Category: Movie Articles

FIRST LOOK: Batman: Hush! New Trailer! Pictures & More!

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

Photo from IGN.com

Even though they haven’t knocked one out of the park in a while, I love the DC Animated Movies that are released digitally and on Blu-ray every year. A few of these movies are even in my top 25 favorite films of all time. I’d consider more than a few to be among some of the best superhero movies ever made (I’ll probably make a list below, cataloging the best of the best). Today, DC released the first trailer for their next DCAU film, Batman: Hush.

   For a while now, it seemed like the DC Animated Movies were adapting all of the classic Batman stories as animated films, one by one. Which is fine with me! Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns both received excellent movie adaptations. Unfortunately, Batman: The Killing Joke didn’t work as well when it received the DCAU treatment. After TDKR and Year One, The Killing Joke fills out the trifecta of the best and most revered Batman stories ever told. All 3 graphic novels came out of the “dark and gritty” comic book renaissance of the 80’s (for better or for worse). Batman: The Killing Joke received a controversial release a few years ago with a mixed response at best. I don’t think it’s the disaster that a lot of people make it out to be, but I understand the issues people have with the film.

    If DC is going to continue down this path of adapting all of the most famous and revered Batman graphic novels, the story I’d love to see them tackle is Batman: The Long Halloween. If you’re going to adapt the most iconic Batman graphic novels of all time, after The Dark Knight Returns, Year One, and The Killing Joke, the story that makes the most sense to give the fans next, is The Long Halloween. Especially if they released it in two parts, like they did with The Dark Knight Returns. It could be something really spectacular. It’s a sprawling, epic mystery taking place early in Batman‘s career. The Dark Knight faces off against a serial killer, whose murders coincide with holidays. It’s The Godfather meets Seven with Batman in it, how is that NOT fucking awesome?! The Christopher Nolan films heavily borrowed from this story with Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent being key characters. I think they’ll probably get around to it eventually, but when they do, I hope they give it the same incredible treatment they have for movies like Under The Red Hood and The Dark Knight Returns.

   Director of the upcoming new stand-alone Batman film, Matt Reeves has repeatedly said his film will go back to an earlier time in Batman’s career and feature a cavalcade of Batman’s unique and fascinating villains. Reeves has also said the film will be a mystery, that will lean heavily into and play up Batman’s title as “The World’s Greatest Detective”. This is huge part of the character in the comic books, but it’s barely been touched on in the live action Batman film’s. In all of literature, Batman is a detective on par with Sherlock Holmes, but none of the live action Batman films ever give us the sense that he’s a brilliant detective. Everything Reeves said about his film fits perfectly in line with The Long Halloween. A live action adaptation of Batman: The Long Halloween would make my decade. However, there are a lot of great stories that fit Reeves’ description his new Batman film, so we’ll just have to wait and see what he comes up with. The movie is still several years away and things haven’t been exactly smooth sailing on the Batman front over at DC and things can change at the drop of a hat. 

Photo from IGN.com

    Considering that this article is supposed to be about Batman: Hush, it’s probably a good idea that I actually start talking about Batman: Hush now. The classic, Batman story is heading to the small screen this summer as the next DC Animated Movie to be released this year. The tale is an adaptation the mega-hit Batman mystery saga: Batman: Hush written by Jeph Loeb with art by the legendary Jim Lee. Hush is definitely not one of my favorite Batman stories. I’ve always had some serious problems with certain writing choices made throughout the story. Which is ironic because Hush was written by Jeph Loeb, the same man who wrote one of my favorite Batman mysteries ever; The Long Halloween (As much as I have my problems with Loeb as a writer, I think The Long Halloween is one of the coolest titles ever for a dark Batman mystery). Even though Hush isn’t one of my go to Batman stories, I have to admit, I am very, very excited to see this movie. For every issue I have with the story, there are just as many fantastic and cool moments in the graphic novel that any Batman or DC fan would love to see. The people behind the DC Animated Movies have made magic in the past while adapting huge comic book stories like this. If they’re able to do for Hush, what they did for a story like Flashpoint for example, we could be in for something really special. Check out the trailer right here to see for yourself:

  This story has some absolutely classic moments that, based on the trailer, the movie seems to embracing: Batman’s first in continuity fight with Superman, Batman and Catwoman’s attraction to each other blossoming into a real romantic relationship, a showcase of the best of Batman’s rogues gallery, and much more.

You can see from these pictures that they’re pulling moments straight from the source material.

The film is available on Blu-Ray on August 13th, a digital release date hasn’t been announced yet, but expect the movie to be available digitally at least a few weeks before the Blu-Ray. I’d say late July is the most likely time for it to premiere on iTunes and other digital platforms. It may not be getting a theatrical release with a massive worldwide marketing campaign, but Batman: Hush is definitely one of my most anticipated movies of the summer.

For those interested in checking out some of the other DC Animated Movies, below is a list of my favorites. The top 4 or 5 are among my all time favorite comic books movies, but all of the films listed here get my personal recommendation:

  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Deluxe Edition *(This film was initially released in 2 parts. The Deluxe Edition allows you to watch both parts as one movie, but they can be watched separately as Parts 1&2)
  • Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
  • Batman: Under The Red Hood
  • Batman: Year One
  • Wonder Woman
  • Justice League: New Frontier 
  • Justice League Doom
  • All Star Superman
  • Green Lantern: First Flight
  • Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
  • Justice League: War
  • Justice League Dark
  • The Death Of Superman 

Anyone interested in reading Batman: The Long Halloween or Batman: Hush can find them at your local comic book store, on the ComiXology app, or Amazon. I’ve included the Amazon links to purchase each book below.

Batman: Hush-

Batman: Hush 15th Anniversary Deluxe Edition HC-

Batman: The Long Halloween – 

As always, thanks for reading!

-Paul 

What I want to see: The Rise of Skywalker and the Possible Redemption of Hayden Christensen

Published on by Michael Christopher ColeLeave a comment

A few weeks ago, when the first trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  Personally, I’m excited for the film, but what I want to talk about is some speculation into the film, but first let me give you a little background of my own star wars preferences, to help illustrate the point that I’m eventually hoping to make.

I guess the most important thing you need to know, is that I think Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith is the worst part of any Star Wars film (not counting the Holiday Special).I have been told most people think Jake Lloyd was worse, but at least he has the excuse of being a little kid, and many little kid actors aren’t good.  Others have argued that Christensen’s not that bad, and I don’t even know what films they’re watching.

I will say this, I am not sure that I blame Hayden Christensen for the performances in his two Star Wars films.  We’ve all seen that most of the performances in the prequel trilogy (and a decent amount of A New Hope) is cold, and the dialogue is not well written.  Lucas couldn’t get a good performance out of nearly any of the better actors in the prequels (I know people will argue Ewan McGregor, but that was more a matter of an extremely good actor in a role that is intentionally cold and aloof, it’s the opposite of the Keanu Reeves in the Matrix effect, where he’s good despite his talent because of the role.

Alright, so now that I’ve explained that I think his performance is the worst, let me explain one other thing.  He’s back in the new film.  Now, I don’t know what capacity he’s going to be in the film, but the day after the trailer dropped, he had up on his Instagram page a picture of the new title card.  Upon googling, it turns out he’s participating in the new film although all the specifics seem to be speculation.  I assume he’s going to be appearing as a force ghost, that’s the most logical option, but whether it’s for a moment or scenes and dialogue, is anyone’s guess.

I think, his appearance in this film, could be the thing that redeems him, and the character of Anakin (I love Vader, but I don’t love Anakin) for me.  You see, while I know that George Lucas has been involved in this film as a consultant (again to what extent is unknown) he isn’t writing the dialogue, and he isn’t directing the actors, and so now we have the opportunity to see what a director who is significantly better with both dialogue and actors can do.  I think J.J. Abrams might be a little over hyped, but c’mon he’s better at those two things than George Lucas any day of the week.

Now, there is a chance Christensen’s appearance will be small enough that it doesn’t really affect his legacy in the role whatsoever, but I hope this isn’t the case.  My hope is that we see one of two things, either one of which I think could make the film cool, and enhance Anakin as a character.  We could see him as a force ghost trying to influence either Rey or Kylo, and this is the safer more likely bet, but it could definitely have some really cool scenes, further the story line, and help the dynamics between force using characters.  This would be good.

Something that is much less likely, but would be awesome, and would kind of be crazy, and risky (after the Last Jedi, I think Disney proved they don’t do risk well, or maybe that they don’t commit to risk well).  Paul kind of suggested this, and I think it’s an amazing idea.  What if Anakin rises from the dead?

Like I said, this idea is a little out there, but I don’t think it’s totally out of the realm of possibility.  So here’s a couple thing, one is that we know Anakin is the most powerful force user, essentially he’s the Jesus of Star Wars.  Anakin is the Force’s immaculate conception.  Then we see in Empire Strikes Back, Vader in his black egg thing.  Well, I know it’s no longer canon, but the egg thing in the books was some kind of Force chamber, in the chamber, he’s trying to heal and rebuild his body with the force.

What if in dying and becoming a Force ghost, Anakin becomes “more powerful that you can possibly imagine,” and therefore finally powerful enough to use the force to rebuild his body.He is the chosen one, to bring balance to the force, and the Last Jedi, for all of it’s faults had one thing clear, there is something essentially broken with the black and whiteness of the Jedi/Sith mentalities.  Both Luke and Kylo seem to have realized this, (even if Rey decides by the end she can be a hero or a villain, and not something else).

What if Anakin comes back, to show the way the force should be used, creating an order that isn’t as ’emotionless’ as Jedi, nor as ruled by emotion as Sith.  Anakin, who wanted to be a Jedi, but also wanted to love, and was shunned by the Jedi for the latter, and manipulated by Palpatine for it, is the perfect person to show you can be a husband, a father, a son, and a powerful force user.  Perhaps that is the balance?

Honestly, that’s what I’m hoping happens.

Cool New Posters For Avengers: Endgame & The Lost Art of Film Posters

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

We’re in the home stretch here people! Only FOUR. MORE. DAYS!!! UNTIL AVENGERS: ENDGAME! It’s the end of a legendary film era. The Infinity Saga. As the film approaches, some beautiful new posters for Endgame have shown up. When put together, they form one very cool larger poster. Check them out:

Pretty nice, right? These posters are only being shown in some European theaters, we get the photoshopped posters here in America. The other posters for Endgame actually aren’t that bad, but movies like Endgame are special and the posters the studio puts out should reflect that. When done well, (like the ones above) movie posters can be art. Who could forget the beautiful hand painted posters for Indiana Jones or the Star Wars films by Drew Struzan?

Amazing posters can even make terrible movies more interesting. Years ago, I remember seeing the teaser poster for Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes. The movie is fucking awful, but seeing the poster that teased the incredible make up effects and the designs that hinted at a whole new world and culture we’d be seeing in the film, captured my imagination. Sadly, the film didn’t live up to the promise and intrigue of that first poster I saw…

The movie is undeniably terrible, but that is an excellent movie poster. Don’t get me wrong The MCU has definitely had some great posters (Captain America: The First Avenger comes to mind…).

Now that Avengers: Endgame is finally here, it would be great if epic movies started getting epic posters again.

Thanks for reading!

-Paul

AVENGERS FANS BEWARE! SPOILER Filled Endgame Footage Has Leaked Online! Tips To Avoid SPOILERS… (Is This The Work of The God of Mischief?)

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

I fucking hate having spoilers ruin a movie for me.. So my heart goes out to the many unsuspecting and unfortunate fans, that had Avengers: Endgame spoiled for them.

Star Lord just heard about the leak

Apparently, during a recent screening of the film, a chunk of the movie was poorly captured on a blurry cell phone video. The video ended up online and even if you manage to avoid this video clip, there are detailed descriptions of footage floating around online that spoil major plot points and surprises from the film. We’re talking MAJOR stuff ! Moments that you want to see play out on the big screen opening night. So, unfortunately the fuckwit who took the video and the assholes who kept the descriptions and video drifting around the Internet, ruined the movie for a lot of people.

Cap is pretty pissed too

If that happened to me… Fuck, Hell hath no goddamn fury! If I had Avengers: Endgame spoiled, I would want to track these pricks down and fucking murder the people that pulled this bullshit (oh… and, um… I was totally, um, I was, uh… KIDDING! Haha yeah. I was definitely kidding about wanting to kill anyone who spoiled Endgame for me… yeah, um, kidding)

This is an accurate representation of my level of rage if Avengers Endgame was spoiled for me.

I know this is tough, but with the movie 7 days away, your safest move is to stay off the internet as much as possible until you see the movie. Especially social media, like Twitter and Reddit, which is some of the advice given in the video I posted below. The video below details the best ways to NOT have the movie ruined for you. Without spoiling anything at all, the people in this video give you the best tips on what to avoid until the movie comes out. Watch it here:

I also posted an open letter from The Russo Brothers, who directed Endgame, to the fans, asking people to not ruin the movie for others.

I just wanted to give my loyal readership a little warning, especially if you’re looking forward to this movie as much as I am. As always thanks for reading!

-Paul

P.S. keep a lookout for our long overdue podcast on the Season Premiere of Game of Thrones, which we’ll have up in the next 24 hours.

Avengers: Endgame, Disney +, and The Future of The MCU!

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here,

I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t the first trailer drop for the final film in a franchise Paul is obsessed with to an unhealthy degree? Why isn’t he on that like flies on shit!?” A very fair question. I’ll just say we have quite a bit on that in the very near future, so stay tuned…

Anyway, with just a few agonizing weeks until Avengers: Endgame hits theatres, it feels like the movie cant get here fast enough. In the meantime, I have some cool stuff to share to make the wait a little easier.

This fantastic poster was done exclusively for MARVEL by BossLogic

First off, Entertainment Weekly and their website EW.com always give fantastic coverage to genre entertainment. From Game of Thrones to Star Wars they always have some great content. The MCU is no exception, for their cover story this week they put out 6 exclusive covers featuring each of the founding Avengers. Check them out:

Another magazine, Empire, probably the best movie magazine in the world had this awesome cover of Thanos in full armor for this month’s issue:

Pretty cool right? We also had some light shed on some intriguing upcoming MCU projects. Marvel and Kevin Feige made some big announcements this week that made me VERY excited. Pretty much since I began reading comics, Hawkeye was always my favorite Avenger. In the Avengers comics, he’s a much more beloved character. To many comic book readers, Clint Barton is THE quintessential Avenger. Even more so than Cap or Iron Man.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Jeremy Renner is a great Hawkeye (Though I do think Jensen Ackles who passed on the role to continue playing Dean Winchester on Supernatural would be closer to the comic book interpretation). However, I do feel like audiences haven’t fallen in love with Hawkeye as much as other characters in the MCU. I don’t think this is Renner’s fault at all, I think he’s great with what he’s given. Any failures when it comes to Hawkeye lie with the writers and how they’ve chosen to use him in the stories.

I think Hawkeye really got his time to shine in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I know that’s one of the more divisive MCU films, but I love it. Hawkeye has some fantastic moments throughout the film, I’d even go so far as to say Hawkeye is the central Avenger in the movie. He even has a cool costume upgrade with a coat that harkened back to his classic comic book look.


A number of things stand out to show the audience his importance in the film: He has few great action sequences, I think they stepped up the archery tricks and showed off Hawkeye’s agility and acrobatic skills. More importantly, I loved the surprising look into his private life on his family’s farm, it’s the type of scene I adore in MCU movies. The Avengers. In one place. Together. Their chemistry is so real. I don’t care of it’s played for laughs or heavier dramatic scenes. I love seeing The Avengers put into situations where the chemistry between the characters shines and The Farm scenes facilitate that. It’s sort of implied that he’s the rock on the team. He’s the guy who’s going to always show up and get the job done. Like Clint’s wife says “I see these guys, these… gods…” Clint replies “You don’t think they need me.” His wife says finally “I think they do, which is a lot scarier.”. The last thing I want to mention is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. At the beginning of The Ultron Offensive on Socaovia there this awesome scene/speech with Hawkeye and Wanda which you can watch here:

All of this has been a long winded way of saying that despite what some people think, Hawkeye is a great character. I always thought the ideal way to tell a fantastic Hawkeye story would be a TV series, like what they were doing on Netflix. Even though we’ve lost great characters like Daredevil to the Netflix purge, the good news is Jeremy Renner will be starring as Hawkeye in his own miniseries on Disney Plus. The more I hear about Disney Plus, the better it sounds. After all Disney does have all the good toys to play with. The Hawkeye series will be one of the first Marvel miniseries to launch with the new streaming service. The story will focus on Clint and his protege Kate Bishop. In the trailer for Endgame we see Hawkeye teaching a teenage girl archery. Is this his daughter? In the comics Kate Bishop isn’t related to Hawkeye. Will they change the character for this series and make Kate Bishop his daughter or will they introduce here as a completely new character? Time will tell.

This sounds like the series will be taking it’s cues from the fantastic Hawkeye comic book series written by Matt Fraction and artist David Aja. The entire series is avaiable in trade paperback with a hardcover omnibus containing the entire run. This is one of the best Marvel comic of the last decade, so I’ll be thrilled if the miniseries even partially adapts this comic book run. Which is pretty much what Marvel usually does anyway. Like Civil War and Planet Hulk, Marvel never directly adapts these stories, they take what they need from the story that will work within the context of the MCU. The first volume of this Hawkeye series is “My Life As A Weapon” and I strongly recommend giving it a read. You can pick up the book here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hawkeye-Vol-Life-Weapon-Marvel/dp/0785165622/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TSGCJUV1IWW4&keywords=hawkeye+my+life+as+a+weapon&qid=1555198699&s=gateway&sprefix=Hawkeye+my%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-1

Other miniseries announced for Disney Plus include Loki, a prequel taking place before his death at the hands of Thanos, this series will chronicle the trouble marking shenanigans and adventures of The God of Mischief over the several thousand years he’s been alive in the MCU. We also have a Vision & Scarlet Witch miniseries called WandaVision, which we know the least about right now.

Finally, we have The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, the team up series about Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes. This is speculation on my part, but one way or another I strongly believe Steve Rogers is not going to make it out of Endgame. I think he’ll probably die or at the very least, be taken off the board in some way. Considering that Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson have both carried the mantel of Captain America in the comic books in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if this miniseries revolves around some kind of Who Wields The Shield concept. Who will be the next Captain America? Factoring in the two of them don’t like each other all that much, just makes it that much more interesting. It isn’t the best resolution, but we do have our first look a the logo for the miniseries, which I have posted below.

This is and Hawkeye are the Disney + shows I’m most looking forward too.

Along with The other MCU series I mentioned an animated What if? series is in the works. Like What if Peggy Carter beacame Captain America? or What of Loki was able to use Mjonir?

Disney + will be launching on November 12th for $6.99 per month or $69.99 for the year. In addition to the original content, 500 movies from the Disney library will be available along with 7,000 episodes of Disney TV shows. To put a cherry on top, The Mandelorian will premier on November 12th, available to watch the whole season as soon as the service launches. Disney + will also be the exclusive home to ALL EPISODES of The Simpsons, which is a big move from its current home on one of the FX apps. Fucking crazy, right? Below is photo of the homepage interface that will be broken up into 5 major categories: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic.

Bottom line is that a SPECTACULAR as everything we’ve seen from The MCU so far, I think thes type of annoucements as well as Kevin Fiege confirming that though it’s great to have the X-Men back home, it would be a mistake to rush them onto the MCU. Fiege explained that a 5 years plan is in place for the films AFTER Endgame. Let the good times rolll! EXCELSIOR!

As always, thanks for reading!

-Paul

A Look At DC’s New Film JOKER

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

The Red Hood. The Pale Man. The Clown Prince of Crime… THE JOKER. Without a doubt the best villain in comic book history and one of the best characters in all of fiction. 

  Batman is the best superhero in comics, so his arch nemesis should reflect his greatness. All of Batman’s villains, the best rogues gallery in superhero fiction, reflect Batman in some way, some aspect of his psyche. Harvey Dent represents Batman’s struggle with duality, Ra’s Al Ghul represents Batman’s temptation to take his mission too far and commit to a darker way of trying to save society, The Penguin represents the idea of the wealth and privilege he was born with turning into something ugly, greedy, and gluttonous, and so on…

    Then, there’s The Joker. Batman’s true, broken reflection. To paraphrase better writers than me, Batman is an engine of meaning. He turns tragedy into purpose. As The Dark Knight Detective himself once famously said “My parents taught me a different lesson, dying in the gutter for not reason at all. They taught me that the world only makes sense… when you force it to.” Everything Batman does is built upon the foundation of that idea. That his actions and his mission have meaning.

     That’s why The Joker is Batman’s greatest antagonist. The Joker’s point to Batman is that nothing we do has meaning. It’s all pointless. The Joker is trying to prove to Batman that his mission, his ideology, is pathetic. It’s a joke. There is no greater meaning to life. Nothing you do matters. He’s inviting Batman to abandon his beliefs, to come with him and embrace how The Joker sees the world. In doing so, he’ll become truly transcendent and immortal, but most of all, free.

    Which brings me to the upcoming film JOKER starring Joaquin Phoenix….

Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck the man who’ll become The Joker

Over the past several years DC has announced literally dozens of films. Many of which will never see the light of day. Remember that Flash movie that came out back in March 2018? Yeah, me neither, because they didn’t fucking make it. They’ve announced so many movies at this point it’s hard to take them seriously when they do. So when a stand alone film focusing on The Joker was announced I really thought it would never be made. DC seemed to be trying to build a coherent movie universe like Marvel and I didn’t see them realistically making a movie focusing on Jared Leto’s Joker, who was divisive at best. 

   Then I started to here that they were going in a different direction. That Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro were involved and my skepticism grew. No way was Martin Scorsese directing a DC film. Finally, it became clear that this was a stand alone movie existing OUTSIDE the established DC movie universe that Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and SHAZAM! exist in. Todd Phillips would be directing, whose credits include Road Trip, Old School, The Hangover Trilogy, and War Dogs. Martin Scorsese would produce the film, co-staring DeNiro, with Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker in an origin movie telling the story of the man who becomes The Clown Prince of Crime. This is the movie hitting theatres this October and you can check out the trailer below:

Looks pretty good, right? However, at no point have I had any interest in this project. Despite the fact that the trailer seems to show a genuinely good movie with what could be a great performance from Joaquin Phoenix, the only reaction I can have to this movie is ambivalence. The reason being that I think telling a straight up origin story for The Joker is kind of missing the point of a large part of the character. If this were “officially part of the DC movie universe”, I’d be genuinely pissed this movie is being made. However, because the movie is it’s own thing, a one off crime story that doesn’t involve Batman (even though we do see a young Bruce Wayne and Thomas Wayne is a major character) I can live with them telling their fucking Joker origin movie.

  Oh, I almost forgot! Here’s a real fucking shocker the movie is drawing inspiration from comic book stories like… wait for it… THE KILLING JOKE! Brav-fucking-vo! How original! 

  Don’t give me wrong, the comics have hinted at possible origins for The Joker in the past. But that’s what they were: HINTS, possibilities, not a concrete origin. That was one of the reasons The Dark Knight was so brilliant, the story of how The Joker got his scars was different every time he told it, one of my favorite aspects of the film. They had no fucking idea who this guy was. He had no past, he came out of nowhere, he was like the fucking bogeyman. I’ve always said that The Joker is to the normal citizens of Gotham, what Batman is to it’s criminals: a terrifying, unexplainable nightmare.

  The only reason DC is choosing to tell an origin story for The Joker is because everyone and their fucking grandmother knows who The Joker is. Even if you fucking hate comic books or comic book movies you know who The Joker is. 

   I think it’s kind of a shame that Joaquin Phoenix looks like he may be giving an excellent performance as The Joker. Wouldn’t it be so much more entertaining to see that performance in a real Batman film? 

   If he knocks it out of the park in the role, it would be kind of a shitty scenario because we always want to see Batman go up against a great Joker. As I wrote earlier in the article, Batman and The Joker have this very complex relationship that spans years. Yet we’ve only ever seen them face off against one another in one film in their different incarnations. In Tim Burton‘s Batman they killed the character off and the tragic death of Heath Ledger meant we wouldn’t see that character in Nolan’s Batman universe beyond The Dark Knight. One thing we genuinely haven’t seen from the Batman and Joker dynamic on film, is how that relationship plays out over years of twisted, violent confrontations. 

   Well, that’s my two cents anyway. I’m sure there’s a lot of you out there who will disagree with me and that’s fine. For now, I just needed to comment on this project, but this is not a film I’ll be rushing out to the theater to see.

JOKER hits theaters October 4th

As always thanks for reading!

-Paul

New AVENGERS: ENDGAME Featurette!

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

Fuck I can’t wait for this movie. I’ve been going to these huge blockbuster movies all my life, movies like Star Wars and The Dark Knight, but I never saw the point of buying tickets weeks before a big movie comes out. In the past I never had trouble getting tickets the day before or even the night of a huge opening night movie, and that includes Star Wars The Force Awakens and Avengers Infinity War. So I thought it was bullshit when I heard tickets were selling out for opening night in droves. Thank God Paul Sr. pushed me on it and actually looked up the ticket times, because we bought tickets the day they went on sale and if we had waited any longer we wouldn’t of been able to go opening night. So I hope you guys have your tickets ready, this is The Empire Strikes Back of our generation. I. Can’t. Fucking. Wait.

In the meantime, check out this new featurette Marvel put out to sate our appetites until the movie finally comes out:

-Paul

Revelations From New Avengers: Endgame Posters & A Video On The Upcoming Film!

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

  As Avengers: Endgame fast approaches, Marvel has released character posters for many of the major players in the MCU. What’s interesting about these new posters is that they confirm the death or survival of some characters whose status was left somewhat ambiguous after Avengers: Infinity War. Each poster has the tagline “Avenge The Fallen”, with the surviving characters in color and characters who were killed in “The Snap” or “The Decimation” in black and white. 

We can now definitively confirm that Valkyrie, Wong, Pepper Potts, and Happy Hogan survived The Decimation to live another day. While Shuri, sadly and surprisingly, was a victim of Thanos’ Universal genocide. 

  Marvel also released this interesting video where the head of Marvel Studios Kevin Fiege and the cast discuss Avengers: Endgame. It’s definitely worth a watch, so check it out here:

https://youtu.be/BzpsnUxCd_k

I guess we’ll see how everything shakes out as the 11 year Infinity Saga comes to a close on April 26.

-Paul

The Past, Present, & Future Of The MCU…

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Hi Everyone,

Paul here…

 

 After seeing Captain Marvel last week and  with Avengers: Endgame only a little more than a month away, I thought  this would be a good time to reflect on the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After Phase 4 officially begins with the Spider-Man: Far From Home, this is the most in the dark we’ve been about where the MCU is heading. There are some this I know I’d LOVE to see…

If there’s one image that perfectly captures of my excitement at the prospect of finally seeing X-Men and Fantastic Four in the MCU, it’s this:


Doctor Doom himself using his Iron Man-like technology and his mastery of the mystic arts to take on The Anti-God, The Devourer of Worlds…. GALACTUS!

I’ve always been more into the idea of Fantastic Four characters becoming part of the MCU than the X-Men. As you can see above, the character I’m really hoping will pop up is Victor Von Doom.

Usually before each new Phase of Marvel movies, they’ll host a big event where they unveil their upcoming films. However, due to the secrecy surrounding Avengers: Endgame, all we know are the release dates for the next several years of films, we just don’t know what movies they are. We can speculate, though.

Doctor Strange 2 directed by Scott Derrickson

Black Panther 2 and Doctor Strange 2 have officially been announced with Ryan Coogler and Scott Derrickson respectively both returning to direct and continue the stories they started in their first films. Marvel still has a lot of release dates announced without movies attached. I’m certain they know exactly what will be released there and are probably working on those movies now, we just won’t know for sure what other characters we’ll see until they’re ready to make an announcement.

Black Panther 2 directed by Ryan Coogler

I’ve always described the MCU is a big TV series with Kevin Fiege as the show runner. So when I saw he put out this video talking about the past, present, and future of Marvel, I thought it was very interesting and I wanted to include it here. You get some nice insight into the thought process behind some of Marvel’s biggest decisions. Check it out:

I think we should expect to see some big announcements in May or June as Marvel begins to roll out thier slate of movies for Phase 4. All we know is that it’s going to be very different than what’s come before, which is very exciting. In the meantime, go check out Captain Marvel and come back here after to listen to our full SPOILER review on The World’s Best Podcast .


Thanks for reading!

Paul-

FIRST LOOK: Avengers: Endgame!

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Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

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As is so often the case, the biggest reveals from the year’s biggest movies come Toy marketing.  Avengers: Endgame is no differentWeirdly this photo is from Orville Redenbacher.  This is the best and clearest picture yet we’ve seen of (some) of the team post “The Snappening” or as it’s officially referred to at Marvel, The Decimation (which is grammatically incorrect, but sounds way cooler).

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Note that only the six original Avengers are shown here. The original team from the first film.  We know that Captain Marvel, Rocket, War Machine, Nebula, and Ant-man are all on the team in Avengers: Endgame. But it’s just one piece of promo art, so let’s not lose our goddamn minds. Gamespot.com had this official sysnopsis:

The Avengers will attemp to “undo Thanos’ actions and restore order to the universe once and for all, no matter what consequences may be in store.”

Oh, really? Thanks for the sysnopsis Marvel! Because I thought The Avengers were going to sit this one out!

Avengers: Endgame opens 4/26/19

Thanks for reading!

-Paul