ant-man – Dangerous Universe

Ant Man: Small setting, big stakes

Feature, MoviesJuly 6, 2018June 23, 2018

I know for a fact that if I could somehow get a message to myself when I was a teenager and tell past-Bert that the biggest movies in the cineplexes would be based on Marvel comic characters I don’t think I would believe my future-self. Back in the 1990s, not only were comic books and comic collectors perceived as being quite lame, but the very few successful movies based on comics that were being released were all from DC. The ones from Marvel were so bad they were skipping theaters entirely and going straight to video.

If I might not believe the popularity of the Marvel movies, I know I wouldn’t believe my future-self if I would have included that one of the biggest movies to date was going to be one featuring the character of Black Panther and that other characters like Ant Man would have their own film franchises too. That would’ve been too crazy to believe.

Yet we do live in a time where a character like Ant Man, who when I was collecting comics was almost entirely irrelevant, has his own successful movie series, the second of which Ant Man and The Wasp now in theaters.

Not quite your typical Marvel movie, the first Ant Man (2015) was an interesting mix of a heist, science, action and comic book movie all rolled into one. Whereas most comic book movies feature a big villain coming down to destroy the Earth or otherwise murder a lot of people, in Ant Man the setting is small but the stakes are still big.

Ex-con Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is forced to become the next Ant Man from the first iteration of the hero Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Pym’s been hiding his technology for decades after he lost his wife during a mission and needs Lang who’s good at breaking into places and stealing things to stop Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) who’s on the verge of recreating the tech for his own nefarious purposes.

What happens if Cross wins? He’ll be able to sell the shrinking technology to the bad guys who will be able to do all sorts of bad guy things using it. But the world probably isn’t going to end because of it.

What’s interesting too about Ant Man is because the conceit of the film is that Lang can shrink down to the size of an ant, much of the film takes place in small, confined environments that usually don’t feature superhero battles. One part of the movie takes place in the bottom of a bathtub made cavernous because of Lang’s size, another inside a briefcase as it falls from the sky while the final battle between Lang and Cross has the most unique setting of any superhero battle I can think of.

It occurs in Lang’s daughter’s bedroom, but because the antagonists are teeny-tiny small things like her toy train set and stuffed animals become impossible large. At one point, the two are riding on the train and are trying to zap one and other with laser bolts of death. But when the camera cuts away to what the daughter sees at regular size, it’s a small, almost unnoticeable fight where those explosions come off as mere sparks you might miss if you weren’t paying really close attention.

Ant Man was one of the first modern superhero movies to have a comedic tone yet isn’t a spoof. It’s got all the elements of the traditional comic book movie, costumes, big action scenes, characters with personal problems, but it’s takes more of a fun approach to the material than most movies do. In the heavy Captain America: Civil War movie where the superheroes aren’t superfriends anymore, one of the two characters brought in to lighten things up during one of the big battles is Scott Lang.

This new Ant Man and The Wasp movie is set to team up Lang and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) as two characters with the power to shrink who must face off against the Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) who not only can shrink but she can easily move through things just like a, well, ghost.

Direct Beam Comms #126

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVMay 6, 2018May 5, 2018

TV

Are TV season finales important now with streaming series? They still are somewhat important for shows that air on network or cable channels, even if people still watch those shows time-delayed on their DVR. But for streaming services, since viewers can watch the shows at their own pace, be it binging an entire season the night it premiers, doling out one episode a week at a time or even waiting months/years to start watching, no one is watching the finales at the same time. And while I love streaming series I feel a bit of a loss for shows that air there.

Let’s look a Stranger Things. The second season of that show premiered on October 24 of last year at midnight Pacific. By the time I was checking the news sites that morning there were already in-depth reviews for a good chunk of the season. And by the end of the day many sites had posted reviews of the finale. So, before most people even had a chance to start watching Stranger Things there were a few people already discussing the finale. I’d guess that by the end of the premiere weekend a good percentage of Stranger Things fans too had binged through the show and were done too.

But for people like me who were watching one episode a week it meant we weren’t finishing until sometime in late November/early December. And by that time most of the talk about the show was done. When I’d talk with friends who’d already binged the show I was met with, “Oh yeah, I think I remember that. It was so long ago… I’m not sure.”

So that collective discussion pop-culture fans used to have about shows mostly isn’t happening for streaming series since everyone’s finishing at different times. For a show like Stranger Things that debuted around Halloween I’d say talk about it online was pretty much over by the end of November.

Shows like Stranger Things don’t so much as have a finale as they do a spectacular, exciting launch and then after a few weeks they pretty much just go away from public consciousness. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just the reality of modern-day TV watching.

Still, shared experience finales aren’t totally dead. Series that run on network or cable platforms air on a week-to-week basis. A show like Westworld can debut at the start of October and since viewers can’t binge it until the season’s complete they have to watch it week-to-week. So, as the first season of Westworld started winding down towards the end of November there was still excitement about the show online with viewers spending the week dissecting each episode and having theories about where the story was going and how things were going to end.

I know that for most people binging is the preferred way to watch TV. If you’re enjoying something why stop, why not plow through the story and find out how it ends? Which is true, but to me I’d rather savor the story for as long as possible. I think binging a show means you’re not catching the details, you’re not paying attention to what’s all happening and you don’t have time to digest what’s all going on in the story. You’re just going as fast as possible to make it to the end like a race car driver.

And it makes the finales of the shows less and less important. How can they be important when some people will be watching them a few hours after the series premiered while others might not be seeing it for months?

Comics

Robotech Archives: Macross Saga Volume 1

Titan Comics is set to republish the collection of Robotech comic books that originally ran in the 1980s and 1990s starting with Robotech Archives: Macross Saga Volume 1. Covering the first third of the Marcoss series originally published by First Comics, these editions are a, shall we say, “maybe buy” for me. I’m a huge fan of all things Robotech and I collected some of the original Robotech comics when I was a kid. I say “maybe buy” since I’m not sure if the comics are any good or not? I’m worried that I wouldn’t be buying the collection to read, but for the nostalgia factor alone and they’d just be another thing taking up room on a shelf somewhere.

Not that I haven’t done that many times before with many other things!

Movies

Ant Man and The Wasp trailer

Teen Titans GO! To the Movies trailer

The Reading List

Cool Movie Posters of the Week

2018 summer movie preview

Feature, MoviesMarch 16, 2018March 19, 2018

For the first time in a decade Marvel won’t be kicking off the summer movie season by opening a movie the first Friday in May! They’ve decided to start summer a week early and will launch Avengers: Infinity War on April 27. If The Avengers was the movie that brought together all the separate heroes in the Marvel movie universe, then Avengers: Infinity War is the movie that will bring together all the teams from The Avengers, the Black Panther contingent to Guardians of the Galaxy and basically everyone else too in order to do combat with the villainous Thanos (Josh Brolin) in a battle that’s been brewing in that cinematic universe for years now.

The R-rated surprise smash of 2016 Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is set to return with more superhero movie mayhem with Deadpool 2 on May 18. The movie studio has been pretty tight-lipped with this one plot-wise, other than to reveal it will introduce two fan-favorite comic characters Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Cable (once again, Josh Brolin who really is “Mr. Summer” this year).

A fourth modern Star Wars film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, is due out May 25. Right now, Solo is more well-known for what went on behind the scenes with its original directors being fired months ago and director Ron Howard being brought on to finish the film. Supposedly, Solo will feature the first meeting between the title character played by Alden Ehrenreich and his furry co-pilot Chewbacca sometime before the events of the very first Star Wars.

The Ocean’s 11 series of movies gets a follow-up with the “don’t call it a ‘reboot’” Ocean’s 8 on June 6. This time, Sandra Bullock stars as Debbie Ocean and will lead the likes of Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter and Mindy Kaling in order to pull of some amazing heist at a stunning local.

Fourteen years after the original film Incredibles 2 blasts into theaters on June 15. The nice thing about this superhero family lead by Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter is that even though the first movie took place so long ago it doesn’t really matter since it’s animated and characters don’t have to age when they’re computer generated. Reportedly, this one deals with superhero pop Mr. Incredible (Nelson) playing stay-at-home dad to infant Jack-Jack while Elastigirl (Hunt) is out saving the world.

A second film in the Jurassic World franchise entitled Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom hits theaters June 22. If the first Jurassic World was a bigger remake of Jurassic Park then Fallen Kingdom sure seems like it’s a bigger remake of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Here, the cast of Jurassic World including Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard have to venture back to the ruined, dinosaur crawling island for one reason or another that I’m sure will make sense within the confines of the movie.

Ant-Man and the Wasp, the sequel to Ant-Man, will skittle into cinemas July 6. The third Marvel movie of the summer, this time instead of having just Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) having to do battle with the bad guys he’ll also be joined with the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) forming an incredible shrinking team.

A sixth (!!!!) Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, zooms into theaters on July 27. This film franchise might have a lot going against it from its action star Tom Cruise being in his mid–50s, nearly as old as John Voight was in the first one when he played a nearing retirement behind-the-desk Jim Phelps to none of the films in the franchise having a coherent plot. Yet I adore the Mission Impossible franchise and welcome each new one with a lot of anticipation.

One TV series that the pre-teen set is really into these days is the animated Teen Titans Go! which makes its way to theaters in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies also on July 27. This over-the-top series pokes fun at the whole superhero genera with characters like Robin, Starfire and Cyborg who crack-wise and almost never get into fights with the villains. Reportedly the plot to this one has the Teen Titans thinking they deserve a movie too after seeing all sorts of other DC heroes get movies with them stuck on TV.

I can’t wait!

The Best Movie and TV Posters of 2015

Feature, Movies, TVDecember 4, 2015December 2, 2015

2015 was a so-so year when it came to movie and TV posters. There were several strong poster designs in 2015, but in a year when dozens of movie and TV posters were released — there were only a few strong poster designs among the masses.

The best poster of 2015 was for the WGN TV series Salem.

Honestly, I don’t watch Salem. I tried but it’s not a series I could get into. However, after having seen one of the posters for the second season of the series it was an image that I couldn’t get out of my head and made me want to check out the show again.

The image features one of the witches of Salem perched atop the cross of a church. Except the poster is upside down and she’s not so much “perched” as she’s really hanging off the cross defying gravity. And with the image being rotated, off balance and the use of an inverted cross and all that connotes, I’m surprised the designers of this poster were allowed to execute this design at all. But they were/did and it’s one of the more striking images I’ve ever seen on a movie or TV poster in quite some time.

I can’t decide if I LOVE or HATE the poster campaign for the movie Ant-Man, but since I’m still thinking about it months after it was released I decided it needed to be on this list. The early posters for Ant-Man featured the title character who has the power to shrink atop Avengers things like Captain America’s shield, Thor’s hammer and Iron Man’s shoulder. It’s a neat way to both introduce the character to an audience who’s probably unaware as to who the character is, to show that he fits in with the other Marvel movies and even bring in some of the comedy elements to the film too since the photos feature a teeny-tiny man who has some large shoes to fill.

ant_man

There’s a few things that I don’t like about the poster for the TV show Supergirl but there’s a lot more that I do like. The poster is simple, with just the title character swooping down between skyscrapers with a blue sky in the background. But it’s what this poster does so well that many other movie and TV posters fail to do; it sets tone and expectations for the series.

supergirl_mission_impossible_man_from_uncle

Another poster that I think sets expectations well is the one for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Pulled straight from the movie trailer, the poster has lead character Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) holding onto the side of an airplane for life as it lifts into the sky. Where the tendency of most movie posters these days is to cram as much onto the poster as possible, from actor’s names to movie title to tagline to who the director is… the poster for Rogue Nation is one of the more simpler ones out there with just the movie title, release date and other minor legalese on it.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. flopped at the box office, but that doesn’t mean that the poster promoting this film was a flop. Much like with the poster for Rogue Nation, the poster for U.N.C.L.E. takes the simpler is better approach, though not to the extreme that the poster for Rogue Nation did. Here, we get a shot of the two leads along with the title on a yellow background. And while the poster might not have a lot to it, the contrast between the two figures on a simple background makes this one catch the eye.

mad_max

I really liked the poster campaign for the movie Mad Max Fury Road. Not only does it feature some nice images, but the contrasting warm/cool color combination and off-balanced layouts make these posters very appealing.

The posters for Fury Road are the question to the answer of how exactly do you sell a movie that’s a continuation of a series that’s been going on since the ‘70s? What the designers did here was rather than try and copy what was used in the past, to instead come up with something new that borrows from the look and feel from the film while at the same time showcasing the new actors in the Mad Max universe as well.

2015 Summer movie preview

UncategorizedMarch 20, 2015March 9, 2015

With three movies due out it seems as if Marvel Entertainment has bought and now owns the naming rights to summer. The first of which is The Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1. Really The Avengers Part 2, or is it Iron Man Part 5…, Age of Ultron has the whole team back together again battling the robotic Ulton, one of the most iconic Avengers villains. Much like with the first Avengers flick, the fate of the very Earth will hang in the balance in this film!

Except since there are two more Marvel movies out this summer and a whole slew of Marvel films scheduled for theaters all the way up until 2019, I think the fate of the Earth has already been decided in a corporate board room.

Mr. Road Warrior himself Mad Max returns to the hellish highways of the apocalypse on May 15 in Max Max: Fury Road. This fourth outing for the character, with Tom Hardy in the title role and co-starring Charlize Theron, has Max trying to rescue a group of fellow apocalyptic travelers from the clutches of a crazed outlaw gang of motorheads.

In other words: More merry Mad Max mayhem!

A remake of the family-scarer Poltergeist is out May 22. I’m interested in this one, if just because the original 1982 film about a girl vanished into the guts of a family’s haunted house gave me the heebie-jeebies as a youngster. I mean, Poltiergeist has one of the kids in the movie being practically eaten alive by a tree one minute and terrorized by a clown doll the next. C’MON!

It helps that this new Poltergeist is being produced by Evil Dead horror auteur Sam Raimi too.

A fourth Jurassic Park movie, Jurassic World, is set to bring a little chaos to theaters June 12. While this is being billed as a sequel to the first three films from 1993 to 2001, to me Jurassic World looks to be an reboot of the Jurassic Park franchise as a whole. The trailer for this one has a slew of people visiting Jurassic Park when something goes wrong that turns loose the dinosaurs to chomp on some unsuspecting folks. Or, it’s a bigger version of Jurassic Park sans the guiding hands of Steven Spielberg.

Terminator: Genesys, the fifth film of that franchise, will “be back” in theaters July 1 with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Due to the vagaries of time travel, this time he’s joined by a young Sarah Connor (now Emilia Clarke) as the two along with Reese (now Jai Courtney) fight off a bunch of different and deadly terminators out to put an end to the Connor timeline once and for all. Or at least until the next movie.

Marvel movie #2 is Ant-Man out July 17. There’s not too much known about this one other than it stars Paul Rudd in the title role of a superhero who can turn incredibly small. But if Ant-Man follows the Marvel Mold™ of late it’s no doubt that the fate of the planet will be in Ant-Man’s teeny-tiny hands.

A fifth Mission: Impossible movie, simply titled Mission: Impossible 5, is out July 31. Even though I probably shouldn’t I’ve enjoyed the Mission: Impossible movies since the first one was released in ’96. Even if the missions the M:I teams have gone on over the years/sequels have gone from impossible to impossibler to “there’s no way in heck they’d be able to do any of this stuff whatsoever!”

The final Marvel movie out this summer, that’s really a Sony one, is Fantastic Four. A reboot of the Fantastic Four films from 2005 and ’07, this version looks to put a new, darker spin on the big four. Or, if it works it could be the dawn of a new age in the tone of comic book movies but if it doesn’t we might just have another Catwoman on our hands.

Premiering on TV screens before Mission: Impossible in 1964 was Man from U.N.C.L.E., the first series to take inspiration from the James Bond films to a TV series. Now a film version of U.N.C.L.E. is set to close the summer movie season August 14. This 1960s period piece seems to be equal parts Jason Bourne and Austin Powers.

Tag: ant-man