Disc Reviews

"Don't you get it? This is all meaningless. Heaven, hell, this world if it ever meant anything, that moment is passed. Nothing down here but a bunch of hopeless, distraction addicts, so filled with emptiness, so desperate to fill up the void. They don't mind being served another stale rerun of a rerun of a rerun."

No stale reruns here. Season 12 of Supernatural picks up exactly where the previous year left off. The brothers are not together at the moment. Dean has just helped out God's sister and gets a pretty sweet gift in return, while Sam's at the bunker and is surprised by a British lass with a gun.

“You have been my greatest love. Be careful, Diana...they do not deserve you.”

Ever since Richard Donner made us believe that a man can fly with 1978's Superman — considered by many to be the first modern superhero film — we've gotten three different Men of Steel, along with five different versions of Batman (if you don't count Will Arnett's voiceover work). Heck, in the last 15 years alone we've had three Spider-Men and (incredibly) gone through three Hulks! Yet in all that time, a movie starring Wonder Woman — a superhero just as iconic as all the ones I just mentioned — could never get off the ground...until now. I'm happy to report it was worth the wait.

"I made a big mistake.... I wanted a new life. I wanted to start over, and that's what I did. But somehow I made things worse. So I reset everything. I put everything back to the way that it was before, except some things weren't the same any more. Not even a little bit."

That something is called Flashpoint. It's one of the biggest events not only in the Flash comic universe, but it had ramifications across the DC landscape and led to more than a few changes in that world. This season of The Flash uses that story arc to guide Season 3, but like everything else in these comic shows, it is quite different than the printed event.

By John Delia, Jr.

"Death is but a doorway to new life. We live today. We shall live again. In many forms shall we return." - Egyptian Prayer Of Resurrection.

In ancient Egypt there is a princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who will inherit the entire kingdom when her father dies. She has remarkable fighting skills, amazing beauty, and has the ability to lead the people. But her father remarries, and soon after their first son is born her legacy changes. What soon follows will seal Ahmanet’s fate that’s worse than death.

The 12th season of Criminal Minds would be one of great change. Some were expected and some were not. There had been incidents behind the scenes that had drawn red flags among the cast. Thomas Gibson was known to have a temper and had been reprimanded for it in the past. But as the Season 12 shooting began, he crossed the line again by allegedly kicking a writer. It was the last straw, and he was quickly fired from the series. So while the season begins with his character, it only lasts a short time. This is also the first season without Shemar Moore as Derek. That exit was planned and dealt with at the end of the previous season.

“Seems like a new boatload of expatriates gets dumped here every day.”

In The Moderns, “here” happens to be 1926 Paris, a time and place that immediately conjures joie de vivre images of lavish parties and complete artistic freedom. And while both of those things are technically on display in filmmaker Alan Rudolph's 1988 drama, the movie turns down the volume on the Roaring Twenties to explore the tricky and transactional connection between art and commerce...and how it can extend to personal relationships.

“What can you tell me about African Americans and science?”

Anyone who even halfway paid attention in their high school science class knows that a polio vaccine was developed in the 1950s. And if you were especially attentive, you even know the vaccine was developed by American researcher Jonas Salk. Unfortunately, the story that is far less commonly told in classrooms is that of Henrietta Lacks, the poor black woman whose “immortalized” HeLa cell line gave birth to the biomedical industry. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks takes a curious approach: instead of merely shining a light on its worthy subject, this powerful (and overstuffed) HBO film is about *the quest* to bring Henrietta back to life.

What happens when a group of friends decide they want to get together and make a horror movie? I’d imagine the result would be something close to Granny of the Dead. I’m not sure what kind of budget they had to make the film, but I’d imagine it wasn’t very much, and the talent on the screen doesn’t really scream the next box office star, but the film has charm, the kind of charm that they did the film not because of the paycheck but instead they just wanted to have fun and make a movie.  I’m hoping that is the case with the film; if so, then I can forgive a lot. For instance, have you ever seen the fan film that is a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Is it great?

There have been a lot of changes at NCIS over its 14 season run to date. Over time people have come and gone, but rarely has the series had to deal with so much change going into a new season. The most obvious of these has been the departure of Michael Weatherly as beloved character Tony DiNozzo. Tony was one of the still many remaining characters from the show's premier season a decade and a half ago. He's the kind of character who couldn't be replaced by just one new character. NCIS starts the 14th season with three new characters on board. But Weatherly wasn't the only big loss to the series. The unexpected death of showrunner Gary Glasberg hit the cast and crew pretty hard.

"It's a beautiful day outside. The streets are all packed with tourists. They're drinking beers. They're chasing beads, headed out on the vampire walking tour of New Orleans. They think it's just a myth, just part of the city's charm. Well... we know better. Just like we know there's a storm coming..."

Are you ready to do the Time Warp again? Ready or not here it comes. It's been five years since we last left the New Orleans setting for The Originals. Klaus (Morgan) has been locked up in the catacombs by Marcel (Davis), who is once again ruling as the supernatural king of New Orleans. Hayley (Tonkin) is taking care of her growing daughter Hope by never staying in the same place twice