Entertainment | Page 29 of 89

5 shows you might want to see on Netflix

We’re part of the Stream Team for Netflix and were compensated for this post. All thoughts are our own. Last week our allergies were so bad it forced us to the sofa for most of the week. My allergy people feel me on this one. Said unexpected down time meant that I spent more time than usual watching television. There are some fun things on Netflix that I re-discovered, one new thing that’s great and one new thing that was quite disappointing. For the most part these shows are for adult audiences, except for one, which is quite obvious.

Train to Busan

It’s like Die Hard on a bus, that’s the way that Speed was pitched to audiences in 1994. Train to Busan is like Under Siege 2, except loaded with zombies, set in South Korea and is utterly, brutally violent and nihilistic. It’s also a very good film. It is not as good at The Girl With All The Gifts, but Train to Busan is a shot in the arm to a genre that needs a jolt from the living.

The plot in Train to Busan is simple, a South Korean businessman doesn’t spend enough time with his daughter and takes her to see his mother for her birthday. Unfortunately for them and all of the country a plague has set upon the nation that has people turning into flesh eating killers about :60 after they’re bitten. And one of these monsters has snuck into the train.

The usual monster movie tropes are here, there’s a child in peril, power hungry businessman, the elderly and lots of extras. The difference in Train to Busan is that the tension and action are expertly paced so that the potentially limited space of a train is not an issue. Instead each train car has its own particular problem, the groups of passengers provide problems and the only stop that the train makes on the way to Busan ratchets up the tension even more.

These are the fast moving zombies from World War Z, but these zombies are dumb as a brick. This film succeeds in making you care about some of the human cast, while detesting a couple of them, yet making us realize that most of us would probably act like the later if this were to really happen. It is also utterly dark, 98% of the cast gets killed and the ending is not exactly ‘happy’, but it’s not the end of the world either. Action fans who are OK with non-Hollywood films (See: they don’t end well for the main characters) will enjoy the South Korean gem.

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Big Nate, What’s A Little Noogie Between Friends review

I’m laughing to myself in a coffee house. There are men and women in suits talking about insurance, retirement homes, closing loans and talking technology. And I’m reading a comic strip that makes our 7 year old laugh-and laughing as much as he does. Big Nate, What’s a Little Noogie Between Friends collects previously released comic strips from this seminal series and it’s hilarious.

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New all age comics for March 29

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It’s around spring break for most of us and the new all age comics this week reflect that in the fact that there aren’t many new ones. There are a couple new monthly titles and a few new graphic novels, but overall it looks like a great week to catch up on previous releases that you missed. You should still head out to your local comic book store and here are 5 of our go-to all age comics that will interest young readers aged 5 and up.

Little Archie

The world of Riverdale gets the Art and Franco treatment. Their style is what many parents and children associate with all age comics due to their work with Tiny Titans, as well as, Action Cat and Adventure Bug. In this Little Archie one-shot comic our title character wakes up with a cat having eaten his homework. It’s no ordinary cat as Jughead, Betty, Veronica and Reggie come to find out. This title will be good for ages 5 and up.

Adventure Time original graphic novel: Brain Robber

One of the great things about Adventure Time is that because the series is utterly surreal it can continue to reinvent itself. This can consist of new stories with Finn and Jake or side stories that concentrate on their friends that inhabit their absurd world with them. Brain Robber takes the spotlight and shines it on Lumpy Space Princess in this original graphic novel. This is for fans of the series or existing comic book and is good for ages 9 and up due to its extreme silliness that younger readers might not understand.

Saban Power Rangers

Did you see the Power Rangers movie? Have you read the monthly Power Rangers comic book? The comic book is very good and OK for ages 9 and up mainly because of action and semi-realistic peril. This Saban Power Rangers graphic novel is all new and lives in the world that the film exists in. It’s the characters that you liked in the film, in a new graphic novel adventure.

Doctor Who

The 9^th, 10^th and 11^th Doctor have new releases this week. Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Who collects issues 11-15 of its monthly series, Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Arena of Fear is a trade paperback that collects issues from that series and Doctor Who, the Ninth Doctor issue #11 starts a new story line for people that want to jump in. The action might be too intense for young readers. On average ages 9 and up will be OK with this fun sci-fi series

Disney Princess

Short stories featuring Belle from Beauty and the Beast? You can all but see the hoards of young girl readers in their princess gold shoes running to the store. Disney Princess #10 is a monthly series, but this month it’s all about Belle.

The music in the podcast is from Kai Engel, you can dig all of his stuff at Free Music Archive.

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Tales of the TMNT: Super Shredder now on DVD

Tales of the TMNT: Super Shredder is out on DVD and it marks a change for our heroes in a half shell. For one it has episodes that haven’t even aired on Nickelodeon yet and it has a series of complete stories that bring back classic characters and new ones with completely different appearances.

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Dragonwatch by Brandon Mull lives up to the hype

So, this is our first Brandon Mull book. I can say that it ‘lives up the hype’ because the fandom’s pressure for this book is huge. Dragonwatch is the second book in the Fablehaven series, a 5-book series whose first entry Fablehaven was a massive success. Dragonwatch is a great book that will be of interest to middle school children, as opposed to it being a book aimed at the middle school audience. That also means that adult audiences will enjoy this book as much as its potential reluctant readers in middle school.

It’s all the more remarkable that I really enjoyed this book because it comes with a massive cast of characters, mythical beasts and fantastic settings. Mull sets up the world in such a way that a first time reader can pick up Dragonwatch and understand what’s happening as soon as the characters speak. The intricacies of their personalities establish themselves in time, but the first time audience’s hooks are baited and we eagerly take a bite.

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Sing-giveaway and review, it’s better encore

Sing does what many movies fail to do; it gets better with repeated viewing. We saw Sing in theaters and were pleasantly surprised. It’s not paced like a traditional film, much less an animated one, plus the humor and heart that are obvious in its first viewing are even bigger the second time around. Additionally our two boys (aged 5 and 7) loved it and picked on the lessons that characters taught.

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Disney PIXAR Cars #1, comic book is for the kids 8 and younger

Joe Books does a great job of transferring Disney characters into comic books. From their cinestory comics to the monthly titles for Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Vs. the Forces of Evil and more they really hit their niche with young or reluctant readers. Disney PIXAR Cars is one of the most popular licensed properties in the world so it’s not surprising that it finally make it to comic books.

And for young readers, aged 5-8 Disney PIXAR Cars will be a very fun comic book. It has all the characters that fans know from the films with Mater and Lightning present in every story. The comic book consists of several short stories that are 4-6 pages each. Each story takes place in a familiar territory like Radiator Springs or on a race track with Lightning.

Young readers will like the art, short stories and laugh at the appropriate times. However, readers 9 or older will get bored of the comic. Maybe it’s the length of each short story but they all end like an episode of Three’s Company. Someone says a pun, all the characters laugh and we end it with a shot of the credits.

Disney PIXAR Cars, the comic book is for those young Cars fans that want to read along to Radiator Springs. It’s not a particularly entertaining comic book and fans older than 9 will quickly figure that out.

Beauty and the Beast is large family entertainment #BeOurGuest

It was about 20 minutes into Beauty and the Beast when I stopped looking for flaws in the film. It’s not that the film is flawless; it’s just that it won’t matter. People could point out any number of things that didn’t work, in their opinion- and Beauty and the Beast would still be a movie juggernaut for ages 5 and older. In the end, Beauty in the Beast is a very good film, countless young girls will have the gold dress that Belle wore in the big dance number and many men will dress up as Gaston or LeFou.

First off, the classic songs used in the original film held up very nicely. They really are great songs and the story that sets up the music is a classic one that anybody can relate to. In this live action retelling of the film there are a couple new songs that aren’t as catchy, but they’re quickly forgotten and the film quickly moves onto the next one.

My Inner Film Critic Speaks

As a film though, it feels like a television movie at times, albeit with a massive budget, flawless costumes and huge sets. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a movie that fades out of scenes. However Beauty and the Beast in several occasions fades out, goes dark for a millisecond and then goes into the next scene. I know that they are not built in commercial breaks, but in what other film have you noticed instances when they fade out?

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