Banshee: Season 2 SD

From executive producer Alan Ball, creator of True Blood, this Cinemax action drama charts the continuing twists and turns that follow Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), an ex-convict who improbably assumes the identity of sheriff of the rural, Amish-area town of Banshee, where his former lover and partner-in-crime (Ivana Milicevic) lives under her own alias, Carrie Hopewell. Season 2 takes up immediately after the S1 finale, when Carrie’s father, gang kingpin Rabbit (Ben Cross) was left for dead after a climactic warehouse shootout. Carrie, now exposed and estranged from her husband and kids, is torn between her devotion to her family and her connection to Lucas, who had given himself up in order to save her years earlier.

The new season finds Lucas, having escaped detection after being interrogated by FBI agent Jim Racine (guest star Zeljko Ivanek), with his hands fuller than ever as sheriff, dealing with (among other things) the murder of a Kinaho tribe girl, the continuing escalation of tensions between Amish overlord Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen) and Kinaho tribe leader Alex Longshadow (Anthony Ruivivar), and the unwelcome appearance of a surprise visitor: the reprobate son of the real (dead) Lucas Hood.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 7

SOA is one, single work of art. It can't fairly or accurately be judged or critiqued based on an episode or a season. It is one story. I am so tired of reading about the violence of Season 7 and the lack of "emotional resonance". There is a reason that things are so different now. The decisions that have been made by the characters in the past have brought them to this point. There is no "emotional resonance" with Jax because he has shut down all of his emotions due to the pain of losing his wife and he is totally emotionally numb. Obviously, if he lives long enough and the narrative continues long enough, we will get to see him have to deal with his emotions when they come crashing back. No one can box their emotions away indefinitely. We will also get to see him have to deal with the consequences of all the violence that has been caused by his mother's lie and his numbness-fueled rage. The violence is an integral part of the story and anyone who is offended by it shouldn't even own a television. The worldviews and behaviors of the characters have no bearing on the character of Kurt Sutter.

All of you who want to personally attack Mr. Sutter because of the behavior of his characters are of low I.Q. and questionable parentage. The behavior of his characters is based on behavior exhibited by thousands of thousands of real people everyday. Criminal organizations have always been racially segregated. They have always used, dare I say, the "N-word", and other racial epithets when referring to individuals outside of their group. These people are a product of their environment and they are morally bankrupt. The world is full of them. And all of you who want to censor Kurt or any other storyteller because the world's that they create contain people that you don't agree with would love to do the same thing to the world we live in. You are SICK. Violence and racism are alive and well. Born in the hearts of men. This story contains some of those men and it certainly doesn't take anything away from its value or credibility. This show is pure genius.

Regardless of how it ends, nothing can take that away. I will mourn these characters when they have passed from my life.

Fury [Blu-ray]

FURY is incredible. This film that brings WWII closest to the reality of horror more than any other film that I have seen. There is no glory here, simply a sense of despair and imminent death in more horrible ways that can be imagined. You don't live, you don't survive, you just exist in a war. That is what kept going through my mind. FURY is an experience. I kept having flashbacks of my friend who served in the 1st Infantry division in WWII from Casablanca all the way through to Czechoslovakia. We spent many coffee breaks together and he told me many things he saw and witnessed. He told me how he felt and how others felt and acted. I saw a lot of what he said about war in FURY. I cannot explain it, but this movie hit home. I just saw it at the theater and wanted to write about it.

There is one scene in the film that is just so realistic, and that is when the replacement who has only had 8 weeks of training is assigned to Brad Pitt's crew. He has a meltdown in the tank and the words he spoke were almost exactly what my 1st division friend had told me he had seen. Near the end of the war they were taking anybody they could find as replacements. It did not matter if they could see, what color they were, or how old they were. And some broke down, some ran, many didn't. The point here is that all these things go through your mind and that is where FURY hits you. It makes you think, it makes you feel and then think again. Who would ever want to be in a war? This is a one of a kind movie. You have to see it.