// Category Archive for: Reviews

TV Review: The Walking Dead S6 E09, “No Way Out”

By Laury Scarbro

It feels like forever since we last saw a new episode of The Walking Dead. If you need a reminder of what happened before last night’s episode, here’s a run-down.

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Blu-Ray Review: The Mutilator (1984)

By Jeffery X Martin

The Mutilator is an oddity in the slasher genre, less for what it is and more for what it is not. If you’re looking for copious amounts of nudity, look elsewhere. There’s not even a lot of bad language. On that level, The Mutilator is more like a live-action Disney movie from the Sixties. You half expect Dean Jones and Don Knotts to show up.

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TV Review: Outsiders, S1 E01, “Farrell Wine”

By Laury Scarbro

We live in a world where the volume of movies and TV shows based on books or graphic novels–or remakes of movies we loved the first time around–has reached almost epic proportions. So when a new show comes along that is completely original, we should latch on and ride that bull until it stops bucking.

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Blu-Ray Review: Jack’s Back

By Less Lee Moore

In 1986, I fell in love with James Spader. Sure, I was 15 and he was 25; and he was an actor and I didn’t actually know him; but it was real to me, damn it. I’d seen him on the big screen in Pretty In Pink, but he reminded me too much of the rich, preppy jackasses I knew in real life for me to develop anything but antagonism for him in reel life. (And what was up with his feathered, John Taylor-in-“The Wild Boys”-video hair, anyway?)

Serendipity intervened shortly thereafter: Tuff Turf was on HBO one night when I was at a friend’s house and that’s when it hit me: this James Spader guy was all right. Better than all right, in fact. As Morgan in Tuff Turf, he was perfect (and woe unto all the guys who didn’t measure up). Thus began my lifelong quest of watching every James Spader movie ever. That’s how I found out about Jack’s Back, released in 1988.

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Music Review: Henry Wagons, After What I Did Last Night

By Melissa Bratcher

If Nick Cave had taken his Johnny Cash obsession even further, he might have been Henry Wagons. Henry Wagons, too, is from Australia, and bears more than a passing vocal resemblance to Mr. Cave. Henry Wagons has a rumbly, rich baritone voice, and a penchant for country-rock. But Henry Wagons has a wicked sense of humor to his lyrics as well as a sometimes surprising heartfelt bent.

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Blu-Ray Review: Convergence

By Tim Murr

In the summer of 1999, Detective Ben Walls (Clayne Crawford) is enjoying time off with his wife and daughter when he is called in to investigate a bombing in downtown Atlanta. Not long after arriving on the scene, Walls is injured by a second blast, set intentionally to harm first responders. He awakens in the hospital, seemingly unharmed, but nothing is as it seems. Worse, the terrorist behind the bombing may be in the hospital with him.

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TV Review: The X-Files Episode 4, “Home Again”

By Jeffery X Martin

I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. At this point, I feel like the reboot of The X-Files is rick-rolling me.

Never gonna solve this case.
Suck on this mythology.
By now, Mulder and Scully
Are boneheads.

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Blu-Ray Review: The Kid (1921)

By Jeffery X Martin

Charlie Chaplin is one of those filmmakers that gets a lot of lip service. For someone who was once the most popular movie star in the world, Chaplin seems to have become the sole property of film schools and scholars, while the general public, the non-academe, have rarely seen a Chaplin movie.

Perhaps modern audiences don’t care about Chaplin because he’s become such a stereotype. His Little Tramp character, with his tiny mustache, cane and awkward waddle, has been played by others and included in cartoons. People see him as that character, not as an accomplished director or composer.

Although Criterion has released Chaplin movies before, perhaps their release of The Kid will be the one that gets regular film fans talking about Chaplin again as the multi-faceted artist he was.

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Music Review: Elton John, Wonderful Crazy Night

By Tyler Hodg

Since the release of his debut album Empty Sky in 1969, Elton John’s career and personal life have reached the highest of highs, and lowest of the lows. One month shy of his 69th birthday, John has long been settled in all aspects of his life, including his music style. He is comfortable no longer being the rocket man.

Wonderful Crazy Night is the latest release from the icon, and a comprehensive fit within the discography of an aging (but not fleeting) musical genius. While the album is far from his greatest composition, a few surprises and the absence of any career-tarnishing aspects make it a decent addition to his extensive discography.

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Music Review: JD Souther, Home By Dawn

By Melissa Bratcher

The third of Omnivore’s expanded reissues of JD Souther’s criminally overlooked solo albums, Home By Dawn, is an unusual album. The things that make his previous albums, John David Souther and Black Rose work are there: his incredible lyricism, gift for melody, and warm vocals. These things have to share space with a particularly 1980s sounding production. Songs are slicker than they need be, and while the writing is, as always, brilliant, they suffer. A bit. But keep in mind, this is JD Souther we’re talking about, and he’s got this.

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