Director Steven Spielberg’s critically lauded WWII epic Saving Private Ryan celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year with a new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo release on May 8, 2018 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.

A DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures co-production, Saving Private Ryan won five Academy Awards^®, including Best Director, and two Golden Globes^®, including Best Director and Best Motion Picture—Drama, and was named by the AFI as one of its 100 greatest American films.  Boasting a stellar cast headed by Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Ted Danson, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Paul Giamatti and Barry Pepper, the film is widely considered one of the greatest war movies ever made.

Every once in a while, the Ghosts of Saturday Mornings Past rears its sentimental head (and that's two Christmas Carol references in the same day for those keeping count; no there's no real reason behind it), and reminds me just how much better things were when they were not so over-produced.

Today's case in point: The Wacky Races. The original Hanna-Barbera series had a motley cast of characters who were more than two-dimensional players. They had depth to them, and some even had their own series, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. Having such a large cast afforded the opportunity for more (and more interesting) interactions, even if each racing team had its one-note to hit (Peter Perfect was always "perfect," the Gruesome Twosome were always monstrous, the Slag Brothers were always clubbing each other on the head).

Jerome was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Well, sorry, Mr. Dickens, but there does indeed seem to be a doubt, at least in the mind of Jerome's twin brother, Jeremiah Valeska (CAMERON MONAGHAN). True, Jerome fell from a building, was pronounced dead when brought into the coroner's office and was even more dead after he was autopsied. But that doesn't stop Jeremiah from severe anxiety as he shows off his new free-energy invention to Bruce Wayne (DAVID MAZOUZ). Bruce does hs best to convince Jeremiah that Jerome is truly gone, and suggests they go see his grave to confirm it to Jeremiah, to beat the insanity gas Jeremiah was subjected to at the end of last episode.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR's CHRIS HEMSWORTH headlines this film as Captain Mitch Nelson, a military team leader who has never seen real combat and who has just disbanded his team to take a desk job. It was a good plan, and a good career.

But 9-11 got in the way.

Following the attacks on the World Trace Center in 2001, Nelson fights to get his Special Forces team back together and sent to the Middle East. Over objections, he is successful, and his team join up with one of the Afghan warlords, General Dostum (NAVID NEGAHBAN), to take on the Taliban. Their specific mission is to advance and capture the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which is a stronghold of the Taliban.

In the mid-70s, the great BILL BIXBY starred in a one-season crime drama called THE MAGICIAN. Bixby played Tony Blake, a stage magician who was asked to investigate a plane crash. He became a moonlighting crime fighter, using his skills at illusion and misdirection to catch the bad guys.

It was a pretty cool idea, although it came with built-in limitations.

Fast forward to 2018, and ABC brings us DECEPTION, starring JACK CUTMORE-SCOTT as Cameron Black, a stage magician whose career comes tumbling down when the secret to one of his greatest stunts comes to light -- that he has a twin brother, Jonathan. The world learns about Jonathan when he is arrested for leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in a woman's death. Only the woman dead on the scene wasn't the woman who was with Jonathan in the car. He's been set up, and he's sent to prison.

Chaos comes to RIVERDALE as all the sordid little threads start to come together in a tapestry of terror.

Moose Mason (CODY KEARSLEY) comes clean with the Bulldogs that he and Midge had a fight the night of her murder, because she had confessed to him that she'd been seeing someone else: one of the Southside Serpents. It doesn't take long before word gets around that this Serpent was Fangs Fogerty (DREW RAY TANNER), who was caught on camera when Jughead (COLE SPROUSE) filmed all the behind-the-scenes footage of the school musical. That footage was handed over to the sheriff's department, which is now run by Sheriff Michael Minetta (HENDERSON WADE), a man firmly in the pocket of Hiram Lodge (MARK CONSUELOS). And when that footage is used to arrest Fangs at school, a scuffle ensues, revealing that Fangs carries a switchblade knife. He's looking guiltier by the second.

Paralleling and mirroring the structure of episode 407, "Therefore I Am," this episode, "Therefore She Is," tells the story of The Thinker's wife, Marlize (KIM ENGELBRECHT) -- aka The Mechanic, although we've never really heard her referenced as such in the series. Through flashbacks we see how she met Clifford DeVoe (NEIL SANDILANDS), fell in love with him, found him to be a sociopath with an agenda, and came around to his way of thinking -- a Luddite view of technology that sees it as killing mankind.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Does anyone else think Chloe Decker (LAUREN GERMAN) accepted a marriage proposal from Marcus Pierce (TOM WELLING) just a little too quickly? Well, you'r not the only ones. Lucifer Morningstar (TOM ELLIS) also realizes the window was shut on his opportunity to tell the detective how he feels about her, and he can't understand what made her jump at the offer.

To better understand Chloe, who is taking time off from work to plan her wedding, he decides to get into her head and roleplay her part, with Detective Daniel Espinoza (KEVIN ALEJANDRO) tagging along and pushed into playing the role of Lucifer. Their murder case centers around a dog breeding competition and a pregnant mastiff and, as is usual for an LUCIFER episode, shenanigans lead to insight as Lucifer gets angry with Dan and learns exactly how Chloe feels.

With Marvel's AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR tearing up the box office, the timing couldn't be more perfect for Marvel Studios to release the trailer for ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink. In the aftermath of “Captain America: Civil War,” Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from the past.

The flowers have been blooming, the grass has been getting greener (and taller) for a while now, but May is the month when things really start to get warmer and brighter.

So I think you'll agree this is the perfectly proper time to introduce our newest monthly Critical Blast Bombshell, a lady who exudes both light and heat in her cosplay, her performance, and even her identity.

Please give a warm welcome to our newest...

Critical Blast Bombshell, May 2018

Chaotic Flare

Bowser (SUPER MARIO BROS)
Photo: Albert Ng

What is your interest in cosplay?

As villains go, Thanos is the best Marvel villain to date. Unfortunately, because the bar is so low, that's still not saying much.

I had originally planned on writing "5 Things That Ruined Avengers: Infinity War" but as I started with my first point, it morphed into its own article. So I may hit on my other four points at a later date. For now, though, I present to you the biggest moment that ruined the movie.

***SPOILER WARNING***

REINVENTING PINK FLOYD, published by Roman & Littlefield, is written by Bill Kopp, who, as the book denotes, is a lifelong music enthusiast, musician, collector and, since the 90s, a music journalist. The book covers the Pink Floyd's history from the time founding member Syd Barrett left the band in 1968 through the release of the album DARK SIDE OF THE MOON in 1973, detailing how the band members interacted, grew, and evolved along the way.

For those only familiar with Pink Floyd from DSotM, it may be hard to grasp why someone would write a book concerning such a narrow, though important, time frame, when everything they did since kind of went along the same path. But as you dig into early Floyd and listen to the music from that time period, you realize the music was indeed very different pre-DSotM, as with THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS, ATOM HEART MOTHER, and others, highlighting the eccentricities of the group's leader, Syd Barrett.

Too often in comic book stories, the villain is motivated by greed or power. They not only are evil, but they know they are evil, and you will submit to them or fork over all your cash, depending on the depth of their megalomania.

The best villains, however, see themselves as the heroes of their own story, and act accordingly. Thus it is with Thanos, in a lifetime achievement role for actor JOSH BROLIN. All Thanos wants to do is eliminate poverty, make sure there are plenty of resources for people to live on, and see the universe at peace. And to do this, the only thing he needs to do is simply cut the existing population in half.

Poor Archie Andrews (KJ APA). Every time he learns a new mob term, he thinks he needs to apply it to his life, and his relationship with Mr. Lodge (MARK CONSUELOS), for whom he works as a capo. Yes, Archie has full knowledge that Hiram Lodge and family are mobsters, and he's all in. This is RIVERDALE, where school plays are scenes for murder, and best friends don't help you study for algebra exams, they help you hide bodies.

There are a lot of tidbits out there that add up to a full story when you connect the dots between Henry Cavill and director Christopher McQuarrie.

With CinemaCon happening and Henry Cavill doing press tours for the upcoming Mission Impossible: Fallout movie, directed by McQuarrie, the Superman actor is having a hard time dodging questions about his future in the DCEU. He has been asked about when we'll see him as Superman again and another question was asked about a potential sequel to 2013's MAN OF STEEL. This episode of "Superman Talk" discusses his answers and how McQuarrie plays a potential role in the return of Superman on the big screen.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Kino Industries' Ctrl Movie, a technology company billed as a "collaborative cinematic experience," is partnering with 20th Century Fox.

The tech allows the in-theater audiences to control the characters' actions throughout the film using the app that offers people dual commands during pivotal points in the films' action. Depending on the audiences' choices, the film will have a different plot, ending and even running time.

From Lucasfilm:
 

This fall, welcome to the Resistance!

StarWars.com is thrilled to announce that production has begun on Star Wars Resistance, an exciting new animated adventure series about Kazuda Xiono, a young pilot recruited by the Resistance and tasked with a top-secret mission to spy on the growing threat of the First Order. It will premiere this fall on Disney Channel in the U.S. and thereafter, on Disney XD and around the world.

Admittedly, after the emotional blows dealt in last episode ("Lose Yourself"), I thought "Fury Rogue" was going to be more of a coast. I mean, they just killed Ralph Dibny (HARTLEY SAWYER) and effectively eliminated Killer Frost (DANIELLE PANABAKER) from Caitlin Snow's persona. Since this episode dealt with the final bus meta being safely transferred to a secure facility, how much excitement could it really generate?

While the episode didn't have quite the level of action as others, the drama was tense throughout. Caitlin still finds notes from her alter ego, Harrison Wells (TOM CAVANAGH) has to admit to Cisco (CARLOS VALDES) that the Thinking Cap has begun the process of eroding his intelligence, and Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) refuses to deal with the emotions of Ralph's death.

Thanos. The name alone strikes a chord with Marvel comic aficionados. It’s like sitting at a WWE event when the lights all go out, a lone, deep bell peals, and the arena is bathed in eerie blue light and theatrical fog, signaling the arrival of The  Undertaker. When Thanos shows up in a comic book, someone is going to die. If Thanos had his way, everyone would die.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a bit different than the Marvel Comic Universe, but Thanos is still the ultimate cosmic antagonist. Up until know he’s been relegated to talking head spots, chiding Loki in Marvel’s The Avengers, putting Ronan the Accuser in his place in Guardians of the Galaxy, and so forth. With The Avengers: Infinity War Thanos finally takes center stage against the entire host of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s expansive cast. And if Thanos had his way, nearly everyone would die.