A warning now: this will, indeed, contain spoilers. If you haven’t watched the episode and are clicking on reviews of the episode, my guess is that you’re actively seeking spoilers out.

Well, here they are.

The final episode of Amy and Rory Pond’s tenure as the Doctor’s companions has been a long time coming. We’ve known about it for quite a while, and things on the show this season have clearly been building to that point. At some point during the last episode, “The Slow Invasion,” I almost felt as though it was overkill. We’d been saying goodbye to the Ponds for awhile now and let’s just get to it.

I was an idiot.

The Doctor needed more time to say goodbye. Forget the Doctor, I needed more time to say goodbye.

“The Angels Take Manhattan” is, in my opinion, one of the finest, most heart-wrenching episodes of Doctor Who we’ve ever had. To me, Doctor Who is at its best when it’s being tragic with a dash of whimsy. This episode had all of that in spades. There were some parts left unresolved, particularly the entire Mr. Grayle subplot, but I imagine he was just zapped into the Hotel Quay as well.

This episode was about making hard choices. Amy made a choice to be with her husband that Rose never could. Rose would never leave the Doctor’s side. Amy would never leave Rory’s. I think it was better that way.

The emotional center of this episode is The Doctor’s inability to let things and people go. It’s not something we often see on the show, but when he is forced to say goodbye, we’re given the best episodes of the show.

Wrapped up in a 30s noir, “The Angels Take Manhattan” is a taut pulp story with weeping angels everywhere. The rest doesn’t matter to me. The fact that they force our protagonists into a difficult choice makes them the right antagonist. Kurt Vonnegut said to do horrible things to your characters so we can see what they are made of and we truly see what the Ponds are made of.

Though they’re separated from the Doctor, they still have each other.

As viewers, this separation breaks our collective heart and both of the Doctor’s to boot. He’s crying. We’re crying…

…but left to reflect on the episode, things really ended well. Yes, Amy and Rory will never be able to see the Doctor again, but they have each other. I said it on twitter and it bears repeating: This is the most traumatically depicted “happily ever after” ending that’s ever been put onto the small screen.

It’s a perfect and fitting end for the girl who waited and her Centurion. I’m sad to see them go, but I’m dying to see where the Doctor goes from here.

And now for a bit of a laugh:

Watching this episode with my son, he said, “I’m sad that Amy and Rory won’t be able to see The Doctor anymore. If I were the Doctor, I’d totally take the chance of blowing up New York. It has to happen at some point anyway, right? I mean, how else is there a New New York in Futurama?”

The Doctor returns in his Christmas special in December.

For me, Freddy Krueger will always be the king of the 80s’ serialized, supernatural horror movie killers. Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees never really did it for me. They just pale in comparison to a guy who kills you in your dreams. So it seems only appropriate to kick off this Horror Movie Revue with Wes Craven’s Freddy Krueger, the Nightmare on Elm Street.

The original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) suffers from the same issues that many of the old horror movies do. Namely: the technology just wasn’t there for the directors to really pull off their vision, so when we look back on them they seem more comical than horrifying. This is okay with me, because I love old “awesome-terrible” horror movies. If you’re with me on that, and you haven’t checked out Mr. Krueger, you should do yourself a favor and get on that this October. Also, you get to see a fresh faced young Johnny Depp in his very first feature film role get (minor spoiler alert) turned into a fountain of gravity-defying blood.

As far as character creation goes, Freddy Krueger is actually pretty brilliant. A supernatural killer with power over the dream world offers up nearly endless sequel possibilities. Especially since, being a dream figure, Freddy not only represents but can also tap into the subconscious fears of his victims. This allows for a lot of variation, and a lot of really creative scenes. One of the most disappointing things about the early Elm Street movies is that they don’t play on these possibilities quite enough. For example in the original, there is a scene where primary protagonist Nancy tries to run up a flight of stairs, only to have the stairs turn into a sticky goo beneath her feet. It would have been nice if there was more of this classic, dream-like stuff. But again: time, financial, and technological restrictions need to be taken into account.

Since all (or most) of the big kills happen inside the dream world, you can easily explain away the characters’ illogical actions with the phrase “dream logic.” This is one of the most convenient things about the Elm Street concept, and alleviates an issue that often causes people to shout at their televisions when they’re watching horror movies. Instead of saying something like, “Why the hell would she go into that basement instead of running like crazy?” we intuitively understand that being in a dream makes you do illogical things sometimes.

Freddy is your classic grinning-sadist archetype, and he loves to toy with his prey. Particularly by playing on their deepest fears. These games become more elaborate and interesting as the series progresses, but we still get a good sense for Freddy’s potential in the original. Primary among these is the film’s ability to make you question the reality of what is happening. False awakenings are common in the Elm Street movies, as well as characters not realizing they have fallen asleep until it’s too late–cue the spooky, synth-heavy 80s movie score. This toying with the boundary between real and imaginary is one of the most interesting ways in which the movie messes with you.

Revisiting one of my old horror favorites yesterday turned into a mini marathon. And if you haven’t run through the Elm Street movies before, I cannot stress enough that you should pretend A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) doesn’t exist, and never happened. It is absolutely terrible in almost every way. Primary among my complaints: Freddy doesn’t act like Freddy. They tried to turn him into some kind of generic poltergeist instead of the horrifying dream-world killer he is. (Wes Craven had nothing to do with the second installment, and you can feel the influence of producers who had no idea why the original one was so awesome.) I could go off on all the reasons I despised this movie, but instead I’ll just suggest that you give it a pass and go straight to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987). Wherein Freddy gets back to doing what Freddy does best: murdering the hell out of adolescents in psychologically upsetting and creative ways in their dreams.

Oh, and one more thing: do yourself a favor and don’t ever watch the 2010 remake. It is terrible. (Big shocker: Michael Bay was one of the remake’s producers.)

In any case, it’s October, go watch a horror movie already! And if you’re not sure which one to pick up then keep an eye on the BigShinyRobot article feed this month, because we’ll be bringing you our take on a ton of horror classics over the coming weeks.

I had the chance to enjoy The AristoCats and both of The Rescuers films on Blu-ray recently, and I was struck by how good they are. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone to point to any of these three movies as their favorite Disney films. They’re too overshadowed by bonafide classics like Lady and the Tramp, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, and a dozen other films people seem to like more.

But these films are very unique on their own, beautiful for their own reasons, and quite capably carve out their own place in Disney movie history.

The AristoCats came out in 1970, preceded by The Jungle Book and followed immediately by Robin Hood, it seems to have come out at just the wrong time. Made and conceived in the swingin’ sixties it has all the imagery of a classic acid trip, flashing colors, and seemingly drugged up, jazz playing cats, all set against a proper British backdrop. It is a classic Disney story in every sense, right down to the practically mustache twirling villain, a butler named Edgar, a protagonist voiced by Disney favorite Phil Harris (Baloo in Jungle Book and Little John in Robin Hood), and a bunch of cute anthropmorphized animals. But it was released in the 70s, when perhaps the appetite for such a story and visual story wasn’t as great.

It really isn’t the finest of Disney films, but holds up remarkably well. The sketchy animation is reminiscent of 101 Dalmations, which came out just nine years prior, making one wonder if this was just the film they made for cat lovers.

The music is memorable, the images are catchy, and it looks stunning on Blu-ray. If you’ve overlooked this Disney film because of the reputation of others, you owe it to yourself to check this one out. You can pick it up on Amazon for a limited time.

The Rescuers films fall very much into that same middle ground. It was released in the summer of 1977, competing against Star Wars and another Disney film: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

For me, this is actually one of my favorite Disney films. Bob Newhart kills me in every role he’s in and his Bernard character is one of the most charming of Disney’s heroes. Add to it the creepy Louisiana bayou backdrop and a pair of mice trying to defeat a crazy Cruella DeVille sort of character and save an adorable orphan named Penny and you have all the makings of a solid Disney film but overshadowed by everything else going on.

This was also the last Disney cartoon to come out until The Fox and the Hound, which kicked off Disney’s dry spell for a long time.

A sequel was conceived and, for many, holds up better than the original. The Rescuers Down Under was wedged in release right between The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and you wonder why no one seems to remember it. This brings the Rescue Aid Society to Australia and gives us quite a fun adventure. The technical achievements of the film are stunning in Blu-ray as well. They did a lot of perspective work and landscapes digitally and seeing them play out on a massive TV in high definition is a thing of beauty. Never has the animated outback looked so good.

And since they’re selling both Rescuers films for the price of one, these are two films worth revisiting ASAP.

Thanks to SuperSolid games for the review items.

What would happen if Temple Run was suddenly cute, and full of rainbows? You’d get Penguins of course! The premise to this game is simple, your chosen penguin will run forward as long as possible, and using the accelerometer and various power-ups you must keep him/her away from the dangers of the arctic. Believe it or not penguins have a lot of natural enemies: killer whales, anchors, octopi, big red TNT barrels, rock piles. You know the usual stuff you see on the nature channel.

Cute	PENGUINSAURUS REX!!

I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and say this has a younger target audience. Definitely not the 18-34 married gamer arena, more like the 7-15 waiting for mom to finish grocery shopping variety. That taken into account, the game is fun. It wasn’t in my demographic, but I still had to figure out how to unlock every little thing. I’m still short the pirate penguin, and he will be mine, oh yes, he will be mine.

collectin’ fish	The Pirate Penguin

Characters are unlocked with fish collected during your lengthy runs of the randomly generated ice path. Ranging in price from a few thousand, to a few hundred thousand, you can also purchase buckets of fish with real world cash to escalate your in game situation, (you know if you’re against earning your rank). If I have to pick a favorite thing, it’s going to be the invincibility power up, turning into penguin-saurus rex and simply smashing through 200 meters is fun, and a little bit zany.

This app will probably get you weird looks from folks at the office. Make the guys at the bar wonder exactly where that joyful music is coming from, and make your kids absolutely silent while grocery shopping.

I’ve heard that’s important to parents, give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.

This is a Blu-ray set that’s really review proof. We’ve all bought this film and there’s really not much I can say that will convince you to buy it or to not buy it.

On Blu-ray the film looks as good or better than it did on the big screen. Seriously, it was so sharp that the green screen shots were popping out at me much worse than on film or blown up digitally. I just bought a new TV, too, so maybe that had something to do with it.

As for bonus features on the version I got, we had deleted scenes and a gag reel, both excellent. I love watching deleted scenes. It makes me respect the filmmakers even more. The scenes would not have worked to make a better movie in any way, but they were good. Seeing them sacrifice good scenes and whole subplots for the good of the movie is the mark of a great film editor. The Agent Hill subplot might have been interesting, but starting the movie in a wraparound sequence of her interrogation by the shadow council would have been absolute clown shoes.

And I loved all the stuff of Steve Rogers adapting to his time, but it simply didn’t fit with the pacing. We should be getting plenty of that in The Winter Soldier.

The gag reel was a bit of nonsensical fun. The commentary was fantastic…

The biggest feature, perhaps, is the Marvel short film Item 47. It looks at a couple who finds some discarded Chitauri weaponry and start robbing banks with it. It’s fun, has high production value, and is a great side-story in the Marvel Universe. I hope they keep up making the shorts for the DVDs, it’s nice to get extra movie-like content in the universe that doesn’t have to get stuck inside the movie. My biggest complaint is that it didn’t involve any actual Marvel characters. I’d love to see these shorts as a way to showcase the heroes who don’t have movies yet.

But too bad if you have just a DVD player. Pretty much all of the special features are Blu-ray only, which sucks for those who haven’t made the leap. Maybe it’s smart on the part of the technology companies that want us all to have the latest and greatest technology, but it sucks when you buy a film that has a Blu-ray and DVD version and your DVD is next to worthless.

There is one thing to consider, however, if you haven’t already bought this version of the Avengers, it might be worth it to get the Avengers Phase One Ultimate Box Set. It’s pre-ordering for around $140 at the moment and contains all the Marvel films leading up to and including the Avengers and comes with bonus material for each film.

That set comes out in the spring of 2013.

It really doesn’t matter, though. My guess is you’ve all already watched your copy about a hundred times. I know I’ve watched the film at least three times since I’ve had it. It stands up. There’s nothing bad about this movie.

Darth Maul inspires an army while Savage Opress just stands around… in carbonite in this week’s Star Wars comic: Darth Maul – Death Sentence. Do the Jedi stand a chance on the Day of the Three Suns? (more…)

With a tagline of “The Student Surpasses the Teacher”, always two there are, but which is the master in the conclusion of this week’s Star Wars comic: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison #5. (more…)

Lord Odion has a new toy, ho! ho! ho! Will Kerra Holt be the Grinch and put a stop to his plans in the penultimate issue of Knight Errant – Escape, out last week? (more…)

Like on LOST, some castaways realize that there are Others on their island, and the Others have a plan in this last week’s Star Wars comic. (more…)

When it was first announced that Raiders of the Lost Ark would be released in IMAX, it seemed to be an exclusive for AMC theatres, of which there are none in my area. I was disappointed I wouldn’t be able to partake of this special event.

But, you know, it happens. No one thinks about Salt Lake City when throwing special events. My geographic handicap is my own fault.

I looked through some listings last week, saw that no shows were available in my area, and kept my chin up through the defeat. But I got a call from my brother on Friday morning telling me it was playing locally, and that I’d be a fool to miss it.

He was right, though in his defense, he claims I’m a fool for everything I do or don’t do.

I caught a screening last night and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen, and seeing it that way opened up new things in the storytelling I’d never even noticed before, simply because I was watching at home.

One thing I noticed and loved was how stylized the matte paintings were. On the VHS and even DVD versions of the film I’ve watched and re-watched a hundred times, the matte paintings seemed realistically seamless. But on the big screen, they felt much more like the 30s sort of over-stylized matte painting of the era the film was aping. The one painting in particular that stands out is the Pan Am plane that whisks Indy from San Francisco to Nepal. Take a close look at the cars in the background, it almost looks like the painted cover to a Fitzgerald novel.

The sound was crisp and clear and the film contained no changes whatsoever, though I couldn’t detect things like the reflection of the snake. Perhaps a few things were fixed, but it was nothing to the detriment of the film.

Raiders of the Lost Ark stands the test of time as not only the best of the Indiana Jones films, but one of the greatest films ever made. The screenplay is one of the finest and the adventure is nothing short of 100% rollicking.

I mean, honestly, how ballsy does a man have to be to start his own, rogue archeological dig in the middle of a Nazi camp?

Very ballsy.

And every time I watch the film, I catch new notes about the nature of Indy and Marion’s relationship.

It’s a film that keeps giving. And I was able to take my son to see it for the first time, which was thrilling for him. The only other one he’d seen theatrically was Crystal Skull (though he claimed that was still his favorite after seeing Raiders in IMAX…)

It plays until Thursday in IMAX. Make time this week to see it.

You will NOT be disappointed.

If you miss it, the Blu-ray collection drops next week. At Star Wars Celebration VI I was treated to some behind the scenes footage they included on the disc and it was nothing short of amazing. This is a set you want to pick up.