Tag: avengers

2019 summer movie preview

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Kicking off the summer much as they’ve done the last decade is the latest Marvel movie The Avengers: End Game on April, 26. This finalé to The Avengers: Infinity War last summer is supposed to tie up a bunch of loose ends while at the same time securing the future of the franchise for many more years to come.

The live-action version of the animated movie Aladdin starring Will Smith as the genie hits theaters May 24. This one’s been getting a lot of press, not all of it good, mostly focusing on how weird Smith looks as the blue genie originally voiced by Robin Williams.

Brightburn, also on May 24, looks to be a horror take on the Superman origin story, or what would happen if little Clark Kent wasn’t a good kid but an evil little !@#$.

The second of the modern Godzilla movies Godzilla: King of the Monsters roars into theaters May 31 five years after the first. This time Godzilla isn’t just fighting the Mutos from Godzilla, this time he/she/it’s fighting Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah.

The oft-delayed X-Men movie Dark Phoenix is supposed to finally hit theaters June 7, though I won’t believe that until I see it. This last film in an X-Men franchise that has spanned the last 19 years sees the characters off before the team is swallowed up into the Disney/Marvel movie behemoth, the one foe who actually took the X-Men down!

A new take on Men in Black is Men in Black: International in theaters June 14. Replacing Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the lead roles are Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as Agents “H” and “M” respectively.

19 years after the previous movie comes Shaft also June 14. Sam Jackson returns as Shaft from the 2000 movie but also the original Shaft Richard Roundtree as well as new Shaft Jessie Usher will star in the movie too.

Nine years after the final Toy Story movie was released comes a brand new Toy Story movie with Toy Story 4 on June 21. I guess Pixar was just kiddin’ when they said Toy Story 3 was going to be the last. In a brilliant move in counter-programming, a reboot of the evil-doll movie Child’s Play is also set to be released the same day Toy Story 4 is. Let’s hope that people buying tickets to these movies don’t get mixed up and go into the wrong theaters. Then again, let’s hope they do!”

Not quite a full Marvel Studios movie, but a Marvel movie none-the-less, is Spider-Man: Far From Home out July 5. This sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming from 2017 sees Spidey taking a school trip to Europe where he must face off against the evil Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) while he’s far from home. Get it!?

The Lion King is getting what’s reported to be a “live action” remake out July 19, except it’s just as animated as the 1994 original but rather than being hand-drawn this one’s being created by animators using computers.

July 26 sees the release of the latest Quentin Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that reportedly deals with Charles Manson murders while the even longer delayed than Dark Phoenix but still an X-Men movie The New Mutants is supposed to finally get a release August 2.

Direct Beam Comms #140

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Better Call Saul season 4

The crux of the AMC TV series Better Call Saul is that its lead character Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will one day become the titular Saul Goodman — a lawyer for drug dealers and other bad elements in the Albuquerque, New Mexico of Breaking Bad. Ever since the first season the creators of Better Call Saul have teased that one day chipper Jimmy McGill will cease to exist and be replaced by not so good Saul Goodman, and every season too there’s been more teases about characters from Breaking Bad also crossing over to Better Call Saul, in which a handful have. Now I can’t imagine we’ll ever see Aaron Paul or Bryan Cranston sharing the screen again with Odenkirk, though stranger things have happened, but that seems to be the focus of all the online chatter before each new season of the show.

Maybe it’s because I was never a fan of Breaking Bad but I’m perfectly okay with this. In fact, I think Better Call Saul is a better show because of this.

While there are some ties with Breaking Bad, for the most part Better Call Saul is its own show. Sure, there’s Jimmy and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) who are the leads of Better Caul Saul and who were players in Breaking Bad, but I don’t think you need to have watched a single minute of that show to understand Better Call Saul. The characters are different here, less set in their criminal ways if at all.

But some of this is changing, it does seem as if both Jimmy and Mike are becoming more in-line with the criminal element than they have in the past with this latest fourth season of the show.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that Mike’s “crossed over to the dark side.” Whereas Jimmy does have some criminal elements to him, Mike’s now taking a paycheck from bad people to do bad things. And if Mike’s “broke bad,” then how long will it be until Jimmy fully becomes Saul Goodman?

The first episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad was a little slow, but I find that first episodes of established shows usually are. Much of the episode deals with a very big ramification from something that happened in the final episode of the third season which has left Jimmy a distraught, and nearly destroyed man.

That is until he isn’t distraught or destroyed anymore. There’s a scene at the end of this episode that left me wondering, was this the real debut of Saul Goodman, a man only interested in his self willing to do whatever’s necessary, to hurt anyone for his own gain?

Only time will tell.

Lodge 49
Lodge 49

Lodge 49

Another AMC series premiered last week, this time the brand new Lodge 49 — NOT another zombie show, shock! Starring Wyatt Russell (Black Mirror), AMC has been promoting this series as the TV version of The Big Lebowski. Heck, Russell’s character even goes by “Dud” which is a lot like the “Dude” from The Big Lebowski. Yet to me Lodge 49 was a lot more like the working-class movies and TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s than The Big Lebowski, though there was a little of that for flavor.

Here, Dud is twenty-something that’s drifting after his life came crashing down before him. He got bitten by a snake and the wound hasn’t yet healed, his dad drown while surfing and he and his sister Liz lost everything from their family home to their family business afterwards. Now, Dud metal detects on the beach for what he can and borrows what he must at high rates from a pawn shop. Until one day he finds a ring on the beach and finds that it’s from a fraternal lodge, of which he’s interested in joining if only to find a way out of his spiraling life.

Lodge 49 really isn’t what I thought it was going to be. It’s a lot more quirky and funny than I was expecting, though there is a dash of darkness to it too. I was intrigued by this show and really liked the characters within it.

The one thing that concerns me about Lodge 49 from promos I’ve seen online is that it seems like there’s quite a bit of mysticism in the series. There is a bit of that in the first episode, but what could be mystical could easily be something else. I could be totally wrong or this might make the show stronger than I think it is, but I hope Lodge 49 stays on the level and doesn’t go all John from Cincinnati or anything.

Disenchantment
Disenchantment

What To Watch This Week

Avengers: Infinity War – Tuesday
The biggest hit of the summer, and one of the biggest movies of all-time, Avengers: Infinity War is available on DVD and Blu-ray this week.

Patient Zero – Tuesday
This movie about a world overrun with zombies and the one guy who can speak zombie (Matt Smith) was originally due out two years ago but was shelved until now and is getting an on-demand release this week.

Disenchantment – Friday
The first season of the Matt Groening created animated fantasy series Disenchantment debuts this Friday on Netflix.

Red Dawn – Saturday
The commies invade Calumet, Colorado in this classic red-scare World War III movie that I’ve seen waaaaay too many times to count on HDNET MOVIES.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool TV Poster of the Week

Project Blue Book poster

Direct Beam Comms #136

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, MoviesPosted on

Movies

Here’s everything I’ve seen this year that’s new, or that I missed seeing in 2017.

The kids of It
The kids of It

It: I liked this one a lot and was very happy to see a Stephen King movie that’s horror-related finally get some love. See this one if you love Stranger Things but want more scares with your side of 1980s nostalgia.

Justice League: I still don’t understand the online vitriol against this movie. I liked Justice League. I didn’t think it was the best movie ever but I certainly didn’t think it was bad. See this one if you dig superhero movies and have an open mind.

Movies I’ve seen so far in 2018.

The Cloverfield Paradox: This surprise movie that was announced during the Super Bowl and premiered right after on Netflix is a fun, well-crafted sci-fi yarn about astronauts stuck on a space station fighting the unknown. See this one if you don’t demand that every movie you see be groundbreaking.

Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Infinity War

Mute: Another Netflix sci-fi flick, Mute takes place in a near-future that’s depressingly a lot like out own. More importantly, it’s a kind’a sort’a sequel to the movie Moon. See this one if you’re ever jonesing for a sci-fi fix.

Black Panther: I liked Black Panther if I thought at times it was a little cluttered in the story department. See this one if… who am I kidding, based on the box office returns you’ve already seen this one.

Avengers: Infinity War: Infinity War is the Marvel team-up movie to top all Marvel team-up movies with all the heroes together to fight a big baddie. See this one if you don’t necessarily always need to know what’s happening on-screen, but like watching things go “boom.”

Deadpool 2
Deadpool 2

Deadpool 2: The hilarious sequel to Deadpool both manages to differentiate itself from the original while being just as funny as that first film. See this one if you like to have a good time while watching movies.

Solo: A Star Wars Story: Another movie that was ravaged by online reviews, I quite liked Solo and thought it was a very strong Star Wars movie. See this one because this might be your last chance to see the character of Han Solo on-screen for a while.

Annihilation: Finally a movie this year I didn’t like. I loved the novel this one’s based on and couldn’t wait to check it out but found Annihilation slow and dull. Honestly, I couldn’t make it through this one and shut it off with about 20 minutes left. See this one if you’re looking for an all-natural sleep aid.

Extinction movie trailer

Books & Comics

Go Team Venture! The Art and Making of the Venture Bros.

Go Team Venture! The Art and Making of the Venture Bros.
Go Team Venture! The Art and Making of the Venture Bros.

Out nearly a year after it was originally scheduled to be released — though series creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer have a habit of turning in things late — comes Go Team Venture! The Art and Making of the Venture Bros.

From Dark Horse:

Ken Plume sits down with series creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer to have a conversation about the creation of every single episode through season 6 and much more. From the earliest sketches of Hank and Dean scribbled in a notebook to pitching the series to Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, learning the ins and outs of animation, character designs for each season, storyboards, painted backgrounds, and behind-the-scenes recollections of how the show came together–it’s all here.

Frank Miller’s RONIN

Frank Miller's RONIN
Frank Miller’s RONIN

This week a brand new edition of the collected RONIN story by Frank Miller is set to be released. Though I’ve read the RONIN story before and own an issue or two of the original comic series, I don’t actually own the collected edition so I might pick this one up.

From DC:

Frank Miller’s six-issue miniseries RONIN returns in a new trade paperback! It’s the tale of a 13th century samurai who is reborn in a futuristic 21st century New York City with one last chance to regain his honor: he must defeat the reincarnation of his master’s killer, an ancient demon called Agat. This new edition includes promotional art, fold-out pages and more special features.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. poster

Superhero teams don’t make sense

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Superhero team movies are all the rage these days. If it’s not the Justice League teaming up then it’s the X-Men or Fantastic Four. All of which is very cool. But as I started thinking about the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War movie I came to the realization that a lot of superhero teams really don’t make sense.

The Avengers
The Avengers

If you look at a team like the one in Avengers (2012) of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow, these are characters thrown together to battle some great, unstoppable foe that they can only hope of defeating with each other. Which makes some sense. They all come together for the big dust-up and prevail in the end. What doesn’t make sense is why do they stay together?

Thor is a god who lives on another planet, so making it to Avengers meetings can be problematic. The Incredible Hulk is an unstable monster who’s only kept in check by Bruce Banner and should probably stay as far away from people as possible. Captain America is a super soldier, and as such shouldn’t he be working for the government? Tony Stark/Iron Man is a playboy whom time and time again proves that he doesn’t work well with others.

Who’s paying them? Are they indentured servants giving up any semblance of normal lives in order that they can put their lives on the line day in and day out to battle things like robotic terrors and science gone amok for the greater good? Are they superheroes, or are they superslaves?

I suppose you’ve got Hawkeye and Black Widow who are already working with SHIELD when the movie begins, so they make at least some sense working as part of the team.

But for the others, not so much.

The X-Men
The X-Men

Things get even worse when you take into account the X-Men. The X-Men are a group of super-powered mutants lead by Professor X who secretly teaches outcast mutants at his school where the teachers moonlight as this super-powered team. By day Jean Grey might teach math to a bunch of seventh graders, but by night she’s out saving the world from the likes of Magneto with the other X-Men. So these are teachers, who have to be doing all the things teachers do like helping kids with their homework and coming up with their curriculum. But these X-Teachers are really spending most of their time zooming around the globe trying to stop armageddon. Am I to believe that Scott Summers is aboard the Blackbird grading papers in between fighting Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister?

Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four

I suppose the one team that does make sense is the Fantastic Four. This is a family-ish team with stretchable Reed Richards who’s married to, or at least gets married to at some point in the story, Sue Storm who’s brother Johnny and friend Ben Grimm are all given superpowers after one of Reed’s experiments goes awry. Regardless of the fact that they’re all almost killed by this experiment, them banding together does make some sense because of the whole family angle and the fact that they get their powers at the same time.

While all that might be plausible, at no point did anyone like Johnny or Ben say to Reed, “I appreciate the opportunity to fight the Mole Man once every few months, but I’d really like to go back to school to learn how to become a chef.”

Looking at the superhero team from the outside it’s interesting to see how scary someone like Iron Man is. He’s got the power of a small army at his fingertips and roams around the globe doing whatever he thinks is right no matter what the consequences. Or even the Incredible Hulk who at any moment can Hulk-out can devastate any city more effectively than even an atomic bomb. For them to be running around together to the average person might just be terrifying.

Of course these movies all take place in a fictional universe where all of the superheroes are nice to each other and none of them has ever thought about how much better the world were be if it were their group running it. 😉