Bleeding Fool |
- Superman Films Ranked: #3 ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’
- Masculine & Patriotic Top Gun: Maverick Overperforms, Media Whines
- Owen Wilson’s Superhero Film Shifts to a Paramount+ Release
- Is Warner Bros. Scrapping their Black Superman Projects?
- Depp-Heard Verdict Reveals ‘Gamergate’ Smear was just ‘Cancel Culture’ in 2014
- Superman Films Ranked: #4 ‘Man of Steel’ (2013)
- Family-Friendly Angel Studios Announces $100M in Original Content
- Frank Miller Presents Announces New Titles and Revivals for Sin City and Ronin
- Lynda Carter Claims Wonder Woman is a Transgender “Queer” Icon
- Superman Films Ranked: #5 ‘Superman Returns’ (2006)
| Superman Films Ranked: #3 ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ Posted: 06 Jun 2022 03:25 PM PDT
#3 in my ranking of the theatrically released Superman films. #7 in my ranking of theatrically released Batman films. #1 in my ranking of the DCEU franchise.
The sequel to Man of Steel feels both of the previous film and decidedly apart. Where the first one had a rough visual aesthetic with a lot of hand held camera work, the sequel largely sidesteps that. Where the first explored character in a solid block before giving way to a relatively straightforward plot in the second half, the sequel is mired in an overcomplicated plot from the first scene. The ambition is still there, though, to tell a story of epic scope, and while I definitely don't think of this as a masterpiece, I do find so much to enjoy.
My favorite part of this whole this is probably Ben Affleck as Batman and Bruce Wayne. He could be the older version of Michael Keaton's Batman. He's grizzled and has been doing his dark knighting for a very long time. The destruction at the appearance of the Superman broke him, though. He watched a flying god fight another flying god and level Metropolis. He knew people who died because of it. As a man who's been fighting freaks in clown makeup for twenty years, he's suddenly faced with an existential threat in the form of a superman who, if he decided he wanted to for whatever reason, enslave and destroy the entire planet (something he dreams of at one point). His monomaniacal focus on fighting Superman is the best part of the movie, and Affleck plays that rage really well.
In order to get there, the movie has a very, very involved plot that goes from an African tribal warlord and terrorist, independent security contractors, mystery bullets, Congressional hearings, a Senator blocking an import license, a former Wayne Enterprises employee and his checks that never got to him from his injury, and a few other things along the way. Cutting through it all late in the movie, it all boils down to: Lex Luthor, billionaire, is manipulating Superman, Batman, and the media to drive a wedge between everyone in an effort to get Batman to kill Superman or to get Superman to kill Batman. The former rids the world of the threat of Superman. The latter shows the world that Superman is not worthy of praise or worship and turns the world against him.
A quick note in the middle: I've only ever seen the Ultimate Cut of this movie. I've never seen the Theatrical Cut. The Ultimate Cut's plot is a challenge to assemble, but it's ultimately doable. I've read that it's impossible in the Theatrical Cut. For that alone, I'd recommend the Ultimate Cut if you're interested in checking it out. I've owned the Theatrical Cut since I bought the Blu-ray, and I've never even bothered to start it.
Now, this plot is a lot. It's too much, and it really needed to be pared back a little bit at the least. Cutting the African warlord would have been a good first step, but it needed to be addressed at the script level, and not in editing. The African warlord does end up paying off, but it's about two hours after he'd disappeared from the film, leaving a lot of little things for the audience to keep track of that all end up being distractions.
Outside of that, though, I think this movie is really smart. It's an exploration of the messianic and apocalyptic implications of Superman revealing himself to the planet. He gets worshiped, and he gets feared, and the public are easily swayed in each direction. That manifests most in how Luthor is able to manipulate Bruce Wayne into homicidal rage against Superman. That Bruce Wayne starts from a point of anger makes the manipulation work dramatically. It should also be said that at no point does the audience feel ahead of the characters in unraveling the plot because the plot is so complicated, so there's never a point where, no matter what the audience's consideration of Batman's motives or actions, the audience will wonder how Wayne could be so stupid to fall for such a easy to figure out scheme because it's kind of impossible to figure out. So there's a positive for the pretty much incomprehensible plot as it plays out.
Superman is in a tough place as this all works. He just wants to do good, what's in his nature, but even his mother is saying that he doesn't need to put up with all this nonsense, that he owes the world nothing. There are pressures for him to simply stop trying to help, but he refuses. That refusal is key to Luthor's plan. He needs to be good so that Luthor can prove him to be bad, to put him in an impossible position and force him to choose wrong. Superman, in a fallen world, finds it impossible to stay as good as his ideals demand of him.
I find this approach to the two main characters really interesting and a great way to get through the adventure. Outside of it, the movie has a lot going for it as well. Expensively produced, the movie embraces a dark visual palate that fits the darker thematic approach to the comic book material. Within that, the brooding nature of Batman and Gotham City fit like a glove, and the more somber approach to Superman's place in the world fits as well. Whether you like that approach to a super hero more generally viewed as a bright and shining beacon seems to amount to personal taste and attachment to the source material, but I've never been that attached to Superman as an ideal, so I'm good with it.
As I said before, Ben Affleck is probably my favorite Batman, and Henry Cavil plays the conflicted nature of this Superman well. Amy Adams is a quality Lois Lane, and I kind of love the manic, twitchy performance of Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor.
Now, I want to address the Martha moment. Just for the record, my wife watched this with me on this most recent viewing, and she hadn't seen it before. She did not laugh hysterically like I thought she would at the Martha moment, so there's that. The Martha moment doesn't come out of nowhere, the clues are there that Superman knows his mother and Bruce's mother have the same name, that Bruce is still doing what he's doing out of a need to make up for his parents' death, and that reason hasn't gotten through to him. He needs to get Batman to think differently, and an emotional punch should do. I think the moment could be set up better to help, but it ultimately still doesn't completely work. What is it about Martha Kent having the same first name as Martha Wayne that gets Batman to stop trying to kill Superman? I'm unclear. What does Bruce Wayne suddenly see in him? It's, well, it's unclear. This is a first draft idea rushed into production. It needed to be better ironed out because I think the idea has merit in general, but in execution it leaves a good bit to be desired.
All in all, though, the Ultimate Cut of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is a ride through a complex plot with some interesting stuff on its mind at the same time. There's great spectacle along the way as well. It could have used more time as a script to hammer some stuff out and clear some stuff up, but as it is, I find it an entertaining three hours.
Rating: 3/4
Originally published here. The post Superman Films Ranked: #3 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Masculine & Patriotic Top Gun: Maverick Overperforms, Media Whines Posted: 06 Jun 2022 08:25 AM PDT
Paramount’s smash hit legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick, continues to obliterate the competition at the box office. Following an incredible launch in theaters last weekend, when the film grossed a whopping $124 million, Maverick is back at No. 1 for a second weekend, earning another $86 million in North American theaters. Given all of the blockbusters the A-lister has starred in, the picture has become Tom Cruise’s highest-grossing domestic release ever.
The competition was no match for Cruise, as the next nearest performer, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness stayed in second place, earning $9.2 million in the United States and Canada. There weren't any major studio wide openers this weekend to slow down Top Gun 2. NEON is going wide with their Cannes premiere Crimes of the Future from David Cronenberg; that movie garnering 80% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some leftist publications have started smearing the film as too patriotic and anti-woke. Vanity Fair went hard in the paint against conservative news site Breitbart over John Nolte’s effusive praise of the film.
What’s not to like? Nolte seemed to relish in their displeasure with his take on the blockbuster film:
Themes drive good movies. "Inclusion" and "diversity" are not themes. Instead, they're buzzwords spouted by smug, over-educated, shallow bullies whose self-esteem is based on everything but character and integrity.
It's clear summer moviegoing is in full effect, and with 46% K-12 schools out and another 88% colleges on break according to Comscore. While it's clear Top Gun: Maverick has pulled in those older audiences who were reluctant during the pandemic, according to Deadline, Paramount is jazzed by the sequel's younger draw given that the 18-24 quad was the pic's largest audience segment over the weekend at 21%.
God bless the free market indeed. The post Masculine & Patriotic Top Gun: Maverick Overperforms, Media Whines appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Owen Wilson’s Superhero Film Shifts to a Paramount+ Release Posted: 06 Jun 2022 07:55 AM PDT
This August, Owen Wilson’s new comedy Secret Headquarters will be available exclusively on Paramount+. Wilson will head an incredible cast in a narrative of heroes, villains, and a quest to rescue the world, which will be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films in collaboration with Paramount. Wilson should feel perfectly at home in the superhero genre, having previously been in Marvel’s Loki, and the picture looks like a great ride based on the plot.
The summary for Secret Headquarters reads as follows: "While hanging out after school, Charlie and his friends discover the headquarters of the world's most powerful superhero hidden beneath his home. When villains attack, they must team up to defend the headquarters and save the world.”
The film also features Walker Scobell, Jesse Williams, Keith L. Williams, Momona Tamada, Abby James Witherspoon, and Michael Peña. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman from a screen play they co-wrote with Thor: Ragnarok scribe Christopher Yost and Orange is the New Black's Josh Koenigsberg.
Paramount Streaming's chief programming officer Tanya Giles said of the release. She said: "Secret Headquarters is the perfect action-packed summer film for the whole family, making it a perfect fit for Paramount+ and our mountain of entertainment geared toward the whole household." The post Owen Wilson’s Superhero Film Shifts to a Paramount+ Release appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Is Warner Bros. Scrapping their Black Superman Projects? Posted: 06 Jun 2022 06:15 AM PDT
According to the Superman Homepage (and our previous report), it looks like Warner Bros may be rethinking the notion of greenlighting a woke film adaptation of Superman written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and bring back Henry Cavill in the role from 2013, if this does turn out to be more than simply a rumor, as they put it:
Presumably, the WB management’s been paying attention to how things are going for Disney, now that they’ve mired themselves in a whole controversy over pandering to LGBT ideology and campaigning for the approval of grooming children through indoctrination, with the most absurd part being that some of the products they’re developing for their campaign are manufactured in China, which opposes the same agenda they’re favoring. But, if it turns out they’re reconsidering their previously reported directions, surely it’d be a good idea they see to it DC Comics proper stops with their own agenda pandering too? Point: if they allow even a seemingly lesser outfit they own continue to take paths that’re embarrassing from a PR viewpoint, that too can hurt their business. So they may want to consider seeing to it that DC stop with their own SJW directions, and remove Marie Javins from the EIC role after how she perpetuated the damage to their brands. They’d also do well not to work with Coates again, considering what a bad political lot he really is. And if WB does move forward with plans for a new Cavill-starring Superman vehicle, that’s certainly surprising, considering it’s been nearly a decade since the 2013 movie, and will probably be more than that by the time a sequel’s finally released. And then, would they continue the exceedingly dark path they took with Zack Snyder’s movie? I’m afraid that angle’s gone much too far already, so even if Cavill’s brought back after all these years, it still wouldn’t be reason for enthusiasm, if they can’t make audience feel inspired, and won’t offer a sense of humor to counter the darker angle of their previous movie. That’s something everybody would do well to consider.
Originally published here.
The post Is Warner Bros. Scrapping their Black Superman Projects? appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Depp-Heard Verdict Reveals ‘Gamergate’ Smear was just ‘Cancel Culture’ in 2014 Posted: 06 Jun 2022 04:45 AM PDT
The outcome of the widely famous Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial, in which a Virginia judge ruled that Depp was the more aggrieved party, sent leftist journalists into a spiral on Twitter, with some searching for solutions in the distant past of millennial feminism critique.
Depp filed defamation accusations against Heard following a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which the actress accused her estranged husband of many wrongdoings, including domestic abuse, without naming him. The ACLU ghostwrote the op-ed, which was published at the height of the #MeToo movement, as shown in the trial.
Depp was found not guilty and was granted compensatory damages of $10 million and punitive penalties of $5 million. It also found in favor of Heard on one of her two counter-defamation claims, giving her compensatory damages of $2 million.
Following the ruling, lefty journalists on social media, who predominantly supported Heard, promptly cast blame on a slew of traditional boogeymen: misogyny, misinformation, the far-right, and “gamergate.”
Gamergate was a 2014 consumer movement that was fed up with low professional standards and extreme ideological bias from technology and video game reporters, who had become preoccupied with feminist narratives in the years leading up to the movement, which liberal journalists and SJWs have since linked to everything from misogyny, racism, and even Donald Trump’s election.
Gamergate was the first major backlash against what is now known as wokeness, as well as media-driven cancel culture. This is likely why the nearly ten-year-old consumer movement continues to terrify liberal journalists.
Both Depp and Heard hurled wild and shocking allegations against one another on the witness stand, but one of the most memorable accusations was perhaps Depp's claim that Heard had once defecated in his bed after an argument. Trial viewers quickly took to social media to dub the actress "Amber Turd," and trended the hashtag #MePoo following Heard's stunning loss in the defamation trial.
Johnny Depp Warns "No One is Safe" from Cancel Culture
The #MePoo hashtag is a play on the #MeToo movement, for which many say Heard has hindered, given that a jury found on Wednesday that the actress had defamed Depp, awarding the Pirates of the Caribbean star $10 million in compensatory damages, and $5 million in punitive damages.
the fine folks over at Clownfish TV surmise this is Amber Heard’s publicity team pushing this campaign. Here’s what they had to say:
Meanwhile the petition calling for Amber Heard to be removed from Aquaman 2 recently passed 4.5 million signatures The post Depp-Heard Verdict Reveals 'Gamergate’ Smear was just ‘Cancel Culture’ in 2014 appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Superman Films Ranked: #4 ‘Man of Steel’ (2013) Posted: 05 Jun 2022 03:25 PM PDT
#4 in my ranking of the theatrically released Superman films. #3 in my ranking of the DCEU franchise.
There's something big and ambitious and earnest about Zack Snyder's take on Superman that I find really admirable. Not everything in this movie works, but the mythic scope and embrace of the idea of gods coming to fight it out on Earth is handled with such weight and energy that I get swept up in the spectacle every time.
Snyder took the well-worn story of Superman's origins and recast it rather dramatically in a couple of different directions. The first is aesthetics. Krypton looks browner and weirder than we'd seen it in film before. There are giant monsters and an embrace of weird science fiction visuals in how Krypton's technology works. There's also an embrace of a handheld camera that evokes independent filmmaking, especially in smaller moments. I remember when the first trailer dropped and people were saying that it almost looked like a Terrence Malick movie. Sort of (there's too much of an embrace of lens flares), but it certainly provides an interesting contrast with the epic visuals, giving it an inherently grounded feel while dealing with a rather zany story of supermen and terraforming machines.
The second different direction largely focuses on John Kent, Superman's adoptive father from Kansas. The movie decides that it wants to explain Clark Kent's hiding of his power out of fear and a question of trust. The closest this movie comes to a strong theme is this idea of building trust in the face of something new. It pops up from time to time and gets mildly explored, but the film is much more of a character driven exercise in its first half and a plot driven one in its second. The first half is about Clark Kent's lifelong quest to find a way to belong while having incredible powers no one else has and protecting himself from what he imagines to be a paranoid and violent reaction to his presence should it become widely known. Still, he can't help but try and make the world better around him, so he saves kids from a bus crash despite his father's insistence that it might have been better to let them die rather than risk revealing himself, and he rescues some oil rig workers despite coming away with nothing and needing to move on to another life again.
The irony is, of course, that he's so strong that mankind could probably never hurt him, so the fear is less about his personal safety and more about the unpredictable results of his reveal. What happens after he finally figures out who he is and where he's from when he finds a long lost Kryptonian ship? It's his announcement to the universe that he is there, and Zod shows up. Zod, Krypton's general who tried to lead a coup in the planet's final decadent and collapsing moments and was punished in the Phantom Zone, comes back with the objective of rebuilding Krypton. Superman's actions on Earth bring Zod there. Driven to insanity, he wants to terraform Earth into a new Krypton, no matter the living denizens, and exact his revenge on Superman's father at the same time (with some extra stuff about a genetic codex imbued in Superman's genetics put there by his father). This plot doesn't really develop until the second half of the film, which I have no problem with.
The problem is really with Zod himself. I like the idea of Zod more than the execution. Michael Shannon is stilted as the dedicated antagonist, and his dialogue is often the most unnatural sounding of any of the principals. This is probably be design, giving him a different cadence from the rest of the characters to imply a different culture, but it comes off as stilted rather than elegantly natural. Part of that is the dialogue as written, and part of that is Shannon himself who haltingly moves through every line. Still, I love his plan and the epic fight that breaks out.
The terraforming of Earth as a threat provides room for some incredible destruction. I know some people have problems with the scale of destruction throughout the movie, but I love it. This is a fight between gods. On the one side are a group of malevolent warriors who think of nothing of the lives they endanger. On the other is a greenhorn hero who is suddenly faced with a fight he can't handle on his own.
The fight that erupts in Smallville is a favorite. It starts with Superman attacking Zod directly after they threaten his mother in order to find the craft that Superman came to Earth in. It turns into a two on one beat down as Superman tries to fight off two Kryptonians. The US military gets involved and starts firing at both sides, and Superman ends up gaining the first trust from the official governing bodies on the planet through his actions. It's the fight over the terraforming machines that really stands out, though. The leveling of Metropolis has a scale and terrifying feel to it that I love. The gravity field that pushes down on the buildings, leveling them to dust, while Zod crashes the Kryptonian ship into buildings, toppling them over, is quite a sight. The fist fight that breaks out between Zod and Superman in the sky is less impressive, and the final moment where Zod is going to kill a random little family is poorly set up, though the idea of Superman having to take the solution to an extreme to ensure Earth's safety is an interesting one in general.
I love the ambition of the film. It's desire to reach beyond mere spectacle and enter into something of mythic scale is quite well handled. I also like Superman's challenge in finding how to make himself known to the world, and it ultimately comes out of necessity and to make up for his own contribution to the violence being visited upon Earth. It's rough, though. Zod is poorly written and delivered. I think the stuff from Clark Kent's childhood in Smallville might have worked better as a sustained sequence instead of snippets going back and forth. Overall, the movie feels like the product from a promising first draft screenplay that needed another couple of passes, but I still really like what I got.
Rating: 3/4
Originally published here. The post Superman Films Ranked: #4 'Man of Steel' (2013) appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Family-Friendly Angel Studios Announces $100M in Original Content Posted: 05 Jun 2022 01:15 PM PDT
Netflix may be tightening its belt in the wake of a slide in their stock value and subscriber count, but Angel Studios is investing heavily on its content pipeline. The streaming platform behind the most successful crowdfunded shows of all time, has raised $47 million to bring control of the entertainment industry back to consumers and creators. The round caps off a major comeback year for cofounders Neal and Jeffrey Harmon, who led Angel Studios to over $100 million in annual revenue just one year after Disney and Warner Bros. tried to shut the studio down in court.
The financing was led by Gigafund, a venture capital firm backing the world’s most ambitious and transformative entrepreneurs, and Bain-backed Uncorrelated Ventures, which invests in infrastructure software. Gigafund is known for being one of the largest investors in SpaceX, as well as other game-changing companies in industries ranging from education and energy to healthcare and housing. Original seed investors Alta Ventures and Kickstart Fund also participated. In addition to the venture backing, five million of the investment round was crowdsourced directly from Angel Studios fans.
“Angel Studios helps creators build a direct relationship with their fans and produce meaningful and compelling content for hundreds of millions of people who have been underserved by the entertainment industry,” said Stephen Oskoui, Managing Partner of Gigafund. “We believe that Angel is on track to rewrite the rules of the media business and have a significant impact on culture.”
Today’s movie business is a $280-billion industry almost totally controlled by five major Hollywood studios. Studio executives decide what content to produce in boardrooms behind closed doors, with little to no input from consumers. As a result, almost 80% of the films that Hollywood thinks audiences want to see fail to break even every year, while real audiences rarely get the chance to enjoy the stories that matter most to them. Studios rely on a few major hits to maintain the status quo.
Angel Studios is a community-driven movie studio that empowers audiences to decide what content gets produced and distributed, while creating communities around each project. Creators pitch projects on the Angel platform, and “Angel investors” fund the ones they’re most excited to see (via the Angel Funding Portal). Post-production, content is delivered directly to viewers and goes viral as fans share it with others.
“On Angel’s community and streaming platform, artists answer to audiences, not to a Hollywood studio,” said Angel Cofounder and CEO Neal Harmon, “As our creators invert Hollywood’s abysmal 80 percent failure rate, audiences will win.”
The Angel model has already produced three of the most successful crowdfunded shows of all time, including:
With this latest funding round, Angel plans to continue improving its streaming platform, market to new audiences, and develop its content pipeline for 2022 and beyond.
“This raise gives us more than funding; it gives us key strategic partners,” said Harmon. “Gigafund and Uncorrelated will help us realize our long-term mission of remaking the entertainment industry and freeing both creators and their fans to enjoy the content that they find most important.” The post Family-Friendly Angel Studios Announces $100M in Original Content appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Frank Miller Presents Announces New Titles and Revivals for Sin City and Ronin Posted: 05 Jun 2022 11:45 AM PDT
IGN did some interviews with Frank Miller, as well as his poor choice of a publisher, Dan DiDio, about their plans to do follow-ups to the former’s Sin City series and also 1983’s Ronin, and the news about their new indie Frank Miller Presents publishing outfit tells the following:
This honestly sounds little different than what Bill Jemas surely wants everybody to believe when he co-founded AWA with Axel Alonso, and besides, something tells me neither Miller nor DiDio want to publish anything even remotely similar to the former’s 2011 graphic novel, Holy Terror, which Miller’s all but disowned after just several years, and all for the sake of getting back into the good graces of the far-left, for all the good it did him after a UK convention disinvited him at the demand of an Islamist. It may not be so shocking he’d boomerang, but it’s still made me lose a lot more respect for Miller than I wished to.
That said, look who Miller’s hired to illustrated one of his new Sin City projects:
How about that, he’s tasked the artist whom Marvel threw under the bus for the sake of SJWs who hated Manara’s cover for a Spider-Woman series that didn’t last long, left no impact, and no SJWs seemed to lament its eventual cancellation. It may be impressive on the surface that Miller’s willing to do business with Manara. But DiDio, lest we forget, still casts an unpleasant shadow over the proceedings, and, he seems to have turned out an entry of his own for this new publisher in the role of a writer:
I don’t know how many pages this book will have to justify its cover price, but I do know somebody with a mindset like DiDio’s doesn’t deserve a buyer ship any more than he did when he was still publisher at DC, and even wrote at least a few series which were more like self-indulgent vanity projects that nobody seemed to put much value on. Not even Sideways, which got cancelled pretty fast. But this sure is funny how he’s changing his tune for this indie venture to something different than what he emphasized when he was DC’s publisher:
Gee, that sure is evasive coming from somebody whose repulsive idea of how to tell “modern” stories was to soil the backgrounds with jarring violence, sexual assault, and other disturbingly crude, dark elements. And who once said he believed superheroes shouldn’t lead happy lives. And, whose former staff once employed a member who said they market to 45-year-olds. Something tells me that’s exactly what he intends to continue in the context of an independent publisher now, and let’s consider Miller practically built a whole career in that vein, based on what Sin City is like, in example, ditto the Dark Knight Returns.
The main problem with DiDio’s past approach, of course, is that his flawed belief in how to tell a story was that it’s got to be “realistic”, in ways that turned out to be selective – that is, not in terms of character drama, but rather, in terms of violent content. So why should we expect any different from him this time? Towards the end, while discussing NFTs, he even put in:
If his previous writing efforts were shunned by the audience, and he didn’t put convincing emphasis on merit before, there’s no reason to assume he’d go about this any differently now. In fact, if they’re interested in selling NFTs as a springboard into more mediums, that brings to mind once again how Jemas is approaching things with his AWA venture, and it wouldn’t be surprising if DiDio and Miller are hoping to develop projects that’d appeal to Hollywood by extension, despite any suggestions made to the contrary. Which’ll just prove a point that a lot of modern comics are really being prepared with the goal of seeking movie/TV adaptations, not serious homegrown audiences.
The biggest problem with DiDio, however, is surely that he remains unrepentant over his poor conduct as an editor/publisher for DC in the past 2 decades, and it’s unlikely he’ll turn out quality entertainment under his own writing pen. That’s why any arguments he posits about quality ring hollow, because he never offered any during the time he ran DC into the ground. A terrible shame Miller had to partner with him. Don’t be surprised if there’s superhero genre fans out there who remember the harm DiDio caused, and would be rightly discouraged from buying FMP’s products as a result, no matter what they think of Miller.
Originally published here. The post Frank Miller Presents Announces New Titles and Revivals for Sin City and Ronin appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Lynda Carter Claims Wonder Woman is a Transgender “Queer” Icon Posted: 05 Jun 2022 06:15 AM PDT
Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman in the late 1970s live action TV show, is forcing everybody who’s a realist to take it with a grain of salt as she declares WW is a “trans” icon, according to Breitbart:
In other words, you may not disagree with her at all. Her claim is laughable, since:
I may have watched Carter’s TV show years ago, but after reading about this woke joke, I think I’ve had my fill, and besides, now that I think of it, I can’t get over how cheap the episode titled “Gault’s Brain” was, with a creature sporting an eye-antenna that was so obviously fake and held up by wires that were clearly visible in several scenes. In the past, you could argue some sci-fi fare doesn’t hold up well because the rubber suits worn by stunt actors were obvious, and today, even advanced special effects like CGI can arguably also be seen through.
That said, what Carter’s done only cheapens her old role all the more, as she virtue-signals to the PC crowd. (And the 70s TV series even had at least one stealth attack on right-wingers.) Of course, her leftism is nothing new – back in the late 2000s, she attacked Sarah Palin, calling her the “anti-WW” when the former Alaska governor was picked as a vice-presidential candidate for the GOP. All in a pretty one-sided manner, but that’s where Hollywood’s been going for a long time already. What Carter’s doing is hurting Bill Marston and H.G. Peter’s creation much more by dragging divisive ideologies into the picture, and demonstrating why, in the long run, she wasn’t a good fit for it.
Originally published here. The post Lynda Carter Claims Wonder Woman is a Transgender “Queer” Icon appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Superman Films Ranked: #5 ‘Superman Returns’ (2006) Posted: 04 Jun 2022 03:45 PM PDT
#5 in my ranking of the theatrically released Superman films. 
Batman Begins came and went to great fanfare, and Warner Brothers needed someone to help them reboot the long-neglected Superman franchise. Who better than Bryan Singer, the man who made the well-received first two X-Men movies? It helped that he was a big fan of the original Superman films by Donner and Lester, so he would bring the right kind of attention to the film. Well, he made the interesting choice (later mimicked across other franchises like Halloween) to simply ignore the events of Superman III and IV (the less said of Supergirl the better), and he made a spiritual sequel to II. It's oddly reverential to the original films, though. Like, actual reverence, borderline religious. I find that kind of weird, but I think it's an interesting place to start a film like this.
Superman (Brandan Routh) has been missing from Earth for five years after astronomers found the remnants of his home planet of Krypton which he investigated. In that time, the world, including Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has moved on with their lives. They feel like they don't need a hero anymore, and Superman walks (flies?) into a time and place where his presence feels unwanted (out of place might have been a stronger approach, but this is fine). At the same time, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has gotten out of prison after his capture, married a dying old woman of wealth, and inherited her fortune upon her death, much to the chagrin of her family (who are never seen again). He uses his newfound wealth to go back to the Fortress of Solitude and learn about the crystals of Krypton, including their ability to take on the properties of the material that surrounds them (I'm sure they're designed to not become air, or flesh, or something). He hatches a scheme, and to test it, he cuts off a bit of a crystal, throws it into some water, and watches as an EMP pulse emanates from his position.
This becomes the public reappearance of Superman in an exciting and fun action sequence as a shuttle launched from the back of an airliner malfunctions and Superman must save both, ending with him placing the large jet onto a baseball diamond in the middle of a game. The clarity of action, quality of the special effects, and clear stakes with Lois being on board the airliner create spectacle that's worth watching.
The heart of the movie, though, is Superman trying to reinsert himself into the world that he abandoned. Life seems to have moved on without huge disruption, but people still need that symbol of a savior (the Jesus metaphor is thick in this one, and it's hard to tell whether it's thicker here or in Man of Steel). That is emotionally centered on his relationship with Lois, embittered by Superman's unexplained absence. She seems to have moved on with an asthmatic son Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu) and fiancé Richard White (James Marsden), son of Perry White (Frank Langella), Daily Planet editor. Lois refuses Superman's advances, even after he recreates the flying scene from the first film, and Superman consoles himself by saving other people, including Kitty (Parker Posey), one of Luthor's henchmen.
Luthor put Kitty into danger to create a distraction so that Superman wouldn't notice a robbery going on at the Natural History Museum where Luthor finds a meteor with kryptonite in it. He combines this kryptonite with a crystal and shoots it into the ocean with the variation of his plan from the first film. Then, he was going to sink California into the sea to create new beachfront property. Here, he's going to create a new Kryptonian continent that drowns out most of North America that he will then sell to those who want space. It's not the best thought out plan (the land that rises from the ocean doesn't seem to be amenable to plant life, which is kind of important), and he talks about the crystals giving him advanced technology, none of which he seems to use or find, but madmen's plans don't always need to be perfect. I'm okay with a madman having incredibly destructive plans that won't pan out just like they imagine. It makes Luthor a bit less of a super-genius, for sure, but I'm still okay with it.
Of course, it can't be as straightforward as that because Lois, being a good reporter (despite still not noticing that Superman and Clark Kent showed up again on the same day) tracks down the source of the EMP pulse to Luthor's boat right before he takes off with little Jason in tow. Figuring out that they're kidnapped, Superman and Richard both go out after her, and the rescue by Richard goes wrong. This bit, with the ship breaking in two as the continent rises up from the ocean, seemingly leaving Richard, Lois, and Jason to die is surprisingly tense, dragging out just long enough to keep things interesting before we get our hero moment from our actual hero. I like it.
The big showdown happens on the dead rock with Luthor stabbing Superman with a kryptonite shard (awesome), Richard flying in to save Superman from drowning, Lois pulling the shard from his back, and Superman performs his greatest feat of strength in lifting the entire new continent and throwing it into space. I can dig it.
The movie's best assets are the spectacle itself. The airplane sequence, the near drowning, and the lifting of the continent are all great individual sequences that work well on their own. The connective tissue isn't quite as engaging. It's fine, enough to get us through the picture, but the effort to relate us to a demigod who just feels out of place ends up feeling reverential to a certain fault. I can understand it, but there's an emotional disconnect that Singer seems to take for granted. He expects us all to love the first two Superman movies as much as he does, and that's an odd assumption to make. The emotional connection seems to really rely on that previous attachment to the other films rather than building a compelling character on its own. Routh is fine in the role, playing the overgrown boy scout well, but he's not exactly challenged to do much. It doesn't help that Bosworth was miscast as Lois, being simply too young for the part. Spacey's fun as Luthor, though, chewing scenery appropriately.
I admire the film more than I actually love it. I enjoy it as spectacle first with enough to tie it all together so I don't completely disengage between the action beats. It's not great, but as a near-religious exploration of some silly comic book movies from the late 70s and early 80s, it's entertaining.
Rating: 3/4
Originally published here. The post Superman Films Ranked: #5 'Superman Returns' (2006) appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
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