Nick at Nite

  Finally, a video game movie that captures the feeling of handing the controller off to your older brother to beat the hard level. Mortal Kombat (2021) has a few genuinely interesting ideas and decent looking fights that it has no idea what to do with. It was all downhill from action legend Joe Taslim blood knifing Scorpion in the trailer. His involvement had my interest from the moment I heard about it and his resume is undeniably stacked, but unfortunately it fails to cohere into a sensible film.     The story follows MMA fighter and loving family man Cole Young (Lewis Tan). He’s an underdog and he cares about his daughter a lot but we spend very little time with this part of him before his his Mortal Kombat birthright, foreshadowed by a prologue sequence and the best action setpiece in the film between Sub Zero (Taslim) and Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, comes home to roost. He’s attacked by the very same Sub Zero and rescued by Jax (Mechad Brooks), who tells him w...

       I’ve found in conversations with my friends and online that people seem to discount HBOMax as a streaming service. Everybody has Netflix or knows somebody who does, most people can find a Hulu login, if you’re into Star Wars or the MCU you’re shelling out for Disney+, but people don’t see the same necessity in HBOMax. I think that’s ridiculous because it provides such an incredible collection of high quality movies and TV, not even counting their deal this year to collect all of Warner Brothers’ theatrical releases. It’s the service I watch most by a wide margin. So I’m here to convince you to check it out one show at a time and maybe convince HBO to pay me because streaming services of all flavors are in serious need of curatorial input to help people wade through their flood of stuff.     First up, The Knick . The Knick is a historical medical drama whose strength lies in brilliantly leveraging all three aspects. It’s an ensemble story that fo...