Mark has worked on numerous classics like The Town, The Departed, and Mystic River (pictured above)
On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, I sat down for an interview with Film Location Manager, Mark Fitzgerald. Mark has become synonymous with Boston filmmaking. You may not immediately recognize his name, but he’s left his mark on The City of Boston’s portrayal in movies like few people have. As Location Manager for dozens of films over the last two decades and beyond, he’s worked on movies all over the country, as well as some of Boston’s most iconic films. In our far reaching interview, we discuss how through his work with legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, David Mamet, and Ben Affleck, Mark has reshaped how this unique city has been brought to life on film. All this and much more, in this incredibly fascinating interview covering Mark’s prolific career in the movie business. This discussion was an absolute delight and I hope you enjoy listening to it, as much as I did recording it! Enjoy!
3 more films Mark worked on: Gone Baby, Gone, Good Will Hunting, & Patriots Day. His filmography includes, but is not limited to films such as The Equalizer 1 & 2, Grown Ups 1 & 2, That’s My Boy, Here Comes The Boom, Fever Pitch, and Ted 2, just to name a few!
Mark was kind enough to send me the photos below, which he really liked because of the circumstances behind them. While working on the film “21”, Mark and the rest of the production team where able to close off Massachusetts Ave. in Boston and land their camera mounted helicopter, which is no east feet! It had to be cleared with multiple government agencies, as well as the BPD. As he explained it to me, the director even wanted the 22 polls removed from each side the bridge. All of this to get a sweeping a shot of one of the actors on a motorcycle driving across the bridge. Despite all the difficulties and hard work they managed to get it all done! Unfortunately, as it sometimes happens, the shot ended up on the cutting room floor! (Mark is on the far right of the photos, wearing a long sleeve white shirt, jeans, and work boots)
Mark Fitzgerald is pictured on the far right in a white shirt and jeans
Mark’s next film hitting theaters is Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds, premiering later this year. When the pandemic allows for filming to begin, Mark’s next project will be working on the next movie from Academy Award winning director Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Big Short, Step Brother, Vice)!
Listen here:https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39770948 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Thanks for listening ! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
The Old Guard is a fun and exciting new action movie starring Charlize Theron, that premiered on Netflix this weekend. Based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez, set in the present day (with some flashbacks), the story follows a group of immortal warriors led by Charlize Theron’s Andy, short for her real name Andromache The Scythian. Andy’s team/army/surrogate family includes Booker, the youngest member of the team at a little more than 200 years old, as well as Joe and Nicky, a devoted couple who met fighting on opposite sides of The Crusades. Andy’s age is never definitively revealed, but she’s ancient, at least several thousand years old (according to IMDB, in a recent interview Charlize Theron revealed that her character is at least 6,000 years old).
For reasons they don’t fully understand, Andy and her team are among a very small, but very formidable group of people, who have all woken up one day to find that they’re no longer aging and cannot be killed. Riddled with bullets from an assault rifle, burned alive, drowning, explosions, it doesn’t matter how they die, but whether it takes a few seconds or a few minutes they always come back. They even have accelerated healing which will rapidly repair smaller injuries. There’s one catch though, despite the fact that these individuals have lived for thousands of years, one day for seemingly no rhyme or reason, they will get killed and not wake up. One day it is simply “their time”, as they put it. It’s different for each of them, but whether it’s after 500 years or 5,000 years, one their immortality will simply end. They learned this lesson first hand. The team has had other immortal members who’s time has run out. So each time they die, they wonder if this is the time they don’t wake back up.
The immortals have a tenuous psychic link to one another, causing them tooccasionally share memories of past events through dreams. Most importantly, this link allows them to become instantly aware of when another immortal is activated. It’s an extremely jarring and vivid psychic experience because an new immortal is so rare. They’re all given mental pieces of an image that they collectively put together to identify and locate their latest brother or sister in arms.
In this case, the new immortal is a young African-American woman in her early twenties named Nile (played by Kiki Layne), serving in the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Afghanistan. While on a mission to find a dangerous terrorist, Nile’s throat it cut open and dies in the arm of one of her fellow soldiers. When Nile wakes up in a medical tent, having recovered from a mortal neck wound without a scratch, she doesn’t know what the fuck is happening to her. Fortunately (I guess?) Andy, heads off to find Nile, get her the fuck out of Afghanistan, and give her the 411 on how her life as she knew it, is over. From there we’re off to the races.
Charlize Theron (“Andy”); Kiki Layne (“Nile”)
I haven’t seen the actress who plays Nile in many other projects, but I liked her a lot in The Old Guard. Nile, naturally, has some serious questions for Andy and she expects to get answers. Because the audience will have many of the same questions as Nile, this is a decent way for the film to get some exposition out of the way. It’s not the most creative storytelling method in the world, but it works well enough. Plus, I enjoyed the scenes of the relatively idealistic Nile bouncing off of Charlize Theron’s much more jaded Andy.
There were two aspects of this film that I thought were particularly well done. The first was the surprising amount of time that was spent on character work. Don’t get me wrong, this movie isn’t gonna be winning any awards, but for what it is they spent more time investing the audience in the characters that I thought they would. One of my favorite things about this movie was the existential crisis Charlize Theron’s character deals with through in the film. Andy is by far the oldest of all the immortals, thousands of years at least. For their entire lives Andy and her team, both living and the ones they’ve lost, have been warriors who fought for what they believed to be right. Mankind’s blood soaked angel on it’s shoulder. After all the death, all the fighting, the wars, the people she’s lost, Andy has just had enough. She’s walked the earth for thousands of years, trying to protect humanity to make it something more. But when she looks around at the world she sees today, it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. This is the dark side of immortality, the other side of the coin that people don’t think about. Sure, it sounds great on paper, to never die, to live forever. What good is living forever if you have nothing worth fighting for, nothing to live for? Everything and everyone around you eventually dying and leaving you alone again. Immortality can be a prison worse than death (and without going into spoiler territory here, believe me there are seats far, far worse than death).
This is a great video about adapting the comic book to film
This movie also answers one of the greatest questions in all of fiction: what happened to Dudley Dursley after the Harry Potter movies? Apparently he became the evil head of a pharmaceutical corporation focused on slowing (or stopping) the aging process! He’s looking to cell in mortality in a pill form to the richest of the rich. I love the Harry Potter films and I want to see the actors do well, but actor Harry Melling as Merrick, the films villain doesn’t stand out among the 10 million other versions of the “Evil Billionaire CEO”. This is by far the weakest and most least interesting aspect of the film. However, Nile, Andy and her team of bad-asses needed to bunch of guys to kill at the end of the movie and who better to supply that than a piece of shit pharmaceutical CEO who looks like Harry Potter’s abusive cousin?
There is one bright spot in the evil pharmaceutical company storyline. Chiwetel Ejiofor in small role as a former CIA operative who hires the team for a job that goes real south, real quick. His character provides the only heart in his part of the movie and like several characters in the film, is more morally complex than you think.
Joe and Nicky. Two immortals who are deeply in love with each other, who met fighting on opposite sides of The Crusades.
Like I said before, there were two things in this movie that I thought were done particularly well, the second being the action and fight choreography. In fact, most characters in this movie are more fleshed out than you might expect going into it. It’s one of the things that helps The Old Guard stand out from the pack. Andy’s team of fellow immortals could have been just 3 bad-asses it’s one or two lines covering their backstory. The fact that they took the time to put just a little bit more effort into it, makes this a cut above the rest of similar films. Things like Joe and Nicky‘s deep and passionate love for one another that still burns bright despite the millennia they’ve spent together. When Booker tells Nile that attempting to stay in the lives of the people they love, will bring her and her family only suffering, heartbreak, and ruin, his anguish makes it clear he’s speaking from experience. The film wisely gives it’s characters enough meat on their backstory and their personalities to make them interesting to watch, so you actually give a shit about what’s happening to them. It’s a lesson that way too many action films have forgotten. The difference between a decent or good action movie and great action movie, is cast of characters that you care about.
This is an action film after all and the fight and combat sequences stood out to me as the second big thing that really impressed me about The Old Guard. With so many fantastic examples of innovation and creativity in action and fight choreography, it’s can be difficult for any movie to stand out from the crowd and show the audience something that feels fresh and unique. The Old Guard has multiple impressive fight scenes, using a combination of modern guns and old world weapons like swords and axes. What’s so cool about the way the immortals fight, is that over centuries of combat, they’ve become masters at virtually every weapon and fighting style. So they don’t just use multiple weapons, they use those weapons to complement one another. Assault rifles, swords, and fists whirl together in a way that each weapon’s is enhanced by the use of the other. A gun is perfectly used to take out a target in one move while also setting up an ax to take out another target three moves later. It’s a really cool style of fight choreography that really makes this team feel dangerous. These people have been fighting the worst armies in the history of mankind and they fucked them up on a regular basis. Your best bet would encountering one of these mortals would be to drop your weapon and run like hell on the other direction and even that might not be enough to save you. There’s a scene less than half hour into the film where we see the team really cut loose for the first time in combat and we get to see exactly what these people are capable of and it’s fucking awesome.
This is a great behind the scenes video showing how those incredible fight scenes for the film were achieved.
A sequel to The Old Guard is already in the works. Apparently this was envisioned by Netflix and Co-creator/writer Greg Rucka been talk of making this a trilogy of films on Netflix and I hope that story turns out to be true because I enjoyed the hell out of The Old Guard. I definitely recommend giving this one a watch.
An early UFO photo taken during a spike in UFO sightings in the mid-20th Century
The term UFO is often misunderstood, when most people hear “UFO“, they think: Aliens. The reality is much more complicated and if you’re willing to keep an open mind, on this thrilling new episode of The World’s Best Podcast, we discuss one of our favorite subjects: The worldwide UFO phenomena. Big Paul Sr. and I go over what we think is some pretty convincing evidence of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth (including recently declassified U.S Military UFO documentation). We’ll promise you this, even if you think the idea that intelligent life, from somewhere else in the universe, visiting Earth is complete nonsense, this is still a damn fun podcast and we guarantee you’ll be entertained!
Throughout this episode, I mentioned several books, interviews, and documentaries that I recommend taking a look at (especially if you want to learn more about what we covered in this week’s podcast) so they’re included below. As well as a few videos, including the declassified military material, showing U.S. fighter jets engaging multiple UFO’S:
UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record
An Image Of The Phoenix Lights, A Still Unexplained Mass UFO Sighting In 1997, Witnessed By Thousands Of People In Arizona and Nevada:
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/36905732 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
On this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, Big Paul Sr. returns to the show for a sobering reminder of how aging can lead to a steep cognitive decline! More importantly, we cover the big news of the week: Michael Keaton may be returning to play Batman alongside Ezra Miller’s Flash, in the upcoming Flashpoint movie? The man who many people think is still the best to ever wear the cape and the cowl, returning to the role of The Dark Knight is extremely exciting!
Getting a Flash movie to the big screen has been an enormous struggle for DC and Warner Brothers. The film has already gone through multiple writers/directors and was originally scheduled for release more than two years ago. Barring anymore disasters, The Flash is going to be helmed by Andy Muschietti, who directed the recent hit horror films, IT and IT: Chapter Two. Despite all the drama behind the scenes, one thing has remain constant: The Flash film will be an adaptation of the seminal Flash storyline, Flashpoint.
Left: The Flash will be directed by Andy Muschietti, the filmmaker behind “IT” & “IT: Chapter Two”; Right: Art from Flashpoint, the story said to the focus of the upcoming Flash film.
Written by Geoff Johns with art by Andy Kubert, Flashpoint told the story of Barry Allen (The Flash) going back in time to prevent his mothers murder. However, changing this one event has dire and far reaching consequences that Barry never could have foreseen. Barry finds himself in a much darker and dangerous version of the DCU that he knows. Kind of like Back To The Future II. However, one of the most significant and interesting changes is revealed when Barry heads to Wayne Manor to seek out the help of his friend and fellow JL member, Batman. When Barry enters The Batcave, a nearly psychotic Batman attacks him. At which point Barry makes a horrifying discovery, the man underneath the bat cowl is actually Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s father! As a result of Barry‘s manipulation of the timeline, one of the major changes effected the creation of The Dark Knight on that fateful night in Crime Alley, in Gotham City all those years ago when The Wayne’s were attacked by a mugger. Bruce was now the one shot and killed, instead of his parents. So Thomas Wayne became Batman. A much more violent and unhinged Batman. Working together, Barry and Thomas Wayne set out to fix the timeline. That’s the set up.
The Batman (Thomas Wayne) of The Flashpoint timeline
This is just speculation on my part, but like a lot of comic book adaptations of specific stories, I think a lot of liberties will be taken with the source material with this Flashpoint film. A good example is Captain America: Civil War, that story was based on the miniseries Civil War and is vastly different from the source material. So what I think will happen is, maybe instead of an alternate timeline, Barry will enter an alternate universe, like the universe of Tim Burton’s Batman and that’s where he’ll meet and team up with Michael Keaton‘s Dark Knight. Maybe he travels to another alternate universe with Barry, I don’t know how it will work. But you can definitely see how they could fit Michael Keaton’s Batman into a story like this.
I know DC also wants to use Keaton in a role similar to Nick fury in the MCU, one example that’s been rumored suggests Keaton’s Batman showing up in a Batgirl movie. However, I think if DC and Warner Bros. want to do a film about a young Bat-themed hero, they would be crazy not to adapt Batman Beyond. It works perfectly, an older Bruce Wayne played by Keaton, training Terry McGinnis as the next Batman in futuristic Gotham City. It was a phenomenal TV series and it could be a phenomenal film series, as well.
Bottom line is, there a lot of thrilling possibilities with Michael Keaton returning to play Batman and all of them are exciting! We get into in all on this episode so, enjoy!
The Flash or Flashpoint (whatever they end up calling it) is currently set to hit theaters on June 3, 2022
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/33382238 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter@PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
The long awaited and much anticipated new miniseries from DC Comics, Dark Nights: Death Metal, is finally here and today I’m reviewing the first issue! About once a year, usually in the summer, both of “The Big Two” comic book publishers, DC and Marvel, will put out an epic miniseries “Event”. These are the no holds barred stories, where seemingly anything can happen! Typically, even though one character or one particular team will be the focus of the story, these Events affect and involve the entire DCU or Marvel Universe. These stories tend to have casts of thousands! With huge, status quo changing moments! Whenever the publishers at Marvel or DC are talking about their latest Event Miniseries, they like to say things like, “After this story nothing will ever be the same!”. When you’ve been reading comics as long as I have, there are certain things that you tend to expect to see when one of these big stories come out. There are usually some major character deaths, surprise resurrections, heroes turning into villains and vice versa, things like that. Classic DC and Marvel stories like Crisis On Infinite Earths, Infinity Gauntlet, and Civil War are some examples of Event Comics. Like many things, some of them suck and other become classics.
One of the best superhero Events of the last decade was Dark Nights: Metal written by Scott Snyder and art by Greg Capullo. That story saw the DCU being invaded by the evil, cosmic forces of the previously unknown Dark Mutiverse. The Dark Multiverse is a nightmare realm where the deep fears of everyone in The DCU are made manifest. These are the worlds where everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. The Dark Multiverse was ruled by an evil god-like entity called Barbatos. When he came to attack and claim the DCU, his generals were all dark, twisted versions of Batman.
The most terrifying and formidable of the evil Bruce Waynes from across The Dark Multiverse was, without a doubt, The Batman Who Laughs. In his home reality, after The Joker killed Jim Gordon and a shit load of other people, Bruce Wayne finally had enough of the atrocities committed by The Joker and killed him by snapping his neck. BUT The Clown Prince of Crime had one last surprise for his longtime nemesis, The Joker created a toxin that would be released from his body at the moment of his death and turn whoever killed him into the next Joker. The insidious toxin burned away Bruce’s humanity. Batman lost of all his morality, compassion, and empathy. Batman, under normal circumstances, is already as Superman once put it, “The most dangerous man alive.”. This version Batman, without the moral code that stops him from going too far, is a terrifying and unbeatable cosmic horror. Now he’s the apex predator of The Multiverse. Because a Batman Who Laughs is a Batman who always wins.
The Justice League managed to defeat Barbatos and his army of evil Batmen (The Batman Who Laughs managed to stick around The DCU), but it came with huge unforeseen consequences. In defeating one dark god, they unknowingly unleashed another: Perpetua, The Mother and Creator of The Multiverse. However, when Perpetua was freed, it took time for her to regain her full power. She needed help and a certain bald, alien hating, billionaire businessman/scientific genius was just the megalomaniac for the job…
Perpetua: Creator of The Multiverse
One of the major ongoing stories in DC Comics over the last few years has followed Lex Luthor (with the help of The Legion of Doom) as he attempted to pull off his most ambitious cosmic power grab to date. Luthor set out to unlock the hidden powers of the universe and restore Perpetua to her full strength. Luthor’s endgame was to help Perpetua regain control of The Multiverse and rule over all of creation alongside her as her right hand and most trusted disciple. Everything was going according to Luthor’s plan, that is until The Batman Who Laughs showed up. He managed to make the case to Perpetua that he, not Luthor, was the one worthy of becoming her most valuable acolyte. Luthor had done all the work and The Batman Who Laughs snatched everything right out from under him. Perpetua agreed, and Luthor was cast aside.
Dark Nights: Death Metal is not only a sequel to Dark Nights: Metal, it also builds upon many of the major stories Scott Snyder and others have been telling in the DCU since the end of the first Dark Nights: Metal. Elements from Snyder‘s Justice League run, Doomsday Clock, Snyder’s Batman Who Laughs miniseries, The Flash, and more are all at play. I think one of the things that the story does really well, is that despite all of the groundwork the story has been built upon, it doesn’t feel like you need to have read all of those other stories to understand this one. It’s a more accessible tale than you might think. The story starts very much in the middle of the action, so even if you have read every single DC Comic Book that’s connected to this story, you’re still going to be playing catch-up. Everything in the story is so insane that, part of the fun is figuring out how the hell our heroes have found themselves in this crazy situation.
Without going into major spoilers, Earth has been pulled into The Dark Multiverse. The planet has become a terrifying nightmare-scape, ruled over by the cruel and sadistic Batman Who Laughs. Countless twisted and evil versions of Batman from throughout The Dark Multiverse act as his lieutenants and help enforce his will. Our heroes have lost so badly that to keep what’s left of humanity alive, heroes like Swamp Thing, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and others are forced work for The Batman Who Laughs and do his bidding. He’s given his version of the Justice League different roles to play in his new kingdom. They know that they can’t beat him. He holds all the cards in such a way that, the only way our heroes can protect the people that are left is to play his sick game and grudgingly work for him. The Batman Who Laughs is essentially holding a gun to the head of what’s left of humanity, to keep the former Justice League in line. It’s sort of reminds me of something out of Game of Thrones where noble characters have to bow down before a despicable ruler in the name of serving a greater good. Of course Batman, the real Batman that is out there somewhere, fighting almost like a guerrilla insurgency, desperately trying to pull off whatever ever he can to save whatever’s left of this broken Multiverse.
Despite the fact that the whole story is wrapped in Batman iconography and there are evil Batmen everywhere, Wonder Woman is the central character in this story. Themyscira, Wonder Woman’s former home, has literally become Hell, a jail for people that The Batman Who Laughs wants to keep out of the way and imprisoned. With Swamp Thing (who’s seen better days to say the least) as her right hand man and confidant, Wonder Woman has become Hell’s Jailer, The Warden of her desecrated homeland. Despite her dark circumstances, Wonder Woman is pretty fucking cool in this story and I love the choice to make her one of the central characters. She’s really the main character, at least in this issue. but considering what goes down in the first issue alone, I think it’s fair to say she’ll probably be taking center stage for the whole story. If this issue is any indication, that’s a fantastic idea. As cool as Batman is, as smart as he is, and is tough as he is, no one will fight to their last breath like Wonder Woman. She is not content to play her fucked up role in The Batman Who Laugh’s wasteland. Bruce thinks the fight is already lost and all they can hope to do is save whatever good is left. Wonder woman is not having that shit, she knows there must be a way to make things right, to put the universe back together again. And when a very important prisoner is sent to her by The Batman Who Laughs, Diana thinks she may have found her last chance to save the world.
To say anymore would spoil the fun. I will say this, they are not fucking around with this story. Snyder and Capullo have pulled out all of the fucking stops. This is only the first issue and there were at least three or four jaw-dropping moments in this comic book. I was fucking blown away. It’s impressive that while so much of what is going on in the story is dark and bleak, the story never loses it’s thrilling sense of fun. The heroes of the DCU are in rough shape, but it looks like watching them try to set things right is going to be a blast!
I think it’s safe to say at this point that Snyder and Capullo have established themselves as one of the best writer/artist teams in the history of comics. These are two guys operating at the absolute top of their game and it shows in the story. When Greg Capullo’s name is on a comic book, it’s a given that the art inside will be fantastic, but he really knocked it out of the park on this one. It would be easy to take Capullo’s incredible art for granted, because his work has produced so many phenomenal stories over the years. In Dark Nights: Death Metal, literally everything on each page is something totally new, even all of the classic DC heroes in this story are sporting completely new looks. There are so few artists that could pull off a story like this, with the level of excellence that Capullo delivers. Then there’s the coloring by FCO Plascencia (another long time collaborator of Snyder and Capullo’s) which is gorgeous in this issue. The way the bright, vivid colors of Wonder Woman contrast with the dark, more muted tones of the desolate wasteland that surrounds her, is beautiful to behold.
I’ll definitely say this I loved Dark Nights: Metal and this is a much better first issue than that story. I’m sure Snyder and Capullo would be happy to hear, that the comic book is definitely “Metal”. It rocks the fucking doors off, blows out the windows, and leaves you desperately wanting more. I cannot wait for the next issue, because Dark Nights: Death Metal fucking rules! 🤘
Dark Nights: Death Metal #1 – 9/10
Note: DC has put out a prelude storythat takes place right before issue #1 begins. You can read it for free on instagram! It’s pretty cool, so I definitely recommend checking it out. Read for free right here: https://t.co/vIJ8HkiZ23
Check out this art from issue #2 hitting stands in July…
On this episode of “The World’s Best Podcast”, I talk about some interesting fan theories regarding some of our favorite films, as well as some creepy Hollywood urban legends! For those of you who may not understand, when I say interesting Fan Movie Theories, we’re talking about picking up on subtext, hints, and other clues to formulate fun ideas and theories that aren’t necessary explicit and clear when watching a film. Don’t get me wrong, there have been one or two fan movies theories over the years that more or less turned. However, the vast majority of Fan Movie Theories are bullshit, but they sure are fun to discuss!
To name just a few of the movies covered in this episode:
The Dark Knight
The James Bond Franchise
Joker
Serenity
And much more!
Here are the 2 videos I referenced in this episode:
Mr. Sunday Movies
The Film Theorists
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/30763281 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
I haven’t read any of the Artemis Fowl books, so I’ll only be talking about the film, and I don’t know how it compares.
Artemis Fowl is a children’s film, in the vein of a Harry Potter, with a very special child protagonist. In this case, Artemis doesn’t have magic, or special powers, but he is a genius, according to him he’s a genius on the level of Albert Einstein. Which brings us to Artemis’s second character trait that we learn, Artemis is a little shit.
In the first minute or two of this film we learn those two things about him, and the rest of the film serves to really add depth to those two characteristics. His genius is bolstered and reiterated, but lack of experience, and fear really show us is humanity, which begins to undercut the ‘little shit’ aspect of his personality. The truth is, just like most cockiness (as opposed to confidence) Artemis is masking his true feelings with an act of superiority.
For a kid who is supposed to be one part criminal mastermind, one part James Bond, he can be forgiven for being a ‘little shit.’
As the film begins, and we learn about the character of Artemis, we also learn about the world of magic and fairies, and the fact that Irish folk lore is mostly true, or at least rooted in truth. Fairies, dwarves, trolls, and centaurs all live deep under the Earth’s surface hidden from humanity to keep the peace. As we see the fairy society, we get to see that they have magic, but that they’re also deeply technological, advanced beyond the humans on the surface.
We’re introduced to Mulch Diggums, played by Josh Gad, who is telling the story of the film to a faceless MI6 agent (I think it’s director Kenneth Branagh’s voice) through a camera in a black ops site. Mulch is a giant dwarf, and the source of most of the humor in the film. If you’re not a Josh Gad fan, this part might be a bit too much like Olaf for you, where he doesn’t 100% fit the rest of the tone of the film, but I really liked the lightness he brought.
Look kids it’s terrifying Olaf!
The thing that I think really stands out about this film, is that it’s fairly different than anything I’ve seen before. The combination of magic and technology mixes in a way that I’m not sure has been done before, and the visual style is very cool. There were some effects and concepts that I would say were Wachowskian in their originality and style, like a sequence in which a ‘time freeze barrier’ stops working, and we see many of the fairies (the L.E.P. Recon squad) getting tossed and turned through the barrier.
I think overall, this is a really fun film, and would strongly recommend it. I have deliberately not gone into too many spoilers, because I really think this film deserves to just kind of take you in one minute at a time. It’s wonderfully paced, not too scary for kids, but enough adventure for adults.
Overall rating: A- (Would have been a solid A if it weren’t for one really cheesy line by Judy Dench, and I think you’ll know what I mean when it happens.)
We’ve had a lot of great content on the site lately, so I wasn’t in a rush to post individual pages for the last couple of episodes of The World’s Best Podcast. Regardless, I still wanted to make sure I posted something about the latest episodes of the show. The first episode is my review of the DC Animated Movie, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. The 2nd and latest podcast is my review for the great new DC live-action superhero series, Stargirl. We have the links for both podcasts posted below. I like to go out of my way to create a webpage for each of the episodes of The World’s Best Podcast, so I can add some cool new content, some additional insight into the episode, or bonus material. I have trailers for Justice League Dark: Apokolips War and DC’s Stargirl posted below, along with some interesting stills, photos, and concept images to give you a closer look at the projects I’m reviewing in these 2 episodes. You can check out that content right here.
First up, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War…
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War! Superman and the Justice League decide to take the fight to Darkseid and lose… badly. 2 years later, with many of the heroes dead and Earth decimated by Darkseid’s forces, a desperate and de-powered Clark Kent turns to John Constantine for help with a suicidal plan to end the threat of Darkseid once and for all.
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/28915924 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Next, our latest episode reviewing the new series, DC’s Stargirl!
The new series based on the DC Comics hero, Stargirl created by Geoff Johns, will be airing on The CW and the DC UNIVERSE Streaming Service. The new show stars Brec Bassinger and Luke Wilson, the series also heavily features the heroes and villains from the classic DC comic book, JSA. Over the course of the first season, High School student Courtney Whitmore takes up the mantle of superhero, Stargirl with the help of her stepfather Pat (Luke Wilson), formally an unofficial member of the JSA who wears a giant robot super suit that he built, called S.T.R.I.P.E.
Together they’ll form a new generation of The JSA since the original JSA were killed by The Injustice Society. The society includes villains like Icicle, Solomon Grundy, Sportsmaster, Tigress, Brainwave, and The Dragon King.
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/29775621 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Villain Icicle, Series Hero & Main Character Courtney Whitmore AKA Stargirl, New Hero Hourman
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*Note: This article was written before the announcement that Ruby Rose, the actress who plays Batwoman, has left the series and will be replaced in Season 2.
Batwoman Season 1 ended almost two weeks ago, and I had intended to write a review on here when that happened, but I hadn’t realized the season had ended because it was an abrupt, COVID interrupted season. I won’t hold that against Batwoman obviously, and please don’t hold my tardiness on this subject against me.
I’m going to be frank with you, and tell you that while I might be in the minority, I really enjoyed Batwoman. I think there was a ton of things that were done really well. I also recognize that it had several faults, and I’m not blind to those. I think, for the sake of redemption, I will start us off with the parts that I don’t like, and work towards the things that made this show work for me.
What Fails:
I think it was back before the mid-season break, I had a conversation with Paul about the show, and one of the things that he pointed out that made no sense what-so-ever was the idea of The Crows. As I watched the second half of the season with this in mind, I realized he was completely right. The Crows, are Gotham’s premium and private ‘police’ service. They don’t exist in place of The GCPD, but in addition to it. They’re essentially independent contractors acting like Police, but with less restriction, and seemingly less self-restraint. A local law enforcement version of Blackwater.
At best, their existence doesn’t make any sense. With the appearance of Batwoman, a vigilante acting outside of the law, of course The Crows declare her to be a dangerous criminal who must be brought to justice. Complicating matters, The Crows are lead by Commander Jacob Kane (Batwoman’s father, who has no idea that his daughter is the vigilante). In similar situations like Arrow, Batman, or even Spider-Man, if a hero or vigilante is seen as a criminal, they’re usually being accused as such by the police. While there is room for argument on the morality of vigilante justice on either side, the legality of the situation is clear because The Police Dept., The D.A., are all part of law enforcement that governments put in place to protect the public. It all makes some sense. This isn’t the case in Batwoman with The Crows because they’re a private company, not operating with any kind of government oversight. The potentially interesting morality/logic of that dynamic isn’t really touched upon until the last episode or two, and even then only in passing.
Along with The Crows and their non-sensical existence, is Commander Kane. I think he fails on pretty much every front. I think the performance, with him trying to sound grizzly and hardened comes off as two dimensional and uninteresting. As for the characterization, he’s written to have the same black and white moral code that someone like Quentin Lance on Arrow had, but again Lance existed within a real Police Dept which made much more sense. Also, while Lance may have been tough on his children and perhaps a bit too rigid, he never really wrote them off. Whereas Kane’s love is barely existent at best, and far from unconditional. Do I think we need to portray every parent as having unconditional love for their children? No, but in these types of characters and stories it leads to some interesting inner conflict. Trying to justify your unconditional love for your children, when your children test your own moral code, makes for fascinating character drama. Commander Kane doesn’t do that. There are very few, if any, moments when it appears that indicate if he finds out his daughter Kate is Batwoman, that he’ll hesitate to treat her like any other criminal.
My last complaint about the show will probably be more controversial and this is way more a matter of opinion, but Kate sporadically write’s letters to the missing Bruce Wayne. It’s not the idea that she’s writing them that doesn’t work for me, it’s more a matter of delivery. There is something about it that comes across as awkward and unnatural, it interrupts the flow of the show. I think it is possible that it’s Ruby Rose, who is Australian, trying to do an American accent in these long slow, uber-articulated monologues, that doesn’t work.
What Works:
Three characters work perfectly for me on this show, there will be some mild-spoilers.
I think The Big-Bad, Alice, head of the Wonderland Gang, works perfectly. I would make the argument that she may be the best villain in The Arrowverse this season. Alice, as we learn very early on, is Kate’s twin sister, Beth. Beth was believed to be killed in a car accident when they were both 12 or 13. As the season plays out, we get to see how Alice isn’t just a menacing thug, but a deeply troubled (and for good reason) woman, who is trying to get reconcile a sense of normalcy with her sister and revenge with her father, step-mother and sister. Every emotional twist and turn is believable within the circumstances, and the performance by Rachel Skarsten rides those emotions completely and makes you feel genuine empathy for her, while also understanding that she must be stopped. I would argue that her character’s complexity exacerbates how poorly Commander Kane’s character is developed.
Alice’s right-hand man, is Mouse, who we learn is the son of the man who took Beth from the accident, and through neglect and abuse, turned her into Alice. Mouse is himself a very damaged man from his father, in addition to some physical scarring. Mouse has the ability to mimic any voice, and with Beth’s help, to make skin masks. He can turn into nearly any one within the show. It’s not Mouse’s abilities that make him interesting though. It’s his relationship with Alice/Beth. He starts off as her best friend, trying to help her exact her revenge. But as soon as Alices plan shifts from revenge to reconciliation, he begins to fear she’ll abandon him for not being enough. As well as expressing his own desire to eventually get away from Gotham and the chaos and pain he sees as being a symptom of the place.
Lastly, is Mary, Kate’s step-sister. Mary starts the show off appearing to be a vapid socialite, but its quickly revealed that she’s actually running an underground clinic for those who cannot afford emergency medical attention. She helps Batwoman early on, making something of a connection with her. Even as she struggles throughout the season with her relationship with Kate, which is strained by Kate’s distance, and Kate’s inability to let go of Beth. Mary’s feelings of inadequacy and longing to bond with Kate are well developed and expressed, and it comes to a head when she finds out Kate is Batwoman and Kate still refuses to tell Mary her secret.
How to Move Forward
The other three main characters in the show are a bit of a mixed bag for me. I think Ruby Rose as Kate is very good at the aloof part of the character, but in the genuine moments of connection, I think she’s still seems to struggle. It’s likely that they are trying to draw a parallel between her and Bruce Wayne, (but as someone who knows very little of the comic version of Bruce Wayne, take that with a grain of salt). However when you have so many characters who do have an emotional connection with Kate, like her sisters, her father, Luke Fox , or Sophie (her ex-girlfriend who works for her father on The Crows) the performance doesn’t work as well for me.
I think Luke had a pretty good second half of the season, but he didn’t start off great. There was a flatness in the character or the performance and it just didn’t work. What eventually won me over, is two-fold, Luke is very clearly the voice for the absent Bruce. As his relationship to Kate developed, he even shares things that perhaps he never would, about his loneliness, his responsibility. We also see Luke’s own dedication and search for justice by finding his father Lucius’s killer, and how he will risk his own life in order to protect his father’s secrets. As a small side note, Luke is the guy back at HQ role, so I like that he is very different from similar characters in The Arrowverse like Cisco, Felicity, and even Winn.
Sophie probably would have made the first section, except that I’m not sure she’s made enough of an impact on the show yet to say she’s failing. Sophie is kind of a bland character, who’s at her most interesting as we see her and Kate struggle throughout the beginning of the series. With Sophie being closeted and Kate being out, how this tore them apart in military academy, and is married to a man. On top of all that she also works for Kate’s father, it’s impossibly complicated between the two of them. The writers seem to have trouble picking a lane with Sophie, she’s not bold and empowered, nor is she timid and weak. She kind of flip-flops back and forth.
Going forward, into season 2, I think that these three characters can all be improved and really work for the show. I think with Kate, they were starting to work on the aloofness problem in the last couple of episodes, (maybe if they’d been given the whole season run I wouldn’t have this complaint at all). The same can be said with Luke, I think he was a slow start, but they’re getting there, and I hope that they go even further with him. With Sophie, I think she kind of has to embrace herself more in season 2, even if she goes a bit overboard at first, it would make sense, and propel her forward.
I think they should find someway in season 2 (and I kind of think they may have been working toward this at the end of season 1) of getting rid of The Crows. They just don’t work. Getting rid of them wouldn’t be difficult from a writing stand-point, and I would argue that if you just put one character in (a Mayor or something) who realizes how ridiculous they are, dismantling them could take a couple of episodes tops.
As for Commander Kane, there are three options that I see, they could kill him off, try to turn him into a human with emotions (I don’t really think this works without ignoring some of what we already have seen of him), or lastly make him outright a villain. The series could dismantle The Crows and Kane could become a vigilante hell bent on avenging them, it’s the only way I think you can keep him on the show and have him work. I just really think the dude is broken beyond repair.
The letters to Bruce Wayne are maybe the toughest fix. I think the series has been fairly inconsistent in doing them to be completely honest, I think maybe they should just get rid of them altogether. At the end of the finale, Alice has transformed the villain Hush, into a doppelgänger of Bruce Wayne. I think having a few episodes of ‘Bruce Wayne’ around will make the letters redundant. Unless Kate knows right off the bat (I swear that wasn’t intended) that he’s not the real Bruce.
The Verdict:
The show has a lot of potential, and needs a lot of growth, but I think it’s a worthy inclusion to The Arrowverse. If they work out the kinks in Season 2, there could be some really cool opportunities for interesting character work. Don’t go in expecting a finely tuned machine, but a diamond in the rough.
Like many other kids of my generation, I grew up playing video games on Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. However, by the time I got to high school, I rarely played and pretty much lost interest in video games. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking gaming, it’s just that, at the time, it wasn’t my thing anymore. One of my close friends kept gaming and every once in a while, he’d send me a cool video, like the cinematic teaser for one of the Batman Arkham games and I was always impressed. It was clear that gaming had made a big jump forward, but I was just intrigued more than anything else. I wasn’t exactly ready to dive headfirst back in to playing video games.
Not long after, the same friend of mine and I were meeting up with another group of people to grab dinner and I was supposed to meet my buddy at his place. I was a few minutes early and he was wrapping up playing one of the Uncharted games. I was completely blown away by what I was seeing. It was so incredibly cinematic, with 360° visibility, amazing rendering of characters and environments. The cherry onto for me was that it wasn’t just a game, but a real story with well developed characters. I’m sure this sounds stupid to a lot of you, but for me this is a quantum leap forward in video gaming. It felt like he was playing an Indiana Jones movie. I even remember the part of the game he was playing. It was (at least for me, at the time) a mind-bogglingly cool action sequence, involving Nathan Drake and some bad guys, on a cargo plane, with an open hold door, flying over the desert. I was sold. I never looked at videos games the same way.
I haven’t played as much as I’d have liked to over the last year, but there’s a new game coming out in a few weeks will definitely change that: The Last of Us Part II. The is sequel to, in my opinion, one of the best games ever created, The Last of Us. When The Last of Us came out on PS3, it was the best story, in any medium, of 2013. The best analogy I could use to describe The Last of Us, would be that it feels like you’re “playing” a movie and that doesn’t even do the game justice.
The Last of Us, from the video game developer Naughty Dog, tells the story of Joel, a bitter, cynical, middle aged man and teenage Ellie, as they make their way across a post-Apocalyptic United States. Of course, they have to contend with weird, zombie like creatures roaming the country. Oh, and our heroes have to deal with the worst monsters of all… other human survivors! Dah, dah, duhn! I’m sure this may sound like a cliched story you’ve heard too many times before, but The Last of Us is in a class all its own. I became more invested in the character’s of Joel and Ellie than the characters in the books I was reading or the movies I was watching that summer. If you’ve ever played the game, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was a masterpiece. A beautiful piece of art. Now, in just a few short weeks, we will get a chance to revisit Joel, Elle, and their broken, but not completely hopeless, world when The Last of Us Part II launches on 5/29/2020!
Now take a look at the new trailer below….
…And this really cool behind the scenes video from the creators of the game, as well:
The Last of Us II drops on 5/29/20
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
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