Seth Harris

TV Review – Utopia Series 2, Episode 3

I hope you are enjoying the content I publish on my blog. If you feel compelled and are financially able to, I would greatly appreciate anything you could contribute to my Patreon. I will take it as your way of saying thanks and put that money towards growing the site in a slight manner.

Utopia Series 2, Episode 3 (2014)
Written by Dennis Kelly
Directed by Marc Munden

UTOPIA II

There is a universal human tendency to value the lives of your loved ones over the lives of others, particularly strangers. You’ll commonly hear new parents express that they have a sudden sense that they would die for their newborn children. People will make drastic moves to protect their loved ones even in the face of death. But we don’t see often is what a person will do when it comes to harming another in the name of saving their loved one. Would you be willing to kill to protect the people you love? Not kill someone who intends harm, but someone whose continued life might put your family in jeopardy. This is an innocent, for all intents and purposes, who isn’t an immediate threat, but could become one. Would you kill them?

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Movie Review – While We’re Young

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While We’re Young (2015)
Written & Directed by Noam Baumbach

while we're young

Josh is documentary filmmaker stuck on the same project for the last ten years. His wife, Cornelia, is a producer whom he won’t work with, and his father in law is a famous documentarian whom he also won’t work with. During a lecture at a college where Josh works, he meets Jamie and Darby, a young couple who are full of the sense of life he is missing. Josh and Cornelia become fast friends with the couple and learn Jamie is also a filmmaker seeking out an excellent topic for his own documentary. Josh finally breaks his taboo of never collaborating and decides to help Jamie out with a Facebook-centered doc idea he has. As the two couples become more closely intertwined more tension bubbles to the surface until Josh’s personal life begins to crumble around himself.

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Movie Review – Thoroughbreds

I hope you are enjoying the content I publish on my blog. If you feel compelled and are financially able to, I would greatly appreciate anything you could contribute to my Patreon. I will take it as your way of saying thanks and put that money towards growing the site in a slight manner.

Thoroughbreds (2018)
Written & Directed by Cory Finley

throughbreds

Amanda arrives at the home of her estranged friend Lily for a surprise invitation to “hang out.” Amanda quickly realizes this is a tutoring session set up by her mother, worried about Amanda’s borderline personality disorder getting in the way of meaningful friendships and her ability to do well in school. We learn that the two drifted apart after Lily’s father died and her mother remarried Mark, an incredibly wealthy man who demands the two women in his house comply with his rules. Amanda remarks that if Lily’s stepfather is causing her such grief, she should just kill him. At first, Lily shies away from this idea but the more she lingers on it, the more she wants to work to make it happen.

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TV Review – Utopia Series 2, Episode 2

Utopia Series 2, Episode 2
Written by Dennis Kelly
Directed by Marc Munden

UTOPIA II

What are you willing to give up for the greater good? What would you sacrifice for the things you believe in? That appears to be the theme of this season of Utopia. It’s highlighted most prominently in a scene between Wilson Wilson and Millner. He questions why she has brought him in as part of The Network, and she reasons that its because they killed his father, tortured him, took his eye and still when the moment came he betrayed his friends for The Network. She states that this level of devotion made him stand out as someone they were looking for. On looking back at episode one, we see that Millner and Carvel both gave up their whole lives, with Carvel being the exception who showed regret. Yet even Millner broke during Carvel’s torture on Three Mile Island.

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Comic Book Review – Uncanny X-Force Volumes 6, 7, & 8

Uncanny X-Force Vol. 5: Otherworld
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Billy Tan, Greg Tocchini, and Phil Noto

Uncanny X-Force Vol. 6: Final Execution Book 1
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Mike McKone, Phil Noto, and Julian Totino Tedesco

Uncanny X-Force Vol. 7: Final Execution Book 2
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Dave Williams and Phil Noto

Uncanny_X-Force_otherworld

Fantomex has been brought to the dimension of Otherworld and is on trial for crimes against reality at the hands of the Captain Britain Corps. Psylocke is torn between her growing relationship with Fantomex and her loyalty to her family in the Corps. Meanwhile, Wolverine and the rest of the team take on an ever-increasing occult threat that is burning up the countryside of Otherworld. Later, the life of Evan Sabah Nur is flipped upside down when the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants comes to town. X-Force is set up on a mission to take down an assassin for hire network and end up tossed into the far future to see what they could become. Upon returning to the present day, Wolverine must strengthen his resolve to save Evan and take down a foe that touches close to home.

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Book Review – The Grip of It

The Grip of It by Jac Jemec

the grip of it

Julie and James feel a strong need to leave their urban apartment and purchase a home in the suburbs. They find a large house that is surprisingly affordable but even during their first walk through something is off. There is a hum coming from somewhere beneath them, inside the walls, never becoming too loud but always ringing in their ears. The couple shakes it off and goes on with moving in and making this home their own. Things just get worse though, rooms that didn’t exist before suddenly appear, stains appear on the walls that won’t seem to go away, and even the neighbor and boys playing in the woods nearby start to become figures of menace and dread. James and Julie start lying to each other which only increases their paranoia and disconnect, leading to a horrific conclusion.

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Movie Review – E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Written by Melissa Mathison
Directed by Steven Spielberg

e.t.

Elliott is a boy living in northern California who doesn’t seem to have any friends. He tries to join in on his older brother’s Dungeons & Dragons game but is seen as too little. One night, Elliott discovers a creature living in the shed in the yard, a small brown alien who has been stranded on Earth. The two create an empathic bond so that they feel each other’s emotions and sensations. This bond allows Elliott to understand that the creature, whom he nicknames E.T., is going to die unless he can contact his people and return to his world. Elliott lets his brother and little sister in on his secret and the trio work to help their new friend. However, in the background government agents are searching the woods after seeing the aliens leave initially. Slowly but surely they are circling closer and closer to Elliott and E.T.

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TV Review – Utopia Series 2, Episode 1

Utopia Series 2, Episode 1 (2014)
Written & Directed by Dennis Kelly

Utopia Epiosode 1 Year 2

When we last left the world of Utopia, we were merely looking backward at a short-lived British television that deserves a second glance by viewers. In the time since my review of Series 1, big Utopia news has dropped. For some years David Fincher and Gillian Flynn have been working to bring Utopia to the United States but a deal with HBO fell through, and it appeared the prospects of a return were dead. However, in April 2017 it was announced that Amazon was going to work to develop Utopia with Gillian Flynn as showrunner. Flynn has been very public in expressing her love of the original, particularly for its strangeness. She became friends with Dennis Kelly and said she’ll seek his input on the new version of Utopia, release date to be determined but like sometime in 2019. So, as we look back at Series 2, we do so with the notion that a different yet hopefully will be tonally similar show will be coming in the new future.

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Movie Review – A Most Violent Year

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A Most Violent Year (2014)
Written & Directed by J.C. Chandor

most violent year

In 1981 New York, Abel Morales has brought his heating oil company to the verge of dominating the city’s market. He is in the midst of acquiring property from Hasidic businessmen when a series of truck robberies put his future into jeopardy. Abel is convinced that his rivals in the oil business are behind these hijackings. His wife, Anna, is upset that he seems frozen to take action and that is endangering their family and the company. At the same time, the city’s Assistant D.A. has been conducting an investigation on possible illegal practices in the industry and is filing charges against Abel’s company for possible price fixing and tax evasion. Despite all of these pressures, Abel is determined to follow a virtuous path but how long can he hold on to this?

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Movie Review – Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Written by Jonathan Kasdan & Lawrence Kasdan
Directed by Ron Howard (well 70%, Phil Lord and Chris Miller for the other 30%)

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, lived a young Dickensian orphan named Han who was under the thumb of an alien Fagin. He and his sweetheart Kira plan their escape from the hell of the shipbuilding planet Corellia, and sadly, only Han gets out while Kira is taken by their masters. Feeling lost and alone in the world, the young man joins up with the Galactic Empire with hopes of becoming a pilot. Along the way, he meets Beckett and his crew as well as befriending Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, and getting to fly the Millenium Falcon. They all get entangled in debt to the Crimson Dawn cartel that involves a heist which will, of course, go awry.

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