Movie review: “John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum” (2019)

“Your ticket is torn. You may never return home.”

What the John Wick sequels have lacked in conventional story, they have more than made up for in sheer architecture, grafting additional layers of cold-blooded and/or cutthroat bureaucracy and attendant intrigue onto the original’s stylish if still fairly straightforward tale of revenge. Who knew the international hitman community required such substantial infrastructure to operate, or that the phrase “honor among thieves” translated so elegantly to professional killers as well? There are lots of moving parts in any John Wick sequel – a good many of them invisible, it turns out – and, whether airborne or spent, only (approximately) 70% are bullets. Seeing as the original presented him as a gun-toting tsunami in human form, the sequels, for their sometimes glaring flaws, have also been effective at ratcheting up Wick’s external threat level to a somewhat plausible sustained plateau of omnipresent, multi-directional incoming danger Continue reading “Movie review: “John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum” (2019)”

DVR Hindsight #12 (6/12/15): iZombie finale, Hannibal season three

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Though I obviously wield and write from a position of considerable (imaginary) power with this blog, I’m not typically in the business of assigning pop culture homework to my readership, or at least when I do, it’s well-considered. If, by this point in our relationship, you’ve stubbornly discounted my delightfully subtle recommendations, and are not, for example, either already caught up with FX’s The Americans, well into the process of doing so, or at least in strong consideration of taking that plunge (seriously, it’s thirty-six episodes…that’s not even a long weekend!), then I have probably reached the limits of what I can do for you. I feel, however, that it’s time to offer a rare exception in the case of two extraordinary, macabre police procedurals – one just ending its first season as the other begins its third – that glide below the radar of most viewers and settle (or unsettle, as the case may be) comfortably into some of the darkest corners of the television landscape Continue reading “DVR Hindsight #12 (6/12/15): iZombie finale, Hannibal season three”