Disc Type

"Two can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead."

The Pretty Little Liars have finally reached the end of their rope. And while you discovered who little mini-A's were over the previous six years, you're finally going to get to the bottom of the entire mystery. I'll admit it's a bit of a shocker. With the end upon us, this is no place for beginners. If you don't know who Aria, Spencer, Emily, Hannah, and Alison are, it's time for you to head back to the beginning and catch up. You can find our reviews from those seasons here. For the rest of you, let's talk Pretty Little Liars, shall we?

"Guns change everything, and a bullet is forever."

This new USA Network series is based very loosely on the 2007 film staring Mark Wahlberg. The film was based on the bestseller novel Point Of Impact by the ironically named Stephen Hunter. The series started life with several events going against it. The film really didn't make much of an impact itself. It lost money with a domestic box office total under $50M and about the same in the world-wide box office. So it wasn't necessarily a no-brainer for a television series adaptation.

La Vie de Jean-Marie (The Life of Jean-Marie) is a documentary that pitches itself as an “excellent example of cinema verité,” leaving it exposed to the tremendous legacy that specific film movement left upon cinema history. For those that don’t know, “cinema verité,” or “truth cinema,” is a style of documentary invented by French filmmaker Jean Rouch around the late 1950’s. The idea behind this style of cinema is “reveal the truth” through the use of the camera and the spontaneity of the film’s subjects. La Vie de Jean-Marie does indeed wear the shoes of cinema verité quite well; however, it does so in an exhausting fashion.

"We'll figure something out. We always do."

You should know the setup by now. If not, you can check out our previous reviews: The 100 Reviews. You'll discover a series that changes quite substantially with each new season. In fact, the title itself was no longer relevant to the series after the first episode. The originally 100 was quickly whittled down in size. Then the rest of the Ark came down, and in Season 4 there are about 500 of the Ark's inhabitants on the planet.

Over the last eight years or so, the abstract concept of nostalgia has become a commodity. Film, television, and videogames have been adjusting their aesthetic to incorporate stylistic visuals that are intended to draw in what seems to be a relatively specific demographic: “80’s kids.” Whether it be Stranger Things, Kung Fury, or Turbo Kid, these films have succeeded (and failed) to create a new style out of this “nostalgia aesthetic.” However, being a child of the 90’s, I have noticed that these “nostalgia aesthetics” have shifted toward my decade.