Movie Articles – Page 17 – World’s Best Media

PODCAST: What Should WB Do With The Batman Film Franchise?

Published on February 12, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey everyone,

Paul here,

With Tim off at a star studded gala, Ryan came in for the clutch rescue on co-hosting duties and CRUSHED IT! In this episode where we discuss where The Batman films should go from here after the Justice League debacle. We talk about directors, castings, storylines, all the different places we think an awesome Batman series of films could go. To help things along, Ryan and I do mock interviews with The President of Warner Bros. Kevin Tsujihara! (I really hit it off with Kevin, but Ryan kind of blew it) It’s a fun Episode so give it a listen! Listen here or subscribe on iTunes:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/14029859

What I Want to See: The Fifty Shades Franchise

Published on February 8, 2018November 17, 2020 by Michael Christopher Cole1 Comment

I kind of doubt that there is much overlap, between World’s Best Media’s audience, and The Fifty Shades audience, but hear me out, ok?

The final Fifty Shades movie is upon us, and it seems like we may largely be done with this franchise altogether. I personally don’t care whether or not it gets rebooted, or continued, but if it does, I have an opinion as to what I want to see from it.

Now, let me be honest, I didn’t read any of the books. I read a randomly selected page that my wife thought might entice me to read the entire book, and she was very wrong. I did however go and see the first film with for Valentine’s Day, however many years ago that came out (was it two? It feels like it was 5, but it’s been a crazy couple of years). You may be surprised to hear this, but I didn’t think the film was as bad as seemingly everyone else did. Don’t get me wrong, it was really bad, but there was a shining light.

Sam Taylor-Johnson, who directed the film, did as good of a job as possible with the combination of source material, and restrictions she was given. For whatever reason, the studio dictated that she stick fairly rigidly to the dialogue from the novel, and the dialogue in the novel was apparently a complete dumpster fire. “I’m Fifty Shades of fucked up!” is one of my top 5 least favorite movie lines of all time.

According to my wife, there is very little description in regards to the visuals of the world, apparently E.L. James didn’t spend much time on setting or anything while typing away on her Blackberry. This allowed Taylor-Johnson to create a pretty interesting visual style. One of the things that the film lets her play with is visual metaphors, and it enhanced the story immensely. During the initial meeting with Christian Grey, the main character Anastasia Steele (God! I hate the names of so many fictional characters) is attracted and sexually aroused by him. While the dialogue and acting don’t do a great job of selling that point, there is a moment, immediately after the encounter, where Anastasia walks out of the building into the rain. Now, this could easily be missed, but water signifies climax throughout the movie. Later when they’re in the ‘red room,’ as Anastasia succumbs to Christian’s BDSM lifestyle, the camera pans up to a painting of water splashing hard against the rocks.

I think this film, is similar to the problems that I have with the Star Wars prequels. They stick to rigidly to dialogue that is not only awful, but also hurts the acting performances. Had the studio not insisted on staying with the dialogue, then I think that Taylor-Johnson would have made the movie much more watchable.

Now, that’s all in the past, and on this first go ’round, we got very little in the way of what I would have preferred (probably because I’m not the main audience for it.) If there is a reboot, or further exploration of the concept, what I’d like to see is something different. If you watch the movie Shame from 2011, you see an NC-17 film about a sex addict, which is gritty, and realistic, and harsh, but more importantly, it is sexual while not really being sexy. It showcased Fassbender’s performance, as well as exposing many to a type of sexual behavior that they weren’t previously aware of. That is what I’d like to see with any future Fifty Shades reboots, or reimaginings or whatever they come up with. In this series you have a story that many actual BDSM practitioners have called abusive, because the author didn’t know what she was writing about, and very few people in the creative process knew enough to correct it. Take these characters, adapt the story to conform into a more realistic BDSM relationship, scrap side plots, and dive into the psyche of the two characters, examine the roles within the relationship, show us why it works for these characters, water crashing against the rocks. We’ve never seen that in mainstream film, and yes it would likely get an NC-17 rating, but if the subject matter, and acting, and pathos are all strong enough, with the “Fifty Shades” name on it, it could be really interesting.

First Look: VENOM Poster & Trailer (Updated)

Published on February 8, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

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Today we got the first poster for the Venom movie due out in October. It’s minimalist and I like it. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Venom. I always thought he was visually interesting character and that’s about it. You see, in the comic book world, there a lot of characters from the 90’s that are dubbed “cool“ and certain fans clammer to see them on the big screen. I’ve always viewed Venom as a characters like Apocalypse, Carnage, Gambit, Cable and Deadpool. But I’ve found, it’s usually people who really don’t have a deep understanding of comics and only like these characters because they all have a great visual designs and have character traits that are superficially cool. “90’s characters”: it’s always been a dirty phrase to me.

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But it’s dangerous to make generalizations. I realize a lot of what I just said was very dismissive of an entire Fanbase. I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying that’s been my point of view. Deadpool really changed things for me. I always hated Deadpool. I thought he was the a pitta me of everything I just described. I genuinely didn’t understand his popularity. But at the same time I was rarely exposed to him in comic books because I avoided them. But then I begin to read Rick Remender’s excellent X-Force run. Basically, Cyclops (right in the middles of becoming the new metaphorical “Magento” of the Marvel Universe) created a mutant, black-ops, kill squad. X-Force was designed to preemptively find threats to mutant kind and quietly take them off the board before they can threaten the mutant race and when I say “take them off the board” I mean horribly kill them. The team which included Wolverine, Psylocke, Archangel, Fantomex, and Deadpool. This is an excellent X-Men book, definitely one of the best runs of the last decade. It was here that I started to like Deadpool. Then Deadpool started to pop up more in other mainstream marvel books like Avengers and I found myself liking him more and more. Then the movie came out and I’m eating some crow and loving the character. Deadpool 2 is one of my most anticipated movies of the year. My point is opinions can change.

6ED09C78-624D-44B1-A162-0215E106F6F4 — Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock in the first official image released from the film

Now if I was going to make a Venom film, I think Tom Hardy is an excellent Eddie Brock. You can do a Venom film with out Spider-Man because there’ve been numerous Venom series’ in which he’s an antihero going up against a worse villain like Carnage for example. I think the Venom movie will take inspiration from the Venom: Lethal Protector miniseries where he’s definitely a more heroic character. Even when he’s gone up again Spider-Man, Venom has never viewed himself as a villain, he’s viewed him self as a hero.

86357210-6FDC-4BC4-B0E2-4C3696487D06 — Carnage: The Movie’s Villain

The movie’s director, Ruben Fleischer did Zombieland so we know there’s some talent and vision behind the camera. But I can’t help but think how interesting it would be just see the Spider-Man that we saw in Homecoming, the very young, boy learning to become a hero, go up against someone like a Tom Hardy Venom. It would be a dark, brutal story. Definitely something different and definitely something I wouldn’t mind seeing. Now when I say that, I mean I would want it to be a Spider-Man movie were Tom Hardy’s Venom is the villain. From the jump, it’s been made very clear that this Venom film has nothing to do with Spider-Man: Homecoming or the Marvel cinematic universe. But with rumors of Tom Holland being on set of the Venom film, it clouds things up a little. When this poster was released, there was also a hashtag that said “tomorrow”. So I would say we should plan on seeing a Venom teaser trailer tomorrow. That will start to give us an idea of what this movie is and what it’s going to look like. Like Deadpool before him, though I am not a huge fan of Venom, I will give this movie a chance. I just hope it doesn’t squander it.

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Check back here tomorrow where we will have the trailer posted IF it’s released. Thanks for reading guys!

UPDATE: (2/8/18) Well, just as I predicted a trailer for Venom was realeased today. Take a look below and then I’ll give you my thoughts:

I really wanted to give this a chance, but man that is a terrible teaser. You have no idea what the movie is or what its about. You’d probably not even know it was a trailer for a Venom movie, if you didn’t KNOW IT WAS A TRAILER FOR VENOM MOVIE! We don’t get any sense of the character at all. We don’t know if they’re going to play Venom as more heroic or a darker character. There are almost no hints that there’s even a sci-if/comic book angle to the movie. There’s a very brief shot of what appears to be a symbiote in some kind of containment device, but THAT IS IT. Not good enough. Especially for a skeptic like me. I was very against the Han Solo film, but at least they were able to put out a really good trailer and start to win me over. I had no interest in a Venom film from the beginning and if they keep putting out material like this, they’ll start losing people that are already on board, let alone bringing in new people like me. Anyway I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Also check out our Amazon Affiliate links below to Uncanny X-Force Vol.1-2 by Rick Remender which collects his entire run on the series. As I said in the main article, I can personally vouche for it being one of the best X-Men stories in the last 20 years. Below that I’ve also put an Amazon link for the Venom: Lethal Protector series I mentioned If you’re curious what kind of material the movie will be based on. Going to Amazon through the links help’s support World’s Best Media and we always appreciate it!

-Paul

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PODCAST: The Films of Steven Spielberg (Part 2)

Published on February 5, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hi everybody,

Paul here

On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast with Paul & Tim, we finish up our look at movies and career of Steven Spielberg. This is where we get into the real meat of it. The 90’s brought us a Spielberg at the top of his game, but more recently there’s arguably been a noticeable drop in the quality of his films. In our last episode, we left off talking about Indianan Jones and The Temple of Doom. On this week’s show we go through each of his movies after. If you‘re a Spielberg fan, hopefully you’ll end up wanting to revisit his classics after listening. Listen here or subscribe on iTunes:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13911369

Paul and Tim’s top Spielberg movie picks! Get them all through our Amazon Affiliate links below:

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What I Want to See: Chadwick Boseman

Published on February 2, 2018November 17, 2020 by Michael Christopher Cole1 Comment

Black Panther is coming out next week, and I really wanted to write a What I Want to See in honor of it, but the truth is, that Black Panther as a character was the MVP of the one Marvel movie he’s been in, has had one of the coolest trailers in the MCU, looks like he’s could be the MVP of Infinity War. As a movie, Black Panther boasts one of the more exciting casts, and crews of any MCU film to date. Ryan Coogler coming off of Creed to the MCU is an inspired choice. So I didn’t want to do a What I Want to See about Black Panther. I have faith in this, and What I Want to See, is what they’ve got, I think it’s going to be amazing.

I first saw Chadwick Boseman in 42, as Jackie Robinson, and he was great in that film. Then a year later, he was James Brown, and I haven’t seen that, but again he looked awesome in it. Then we got to see him as Black Panther in Civil War, and he stole the show. This last year, he played Thurgood Marshall in Marshall.

He’s played 3 men who have been hugely important in the conversation of race over the last 70 years, and one of the most important fictional characters in the same area. I really only know about these 4 roles, and I already consider Boseman to be a legend.

What I want to see, is Boseman get to play the big two. The two big names we think of when we think of race in the last 70 years, I want to see him play Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. I think that he has the acting chops, and I would love to see what he can bring to these two characters, and while it may sound ridiculous, I’d be interested in seeing him do both in the same film.

I think that it wouldn’t get taken seriously enough, but with two characters like that, two characters who we often think of as Yin and Yang, it would be really interesting to see what one actor can bring to both roles, to juxtapose them through one actor giving two performances. I think the only man (at least right now) who could do that role, would be Chadwick Boseman. I think he could give enough nuance to distinguish the two roles, and with make up they could make him look like two different people, and what we’d get would be something bizarre, but potentially really incredible.

We’re in a time where we’re seeing some very creative methods of telling historical stories. Hamilton casts against historical race in order to show the spirit of America, we’ve seen time travel tell the story of JFK’s assassination and what his legacy may have been in 11.22.63. We’re ready for something like this, and if you got someone with a really interesting direction style and Chadwick Boseman playing the leading roles, it could be amazing. That’s what I want to see.

What I Want to See: YA Dystopian Movies

Published on January 10, 2018November 17, 2020 by Michael Christopher Cole4 Comments

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re aware of some of this recent trend in dystopian films, in which a kid is chosen to go against a huge government conspiracy. Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, you know what I’m talking about.

I was on board with Hunger Games, I read the books, and saw the movies. I really liked the books, and thought the movies did a pretty good job translating them to the screen. They’re not the deepest in movies or books in the world, but after Harry Potter finished up, they helped to fill the hole.

Then I started reading the Divergent series, and the first couple of books were enjoyable, the third one was terrible, and then I saw the first movie, and realized that I just didn’t care about it. I haven’t seen the second, and I think there was a third, but apparently the audience fizzled out like I did and so I guess they’re not even going to finish the series in cinematic releases, but instead a made-for-TV movie.

Then there was the Maze Runner. Now, I didn’t read the novel, I listened to the audiobook, and if I’m being honest, it wasn’t good. I thought the story was good, but the dialogue wasn’t good, and I wasn’t sure if it was writing or delivery. I tried to listen to the second one but gave up half way through. When the movie came out, I didn’t bother to see it in theaters, just waited until it was on HBO. I still haven’t seen the sequel which has been available on HBO for a while.

Ultimately, these series all told the same basic story, big bad government uses kids for entertainment/soldiering/whatever, and one kid decides to defy them. They’re too formulaic now, and really there isn’t much that’s unique or interesting about them. They found something that worked, and milked it, and I think now we’re seeing it dry up.

What I want to see, is good science fiction in this category. Good stuff targeted to the PG-13 crowd, with new and interesting ideas. I’m currently reading Ready Player One, which is coming out as a movie in a few months (directed by Steven Spielberg), and it might be what I’m waiting for. So far, it appears as if the goal is different, and I just hope it isn’t too formulaic. So far, it seems that corporations and not the government are the bad guys; while it seems to be a competition against a large force, they don’t seem to have a significant nearly insurmountable advantage, and as far as I can tell there are no big hidden secret conspiracies lurking to end the first section (all three of the other franchises are trilogies, and Ready Player One is a stand-alone). Now, I’m not very far into the book, but I am really hoping this is the one to buck the trend.

You look at something like The Matrix, and not only did it visually revolutionize film, but the ideas and concepts it portrayed were interesting and new. You might be able to say Hunger Games (on a much smaller scale did that) but then we saw so many copycats. What I want to see is another movie that makes us go “oh I never would have thought to do that,” and I want that on a story telling level, visually if possible, and basically in anyways filmmakers can come up with, but I don’t want to know the beats and structure of a film because I saw what it’s knocking off anymore. This is a problem that is not unique to this genre, but does seem to have gone from height of popularity to almost completely waning in the public eye in record time, and so we need something new!

FIRST LOOK: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Published on December 30, 2017November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwright1 Comment

3394D278-42D2-43FF-A7D6-B42216018730 — The cast of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald

I haven’t spoken much about it on any of our podcasts or written about it in any of my articles, but I’m a huge, huge fan of the Harry Potter books. I really believe they’ll go down in history, remembered as some of the best fantasy literature of our time. For the most part, I’m also a big fan of the films as well. There were some things that were fundamentally flawed to them, but to get such a beloved series done that well, over eight films is a huge accomplishment. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Parts One and Two were probably the best of the films.
But my favorite moments in the books were always quiet, character driven moments. Like an emotional and distraught Harry venting to Dumbledore in his office after the death of Sirius Black. Or seeing the real reason Snape hated Harry so much, when Harry gets a glimpse in a pensive that shows him Snape’s worst memory. Which included being humiliated by Harry’s father when they were both students at Hogwarts. Harry had to come to terms with the idea that his Dad wasn’t the perfect, ideal image in his head, but a real, flawed person. For the most part I felt some of the most powerful moments in the Books were passed too quickly, if they were even touched on it all.

Now we have this new series of films that take place in the Harry Potter Universe set in the late 1920’s: “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”or as Mr. Sunday Movies calls them “Fantastic Creatures, Have You Seen Them, Where Are They, Are They In The Case? I Bet They’re In The Case. They were In The Case”. EW.com had a bunch of great character photos from the upcoming movie, which I have posted throughout the article. I enjoyed the first film well enough, but what that really hurt the film for me was the reveal that Collin Farrell‘s character was actually Gellert Grindelwald, infamous dark wizard in disguise, played in ridiculous make up by Johnny Depp. Shortly after the first Fantastic Beasts film came out it was announced that the over arcing plot of the series would be the growing threat of Grindelwald and the magical war that takes place in this universe roughly around the time of our WW2 in the muggle world.

370A09CA-C040-48FC-920F-C4EBAEA30BC0 — Johnny Depp (UGH) as Gellert Grindelwald

I really like this concept from a storytelling standpoint because in the Harry Potter books and films Dumbledore is such a world renowned, respected wizard because he cut his teeth being the man who took down Grindelwald, who was at that time the darkest and most dangerous wizard the world had ever seen (at least until He Who Must Not Be Named came along). Dumbledore has always been one of the more fascinating characters in the Harry Potter universe, so getting to see more of this character in a very different part of his life is really intriguing to me. Another interesting wrinkle in this backstory is the fact that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were romantically involved. They were kind of like Charles Xavier and Magneto, they were two men who were gifted magicians and had a lot of the same ideas, but Grindelwald felt that Muggles should bow down and be subservient to the wizards of the world. Grindenwald felt that magic users were inherently superior to non-magical humans. That’s where he and Dumbledore parted ways and their friendship became increasingly antagonistic until Grindelwald gathered followers and was basically in open war with the rest of the world. You’ll see in the photos that they cast Jude Law as young(ish) Dumbledore, which I think is excellent casting.

B8D12960-2690-4F77-A92A-FC237750893A — Jude Law as Prof. Albus Dumbledore

Still, I can’t help think it was such a missed opportunity that they swapped out Colin Farrell for Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp hasn’t put in a compelling performance in years. He relies on absurd visual gimmicks, just like you see in these photos. Colin Farrell was genuinely menacing in Fantastic Beasts. He’s a great actor and would’ve made an excellent Grindelwald. I still hope they keep him around and use him in the series in someway (I forget his character’s name). Because the only way a wizard can turn into another person is by creating a potion called pollyjuice but that requires the person they are impersonating to still be alive. So the real Colin Farrell has to be out there somewhere. Anyway I thought these were some interesting photos that I thought you’d find interesting. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald opens in theaters 11/16/2018.

Thanks for reading!
-Paul

FANTASTIC BEASTS 2 — It would be nice if a bus just fucking took him out seconds after this picture. I mean, he’s in the middle of the fucking street!

Why Disney Buying 20th Century Fox Is A Bad Idea (Especially For Genre Fans)

Published on December 19, 2017November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwright1 Comment

For the past few weeks rumors have bounced around Hollywood that Disney was in serious talks to buy the film and television divisions of 20th Century Fox. Now, it seems that after weeks of negotiation, this deal will become a reality.

If you’re sharp and pay attention to this kind of thing (and World’s Best Media) you may have already put 2 and 2 together and realized why I might be pretty happy about this news. After all Disney owns Marvel Studios which gives us the Marvel Cinematic Universe and from the beginning, the MCU didn’t have access to key Marvel characters like the X-MEN, Fantastic Four, and until recently, Spider-Man. The film rights to X-Men and FF are held by 20th Century Fox. On paper this would mean everyone is coming home to Marvel. However, I’m not as enthusiastic about this deal as you may think…

After the utter shit show that was Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony who still owns the film rights to Spider-Man, made the very smart move of making their current deal with Marvel Studios, Which means that Marvel Studios has our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man swinging around with The Avengers (at least for a few more films, but something tells me that will be extended) as well as creative control of the Spider-Man movies they’re making.

Now, if Sony had handled Spider-Man pretty poorly before their Marvel Studios deal, then Fox has handled the Fantastic Four like a deliberate train wreck. Fantastic Four and it’s sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer aren’t going to be on anyone’s list of the all time great superhero films. But last years attempted reboot, FF, made those films look like The Dark Knight. For studio’s to retain the rights to these characters they need to keep making movies within a certain period of time before the rights revert back to Marvel. I don’t think anyone thought Fox was going to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars on another sad attempt to develop a film from a property that they clearly don’t understand. My point is that eventually, something similar to the Spider-Man deal would have been worked out with Marvel, if not the rights reverting back to Marvel Studios outright.

(My God, seriously, these movies are SO, SOOOOO bad. Just… What the fuck?!)

When Bryan Singer was making the the 1st X-men film, it was clear FOX that didn’t understand what they had. The movie had a a pretty small budget compared to the Superhero juggernauts we see today. So (even though it was released in July, the heart of tent pole, summer block busters) they didn’t have much faith in the movie. Ryan McDonald (World’s Best Media contributor) once said to me that the first X-MEN film is a science fiction movie and not really a superhero film. I always thought that was a great observation and if you rewatch X-MEN as a sci-fi movie, it works a little better than superhero film. X2 on the other hand felt much more like a superhero film, as well as feeling much more like the X-MEN Comics.

The first X-Men film doesn’t get nearly enough credit for creating the Golden Age of comic book movies that exists today. As the superhero movie making process began to drastically change after X-MEN was released in 2000, The X-MEN films have always been there chugging along. In the 17 years since X-MEN was released there have been 10 X-MEN movies counting Deadpool. This is a series that has had major highs and lows. But lately something really great has been happening to the X-MEN franchise, which brings to my main point: I don’t want the X-MEN part of The MCU (for a couple of reasons).

First, in a time when every damn studio is looking to emulate Marvel’s golden model of a “shared universe”, The X-MEN movies have been doing the “shared universe”-thing without even trying. Anyone who reads comics knows that The X-MEN have so many decades of characters, storylines, spin-offs, crossovers, and events that they’re a universe unto themselves in Marvel Comics. My point is that though they are very much Marvel characters, there’s so damn much going on in the comics to cherry pick from for the movies, The X-MEN films don’t need the MCU to be successful. The X-MEN are a never ending stream of characters and stories. Think about everything that’s happened in The X-MEN film franchise and imagine if that was part of the MCU. It would be a goddamn mess.The X-MEN mythology is too big and unwieldy to dump into the MCU. It would just be too much. Yes, it would be cool to see Wolverine and Beast, two classic Avengers members, on the team. And yeah, sure it’d be cool to have the Avengers face off against Magneto and a cool version of The Brotherhood. In the end, it wouldn’t be worth it though. Even in the comics, The X-MEN are kind of off in their own little corner right now.

(Look at all this! It’s madness!!!)

Second, Fox is doing so many interesting things with The X-MEN in film and TV it would be a shame to stifle and censor the creativity that we’ve seen in the franchise lately. Legion on FX was on of the years best shows and one if the most wildly unique comic book adaptations that I’ve ever seen. Logan could be nominated for or even win an Academy Award with incredible performances from Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart (Seriously, it would be a crime if Hugh Jackman doesn’t get awards attention for this unforgettable movie). Then of course we have Deadpool which would NEVER, EVER, EVER be made if it was in the MCU at the time. Legion, Logan, and Deadpool are some of the best superhero stories ever made. Fox is taking bold risks with their X-MEN properties. With projects like the upcoming New Mutants movie being a straight up horror film with X-Men characters in it, it seem like this studio is willing to do the type of out of the box super hero stories that will keep comic book adaptations alive. Comic Books aren’t a genre, they’re a storytelling medium and the projects I listed above are proof of that. Hell, Logan might as well be a straight up western.

I will admit that the silver lining for me is that Marvel Studios will have access to the Fantastic Four which I desperately want to be part of The MCU. Seeing Tony Stark and Reed Richards, two of the comic book world’s biggest pieces of shit, finally on screen together recklessly causing more problems than they solve would be a delight. Of course, seeing The Avengers fight Doctor Dom would be fucking amazing. But The X-Men and The MCU don’t need each other right now. Maybe someday, but not now.

I will say that I think it’s a good thing that Marvel never had access to their A-list characters like the X-Men and Spider-Man when they first started the MCU. Instead they had to use lesser-known characters like Captain America and Iron Man, which forced them to be more creative and pull more deeply from the rich roster of characters that Marvel has. Which would’ve meant we’d most likely never have gotten something like the wonderful Guardians of the Galaxy on the big screen.

Obviously this is out of my hands, I don’t know if they’re going to somehow make an attempt to put the existing X-Men universe into the MCU or if they’re going to treat the X-Men as brand new characters that we’ve never seen before in this universe. I think if they do decide to make the X-Men part of the MCU, the smartest way to go would be to recast and go in a complete different direction than what’s been done before. It’s going to happen anyway one way or another. At the end of the day I’ll be happy if they finally get fucking Doctor Doom right at the very least.

Thanks for reading !
-Paul

What I Want to See: Jumanji

Published on December 10, 2017November 17, 2020 by Michael Christopher Cole5 Comments

When Jumanji came out in 1995, I was eleven years old, and my Aunt Amy and Uncle Mike brought me and my little sister to see it, and it was awesome. This was possibly the most intense action movie we had seen at that time, and we hadn’t even broken any rules watching it, it was for us!

At the end of the movie, there was a very clear lead in to a sequel, with the board game being found on a beach, and so as it fades to black the whole audience thinks “oh here we go again!”

But this was before it was obligatory that all blockbusters became franchises, and perhaps it wasn’t the box office behemoth I assumed it was, so we never got a sequel. …Until now!

Now, you’ve probably seen the trailer for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, starring Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, and Dwayne Johnson. From what I have gathered, I am the only one excited for this film, but that’s because I’m the only one who is right.

Here’s the deal, the original Jumanji, was about a board game which pulled one character into it, and eventually spit all of the world of the game out of it into the real world. It was pretty cool, but ultimately it was grounded in the real world, and personally I always wanted to see the world of Jumanji. Then we got the cartoon, and in that we saw the characters of the film go into the game, and it didn’t quite make sense with the continuity but it was still cool.

Welcome to the Jungle!

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, is a video game that sucks four teenagers in, putting them into the bodies of the game’s avatars. The fact that it’s a video game and not the original board game seems to be a major point of contention for people, but honestly we have Monopoly video games, and Lego video games, and all kinds of video games that might seem redundant or unnecessary, so why not magically possessed adventure games in both formats?

There have been reports that Robin Williams’ character will have left an imprint on the game, which means it falls into the same continuity, and I have to be honest, I’m psyched. Jumanji is a great concept, and I don’t think they fully actualized it in the first film, in fact I even liked Zathura, which was just space Jumanji.

One of the cool things about this concept, is that it opens up what they can do with Jumanji. We could see all manners of jungle beasts imagined and real, in a human killing rampage of nature. There are many different terrains the world of Jumanji can inhabit, and so maybe in this movie it’s just Amazonian style jungle, but there are going to be sequels (if it makes enough money, and it has The Rock, so lets face it, it will). That’s the great part about the video game avatars, is that we could have the cast for a full trilogy, but not necessarily have the characters be the same throughout.

In addition to wanting a lot of world building, and exploration of that world, I want cameos. I want Bonnie Hunt, or Kirsten Dunst, or that other kid. I want this film to be the clear baton passing, and then after that, we get to the new Jumanji franchise. Kill off Han Solo in the first film, and move on. That’s what I want to see!

I totally want to see this guy pop up again!

STAR WARS RETROSPECTIVE (Part 7) EPISODE VII THE FORCE AWAKENS

Published on December 8, 2017November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey everybody,

So here it is, our final entry in our look back at the epic Star Wars saga. Thank you so much for reading and supporting this series of articles. Everyone involved has had a blast doing it and we hope to do something similar in the future. I also want to personally thank the writers who contributed to the series. Thank you, guys! You all did a great job. Now all that’s left is to see the new movie! I know I have my tickets to Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi! May The Force Be With You…

-Paul

Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens Written by Paul Wright

We never thought it would happen. A promise 40 years in the making. The fabled final 3rd act in an epic 9 part Saga. We knew that Anakin and The Republic’s story in the prequels would ultimately, inevitably end in tragedy. Now a new, uncharted story awaited us…

I don’t remember when I realized “This is really going to happen. We are getting the final 3 films.”. As I’ve always said seeing Star Wars films have always been deeply personal experiences for me and I was thrilled that as I entered a new chapter in my own life that I’d get to share in The Star War Saga with my friends and family once again. They thrilled me as a kid with the re-released Special Editions, The Prequels illicit many fond memories from my high school and college years, but now I’d get to experience the Saga as an adult. It’s a great feeling.

I do remember the excitement leading up to The Force Awakens. I remember that first incredible teaser released over a year before the film opened. Man, if there’s one thing Star Wars is incredible at, it’s the art of teaser trailers: Andy Serkis’ voice over. A panicked looking stormtrooper, a droid shaped like a ball, a girl on a big speeder, and of course a snow cover landscape with a dark figure unsheathing a red lightsaber with a cross guard. Then… BOOM The Millenium Falcon being chased by tie fighters. The trailer said “Here’s something new, but it’s continuing the story you love.” The idea of watching the fall of the Jedi and Anakin Skywalker’s decent into Vader was interesting (at least on paper). But there were a lot of questions left unanswered after Return of The Jedi and all our key characters were still in play. Finally we’d see that story.

As soon as I heard J.J. Abrams was the director, I knew we were in good hands. I remember him being interviewed for his first Star Trek movie and saying that he wasn’t a Star Trek fan, but Star Wars was why he became a film maker. In fact, if you look back on almost all of his work, he constantly brings up Star Wars as his reason for being a film maker. Personally, I think he did a hell of a job. The worst thing that could have happened would have been if The Force Awakens was… fine. Just a movie, just OK. Terrible is better than “OK” in a strange way. But he didn’t do that, he made a Star Wars film and one of the great Star Wars films at that. Yes the film has it’s flaws, but the movie is exactly what it needs to: a great start to a new trilogy.

What makes this movie work so well is its characters, both new and old. We all fell in love with Rey and Finn. Poe was cool enough, we’d see more from him in subsequent films. Kylo Ren gave us another truly great Star Wars villain. Everyone’s favorite Princess was now General Organa. In hindsight, I like what they did with Luke, it gave us that much more anticipation for the next Episode without being a true cliffhanger. But the man who stole the show was the smuggler who made The Kessel Run in 12 Parsecs…

There are so many things I could bring up and analyze with this film, but today I’m going to focus on one aspect a little more than the others: The Solo family (mainly Han and Kylo Ren AKA Ben Solo.

One of my favorite parts of this film is how Han Solo is portrayed and especially how Harrison Ford plays him. It’s been no secret that Ford has no great love for the Star Wars franchise. I was surprised he agreed to do The Force Awakens, but I think it was a great idea for Ford as an actor. He’s alive in this character and in this film in a way we hadn’t seen him in far too long. It was like, Holy shit, Harrison Ford… its good to have you back. This was not the Han Solo of the Original Trilogy. The thirty years had changed him, this was a man with more depth and perspective than the cowboy smuggler we new and loved. But the cowboy smuggler was still there.

This films biggest weakness is it’s plot. As so many other have said, when it comes to the story, it might as well be a remake of A New Hope. But in one of my favorite scenes of the film, when Han, Chewie, Finn, and Rey are on The Millenum Falcon, that “weakness” actually helps the movie to give us one hell of a great character moment:

Han Solo: This map’s not complete. It’s just a piece. Ever since Luke disappeared, people have been looking for him.
Rey: Why did he leave?
Han Solo: He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice, turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible. He just walked away from everything.
Finn: Do you know what happened to him?
Han Solo: A lot of rumors. Stories. People that knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple.
Rey: The Jedi were real?
Han Solo: I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is… it’s true. The Force. The Jedi… All of it… It’s all true.

What’s wonderful about this scene is that it brings Han’s story full circle. 40 years ago he stood in almost the same spot and called The Force bullshit to Ben Kenobi. Which gives me the perfect opportunity to point out how significant it was that Han and Leia chose to name their son Ben. This goes back to that new depth to Han that I spoke about before. I think that naming his son Ben was almost certainly Han’s idea, not Leia’s. Leia knew him more as the fabled General Obi-Wan Kenobi The Jedi warrior who fought in The Clones Wars, Han was the one who knew him as Ben in the short time they spent in each other’s lives. This tells the audience that the massive impact Old Ben Kenobi had on his life, was not lost on Han. This old man who Han dismissed as a fool set Han on the path that would define him. The path that led him to everything in his life that mattered. They spend such little time on screen together that fans forget how important Han Solo meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi was. But Han didn’t forget.

Ben Solo AKA Kylo Ren played brilliantly by Adam Driver has the potential to be one of the most complicated, interesting, and best characters in the Saga. As far as I’m concerned he’s already great. But depending on where the story takes him, by the end of the trilogy, he could become iconic. I always felt like this was how Anakin should have been portrayed in the prequels. What made Kylo Ren unique was his struggle not with the dark side, but with his better nature.

That was take on a dark force user that we hadn’t seen before. He saw the light as something tempting him off his path, where the dark side was so easy to slip onto for so many others.

I knew Harrison Ford would die in this movie the second I’d heard he signed on. There was no way he was going to stick around for two more films (they’re lucky they got him for this one). So I knew walking into the theatre, that’d we’d probably be saying goodbye to one of the most beloved characters in cinematic history.

As death’s of legendary characters go, it’s fine I suppose. Killed by his son and falling into an abyss. I still don’t know if Ben Solo intended to kill his father no matter. Had Ben Solo known what he was going to as soon as Han stepped onto that catwalk. Was Han getting through to him or was this the only way that confrontation could play put? I think there was doubt there in Ben Solo. The Dark and The Light inside of him pushing and pulling. Who knows? Unfortunately we all know the choice he makes…
Will he find some sort of redemption like his grandfather did? Does he even deserve redemption?

In the end, what makes The Force Awakens a great chapter in the Star Wars Saga is the magic. It manages to tap into the moments of wonder, the excellent characters, and excitement that make a great Star Wars movie. The stage has been set for Episode VIII. I hope The Last Jedi is The Empire Strikes Back of the new trilogy. All I know is that I can’t wait to visit this world and these characters again.

May The Force Be With You…

(To my female readers.. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it)