J’ai fait un rêve étrange
(I had a weird dream)
–Miette
Wild jackals couldn’t drag us to see Gods of Egypt, so we’re reaching back to 1995, and one of the great fantasy / SF nightmares in cinematic history, The City of Lost Children. Disturbing, hilarious, and crazily inventive, the film landed at 138 in your ranking of the Greatest SF Films.
The Legends arrive in a possible tomorrow, a ruined Star City overrun with criminals, and team up with a pair of Green Arrows.
The best part (because the romance drama subplot was about as convincing as Stephen Amell’s age make-up) was…
Marvel’s Agent Carter delivers another pair of back-to-back episodes as Jarvis takes direct action, and Team Carter face Whitney Frost, Jack Thompson, Vernon Masters and some not-especially-competent mobsters.
Welcome to Star City, where Canaries can’t fly but a Vixen can, Evil Geniuses have obvious weaknesses and the inability to see through even more obvious disguises, and miracle cures can happen.
This week brings much drama, some decent fight scenes, and at least two turning points in the year’s story arc. Discussion below.
It’s Shark Week on the Flash.
We also have the emotional repercussions of the previous episodes, some movement towards the inevitable Barry/Wally team-up, and a revelation regarding Zoom’s identity.
It’s no Better Call Saul, but Supergirl’s take on the American Way does feature some interesting conflicts.
Discussion?
Given her popularity at Halloween, in kid and YA culture (The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter), and in productions of Macbeth, the witch has been surprisingly scarce in the horror movie.1 Certainly, she makes far fewer appearances than vampire, zombie, werebeast, mad slasher, or lab-made monster.
The most discussed horror film of 2016 makes some amends by casting the traditional witch as its villain. Does this spell-binding story live up to the hype?
The literary world lost two significant figures today, Nelle Harper Lee, 89 and Umberto Eco, 84. While neither were authors of SF or fantasy per se, both influenced writers in all fields, and Eco’s fiction crossed boundaries of reality and his non-fiction examined (among many other topics) the cultural implications of superheroes.
Weather-related damage took out our internet and cable last night. Feel free to post your own reviews and comments on this week’s Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow here.
This week brings us back-to-back episodes of Marvel’s Agent Carter. Peggy enlists help from an old enemy, Jason Wilkes becomes a force to reckon with, Vernon Masters takes over the office, and Whitney Frost pwns the council.
Jack Thompson remains a wild card. Whose side, exactly, is he on? Dottie, of course, is much wilder.