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- DCEU Films Ranked: #4 ‘Shazam!’ (2019)
- Tom Cruise Movie Rescheduling Bumps Another Tom Cruise Film
- ‘She-Hulk’ Disney+ Series Adds Renée Elise Goldsberry to Cast
- Warner Demonstrates Stunning Hypocrisy in ‘Space Jam 2’ Promo
- In Pre-Cult Culture, Christianity Was a Cultural Normal
- Warner Media Revives their Classic ‘Hanna-Barbera’ Brand
| DCEU Films Ranked: #4 ‘Shazam!’ (2019) Posted: 11 Apr 2021 05:15 PM PDT #4 in my ranking of the DCEU franchise.
I actually watched the DCEU movies a bit out of order. Immediately preceding my viewing of David F. Sandberg's Shazam! I watched Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey. Starting up this I was relieved to see the simply building blocks of story presented in an order that made narrative sense, and I almost cheered. Sandberg's adventure into newfound superhero abilities has some issues along the way that drag it down a bit, but it's nice to see that Warner Brothers can still hire a director who understands storytelling at the most basic of levels.
So, magic. The DCEU embraces straight up magic for the first time. I can dig it. So, Billy Batson is a foster kid moving from home to home as he puts on a one-man search for his mother whom he lost when he was about four. At fourteen, he's run through dozens of names and still can't find her. At the same time, an ancient wizard loses control of the Seven Deadly Sins to Doctor Sivana. Desperate, the wizard magically delivers Billy to his temple and gifts Billy his powers in order to fight in his stead, turning Billy into Shazam, a superhero who looks like an adult, and this is the source of a lot of the movie's light humor.
Shazam is a kid at heart, so seeing him act like a kid, all buffed up and with superpowers, is amusing. It's also a complete retread, so it's nice to see the movie give a direct reference to Penny Marshall's Big. And I think it ends up being how the movie flags in its second act. There's no real direction to Billy after he gets his powers. He's happy to show them off, discover what they are, and take out some petty revenge here and there, but he doesn't seem to have any drive. It's weird because he has a central goal, which is to find his mother, but once he has these powers he not only doesn't use them to help him accomplish his central goal, he completely forgets about the goal. There's a certain understanding since he's a fourteen year old who gained superpowers, but he has them for days and doesn't even think about his mother until someone else hands him an address.
There's a thematic connection between Billy's search and the rest of the movie, that of family and finding it where you can. Billy finds his mother who, it turns out, just abandoned him. Instead, he has the group home of foster kids to fall back on. Contrasted to that is Doctor Sivana who rejected his own family and any sense of community with anyone else including the ancient wizard, spending his years searching out for that hidden temple and the seven deadly sins, which he eventually finds and takes for his own. He won't be at full power until he beats the wizard's champion, Billy. Hence, the conflict. I wish there was something connecting Sivana to Billy's mom directly. Something like Sivana kidnapping Billy's mom thinking that there's a special connection, but Billy is reticent about doing anything because he found out she rejected him. However, he uses the power of family from his group home siblings to help her or something. Instead Sivana does kidnap his adopted family, which is in the same wheelhouse but too easy in the other direction.
That aimless act drags the film down, but once it's over, the movie gains some focus again. While it doesn't take advantage enough of the family angle, it does focus in on it, giving Billy an avenue to accepting his new group home as the new family he needs without clinging to the past and a woman who doesn't want him.
The other major problem I have with the film is Doctor Sivana and his Seven Deadly Sins. Sivana is thin and uninteresting. As played by Mark Strong you might expect more, but he's just a generic bad guy with daddy issues. And the Seven Deadly Sins all run together. If you really focus on them, you can tell the differences in design, though they're all colored the same which seems like a missed opportunity. However, it takes a surprising amount of attention to delineate one from another, and they all just kind of run together, ending up feeling rather generic as well. Another miss.
In the end, though, the movie's an unchallenging little superhero movie that aims primarily towards children. It's amusing and cleanly told. For some that will be a more than welcome change to the franchise that they've considered to be off the rails from the beginning. For me, it's nice, but I look back at the cinematic ambition of the first two DCEU films and sigh, happy to have something better than okay but much less than the aims of where the franchise started.
Rating: 2.5/4
Originally published here. The post DCEU Films Ranked: #4 'Shazam!' (2019) appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Tom Cruise Movie Rescheduling Bumps Another Tom Cruise Film Posted: 11 Apr 2021 03:00 PM PDT More movies are moving for this upcoming summer slate. According to Deadline Top Gun: Maverick is moving to November 19th, which means Tom Cruise is bumping Tom Cruise as another of the actor's films, Mission: Impossible 7 moves from that date to May 27th, 2022 and Mission: Impossible 8 bumps back to July 7, 2023. This isn’t the first time Top Gun has been pushed back.
In response, Universal moved their film The Forever Purge into the vacated July 2nd slot making it the only Independence Day weekend release. Another film that had been slated that weekend, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, moved up two weeks to June 18th. It is possible that the move of Top Gun: Maverick was made necessary by Disney dropping Marvel's Black Widow on July 9th, possibly cutting the Cruise starring film's chances for big box office draw considerably as the first MCU film to hit theaters in two years is expected to get a lot of attention.
Maybe this will give the studio the time they need to correct the apparent Chinese influence which persuaded the studio to remove the Japanese and Taiwanese patches from Maverick’s jacket as seen in the first trailer? What’s going on Paramount?
 The post Tom Cruise Movie Rescheduling Bumps Another Tom Cruise Film appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| ‘She-Hulk’ Disney+ Series Adds Renée Elise Goldsberry to Cast Posted: 11 Apr 2021 12:30 PM PDT Renée Elise Goldsberry is in talks to star in the She-Hulk series at Disney+, Variety confirmed. She joins previously announced series lead Tatiana Maslany and Ginger Gonzaga.
The series centers on lawyer Jennifer Walters (Maslany), cousin of Bruce Banner, who inherits his Hulk powers after she receives a blood transfusion from him. Unlike Bruce, however, when she hulks out Jennifer is able to retain most of her personality, intelligence, and emotional control. Details on the character Goldsberry would play are being kept under wraps. Reps for Goldsberry and Marvel did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Goldsberry won a Tony Award in 2016 for her role as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton. Her other Broadway credits include The Color Purple, The Lion King, and Dreamgirls. Onscreen, she has appeared in series such as Altered Carbon at Netflix, The Good Wife at CBS, and One Life to Live at ABC. In film, she appeared in the Disney+ recording of Hamilton that was released last year, and has starred in other projects like Waves and The House with a Clock in Its Walls. The post ‘She-Hulk’ Disney+ Series Adds Renée Elise Goldsberry to Cast appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Warner Demonstrates Stunning Hypocrisy in ‘Space Jam 2’ Promo Posted: 11 Apr 2021 10:30 AM PDT
It would seem the studio that went out of its way to appease a social justice agenda – Lola Bunny’s hot original sport outfit replaced and sexuality toned down, and Pepe Le Pew banished altogether – has just demonstrated the utmost hypocrisy on all these alleged concerns about sexual assault in the Space Jam sequel’s advertising trailer, if anywhere, as Decider’s notified:
My my, this is certainly telling indeed. Curious enough so far that NY Times columnist Charles Blow, who complained about Pepe, hasn’t said anything about it. Because no matter how you view this, what WB did is put elements from a movie unsuitable for children into a movie that is aimed at children. Specifically, a gang of savage rapists, and it doesn’t take a genius to point out that spotlighting villains is a most disturbing problem, having seen it occur with franchises like Batman’s rogues gallery.
 And as noted by Bounding Into Comics, the Droogs aren’t the only mature movie baddies seen in the trailer:
I’d wager a guess that the filmmakers put in cameos by villains from A Clockwork Orange as a vague allusion to Donald Trump, since he’s sometimes been called an “orange bad guy”, suggesting they believe their political beliefs take precedence over considerations whether certain material is appropriate for kids. And one can wonder if the cameo by a character from a King novel has anything to do with his being such a far-leftist, who knows?
Well, if this is how the studio’s going to go about managing their movies, then all family audiences can save a lot of money, and just stay home playing cards instead. Something tells me, in sharp contrast to the panning of Pepe, this whole matter regarding what’s in the trailer – and possibly the movie proper – won’t be eliciting many protests by the people supposed concerned in the first place. Apparently, the only material that must matter to them in a kids movie is the adult concepts transferred from different films to the footage in said kids movies. Courtesy of filmmakers who clearly aren’t concerned about consistency in how they prepare everything for filming.
Originally published here. The post Warner Demonstrates Stunning Hypocrisy in ‘Space Jam 2’ Promo appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| In Pre-Cult Culture, Christianity Was a Cultural Normal Posted: 11 Apr 2021 07:45 AM PDT
History shows us that whenever one culture conquers another, the victors take pains to rub out or co-opt their new subjects’ religion. This dynamic has been on full display for years as the twin cults of our rulers have waged an iconoclastic orgy against Christian culture.
One consequence of unfettered Pop Cult iconoclasm that’s seldom addressed is the challenge it creates for the faithful remnant working to rebuild a healthy culture. Dissident artists may do well to study the Catholic Church’s efforts to regain a foothold in Russia. The Soviets afforded the Orthodox some toleration, but they effectively wiped out Catholicism within the USSR.
Western creators who dissent from the Death Cult must similarly start from square one. The Cult’s worldview has permeated pop culture for so long, that many in Gens X and Y may have forgotten what pre-cult culture looked like, and most Millennials and Zoomers have no experience of it.
For a poignant reminder of what has been stolen from us, watch this clip from the 90s X-Men animated series:
That episode aired in 1995, but it already feels like watching a transmission from some parallel reality. Two short years before Cultural Ground Zero, a hit kids’ show on a major network could tell a story with unambiguously Christian themes, and no one batted an eye.
Pay special attention to the Disney watermark.
A mere quarter century later, the same cultural organs are still producing stores with spiritual messages, but instead of preaching the infinite mercy of Christ, they shriek the Death Cult’s insatiable malice.
Take what comfort you can in the fact that the Death Cult cannot build, but only destroy. Its zealots’ frenzy will one day burn itself out, along with the wreckage of Western civilization.
We must draw close to Christ that we may be ready to begin the slow work of rebuilding.
Originally published here The post In Pre-Cult Culture, Christianity Was a Cultural Normal appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Warner Media Revives their Classic ‘Hanna-Barbera’ Brand Posted: 11 Apr 2021 05:30 AM PDT Yaba-daba-doo and Jinkies! WarnerMedia has revitalized one of the most iconic names in animation history with the establishment of London-based Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe.
The newly renamed facility, which was formerly known as Cartoon Network Studios Europe, operating from Great Marlborough Productions, will be WarnerMedia's flagship television animation studio within Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) and Cartoon Network Studios (CNS), and Vanessa Brookman, head of kids EMEA, will jointly head the studio. The original studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, was founded in 1957 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and created several iconic characters including Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear and hundreds more. The studio will build on its pipeline of local productions, including The Amazing World of Gumball, The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe, and Elliott from Earth while also seeking out new production opportunities.
via Variety The post Warner Media Revives their Classic ‘Hanna-Barbera’ Brand appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
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