Victor Garber

Legends of Tomorrow finally plays to its strengths in a high-stakes episode with a darker tone.

A limp episode ends with a twist that may inject enough energy to jolt the next episode to something more closely resembling entertainment.

“Blood Ties” finds time for bombastic action and strong character work, but also highlights one of the show’s central problems: its premise.

Atom Egoyan’s serpentine erotic thriller, Exotica, is a flawless exercise in understated urgency. Flashbacks, arresting visuals, and Mychael Danna’s score slowly reveal a web of strangers inextricably linked by one man’s suffering. It’s less a cinematic puzzle than an organic realization. When all of the mysteries are unraveled, you know a little bit more about the Human condition. Though many consider The Sweet Hereafter to be Egoyan’s masterpiece, Exotica is fearless indie filmmaking at its best.

Louie is utterly unique to the television landscape. There are very, very few shows of which this can be said. It’s part standup, part experimental film, part character study, part whatever else Louis C.K. wants it to be, and in its first three seasons, the series that started out well grew increasingly confident, playing with form and stretching C.K. as a filmmaker and storyteller. After C.K. decided to take 2013 off, some viewers may have been concerned he wouldn’t be able to recapture the magic of the first three seasons. Fortunately, with “Back” and “Model”, C.K. picks up right where he left off, as sure and relaxed as ever.

A few times a season, The Good Wife likes to do a “judicial gimmick” episode, throwing the attorneys into a fish out of water situation and watching as they flail, trying to adapt to something they simply do not prepare for in an average trial. “We, The Juries” is one such episode, throwing Will, Diane, Alicia, and Cary into a complicated single trial with two defendants and a bifurcated jury—one for each client. This complicates things not only for both prongs of the defense, but for the prosecution and the judge (played by the always welcome Victor Garber as an imminently decent, efficiency-minded jurist increasingly overwhelmed by the demands of the system he decided on to try the case).

I’ll Follow You Down Written by Richie Mehta Directed by Richie Mehta Canada, 2013 What of the marvelous qualities a human being can display is the ability to overcome deep regret or sorrow. Everyone lives through a dark chapter in their lives, but the key is to take the time necessary to overcome the emotional …

Argo Directed by Ben Affleck Written by Chris Terrio USA, 2012 Ben Affleck’s latest directorial effort Argo is a tightly woven anecdote to history that utilizes a stranger than fiction preposterousness to strong crowd pleasing effect. The declassified true story reveals the unorthodox ingenuity involved in the unlikely coordination between Hollywood and the CIA as …