Tag: the girl with the dragon tattoo

Direct Beam Comms #147

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

Movies

Rumor is that Henry Cavill won’t be returning to the role of Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El he’s been playing in films since 2013. While Cavill’s been portraying the character for five years, he’s only had one movie of his own, the first Man of Steel, but has also played him in Batman vs Superman and Justice League. Fans are reacting with the news with a bit of shock, but let’s face it, Cavill was never going to play Superman forever. So far five guys have played the character in the movies; Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, Christopher Reeves, Brandon Routh and Cavill and a few more on TV; George Reeves again, Tom Welling and Dean Cain.

And when it comes to the cartoons I’m not even sure how many have voiced Superman. There are many as diverse as Bud Collyer who voiced him on screen in the early 1940s to Jerry O’Connell who played him this year in The Death of Superman.

And that’s not counting Nicolas Cage who very nearly played Superman in a 1990s production that would have been titled Superman Lives that would’ve been written by Kevin Smith and directed by Tim Burton.

So, in many ways Cavill is in good company. Sooner or later his tenure would end and I think it’s best for these actors to leave on good terms with roles like this. He’s played the character for a few years, and whether or not you liked his version/take on the strange visitor from another planet, I think he played him well.

In the short-term there’s been rumors that the new Shazam (Zachary Levi) or the upcoming Supergirl will be filling in for the last son of Krypton whenever a villain needs to be punched in the face really hard. But fear not, eventually some other actor will be brought in to fill the man of tomorrow’s boots.

Lost movies

The cast of Galaxy Quest
The cast of Galaxy Quest

I’ve always been interested in versions of movies that almost were. One example of this is the recent Solo: A Star Wars Story. That movie was originally going to be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller who were three weeks away from being finished with their version before being fired for “creative differences” and director Ron Howard was brought in to complete the film/reshoot scenes.

While I really dig Howard’s version of the movie, I wonder what Lord and Miller’s version would’ve been like? Here are a few other movies that started out one way but ended another.

Enemy Mine
Originally begun by director Richard Loncraine, this sci fi flick starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. was halted and Loncraine fired when the studio didn’t like what he was delivering. Wolfgang Petersen was brought in and threw out Loncraine’s footage, redid everything from the special effects to the sets, reshot the script from the first page and delivered the finished film of what we now know of as Enemy Mine.

Galaxy Quest
While there’s not another version of Galaxy Quest floating out there like there might with Solo: A Star Wars Story or Enemy Mine, the tone of Galaxy Quest did change after the film was completed. Originally, the movie was rated R and scenes were cut and objectionable language changed in order to secure a PG–13 rating. But if you pay close attention, there’s still a hint of this rated R version hiding in the PG–13 version of the movie that was released. When Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver’s characters are climbing through the innards of their ship the NSEA Protector, there’s a part where they have to crawl through a Rube Goldberg inspired section where it looks like everything inside is meant to cut, squash or burn the two to death. Weaver’s character takes one look at the setup and says, “Well, screw that!” But if you watch her mouth, what she’s really saying, and what was dubbed over, was “Well, f@#k that!”

Today that line might have survived the cut and made it into the PG–13 version of the movie, but back in 1999 when the movie was released that was a no-go.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web trailer

Captain Marvel trailer

TV

The Haunting of Hill House TV spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9OzG53VwIk

What To Watch This Week

Manifest
Manifest

Monday

Mainfest
This new series that looks absolutely not at all like a sequel to Lost mixed with This is Us premiers on NBC this week.

Tuesday

Doctor Who
Beginning Tuesday morning with episodes of the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, BBC America will be airing 13 days straight of Doctor Who.

Thursday

Murphy Brown
The old sitcom reboot train continues with Murphy Brown, a new show that picks up more than 20 years after the series ended back in 1998. And to be honest, I can’t believe Murphy Brown ran all the way ’til 1998.

The Good Place
The third season of the oh-so-good The Good Place returns to NBC this week.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

  • Captain Marvel
    Captain Marvel
  • Daredevil
    Daredevil

Direct Beam Comms #138

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

Fall Movie Preview

The fall movie season is a bit of an oddity these days. Ever since the movie studios found out they could make billions off of superheroes and Star Wars, first the spring movie season started filling up with movies that would feel more at home during the summer, then the winter season as well. But the fall season has been relatively untouched with these kinds of movies as that was always the time of year that films were released with higher expectations than making wheelbarrows full of money, these were Oscar hopeful movies. While there are still a lot of movies due out that have Academy Awards on their minds this fall, there’s quite a few as well that feel more like summer blockbusters than award winners.

The Predator – September, 14

The Predator
The Predator

What was originally due out this summer before being pushed to the fall, the third film in the Predator franchise, unless you count those awful Aliens vs Predator movies of a few years ago and who wants to do that!? The Predator marks the return of Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) to the sci-fi genera. Black co-starred as Hawkins and did some on-set rewriting on the first film. The Predator looks to move the action from the jungles of Central America in Predator and Los Angeles in Predator 2 to a rain-soaked little town where the only thing standing between the population and total destruction are a rag-tag team of special forces soldiers being carted off to prison.

Venom – October, 5

Venom
Venom

There’s some confusion with this one. Starring Tom Hardy, technically Venom takes place in the same film universe as the fan-favorite Spider-Man: Homecoming movie, except if reports are to be believed out of the San Diego Comic-Con your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man won’t be making an appearance in this one. And it almost seems as if Sony is positioning Venom, who’s been the nemesis of Spider-Man in the comics for 30 years now and even appeared in Spider-Man 3, to be more an anti-hero than a villain. Think Punisher rather than Ultron and that sounds more in-line with this new movie version of the character.

Halloween – October, 19

Halloween (2018)
Halloween (2018)

This latest version of Halloween will be the TENTH sequel to the original film and will bring back Jamie Lee Curtis in the Laurie Strode role she originated in the first film and has reprised on and off the last 40 years. This new Halloween reportedly ignores everything after Halloween II (1981) — though how can anyone ignore that ear-worm of a song “ten more days ’til Halloween” from Halloween III: Season of the Witch?

The Girl in the Spider’s Web – November, 9

The 2011 film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was supposed to be the first of a series of movies taken from the novels of Stieg Larsson directed by David Fincher and starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig. But for whatever reason it was decided to cast aside that creative team and start anew this time with director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) and co-stars Claire Foy and Sverrir Gudnason in the Mara/Daniel roles respectively.

Maybe Fincher’s vision for the Dragon Tattoo sequels was too intense since the movie did decently enough at the box office for something not starring super-heroes?

Alita: Battle Angel trailer

TV

Freaks and Geeks

Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks

Recently, I caught a documentary about the TV series Freaks and Geeks and had some memories of my own to share of this gem of a show.

  • I remember when Freaks and Geeks premiered it was difficult to see new episodes. NBC seemed to either air a lot of repeats or they moved the show around a lot to different timeslots.
  • I remember that the episode “Kim Kelly is My Friend” was controversial for its time and didn’t run in my area during the series original run.
  • In fact, I didn’t see all of the episodes of Freaks and Geeks until Fox Family reran the series in 2000 as there were a few episodes including “Kim Kelly is My Friend” that never aired on NBC.
  • When Fox Family began rerunning Freaks and Geeks and premiering unaired episodes I started recording the show on my EyeTV which was a device that allowed you to record a cable signal to your computer and save shows as MPGs. While I’m pretty sure I recorded the entire run this way, I’m also pretty sure I never watched them other than maybe the one time since the files it produced them were small and SD cable grainy too.
  • In 2003 or 2004 Shout! Factory promoted a DVD set of the entire series, urging people to preorder the set since this might be their only chance to own this, then, forgotten series on home media. Of course I ponied up something like $120 for the set.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Direct Beam Comms #131

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Cloak & Dagger

One of the last of the 2017–2018 TV series to premier is Cloak & Dagger based on the Marvel comic of the same name on Freeform.

Olivia Holt & Aubrey Joseph
Olivia Holt & Aubrey Joseph

I could be wrong but I think that the comic book Cloak and Dagger was one of the books where there was a lot of talk about turning it into a movie in the 1980s and 1990s. And I can see why, the story centers around two teens and at that time teen oriented movies and TV series were very popular. So Cloak and Dagger on the big screen was a no-brainer. But for whatever reason that also kept other comics making their way to the big screen like X-Men and Spider-Man kept Cloak and Dagger off the big screen too.

Honestly, I come at this series without a lot of knowledge of the source material. I know that the essence of the Cloak and Dagger story is that there’s one character who’s a girl “Dagger” who can create powerful daggers of light while guy “Cloak” can absorb the bad guys into a darkness that surrounds him. And that’s about it. I never collected a Cloak and Dagger comic nor did the characters ever pop up in comics I did collect. So it’s interesting to come at something comic book related that I’m not already familiar with.

This TV Cloak & Dagger — yes, it uses an ampersand while the comic went with an “and” — stars Olivia Holt (Kickin’ It) as Tandy Bowen aka “Dagger” and Aubrey Joseph (The Night Of) as Tyrone Johnson aka “Cloak.”

Olivia Holt
Olivia Holt

The TV version takes place in modern day New Orleans where, as young children, Tandy and Tyrone meet after an oil rig explodes causing an accident that sends the car Tandy’s riding in crashing into a bay while Tyrone’s brother is shot by police, falls into the same water with Tyrone diving in after him. This explosion causes a big “something” that somehow gives both Tandy and Tyrone their powers.

Honestly this whole sequence had my “coincidence meter” pegged at “unbelievable” since all the different things that had to happen to put both Tandy and Tyrone in the same place was a little much. But thankfully the rest of the episode doesn’t rely on coincidence to this extent.

The rest of the first episode takes place in modern day where Tandy has become a grifter, using her good looks to get into people’s houses and steal from them. Tyrone is a high school student and basketball player so when the two meet at a party and Tandy steals Tyrone’s wallet and he gives chase and grabs her their powers suddenly manifest. Later on Tandy stabs a would-be rapist while Tyrone uses his power to travel around and hunt the cop who got away with killing his brother.

I thought Cloak & Dagger was interesting, if it seemed to be directed towards teens and twenty-somethings. Which is fine. I was just surprised that the episode contained sex, an attempted rape, drug use and alcohol use on Freeform, which used to be the old ABC Family and still airs The 700 Club from when the channel used to be The Family Channel.

Condor

Based on the 1975 movie Three Days of the Condor which was based on the 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor — guess they didn’t have the budget to do all six days in the film or any days apparently in the TV series, the new ATT/DIRECTV series simply titled Condor premiered last week on Audience. Starring Max Irons as Joe Turner, Robert Redford in the film, this new version updates the story a bit. The film had CIA analyst Turner go on the run when everyone at the office he works with is murdered after they uncovered something of import — Turner’s not sure what, only that it was worth killing everyone in the office to keep it a secret.

Max Irons
Max Irons

In this new version, Turner’s employers are more a silicon valley tech group working in DC for the CIA when an algorithm he created is used to uncover a terrorist about to release a deadly bio-toxin in the US. But when the group begins looking at who funded the creation of this weapon Turner gets too close to the truth so someone sends in two assassins to kill everyone there. Turner only escapes because he was out on a fire escape sharing a smoke with a co-worker who was killed when she turned left instead of right so Turner’s forced to go on the run alone.

I thought Condor was good if it had a bit too many plot-holes for my taste. The smoking section on the fire escape of a building so protected it has layers of security in order to get in with armed guards has got to be the biggest. But there’s also one of the assassins sleeping with Turner the night before the hit that strains credulity since who wants to leave DNA evidence at the guy’s apartment you’re going to try and kill?

Still, the whole “who can you trust” angle of the Condor story is interesting, so I’ll probably end up sticking around to see where this one goes. Even if the movie version of this told the same story in much less time than the ten episode TV series is set to.

Movies

The Girl in the Spider’s Web trailer

Halloween (2018) movie trailer

First Moon movie trailer

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Posters of the Week