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iCarly Season 3 Episode 4 (Paramount+): This episode has the most ridiculous B-plot of the show to date with this strange arcade machine that is obviously a person in a suit that is always listening and comes to life like Five Nights at Freddy’s, but at the same time the A-plot between Carly and Freddie dealing with the decision of whether or not to reveal their relationship to the world is somewhat endearing. Carly continues to show a lack of maturity that is unbecoming of someone who is nearing 30 at this point, however once she actually digs deep into the trauma that motivates her decision making, it does strengthen the relationship for the long term.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 1 (Paramount+): Of the new streaming Star Trek shows, Strange New Worlds feels the most like the original series because it does an excellent job of telling self-contained episodes where the crew of the Enterprise shows up somewhere, deals with a problem, and moves onto the next adventure. To an extent, it is interesting that the show is working as well as it is and after an episode, the audience isn’t left asking “well what’s the season-long arc?” It’s perfectly fine to let an episode just be an episode, especially if it’s about a false flag operation designed to reignite a war between the Klingons and the Federation.
Stan Lee (Disney+): Of the documentaries about famous people this year, Stan Lee is among some of the most interesting. Yes, it is another Disney corporate propaganda piece, and yes it diminishes the roles of people like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, but at the same time, because it is done with archival audio of Stan Lee telling his story, it does give a somewhat autobiographical look at the man’s life. That said, since it is all archival audio, this is mostly information that has been public record up until this point so if one already knows the origin of Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four or the X-Men, they probably won’t learn too much since the movie tends to skew towards his expansion of influence within Marvel Comics.
You May Have Missed:
Avatar: The Way of Water (Disney+ and Max): Last year’s highest-grossing film finally hits streaming and, as was the case with the original Avatar, this is not the best way to watch it. If someone did not watch it in a theater, preferably in 3D, this movie will probably not land for them because this movie is designed to be a visual spectacle. Most people’s televisions and phones cannot recreate the cinematic experience which will definitely make the plot issues more apparent. That said, for a full review from last December, click here.
This Week In Theaters:
No Hard Feelings: The raunchy R-Rated theatrical comedy returns in this film which stars Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie, a woman who agrees to date a wealthy couple’s 19-year-old son before he goes away to college to help save her childhood home.
Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s latest film stars an all-star cast including Maya Hawke, Tom Hanks, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, and Bill Murray among others in a movie about how a world-changing event disrupts a Junior Stargazer convention in the 1950s.
Last Week At The Box Office:
The Flash: $55.1 Million
Elemental: $29.5 Million
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: $27.8 Million
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: $20.0 Million
The Little Mermaid: $11.6 Million
