Michael Fassbender is currently bringing the video game Assassin’s Creed to life on the big screen. However, the actor recently revealed he could have been part of a galaxy far, far away.
Speaking to MTV’s Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Fassbender said he sat down with J.J. Abrams about a role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“We talked about a role,” Fassbender said. “We had a conversation. I’m pretty sure I was busy doing something else in the summer he was kick-starting that.”
Fassbender didn’t reveal which role. Perhaps, it was for the pilot Poe Dameron, which was played by Oscar Isaac. Maybe Kylo Ren?
Lion is one the best movies of 2016 that very few people are talking about.Why? Maybe it’s how many theaters the film has been released. Lion deals with the loss of losing one’s self and the struggle we often feel to recapture who we once were. It’s a tale told with joyful tones splashed with elements of sorrow throughout the film.
The narrative in Lion centers around a young boy named Saroo. Saroo is born into a poor family and has to fend for himself with help from his brother Guddu. Their mother is a day laborer and doesn’t have the time to keep track of their every move. Saroo looks up to his older brother and begs for him to be allowed to tag along as he heads into Kolkata look for lost money at the train station. He agrees and off they went to one of the busiest train stations in the world. Guddu tells him to wait on the platform while he creeps around looking for money. While this is happening, Saroo dozes off and wakes up to no one on the platform. He immediately searches from train to train( looking for his brother) until he lands on one that eventually begins to move away from home, taking the boy with him. At first, the audience thinks that it might stop, but then we quickly realize that this trip will end about 900 miles down the train tracks.
Now to most this doesn’t seem that complicated of a situation. All Saroo had to do was go and talk to the train engineer and he would know how to get him home. However, Saroo didn’t speak the local language of Bengal. So now we have a young child who’s 900 miles away from home and can’t communicate his issue to anyone who passes by at the train station. Lucky for us, he’s street smart and survives by sleeping on the platform and stealing food from others. Eventually, he’s picked up by the authorities and dropped off at a local orphanage. Saroo ends being adopted by an Australian family, The Brierley’s (played by Nicole Kidman and David Wenham). So what we have here is a real life story of lost and found.
Cinematographer Grieg Fraser enhances this narrative with his shot selection. Fraser filmed many of the earlier scenes from Saroo’s vantage point. He emphasizes the hopelessness of his situation by panning the hundreds of people who just walk by him as he wanders around dazed by his new surroundings. He utilizes tight shots of both young Saroo and some of the other children who are also homeless. My favorite shot is when Saroo finally sits down in the train station and makes eye contact with the little girl across the way. Each of them doesn’t utter a single word to each other but convey a sense of loneliness via eye contact that will leave the toughest of audiences members reaching for a kleenex.
Fraser also manages to capture the utter depravity of Saroo’s home village and his former living conditions. It’s crucial because there is such a stark contrast between where he’s from and where he grows up. Does Saroo just enjoy this new life of ease or should he abandon all of it and seek out who he truly is? This conflict is at the center of the entire film.
This movie has two remarkable performances from both Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman. Patel (who you might remember from Slumdog Millionaire) plays Saroo and conveys such an inner turmoil over the events leading to his adoption. A part of him wants just to let things go and continue to live his life the way it is, but another part feels hollow/incomplete because he’s no longer connected to his true home. Saroo has to make some tough decisions (ones that I’m not sure I could do if I were in his shoes) and he knows that his choices will have an impact on his adoptive mother and father.
Nicole Kidman plays Saroo’s foster mother, Sara Brierley. Kidman portrays Brierley with such strength on screen and such compassion that in the back of mind, you feel that Saroo hit the parental lottery. About midway through the film, the audience begins to wonder why the Brierley’s haven’t had any kids sooner and towards the end of the movie, Sara drops a bombshell that will have people talking long after the film is complete. Both Patel and Kidman deliver such nuanced performances that it shouldn’t shock anyone when both of their names are announced as Oscar Nominees on January 26th.
So avoid films about assassins and singing pigs this holiday season. Lion is a scintillating tale that needs to be seen in theaters. Perhaps if we make an effort to avoid subpar films, 2017 will usher in a year of great cinema. I can’t think of a better wish for the new year.
Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #1 is the first big event of DC Rebirth, which makes this the kind of story that needs to count. To say this event is important to DC as its first event is an understatement. This spins out of recent events in Batman as the Justice League now knows about the Suicide Squad/Task Force X. Which means we get the potential for a massive mega battle, yet there’s more to it than you’d think. Expectations are high for this event and I’m here to dive into this comic. Will it be worth your time? Time to find out if it is the event we’ve been waiting for. Let’s get this party started with Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #1!
The hype is intense for Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #1, let’s see how it fares.
Now with the amount of publicity and hype behind this project, you wonder already if you can start reading from this issue. Yes, yes you can. Joshua Williamson is a writer I’ve been a fan of for awhile and he handles this first issue well. The event comic is a tough one to do for any writer and this one does its job. Look at the intro alone: a mysterious figure wreaks massive amounts of chaos and violence with others in tow. The pacing of that opener had me on the edge of my seat. At this point, you’re not supposed to know who’s causing it, all you know is that these people are bad news and powerful. It’s exquisite storytelling.
Hang on to your hats here, I want to dive into why the intro is so cool.
As Williamson is setting this up, I want to bring special attention to this opener on the art end of things. Jason Fabok’s art on Justice League vs. Suicide Squad is great throughout but this opener is unreal. It’s all about the right tone from Alex Sinclair’s suitably dark colors and flashes of light, with Rob Leigh’s lettering slashing through the scenery. Pops of Leigh’s splats and rips, mixing in with Fabok’s way of showing the horror that Williamson puts to the script, it’s beautiful. Between Fabok, Sinclair, and Leigh, this is the start of one wild, amazing, and action packed comic.
The rest of the issue is part establishing both teams and the motivations for the event to come. The Justice League learning about the Suicide Squad as the Squad is on a mission themselves. In the League segment, Williamson nailed the reaction of the team to the Squad. Now here’s where the issue gets a little tougher to judge, there’s a lot to shove into this. Justice League didn’t require a ton of heavy lifting, they got to react and get on to the party. The Suicide Squad was mainly there to set up Killer Frost and the eventual collision course with the League. As a pure spectacle, it’s cool but when you ponder on it further, it doesn’t gel as well as I would like. It felt like a bit of a mad dash to get to the fight.
Yet from a slightly messy push to the finish line, somehow this works.
That’s what makes this weird, as there is a dash to get to that finish yet by the end it works. It shouldn’t work that well, but it does work. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad has a manic but fun atmosphere to it for a lot of the issue. Yet with that in mind, you get strong character moments, Captain Boomerang is one such example of a character that shines here. Deadshot and Superman have a unique encounter that will make fans smile in a way, it works for both characters. Yet some characters get lost in the shuffle, hence the messy aspect of it. Though when you get to Amanda Waller, she sets off the madness right, and I love how Williamson writes her. I’m still impressed as to how well this works.
As you get to the reveal of the third group, that’s when the real fun begins. I won’t mention too much of that but it makes for a cool ending. It’s a dramatic and powerful reveal to follow up that beautiful beginning of violence and mayhem. As Williamson builds up the chaos of Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, the third team is the one that they all should be terrified of. Which makes me realize that the issues following are where this series will really start to come together.
Now with the spotlight of the intro, I want to say some more about the art.
You get a messy story initially but I think with time to breathe it’ll gel better as the series goes on. I will say that noting the amazing intro to the story the art team keeps getting better. There are powerhouse double page spreads, electric action sequences, and it all works. Fabok took his art to another level with this story without a doubt, especially that final double page spread. I muttered a happy expletive here. One thing you will notice is Sinclair’s coloring trends a bit darker to match the tone of the tale. The tough realism to the violence and action in Williamson’s script gives Fabok and Sinclair the chance to show this world in the best light. Take special note of the Rob Leigh’s lettering, especially with the intros to all the characters and Deadshot alone. Beautiful stuff.
This is the cure for the common event book. It’s excellent work all around with a strong script, great art, and amazing construction to bring this together. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad is going to be a weekly event that will be worth the time of any comic book fan.
Greg Hettinger, a.k.a. The Black Hood thought he could run from the violence. But now he finds himself running across the country from a merciless assassin who calls himself The Nobody. Greg not only has to figure out the identity of his would-be killer, but also his connection to the original Black Hood—which means going to the one place Greg vowed he never visit again: home.
The Black Hood Season 2 #2
“The Nobody Murders Pt. 2”
Written by Duane Swierczynski Art by Gregg Scott
Colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Lettering by Rachel Deering
Published by Dark Circle Comics, an imprint of Archie Comics
Writing
Crime comics are at an all-time high, especially with masters like Ed Brubaker and Greg Ruka putting out frequent work. We can now add Duane Swierczynski to that group. Swierczynski is no stranger to the genre, having written several crime fiction novels. He also wrote a few comics for Marvel. But Black Hood is something different. It’s a harmonious fusing of a noir tale and a vigilante story. The narration is exquisitely hardboiled, but it’s paced like an action comic, with plenty of gun fights, intense face-offs, and dramatic reveals. Main character Greg is also filled with the tragic pathos so inherent in comics, his origin filled with guilt and remorse. Having access to his thoughts fleshes out the character, giving us a protagonist we can both root for, but also question. His mental state is obviously unbalanced, and he is not just a typical “man who has been wronged.” It’s layered writing, and dense plotting, with an even pacing that gives you an intense reading experience.
Art
Gregg Scott and Kelly Fitzpatrick are really bringing their A game to this book. Their art here is comparable to Sean Phillips and Michael Lark (whom I consider to be the best modern crime comic artists we have). The panel layouts here are deceptively simple. It doesn’t seem flashy, but when you stop and look at them, you see why it works. With its subtle changes in size, and thick, hand drawn borders, the grid work gives it the feel of gritty crime drama. It allows the characters to really inhabit the space on the page, allowing the reader to focus on details like body position and even facial expression.
The color is phenomenal and brings in a level of atmosphere that can only be described as cinematic in scope. You feel like you can see the yellow street lights luridly shining in the California night. Neon seems to glow off the page. Interiors feel dark and claustrophobic. The darkness feels real. This is quality, quality stuff.
The action and violence also burst with appropriate excitement. When they come out of nowhere it feels shocking. Again, it’s like reading a movie.
Conclusion
This is a must add to your pull list. Dark Circle Comics are creating an identity with quality, sophisticated and grown up books. Black Hood is a definite read if you love stuff like Criminal, Kill or Be Killed, Stray Bullets, or Garth Ennis’ classic Punisher runs.
You can pick up The Black Hood and other Dark Circle Comics here or at your local comics shop.
Entertainment Weekly has revealed a new image from Wonder Woman showing Gal Gadot as the title character stealing a sword from her mother’s armory.
EW also confirmed that the sword is named “God Killer” and Diana disobeys her mother’s orders by stealing the weapon and heading to Europe to fight alongside man in WW1. It’s exciting to think that this version of Wonder Woman chooses to run away from Themyscira rather than leave with her mother’s blessing.
Talking to EW, director Patty Jenkins explained what’s happening in the above scene, describing it as the moment Diana decides to take a stand and become a hero.
“This is her moment, she’s heard all the terrible things about man’s land. But she’s also heard that mankind is in need and under duress. This is her great moment to make the decision to be the one to try and save them.”
Wonder Woman lands in theaters on June 2.
“’Wonder Woman’ hits movie theaters around the world next summer when Gal Gadot returns as the title character in the epic action-adventure from director Patty Jenkins. Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers…and her true destiny.
Scanline VFX has released a breakdown of the visual effects work done on Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
In the video posted below, we can get a detailed look at how some of the most amazing scenes in Batman v Superman were brought to life. This includes the epic Batmobile chase and warehouse scene everyone continues to talk about. The most surprising aspect of this video is to see just how many effects were used in the film, various scenes in the video show effects that look real in thew final product, but I suppose that was the point. Whether you like Batman v Superman or not, it’s hard not to enjoy seeing these amazing effects developed for the film.
Fearing the actions of a god-like super hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.
Are you happy with the effects in Batman v Superman? Be sure to let us know in the comments section below!
Two new TV spots for The Lego Batman Movie have been released via Comicbook.com on Youtube. Watch them both below.
The original Lego Movie took audiences by surprise. Earning a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and grossing $257,000 over its 2014 theatrical run, we’ll see if this upcoming sequel can top its success.
“There are big changes brewing in Gotham, but if Batman (Will Arnett) wants to save the city from the Joker’s hostile takeover, he may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.”
The Lego Batman Movie hits theaters on February 10, 2017.
‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe’ Goes From Father/Son Drama To Mysterious Horror Quickly!
There’s a mystique to André Øvredal’s‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ that’s refreshing. It’s scaled back and minimalistic but never lacks any intensity.
The story of ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ is simple; A father-and-son coroner duo are working late one night when a mysterious body arrivals at their morgue. The whole atmosphere of the film changes the second our Jane Doe is carted in.
Things start off very procedural. Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) walks his son Austin Tilden (Emile Hirsch) and the viewers through the autopsy. It allows for a more personal connection but provides some of the film’s most horrifying moments. They begin to examine the body, coming up with a theory early on. But the more they dig into this case, the stranger it gets.
“We are just here to find cause of death. No more, no less.”
-Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox)
For a while, I didn’t know what sub-genre this horror film would dip into. Somehow, the filmmakers made something we’ve seen before feel brand new. I found myself attempting to compare ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ to other movies but could never place my finger on it. It takes references from others while still remaining unique.
It does remind me of the director André Øvredal’s other major film titled ‘Trollhunter‘. He took a monster movie and made it feel personal. Now, Øvredal takes an autopsy and thrusts us right into the coroner’s room.
Most of the compliments for this piece go to the amazing crew. Working with about 3 rooms within one building, the isolation felt in this comes to life with the direction, cinematography, and score. Going even deeper, major props have to go to the art department. The highlight for me being the gore. The grotesque special effects kept the film grounded when others would have taken it more over-the-top. This movie knows how to engage without giving too much!
As the two examiners have great back-and-forth with each other, we learn a lot about the characters through their investigation to what killed this Jane Doe. Just through this one night of work, you get a great feel for Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox’s characters. Their different styles of working and perspectives about this case deliver the perfect amount of character exposition while also propelling the plot forward.
Their relationship works and never dives into unneeded tropes. Same goes for the scares. There’s a few jumps but they’re placed in-between honest fear and intense body horror. It goes with the whole subtle motif…having too many typical tropes would have blown up the piece and take away from the simplistic thrills.
Final Thoughts:
Maybe all the horror genre needs it a bit more subtlety. What ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ did well was deliver big ideas within a small premise. That’s how you get the most out of your film. Throwing everything at the screen and hoping something sticks can and will lose your audience but carefully picking out your moments like this did will engage more viewers.
Supernatural horror is cluttered with over-produced projects that the simplicity of ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ feels like a breath of fresh air. This is a must-watch for me and could be a late addition for one of the year’s best horror films!
Synopsis: Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch play father and son coroners who receive a mysterious homicide victim played by Olwen Kelly.
Genre: Horror Country: USA Director: André Øvredal Starring: Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox, Ophelia Lovibond, and Olwen Kelly
‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe‘ is available for purchase/rent on Google Play, Youtube, and iTunes! Find the film on Twitter at @IFCMidnight!
A brand new trailer for for Kevin Smith’s Supergirl episode, fittingly titled Supergirl Lives, has been released. Watch it below!
Unfortunately, a synopsis has not been released for this episode. When one is released we’ll have it posted here at MFR.
“Now, in Season Two, Kara has left the safety of being Cat Grant’s assistant in order to figure out what she really wants to do, while as Supergirl she continues to work at the DEO., protecting the citizens of National City and searching for Jeremiah and Cadmus. Along the way, she will team up with Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) to battle new villains, as she strives to balance her personal life with her life as a superhero.”
Supergirl returns to The CW on Monday, January 23.
Although the first half of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season four being about introducing Ghost Rider, the second half will be quite different. Check out the recently released synopsis below, via Heroic Hollywood.
“On the heels of their encounter with Ghost Rider, their strangest phenomenon yet, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. suddenly find themselves up against a myriad of new and ongoing threats: The anti-Inhuman Watchdogs are gaining political influence with Senator Nadeer, and uniting behind a mysterious benefactor. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the team, Aida has kidnapped Agent May and replaced her with a Life Model Decoy. Aida’s evil plans for May and the team remain a mystery.”
Additionally, this B part of the season is being called “LMD”.
Have you enjoyed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D this season? Drop your comments below!
Nicole Kidman plays Saroo’s foster mother, Sara Brierley. Kidman portrays Brierley with such strength on screen and such compassion that in the back of mind, you feel that Saroo hit the parental lottery. About midway through the film, the audience begins to wonder why the Brierley’s haven’t had any kids sooner and towards the end of the movie, Sara drops a bombshell that will have people talking long after the film is complete. Both Patel and Kidman deliver such nuanced performances that it shouldn’t shock anyone when both of their names are announced as Oscar Nominees on January 26th.
Hang on to your hats here, I want to dive into why the intro is so cool.
The Black Hood Season 2 #2
