spoilers | the m0vie blog

Daredevil – Guilty as Sin (Review)

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Darren

This month, we’re doing daily reviews of the second season of Daredevil. Check back daily for the latest review.

Part of what is so infuriating about the second season of Daredevil is that fact that there is a lot of good material here.

The issue is nothing as simple as saying “good ideas, terrible execution”, or anything as trite. There are good ideas that are executed well and bad ideas that are handled with a surprisingly deft touch; there are also good ideas that are needlessly squandered and bad ideas that turn out to be exactly as terrible as they initially appear. It isn’t even that there are clearly discernible unambiguous flaws. Everything is a mix. For all the issues with the writing of the Punisher and Elektra, Jon Bernthal and Elodie Yung do great work with the material afforded to them.

Let us pray…

The second season of Daredevil is very much a curate’s egg of a television season. There are good bits and bad bits. There is breathtaking ambition and incredible miscalculation in equal measure. The series is not entirely a failure, but it is far from a success. With Guilty as Sin, the show clumsily repositions itself as a morality play about the conflict between good and evil within the soul as Elektra Natchios. However, there is a similar conflict brewing at the heart of the show.

Even in the season’s strongest moments, there are clear weaknesses shining through. Even in the season’s weakest moments, its strongest elements are frequently in play.

Eye see.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: daredevil, elektra, guilty as sin, ninjas, plotting, punisher, scott glenn, spoilers, the hand, the kingpin, twist | Leave a comment »

Who Spoils the Spoilers? On the Right Not to Be Spoiled…

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Darren

Apparently, spoilers are good for you. Well, that’s what one survey from August suggests:

UC San Diego psychology researchers Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt wanted to test if being spoiled hurt someone’s enjoyment of a story. So they took 30 test subjects and let them read 12 short stories by famous authors like John Updike, Roald Dahl, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie and Raymond Carver. Some they just read straight, others they read with a paragraph beforehand that ruined the ending or major twist in the piece. In almost all of those cases, the reader liked the story more when they were spoiled.

Published way back in August, this generated quite a bit of on-line discussion, and a lot of people were quick to suggest that the logic held true for movies as well, and modern blockbusters at that. It seems like a ready-made defense for those posting a constant stream of spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises, or leaking plot twists for various popular television shows. However, I’m not necessarily convinced by this logic.

This survey is suspect…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Agatha Christie, Anton Chekhov, film spoilers, francis ford coppola, John Updike, movie spoilers, Movies, Nicholas Christenfeld, Raymond Carver, roald dahl, Short story, spoilers, spoiling, University of California San Diego | 2 Comments »

“You Shiver In Such An-tici-pation”: Upcoming Releases and the Waiting Game…

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Darren

It’s a bit of a defunct popular witticism that the actual purpose of the internet is not to increase global communication or facilitate and encourage the development and spread of ideas, but exists solely for pornography. I don’t think that’s necessarily true (in fact, it only accounts for 1% of the internet). Instead, I’d argue that the internet exists primarily to provide spoilers, casting calls, plot summaries, set pictures and gossip around all the upcoming releases. In an era where even fictitious characters have facebook and twitter accounts, it sometimes feels like information overload, with constant updates about the status of a given project and director and cast.

All at sea?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bloggers, Captain Haddock, Crab With the Golden Claws, critics, film discussion, green lantern, Hergé, internet, Red Rackham's Treasure, review, Secret of the Unicorn, spoilers, steven spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, tintin | 6 Comments »

Something Sinestro This Way Comes…

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Darren

Note that this article contains spoilers for Green Lantern. So I waited until the movie was released to post it. They aren’t exactly huge spoilers, but consider yourself warned.

It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that Sinestro is going to end up evil. Created in the sixties, the character was introduced to fans as a rogue Green Lantern, so he wasn’t ever designed to be seen as a good guy in four-colour style. In fact, the guy is red, has an evil moustache and is played by Mark Strong. Although the name Sinestro could arguably refer to the fact he wears his ring on his left hand, it isn’t exactly a name that inspires implicit trust. So his path to the dark side in the intended-franchise-launcher Green Lantern shouldn’t be a surprise.

However, it really demonstrates a lot of the key flaws with the movie.

Not quite mellow yellow...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Abin Sur, betrayal, comic books, fear, green lantern, green lantern corp, hal jordan, mark strong, martin campbell, parallax, Peter Sarsgaard, ryan reynolds, sequel hooks, sinestro, sinestro corps, sinestro corps war, spoilers, Tomar-Re, Triumph of the Will | 6 Comments »

End of the Line: Unearned Happy Endings…

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Darren

I reviewed Baby Mama earlier today and – while I was impressed with the film’s willingness to tackle a somewhat controversial topic – I was less than impressed by the somewhat conventional ending tacked on to the film. And then I mellowed out a bit. “It is a comedy after all,” I reminded myself, in the hope that I would forgive the film because it wasn’t a black comedy – most lighthearted comedies call for a light-hearted ending, after all. Besides, this particular film isn’t the only film in recent memory to resort to a disappointingly conventional ending, so why does it bother me so much?

Not everybody gets a fairytale ending...

Note: As you may have guessed from the topic, I’ll be discussing endings here – particularly the one from Baby Mama. Consider yourself warned, there are spoilers ahead.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: baby mama, cheat, cliche, conventional endings, ending, endings, films, fin, happily ever after, movie endings, Movies, spoilers, storytelling, twist endings | Leave a comment »

Do We See Too Much of a Film Before It’s Released?

Posted on July 11, 2010 by Darren

Last month I bemoaned the fact that trailers give away too much of a film, but I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t just the general way that the Hollywood publicity machine works. I bring this up because I’ve been thinking a bit about Inception, which in opening this week. With the exception of the (rather excellent sounding) trailer, I’ve been trying really hard not to spoil the film for myself. And, in attempted to so, I’ve only really started to notice just how much of a movie we put on-line before its official release.

The internet is flooded with Inception clips...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Christopher Nolan, clips, films, Inception, information, information age, information overload, internet, Movies, previews, sneak peaks, spoilers, too much, web | 10 Comments »

Off the Beaten Trail(er): Trailers and Spoilers

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Darren

Trailers are a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, they tease you with footage from that upcoming realise you’ve been anticipating (or can even get you excited about one you couldn’t care less for) – but that comes at a price. More often than not, trailers frequently spoil the film that they advertise. There are quick shots of action, but you can see something that doesn’t occur until more than half-way through the film, or a comedy which frequently includes its best laughs in the trailer. Of course, this makes sense – if you want to convince an audience to see a comedy, the trailer needs to make ’em laugh, so you include the really hilarious scenes; for an action movie, you want to tease what you have, so show them clips from the climax (usually larger than the other action scenes). So what are we supposed to do?

We actually need something like this...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: films, get him to the greek, Movies, predators, spoilers, trailers | 15 Comments »

Dream On: The Mysteries of Inception…

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Darren

I just belatedly saw the Inception trailer last week. My first reaction is just… well, I can’t quite do it justice in printed form, so I guess “wow” will have to do. It’s my single most anticipated movie of the year, but I haven’t really written about it. I haven’t written about it because it’s all been (and will likely continue being) played close to Christopher Nolan’s chest. We only just recently got a plot synopsis, for a movie now two months away. And, you know what? I love it.

I'll be sitting these spoilers out...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blockbusters, blogging, Christopher Nolan, cinema, Inception, Movies, spoiler, spoilers | 9 Comments »

When Should Movie News Outlets Refuse to Publish Spoilers?

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Darren

This post comes about from a bit of a debate that has emerged following the revelation of certain spoilers about Iron Man 2. Given that the movie is just out state side, I’m not going to spoil it for anyone stumbling across this page. I just find it an interesting abstract discussion: Are movie spoilers news? Or should web news outlets simply refuse on principle to publish these sorts of rumours?

Nick Fury has his eye on you...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: CHUD, films, iron man, iron man 2, Movies, secret endings, spoiler tags, spoiler warnings, spoilers | 6 Comments »

What a Basterdly Ending…

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Darren

Alright, since the entire point of this post is spoilers, consider yourselves duly warned. I don’t like spoiling films, but I also really think that there is a lot of discussion to be had about the end of Inglourious Basterds. Only read on if you have seen the film, or know you won’t. Because there’s no going back. Seriously. It’s something you should really see for yourself before you make up your mind on it. Anyway, those disclaimers out of the way, here we go…