Tag Archives: Vanessa Williams

Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay (Review)

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Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay

Suicide Squad Hell To Pay
2018
Written by Alan Burnett
Directed by Sam Liu
Suicide Squad Hell To Pay
Hot off the heels of the fantastic animated Batman: Assault on Arkham and the uneven but ultimately okay live action Suicide Squad, we got ourselves a new entry in the franchise with Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay! DC animated movies are notoriously hit or miss, but this time we got a relatively good one, buffed up by a core crew that has to deal with multiple parties interested in a magical card. Though not as superior as the original animated version, it is still good enough to deserve a watch.

Amanda Waller is still using task Force X to take care of dirty deeds and for her own personal projects, this time on a very personal mission. Deadshot (Christian Slater) is back, along with Harley Quinn (Tara Strong, naturally!) and Captain Boomerang (Liam McIntyre). They are joined by the freezing-powered Killer Frost (Kristin Bauer van Straten), ethical martial artist Bronze Tiger (Billy Brown), and body-modification enthusiast Copperhead (Gideon Emery) on their off the books mission where they are only given a name to track The mission is so off-books they have to drive around in a run down RV, though that does allow the characters to interact more and have conversations in a confined space.

Harley Quinn still gets many of the good lines, correctly toning her down as the stakes get raised. The down point is she’s basically a supporting character there to add flavor to the overall story, and doesn’t seem to have any sort of story arc. Captain Boomerang and Deadshot still hate each other, but have developed a working relationship by this point that doesn’t mean they won’t still insult each other. Boomerang at least gets to throw a bunch of boomerangs this time! The big wrench is Bronze Tiger, who aligns strongly on the side of morality (even though that’s just because he doesn’t want to kill innocent people!) and thus forces the other members of the team to stay on mission, sometimes by punching them until they comply. The film opens with a group lead by Deadshot and containing a few characters I had to look up (what can I say, I grew up on Marvel!) Count Vertigo, Punch, and Jewelee, all but Deadshot failing to come out of that one alive. Sorry, Punch and Jewelee fans, maybe next movie…
Suicide Squad Hell To Pay
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Lifetime goes on a journey with The Trip to Bountiful!

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Trip to Bountiful
[adrotate banner=”1″]Lifetime continues to bring a diverse yet high quality lineup of original movies, and their latest is another based on an award-winning source. The Trip to Bountiful is based on the award winning play, and features most of the cast of the recent Broadway revival (though I note Cuba Gooding, Jr. is not among the cast!) If you liked the play, this is a great cast and you’ll be in for a treat. If you had no interest in the play, then this might not be up you alley. But it’s won awards for a reason, and the cast looks pretty awesome, so The Trip to Bountiful looks like a journey worth taking.

The Trip to Bountiful stars Cicely Tyson, Vanessa Williams, Blair Underwood, Clancy Brown, and Keke Palmer, and airs March 8th on Lifetime!

Based on Oscar®, Pulitzer Prize, and Emmy Award winning author Horton Foote’s Tony Award nominated play, “The Trip to Bountiful” is a courageous and moving story of liberation, as well as a humor-filled celebration of the human spirit.

In “The Trip to Bountiful,” Carrie Watts, begrudgingly lives with her busy, overprotective son, Ludie and pretentious daughter-in-law, Jessie Mae. No longer able to drive and forbidden to travel alone, she wishes for freedom from the confines of the house and begs her son to take her on a visit to her hometown of Bountiful. When he refuses, Mrs. Watts is undeterred and makes an escape to the local bus station, where she befriends Thelma, a young woman traveling home. When Ludie and Jessie Mae discover she is gone, they call in law enforcement to help, but Mrs. Watts is one step ahead of them and convinces the local sheriff to help her on her journey home to Bountiful.

Foote originally wrote “The Trip to Bountiful” for television in 1953 and it made its Broadway debut in 1954. The play was adapted into a motion picture in 1985, when star Geraldine Page won an Academy Award® for Best Actress and Foote was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. In the 2013 Broadway revival, the play garnered four Tony nominations, including Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play, Best Sound Design and a win for Cicely Tyson for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Carrie Watts.

Produced by Ostar Productions, “The Trip to Bountiful” is executive produced by Bill Haber (“Rizzoli & Isles”), Cicely Tyson, Hallie Foote and Jeff Hayes (“A Day Late and a Dollar Short”). Michael Wilson, who directed the celebrated play, makes his television directorial debut with this project.

via Lifetime