.
- A Justice League party without the Batman - sacrilege!
- The musical numbers made me laugh, but points especially for Who's the (Bat) Man.

The Lego Batman Movie is an unbridled joy. Purely silly, purely heartfelt and extremely funny, I regret that I didn't see the movie in the cinemas during it's release but catching up with it now, I'm really glad this was a success too. It's easily one of the daftest Batman movies you'll ever see but also one of the best too.

Rating: 8 out of 10

A Town For Outcasts

Summer's nearly over but there's still be some highlights (and catching up for me) as I look into some of the recent stuff I've watched.

Game Of Thrones: It seems that moving this mammoth of a show to the summer for it's seventh and penultimate season hasn't hurt it in the slightest as the ratings have continued to impress. In spite of leaks and one truly unwarranted cameo from Ed Sheeran in the opening episode, this season has been amazing so far. We've had two epic battle sequences as both Cersei and Daenerys have fought for supremacy while the latter's meeting with Jon Snow has intensified pretty fast too. Along with some characters (Sand Snakes, Ellaria and Olenna) and the reunion of the three Stark children, this season certainly hasn't been idle so far and with three episodes left to go, I can't wait to see what else is in store for us.

Iron Fist: I'm halfway through this series and it's still in dire need of picking up the pace. Out of all the Marvel/Netflix shows, it's definitely emerging as the weakest as even I'm struggling a little with Finn Jones as Danny Rand. So far, he's been a bit too meh for my liking in the role. On the other hand, Colleen is more interesting, Claire has popped up and the Meachums are also picking up a little as well. The plotline with the Hand isn't much better than what we've gotten on Daredevil so far but hopefully it'll pick up in later episodes.

Luke Cage: Like it's other Marvel/Netflix show, there are some pacing issues but I am overall finding this one a bit better than the other one. Once again, you've got Claire Temple added into the mix and the ongoing rivalry between Luke and Cottonmouth has heated up nicely along with Mariah's own machinations as well. Much as I like Misty though, the show could do a little better with her other than her finding out about her corrupt partner and being a thorn for Luke though. I did however enjoy the flashbacks to how Luke got his powers though.

Midnight, Texas: Nine years ago, HBO adapted Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books and turned it into one of their most successful shows with True Blood, which ran for seven seasons. Now in 2017, NBC have done the same with one of Harris's more recent works and are probably hoping for a similar success story. This show has a lot in common with the former HBO hit  - a medium type protagonist, an assortment of colourful characters and an array of all kind of craziness and monsters that go bump in the night. Manfred might be our leading man but it's the other characters that I think people will stay for. Whether that's vampire Lemuel and hitwoman Olivia or witch Fiji (and her talking cat) or angel Joe and his husband, Chuy, this is a show that's hokey but filled with a memorable group of characters but whether or not it will around for long given NBC's history with supernatural themed shows is the other thing. Here's hoping though.

Orange Is The New Black: I have only two episodes left to go and I'm still rather surprised that the riot storyline hasn't completely tested my patience. Maybe it's because we've had some interesting flashbacks (Piscatella's) or the whole situation with Red and Piscatella coming to a head while Tasytee has also been trying to get Joe and Figuaro to actually work things out for the prisoners but either way, it's worked out pretty well so far. That said, after the last two episodes are watched, I do wonder how the show will go as things have definitely been changed a lot this season.

- Jeff Ward will have a recurring role in Agents Of Shield's fifth season. His character name has yet to be revealed.
- ITV are planning another adaptation of Pride & Prejudice for 2020 from the same production company as Poldark and Victoria.
- Hartley Sawyer has been cast as Elongated Man for Season 4 of The Flash.
- Carlos Bernard will play Maggie's father in Season 3 of Supergirl.
- Annabeth Gish will return for Season 11 of The X Files.
- Will & Grace has been renewed for a tenth season while it's upcoming ninth season will now be 16 episodes.
- Brianna Brown will recur in Dynasty's first season. Netflix have picked up the show for UK viewers.
- Emma Roberts will be returning for American Horror Story: Cult but Kathy Bates will not.
- Esai Morales and Benito Martinez will be back for How To Get Away With Murder's fourth season.
- Sydelle Noelle will recur in Arrow's upcoming sixth season.

My Review of Batman: Under The Red Hood (2010)

Written by Judd Winick
Directed by Brandon Vietti

Red Hood: "Tell me, how does that feel?"
Joker: "You know, it only hurts when I laugh. But hey... I gotta know. Who are you? You said we knew one another. You do seem really familiar. We double at the prom? Or maybe blow up a school bus together?"

And here's another animated movie adapting a popular comic within the Batman franchise. This time around, it's Under The Red Hood which starts with a handy recap of A Death In The Family where the Joker kidnapped and bashed in Jason Todd's Robin's brains in before an explosion killed him. Back in the late 1980's, people actually voted for the second Boy Wonder to be killed but you know, the thing about comic book characters is that very few of them actually stay dead for long.

Now a few decades later and Jason Todd is back, resurrected by the Lazarus Pit in some attempt by Ras al Ghul (Jason Isaacs) to give Bruce back his other son but the process went a bit wrong and now Jason has gone into a weird hybrid of vigilante meets serial killer by donning the moniker of Red Hood, a name formerly used by someone else all those years ago.

Voiced by Supernatural actor Jensen Ackles, Jason's on a one man mission of revenge against the Joker (John DiMaggio) and he does this by targeting Black Mask's (Wade Williams) criminal organisation, bringing it to it's knees and making the gangster so desperate to take out the Red Hood that the Joker suddenly becomes the best option here.

To say that Black Mask is a patsy in this story would almost be complimenting him. He's never been one of my favourite members of the Rogues Gallery but he's absolutely useless in this story. All he seems to do is shout like an imbecile at his beleaguered staff, with even one member Ms Li (Kelly Hu) treating him with little more than contempt and disdain for him. At no point in this movie is he remotely interesting or threatening as a villain.

As for the Joker, he's not got the best voice actor in this one. I've heard DiMaggio in other DC animated movie roles and he's fine but he simply doesn't cut it as the Joker, even though he's given a decent script to work with here. His Joker is certainly lethal in the flashbacks and the delight he takes when he realises that Jason is alive and crazy is amusing enough but the voice just doesn't sound right, no matter how many times I've seen the movie. Sometimes you just need a Mark Hamill for this type of movie.

As for Batman (Bruce Greenwood), he fares a little better but mostly he's reacting to Red Hood's antics or remembering Jason's formative years as Robin before their confrontation with the Joker in the warehouse. There's a nice supporting role for Nightwing (Neil Patrick Harris) who's a bit more cheerful but sadly he's also taken out of the mix a little too quickly for my liking. The movie does however end on a rather poignant and bittersweet note.

- Nice reference to The Killing Joke, which happened a year after the events of Jason's murder. Shame we didn't get an Oracle cameo in this one.
- Judd Winick wrote the comic and adapted this movie. Apparently he prefers the latter iteration.
- There's a clever reference to the Joker's first ever comic appearance with his prison number.
-  We've seen allusions to Jason's murder in two of the DCEU's movies. Oh and a brief Riddler cameo in flashbacks too.

A strong movie, Under The Red Hood provided a great adaptation of it's comic counterpart. While I do think the Joker could've been voiced better and found Black Mask useless, Jason made for a compelling character as Red Hood than he ever did as Robin and the reunion with him and Batman was definitely handled well.

Rating: 7 out of 10

My Review of Batman: Year One (2011)

Written by Tab Murphy
Directed by Sam Liu & Lauren Montgomery

Batman: "Ladies, gentlemen, you've eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. But your feast is nearly over. From this moment on, none of you are safe."

A few years before landing the role of James Gordon in Gotham, Benjamin McKenzie actually had the honour of playing the Dark Knight himself, albeit in animated form in this pretty faithful adaptation of a popular Frank Miller comic of the same.

Year One is telling us the readers/viewers of Bruce Wayne's first year as Batman and it's a pretty fascinating enough look into things as after several years of being out of the city, Bruce returns to Gotham with a mission statement in mind and a determination to help clean up the city of the crime that the police themselves just haven't been able to manage to do since his absence.

With flashbacks to his calling with a bat flying into his house, we get to see Bruce going undercover to tackle a pimp mistreating one of his girls while also getting into a fight with Selina Kyle (Eliza Dushku), who in this universe is a dominatrix before taking on her more famous role. Bruce then manages to get arrested before escaping police custody and escalating his fight even further by attracting the wrath of mafia boss Carmine Falcone (Alex Rocco).

However while this might be exploring Batman's first year, it's also delving into Detective James Gordon's (Bryan Cranston) as he not has to deal with a crime riddled city, but also corruption within his own station thanks to both Flass (Fred Tatasciore) and Commissioner Loeb (Jon Polito) playing their own role in the city's corruption.

There's a not so thrilling affair subplot with Detective Essen (Katee Sackhoff) thrown into the mix which doesn't really threaten or endanger Gordon's marriage to his pregnant wife, Barbara but it does come to a head when Bruce manages to successfully get Gordon off his scent (for a bit), even though it adds little to the storyline. However by the time Barbara actually gives birth, the baby in question is then used as leverage between Loeb, Falcone's men as both Gordon and a barely disguised Bruce rush to save the child and take down the baddies.

For an insight into one year, it covers a decent amount of stuff. We get to see both Gordon and Bruce's journeys play out really well and there's space for Selina to go on her journey as Catwoman, even if she's treated as being in the way during one particular altercation between herself, Batman and Falcone. While I definitely could've done with more of Selina and am critical of Miller's depiction of her in this story, it was nice to see both her and Batman still share some screen time together.

- The DVD for this has a 15 minute Catwoman cartoon, which sees Dushku reprise the role and take down a baddie of her own.
- Vicki Vale was added to this movie, though the character did not appear in the comic itself.
- Prior to Batman Begins, there were some plans for a Year One movie but they were scrapped.
- The movie ends with a set up for the Joker.

Year One is a dynamic enough adaptation of the popular comic. While I think McKenzie might make a better Gordon than Batman on another show, he does a decent job even though he's slightly overshadowed by Cranston's depiction of Gordon. It's a strong animated movie though, one that really should get a sequel at some point.

Rating: 7 out of 10

SDCC 2017 - Highlights Part 2 (DC Special)

I did this last year - covering most of the DC related stuff at San Diego Comic Con and this year again, I'm also doing it because there was a lot of exciting stuff unveiled over the weekend.

- First of all, a brand spanking new trailer for Justice League was unveiled, giving us more details into the upcoming movie (November 17th, people) as well as hints that Superman fans will be pleased with the movie itself.
- There was also some footage from Aquaman but it's yet to be officially released.
- Ben Affleck also confirmed that despite, adamant media reports, he's not leaving the role of Batman just yet.
- Future movies announced as well include Shazam, The Batman, Batgirl, Justice League Dark, Green Lantern Corps, Flashpoint and sequels for both Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad.
- It's now been confirmed that the Wonder Woman sequel will be released December 13 2019.
- While I had wished that there was some new casting announced for some of these upcoming movies, it's nice that we have a definite slate coming up. We just need some filming and release dates though along with further cast announcements.

Justice League Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DblEwHkde8U
Comic Con Panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ltriuluIhM

Meanwhile in the television universes ....

We got some obligatory trailers for the CW verse shows and a lot of spoilers to boot. Let's discuss, shall we?

- Michael Emerson will be joining Arrow's sixth season (October 12th) in a mysterious role. The trailer revealed a few survivors but not all of them as of yet.
- Danny Trejo will play Gypsy's father while Neil Sandilands will play the Thinker on The Flash's fourth season (October 10th). The Mechanic (Kim Engelbrecht) and Elongated Man will appear this season as well.
- Supergirl's third season (October 9th) will see Calista Flockhart reprise her role as Cat Grant in a recurring capacity while Adrian Pasder, Yael Grobglas, Emma Tremblay and Carl Lumbly have joined the cast as Morgan Edge, Psi, Ruby and M'yrnn J'onzz respectively.
- Legends Of Tomorrow's third season  (October 10th) will see returns from Leonard Snart, Damien Darkh and Rip Hunter in regular and recurring roles while Sara's bisexuality will be further explored. Matt Ryan may also be appearing as John Constantine in a later episode of the season. Kuasa (Anika Noni Rose) will be the main antagonist this season. Also expect a new hero not from any of the other shows to appear.
- Black Lightning (Spring 2018) has added both James Remar and Damon Gupton to it's lineup.
- Robert Knepper will be a regular for iZombie's fourth season.
- Tom Welling has joined the cast of Lucifer for it's third season.
- Krypton will feature versions of Brainiac and Hawkwoman in it's first season.

Meanwhile no new details have been given yet for the upcoming four way crossover, other than a reveal that it will happen properly in the Supergirl part of the show.

Arrow - Season 6 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpCOMDpmJ28
The Flash - Season 4 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CvhSFv1VaI
Supergirl - Season 3 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5JnzKZBr8
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 3Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwGNep39atY
Black Lightning - Season 1 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dM8dI_-P9o

Meanwhile Gotham's fourth season (September 21st) is certainly heading into darker territory as well. With the subtitle, Dawn Of Night, the trailer released over the weekend gave us plenty to mull over. First of all, there was seeing Bruce (David Mazouz) and Selina (Camren Bicondova) embracing their respective destinies while Oswald (Robin Lord Taylor) and Ivy (Maggie Geha) unveiled a frozen Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) as part The Iceberg Lounge's main feature. Other highlights in the trailer include a confrontation between Alfred (Sean Pertwee) and Zsasz (Anthony Carrigan) along with Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) facing off a not so dead Barbara (Erin Richards), Gordon (Benjamin McKenzie) facing off a clown thug and the arrival of Jonathan Crane's The Scarecrow (Charlie Tahan). Not shown in the trailer but confirmed on the panel would be that Barbara would be working with Ras Al Ghul (Alexander Siddig) this season as will Lee (Morena Baccarin) with Nygma and Solomon Grundy (Drew Powell) while Bruce will be getting armor and weapons for his vigilante lifestyle. Viewers can also expect to meet Sofia Falcone (Crystal Reed) and Professor Pyg (casting tbc) this season as well. The fourth season will also draw influences from both The Long Halloween and Year One. Benjamin McKenzie will also be writing the season's fourth episode too.

Gotham - Season 4 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd3Dp4zVJmY

Last but not least, a preview of the CWSeed's upcoming animated series, Freedom Fighters: The Ray. Announced last year, the show will finally be making it's debut in the autumn and will see the titular hero (actor tbc) fighting evil versions of the Green Arrow, the Flash and Supergirl in an alternative universe. Touted as the first superhero show where the main hero is gay, the trailer does look promising and I'm hopeful at some point that like with Vixen, the character will eventually appear in a live action Arrow universe show. As in within this current TV season.

Freedom Fighters: The Ray Promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-YfN_moK0k

That's a warp for all the DC related stuff, until another while folks.