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Drunken Angel, a review by Jon

Drunken Angel
4 out of 5



In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura's jaded physician. Set in and around the muddy swamps and back alleys of postwar Tokyo, 'Drunken Angel' is an evocative, moody snapshot of a treacherous time and place, featuring one of the director's most memorably violent climaxes.

(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 7th, 2009)

Star Trek: Nemesis, a review by DJ Doena

Star Trek: Nemesis



Patrick Stewart ... Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes ... Commander / Captain William T. Riker
Brent Spiner ... Lt. Commander Data / B-4
LeVar Burton ... Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge
Michael Dorn ... Lt. Commander Worf
Marina Sirtis ... Counselor Deanna Troi-Riker
Gates McFadden ... Dr. Beverly Crusher
Tom Hardy ... Praetor Shinzon
Ron Perlman ... The Reman Viceroy
Shannon Cochran ... Senator Tal'aura
Dina Meyer ... Commander Donatra

The Enterprise is on its way to Betazed, to the wedding of Commander Riker and Counselor Troi. Suddenly they receive a rare positronic signature, a signature that is only emitted by androids like Data. On a lonely planet near the Neutral Zone they find B-4 a prototype of Data's architecture. After that they get invited to Romulus by the new leader of the Romulan Empire. But this new Praetor is a surprise.

My opinion:
This entire movie is bullshit. If you count back, Picard wasn't even Captain of the Enterprise when this clone was produced. And even if, according to the movie it would have taken at least 20 years before Shinzon could have become ready for use. In this time anything could have happend to Picard. But even if: The Romulans are one of the if not even the most paranoid races in this galaxy. And they get  duped by a bunch of Remans (a race we hear of for the first time), they are able to build the greatest battle cruiser of all times and they manage to wipe out the entire romulan senate (that BTW had the size of the editorial staff of a student magazine)? And then this Shinzon accidentally finds another prototype of Dr. Soong's.
I won't even start with the ramming maneuvre or Admiral(!) Janeway.

(From Weekend Star Trek Marathon on February 10th, 2008)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon, a review by Achim

8. Mr. Ferguson Is Ill TodayMy comments:
At first I was wondering why the writer made John do so many foolish things. He id it in earlier episodes and had since seemed to have learnt. Well, if he wasn't doing things like running away without telling anyone, there wouldn't be any exciting plots

Matthias has pointed out before it's his favorite and I can at least confirm from my side that it's the best episode yet. I always enjoy the "bits and pieces" approach to tell a story, presenting us with segments, each following another person, that slightly overlap. This way important information can occasionally be left out only to be revealed later on. Kudos to the writer team to pulling it off very effectively

We also get great action by Thomas Dekker (especially the first half) and Garrett Dillahunt as Cromartie is very menacing here.

Only now, two or three episodes after the incident I realize that Ellison's role in all this must be bigger than we can imagine so far. Triggered by his question to Sarah about his role I noticed that  Skynet felt it was a good idea to actual model a Terminator after him. Well, or something. Looking forward to see more of him.



(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon on February 7th, 2010)