Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the news filled world of superhero’s in Film, TV, Video Games and whatever else floats your boat.
Continue reading Hero Express – ‘The Avengers’ Banners, ‘Man of Steel 2’. and ‘TDKR’ Wraps?
If any of you Game of Thrones fans had a dream grudge match envisioned of who would win in a fight between Jon Snow and Robb Stark (Not that it would have happened in the books) then I hate to tell you that Jon Snow would win. Well, if it were between the actors who play those characters on the show… and they were dueling over movie roles…. With only their acting skills…. Ah forget it. Either way, Kit Harrington who plays Jon Snow on the Game of Thrones has beat out Robb Stark actor Richard Madden (amongst others) for the role of King Arthur in an upcoming movie about said King and Sir Lancelot. Thanks to IGN for the info.
I say good for Kit Harrington, but is anyone out there really psyched for another re-imagining of the Arthur story? We’ve had the abysmal Clive Owen-Arthur movie, and the so-so Camelot show that was recently and shockingly canceled by Starz. Now this version of the Arthur tale is said to be a contemporary, modern day retelling of the Arthur story….. That sounds very unappealing to me. Will it be some sort of chick flick? If so why do you need someone like Harrington? Why not Matthew McConaughey or Josh Duhamel for a lame duty such as that? Personally I hope it’s a modern day retelling where there is a love triangle between Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere that ends in a thrilling 30 minute sword fight through the streets of London. Part of which occurs on the roof of a moving double decker bus.
Either way, good for Kit Harrington and if it is destined to suck we won’t have to worry about it until March of 2013.
I’m a Green Lantern fan. I’m not one of those from the beginning Lantern fans, I’m talking the Geoff Johns era Lantern fan. That would probably make a whole bunch of geeks out there vomit in revulsion because they don’t like the Geoff Johns era because it made Green Lantern relevant after they blindly followed his lameness throughout the decades before. But that’s neither here nor there, as a Lantern fan (a pretty big one in my opinion) I felt it only proper that I review the recent Ryan Reynolds starring film. I was very excited after the second trailer came out for the flick, but once I missed it the first week in theaters the critics and my colleague Dr. Kronner had already done the damage. The movie was lambasted as a piece of crap that failed at every turn. Dr. Kronner had a more reasonable assessment but he stopped short of calling it awesome or even good. Well I’ve watched the Blu-Ray disc this very night and let me tell you: This movie sucks major arse, especially if you’re a Green Lantern fan. Casual movie goers would enjoy it and that’s about it, which explains it’s heartless box office performance.
*SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY*
So for those of you who do not know, the movie is about an ancient species of beings called the Guardians who have harnessed the green energy of will power and created an intergalactic force of peacekeepers to maintain justice throughout the space sectors of the galaxy. The peacekeepers wear rings imbued with the green energy of will power and the wearer can make any construct they can imagine to serve and protect those in need. Sounds great right? Yes, in theory it does and in the comics it is awesome but this movie really just falls flat and makes the mistake of spending far too much time on Earth and not in the galaxy showing us what the Lanterns can do.
Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan I could live with. He was wise cracking and humorous at times but nothing too over the top for Mr. “I like to wear no shirt” Reynolds. But as for the costume he wore, in particular the mask, I found myself laughing out loud at it in certain scenes. I still can’t figure out if the laughter was a confused laughter because I should have been crying at what a joke they had made of the Green Lantern Hal Jordan.
It’s a shame because the movie did have some potential in many ways. The scenes on Oa and elsewhere in the galaxy were very well done and made up the best parts of the movie. As I said before there just wasn’t enough time allotted to said parts. Kilowog, Tomar Re, Sinestro and the Guardians all looked fantastic as well. Mark Strong did a fine job as the veteran lantern Sinestro who starts off as a mentor to Hal Jordan before eventually turning into his greatest nemesis. The one issue I had was with Parallax and it was not because they changed up his origin and character quite a bit. It was because he basically looked like a squirming pile of burning dog shit. Watch the movie if you want to see what that might look like on screen.
Instead of more Oa and space action we are served with a generic romance between Hal Jordan and fellow pilot Carol Ferris, played by Blake Lively. Lively is definitely a very, very hot slice of pizza but she really doesn’t have much of an onscreen presence. However, that doesn’t mean I’m against a sequel where there is a possibility of her being in the uniform of a Star Sapphire.
The other bit of Earth story we get is the completely pointless one of Hector Hammond, played by Peter Sarsgaard. Hector is a childhood friend of Carol and Hal who is more of a bookworm who gains telekinetic powers from a connection with Parallax; this again is for no good reason other than to have someone for Hal to fight on Earth. I give props to DC and the studio for making Hammond, a lesser known Lantern foe the main villain besides Parallax to face off against Hal, but unfortunately most of the scenes with him made me laugh. And I assure you that was not their intent.
His gargantuan cranium looked sillier than it does in the comics and he had a propensity for screaming about anything and everything that brought an amused smile to my face. This would be the sort of smile I get when I see a drunken idiot in a bar trying to fight everyone in sight and making a complete ass of themselves. Epic fail Mr. Hammond. Epic fail. But seriously big ups to the literal roast of Tim Robbins, because that was entertaining for about ten seconds.
Overall I have to give the movie a 2 out of 5 bears. It would have been a 1 out of 5, but since Ms. Lively was looking so superbly elegant in the movie I’ll bump it up. The other point would be for the scenes not taking place on Earth because they looked pretty, especially on Blu-Ray.
Otherwise the movie just didn’t have good enough pacing or anything on Earth worthy enough to care about. Hal’s fear wasn’t touched upon nearly enough except in a silly flashback seen from viewpoints of footage we had seen about fifteen minutes previously and a couple parts that took him two seconds to decide “I’m not afraid. Let’s party”.
A sequel is definitely most welcome, granted they work on focusing it more in the galaxy at large instead of boring old Earth. With Sinestro utilizing the yellow ring of fear at the end that would make for a good set up for a third film if he is exiled from the Green Lantern Corps by the end of the second movie. And if they need a villain that doesn’t suck as hard as Hector Hammond for the sequel I suggest they use Artrocitus and his Red Lanterns due to his history with the Guardians… and because they are totally bad ass.
My film teacher once told me that when you film ordinary things like a morning commute or a trip to the store, it can really come off as pure art if done correctly. This is something I’ve debated for a long time, mostly with myself in my many hours alone. Can something as bland or normal as a car ride truly transcend into beauty simply by the addition of a lens? It seems illogical at first, in my opinion. What’s the difference between staring at a broken bottle, and then staring a photo of a broken bottle?
Bombay Beach explores many things, all quite successfully I might add. Following the lives of three separate people, a rambunctious child, being given copious amounts of behavioral drugs, named Benny, an aspiring NFL player nicknamed CeeJay, and a young-at-heart cigarette bootlegger nicknamed Red. The three, as different as they may be (Benny is a young child, CeeJay is a black teenager, and Red is a senior citizen), have very similar situations in life, and in a in a lot of ways, too. Twice CPS, due to neglect and unfit living conditions, has taken Benny away from his parents. CeeJay is in love with a girl that’s in a mentally abusive relationship with another boy, and Red is approaching senility, requiring medical care after having a mini-stroke.
The genius in Bombay Beach resides in the intriguing characters, expert directing, and an extremely bizarre genre. Bombay Beach may be the first film that I can label as a DocuDrama Musical. Directed by music video director, Alma Har’el, the film contains some well-choreographed dances, as well as some scenes that are basically music videos for Beirut and Bob Dylan, who composed most of the soundtrack. Now, you might be thinking, “This is a lot to do in a mere 80 minutes. Three plots, dance sequences, and music videos?!” Well, yes, it does seem like a lot, but somehow the filmmakers, and especially the editors, constructed a beautifully shot documentary that plays as if it were a scripted feature film.
The characters are neither protagonists nor antagonists. They’re people. They curse and drink and smoke just like almost everyone else does. I don’t think the director intended for the audience to think that these families were bad people, but a part of me also thinks that they weren’t necessarily intended to be what we define as “good” people either. They just are who they are, and we get to be the fly on the wall in their lives.
The plots are somewhat loose, and don’t necessarily make the film what it is, but they’re there, even if they’re extremely scarce. The images as I’ve mentioned are gorgeous, while others are very disturbing, including a brief shot of the rotting corpse of an abandoned dog. All of these components combined make Bombay Beach a must watch for any film-lover. Not only is it the most inventive documentary of the year, it’s also the most thought provoking. These families that live in the poorest town in Southern California have stories and lives and issues to deal with, too. We tend to forget about people like this. We write them off as white trash and low lives, but there’s always more to the story than we give credit. Bombay Beach isn’t a perfect film, but then again, neither are the people in it, which is what makes it so relatable, and at the same time so new.
Heyoooooooo! As if we all weren’t ready to eat our own faces in anticipation for The Dark Knight Rises footage playing before Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Empire Magazine was nice enough to give us a little look at their upcoming covers feature Mr. Bane himself and Bale’s Batman. Not a real big deal on the Batman one, but the Bane cover gives us a pretty good look at ‘the man who broke the bat’. I suppose I’m still pretty indifferent at this point about his look. The mask isn’t terribly ridiculous but it isn’t effin’ awesome either. I’ll reserve all judgments until I see it on screen. Not to mention his voice, which in the spy video from Heinz Field sounded like a stoned impersonation of Don Corleone from The Godfather.
And a bad impersonation at that. Oh well, I’ll still be seeing the movie come Hell, high water or terrible voices. Yes Mr. Bale I’m looking at you.
I remember the simple days of gaming. There were no save points, no huge stories, no variety. Hell, back in the arcade days variety meant you get to choose from three large monsters to control and story meant you used one of those monsters to bash the living shit out of buildings and watch them crumble in a specific city. Then you repeated it over and over. But man was it fun! That was what Rampage was. The story of three monsters climbing buildings and bashing them. So it makes sense that they would turn it into a movie about thirty years later, right? No? Well it’s gonna happen whether you agree or not! Check the video below to experience the awesomeness that was the arcade version of Rampage:
According to IGN, via Hollywood Reporter, Rampage is set to get the big screen treatment like so many other bits of our 80’s pop culture:
THR says Rickard is currently meeting with writers to develop the film’s story, and that New Line “believes that technology has advanced enough that the possibility exists to make a smartly-budgeted monster movie in the vein and tone of Ghostbusters and Independence Day.”
Ghostbusters and Independence Day…. That sounds like a dream come true. I love both of those movies, but as we all know movies that people claim are like two awesome features rolled into one don’t always work out. Van Helsing was proclaimed to be Indiana Jones mixed in with the Matrix and that movie sucked hard. Spiderman 3 was supposed to be like Spiderman 1 and 2 combined… but I’m not even going to get into that debacle and its inane emo dance scenes.
Hopefully they are able to give us something that is not struggling to be witty and smart, because monsters tearing apart a city is not witty and smart. I’ll take an entertaining, dumb action movie with great CG to keep my mind from over-thinking for an hour and a half! Bring it on! What say you Rampage fans? (if there are any who remember the glory days of the arcade game.) Are you ready for a movie version of Ralph, George and Lizzie?
Grizzly Bomb 