This is Lucy. If she looks excited in this picture, it’s because she is extremely excited. In this picture she is riding the train, heading downtown to see Marvel Universe Live, and she cannot wait. More than any of our other kids, Lucy has always marched to her own drummer. She decides what she likes and what she is into based on, well, what she likes. And she loves Thor. She is obsessed with Thor. He is by far her favorite super hero. She has a birthday coming up, and we had the opportunity to bring her to Marvel Universe Live, which is a large stunt show based on characters from Marvel Comics. We thought she would really enjoy it. And boy, did she.
I am one that normally does not like the villains. I am not usually one that can cheer for the villains or see one of them as the main protagonist of the story. For that reason alone, I was unsure about wanting to read Star Wars: Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp. I didn’t want to spend my time trying to get into a story where Darth Vader was the main protagonist. It just didn’t interest me. The more I thought about it, though, the more I was intrigued and found myself curious to learn more about Darth Vader.
One thing that seems to be becoming more and more unpopular is reading. I was at a get together a while back. My wife and I were sitting at one table with my brother and his wife. The four of us are pretty avid readers (although I am not as much as I would like to be), and we overheard another table talking about how they hate reading. They laughed about how they would much rather just wait for the movie to come out, and if they don’t make a movie about a book, then the book probably wasn’t that great. The four of us just looked at each other with wide eyes. We all felt pretty strongly that the other table simply had it wrong.
2016 is here, and that means we have a whole new year’s worth of movies to look forward to. 2015 was all about The Force Awakens. What will be the big hit for 2016? So far it looks like Captain America: Civil War may be the king of the year, but it has plenty of competition. This is my list of 10 movies I am looking forward to in the upcoming year. It’s not a comprehensive list, because there are a ton of really cool movies coming out this year. My list may not be the same as yours, but these are the 10 movies I am looking forward to. They are listed in order of when they are coming out.
WARNING:This essay includes an open discussion of spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this.
I have now seen The Force Awakens twice. I am relieved to say that this isn’t rebooted, dark and gritty Star Wars. This is Star Wars at its best. It’s the same feeling I get when watching the original trilogy AND the prequels. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s exciting. There’s humor and warmth as well as stirring emotional scenes and deep moral lessons to contemplate. The action sequences are high-flying and thrilling. It flows with the rest of the saga like a river…but that’s still partly pending resolution of how we got from the happily-ever-after in Return of the Jedi to something-is-very-wrong-and-needs-to-be-set-right on Jakku.
This past Monday saw the premier of the latest DC television series, Supergirl. The series is brought to us by the same folks who brought us Arrow and The Flash, so expectations were pretty high. I was curious to see if the quality would be just as high as those two shows, or if this would be just a “girl version” of a superhero show. More on that later. It seems like the reception for the pilot has been pretty positive, which is a big deal. Make no mistake, she may wear the “S” ( I know, it’s not really an S) on her chest, but this was still a really big risk for DC. Historically speaking, female driven superhero titles have not been huge sellers. Partially, that’s because female superhero title haven’t been very good, historically speaking. Well, I have watched the pilot for Supergirl now, twice, and I have to say, I have a lot of hope that this series could rewrite history for the genre.
I love Halloween time. It is one of my favorite times of year. Maybe it’s because it is in the Fall, or maybe it’s because of all the candy. The point is, I really enjoy it. Having kids, I have enjoyed it even more. It is a lot of fun planning costumes with them and seeing how excited they get to dress up and go trick or treating. Another thing I like about Halloween is watching the occasional “Halloween Film.” Like Christmas, there seems to be films that I watch only at this time of year. The only problem is, I can’t stand horror films. There are probably lots of reasons why I don’t like them, but maybe the most simple is that I just never got into them. They’re just not my jam (that’s right, I’m hip, so I can say things like “my jam”). So what movies do I like to curl up on the couch with that special someone and that special bowl of popcorn and watch during this time of year? This week, we will be giving you a list that you can turn into your very own Fun Halloween Movie Marathon.
It’s finally here- the new season of Doctor Who, and I for one was very excited about it. It almost feels like Christmas when my favorite shows start showing new episodes again, especially Doctor Who. There always seems to be so much anticipation and hype leading up to the new season, and this year was no exception. A new season of Doctor Who also means a new round of “day late reviews” from me, starting with “The Magician’s Apprentice.” Now, to ensure that this post is absolutely spoiler free, BBC America has done something cool with this first episode- they put it up for free on YouTube. The whole episode, commercial free. Check it out:
If you haven’t watched the episode yet, please watch it now, or wait to read this post. You have been warned.
The episode starts with scenes from a war ravaged planet, with quite the mixture of technologies. Two men are seen trying to combat some propeller planes equipped with laser guns only using a bow and arrow. One of the men sees a child in the middle of this battle field and follows him to try to help. They get stuck in the middle of a hand mine field, and one of the hand mines takes the man, and the child is petrified as he stands in the middle, now all alone. The Doctor shows up at this point, and it looks like he is going to save the boy, even throwing his screwdriver to him, until the boy says his own name. We learn the boy is Davros. And it appears that the Doctor doesn’t save him, but abandons him, leaves him to die.
Next we see The Colony Sarff, servant of Davros, going from place to place looking for the Doctor. On the planet Karn, he delivers his message to the Sisterhood and says that Davros Remembers, Davros knows. Apparently, Davros remembered that it was the Doctor he came to save him, and then abandoned him. He is looking for revenge before he dies himself.
Back on Earth, Clara is teaching school when she notices that all the planes have stopped, they’re all frozen in the sky. Clara rushes to UNIT to help them figure out what is going on. She tries to reach the Doctor, but she can’t. They begin to try to work out how the planes all got frozen. That’s when they are contacted on “the Doctor channel,” a channel set up for the Doctor, a channel he never uses. They discover it’s Missy, and she has frozen all the planes to get their attention.
Clara meets with Missy, and discovers that the Doctor is in real danger, and needs their help. Clara looks for the Doctor and they try to figure out where and when the Doctor is. They find him throwing himself a party in some medieval town. This is where the Colony Sarff finds him, and brings him to meet with Davros. Clara and Missy insist on going with him, so he brings all three.
They arrive where Davros is, which looks like some kind of hospital floating in space. They are held in a chamber, until Davros sends for the Doctor. Missy and Clara, alone together in the cell figure out that they are on a planet, even though it looks like it is floating space. The Doctor faces off with Davros-possibly for the last time. Clara and Missy go exploring and discover that they are really on the planet Skaro. The episode then takes a Moffat like turn as both Clara and Missy are killed off by the Daleks.
The episode ends with the Doctor back on the same war-torn planet, now closer to the young Davros, saying he is there to save his friends. That’s when he pulls out a weapon, very un-Doctor like. It looks as though he will be killing the young Davros in order to save his friends, but I guess we will have to wait until next week to see what happens.
The Good: This was overall a very good episode. I enjoyed it from start to finish. I think we are seeing more of Capaldi’s vision of the Doctor, he seems to be getting more comfortable in the Doctor’s skin, and I like the mad man who is coming out as a result of it. It will be interesting to see how it all develops this season with this great opener and then with it being Clara’s last run.
Last season, at the very end, I was pretty harsh on Missy. I still feel like the gender change was a gimmick, and it still felt gimmicky to me at the time. That being said, Michelle Gomez shines in this episode as Missy. I was not excited when I heard she was going to be back, but I was glad she was back as the episode progressed. She has one of the better portrayals of the Master character in this episode. I am actually excited to see more Missy.
There were some great references to some Classic Who in this episode, and I love it when they tie New Who to Classic Who. I love the bit they play from the 4th Doctor talking about what he would do if he had the chance to face an enemy and prevent everything he knew that enemy would do. Tying that bit of dialogue to what they Doctor faced at the beginning of this episode was brilliant.
The Bad: The Doctor should never have a gun. It is one of the things that I like the most about the character. He solves his problems without using weapons, so I always struggle with it when he has one. I don’t think he will go through with it. I don’t think he will actually kill Davros. We’ve been down these sorts of roads before with Moffat, but in the end, the Doctor always comes through.
The Final Verdict: This was a very solid opener, and it made me even more excited for the upcoming season. I can’t wait to see where it goes this year and what will happen with all the characters on the show. This first story has me very excited, and I can’t wait to see the conclusion next week. I would give this premier a solid 4.5 out 5 stars.
What did you think of the episode? Was it one of your favorites, or did you just really not like it? Let us know in the comments below or share your thought with us on our Facebook page, or you can even tweet at us (is that how you say it?) @thegeekymormon, or if you really want, you can send us feedback at [email protected].
Steven Spielberg told the associated press “There will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western,” That is quite the statement in the current climate of big budget movies filling seats and filling the coffers of the movie Execs. First gut reaction was “What he must be crazy.” I do how ever want to take a more in depth look at the statement.
First of all I live in the town of Kanab also know as Little Hollywood. Why is it called that you ask? Well a good portion of western movies and TV shows were filmed here and their sets still can be seen today. So westerns are a big part of this towns culture and also a lot of the residence still are Cowboys and Gals. The town enjoys the history of the boom of Western movies and we celebrate it every year with the western legends round up.
Westerns did diminish in production that is a fact. Hollywood decided to move on and focus on other genres. They did not how ever stop releasing good western movies here is a list of movies over the past few years and these are just of the top of my head.
Cowboys and Aliens
Django
True Grit
Appaloosa
Priest
3-10 to Yuma
So is the the genre dead. No It has never been dead. People still want to be that cowboy or out law fighting to survive.
I now come to Superhero movies. We have seen an explosion of good, no great movies that have enthralled the audiences with a chance to step in the shoes of their favorite hero of their childhood. Children are gaining a new respect for these characters too.
Both DC & Marvel have slated movies clear into 2020. Are they going to fill the seats up til then and into the future. I truly think they will because these types of movies are not new to us. Superman debuted in film and TV in the 1950s close to 65 years ago he alone has gone through many an TV show and Movie with huge followings. Many still believe Christopher Reeves is the Best Superman and not too mention the Smallville cult following is immense. I could go through many other comic book heroes and point out all there TV appearance and Movies they have been in but that could take me some time.
Will these movies slow down in popularity. Well more than likely nothing can sustain the growth it is currently enjoying. But will the disappear or become unpopular I say no. People always want to get away from their lives even if it is for two fantastical hours with their hero. Also look at the content available for Hollywood producer to draw on. content that already has a following a base to start from. Hollywood execs know that if they place the right project in the right hands they will be able to fill seats.
Not to say that all Superhero movies are made equal. We currently have had the opportunity to see two franchises that point out that it is all about who is at the helm on whether we receive a movie worth watching.
Guardians of the Galaxy stands out as a story line that had little following and was very obscure content that know one knew. I recall taking to a good friend of mine saying Marvel has done it wrong now. Oh how I was wrong. I went to go and see the movie and I was blown away by how I was drawn into the characters who I knew little about and enjoyed every minute of it.
Then there is Fantastic Four. This franchise was well known and people were excited for the reboot to see if it can live up to their expectation. Unfortunately it fell flat. Disjointed and a confusing plot showed that just putting on the title a famous franchise will not make it money.
So back to Spielberg’s statement to the press “Will they go the way of the western.” No I do not think so. I think the momentum will slow down but myself and so many others are excited to see where the genre takes us.
In honor of the release of The Fantastic Four last weekend, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some really bad superhero movies. Actually, what made me think of this was seeing that Batman & Robin was available on Netflix. I saw that and thought it would be fun to go over a list of bad superhero movies, maybe a list of the 5 worst superhero movies. Then FF came out and the whole mindset of this list changed. I have put together a list of really bad superhero movies that are better than FF. Better according to whom? Rotten Tomatoes, of course. If you haven’t heard, Fantastic Four is sporting a not so fantastic (yes, I went there) Rotten Tomatoes score of 9%. That is so horrendous that I felt like we needed to give some context. I went through a quick list of really bad comic book flicks and found that quite a few of the ones that are generally considered just awful actually scored better than FF. The only one that I thought of that didn’t was Catwoman, which tied at 9%, so it wasn’t worse. Let’s begin the list and you’ll get the idea as we go along.
Amazing Spider-Man 2
My first thought was to include Spider-Man 3, the original killer of the franchise, but it turns out this sequel was lower on the tomato scale, coming in at 53%, less that Spider-Man 3’s 63% (really?! 63%? Wow.). Both films suffer from way too many bad guys and not enough good story or character development. Amazing 2, however, was the one that finally forced Sony to consider working with Marvel, instead of against them. This film was bewildering for me. Was Electro the bad guy, or was it the Goblin, and why was Rhino even in it at all? I give them credit for “going there” with Gwen Stacey’s death, but it wasn’t enough to cover up everything else that was wrong with the film. It was too bad, because I thought the franchise had so much potential. As bad as it was, though, it almost 6 times better than Fantastic Four. Honorable Mention: Spider-Man 3 63%
Elektra
I really wanted Daredevil to be on this list, but as I went through these movies, I remembered that there was this quasi-sequel that probably belonged more. Daredevil was a bad movie, scoring only 44% on Rotten Tomatoes. You know what makes an even worse movie? When you make a kind of sequel to a horrible movie starring one of the side characters. This was a bad idea from the start, and when I look at the reviews and the images from the film, I am just thankful that Daredevil and all the characters that go along with him are back in the Marvel fold. The score for this movie is 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s still 1% better than Fantastic Four. Honorable Mention: Daredevil 44%
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
There was a time in the late 00’s when Fox was just done with the X-Men. First they made X-Men: The Last Stand, which was almost laughably bad, then they decided to take it even further by trying to ruin all the coolest X-Men characters and one of the better origin stories, all with the same movie. That Masterpiece of disaster was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I don’t know how this movie gets made. The pitch had to be “We want to take Wolverine’s awesome origin story and just ruin it completely. Then we want to take Gambit, who everyone has been waiting to see on film, and just make him totally lame. Then we are going to throw in Deadpool, you know, the Merc with a Mouth? Get this, we are going to take aways his mouth. In the end , we are going to have a big pile of garbage, but it will make lots of money.” I figure they must have had something pretty good on Hugh Jackman to blackmail him into coming on board for this film. Despite all that, it was 4 times better than Fantastic Four with a score of 38%. Honorable Mention: X-Men: The Last Stand 58%
Superman IV- The Quest for Peace
It’s a bad sign when a sequel is given a subtitle and none of the other films in the series has one, that is typically a bad sign. Run away from that movie. That was the case for the needlessly named Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It is the worst of the four Superman films and the reason why we didn’t see another Superman movie until he returned in 2006. Now, I have gone on record as saying that I have a soft spot for this movie because I remember seeing it in the theaters. I was 5 at the time, and all I cared about was being my favorite superhero, Superman, and I saw him so the movie was great. I can fully recognize, now, that this is a wretched film that should be avoided. Just trust me on that. Despite all of that, the film scored 12%, which is still higher than Fantastic Four. Honorable Mention: Superman III 26%
Batman & Robin
Batman fanboys seem to believe that Batman can do anything. Well, apparently the one thing Batman couldn’t do was save this film. It is so painful to watch, yet you can’t seem to turn away. It is probably one the most universally disliked films ever, unless you are Arnold Schwarzenegger. Pretty much everyone agrees that the performances in this film were just awful, unless, again, you are Arnold Schwarzenegger. This took everything that was wrong with Batman Forever and magnified it and made it worse. And then there’s the issue of bat-nipples. Why? This nightmare, however, beats Fantastic Four by 2%, coming in at 11%. Honorable Mention: Batman Forever 41%
Finally, a film that most people probably didn’t know existed. A film that at first glance looks like the worst one on this list. A film that proves that this latest Fantastic Four movie may be the worst Fantastic Four film of all time. I am talking, of course, about 1994’s unbelievably bad Fantastic Four, which scored 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. In other words, this is better than the high budget, “blockbuster” that was just released last weekend:
Even Doctor Doom looked better in that one. What do you think? Are all of these movies really better than the new Fantastic Four? Has the new FF set the new low for superhero movies? Let me know in the comments, or contact me directly at [email protected].
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