2016 Summer movie preview

First up this summer, as it has been the last eight years, is a Marvel movie; this time a third Captain America film with Captain America: Civil War on May 6. Really Marvel Movie XII, Civil War features most of the heroes of the Marvel universe splitting up and picking sides against one and other — one side for the superheroes having to register their real identities with the government and the other side against.

horsemenposter_1200_1778_81_sThe Nice Guys, out May 20, is the rare summer movie this year that’s not based on any previous work. Written and directed by Shane Black who also wrote and directed Iron Man 3 and the wonderful Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys has a private eye and a mob goon, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe respectively, tooling around Los Angeles and getting into all sorts of Shane Black themed trouble.

The third movie of the recent X-Men movie series, but really the eighth in the overall franchise, is X-Men: Apocalypse out May 27. I’m a big fan of the most recent retro X-Men movies, the first taking place in the ’60s, the second in the ’70s and this latest one in the ‘90s with some of the characters from that decade I was realllllly into comics. My only concern here is that it seems like with Apocalypse the X-Team is fighting against an all powerful villain who threatens to enslave/destroy the human race. Which sounds a lot like Avengers: Age of Ultron from last summer to me.

WarCraft, based on the fantasy role playing game of the same name, is out June 10. Fantasy seems to be one of the hottest generas today with movies like The Hobbit and TV shows like Game of Thrones being fan-favorites. Except that there’s really nothing I’ve seen from WarCraft, which is admittedly not much, that makes it seem unique, or even all that different that what’s come before.

independence_day_resurgence20 years after the original comes a sequel to the sci-fi alien-invasion action film Independence Day with Independence Day Resurgence on June 24. Now I’ve got no problem with remakes, reboots or relaunches, but it does seem to me that at this point to make a sequel so long after the original is a decade or so too late.

A third Ghostbusters is out on July 15. What looks to be more of a remake/reboot of the original, this time around all of the Ghostbusters are played by women; Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, and is being directed by Paul Feig who’s directed a ton of movies the last decade but will always be remembered by me and many others as being the creator of the highly influential Freaks and Geeks TV series.

A third Star Trek movie of the recent films Star Trek Beyond warps into theaters July 22. What’s interesting here is that this latest Star Trek adventure is co-written by geek-god Simon Pegg. What’s no so interesting here is that it’s being directed by Justin Lin who helmed three of the Fast & Furious flicks.

Suicide Squad posterMatt Damon returns to the Jason Bourne role he originated 14 years ago with the aptly titled Jason Bourne July 29. Damon skipped the last Bourne movie with Jeremy Renner filling in as a non-Jason Bourne lead. And I don’t think anyone would argue that Renner’s The Bourne Legacy was as good as what had come before. That’s why I’m excited about this new Bourne movie that brings back Damon and director Paul Greengrass that made two of the other previous films so great for Bourne’s latest outing.

If Marvel gets to open the summer movie season then DC’s gonna close it out with Suicide Squad on August 5. Feeling a lot like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad pares a group of disparate, and so-far unpopular superheroes together to fight some greater evil. But with Suicide Squad instead of the superheroes being the good guys, they’re really bad guys like Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Deadshoot (Will Smith) and, no joke, Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney). And while admittedly this might seem odd and strange, from what’s so far been released for the film Suicide Squad actually looks kind’a great.

Direct Beam Comms #14

TV

The Carmichael Show

The Carmichael Show
The Carmichael Show

This first season of this hilarious comedy that’s a modern version of the classic series All in the Family aired last summer and now a second season begins tonight at 10PM(EST) on NBC after a preview last Wednesday. I liked the first season of The Carmichael Show a lot, but my only worry here is its timeslot; 10PM Sunday night?

It seems weird that NBC’s programming a comedy in a space almost always reserved for dramas and reality TV. So either NBC doesn’t really have faith in The Carmichael Show and is sticking it wherever they have a hole no matter if it fits or not, or they have A LOT of faith in the show and figure they can put it wherever and people will still watch it.

The Americans

One of the best series on TV, The Americans, returns for its fourth season this Wednesday on FX. Both a spy-drama and a family drama, The Americans focuses on the Jennings’ family with mom played by Keri Russell and dad Matthew Rhys who seem like normal yuppies but are really Soviet agents living and operating in early 1980s Washington DC which itself is interesting enough. But it’s when the added element of what the Jennings’ secrets are doing to their kids, more specifically their daughter played by Holly Taylor who learned of her parent’s double lives at the end of last season, is where The Amercians excels. Secrets and lies are a cancer for families. And while the Jennings might be brilliant agents, what they do for a living is slowly tearing their family to pieces.

What I find most interesting with The Americans is that with the benefit of knowing how history plays out between the USA and USSR, the Jennings are playing for the losing team. And no matter how brilliant they are in penetrating various governmental agencies and stealing secrets, at the end of the day nothing they do will have mattered. The CCCP won’t see the 1990s and all the the Jennings will have done is poisoned any hope that they or even their kids will have any happiness in the future.

Daredevil

All episodes of the second season of Daredevil on Netflix debut next Friday, March 18. How excited am I for the return of this show? Very! How excited am I with the Punisher being a character in this show? So frickin’ much my face is starting to hurt from all the smiling.

Movies

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War – Trailer 2

“Underroos!”

10 Cloverfield Land

He is the law!
He is the law!

I wonder if the original Cloverfield had been more successful at the box office if the 10 Cloverfield Land sequel that’s not really a sequel would be more about giant monsters tearing apart major cities and less about people trapped in underground bunkers?

Toys

This Judge Dredd 1:4 Statue looks amazing. The design feels like it’s taken right from the 2012 Dredd movie. But it’s the price that’s not that amazing — a whopping $430!

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • Kurt Russell aka Snake Plissken aka R.J. MacReady turns 65 and officially becomes a senior citizen on St. Patrick’s Day.
  • Forbiddon Planet opened in theaters 60 years ago this week in 1956.
  • Evil Dead II premiered in theaters in 1987.

Direct Beam Comms #10

Art

Meghan Hetrick

I’d never heard of artist Meghan Hetrick until last week, but I really dig her style of pen and ink and markers for color.

Super Bowl movie trailers

X-Men: Apocalypse: The X-Men is probably my favorite superhero group and I grew up reading X-Men comics in the ‘80s and ‘90s. And the latest retro X-Men: Apocalypse movie is going to be set in that time period and feature characters from those two decades so I’m really excited about this movie. What makes me the most concerned is once again this is a super hero movie about a group of heroes facing off against a villain who’s bend on world domination/destruction as per seemingly every super hero movie these days.

Captain America: Civil War: I find it interesting how the Marvel movies are almost a “greatest hits” version of the comics that were almost a “greatest hits” version of previous comic stories. What I’m most excited about here is that Marvel seems to be shaking things up a bit. There’s no main bad guy in Civil War threatening to destroy the world (see above.) Instead, Captain America: Civil War is about when the people who used to be teammates are forced to confront one and other when ideologies diverge. I did get goosebumps here from the image of Cap and Bucky teaming up again for the first time since WW2.

Jason Bourne: I’ve been a big fan of the Jason Bourne movie franchise since The Bourne Identity in ’02. That being said, the first movie was great, the second was better but the third was just alright and the fourth, where lead Matt Damon was replaced with a new character played by Jeremy Renner, was bad. So I have high hopes for the next Jason Bourne which reunites Damon and co-writer/director Paul Greengrass who departed the series after the third movie.

Toys

With the annual Toy Fair happening this weekend in NYC there’s going to be a lot of upcoming toy news and there’s already been a bit of toy news out there.

First up USA Today posted some images and information on new Batman: The Animated Series toys due out this year and next. Figured include Batman Beyond, The Dark Knight Batman, Robin and the Mutant Gang leader and more. Unfortunately, these sets run $50 for three figures, $80 for the “girl’s night out” set of four figures and a whopping $45 for a single Joker Christmas figure.

The new line of Matty Collector Filmation-style He-Man figures are awesome. They’re the perfect mix of looking like how I remember He-Man and his friends looked in the show with a few nice points of articulation. And it doesn’t seem like the price is astronomical with them being about $25 per figure retail.