TV Retrospective: Arrow Season 1 episodes 7-9

It's time to return to the Arrow front once again

Before I begin, I must apologise that the reviews are so short. You'd think with 40 minute run-time, I'd have to more to say than with the 20 minute Legend of Korra retrospectives. 

It's easy to talk about something that's great, it's really easy to talk about something that's terrible, but a lot of early Arrow episodes were more average, and those are much harder to talk about. 

Doctor Who series 8 episode 5 -Time Heist Review

Time for another Doctor Who review in it's newly scheduled time, Friday

#14 The Last Airbender

Yeah, this isn't going to be my 50^th review, I miscounted badly

With

13 Rage reviews

6 Guilty Pleasures reviews

9 Legend of Korra books 1-2 reviews

8 Legend of Korra book 3 reviews

4 Doctor Who review

2 Arrow season 1 reviews

3 Avatar: The Last Airbender reviews

A Batman (1989) review

3 Star Wars reviews

3 Lego Star Wars reviews, and

2 Star Wars: The Clone Wars reviews

I count this as my 55^th review (excluding that Doctor Who retrospective which wasn’t really a review)

Ah, well, maybe I'll get the 100th review correct. This is my celebration, on one of my least favourite movies ever, and it's fitting, since I've done more reviews on this franchise than any other, that the Avatar franchise would be my focus. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present M Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender

M Night Shyamalan, what happened to you after the 6^th sense? People were calling you the next Spielberg, then came Signs, described the Nostalgia Critic as "the invasion of the plot holes," "The Village" which I cannot describe because I haven’t seen it at all, then came "Lady in the Water" where Shyamalan cast HIMSELF as a writer whose words will "change the world" and to top off this ego trip THE VILLAIN WAS A CRITIC. Then came "The Happening", the movie that made Mark Whalberg look like a bad actor (before Michael Bay came close to him), and Shyamalan could not describe the movie without using the word "Happening"

So, it makes perfect sense that Nickelodeon would turn down the experience of people dedicated to the Avatar Franchise (Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino) and chose Shyamalan, someone whose writing experience is in the horror/comedy genres to write this martial arts family action adventure movie, and not only write it, but produce and direct it as well. Shyamalan was given $300 million for a 3-movie franchise, but the first movie came out at $150 million and whilst financially successful was slammed critically and no sequel has been announced (thank heaven for small mercies) let's dig into The Last Airbender, and see how big a sh*t storm Shyamalan can bend.

TV Retrospective: Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 3: Fire

The review of the Last Airbender will be coming out on Wednesday and boy do I have a lot to say about that movie, but before that, let's take a look at the final series of the beloved show.

Spoilers to follow

TV Retrospective: Arrow Season 1 episodes 4-6

Time once again to look 3 episodes of Arrow, as the curtain begins to fall unveiling shady operations from all parties. Secrets and lies take their toll, and this is the synopsis of both seasons isn't it. Ah well, it's still a great show.

#13 Batman Returns

Looking back at previous reviews, my mini-review of Tim Burton's Batman is the most popular I've done. (Well, it was at the time of writing this review) Now it's time to look at its sequels, and boy do they suck.

Batman Returns was the second Batman era from the Burton Era. Burton this time was given more creative control, expecting another hit like Batman was. The response then was quite mixed then, Warner Brothers were dissatisfied with the tone that led to the loss of the McDonalds happy meal tie-in and lead directly to hiring Joel Schumacher to direct a more marketable, but much sh*tter Batman movie.

These days it's far more popular, with many people proclaiming it to be the best Batman movie (bar none). Yeah... no, it really, really isn't. Let’s dig into this movie and find out why.

TV Retrospective: Avatar The Last Airbender Book 2: Earth

It's time to look at Book 2 of the Last Airbender (Book 3 on Monday, with Wednesday being the review of The Last Airbender.... oh joy)

Doctor Who Series 8 episode 4 review - Listen

Time to look at the latest episode of Doctor Who, will it rise above the sh*t of Robot of Sherwood? Not gonna lie, it does, but it would be disturbing for it not to.

TV Retrospective - Arrow Season 1 Episodes 1-3

With season 3 of this fine show coming soon, now seems like a good time to look back at the series past and evaluate the show's progress 

These mini-reviews are going to contain spoilers

TV Retrospective: Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 1: Water

With my review of the Last Airbender coming later this month, it seemed like a useful time to look back at the series that inspired the greatness of Korra, as well as the sh*t that is the movie

I will do the review in 3 stages, each looking at a particular book, classifying the episodes and ranking the best and the worst of them (although sometimes the worst are by no means bad episodes, just not particularly interesting)

So, let’s start with book 1

#12 All-Star Batman and Robin #9

For those that don't know my history with comic books, which is everyone since I've never mentioned it before, I started out reading a magazine called Batman Legends that collected 2-3 issues of Batman related material into a single volume. A few issues into this magazine a comic was printed called All Star Batman and Robin #5. And I hated it, sure I kept buying the magazine for the other issues (I wasn't even aware of my local comic store, and the appearances of trades in book shops was fairly new) issues 5-9 were printed in the magazine with issues 1-4 printed prior to me picking up the book.

All Star Batman and Robin is written by Frank Miller, known for fantastic works of Batman such as The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, and sh*t works of Batman such as The Dark Knight Strikes Again. The art is done by veteran Jim Lee, who produces some fantastic art, but he's not particularly quick and the series was plagued with delays. Issue #10 ended on a cliff-hanger, with a new series Dark Knight: Boy Wonder supposedly to be released to finish the story. This has yet to come out, and the blame lies, by his own admission, entirely with Jim Lee. Jim Lee was beginning working on projects with decent writers like Geoff Johns and Scott Snyder. (Although you could argue DC editorial decided it was too sh*t to send out)

If you're wondering why I'm not reviewing back-issues of this comic. It's quite simple, Linkara has already covered them. And while I'm certain he'll do a much more thorough and much funnier review of this issue than I do, I have nothing else to say that he hasn't already. Besides so little happens in 8 issues it's barely worth me going back.

Doctor Who Series 8 Episode 3 - Robot of Sherwood review

Guilty Pleasures #6 Iron Man 3

The Iron Man franchise was the beginning of great things for Marvel as their partnership with Paramount allowed the creation of a Marvel Cinematic Universe, which eventually cumulated into the Avengers.

But Iron Man sequels themselves never quite had the popularity of the first. Iron Man 2 was criticised for particularly its lack of Iron Man himself and its ending, where Tony created an impossible to synthesise element in a matter of minutes. Still it enjoys a 73% rotten tomatoes rating and made a decent $600 million at the box office, so a 3^rd instalment was inevitable.

Also note-worthy is that this is the last movie distributed by Paramount Studios. Following Marvel Comics Acquisition by Disney, Disney themselves handled the distribution of the films that followed this.

There are loud critics for Iron Man, despite its incredible box office performance, managing $1.2 billion at the box office, and its favourable 78% rotten tomatoes. I don’t consider this movie that brilliant, it’s flawed and I’ll be spending the remainder of the review explaining it. But for all its problems, I find, like most Marvel movies, it’s fun and enjoyable. So let’s dig into Iron Man 3 and discover all that it can be.

Mini-review: Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles

It's Star Wars Month

Whoops, no it isn't, but one last loose end to tie up

We return to Lego star wars one last time, as we look at the Yoda Chronicles, a 5-part mini-series with Yoda as the titular character, with continuity from the Padawan menace considered part of it. For the purposes of this review I will be doing reviews of the first 2-parts, which were featured on a DVD (I got a triple pack including all these Lego Star Wars shorts, if you are to try buying them, I recommend this as it's the best value)

Mini-review/Commentary: Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes out

It’s Star Wars Month!

OK, no it isn't, but due to the rescheduling of Legend of Korra, I still have some loose ends to tie up. So join me is we trail through another Lego star wars short (which someone thought belonged on its own DVD for some reason)

Doctor Who Series 8 Episodes 1-2 review (Deep Breath/Into the Dalek)

Doctor Who is back on our screens for a new series. With Peter Capaldi taking over the reigns as the Doctor, we are ready for a new era of the time lord’s journey. But where will the journey take us, well, let’s dig into the first two episodes and find out.