The Review Show

Episode 197. We watched Darren Aronofsky's 2010 psychological thriller Black Swan. When ballet dancer Nina is cast in the prestigious role of the swan queen in Swan Lake, she's determined to make this a perfect performance. She begins cracking under the pressure of the rehearsals, her overbearing mother, and confusing attractions and rivalries within her dance troupe. As she struggles with performing the darker half of the role, she starts to see glimpses of her own dark other half.

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Episode 196. We read the Batman story Court of Owls, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. This was the start of Batman's New 52 storyline, and it's a great place to jump in for new readers! Gotham City has long heard of the Court of Owls, a secret elite council who controls the city through its assassin called Talon, but most people believe it's just a ghost story. Batman himself investigated it and found nothing. But when he's attacked and thrown into a mysterious underground maze, jeered on by figures in owl masks, he realizes that Gotham City has secrets that even its greatest protector could never understand.

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Episode 195. This month we finished reading the sci-fi manga series Knights of Sidonia by Tsutomu Nihei. The scientists of Sidonia are continuing to experiment with human/gauna hybrids, but they're not all as successful as Tsumugi. Tanikaze's domestic life grows with new housemates and new romantic rivalries and tensions. The pilots try to distract themselves from ongoing battles with a popularity contest, but all their bonds are at stake when a member of the Sidonia's immortal crew has a disastrous new plan to try and save humanity.

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Episode194. We listened to season one of the audio drama podcast Brimstone Valley Mall, created by Kristen DiMercurio. It's 1999, and a group of demons are working clandestine jobs at a mundane suburban mall, inspiring shoppers to sin. They also play in a rock band! When their lead singer disappears, the rest of the band scrambles to find him before their big New Years Eve concert, where they need him to summon the intense demonic energy to incite the Y2K apocalypse.

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Episode193. We watched the 2017 Netflix romcom The Incredible Jessica James. Jessica is a twenty something playwright in New York City, dealing with rejection from theater companies and from her ex-boyfriend. She meets Boone, who's still reeling from his own divorce. A new potential relationship, a reliable friendship, and the bonds she has with the students in her theater workshop help Jessica stay confident in her life's path.

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Episode 192. We watched In the Mood for Love, a Chinese film from the year 2000. In 1960s Hong Kong, two couples move in next to each other in a crowded apartment building. One husband soon leaves for an extended business trip, and one wife goes to care for a sick mother. The remaining Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chen realize that their spouses have run off to have an affair with each other. As they connect over this grief, they begin to fall in love, but refuse to start their own affair and sink to the level of their cheating spouses.

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Episode 191. For this monthly special, we read volumes 1-8 of the sci-fi manga Knights of Sidonia by Tsutomu Nihei, and next month we'll conclude the series with volumes 9-15. Nagate Tanikaze has lived his entire life alone in the depths of a massive spaceship, experiencing the world through his grandfather's stories and old training simulators. When he ventures out into the rest of the ship, he's taken into the pilot program, controlling a Garde mech to fight the mysterious shape-shifting aliens known as the Guana. Tanikaze proves himself as a pilot as he awkwardly adapts to the strange new community around him.

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Episode 190. We watched the new HBO Max miniseries Landscapers, a creative dramatization of a true crime story from England. Fifteen years ago, Susan and Christopher Edwards buried the bodies of Susan's parents in their garden and told everyone they moved away. Now that their secret is out, the couple is separated and put through intense interrogation to determine if this was a murder for money, or a painful act of desperation to escape an abusive past.

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Episode 189. We watched Jane Campion's 2021 drama film The Power of the Dog. In 1920s Montana, a rancher brings home a new wife and her teenage son, much to the annoyance of his curmudgeonly brother. He taunts and intimidates these new additions to the household, until someone goes to extreme lengths to try and stop him.

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Episode 188. It's a new year, it's the future! We watched the entire Matrix series, including the new Resurrections movie, and The Animatrix anthology of short films. A man called Neo leads a dull life, finding excitement through his hacker identity, until he learns that he's been living in a simulation. He can reinvent himself, learn to take advantage of the simulation around him, and become The One, the hero destined to take down the machines that have imprisoned mankind in digital slumber so that their biological energy can be harvested for power.

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