On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, I review the new, 2nd season of the hit Netflix series The Umbrella Academy! The 1st season of the series based on the comic book created by Gerard Way (from the band My Chemical Romance) and Gabriel Ba’, which premiered last summer was one my favorite shows of 2019 and season 2 was one of my most anticipated shows of the year. Did The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 live up to expectations? Listen to this week’s episode to find out! Also, make sure to check out some of the awesome behind-the-scenes videos that we have posted below!
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/40164289 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
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I wanted to take a minute to talk about the new trailer that dropped for the latest X-Men film, Dark Phoenix. This is very likely the last incarnation of these characters we’ll see on the big screen, with the big Fox/Disney merger finalizing. Which means this is the last X-Men movie with this cast. Since X-Men: First Class (In my opinion, the best X-Men film, not counting Logan) the series was really about telling the story of Charles, Eric, Mystique, and to a lesser extent, Beast. Quick side note , Beast is probably one of my favorite Marvel characters and I’ve always liked Nicholas Hoult in the role. Unfortunately they never quite nailed Beast’s look. Don’t give me wrong, I actually think it has its moments where it looks pretty cool, but I think this is a character that requires either CGI or very elaborate Hellboy-esque make up effects. Anyway at least it’s a hell of a lot better than that God awful Kelsey Grammer Beast make up.
Back to Dark Phoenix, First Class was Magneto’s film, Days of Future Past was all about Charles, Apocalypse was… um… kind of Mystique? Or the new X-Men, like Jean and Cyclops… I guess? I feel like these movies work best when they have a clear,strong character to anchor the plot and story. The Dark Phoenix Saga is arguably one of the best X-Men stories of all time and don’t get me wrong, Jean is a great character to build a movie around and Sophie Turner is a great actress. But from what I hear, this movie is dog shit. For a while I really thought they were just going to release this thing on Netflix, if at all. I mean the trailer isn’t particularly bad, but this movie was supposed to come out over a year ago, that’s not a good sign. People who have supposedly seen the movie have reported that it is a absolute piece of shit.
What kills me even more is that what may turn out to be one of the shittiest X-Men movies is taking its visual cues from my all-time favorite X-Men run, Grant Morrison‘s New X-Men. All of the costumes, from the X-Men uniforms, even how Charles is dressed, is straight out of that whole run. They cast aside the whole spandex superhero look for some thing that took what they tried to do in the first X-Men film, mix it up with The Matrix, throw all that into a blender and you end up with a really cool, unique uniform instead of a “costume”.
I love how Jennifer Lawrence is so done with these movies that they pretty much show us she’s going to die IMMEDIATELY in the trailer.
I just hope they don’t fuck up Jean’s connection to The Phoenix Force by pulling the same bullshit from X-Men: The Last Stand, where the Phoenix is some sort of dark, alternate personality of Jean’s. Just make it the fucking Phoenix Force already! It’s a god like force from outer space for chrissake, embrace the material! Oh well, take a look at the trailer and judge for yourself. As another YouTuber put it in his breakdown video of this trailer, at this point I’m kind of just hoping for it to be entertaining. If it’s close to Apocalypse, which I know a lot of people hated, that will be good enough for me. Then we can move on to where Marvel’s Merry Mutants really belong… in the MCU!
On the other hand we have this SICK red band trailer for Hellboy which is coming out in April. I’ve been 100% on board with this one for a while now. This trailer just makes me feel even better about it. I will always lament that we never got to see the end of the Ron Perlman and Guillermo Del Toro Hellboy trilogy. However, life moves on and this looks fucking great.
I love David Harbour as Hellboy, I love that they’re using some new characters from the BPRD as part of the rich mythology of Hellboy’s world, and I love how it looks like they’re taking most of this story straight out of the comics. While the last two Hellboy films had been loyal to the Hellboy comics, the sequel in particular, was very much about using those pieces from the graphic novels to tell their own story. This seems to be more of an adaptation of some specific, great, epic Hellboy stories. To top it all off, this whole thing looks bad shit insane! Fucking sign me up! Check it out:
One of the great tragedies of the film world is that we’ll never get to see the completion of Guillermo Del Toro and Ron Perlman’s Hellboy Trilogy. Like RDJ as Iron Man, Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, and Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Ron Perlman simply IS Hellboy. He’s synonymous to the character. As much as we’d love to see the end of his and Del Toro’s epic tale, I’d rather have a new interpretation of Hellboy on the big screen that no Hellboy at all.
If you’re going to follow up an act like Guillermo Del Toro, you better have something good up your sleeve. What I love about everything that I’ve seen from this new Hellboy film, is that it seems like the filmmakers are blazing their own trail. They have a brand new TAKE that’s all their own. This isn’t a watered down version of Del Toro’s Hellboy. These new filmmakers realized that if they’re going to pick up the Hellboy torch, they better swing for the fences (to mix a few metaphors).
First of all, the folks behind this movie are going for a hard-R. Which makes sense considering director Neil Marshall is at the helm. He’s not know to pull punches with gore and brutality. In addition to cult classic feature films such as Dog Soldiers and The Descent, he’s directed two of the absolute best episodes of Game of Thrones: Blackwater and The Watchers on The Wall. With episodes of Constantine, Hannibal, and Westworld under his belt as well, it’s clear that Neil Marshall is the right man to bring a darker, bloodier Hellboy tale to the big screen.
The cast is pretty damn good as well. If you can’t have Ron Perlman, David Harbour (Sheriff Hopper from Strangers Things) is an inspired choice for Hellboy. He perfectly captures the mix of hero, outcast, and everyman that makes the character so endearing. I can’t think of a better choice for the role.
Rounding out the cast are some new faces in familiar roles and some really fucking cool characters from the comics who are making their live action debut in this movie. The great Ian McShane plays Hellboy’s adopted father and the head of the B.P.R.D., Prof. Bruttenholm (Pronounced “Broom”). Daniel Dae Kim is new to the franchise as fan favorite B.P.R.D. member Ben Daimio, a decorated soldier who died in battle and inexplicably came back from the dead immediately before his autopsy. In the Bad Guy department, Milla Jovavitch plays the villain, classic Hellboy Big Bad, Nimue The Blood Queen.
What’s so cool about this trailer if you’re a Hellboy fan, is how much of it is straight out of the comics. A bunch of the monsters you see Hellboy fight and a lot of the imagery from the trailer are straight out of the comic book. Specifically stories like “The Wild Hunt” that delt directly with Arthurian legend (I’m pretty sure The Sword In The Stone itself makes a cameo in this trailer). This movie was already a must watch for me, but after watching this trailer it’s easily rocketed to one of my most anticipated films of 2019.
I had the opportunity to sit down my with comic book artist Craig Rousseau and interview him about his work for Marvel, DC, and his creator owned projects! Craig has worked on characters like Impulse, Batman, Captain America, and The Avengers and has done excellent work with his creator owned projects such as PERHAPANAUTS and KYRRA published at Image and Darkhorse.When I met with Craig during an event at The Hall of Comics in Southborough, MA, we had a great discussion about his career in the comic book industry and I thank him for taking the time to answer my questions. Please enjoy my interview with Craig Rousseau! Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher and iTunes:
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