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Rounding out our coverage of JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS CHRONICLES is the third episode. This one is called "Big" and is all about Wonder Woman.    

Commentary:

You know, the HR-V ads before these videos are WAAAAYYYYY off theme.  The narrator is so bright and cheery, it takes a second to adjust back into the dark tone GODS AND MONSTERS has going for it.  

This one starts with President Waller sending Agent Steve Trevor to infilitrate Kobra to find a powerful new weapon they are building.  Kobra is about to execute him when suddenly Wonder Woman appears through a Boom Tube to rescue him.  They quickly defeat Kobra, but Kobra is able to activate their secret weapon, Gigantra!  Actually, a giant robot.

Here is the second of three episodes of JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS CHRONICLES.  This one features Harley Quinn and Batman, and is called “Twisted.”

Commentary:  While I have thought both of these shorts were terrific, I can’t help but think that it has to be confusing for a lot of casual viewers to do stories like this.  One of the comments on Youtube said “This ain't your grandma's Justice League!” and I’m just not sure how I feel about that.  YES, I love to see the status quo get rocked at every opportunity, but when you get this far away from the source material, part of me wonders why you don’t just create something new entirely.  Batman’s costume in particular is such a departure, he looks more like an homage to Batman than any version of Batman I’ve ever seen before.

DC has been putting a lot of marketing muscle behind the upcoming JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS.  In the upcoming weeks, there will be a digital comic series, and they have also been posting some shorts on Machinima's Youtube channel.   There are three of them, and we'll be posting them over the next few days.

Here is the first one, called "Bomb" and featuring Superman and Brainiac:

On July 14, BBC Video will be releasing Doctor Who: The Daleks. This collection features a Doctor Who story from each of the modern Doctors facing off against the Daleks, a classic Doctor Who story, and a new Documentary called Dalek Origins. 

Dalek (season 1, episode 6)

KILLING JESUS is the film based on the book by Bill O'Reilly with Martin Dugard. I have not read this book, but if Christopher Menaul's vision of the movie is anything close to it, it's a very unique vision of Jesus, and one that I couldn't see sitting comfortably with most Christians.

The story covers the range of Jesus's life, but skips over some important aspects. It begins with King Herod (Kelsey Grammer) who has a vision of Isaiah telling him the true King of the Jews has been born. This precedes a visit from the magi who are following an astronomical sign, which prompts Herod to order all the male babies to be killed. But Jesus escapes, because Joseph feels that the adulation poured out on their child will arouse Herod's jealousy.

In case you're even an amateur Bible scholar, you may have noticed that we're skipping over that whole bit about a visitation from an angel and going with a gut feeling.

When high school football coach Jim White is fired, again, he and his family end up in the poorest town in California -- McFarland. The population is almost entirely Mexican immigrants who work as pickers, Their football team is a pushover -- and it isn't long before he loses his position as an assistant coach for them as well!

What he does notice, however, is that these kids can run -- fast, and for long distances. As Jim (Kevin Costner) relates his plan to Principal Camillo (a much-slimmed Valente Rodriguez, THE GEORGE LOPEZ SHOW), the kids carbo-load on rice and beans, and then run miles to their jobs in hot dry weather. They're natural fits for cross-country running.

Putting together a team of seven is a challenge, and White has many obstacles keeping them together. Ultimately, however, his work has a lasting impact on the runners, their families, White's family, and indeed the entire town.

I love a good con movie. From THE STING through LEVERAGE, if it's done well, I'm pulled in.

FOCUS starts off with great promise, and the fact that the filmmaker's brought in the master, Apollo Robbins, as a consultant, shows they at least had their hearts in the right place going into this. The film stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie (who will pair up again in the already overexposed SUICIDE SQUAD next year) as Nicky, a master con man, and Jess, a would-be pickpocket who crosses his path. He takes her in, mentors her in the finer points of the grift, and lets her take part in some of his current cons. And then, without notice, he cuts her loose. All that buildup, all those wonderfully filmed scenes just go poof as we realize this was just backstory to the film that's only just now getting started well into the movie.

There's a certain mathematical elegance to the Wachowski's JUPITER ASCENDING. Given infinite space and infinite time, someone will be born somewhere with the exact same genetic sequence as someone who already existed. Multiply those infinite chances out, and that previous person might have been the Queen of the universe, who owned the Earth and willed it back to herself should she ever be genetically reassembled.

Of course, if the Queen of the Universe had children who covet the Earth because they're getting ready to harvest the people there to make their special water of life (the daughter is over 14 millennia old), then you might want to watch your royal back.

Ripper Street: Season Three is set to hit the streets on DVD and BluRay on June 23^rd, and if you’re a fan of the Leman Street good guys you’ll mark this date down on the calendar! I was hooked on Ripper Street half-way through the first episode of season one and I haven’t stopped loving every episode since.

Season Three is 8 episodes in length, and starts out four years after Season 2 ended. It takes the events that ended in season two and progresses them outward to what we see they’ve become four years hence. Things have not been so cozy in the time that has elapsed.

Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn) left Whitechapel and moved to Manchester to start over again and become the police officer/man he always wanted to be, foregoing violence to become a man of peace. Having risen quickly through the ranks, we see him here now as Inspector Drake.

There’s a good portion of America these days that probably hasn’t heard of Ed Sullivan or his variety show and thus don't know just how popular and important it was to the people of the US and to the careers of the performers who now occupy the status of legend in the entertainment industry.

Then there’s a good portion of us who were too young to remember THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW when it was on because we were too young by the time it wound down in 1971.

But there is still a sizable number of Americans who remember the show because they tuned in every week to see it. Those, dear reader, are the luckiest of all… because they got to see Elvis, the Beatles and so many more before all the rest of us.

Now, thanks to StarVista Entertainment, the rest of us can count ourselves lucky too. This 6-DVD set spans the entire run of THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, showcasing many of the talents that performed on it through the years.

Sometimes you're lucky to review an item that simply put, you know going in you already love. I mean, what can I tell you about the film Goodfellas that hasn't already been said? It's up there with the first two Godfather films as one of the greatest achievements in gangster cinema. So glorious is this film that it transcends the genre and isn't JUST a gangster film. It's simply a masterful piece of storytelling. Beautifully written, masterfully directed, and featuring some of the best performances of the past quarter century. It's fingerprint is upon so many films that have come since. Goodfellas has created stereotypes and tropes of the genre, yet when it was released it was original and vibrant. The only question to be pondered: does it hold up twenty-five years later.

FROM THE DARK, available on Blu-ray, tells the haunting tale of a young couple who are on a road trip around the Irish country side. When they develop car trouble, they seek help at a nearby farm house and it isn’t long before they discover a terrible evil is lurking in the dark.  A creature has been awakened from a thousand year slumber by the owner of the house who unearthed it while digging in the bog, and the couple soon learn the only safety they have from it lies in the light. But night is falling quickly, and the darker it gets the more powerful the creature becomes.

The movie has a very limited cast and stars Niamh Algar and Stephen Cromwell as the young couple Sarah and Mark.

Picking up from the ashes of SON OF BATMAN, BATMAN VS ROBIN pits father against son in one of the most dysfunctional family dynamics that could be imagined.

Damian Wayne (Stuart Allan) is a ten-year-old assassin, trained by the best in the business. His bloodlust is potentially inborn, what with having Talia al Ghul as a mother. United with his father, Bruce Wayne (Jason O'Mara) for the first time has been tumultuous at best, as Damian is eager to accompany his father in the battle against crime as Batman and Robin. Only this Robin has to be reined in to keep him from killing the bad guys.

As BATMAN VS ROBIN opens, Robin has gone off on his own in search of some missing children taken by The Dollmaker ("Weird Al" Yankovic). It is during this encounter that Robin meets Talon (Jeremy Sisto), who fights like Batman but isn't timid about crossing the line of taking lives. He offers Robin an opportunity to join him, which Robin begins to seriously consider.

The concept of getting various fairy tale characters to interact with each other in a shared universe is always an intriguing concept (if, not necessarily, a new one, as easily attested to by ONCE UPON A TIME and, even before that, with Bill Willingham's series, FABLES). In this Disney musical, the audience enjoys an interweaving of Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel, orbiting around an entirely new tale of the Baker and his wife who are out to lift a curse put on their family by a witch.

Sit back and let me tell you the legend of a singer. She came from a faraway land called Canada, and she had a voice that could tame wild animals. She was catapulted to fame, and was one of the touchpoints for when country music transitioned into from traditional to pop. And then, one day, at the height of her fame... she was gone.

Her name was Shania Twain, and she was unforgettable.

In 2012, Shania returned for a live performance at The Colosseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. That show, "Still The One," incorporated backup singers, dancers, a full orchestra, and interactivity with a giant video screen, delivering an eye-popping performance of music and memories, Vegas-style.

In comic books, we have this thing called "the fight scene." Some comics end up being nothing but an extended fight scene, skipping over story for wall-to-wall slugging it out.

With the end of THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, the great dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) was awakened. As THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES opens, Smaug has begun his attack on Lake-town, destroying all in his path. The humans who live there are left refugees, as Bard (Luke Evans) escapes the cell that imprisons him and tries to defend his crumbling and burning town with arrows, eventually succeeding with the enigmatic (and huge) Black Arrow and a makeshift bow.

This contest is over. The randomly selected winner is: LINDSAY D. of URBANA, OH.

Well, we promised you it was coming, and now it's here. On the heels of our POWER RANGERS COMPLETE SERIES giveaway, we now have POWER RANGERS SEASONS 4-7 -- the series that came after the "complete" series.

This hotly sought after series by fans of Saban's POWER RANGERS show includes the story arcs ZEO, TURBO, IN SPACE and LOST GALAXY, and includes a bonus disc of extra features.

But how, you may ask, can you make this set yours? Well, one way is to be the randomly selected winner of this contest, which is as simple as entering your information in the form below! Really, it's that easy!

In Pixie Hollow, every fairy has a role. Fawn (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a fairy whose specialty lies with helping animals. But her big heart sometimes has her making dangerous decisions, underscored in the beginning of this film when we find she's been tending an injured baby hawk. Apparently hawks are the natural predators of fairies, and Fawn's attempt to return the baby to the wild results in near-catastrophe. As a result, she makes a promise to Queen Clarion (Anjelica Huston) that she will be more responsible.

Shortly thereafter, a green comet flashes by, one that returns every 900 and some odd years. Its glow awakens a large hibernating animal, who does strange things. When Fawn encounters the beast, there's an "Androcles and the Lion" moment that bonds them, and then she tries to learn everything about the creature's strange activities, which include building rock towers.

I'm a Tim Burton fan. Flat out, I've loved everything of his I've seen, from the Michael Keaton BATMAN film through the black and white FRANKENWEENIE short. Even SWEENEY TODD is on my list of Burton masterpieces.

But until recently, I had not seen CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, which puts a slight dent in what I considered a perfect record.

If you've read the Roald Dahl book, or seen the slightly renamed Gene Wilder film WILLIE WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, then you may be somewhat taken aback by the deviations made in this version of the film. Oh, for the most part, it's the same story: Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) is a good kid from a poor family; Willie Wonka (Johnny Depp) agrees to open his mysterious factory to those who find hidden Golden Tickets; rotten kids from around the world make the cut; cue the Oompa-Loompas for every lesson learned as the rotten kids become victims of their own flaws.

I did not see the Doctor Who Christmas Special last Christmas. That is to say, I did not see the Doctor Who Christmas Special, "Last Christmas" last Christmas. Of course I've seen the Doctor Who Christmas Special, "Last Christmas," but I saw it last night on DVD.

The annual Doctor Who tradition traditionally provides some of the best stand-alone episodes of the show. And this one certainly plays with the viewers' heads -- and their hearts. The episode opens with Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) being awoken by such a clatter that has arose on her roof; so she springs from her bed to see what is the matter. When what to her wondering eyes should appear but two elves, a man in a Santa suit, and flying reindeer!