I fucking love Kingsman: The Secret Service. In fact, I love pretty much anything filmmaker Mathew Vaughn has directed. Layer Cake, Stardust, X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Kingsman: The Secret Service, that’s a pretty fucking great resume. Sure, Kingsman: The Golden Circle wasn’t nearly as good as it’s precession, but despite some major flaws, I still like the movie.
For some reason, I had no idea that a third Kingsman movie was even in the cards. I’m happy to see the series back on the big screen anyway. The Kingsman films have always tried re-inject some fun and adventure into the spy genre. I’ve never been a Bond fan or Jason Bourne (the Mission: Impossible movies, on the other hand, are fucking incredible). I was already happy to see that this series is going to continue, but like many great sequels, this movie is taking the Kingsman story in a completely different direction. Starring Ralph Fiennes, it looks like the movie is about the original formation of the Kingsman organization around WWI… and it looks fucking cool as Hell. Anyway, check out the trailer below, you’ll probably agree that it looks fucking awesome:
The King’s Man directed by Mathew Vaugh hits theatres in February 2020.
Fame. Ain’t it a bitch? Not so long ago on a beautiful summer evening, in a New England summer island community, one young man’s dream brush with fame may have turned into a nightmare…. OR DID IT?! New information has surfaced in the case involving allegations of sexual assault by Kevin Spacey in Nantucket. What once looked like a celebrity using his status and power to take advantage of a young man, suddenly doesn’t seem so black and white. Seems you can’t trust anyone anymore. Not even drunk college guys and sleazy actors! What’s the world coming to?! I don’t have the answers, but it’s a damn interesting story! So, on this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, we take a trip to Tinseltown’s seedy underbelly, in Paul’s True Hollywood Stories!
Our favorite residents of Hawkins, Indiana.
But that’s not all! We also have a deep dive review for Stranger Things Season 3 (FULL SPOILERS). On the second half of this week’s podcast we do a full breakdown of the hit Netflix series, created by The Duffer Brothers. I enjoyed the hell out of this latest barrel of weird, paranormal shit to hit Hawkins, Indiana. Hopper, Eleven, Mike, and the whole gang are back for some more fun, dipped in 80’s nostalgia. AS much as I enjoyed Season 3, Stranger Things should probably start heading towards the finish line, so it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. But so far The Duffer Bros. haven’t steered us wrong. Hopefully, they have a plan to wrap up their sci-fi/adventure series that brings the story to a satisfying conclusion and make the fans happy. If Game of Thrones has taught us anything lately, it’s that how a story ends is one of the most important parts of long form storytelling. A bad ending can retroactively hurt all the good that came before and a great ending is like the cherry on top of a fantastic story (to mix a few metaphors there). Fair warning, make sure you watch all of the new season of Stranger Things before you listen to this episode.
On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, we review one of my most anticipated movies of the summer and the latest film to feature everyone’s favorite wallcrawler: Spider-Man: Far From Home. As the final film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 3 of films, we go over the action sequences, the villains, the friends and foes in Peter Parker’s life, and all the twists and turns along the way.
Peter feels a deep sense of loss after Tony’s death.
Losing another surrogate father drives many of Peter’s choices.
Peter has to reconcile the man he is, the man Tony saw him as, and the hero he wants to be.
This movie has some HUGE revelations and twists, so I recommend avoiding SPOILERS at all cost before seeing this film. But after you see the movie, come on back and listen to our awesome breakdown of this kick ass superhero flick! Listen here or subscribe on Spreaker, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and ITunes:
… is the ONLY official poster for the film I put up with this article. What a shitty, shitty poster. All the other art here is the work of some incredibly talented artists I found online. STEP UP YOU GAME, SONY!
Marvel has official announced the home release of the year’s biggest film Avengers: Endgame! Hitting digitally on July 3oth and Blu-Ray and 4K on August 13th. Check out the announcement video below!
I’m a complete sucker. They get me coming and going. Not only do I buy the digital copy on iTunes because I want to watch the movie again as soon as I can, but I’m also a big collector of the cool, special edition, Steelbook Blu-Rays. So I buy those when they come out too, which you can see below…
You know what? I DON’T CARE THAT I’M MARVEL’S BITCH! I LOVE IT! GIVE IT TO ME, MARVEL! ALL OVER MY FACE, KNECK, AND CHEST! I’LL TAKE ANOTHER 22 MOVIES HARD AND SAY “THANK YOU, SIR! I’LL TAKE THAT SHIT AGAIN!”!
…Oh lord… They’ve got their hooks into me bad here, folks… Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t have it any other way….
The Crime Syndicate: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, Power Ring, Deathstorm
The Justice League has battled a lot of cool, iconic foes over the years, but one of my favorites has to to be The Crime Syndicate. The Crime Syndicate hail from a parallel world dubbed Earth-3, where it’s occupants really subscribe to the philosophy of “survival of the fittest”. Each member of The Crime Syndicate is an evil doppelgänger of a member of the Justice League and they rule their Earth with an iron fist. So, instead of Batman, you get Owlman, instead of Wonder Woman there’s Superwoman, and instead of Superman you get Ultraman.
Ultraman is probably the biggest piece of shit of them all (actually Owlman probably takes the cake there). When he’s not bust freebasing Kryptonite to get his powers, he’s terrorizing the citizens of his planet.
The Crime Syndicate are most prominently featured as the villains in classic Justice League stories like, JLA: Earth-2 written by Grant Morrison with art by Frank Quietly.
As well as, Forever Evil by Geoff Johns and David Finch, which features Lex Luthor defeating Ultraman by using his addiction to Kryptonite AGAINST him. The message here: drug addiction makes you lose super villain battles. A valuable lesson for us all.
The live action DC movies may have gotten off to a rocky start, but I’m a big fan of movies like Man of Steel and even Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. I think Henry Cavill made a fantastic Superman and it’s a shame we probably won’t get to see him in the role again. Much like we won’t get to see Ben Affleck as Batman again. It would’ve been pretty cool to see these characters go up against a group of villains like The Crime Syndicate down the line had the Justice League film been any good. Sadly that movie was a big pile of shit, so we can only wonder what might’ve been. Which is why I thought it was really cool when I found two different artist renditions of Henry Cavill as Ultraman popping up online. Check it out here:
The first piece was done by an artist who goes by the handle HouseofMat. This is the first time I’ve see HouseofMat’s work, but I thought it was pretty cool and I wanted to share it with you guys. The second piece (which is my favorite of the two) was created by Barrett Digital, you can find them on Twitter @BARRETTDIGITAL_. There are some fantastic online artists out there like BossLogic, whose work I’ve posted on the site before. So I’m always on the lookout for cool stuff like this. What do you think of his rendition of Henry Cavill as Ultraman? Is The Crime Syndicate a group of villains you’d like to see pop up in a DC movie in the future? Please let me know what you think in the comments below. As always, thanks for reading!
LIVE FROM RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL! …Well… No, not really… But it’s a good show anyway! On this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, guest co-host Paul Sr. and I discuss the must see movies and TV series coming up next month, in our July Movie & TV Preview! We give you the scoop on Spider-Man: Far From Home, Stranger Things 3, Young Justice: Outsiders & more! Of course, along the way we take some of our usual nonsensical detours, but that’s part of the fun!
I also wanted to mention, as a public service announcement, that the word around the campfire is that Spider-Man: Far From Home is not only spectacular, but it also has a lot of cool surprises and twists and turns. Besides the trailer I have posted below, I’d recommend avoiding anymore trailers or clips from Spider-Man: Far From Home. From what I’ve heard, this is a movie you want to go into knowing as little as possible. Speaking of trailers, you can also check out the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home, as well as Stranger Things 3 and Young Justice: Outsiders at the end of this article.
As a little bonus for our World’s Best Media readers and subscribers, I wanted to bring your attention to a few other movies and TV shows premiering in July that we didn’t have time to go over on the podcast. First up, we have Amazon Prime’s new series The Boys. Based on the incredible comic book series created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, The Boy’s takes place in a world where superheroes exist, but they’re reckless, entitled assholes who are way more likely to kill a bunch of innocent people as collateral damage than they are to save the day. When these pricks get really out of hand, The Boys step in. The Boy’s are a covert government team of violent lunatics who fuck up and/or kill superheroes who get out of line. Garth Ennis is the amazing writer behind the comic book classic Preacher as well as writing the most iconic run on The Punisher of all time. If you’re at all familiar with Ennis’ writing you won’t be surprised that The Boys is batshit insane in the best possible way. Everything I’ve seen so far has indicated that the show is pretty damn faithful to the source material. I’m pretty psyched for this one. Make sure you check out the trailer posted below. The Boys premieres on Amazon Prime on July 26.
Lastly, we have the new DCAU movie (or DC Animated Universe movie), Batman:Hush. I’m alway excited when one these new animated movies come out. They may not always knock out of the park, but when they do it’s fucking spectacular. Batman: Hush is based on the comic book storyline of the same name, an iconic Batman story written by Jeph Loeb (Batman: The Long Halloween) and legendary artist Jim Lee. The story is a sprawling mystery about a mysterious madman calling himself Hush, who’s hellbent on destroying Batman and everything he loves. The story is a trip through the most iconic parts of Batman’s world, featuring everyone from The Joker and Ras Al Ghul to Superman and Nightwing. This movie has the potential to be great, so I hope DC really nails this story. The trailer is posted below. Batman: Hush hits digitally on July 20th and on Blu-Ray August 6th.
Anyway, listen to this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast here or subscribe on Stitcher, Google Podcasts, & iTunes: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18357511
We seem to be going through a Stephen King film adaptation renaissance right now. Movies like IT and Pet Cemetery fucking ruled. Even last year’s TV series Castle Rock tapped into the “shared Multiverse” that King’s books exist in to great effect. Now, later this year, we have IT:Chapter Two and Doctor Sleep. Both look fantastic. What really sold me on Doctor Sleep was Ewan McGregor and the film’s very solid and intriguing trailer, it pulls you in right away. It gives you a set up without giving you the full picture of what’s going on. It was the perfect first trailer, the mood was fantastic and it just made me want to see more. I think Ewan McGregor is an incredibly underrated actor and his presence in this movie really sold it for me. But I really love the idea of McGregor playing Danny Torrance the boy with “The Shining” (or psychic powers) from the book and film The Shinning. You know the one where Jack Nicholson lost his mind at The Overlook Hotel and he had a psychic son, this is the same character all grown up. I love the idea that after encountering a fucked up supernatural horror as a young man and now he’s encountering something supernatural, but completely different as an adult. This is just a great trailer and this definitely made my list of highly anticipated movies to see in the back half of 2019!
2000’s X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer was the first REAL comic book superhero of the modern age. Some people say Blade should get some credit in that department, but most people at the time (myself included) didn’t even realize it’s was based on a comic book. However, X-Men had all of the trappings and troupes of a classic comic book: the team of heroes, colorful costumes, SUPER-VILLAINS!, and of course very, very cool super powers. What story from the team’s 40 year history would the filmmakers choose to tell?
Sure, we’d seen Superman and Batman on the big screen, but they’re fairly simple compared to something like X-Men. Superman and Batman are seemingly much easier and less complicated to adapt to the big screen. (You guys can debate amongst yourselves if you that’s actually true or not).
Wolverine alone has one of the most complicated and intricate back stories in Marvel Comics history and that doesn’t even take into account telling the story of the rest of the X-Men. Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, and Rogue would all needs their place to shine in this tale. Then there’s perhaps the most interesting characters relationship in the film: Xavier and Magneto!
Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and the films portrayal of Charles Xavier and Magneto’s frenemy relationship were the highlights of the first X-Men film. Logan, Charles, and Eric were the center of almost all the other future X-Men films in one way or another.
Anyway, back to July 2000, they pulled it off in the end! The first X-Men was a bona fide hit and proved that comic book superheroes that weren’t household names, with their silly costumes and childish powers could translate into big bucks at the box office. However, It wasn’t until Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man debuted to the bigggest opening weekend ever at the time. Hollywood realized there was golden them there hills and every movie studio with the rights to a comic book superhero property had a movie in development and the superher movie boom again.
It wasn’t perfected until 2008 which saw the release of Iron Man starting off Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Dark Knight; a neo-crime epic classic. Since the first X-Men film hit theaters, there has been more than a dozen movies taking place within the X-Universe, some have been good, some have been terrible.
Now the X-Men are moving on to greener pastures. To the Elysium, that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a shame the final film in Fox’s X-Men franchise will be Dark Phoenix because it’s such a poor way to end the series. If the studio had any sense they would’ve ended it with Logan, a true masterpiece and a perfect ending to the X-Men story. Unfortunately that’s how you roll the dice with an X-Men movie. You never know if the creative people trying to tell a great X-Men story, will occasionally have their film ruined by the movie studio trying to fuck it up. So even though there have been masterpieces and pieces of shit in the Men films, we should still be great-full that this series blazed a trail for superhero movies over the last 20 years!
So on this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast we watched the final X-Men film of the FOX era and… it sure is… a movie! We review DARK PHOENIX, so you don’t have to! This weeks podcast may be all about shitting on the new and final X-Men movie for quite some time, but we still love the X-Men! We also discuss our thoughts on Robert Pattinson’s casting as the new Batman! Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher, iTunes, and more: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18229983
It’s crazy that not too long ago I was lamenting the lost art of movie posters. I singled out the beautiful work of artist Drew Struzan’s iconic posters for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter, among others. With his incredible sketch and paint style, working both artistically beautiful and ultra realistic, he’s crafted some of cinema’s most iconic imagery. It’s ironic that one of the worst genre films to come along in quite a while, Dark Phoenix, actually has a pretty beautiful poster in the vein of Drew Struzan, which you can see at the top of the article. Below that is another incredible poster from one of the best artist in the world right now, BossLogic. To be clear: the Srtuzan inspired poster is on top, BossLogic’s poster is below.
While Dark Phoenix may be disappointing fans all over the world. I found this wonderful video online that does a great job of talking about why The Dark Phoenix Saga is so special in the first place. If you’re feeling bummed out that one of your favorite, iconic, comic book story lines has once again been butchered by an incompetent movie studio, this video should definitely get your spirits up.The video comes to us from NowThisNerd, you can subscribe to their channel on YouTube. Its the perfect antidote to your Dark Phoenix blues. Watch it here:
World’s Best Media 