A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode two — The Chimes of Big Ben

Our abstract-art-and-seafaring-adventure-packed “The Chimes of Big Ben” episode of A Degree Absolute! makes a fine companion on your sunny-day run or walk or bike ride or desperate escape attempt via art-boat!

Number Six attempts to escape The Village with the help of a newcomer named Nadia and a "basically primitive" abstract art project with a hard-to-overlook nautical vibe. He also finds out where The Village is.

Unequivocally.

Indisputably.

Maybe.

Featuring the first of the great Leo McKern's appearances as Number Two!

Cloak & Dagger? I Hardly Know 'Er: Red Sparrow, reviewed

J-Law and Joel Edgerton make love and also war.

Red Sparrow, a nasty adaptation of a novel by C.I.A. veteran Jason Matthews starring Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton, is the Black Widow origin movie Marvel Studios will never make. I like a movie that gets at the existential misery of spycraft. Here's my NPR review.

Double-Oh Snap! Kingsman: The Golden Circle, reviewed.

Taron Egerton, the very model of a modern British nongovernmental superspy.

Would you believe that John Denver's 1971 encomium to backwoods livin' "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is been featured in two 2017 films starring Katherine Waterston and two starring Channing Tatum, and not the same two? 

That's the kind of piercing observation I had no room for in my review of the new sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which reprises "Country Roads" from Alien: Covenant and Logan Lucky. I had the privilege of discussing both of those on Pop Culture Happy Hour in addition to writing about them. Anyway, I like British superspies. And I liked The Golden Circle. With reservations.