The 2016 Amateur Podcast Championships has been such a great success, we’ve decided to add another award to the competition: THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
Vote for your favorite podcast and share with your friends. Voting ends at 11:59 PM EST on February 4, 2017. The winner will be announced during the Lady Gaga halftime show of Super Bowl LI via Twitter.
An email address is required to vote.
Ben Affleck’s The Batman is now preparing for a shoot close to where Warner Bros. is based in California according to LRM, in contrast to other upcoming DC movies shot predominantly overseas.
This is the latest twist in The Batman saga after Ben Affleck cast doubt on his involvement earlier this week. When asked by The Guardian about his reported starring role/direction of the movie, Affleck said:
“That’s the idea. But it’s not a set thing and there’s no script. If it doesn’t come together in a way I think is really great I’m not going to do it.”
This got fans wondering as to the progress of production, particularly after rumors that filming might commence this spring. But even after Affleck’s comments, it seems that Warner Bros. are beginning to prep for the shoot. While The Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Justice League are among future DC films to have been filmed on locations all over the world, a source has reported that the filming of The Batman will be in California.
The suggestion is that the filming is likely to take place on the studio’s lot as one of the primary locations, leading to speculation as to the setting of the caped crusader’s next outing. The filmmakers might be intending to use Los Angeles as Gotham, as Christopher Nolan did in The Dark Knight Rises, or it could be a largely interior shoot. Might we see an Arkham Asylum-based movie?
The Batman’s release is expected in 2018, though that is of course subject to change if no script is confirmed soon. Alongside Affleck who is still expected to direct and star as Batman, Jeremy Irons will reprise his role as Alfred, Joe Mangianello will appear as Deathstroke, with J.K.Simmons as Commissioner Gordon.
What do you think this means for the setting of The Batman? Tell us your theories in the comments!
2016 proved to be successful for horror movies. The genre had smaller features like ‘The Shallows‘ become a surprise hit while proven franchises like ‘The Conjuring 2′ brought in the big bucks.
Now with 2017 just kicking off, what is there to looking forward to? It looks like it will be another amazing year for horror with some crazy slasher returns, another Alien film, and the return of an infamous clown!
Check out the most anticipated horror movies of 2017 below and let me know which you are most excited for!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-y1o5Sdsg
From the first mentions of Pablo Larrain’s Jackie, Natalie Portman seemed a shoe-in for a nomination. Nothing has changed. Portman will get a nod for her captivating work as the former First Lady, despite any shortcoming the film may have. It’s a towering performance. Right behind her, almost a certainty herself, is Amy Adams for Arrival. Adams will get her Oscar eventually, I just don’t know if it’s this year, however deserving she may be for bringing honesty and soul to Deni Villeneuve’s alien invasion stunner.
Emma Stone will ride the wave of momentum for La La Land. She sings, she dances, and she gives Damien Chazelle’s musical its emotional center. After Stone we have another long-time nominee without a win in Annette Bening. She will get a nod for 20th Century Women, but will most likely wind up a bridesmaid for a fifth time.
This leaves a fifth spot and at least three deserving nominees. As tired as we may all be of Meryl Streep getting Oscar nominations just because (at least it seems sometimes) being Meryl Streep, she has a real shot here with Florence Foster Jenkins. Ruth Negga is also a deserving actress here for her brilliant work in Loving. But an outlier will sneak in this year: Isabelle Huppert. It’s terrific seeing any performance from a Paul Verhoeven picture get awards recognition, and she is absolutely deserving for her work in Elle.
BEST ACTRESS PREDICTIONS
Natalie Portman – Jackie
Amy Adams – Arrival
Emma Stone – La La Land
Annette Bening – 20th Century Women
Isabelle Huppert – Elle
Up Next – Best Actor
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Best Supporting Actor Predictions
Best Supporting Actress Predictions
On December 27, 2016, actress, singer, producer, and writer, Carrie Fisher passed away from complications suffered due to a heart attack. Fisher was just 60 years young and left an iconic mark on the world by embodying the most famous princess in a galaxy far, far away — Princess Leia. The role of Leia made Fisher a pop culture goddess, a hero to young women, and allowed her to share more and more of her talents with the rest of us.
“I am very sane about how crazy I am.” – Carrie Fisher
One of Fisher’s greatest creative talents came as a writer. In 1987, Carrie Fisher wrote her first novel, a semi-autobiographical book called Postcards From The Edge. The bestseller examined, to an extent, Fisher’s life with drugs and alcohol, as well as her relationship with her parents, singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds.
Fisher later wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Postcards From The Edge which earned her a BAFTA nomination (British Oscars). Fisher would go on to write three more novels in for the form of memoirs.
“I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.” – Carrie Fisher
Scripting Postcards From The Edge lead Fisher into a new role in the 90s as a script doctor. All this means is that Fisher would get hired to come in and fix scripts that just weren’t right. Along with her iconic tough, science fiction Princess, Fisher made a lot of iconic movies better thanks to her skill with the written word.
Fisher was responsible (and uncredited for because that’s how script doctoring works) for punching-up Steven Spielberg’s Hook, The River Wild, the wildly successful comedy Sister Act with Whoopie Goldberg, Lethal Weapon 3, Outbreak, and Adam Sandler’s The Wedding Singer. The Princess even used her scriptwriting magic on Lucas’ Attack of the Clones. By the early 2000s, script-doctoring morphed into the much less compensated “script consulting” and Fisher left it behind.
In 2008, Fisher wrote Wishful Drinking, an honest and compelling autobiography which she also turned into a one-woman play that’s available on HBO. Fisher’s gift at communicating came from a life of many highs and lows. Carrie Fisher shared laughter and pain with equal measure and without hesitation. Often, Fisher would share her thoughts without a coat of sugar to make it go down easier but with a dose of laughter to make the truth a touch less terrifying.
Rest in the infinite of time and space to a princess like few we’ve ever known. A queen of entertainment and royalty in the legacy of the written word.
The Star Wars spinoff film centered around Han Solo has potentially moved release dates from May 2018 to December 2018, according to MakingStarWars.
The outlet is claiming December 13, 2018 might be the new release date for the picture. They are also stating that the sources giving them this information have been correct in the past.
Seeing as the last two Star Wars films have seen success with a December release, this shift wouldn’t be surprising.
What are your thoughts on this new rumor? Do you think Han Solo will move release dates? Let us know in the comments section.
Directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the movie stars Alden Ehrenreich as the title character, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, and Emilia Clarke in an unknown role.
Hello, people of 2017! There are a lot of movies ahead of us this year. All the big studios are gearing up their tentpole films. Marvel and Star Wars will dazzle, wild cards like Valerian or Ghost In The Shell, shine with potential, and lurking in the shadows are films no one is paying attention to, some of which will undoubtedly make waves in the cinematic universe of our lives. But before we get caught up in the hype train of 2017, let’s celebrate the 20th birthdays of 10 pics from 1997 that are growing old gracefully.
A movie about the porn film industry circa cocaine-fueled 1970s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Yes, please! Boogie Nights is a feel-good movie about addiction, fame, and failure starring Mark Wahlberg and an all-star cast that includes Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, and pre-War Machine Don Cheadle. The Boogie Nights soundtrack is a brief but vibrant tour of the 70s to early 80s rock and disco.
If French Director, Luc Besson has one thing it’s a clear sense of attitude in all his films. From The Professional to Angel-A to Lucy, there is no doubt you’re watching a Besson project. The Fifth Element is Besson’s 1997 science fiction, cyberpunk-y, action epic with Bruce Willis and Mila Jovovich. The movie is quirky and weird, and follows the beat of its own drum keeping it a fun watch year after year.
In the midst of a biopunk future where genetic optimization is the norm, Ethan Hawke is born the old-school way and isn’t allowed to become an astronaut. Written and directed by Andrew Niccol, Gattaca was a box-office bomb back in ’97 but quickly rose through the cult ranks for being stylish and smart. Twenty years on and the noir-ish vibe, performances, and subtle visuals are just as captivating.
Aladdin, Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast get a lot of the love when it comes to 90s animated Disney features. But the House of Mouse churns out movies like a sausage factory does sausage and in 1997, one such sausage was Hercules. A slight departure from Disney’s usual style at the time, Hercules encountered a mixed reception. But the film’s signature art style and funk-tastic soundtrack worth of a revisit.
Legendary anime director Hayao Miyazaki began work on his “princess living in the woods with a beast” epic way back in the late-70s. It existed mostly as a pet project until about 1994 when things got going. By 1997, Prince Mononoke was a lushly animated story about a princess at the center of a struggle between gods, man, and nature. Studio Ghibli went a touch darker than usual, and the payoff was the second-highest grossing film of 1997 in Japan.
Before comic book movies were all the rage in Hollywood, Columbia Pictures produced Men In Black. Tommy Lee Jones starred with Will Smith who was in the midst of rising to power as the go-to blockbuster actor. Men In Black spawned two sequels, an animated series, and Will Smith’s awful song. But the CG holds up nicely while talking dogs, chain-smoking extraterrestrials, and the villain, a pre-Kingpin Vincent D’Onofrio, are still fun to watch.
Curtis Hanson’s neo-noir cop thriller doesn’t get talked about much. But the film is just as slick, stylish, and entertaining today as it was when released in 1997. Russel Crowe and Guy Pearce, relative unknowns back then, star alongside Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, and Danny DeVito in a film about corruption and celebrity that is just as poignant today.
Paul Verhoeven was an acclaimed director for nearly two decades before helming RoboCop put him on the pop-culture map. Verhoeven followed that hit with Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls. To close out a spectacular decade, Verhoeven made Starship Troopers, a sci-fi action flick loosely based on the classic Robert A. Heinlen novel. Troopers is quintessential Verhoeven satire mixed with WWII-era inspired military films, great use of CG, and plenty of action. The dumb charm of the story and its characters borders on timelessness.
In the 90s, during the rise of indie filmmakers, the world was introduced to Kevin Smith via Clerks. Smith’s guerilla-style of filmmaking was fun, but the real highlight was the writer-director’s gift for dialogue. The success of Clerks paved the way for Smith to make Mallrats and later Chasing Amy. In Chasing Amy, all of Smith’s pop-culture referencing lingo blended perfectly into a rare kind of romantic comedy with love, laughs, and attitude.
As Quentin Tarantino’s third film, Jackie Brown had big shoes to fill. Coming on the heels of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown received something of a shrug by filmgoers possibly expecting too much. But Tarantino showed us that his mastery of the kind of films he wants to make was complete. Jackie Brown is every bit a Tarantino movie with his signature style, attitude, and unabashed love for 70s cinema.
Say what you will, Titanic is a film masterpiece in almost every way possible for a flick. From a technical point of view, the direction, set design, costumes, and lighting is as good as it gets. The story gets the job done much in the same simplistic, but effective, way as James Cameron’s Avatar. Titanic is the modern-day equivalent to something like Gone With The Wind, a classic to exist on television reruns for essentially all-time.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield talked about trying to make the movies appeal to a younger audience.
“I had to fight really, really hard to make sure that the character was honored and that we were offering something really fun, entertaining and also moving and complex and deep for all the young boys and girls that want to see their favourite superhero.”
The actor then goes on to discuss his dissatisfaction with how the movies turned out.
“So many beautiful things came out of that [working on ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’] I met someone that remains incredibly important to my life on that — you can fill in the blanks on who that is. But the difference between how I felt when Never Let Me Go and The Social Network were coming out and how I felt with The Amazing Spider-Man franchise was that I didn’t feel represented. I was feeling very represented by those other two films, and with The Amazing Spider-Man stuff I didn’t feel like that was my work up there, in a weird way. It felt like a semblance of it or kind of a shade of it, but ultimately I felt it was enshrouded in that filter.”
Many fans would agree with him. Although I personally liked the franchise they were building, there’s no doubt that Sony chopped up and edited the movie to their liking.
What are your thoughts on his comments? Did you enjoy his portrayal of Peter Parker? Let us know in the comments.
Source: THR via Heroic Hollywood.
Now that both John Carter and The Legend of Tarzan have failed throughly, It’s time to ask, “Why can’t Hollywood get Edger Rice Burroughs right?” The short answer is that both adaptations moved away from the strengths of the source material. Neither film, but especially The Legend of Tarzan captures Burroughs’s core mythos. Burroughs wrote fantasy adventure, more enjoyable than deep. He wrote exciting, edge-of-your-seat adventures featuring fanciful civilizations and improbable plot-lines. He wrote pulp fiction, and this is what movie directors and writers seem to forget. John Carter attempted to appeal to a family audience and created new story element. The Legend of Tarzan tried to focus on a major societal issue, a major departure from the spirit of the source material.
The accepted definition of pulp fiction is fantastic, escapist fiction marketed at a large audience. Pulp-style movies are being made today, and some are big hits. Guardians of the Galaxy, The Magnificent Seven and Jupiter Ascending are all pulp and have all been been financially successful. Although not categorized as pulp fiction Several long running television series have used similar themes to those used by Burroughs. Stargate SGI and Vikings are both about heroes adventuring in strange lands where they fight the natives for survival. Given precedents, the audience for a faithful Burrough’s adaptation is there.
So where, specifically ,did The Legend of Tarzan go wrong? What were its major problems? First, aside from Tarzan and Jane, the major characters were historical figures.Pulp characters have to be larger than life, especially the hero and villain. Writing historical figures as larger than life risks turning them into caricatures. Second, A lot of ideas that could have been developed into good pulp were touched on and forgotten. Tarzan says that living like an ape has changed his physiology, but there’s no follow up. There are multiple scenes of the Mangani apes fighting, but Tarzan himself doesn’t fight like that. Clearly Tarzan and Jane have had adventures amongst the local peoples, but we never hear about them. All of these concepts had potential but went nowhere. The last and biggest problem: We never see Opar, the highly advanced lost civilization featured prominently in Burrough’s novels. We know there is an Opar since Djimon Hounsou’s character is described as one of the leopard men of Opar, but we have no Opar.
All of these mistakes added together create a another, major flaw. They make us feel as if The Legend of Tarzan is taking place in the real world, our world, not the one created by Burroughs. The real world where realistic things happen is anathema to pulp fiction and therefore a major departure to what makes Burrough’s writing work. Realism destroys the escapism of the Pulp gene. It doesn’t work Hopefully future directors and writers will keep adapt his work more faithfully.,
This originally was supposed to be a “Best of Season 3” but it was pushed back and instead has become a year end review. This year fans were given 39 episodes and it was a mixed bag of fantastic, middle of the road, and even a stinker of two. Still, the show continues to be one of the best on TV today and here are the best episodes to come out of this year.
This episode came close to making the list thanks to the heartfelt speech Rose makes comparing Gems and Humans. Still, it takes a bit more than one good speech to make this list.
The Crystal Gems play some Rubies in a game of baseball and it’s hilarious. The joke about the fake names they use is enough to make the episode memorable but the comedy and watching Ruby and Sapphire flirt the entire time really made this an incredible episode.
As Steven finally gets to be reunited with an old friend, a unique war story is told. One done completely in crayon. It’s an emotional moment as Centipeetle does everything possible to keep her consciousness while revealing more to the audience about what happened in her past.
While dealing with the stress of knowing his mother’s sins, Steven finds it difficult to fuse with Connie. To help correct the situation Garnet offers a bit of meditation in a very catching song. These elements mixed together to show great character development and convey the importance of dealing with anxiety. Helping cement this episode as one of the best.
Jasper returns and Amethyst gets a beatdown she never saw coming. It falls on Connie and Steven to fuse and face Jasper head to head if they have any hope of saving Amethyst. An episode which is mostly action but one with some very real ramifications seen in later episodes.
This two parter really set the stage for what the following season would focus on. The Rubies return and reveal to Steven a shocking secret about his mother he didn’t see coming. A very low key moment which really left fans wondering if what was revealed was really true or not.
The story of the first winter of Greg being a dad and the Gems not understanding what a baby is. A very comedic episode but filled with moments and helped us all to finally understand why the Gems don’t assimilate well into human culture.
If ever there was an episode where the show really reflected real life it was Gem Harvest. Finding a way to accurately portray an awkward family meal but at the same time make it so entertaining fans couldn’t look away. This episode also helped us to get to know Steven’s human roots a little bit more and hope some of his other extended family decides to come visit in the future.
A lost Crystal Gem returns and starts to talk about war stories. Things begin to get out of hand though as Steven soon finds there is a dark secret behind this old teammate’s return. One having to do with a choice his mother made. With his back against a wall, Steven has no choice but to once again clean up his mother’s mess in a way which all made us feel sorry for him having to shoulder such a heavy burden.
This one really had the fan community frantic after it was said and done. Jasper returned in an effort to convince Lapis to fuse with her. The community quickly compared the incident to an abusive relationship with one person coming back and insisting they didn’t mean for things to be bad and saying they won’t do it again. With so much emotion and a real sense of dread at times, this episode will be one fans talk about for a while.
The two parter easily made the number one spot on this list. A simple trip turns into Steven and Amethyst against Jasper in a no holds fight. Just as the action reaches its peak, Jasper begins to break down and is unable to understand how weaker opponents could defeat her. Action, comedy, and drama in one two part package.It easily stole the number one spot on this list and became the best episode of Steven Universe for the year.
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What was your favorite Steven Universe episode of 2016? Leave a comment below and let us know.
