Nerd in the 'Noke

Daredevil (2015), TV-MA, 13 Episodes - As I sat down to work on this review, it occurred to me that while I've stated on a number of occasions in this space that Daredevil is my favorite comic book character, I don't believe I've ever actually explained why. I suppose there's no better time to share those reasons than now. I was drawn to the character because he's just about as 'real world' as you'll find in the pantheon of comic book super-heroes. Created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett in 1964, Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose other senses become heightened when a chemical accident took his sight as a boy. Raised by a washed up boxer, he's a self-made man who has always fought for everything he has. He works the courtrooms by day and uses his heightened senses to impose justice by night in efforts of making his neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen a better place. There's something intriguing about a character whose abilities stem fro...

Daredevil (2003), PG-13, 103 minutes - Marvel's Daredevil series on Netflix launches this week (Friday, April 10), and I couldn't help but look back twelve years to the last live action version of the character to be seen: the 2003 feature length film starring Ben Affleck.  Distributed by 20th Century Fox (who held the film rights to the character at the time), Daredevil is widely regarded as one of the miss-steps in the flood of comic book to big screen adaptations that have proven quite successful more often than not (this film pre-dated Marvel's creation of their own film studio, which has yet to produce a box office dud).  This 2003 film suffers from a few things, but holds a special place in my heart to this day as it was my introduction to the character that has since become my favorite in all of comics. "I waited outside the Olympic for my father. In some ways, I'm still waiting. Nobody cared much about the death of a washed-up prizefighter... nobody b...

Furious 7 (2015), PG-13, 137 minutes - It's been fourteen years since 2001's The Fast and the Furious launched what has now become a seven movie strong franchise.  If you had told me at the time that it would grow into what it is today, I would have told you that you were nuts.  The fact that that small action film, equal parts fast cars, crazy action scenes, good looking cast, and outlaw lifestyle has spawned six sequels and morphed into a big budget, action packed, global spy-like force at the box office is truly incredible. This latest - and possibly last - installment finds Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker) and their crew trying to track down Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), before he finds them and exacts revenge for his younger brother's death (Fast & Furious 6 villain Owen Shaw).  The plot is actually pretty convoluted, with Dom's crew having to pull off Mission: Impossible-like missions in order to obtain a surveillance program that will allow them to ...

Primer (2004), PG-13, 77 minutes - Last week after watching Predestination , I was on a bit of a time travel kick and decided to finally watch Primer, a film that I had not only read about but that had been recommended to me on a number of occasions. Primer is a low budget film from about ten years ago.  Despite its small film status, it handles the science and impact of time travel as well as any other sci-fi film I've seen.  It begins with four programming/engineering friends and their side project that they've been working on in their free time.  They've reached a bit of a roadblock disagree on what direction they should go next.  Aaron (writer/director Shane Carruth) convinces the group to give his idea just a little more time as the project is being stored in his garage.  One night he and Abe (David Sullivan) run some trials and record some strange data.  They begin exploring the results on their own and discover the potential for a time anomaly w...