How SAS: Rise of the Black Swan’s Ending Sets Up the Sequel

This article contains spoilers for SAS: Rise of the Black Swan. SAS: Rise of the Black Swan centers on a hijacking: terrorist leader Grace Lewis (Ruby Rose) and her Black Swans commandeer high-speed train Eurostream while it’s under the English Channel, and the SAS (Special Air Service, essentially the British Army’s counter-terrorist unit) stud Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan) attempts to thwart the hijacking while protecting his partner Sophie (Hannah John-Kamen), who he intends to marry. Based on the novel SAS: Red Notice by former British soldier Andy Mcnab, the film is an unflinching political action thriller that ends with a…
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How Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ First Episode Showed the Darker Side of the Jedi

This Star Wars: The Clone Wars article contains spoilers. “Ambush,” the first episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, opens with a simple question: who is stronger, an army of droids, or a single Jedi Master? Well, when that Jedi Master is Yoda, fans can be pretty sure of the answer, and “Ambush” delights in that certainty. The episode is an action-packed, droid-busting romp, with a short interlude for Yoda’s serene Jedi wisdom. It’s an episode unlikely to be accused of being deep. And yet, “Ambush” carefully seeds the paradoxes that will ultimately cause the downfall of the Jedi. How…
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Impeachment: American Crime Story (FX)

The third installment of Ryan Murphy's American Crime Story anthology centers on how Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein), Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) and Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford) become embroiled in a scandal that almost ended the presidency of Bill Clinton was based on Jeffrey Toobin's book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President.Premieres Sep 07, 2021
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DC FanDome 2021 Will Deliver a Historic Batman Moment

If you’re tired of Batman, DC FanDome 2021 will have plenty to share about all the other superhero projects in the pipeline at Warner Bros. and DC Comics, including the upcoming Black Adam and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom movies. But if you’re like me and can’t get enough of the Dark Knight, then you should be doubly excited for this year’s virtual DC showcase, which will feature a series of projects with an unprecedented amount of live-action Batmen. I count four Bruces at this year’s FanDome, and that’s without even factoring in the upcoming Batman: Caped Crusader animated series.…
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The Mike Richards Era is Officially Over at Jeopardy!

All Mike Richards had to do was his job.  That job, of course, was serving as executive producer on two syndicated game show giants: Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Richards held down these roles beginning in May 2020, leaving the same role at The Price is Right and taking over from the beloved Harry Friedman who stewarded Merv Griffin’s two creations into TV icons. It’s as big a producing gig as there is in the game show biz. And yet, like many other American Icaruses with firm handshakes and a surplus of hubris, Richards wanted more.  Richards wanted to host.…
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Why Nintendo Abandoned the Game Boy Name

For years, the Nintendo Game Boy dominated the handheld gaming market en route to arguably becoming synonymous with the very idea of handheld gaming. So why did Nintendo stop using the Game Boy name almost 16 years ago? To be honest, the answer to that question is complicated and open to a fair bit of speculation. While this is a topic that Nintendo has talked around over the years, there are not a lot of high-level Nintendo executives who have directly addressed that question in a way that eliminates all possible doubt. Having said that, we do have a pretty…
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Peaky Blinders: Aunt Polly Bonus Scene Could Point the Way for the Character’s Future

Warning: contains spoilers for Peaky Blinders season five. Polly Gray, Shelby Company treasurer, Romani Queen and clairvoyant witch, is the fabric of Peaky Blinders. The glamorous, redoubtable Shelby matriarch is a matchless creation. Sharp-tongued and sharply tailored, Polly gets all the best lines and all the best looks. She’s an integral part of the family’s stratospheric ascent, having run the bookmakers while the boys were fighting in France, and continuing to run things ever since at Tommy’s side (or just as often, at his throat). She drips wit, shoots rapists, twists mafiosos around her little finger, scares the shit out of abusive nuns,…
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The DCEU is Alive and Well and Coming to DC FanDome

Count the DCEU out at your own risk. After eight years of doomsaying by critics (and some fans), hawk-ish box office watching, and yes, the occasional creative stumble, Warner Bros. shared universe of DC superhero movies is still thriving. And despite its commitment to only maintaining the loosest of continuity connections between its films, they aren’t blowing the DCEU up any time soon. Warner Bros. has announced this year’s installment of DC FanDome, it’s massive virtual event where they lay out everything the DC Universe has planned, from comics to video games to TV to movies. You only need to…
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Star Trek: Prodigy’s Franchise Connections Will Go Beyond Voyager

If Picard is the continuation of the story begun in Star Trek: The Next Generation, then Prodigy is shaping up to be the narrative successor to Star Trek: Voyager. We’ve known for a while that the animated series, created in partnership with Nickelodeon, would bring back Kate Mulgrew as a holographic version of her Captain Janeway character, but subsequent updates—such as the reveal that the series would take place in the Delta quadrant, or that Voyager cast member Robert Beltran would also be appearing on the show—hint at deeper connections between the two Star Trek series. Today, Paramount released the…
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No Time to Die Trailer Teases Bond’s Struggles in a Changing World

James Bond has spent nearly sixty years on the big screen consistently overcoming elaborate, seemingly-insurmountable attempts on his life from an assorted array of ostentatiously megalomaniacal madmen. However, pandemic-era delays clearly have his number, having forced No Time to Die, the franchise’s long-heralded 25th official film, into over a year’s worth of release date retreats, now leaving it to finally face the music in October. Interestingly, the film’s new trailer seems to thematically parallel its potential box office plight, since our out-of-retirement MI6 agent seems perplexed against an invisible, intangibly-operating global threat. Daniel Craig’s long-heralded curtain call in the Bond…
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Amazon Prime Video New Releases: September 2021

Though the summer movie season is winding down (if it ever really started this year), Amazon Prime’s list of new releases for September 2021 is chock full of worthwhile movie options. For starters, Amazon’s library movie titles are quite good this month. September 1 sees the arrivals of heavyweights such as Apollo 13, Arachnophobia, Romeo + Juliet, The Descent, and The Social Network. And if that weren’t enough, the streamer is trying out some intriguing original movies as well. Cinderella, a modern update on the classic fairy tale, premieres on September 3. That will be followed by “exotic thriller” The…
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Hulu New Releases: September 2021

September usually means the beginning of the traditional fall TV season. As such, Hulu’s list of new releases for September 2021 contains some impressive TV swings. For starters, all of ABC and Fox’s (both now united under the Disney banner alongside Hulu) fall season offerings will be made available to stream on Hulu the next day. More impressively, however, two FX on Hulu originals make their way to the streaming world this month. The first is the long-awaited adaptation of the classic comic Y: The Last Man. The story of a virus that destroys every mammal with a Y-chromosome (save…
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Batwoman’s Poison Ivy: Bridget Regan’s Most Iconic Roles

This Batwoman article contains spoilers for Jane the Virgin and Agent Carter. For younger genre TV fans, the name Bridget Regan might not immediately ring a bell. But the actress, who was just cast as Poison Ivy on The CW’s Batwoman, has a long and impressive genre TV resume that suggests the beloved DC Comics character is in very safe hands. In addition to memorable turns on The Last Ship, White Collar, and Paradise Lost, the American actress has appeared in some of the most unexpectedly memorable genre TV roles in the last decade and a half. Basically, no matter…
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Marvel Future Revolution Character Tier List: Who is the Best Hero in the Game?

As a free-to-play ARPG/MMORPG hybrid starring some of the most famous characters in the Marvel universe, Marvel Future Revolution has to be considered one of the most surprising mobile games of the year. While Marvel Future Revolution features some of the more unfortunate qualities we associate with the mobile gaming scene (quite a few cosmetic microtransactions, simplified controls, and occasionally limited gameplay) it’s actually a fairly robust RPG in its own right that might even be better than Square Enix’s Avengers game. Actually, you could argue that it comes closer to being the RPG that some fans wanted that game…
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Link Tank: Frank Oz is Not Happy With the Current State of The Muppets

The voice of Fozzy Bear and Miss Piggy himself has some choice words when describing the recent Disney additions to The Muppets. “Frank Oz has brought iconic characters like Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, and Yoda to life. Having worked with Jim Henson to bring us some of these childhood favorites, he hasn’t been a part of the new era of The Muppets or Sesame Street, and his absence has surely been missed. As someone whose favorite Muppet is Fozzie, Oz has been an iconic part of this series from the jump.” Read more at The Mary Sue Shang-Chi and the…
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The Original Rocketeer 2 Plans Were Very Different

The Rocketeer celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this summer. The 1991 film starred Bill Campbell as Cliff Secord, a young stunt pilot who ends up in possession of an experimental jetpack and ends up embroiled in a crossfire between Nazi spies (led by Timothy Dalton), and the mafia (led by Paul Sorvino). It’s a terrific, charming action-adventure film, effectively paying homage to the movie serials of the 1930s and other Hollywood flicks of the era, all set to one of James Horner’s very best scores. But despite positive reviews, The Rocketeer wasn’t quite the Batman-sized blockbuster that studio Buena Vista…
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Better Call Saul Confronts Its Legacy in Season 6

As Better Call Saul heads into its sixth and final season, the AMC hit has found a way to carve out its own path beyond the enormous shadow of its big brother, Breaking Bad. The series combines incredible cinematography, outstanding acting, and intelligent storytelling in a peerless fashion.  As we continue to anticipate the show’s final episodes, we were lucky enough to get the chance to talk with executive producer Thomas Schnauz about how much the drama has already accomplished, how instrumental actors like Rhea Seehorn and Tony Dalton have been to the program’s success, and what the show’s lasting…
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Best Movies Coming to Netflix in September 2021

Fall is here. Almost. Technically we’re in the last grips of summer’s dog days right now, with Americans gearing up for a three-day weekend by the grill. But Netflix at least isn’t ready to leave the sunniest months alone, as indicated by a number of the major films coming to streaming in the next few weeks, including iconic summer spectacles like Jaws… plus Jaws 2 and all those other seaside sequels. But there’s more than red dye in the water to enjoy in the below outings for those content to stay home as things continue to stay weird out there.…
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Disney+ New Releases: September 2021

Through much of 2021, streaming service Disney+ has been Marvel’s domain. That’ll happen when you premiere WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Loki, and What If…? within eight months of one another. With the Disney+ list of new releases for September 2021, however, Disney’s other big franchise is striking back. Star Wars: Visions is set to premiere all seven installments on Wednesday, September 22. This project is a collection of 7 animated short films all from renowned Japanese studios. As you can see by this first teaser, it could be rad. These seven shorts should also make the wait…
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