Here's the top MCS tags found for "star"

• Star Wars
• Star Trek
• Stargate
• Starcraft
• Star Wars: Episode 6: Return of the Jedi
• Star Wars: Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith
• LEGO Star Wars
• Star Trek: Into Darkness
• Starbucks
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Wars: Rebels
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• StarCraft II
• Star Trek: Nemesis
• Star Trek: First Contact
• Battle Beyond The Stars
• Dark Star
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture
• The Last Starfighter
• Star Wars: Episode 7: The Force Awakens
• Starship Troopers
• Fist of the North Star
• Homestar Runner
• StarTalk
• Star-Lord
• Stargate: Universe
• Star Wars: Battlefront
• Star Fox
• Men Who Stare At Goats
• The Star
• The Minnesota Starvation Experiment
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Trek: Beyond
• The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
• Star Citizen
• Star Wars: Celebration
• Starfire
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• Star Trek: Discovery
• Starry Night
• Stargirl
• Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
• Starsky & Hutch
• Star Trek: Enterprise
• Krystle Starr
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Wars: Episode 8: The Last Jedi
• Star Trek: Axanar
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Jack

Jack: Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. With Robin Williams, Diane Lane, Brian Kerwin, Jennifer Lopez. Because of an unusual disorder that has aged him four times faster than a typical human being, a boy looks like a 40-year-old man as he starts fifth grade at public school after being homeschooled.

If you were to tell me that Robin Williams really was a kid stuck in a full grown man’s body, it’d be easy to believe. The casting of this film is something else entirely with people like Bill Cosby, Jennifer Lopez, and Diane Lane filling out the on screen talent, they all seem like they work pretty well on screen but they’re also all from vastly different genres of movies in my experiences. They all work out though, if only through the sheer magical efforts of Robin Williams with the superb directing from Francis Ford Coppola.

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Tulsa King

Tulsa King: Created by Taylor Sheridan. With Dashiell Connery, Tatiana Zappardino, Hartleigh Buwick, Sylvester Stallone. Follows an Italian mobster faced with the startling task of reestablishing his Italian mafia family in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Our Civilization Is Hitting A Dead End Because This Is the Age of Extinction

The Numbers Are Startling. Extinction’s Here, And It’s Ripping Our World Apart.

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Nuclear Tourism: When atomic tests were a tourist attraction in Las Vegas, 1950s

Las Vegas is known as the city of lights and, at one time, that light was the glow of an atomic detonation in the Nevada desert. Starting in 1951, the US Army began testing nuclear ordnances just 6…

The Kaiju Preservation Society – by John Scalzi

“When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls ‘an animal rights organization.’ Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn’t tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They’re the universe’s largest and most dangerous pandas, and they’re in trouble. It’s not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who have found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.”–

If you’ve been around the internet long enough, you’re sure to eventually see the image that shows that Harry Potter is really just Star Wars with a fresh coat of paint, which is just a modern take on the Hero’s Journey, which is been a story told since stories could be told. Kaiju Preservation Society is no different, though I feel that until a certain point in the story it’s going to be more familiar than just a mythological story structure, as I’m pretty sure if you put the outline of Scalzi’s breakout book “Old Man’s War” and put it up against KPS’s, there’s a lot of common elements:

Guy is at the end of a major point in his life and is recruited to do a mysterious thing.
Guy goes through a mysterious process.
A huge story twist that absolutely rocks how we understand the universe is presented early.
Guy saves the day a few times.

Pepper in the traditional Scalzi snark and pop culture references and there’s more than I could honestly take here, and you get a fun story with familiar elements that made me feel good about spending my time reading the book. That being said, Scalzi used to be my #1 favorite author, but I think he’s just in my top five now. I say “just” like it’s no big deal, but his stories aren’t hitting me the way they used to. Back when I first read Old Man’s War about 15 years ago, I was just getting started on military science fiction and was catching up on the big names that had published notable work in the genre, OMW came out and blew my socks off and the franchise itself was a fun one to read. I’ve become more enamored with the military scifi and I Scalzi has mostly abandoned the genre. To be clear though, I’m happy about that, because he’s always going to be on my radar now, and what if he starts publishing something in a genre that I’m not currently interested in and it turns out I should be?

Final take: this was good to read, a bit heavy on the pop culture references, but I’d love to read another book in this universe.

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Land of the Dead

Land of the Dead: Directed by George A. Romero. With Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento. The living dead have taken over the world, and the last humans live in a walled city to protect themselves as they come to grips with the situation.

There’s a Tuba zombie, a gas station zombie, and other zombies that have started to remember their lives before they were zombies and they’re starting to live out their lives again. It’s about as weird and silly as you’d expect. The highlight of how silly the movie takes itself is the soldier that uses a skateboard and has headphones on while on the look out for zombies.

I remember seeing this is the theater back in 2005 and not being impressed with it, and I’m still not all that enamored with it.

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Florida homeowners flooded by Ian don’t have to tell new buyers about the disaster’s damage – Florida Phoenix

Whenever a hurricane threatens to slam into someplace near me in Florida, there’s one thing I do before I start packing to evacuate: I call my mom in Pensacola. She’s a retired bookkeeper, not a meteorologist. But she’s been carefully plotting the path of hurricanes across the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico for more […]

Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead: Directed by George A. Romero. With Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato, Jarlath Conroy. As the world is overrun by zombies, a small group of scientists and military personnel dwelling in an underground bunker in Florida must determine whether they should educate, eliminate or escape the undead horde.

Some casual racism that’s hard to get past, but this movie (and the franchise) came up in a discussion about zombie films in which the various characters had the RIGHT idea about what to do. In this case, at the beginning of the film one of the helicoptor operators suggested they take off for an island off the Florida coast and just wait the zombie infection out.

Lucky for us, but bad for them, they didn’t do that until at least 9/10 of their party was dead and turned into zombies. There’s a ton of fantastic practical work done in the film, most of it much more gory than anything you’ll see on screens in modern zombie films. I think since it’s officially spooky season, this is going to be my first franchise to watch through, though I’m apparently starting with the third movie of the series, the first of which is the classic 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead”, then followed by “dawn of the dead”. I’ve seen the second one a few times and it has a remake directed by Zac Snyder and written by Romero and James Gunn, but they were both so good I’ll watch them again.

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The Rocketeer OGN Reviews

Collecting the first outing of Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer and his girlfriend Betty. With an introduction by Harlan Ellison. Originally published in monthly comic format by Pacific Comics, 1982.

From the forward that Ellison gives, it is obvious that Harlan Ellison and Dave Stevens had a close relationship, he heaps a large helping of well deserved praise on Stevens’ work. I may have read all these stories before, as I’ve been trying to get the entire run of appearances of the character, which in theory isn’t going to be very difficult. Not many people are in a rush to get the books and there’s only about 100 issues total if you count all the variants that started showing up when IDW got the license. This is the first four or five issues of The Rocketeer, though these stories were B stories in another series, so they’re shorter than you’d expect, but it’s just fine for the type of story that Stevens was telling.

It’s also a large format book, about 50% taller and wider than normal book, something that I appreciated greatly and it looks super dope up on my display shelf.

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Pleasure

Live Nude Girls Unite!

EXO-6 Locutus of Borg

EXO-6 revealed their next Star Trek 1/6 scale figure – Locutus of Borg from Star Trek The Next Generation.  Picard’s alternate form from the show is done up in meticulous detail with a new head sculpt and body, lights and tons of accessories.  Retail is coming in around $245 USD with a ship date of…

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Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap: With Anastasia Antonia, Mason Alexander Park, Jewel Staite, Raymond Lee. Set 30 years after Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished, follows a new team that must restart the project hoping to understand the mysteries behind the machine and its creator.

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Online Art Communities Begin Banning AI-Generated Images – Waxy.org

Online art communities have started banning AI-generated art, while others are facing public pressure from their own members to take a stand.

Publication dates shifted for three books

“Star Trek: The Art of Neville Page: Inside The Mind of The Visionary Designer” has been pushed from coming out next week to all the way until April 11, 2023, a full 8 months later.  If you’ve pre-ordered it, you’ll want to temper your expectations on when you’ll actually be able to check it out.

“Star Trek Captains – The Autobiographies” has moved from September 6th to October 11th, 2022, this is a boxed set of previously printed books, so I can only imagine that the global paper supply is to blame for this one being pushed back.

“Star Trek – A Woman’s Trek: From Uhura to Burnham – Star Treks’ Female Stars on Six Decades of Change and Empowerment” has not been canceled, but it’s publication status is up in the air.  It was previously being published by the now shuttered Hero Collector company, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for updates on if it’s either going to a new publisher or will be a part of the company’s asset sales.  It’s publish date has been removed completely from the listing page, but the page will remain to either be updated or it’ll be there to commemorate a great book that never made it to print.

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How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town

How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town: Directed by Jeremy LaLonde. With Jewel Staite, Ennis Esmer, Lauren Lee Smith, Katharine Isabelle. When “town slut” turned sex columnist Cassie Cranston returns for her mother’s funeral it spices things up in the small town of Beaver’s Ridge when a group of eccentric town folk, each with their own motives, convince her to plan an orgy.

I think this is the first time that I’ve seen Jewel Staite in the leading role of a movie, kinda wish we could see more of her, other than her time on Firefly then Stargate Atlantis, I’m pressed to remember off the top of my head if I’ve seen her anywhere else. She’s listed as an EP on the film, so perhaps this was a case of “if no one’s giving you the roles you want, make it happen yourself”, which if that’s the case I applaud the effort. The movie here has a familiar base story of a small town girl leaving her small town with their small ideas and only returns when forced to due to circumstances beyond her control. Her arrival back home causes minor issues with the old friends of her family and she’s challenged by an old bully to organize and plan an orgy. That’s about where the fantasy elements come in, but thanks to how it all plays out, we can safely ignore that any normal person would take that challenge and stick it up the challenger’s challenge hole.

There’s a few great moments in the film including a hot pregnant woman trying to get her water to break, a hot bff that has a seemingly endless lingerie wardrobe, and a parable about monkeys beating the living hell out of each other, but I’ll leave you to discover those for when you watch.

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The Visitor

The Visitor: Directed by Giulio Paradisi. With Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston. The soul of a young girl with telekinetic powers becomes the prize in a fight between forces of good and evil.

I started this one becuase I was drawn in by the amazing artwork on the Kanopy page for it: www.kanopy.com/en/video/11413791 but alas, that artwork did not live up to what I was hoping for. Even the art on the wikipedia page is pretty cool: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitor_(1979_film)

The movie is nominally about a war between cosmic powers for the fate of humanity, but that story gets lost in the strangely triumphant music any time the old guy with the beard shows up on screen, which every time it came on I thought we’d see an Olympic runner with the Olympic flame coming on screen, but instead it was an old man chasing or being chased by an 8 year old girl. They used the same music for their end battle too, which was definitely a choice that was made and they sure made it.

Perhaps I judge it too harshly, but there’s not much that I liked about the movie.

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Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho: Directed by Edgar Wright. With Thomasin McKenzie, Aimee Cassettari, Rita Tushingham, Colin Mace. An aspiring fashion designer is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer. But the glamour is not all it appears to be and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something darker.

From all the trailers and marketing that I had vaguely seen out of the corners of my eyes, I had the impression this was going to be a fabulous story of the 60’s with dancing and singing. We did get that action, but boy was I wrong on all my other expectations. Ultimately this is a through and through horror film that wears it’s creepiness behind a very well made personal journey of a young woman wanting more from the world than I think it can offer. Edgar Wright does some very nice work with the camera and sets up some very captivating scenes with some tricks that I found inventive and unique, he’s really grown as a director and I look forward to seeing more from him.

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Dragon Con 2022

Dragon Con is the largest multi-media, pop culture convention focusing on science fiction & fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe – and the best place to celebrate all of these things with fellow fans on Labor Day Weekend.

Dragon Con 2022 is upon us, with a large list of Trek related artists, actors, and authors, including: David Mack, Erin Macdonald, John Jackson Miller, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Peter David, William Shatner

If you happen to run into any of them, tell them that the STBC sent you!

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Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell: Directed by Clint Eastwood. With Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Brandon Stanley, Ryan Boz. Security guard Richard Jewell is an instant hero after foiling a bomb attack at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but his life becomes a nightmare when the FBI leaks to the media that he is a suspect in the case.

I think we’ve all met people like Richard Jewell, over compensating, overweight, overstimulated people with exceptionally high aspirations but lacking the abilities and authority to accomplish much of what they see for themselves. Despite the air of being an imposter in nearly every scene, Jewell ended up being right about an explosive at a crowded venue and was judged exceptionally harsh by everyone involved in the investigation. This movie isn’t an 1:1 recreation of the series of events, as always characters are moved or merged and the resulting picture ended up being sued by the newspaper and reporter at the center of the false allegations made, but the best they could protest about is that in the movie the reporter played by Olivia Wilde, suggests that she’ll sleep with an FBI agent for information about the case.

The movie is filled with familiar faces from start to finish and I’m not sure who would be the most notable. Kathy Bates has some great lines about why the FBI needs her Tupperware, Jon Hamm is fantastic as the federal agent, and Sam Rockwell is damn near the hearo of the piece being the only character outside of his mom that believes Jewell wasn’t a mad bomber.

It’s a good film, but sad to know that Richard went through so much absolutely horrible treatment before he died of complications from his Diabetes just about ten years after the bombing.

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Red Rocket

Red Rocket: Directed by Sean Baker. With Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Brenda Deiss, Sophie. Mikey Saber is a washed-up porn star who returns to his small Texas hometown, not that anyone really wants him back.

Directed by Sean Baker, best known by me for doing The Florida Project, “Red Rocket” has many of the same things that made TFP so captivating, from the shooting style to the dialogue, I really got the feeling that I was a fly on the wall during most of the scenes. The main character “Mike Saber” is a blown out ex-porn star that feels he got a bad deal out west, so he returns back to his own stomping ground to try to pick up the pieces. It’s only about 1/3 of the way into the film that we find out that it had been years since he last saw his ex-wife and it’s only a few minutes after that he meets a young woman that he decides is going to be his next conquest to bring him back to the limelight. There’s a lot of love in the movie and a lot to raise your eyebrows at.

A24 continues to release some of the best non-comic book dramas in the market.

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Crowd Sourced Puzzles, Cats, x-rays of cats, a large ginger boy, and two crowd sourced t-shirts

paid for this back in March and it finally arrived it’s everything I wished for!  It’s a puzzle of The Rocketeer!

Bella went on yet another trip to the vet, she was not happy about the turn of events.

and x-ray of her insides, they’re not where they’re supposed to be and her ribs are all wonky.  Also, you can see her chip in this x-ray, which is kinda cool.

Miles remembers the days when he was a kitten and fit into this little pocket thing.

Two items from a indigogo campaign that I paid for back in March of 2021, the main item is a blu-ray copy of a “to the voyage” documentary about Star Trek Voyager, which I sure hope is coming soon, but now that I have the shirts I can wait a while more.  The coffee one is for my wife and the Space Tour one is for me.

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Anne Heche Taken Off Life Support, Rep Says; Dies at 53

After portraying twins on ‘Another World,’ she enjoyed a hot streak that included starring turns in ‘Donnie Brasco,’ ‘Wag the Dog,’ ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and the ‘Psycho’ remake.

Dennis Rodman has pulled out of going to Russia to free Brittney Griner after getting brutal warning

The NBA star heeded the US government’s advice to abandon the trip over fears he may ‘complicate’ negotiations for Griner’s release.

Being Human

Being Human: Directed by Bill Forsyth. With Robin Williams, Kelly Hunter, Maudie Johnson, Max Johnson. One man must learn the meaning of courage across four lifetimes centuries apart.

Four different stories, all told in different ways, all in vastly different time periods, and all of them staring Robin Williams as the main character. It’s an ambitious movie and sticks it’s landing in my humble opinion, it wasn’t received very well by either the public nor critics, with a 54% on RT. There’s never an explicit mention within the film that this is the same “soul” or person that’s living through all these experience, but all the marketing, trailers, and tag lines for it mention that he’s one soul’s search for what it means to be human, bur I think it works better as a collection of unrelated men all played by the same actor.

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Alone Together: A DS9 Companion

Alone Together: A DS9 Companion: With Alexander Siddig, Andrew Robinson, Shana Collier, Cirroc Lofton. Set 25 years after the events of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Alone Together follows Dr. Julian Bashir as he goes to visit his old friend Elim Garak on Cardassia, and uncovers a dark secret in the process.

Released all the way back in July of 2020 during the absolute pit of despair that we found ourselves in after staying in our homes for several months after the covid-19 lock down began, I watched the first episode, put the others on my “watch next” list on youtube, then prompty put them off for the next 2 years. I finally got around to watching / listening to them though! They’re more of a audio adventure than something you need to actually watch the whole time, there’s absolutely no visuals other than the actor’s faces. It was great to see several of those faces!

The story itself is limited to com chatter only, with no one sharing the same physical space with each other, so it feels like a overly complicated zoom meeting with Trek ideals, but it moves quick enough and has a fun enough resolution that I can look past the obvious technical issues they were having with several participants a/v connections.

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Cats x6, curry bowl, 2022 vote, baked eggs, college test results,

I baked some eggs, it went surprisingly well, just 350 degrees for 30ish minutes, then an ice bath for a couple minutes, and they were easily peeled.

Made this to go with some chicken over the weekend, it turned out pretty ok.

Cat 1/6: Charlotte

I voted in the 2022 primaries for the 2022 election!

Cat 2/6: Miles

Cat 3&4 / 6: Nyx add Bellatrix

Cat 5/6: Syrah

Cat 6/6: Odo, aka my leg cat

I took the Florida Civic Literacy Exam, which is now required for all students that enrolled after the 2021 Fall semester, which I was a part of.  Did I mention that I’m back in college? 4.0 GPA so far in the three classes, but those were all pre-requisites and now I’m going to be starting the actual major’s course work in just a couple weeks.  You can see that I didn’t have a firm grasp of “Landmark Impact on Law and Society” which is just 20 questions like “This landmark case was important because it did xyz” and then you’re supposed to remember that it was “Smith v Smith v Board of Driver’s Education of Who Cares”.

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Tuesday Trekkin’: Favorite “Behind-the-Scenes” Trek books!

Yep, it’s Tuesday. A check of my blog tells me it’s been a little over a month or so since my last entry in this stuttering, staggering, “irregularly recurring” feature that’s little more than an excuse for me to babble on a bit about some bit or bob of Star Trek fandom.

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An Actor, a Helmsman, and My Brian: Boldly Going Where No Widow Has Gone Before

Melissa Navia, who plays Lt. Erica Ortegas on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, on returning for season two after a devastating, unthinkable loss.

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2022 Dragon Awards Nominees

The 2022 Dragon Award Nominees have been released and two Star Trek books are included:

Star Trek: Coda: Oblivion’s Gate by David Mack
Star Trek: Picard: Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller

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Actress Anne Heche Dead at 53 After High-Speed Car Crash

Six Days, Seven Nights star dies from injuries she sustained in fiery Los Angeles crash earlier this month

The Sandman

The Sandman: Created by Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer, Allan Heinberg. With Tom Sturridge, Boyd Holbrook, Patton Oswalt, Vivienne Acheampong. Upon escaping after decades of imprisonment by a mortal wizard, Dream, the personification of dreams, sets about to reclaim his lost equipment.

Dare I say it, but this adaptation of the much loved comic book series by Neil Gaiman is actually quite good! Netflix has a much deserved reputation for not handling adaptations all that well and DC / WarnerBros has been failing at nearly everything they’ve done in the last couple years, with nearly every single one of their projects having “something” that doesn’t work very well about them. There’s a couple odd things about Sandman as well, but nothing that even made me raise my eyebrow in a concerning way. The casting was downright perfect for every role that I’m familiar with and those I wasn’t were just fine. Special shoutout to Gwendoline Christie for her pitch perfect depiction of Lucifer Morningstar.

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Happy National Vinyl Day

Today’s National Vinyl Day!  Trek has had it’s share of stories on vinyl, from the Book and Record sets to the Read-Along Adventures.

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‘The Orville’: Seth MacFarlane on Season 3 finale, Norm Macdonald’s final voice work & Season 4 hopes

There’s a very good reason why the Season 3 finale of The Orville — subtitled New Horizons for its big streaming move to Hulu — is titled “Future Unknown.” Not even creator, star, and executive producer Seth MacFarlane knows whether the show will return for another outing. Chatting with SYFY WIRE over the phone this past weekend, MacFarlane took us inside the quantum drive of Episode 10, which closed out on a more upbeat note with the wedding of Isaac (Mark Jackson) and Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Jo

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Irma Vep

Irma Vep: Created by Olivier Assayas. With Alicia Vikander, Vincent Macaigne, Nora Hamzawi, Antoine Reinartz. Mira is an American movie star disillusioned by her career and recent breakup, who comes to France to star as Irma Vep in a remake of the French silent film classic, “Les Vampires.”

An exceptionally well done mini series with a large amount of confusion on the reality of the scenes. I adore Alicia Vikander and this series shows her at her best.

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