The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fifth Season (DVD) (2011)

“The Big Bang Theory” is currently my favorite sitcom on television and in its fifth season, it’s managed to show that its characters have evolved greatly since the pilot. Only four years ago, the series was very much about four geniuses who learned how to socialize thanks to their sexy and ditzy neighbor. And now in its fifth season, the characters have grown, changed, and evolved.

The cast grew from an original five in to seven characters, and the once womanizing obnoxious Howard Wolowitz is a man on the verge of marriage and experiencing a major step forward in his career as an engineer. As with all the seasons of the series, this season is ripe with geek references and major geek guest stars, and it doesn’t let its fan base down a bit.

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Breaking Bad: Our Thoughts on the Finale

jJpB8laWARNING: The following article contains spoilers to all five seasons of “Breaking Bad.”

With Gustavo Fring dead, thanks to the wits and desperation of Walter White, “Breaking Bad” begins at a time where Walter is pretty much the only potential heavyweight in the crime world. Fring was in fact the king of the castle for decades and Walter worked with the man to ensure delivery of his special meth as well as battle for his life. Over the months preceding Fring’s death, Walter’s use became less and less a necessity to Gustavo and soon Walter decided that he had to shoot first or find himself dead and buried.

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Girl Model (2012)

Girl-ModelThe world featured in the newest documentary “Girl Model” features an entire world of people who have decided a model’s life. Except for the actual models themselves. When we first view the casting agents for the Switch agency, they’re lining up groups of incredibly beautiful prepubescent girls with potential to be international models and judging them incredibly harshly. They’re called fat, pigs, and told to go on major diets in spite of the fact most of these young girls could be knocked over with a gust of strong wind at any moment. “Girl Model” explores a world that doesn’t just appreciate youth. It lusts for it.

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Planet of the Apes (2001)

Subtlety has never been one of Tim Burton’s strong suits as a filmmaker. As a storyteller and overall director, Burton’s films rely on imagery and over enthusiastic narratives to do what he can’t as a craftsman. Oddly enough Burton is assigned to direct a remake of one of the most thematically subtle films of all time. “Planet of the Apes” is one of the most relevant commentaries on humanity and politics that has ever been brought to the big screen, and Burton never really grasps that aspect.

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The Room (2003)

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My love for The Room has not been an easy road. It took months of fine tuning, refinement, some conformity and skipping doses of my meds to get down to the level of Tommy Wiseau and his unmitigated cult masterpiece. Whether you’ve seen the movie in its true form, whether you’ve seen it play on the April Fool’s Day airings on cable television here in America, whether you were there during the great tirade of Wiseau on online critics, “The Room” and its charms are almost impossible to ignore. It’s a movie so bad, so inept, so unbelievably painful, it’s almost impossible to comprehend anyone thought it would be great on-screen, “The Room” is a film I constantly quote to this day–ohai Mark!

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Ichi (2008)

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I guess you can refer to “Ichi” as part of the official Zatoichi canon since the story of Ichi is one the reflects the effect Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman had on the people of Japan during his travels. Though not a remake or a reboot of the Zatoichi series, “Ichi” is an unofficial spin off that takes from the film series and creates its own branch off of an epic story about a beautiful young Goze who is taking a journey to find her savior before finally lying down to die. Haruka Ayase is incredibly beautiful and fierce as the Goze Ichi who spends most of her life wandering around from village to village trying to survive one more day while on a search for something in her life that’s kept her motivated to fight ever since she was a child.

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