World’s Best Media

REVIEW: The Shape of Water

Published on January 7, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwright2 Comments

Review: The Shape of Water

Written by Paul Wright

Note: The following review contains some spoilers in the main article and a major spoiler warning for certain sections of the article.

The Shape of Water is the latest film from visionary director Guillermo Del Toro. He’s brought us such films as Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone, both Hellboy films, and Pans Labyrinth just to name a few. To call Del Toro a visionary doesn’t do him justice. His films are creative and visual masterpieces. There is no mistaking who is behind the lens in a Guillermo Del Toro movie and The Shape of Water isn’t any different.

A2B09CB4-241F-4C24-996A-33610CB2F78E — Left: Guillermo Del Toro, Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer; Top: Hellboy; Bottom: Pale Man

There are a handful of directors that I give a complete pass to. Meaning I don’t need to know what the movie’s about, or who’s in it, I don’t even need to know the title. If they’re making a movie, I’m seeing it. Directors like Quentin Tarantino, Mathew Vaughn, and Edgar Wright come to mind. For years Del Toro was without question on that list, but his last few films haven’t quite met the standard I expect from Guillermo Del Toro. Though I love the concept and the world building, Pacific Rim wasn’t the knock your socks off sci-if epic I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the movie and I’m looking forward to the sequel, but Pacific Rim did disappoint me in multiple key ways. Then we have Crimson Peak, the concept screams Del Toro, a gothic Victorian-era haunted house horror mystery. I just flat out disliked Crimson Peak. What should have been a home run for the director was a big whiff. I absolutely had not given up on Guillermo Del Toro as a filmmaker, but in my opinion, he needed a win.

Because of this, it was great to hear such positive buzz for this movie. I’m pleased to say that The Shape of Water is exactly what I has hoping for a beautiful modern day fairy tale with gorgeous visuals, memorable characters, compelling performances and and a touching love story. In other words, this is a Guillermo Del Toro film in the best sense of the term.

Set in the 60’s during the hight of The Cold War, Sally Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito a shy, mute woman who works alongside her fiend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) as members of cleaning staff at a military facility. Elisa leads a simple, quite life. She does her job and comes home to her roommate Giles, played by the great Richard Jenkins. Elisa may be mute, but she can hear perfectly fine and communicates through sign language to the people around her who understand it. Elisa’s life is turned upside down when an high security “asset” is brought into the facility where she works. The U.S. government have captured “something”. The “something” is of course The Creature at the heart of the film. An aquatic human-like creature that was captured somewhere in the Amazon. He looks like Abe Sapien meets The Creature from The Black Lagoon. Almost all of the government higher ups and scientists (with a few key exceptions) view this creature as an animal, a monster and nothing more. Just something they can experiment on to find a way to one up the Soviet Union. They’re especially interested in The Creature’s ability to breath in two distinct environments and how that could help America in The Space Race. I don’t think The Creature is given a name or nickname in the movie. The characters call The Creature things like “It” or “Him”. But this isn’t a a mindless animal, as Elisa will quickly find out.

After an incident in the room where the Creature is being held, Elisa and Zelda are brought in to clean up. Zelda just wants to do her job and get the hell out of there (A very smart attitude to have in any movie featuring a giant fish man), but Elisa I’d mesmerized by The Creature. When Elisa and the audience fully see The Creature for the first time, we see a powerful, unique, and in some ways very human being. Compared to a similar Del Toro character, Abe Sapien from the Helboy films, this Creatures face and eyes are far more human than you would expect.

A06EB025-26D5-4A26-844E-ECDCDA0AB352 — Abe Sapien from Guillermo Del Toro’s excellent Hellboy Films

Because Elisa is mute and thus viewed as “less than”, it’s much easier for her to get into the lab/torture chamber where The Creature’s being held without being noticed. Elisa begins to make daily lunch visits to The Creature and over time these two beings develop a profound bond that goes beyond anything either of them have experienced. Loneliness and the desire to connect with someone else are at the ideas heart of this film.

As usual in a Guillermo Del Toro film, the creature design is spectacular. Under the astonishing makeup and prosthetics that make The Creature real is Del Toro mainstay Doug Jones .Unsurprisingly he gives an incredible performance in this film. The Creature s both otherworldly and surprisingly human. If there’s been a cool creature created using make-up effects, odds are they were played by Doug Jones. For Del Toro alone he’s played Abe Sapien, The Faun, The Crooked Man, The Angel of Death, and more. He also played The Silver Surfer in the bad, but not unwatchable Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. But the physicality that he brings to this role is completely unique, which is important considering he played Abe Sapien who had definite physical similarities to The Creature in this movie.

19CAA8DB-3BB8-4A5E-BFA8-3FBB92FCADF4 — Doug Jones out of Makeup

The idea of loneliness and the desire to connect extends very well into the arc of Richard Jenkins’ character Giles. He’s an older homosexual man in the 1960’s and his arc works as a powerful contrast with the growing connection between Elisa and The Creature. He’s an artist working in the ad industry constantly being shown the door because he’s homosexual. There’s an emotionally powerful scene when he attempts to open up to a man who works at a diner Giles frequents. When the man is disgusted by Giles’ gentle advance on him, the mix of heart break and embarrassment that comes across Richard Jenkins’ face is gut wrenching. This does an excellent job of setting up Giles’ reaction to Elisa and The Creature later in the film.

4CC1B166-30D7-4062-8967-B7223237A97F — Richard Jenkins as Giles

As Elisa and The Creature’s connection grows deeper, she finds out that the government assholes in charge of this project intend to kill and vivisect The Creature. So, Elisa decides to break The Creature out with the help of Giles, Zelda, and a sympathetic scientist working at the base. Now, this is the point in the movie where a lot of interesting major and minor plot and character developments play out. So I’m going to put a big SPOILER WARNING notice here and you can scroll down until you see another big END SPOILERS notice. Here we go…

SPOILER WARNING

SPOILER WARNING
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STILL HERE? OK
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OK, so once they break The Creature out, they bring it back to Elisa and Giles’ apartment where, even though he can stay out of water for extended periods of time, the keep him in the bathtub. Along with salt and special chemicals given to Elisa by the aforementioned friendly scientist, The Creature can breath in the tub water. They plan to free him in the ocean, when heavy rains will give them a safe spot to let him go, but they have to wait about a week for the rain. In the meantime, Elisa and The Creatures relationship continues to develop and we learn a little bit more about The Creature itself.

At this point in the story, the bond between Elisa and The Creature is stronger than ever. The Creature is living with Elisa and Giles until they can make their daring escape.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re asking yourself one question: Do. They. Fuck? The answer is a resounding yes, multiple times in fact. That’s right, they go there. Though we don’t get to see what The Creature was working with (much to my chagrin), Elisa does describe to Zelda how it went down, anatomically speaking. When we see The Creature standing full frontal, it appears to be flat down there. But as Elisa tells Zelda, there’s a slit in his crouch area where his penis comes out. I’ll reiterate, we don’t get to see it, but the day after they do the deed for the first time, Elisa can’t keep a smile off her face. So he must have been packing some heat down there. Giles’ acceptance of Elisa’s and The Creature’s show’s that he understands that you need to take love wherever you can find it

Moving on, we do get some hints as to The Creature’s origins. One of the government officials makes reference to the fact that the locals who lived near where The Creature was caught worshipped him as a river god. As we see we see later in the movie The Creature does possesses certain abilities. At one point, Giles has a wound on his arm, The Creature places his hand on the wound and gently puts his head against Giles’. Not only is his arm healed, but the next day Giles seems to appear a few years younger. Later, in the final act of the film, both Elisa and The Creature are mortally wounded by gunshots. The gunshots have no lasting effect on him, but The Creature’s able to completely heal Elisa. It’s also implied that he can give humans the ability to live and breeze underwater is he does. Anytime he uses his abilities, parts of his body glow slightly, which was a cool effect. Basically, The Creature’s a supernatural river god of some kind. Part of the fun is that we don’t get any answers to the questions these incidents bring up.

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END SPOILERS

If I had to give the film any major criticism its that the villain played by the great Michael Shannon is pretty one dimensional. He runs this high security facility (but they actually have pretty shitty security) and he kind of views himself as a cog in the wheel, his focus is to do a good job and move up. He’s also a bit of a religious zealot. At one point he says something like “God created us in his own image. God doesn’t look like that thing, he looks like us. That Creature is an abomination.”. That’s about as deep as he gets. But this is Michael Shannon so he still does a shitload with what he’s given.

What I love most about Guillermo Del Toro as a filmmaker is that his films are modern day fairy tales (even when they don’t take place in the present). Del Toro himself called this “ A fairy tale for troubled time”. The director understands what most people forget; fairy tales may be filled with wonder, magic, and beauty, but they’re also dark, violent stories that end in death as much as they do “happily ever after”. For hundreds of years fairy tales were cautionary stories more than whimsical fantasies. While Del Toro’s films aren’t always cautionary tales (this film definitely isn’t) he never forgets the inherent darkness and brutality of a fairy tale. So few filmmakers can tell a story that can meld the vicious brutality that humans are capable of and still fill the story with magic, love, and beauty. Though some may be tempted to make the comparison, to call The Shape of Water a Beauty and the Beast story is somewhat reductive.

This a return of the Guillermo Del Toro I love. However, this is by no means his best work. The Shape of Water is a wonderfully told story about romance, loneliness, prejudice, beauty, and love. While I enjoyed this film quite a bit, I’d say its only a “MUST SEE” if you’re a Guillermo Del Toro fan or the types of films he makes. But with it’s top notch performances and gorgeous direction this should definitely be on your list of movies to see as Awards season approaches.

The Shape of Water is in theatres nationwide now.

The Shape of Water: 8.5/10

Thanks for reading !

-Paul

PODCAST: The Best & Worst Of 2017 (Part 2)

Published on January 6, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey, everybody!

It’s Paul

This week on “The World’s Best Podcast with Paul & Tim”, we present Part Two of our monumental episode looking back at the Best and Worst, Films , TV shows, Comics, and more of 2017! In Part One we mostly talked about the best and worst TV shows we’d seen over the past year (with a little bit of talk about movies). In Part Two, we shift focus to our favorite and our most disappointing movies of 2017. Plus, towards the end of the episode I cover some of the big comic book news of the year and list a few of my favorite graphic novels! So, definitely check it out. It’s a great episode. Listen here or subscribe on iTunes:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13683756

Cool STAR WARS Artwork

Published on January 3, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey, everybody

I saw this fantastic Star Wars artwork in an Entertainment Weekly special edition by an artist named Martin Ansin and thought they were incredibly cool. There are different pieces of art for different Star Wars eras. I really wish I could buy prints of these online. Check them out:

535191D0-8663-49A8-B54A-02122084A28C — The Prequels

E549EF6B-5E0D-4F9C-A53B-C830A37ED7D3 — The Original Trilogy

434FD12B-318E-45C4-A393-D9D2564E69CC — The Expanded Universe/Legends (This is by far my favorite)

This doesn’t continue the theme of the other pieces, but it’s still cool

Metropolis - Final — Old Ben Kenobi not putting up with any shit.

Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s a link to his website:

http://www.martinansin.com

Thanks,

-Paul

PODCAST: The Best & Worst Of 2017! (Part One)

Published on January 1, 2018November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey, everyone

It’s Paul

So this is it! We made it through 2017! Building World’s Best Media, writing articles and reviews, and recording podcasts have all been an absolute blast for myself and the incredibly talented people who contribute to World’s Best Media. We couldn’t have done any of it with the support of our listeners and readers. So thank you very much, it means the world to us.

Now with this being the end of the year and all, Tim and I decided it would be a good time to do a look back at the best and worst of 2017. We cover everything from the best and the worst movies, comics, TV shows, books, and more. It’s a 2-Part Episode and Part-One mostly focuses on TV. Or should I say content? A large portion of the shows we discuss in this episode come from streaming services. How we watch television has already drastically changed from 10 or even 5 years ago. With big companies like Disney and Warner Bros. starting their own streaming services in 2018 and 2019, things are going to change even more. It’ll be interesting to see where things go…

Also expect a Review of the Netflix show, Mindhunters, later this week. And of course keep an eye out for part two of this episode.

Anyway, THANK YOU! Have a safe and Happy New Year and check out part one the episode below or subscribe on iTunes:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13683765

Thanks for listening!

-Paul

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!

What I Want to See: Doctor Who

Published on December 20, 2017November 17, 2020 by Michael Christopher Cole1 Comment

As you’re probably aware, Christmas is coming, but what you might not be aware of is that every year on Christmas, Doctor Who releases a Christmas special. These specials aren’t just goofy Christmas specials like many other franchises might create, but are part of the continuity of the series. In this particular special, we will see the 12th Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, regenerate into the 13th Doctor who will be played by Jodie Whitaker.

Whitaker will play the first female Doctor in this show’s 54 year run. There is some controversy over it, but there is also precedent with other Time Lords (the Doctor’s race) becoming Time Ladies upon regeneration. It’s really not a big deal. I promise. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

The fact that it shouldn’t be a big deal, is actually what I want to see with this show. If Whitaker follows the trend she’ll be on for about 3 seasons (other than the 9th Doctor Christopher Eccleston, all modern Doctors have had 3). I’m hoping that while the writers are making the character female, and can introduce elements of the female experience, I hope they don’t change fundamentals of the show’s structure in order to pander.

Doctor Who has romance in many of its storylines, but ultimately the Doctor him/herself is not inherently romantic or driven by these stories. David Tennant’s tenth Doctor was in love with Rose, and with it came heartbreak and all of those things that romance comes with, but the Doctor stayed focused on saving the world. Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor had something of a romance with River Song, (spoiler alert she’s his wife) but again, it was secondary to his main story of saving the world.

I will not mind them having flirtations, or even a genuine love story in the 13th Doctor’s story, but the character cannot be defined by any relationship. There seems to be a tendency in fiction, and perhaps in non-fiction to define people by their relationships, and the Doctor whether he’s a he, or she’s a she, should not be defined by an individual relationship, but rather his or her love for life, and the living. We get to see the Doctor over the last 10 seasons breaking down as severely over loss of friendship as loss of romantic love, and just as deeply at the loss off a species as that of the loss of a single life. This is the Doctor’s strength as a character, and there isn’t anything inherently male or female about that (although if written well a female Doctor may shine brighter in this way).

Lastly, sexuality. The doctor has mostly been portrayed as heterosexual, but I would argue that this doesn’t seem like a very strict rule at all. I don’t care, in the inevitable romances that will occur (hopefully in small doses) whether or not the character is engaged in straight or lesbian relationships, as long as it’s about character, and not sticking with continuity, or sending a message. The companions are where sexual orientation seems to be best displayed, having had some of each, and the Doctor seems to be beyond that. So I hope that will remain the case when it comes to the 13th Doctor.

MINISODE: Paul’s Final Thoughts on The Last Jedi

Published on December 20, 2017November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey Everybody,

Paul here, below if have a quick mini-Podcast with my final thoughts on Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi. Having seen the movie for a second time now, I feel like I can judge the film on it’s own merits and not the hype. Basically, I quickly go over my general feelings about the films quality, if I had to give it a letter grade what would it be, and where does this movie fit among the other Star Wars films. I think you guys will enjoy it as a more focused follow up to our full Episode from last week where we dove right into the film. Enjoy! Listen here on on iTunes:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13631837

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

PODCAST: Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi SPOILER Review!

Published on December 16, 2017November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey Everybody,

It’s Paul

After months of waiting, It’s finally here! Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi has hit theatres at last! We couldn’t wait to dive into this podcast. This Episode is so EPIC that I needed TWO guest co-hosts to handle it! (Unfortunately Tim was out of town this weekend).With me on the show is long time World’s Best Media contributor Ryan McDonald; as well as friend and supporter of World’s Best Media, Mr. Matt Supple. This episode is FULL SPOILERS!!! And there’s A LOT to unpack. So, wait until after you’ve seen the movie (or if you don’t care). There was a lot to unpack and go over, but I think we did a good job. Enjoy! Listen here or on iTunes :

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13595419

Podcast: The Walking Dead TV Series SHOCKER with Special Guest co-host Paul Wright Sr.

Published on December 11, 2017November 17, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hi everybody,

Here’s a relatively short (by the standards of this show at least) Episode where we talk about the shocking developments on Sunday night’s episode of The Walking Dead. Also, keep a lookout Friday morning when we’ll have our full Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi up. We’re also going to try to get in a review of Netflix’s new Marvel series The Punisher if we can. Until then, please enjoy this fun episode about the most recent episode of The Walking Dead. Today I have a very special co-host, beloved by fans the world over, my Father… Mr. Paul Wright Sr! Listen here or subscribe on iTunes:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13554612