Belinda the rain is falling. Belinda your link is calling ♪ ♫

The Onion "I only like movies where the whole cast dances in the end credits"
Pajiba Hayley Atwell continues to enjoy her Agent Peggy Carter awesomeness even without news of a renewal yet
Esquire an interview with Chris Evans who talks his friendship with the other Chris and his insane Marvel schedule
NY Times Actress Jayne Meadows (1919-2015) RIP
In Contention the moment Michael Keaton knew he would lose the Oscar
Interview talks to Sam Shepard, still acting, writing, and being cool 

Sesame Street The Aveggies: Age of Bon Bon. The Avengers spoof peaks early with the line reading "What happened to my asparagus!?" which sent me into lolz
The Dissolve looks back at Ang Lee's Hulk (2003) 
Variety looks at Netflix streaming data. Daredevil S1 being the biggest immediate hit but House of Cards having a longer tail for streaming. Or something? What does it all mean? It's meaningless without Orange is the New Black data if you ask me.

Happy They're Working But... Sigh
Film School Rejects Wild Tales Damian Szifron's next project is... writing The Six Billion Dollar Man reboot movie for Peter Berg. Frustrating because he can direct circles around Berg if Wild Tales is any indication
Jezebel Viola Davis to star in a Harriet Tubman biopic. Sadly for the Viola Needs An Oscar Fan Club (President: Nathaniel R) it's for HBO and she'll probably already have an Emmy by then

Beefcake
MNPP Why does Zac Efron have a huge bumblebee on his crotch -- What the hell?
Boy Culture Joe Magianello Magic Mike XXL Poster. Co-sign on the blog post title! 
MNPP sharing gifs and the trailer for the Magic Mike ripoff Chocolate City 

Bruce Jenner (in half shirt) and friends in Can't Stop the Music (1980)Former Beefcake
Kenneth in the (212) dedicates "Belinda" (i had totally forgotten about this song but used to love it) to Bruce Jenner
Boy Culture on Bruce Jenner coming out as a... Republican. 

The unfolding Bruce Jennfer story is another reminder, like the superb documentary Prodigal Sons by former high school football star turned trans documentarian Kimberly Reed, that external presentation does not always equal internal truth. Bruce became famous as such a traditionally masculine person in the late 70s, gold medal athleticism and all, which is I think why this whole thing surprised so many people. Including myself. In case you missed it we revisited Bruce Jenner's 1980 movie Can't Stop the Music this very month last year.  

Speaking of Hit Me With Your Best Shot.... does anyone know what happened to the guy RJ who ran "(Home) Film Schooled"? The blog vanished some time ago without a trace but there was good writing there!

Bright Star is Brightest Thursday Night/Friday Morning...
Because of a forgotten scheduling conflict involving, um, superheroes (mom, they're oppressing us again!)  I had to postpone Jane Campion's poetic flowery romance for 'BEST SHOT' which was originally tonight. But here are 4 early entries for A Fistful of Films (which you have to agree is one of the best blog titles ever), Lam Chop Chop, Coco hits NY, and Zitzelfilm to whet your appetite for its visual splendor. 

Daredevil - Final Thoughts on Season 1

Previously on Daredevil. It felt lonely reviewing each of the first seven episodes since there wasn't much discussion here. Presumably those of you who were interested have now finished this series so here are much quicker thoughts on the last half of the season as well as some overall takeaways and dreams for Season 2. 

1.8 "Shadows in the Glass"
We might safely call this episode "Daredevil Origins: Kingpin" but it is admirable how deeply invested the show wants you to be in its characters, even the villains. We begin with a shoutout to "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" and we spend the entire pre-title prologue in the silent company of Wilson Fisk who sees his younger damned self in the mirror. That's before we segueway into his backstory but structurally it's a very smart episode as we see Vanessa disrupting his routines... but in a way that's good for him. Daredevil decides to trust Ben Ulrich but Fisk throws them all for a loop when he comes out publicly as the city's secret philanthropist. B+

final episodes and hopes for season 2 after the jump...

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Daredevil 5-7

Previously: Episodes 1 and 2 and 3 and 4...

In the next three episodes the tension really escalates as Fisk starts taking down his own accomplices and Matthew's life gets far more crowded with thorny alliances.

Great moments in set decoration. Check that anonymity pledge behind Daredevil's altar ego Matthew Murdock

1.5 "World on Fire"
An extremely busy and successful episode: Claire & Murdock get closer holed up in his apartment and then suddenly further apart. Fisk & Vanessa get closer on a second date. Daredevil realizes he's been framed for last episode's beheading. Nelson & Murdoch get a client asking them to fight their slum lord and Fisk moves against the Russians with things-go-boom devastation. 

Major Characters Introduced: Elena Cardenes (Judith Delgado) the client in question. Marci Stahl (Ami Rutberg) Foggy's ex and a rival lawyer.
Crimes: Suicide Bombings, Mass Murder, Accidental Murder, Slum Lord Intimidation and Neglect, Police Brutality
Body Count: 5 blind Asians? 100 or so Russians? Guessing.
Cameo: Fun shout-out to superhero tropes: 'are you one of those billionaire playboys I've heard about' 
More... 

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Daredevil 3-4

Daredevil bum never splits Murdock suits... even while leaping wildly up fireescapesThe secret reason that it's healthy to write about Netflix shows: it slows down the binge-watching. The side-effects of binge-watching are unpleasant if too little discussed. Side effects include but are not limited too: Lack of productivity, lethargy, weight gain, glazed eyeballs, reduced moviegoing (VERY BAD), and a dichotomous relationship to impatience -- refusal to wait a week to see what happens each hour paired with the willingness to tolerate a lot of padding in your drama wherein you sit for 12 hours for anything to actually happen.

Not that things don't happen on Daredevil. I speak more of Bloodline which is good but kind of a slog, really. Like True Blood (curiously not a Netflix show) one gets the sense that the season's story is much much shorter than the time it's taking to tell it. Curiously the best episodes of Daredevil (#2 & #6) thus far seem to be the ones that get stuck and confined in one place wherein the things that happen, however few of them there may be, actually do feel as if they matter. 

1.3 "Rabbit in a Snowstorm"
The third episode begins with a innocuously familiar image, a bowling ball, that quickly turns into a murder weapon in the show's grisliest episode thus far. Thankfully most of the actual carnage is offscreen so those with Game of Thrones aversions (I know we are few and far between) can rest assured if not easy that they'll probably be able to stomach this series. Nelson & Murdock are hired by Fisk (unbeknownst to them...sort of) to defend the murderer.  In the B plot Karen is asked to sign a gag order by her former company which makes her even more curious about their wicked ways. More...

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Daredevil 1-2

I fell in love with Daredevil as a young boy when Frank Miller, pre Dark Knight, took over the comic. It wasn't just the sexiness of a blind superhero (what?). Miller's run in the early 80s brought us famous characters like Bullseye and Elektra and Stick and a dangerous physical immediacy that other comics just didn't have. Naturally the Frank Miller run, plot-wise, was what the execrable 2003 movie tried to cover, jamming it all together with spectacularly disastrous and silly results. Marvel's first foray into Netflix territory gets so much right in its first few episodes that people need no longer fear The Man Without Fear but embrace him. Instead we need only fear, together whilst binge-watching, that Daredevil won't be able to keep this quality up for for its whole first season.

Herewith thoughts on the first two episodes...

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