Recently a friend of mine, Danielle, came up to me and asked about the film Sing. She was interested because she wants to take her two children, Owen and Olivia, to the movie when it comes out on Wednesday. My response to her was, “If you’ve seen the trailer, then you saw the best parts of the film.” As sad as Danielle may have been, one can not escape the fact that whoever cut the trailer for Sing truly deserves some award for best editing. Anyone who judges the film simply on the trailer would assume that this release is a fun and upbeat romp that the whole family would enjoy. In reality, it’s like watching paint dry for about 50 minutes with a slight payoff at the end (hardly worth your time or your money).
It’s not hard to understand why most would assume that this film appears to be a good movie. The idea of an animated singing competition with cute and cuddly animals is a great premise. However, music can only take you so far, and you need to have some substance to the narrative. How could they have not seen the issues with the movie? Did they think that glossing over this matter by just casting a bunch of A-list celebrities would fix the problem? No amount of vocal charm from Academy Award winners Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon could fill this void. What was director/writer Garth Jennings thinking? While I understand the premise of the film is meant to take us back to Hollywood’s Golden age of entertainment, but even those shows had some purpose.
I imagine if I had a chance to ask Mr. Jennings what exactly was the purpose of this film, he’d probably tell me to inspire people to follow their dreams. My only response would be, shouldn’t I care about the people in your narrative? Shouldn’t the audience be rooting for these animals in your “singing competition?” Each one of these characters is incredibly bland and were crafted more to fill some character quota he needed to reach.
“Okay … we need a rebel girl singer .. let’s make her the Porcupine!”
“What about the housewife who once was a singer ….. let’s make her a pig!”
The writing in Sing is tired and quite frankly uninspired. I’m not even going to waste your time in laying out a summary of the film because frankly, it’s as predictable as they come. However, if I were to pick one positive in the colossal mistake that was Sing, it would be the final group of songs. For starters, it made me happy because it meant that this film was coming to an end and sweet relief was imminent. Secondly, it was impressive to see the range of songs they selected (From the Beatles to Bieber). Don’t confuse this as enough of a reason to go pay to see this film. If you want music variety, just flip on Spotify or Pandora. If you want to pay to see an animated film that’s worth your time, See Moana!
In recent casting news, Patrick Wilson joined Aquaman as Orm, the title character’s evil half-brother. The actor revealed that he’s begun training for the movie on Twitter.
Although Cat Grant left the Supergirl story in the beginning of season two, there’s still a chance for the character to return. In TV Line‘s most recent Ask Ausiello Live, it was revealed that Grant could return in the second half of the season.
“As I mentioned in the latest #AskAusielloLive, Flockhart is not currently confirmed to appear in any additional Season 2 episodes, but there’s talk of a short-term comeback in the spring.”
Have you enjoyed season two of The CW’s Supergirl so far? Why or why not? Let us know your thoughts on the topic in the comments below!
The film Assassins Creed made me wish for the sweet relief of death. Death would have at least allowed me to escape the assault on the senses that was this truly horrific film. Why? Why would anyone want to subject themselves to this mess? Even if you are a fan of the video game, this film doesn’t do it justice, it makes me want to find the creators of the game and throat punch them rapidly. Even with a solid cast Micheal Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, and Jeremy Irons, this film is the equivalent of a sinking ship (one that cost 130 million dollars to make).
Didn’t Hollywood learn their lesson when Warcraft was poorly received? Can anyone reading this tell me of one instance where a video game was successfully (emphasis on the word successful) adapted for the big screen? Alas, no-one can and here we are once again on the precipice on yet another disastrous idea.
The film centers around a convicted killer named Cal Lynch (Fassbender). He’s on death row for murdering a pimp and is about to be executed via lethal injection. The scene then poorly transitions to a massive overseas lab where we see Lynch waking up and two scientists played by Jeremy Irons and Marion Cotillard are thrilled.
Lynch gets taken to this seedy looking lab and attached to a device that looks as if it’s been repurposed from the film Avatar and he believes that he’s in 1492. Lynch comes to realize that his ancestors were part of an elite group of assassins who were sworn to protect the world from the forces of the Templar. The Templar are seeking out the Apple of Eden because of its insight into human behavior and the ability to control people too. What lynch doesn’t realize is that these scientists actually are part of the Templar group as well (dramatic sound effect). While I’m sure this revelation certainly floored all of you, just know that Fassbender’s character isn’t going to give up so easy (eye roll).
What made Ubisoft studios think that hiring the director who did Macbeth last year was such a great idea? Justin Kurzel benefited last year benefitted from a nicely staged version of one of Shakespeare’s classic plays. Not to mention both Fassbender and Cotillard are pretty outstanding in that film as well. What made them think that this was the guy or even the cast to pull this off?
The writing in the film is heavy (uses a ton of big words when they aren’t needed), boring and will elicit more laughter than any gasp of excitement. Why would you write a film about a very popular video game and have the film take place a majority of the time, OUTSIDE THE VIDEO GAME? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t those the fans you want to draw into this film? Why would you spend a majority of the time outside of it? This is yet another example of Hollywood developing a great idea and showing little forethought after that.
Going forward, studios are going to have to seek out directors who are also avid gamers to correctly tackle this source material. Until that occurs, we are going to continue to get one bad adaptation after another. Bringing in a fan of the source material to direct can work and the perfect example of that was Tim Miller (avid comic book collector and director of Deadpool). I think that turned okay .. don’t you?
In a recent interview with TV Guide, actor Teddy Sears teased a potential return of Black Flash in the series’ future.
“Zoom has been transformed into Black Flash, who has quite a place in the mythology of The Flash. He’s like the grim reaper for speedsters. Andrew Kreisberg, the head writer and EP, has talked about their interest in having a Black Flash return at some point in the series.”
What are your thoughts on potentially seeing Sears return as the Black Flash? Did you like his character’s arc in season two? Let us know in the comments section!
Season three of The Flash returns to The CW on Tuesday, January 24.
A new Legion poster has been released by the show’s official Twitter account. Check it out below.
The show takes place within the X-Men film universe and debuts on FX in less than two months, on February 8, 2017.
“Legion follows David Haller, a troubled young man who may be more than human. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, David has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years. But after a strange encounter with a fellow patient, he’s confronted with the possibility that the voices he hears and visions might be real.”
“GREEN IS THE NEW EVERYTHING,” part 1! Their songs may be better, but the Misfits have lost their label and nobody will touch them in the music business. On the ropes and desperate to get back on top, they’re forced to consider the worst case scenario…A MISFITS REALITY TV SHOW. Though it promises the chance to get them back in the spotlight, it comes with a heavy, privacy-destroying price.
Writing
With the popularity of the Jem comic, it was inevitable that IDW would have to answer the demand for more content. Enter The Misfits, the frenemy band of the Holograms who just so happened to have had a major plot point open for them thanks to recent issues of Jem. In short, the band has been let go from their record company and thanks to their past, well let’s call them “indiscretions,” they have become a black mark for any recording company. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to explore a bit more about these characters and what makes them tick.
This is where writer Kelly Thompson really makes this new series feel like something more than simply a convenient spinoff. The majority of this issue is spent in flashbacks showing how the Misfits came together as a band and even showing a bit more about Pizzazz. There could be an entire storyline just showing her growing up in a broken household but the subtle mentions of it are more than enough to help to get a mental picture of what it was like. A perfect example of “show, don’t tell” which makes the reader wish they could do something to improve her situation.
Artwork
The artwork for this issues has Jenn St-Onge (Josie and The Pussycats) on art and M. Victoria Robado (Littlest Pet Shop) doing the color work. The two artists come together and complement one another’s styles to produce a pleasing mixture which seems to tap into the previous incarnations of the characters but at the same time helps to give them a sense of originality. The subtle changes to each of the characters through the flashbacks to show them as younger is a very nice touch and really helps to wrap the first issue up with a bow.
Conclusion
IDW has another success for their audience and given them what they want but at the same time doing so in a very fulfilling and enriching way. Too many times publishers are simply it in for a cheap cash grab and don’t offer anything deep or meaningful in the process. Make no mistakes Jem fans, this is far from cheap or simple, and instead is a book you won’t want to miss checking out.
Magical Girl Raising Project can be seen by some as cute girl snuff porn. I am one of those people in that camp. While Magical Girl Raising Project can be shocking and entertaining, it is nothing more than junk food with near zero substance. Sometimes that is okay. I sure enjoyed the experience of watching it, but I feel given the comparisons this show is being given I feel its only right to tackle why this show fails to really say anything and what makes it entertaining. Even though it would be easy to address the reason people compare it to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, I wont in this review for the sake of having the show stand on it’s own as much as possible. Though through the review you’ll be able to understand my stance on comparing these shows and why I feel they ultimately have little in common anyway. Also I have no experience with the light novel its based off of. I’ve never been opposed to tackling a magical girl show and here is no exception, so let’s get to it.
From the opening scene of Magical Girl Raising Project we’re led to believe that things aren’t as they seem. The atmosphere is foreboding and darkness is looming around the corner, despite the innocent and happy events that transpire in the first episode. The show didn’t take long to reveal its true intention and when it did I was invested in the fight for survival scenario that it was going for. Having people be forced to fight or compete for their lives is always appealing and alliances for certain characters form quite fast, especially if they are all cute girls. But what Magical Girl Raising Project seems to be absent of is, intention to root for these girls beyond the general empathetic sense. Sure I got emotional and sad when characters died. It’s only natural. Seeing innocent people being forced into horrible situations is awful and seeing them die and struggle is easily gripping. I wouldn’t care about these characters unless their life was on the line. So what is it all in service of? Around episode five I was asking myself this question and for the rest of the series I failed to receive an answer. Sure all the characters have their own motivations but what is the show saying? There must be a reason for all these things to be happening. Isn’t that the point of a narrative like this? It sure seemed like it was going somewhere with the main character Snow White being innocent and a bystander for the whole show. However it never delves into telling us why any of this should matter other than people are dying and that’s bad, so we should be sad. Again this works but only for so long. I don’t wanna watch a show that brutally murders people, makes me feel sorry for them and says nothing. It made me depressed and in service of nothing. It doesn’t even have the courtesy to have the simple message of “this world sucks and we can’t change it”. The ending is pseudo hopeful, I think.
Given the tight narrative and cast of diverse characters it should feel like there would be something tying everything together. Why else would you spend the time developing every character, trying to make us feel for their situation; only to kill them and say nothing about it. Like I said before it feels like just snuff porn. A show that reviles in depression and gratuitous violence isn’t enough to make me care in the long run. Even as I write this review I lost all the feeling I felt for every character except contempt. And the characters aren’t even that bad. Sure there are too many broken characters, but they fall into the realm of reason for the most part (I’m looking at you Swim Swim). It’s easy to say a character is crazy just because, but Magical Girl Raising Project makes sure you know why they are crazy and makes their actions make seem logical and hence lets the narrative flow, and keeps you invested in what will happen next.
All except one. The lovable mascot character is the breaking point for this show. It is the clear villain of all puppet masters and nothing beyond that. Its motivations are never even attempted to be rationalized. Never does it try to make you think about why it may be doing this cruel thing and not care. It is just there to be a shocking villain that is cute and apathetic. Why does this happen with such a diverse cast of emotion from the other characters? Because they want it to feel alien. Which would work if they were consistent, but they aren’t. As the show progresses the mascot reveals its intention extremely vaguely and even shows emotion. It’s as alive as these girls its making fight to the death, so why is it scary? It’s not anymore, just a cheap attempt to be edgy. It is around to say horrible things in a peppy voice and make the girls struggle. In the end even Snow White just gets pissed at it because its being such a dick. I don’t think you want to feel like the main villain is just a dick. Especially if the consequences involve murder. It clearly understand emotions, but why doesn’t it care about these girls. We never know, it’s just gratuitous. Same goes for the horrific ways people die. It’s gory as all hell and after fifteen deaths it becomes too much (civilian killing spree aside). Everything in this show gets old, because for the most part nothing changes, it just repeats. The story progresses but none of the characters do. So that brings up the question, how does this plan for the magical girls to kill each other kick off in the first place? Something has to change the status quo for the shows events to unfold.
Magical Girl Raising Project functions on a tipping point philosophy. Meaning that everything can be going hunky dory but all it takes is one change in the status quo for everything to spiral out of control. It’s the same as the Joker’s “one day” philosophy in the Killing Joke. Giving a group of people the extreme of kill or be killed presents an almost unavoidable outcome. From the very start we know that people are going to kill each other even though some don’t want to. But that really only happens once, at the end. Every other death is by someone who is okay with killing. So instead of people struggling with killing others, we get people cowering until its their moment to die. Literally a battle of attrition for who can stay pure the longest. That’s boring. You would think that there would be some answer to this problem, but the show never gives us one. It follows the scenario to its conclusion and has a Hunger Games ending. There isn’t any shift in the narrative as a whole. No big reveals that change how things happen, or how we perceive the events. Why can’t this show give me something to care, invest, or think about? Again it’s because all it wants to do is be shocking. It wants to be that thing you saw and couldn’t un-see. The thing that you thought was gross but kept watching anyway because you had to know how it ended. The villain is never even challenged until the ending. All these girls have magical powers and never once try to defy the villain. They’d rather just kill each other. What about the lifespan items, one was worth 25 years off your life but the person who bought it never suffered from it. I guess the implication is shocking but what would have really been cool was her dying because her time was up. Just a lot of cool ideas without any real creative ways to use them. It’s like giving a five-year old a chess set.
The ending is by far the worst part. If you don’t give your characters arc’s or motivations or emotional conflict the ending will suffer. This one does. The bad guy dies in a bullshit way and instead of dealing with the problem, the survivors ran away. It doesn’t make any sense as to how or why they escape the rules of the game. They just do. Suddenly the organization that can create magical girls at will and kill them at will is unaware or powerless to kill these girls who have stolen their power and are working independent from their wishes. This is where the disconnect ripples backwards through the show and made me think, why the hell did any of this happen if they didn’t really care? I guess you could say that’s part of the tragic nature of the show. That even though bad things happen to someone, its trivial for others. But what’s the point of having a happy ending then? Why not just kill them all if you don’t care? Or maybe they do care because the mascot could feel emotions. So there is motivation but this show fails to be consistent on it and drowns its resolution with blowing a hole in a person because its shocking and the audience wasn’t expecting it.
The only positive thing about this show is the character development. Which all happens in flashbacks. None of it’s really effected by the narrative, it’s all back story stuff. Magical Girl Raising Project fails to connect and that’s why it falls short. The events are griping but they don’t stick for long. I never felt the events paid off or were worth it. It’s twelve episodes of being sad and depressed and feeling hopeless. If that’s what the show was going for I guess it worked, but even if I step in a puddle I know it’ll eventually dry. That’s all this show is to me, a puddle. I made it through but at the end I was pissed by what it had to say, which is nothing. This show is a good way to fill time and wont bore you, but that’s about it.
Gore Verbinski Is Giving Serious Lovecraft Vibes With ‘A Cure For Wellness’!
After taking a break from horror with ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean‘, it seems like Gore Verinski is returning to horror with a vengeance! ‘A Cure For Wellness‘ has its first real trailer and it’s a bizarre Lovecraftian piece.
Starring Dane DeHaan as an employee sent to rescue his boss from a “wellness spa”; look for this to be one of the more artful horror films next year. All of the previews for this have been giving off some serious vibes to other horror masterpieces. There’s the obvious H.P. Lovecraft feeling but it also seems like Kubrick’s ‘Eye Wide Shut‘ or David Cronenberg’s ‘eXistenZ‘.
Are you looking forward to this surreal film by Gore Verbinski? Check out the trailer and let me know how you feel in the comments below!
‘A Cure For Wellness‘ is released February 17th, 2017. It stars Dane DeHaan, Jason Issacs, and Mia Goth.
The Power Rangers reboot looks to be an exciting film, and it gives Zordon a new backstory!
According to The Wrap, Zordon will be the original Red Ranger. Sixty-five million years ago, Zordon fights Rita Repulsa in prehistoric times. However, she transforms him into a state of pure energy.
From Heisenberg to Zordon. Not bad.
In the original show, Zordon’s past is a mystery, but it is known that he comes from the planet of Eltar. The film’s backstory will thus give him a deeper bond with the Rangers.
Bryan Cranston will lend his voice to Zordon for the movie. He is also providing motion capture to play the role.
Elizabeth Banks’ Rita Repulsa will serve as the main villain, and she also has a connection to the Rangers.
I wonder if Rita will get a headache in this film?
In the film, Rita is former Green Power Ranger who has gone rogue. Her mission is to steal the Zeo Crystal, which gives the Rangers their power. It is Rita’s goal to return the Zeo Crystal to her master Lord Zedd.
Rita’s connection sets up more stories for the franchise. Perhaps the sequel will have her create a new Green Power Ranger. This could be a great way to bring Tommy Oliver into the fold.
Power Rangers follows five ordinary high school kids who must become something extraordinary when they learn that their small town of Angel Grove and the world are in danger of an alien threat. Chosen by destiny, our heroes discover they are the only ones who can save the planet. To do so, they must band together as the Power Rangers before it is too late.
