A reboot of The Crow franchise is coming to the big screen, the when part might be harder to pin down.
Relativity has made The Crow reboot its top production priority, according to The Wrap. As the company refocused on the project, they decided to part ways with director Corin Hardy. ‘The Hallow’ was Hardy’s first major feature film, and his use of practical effects would have been a refreshing change for a big budget film. Relativity has reportedly invested “in excess of $7 million” in the remake and appears to be starting over from scratch. The original plan was to start production on the film this month.
The Crow is more infamous than successful, as Brandon Lee was killed during the filming of the original 1994 version by Alex Proyas. In 1996, there was the direct to DVD sequel, The Crow: City of Angels (side note, this film has a young Thomas Jane). In 2005, Tara Reid and Edward Furlong destroy the franchise with The Crow: Wicked Prayer.
The Crow is based on the comic book by James O’Barr. The main character Eric Draven, who returns from the dead to track down his killers with the help of a mystical crow.
Allow me to reiterate: Dwayne Johnson is a national treasure.
“I’m biased,” you might say.
“Just look at this guy’s bio,” you might say*.
“He’s writing clickbait,” you might even say.
Well, yeah. Sort of.
Warner Bros. released the second full trailer for Central Intelligence and it looks like it doesn’t have a surprise up its sleeve. The trailer sells a film that looks like another over-lit, interchangeable, studio action/comedy. It also looks like it knows full-well what its greatest asset is: Dwayne Johnson.
In a setup that involves Kevin Hart (who is billed as the lead but whose screen time here is dwarfed by the “Big Johnson”) playing the only kid in high school who stuck up for Robbie Wierdick (I’m not sure about that spelling but it really doesn’t matter, does it?), aka The Rock, as he was publicly humiliated for being a confidently overweight En Vogue fan. Move forward 20 years and we meet Bob who is now the hulking mass of The Rock we are all familiar with and also a deadly CIA agent. Bob recruits Kevin Hart because of his “super sweet accounting skills” and the fact he’s still the only person he trusts because of this moment of high school mercy to retrieve some CIA spy encryption doohickeys. Hilarity ensues because of the chemistry of the stars and the irony of the situation. Check it out for yourself:
Back to my initial point: Rewatch that trailer and this time pay close attention to everything The Rock is doing. He’s acting. He’s playing a character and committing fully to every moment asked of him. I see genuine sadness and gratitude in his eyes in that gym. I see delirious glee as he executes his plan to escape a building through a high-rise window, putting Kevin Hart in vicious mortal danger. There is real joy and madness bubbling underneath the surface of this character and that is all thanks to Mr. Johnson. My affinity for the actor might be what caused me to actually laugh at moments here but I objectively believe what he’s doing is unadulterated entertainment.
Am I saying The Rock is our best actor? Nope. I’m saying that he’s far and away our most entertaining superstar and one with real chops behind the muscle. Go back and watch Pain & Gain or Snitch (he’s severely miscast but that’s not his fault) or even Fast Five and you’ll see a performer radiating screen presence. His matching here with Kevin Hart seems fine but we’ll have to see if he can hold a candle to The Rock’s energy. Hopefully the film can also deliver on its poignant “I don’t like bullies” approach.
I’m going to go and see Central Intelligence. Though if it weren’t for Mr. Johnson, I doubt I’d be interested.
*Go ahead, check it out below if you haven’t already.
The past couple years have seen a meteoric rise for NXT. Spearheaded by Triple H (in his real life position as Head Of Talent Development), WWE’s developmental territory has taken on a life of its own. Showcasing young talent and now a destination for independent and international talent to get a taste of the WWE.
In 2014, NXT took the next step into showcasing live events on the WWE Network. A huge success, the specials have become a quarterly event and have given a platform to some of the best matches fans have seen in some time. The next live special will take place on April 1, the Friday night before Wrestlemania on Sunday and the “developmental” arm of the WWE has put together a card that could steal the weekend.
Asuka vs. Bayley – NXT Women’s Championship
Asuka vs Bayley
The women’s division has defined a new standard in NXT and this match will be no different. Bayley has been champion since August, winning it from Sasha Banks and has been a fighting champion ever since. Asuka debuted in NXT last year, and has cut a swath through the roster, either knocking or choking her opponents out. This will be Bayley’s toughest challenge since her matches against The Boss last year.
American Alpha (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable) vs. The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder) –
NXT Tag Team Championship
American Alpha going after the NXT Tag Titles photo: WWE
Current champs Dawson and Wilder are the epitome of the term “throwback”. Reminiscent of teams like the Brainbusters and the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, their motto is “no flips, just fists”. They show up, beat opponents in the face, and leave. Their upcoming opponents are a pair of finely tuned athletes hitting their stride at the right time. Despite having been together for only a short time, Jason Jordan and Chad Gable gelled instantly, have never had a bad match, and are a big hit with the crowd. Their match at the Takeover: London event sent a clear message that they want, and are ready, for a shot at the tag titles in a highly competitive division.
Austin Aries vs. Baron Corbin
The Greatest Man That Ever Lived photo: WWE
A multi-time chanpion in TNA and Ring Of Honor, the self proclaimed “Greatest Man That Ever Lived” will be making his NXT debut against NXT’s resident malcontent, Baron Corbin. Corbin is big, powerful, and ticked off. If you’ve watched Breaking Ground on the WWE Network, Corbin has been vocal about how he should be on the main roster and how he has beaten everyone in NXT, which he has, but no gold to show for it. Aries is one of the hottest free agents who have landed with the WWE, having had success in every other promotion he has competed in. This is going to be fast, hard hitting, and probably one of the most physical matches of the night.
Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
Yet another free agent in the world of professional wrestling lands at NXT. Shinsuke Nakamura, the King Of Strong Style, easily in the top 3 of performers on the planet right now will have his first match against a former NXT Champion in Sami Zayn. Both men had massive success, Zayn in Ring Of Honor and Nakamura in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and now will show the world what they are capable of in a WWE ring. Zayn needs to keep an eye out for Nakamura’s finisher, the Bomaye Knee, which he can hit from ANYHWERE in the building.
Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor – NXT Championship
Samoa Joe takes on Balor for the NXT Championship
Claiming the title in July of 2015, Finn Balor has carried the banner in NXT ever since and faces a stiff opponent in the Samoan Submission Machine. Samoa Joe, having spent well over a decade in TNA before leaving the promotion early in 2015, would make his NXT debut later in the year and has led the current wave of independent and international superstars making their way. This match is also a rematch of the main event at the London Takeover event in which Balor came out victorious. Both men wrestle a highly physical style, Balor will fight for his title and Joe will not waste his second chance at gold.
NXT Takover: Dallas will air Friday, April 1 exclusively on the WWE Network
It was recently announced that July 2019 will bring us a new Indiana Jones movie, starring Harrison Ford and directed by Steven Spielberg. This will be the first Indy film to be produced by Disney and the fifth in the series.
It’s been awhile since 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the most poorly received of the films. Watching the ‘making of’ documentary on the DVD, you will hear Spielberg tell a story about how he didn’t want to do a fourth one (let alone a fifth), telling us that he purposely put a shot at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which the characters ride off into the sunset. He talks about how George Lucas wanted to do an Indy film that was a throwback to the 1950’s sci-fi cult cinema films of the day, most of which were about Cold War paranoia, which would be age-appropriate for Harrison to play Indy. Spielberg resisted/dragged his feet about the idea of doing another alien film, something he believed he had done to death. He finally gave in when George Lucas came up with the idea of them being “inter-dimensional” instead of “extra-terrestrial”. Because that’s an enormous difference that was explained vividly in the film. It really wasn’t.
What resulted was a movie whose more interesting elements were about the Cold War paranoia, but that gave us over-the-top cartoonish villains who just happened to be Russian. And yes, the stupid “hide from a nuclear blast in the refrigerator” scene…and the Jar Jar gophers. We also got to see Shia LeBeouf play a Fonzie/Tarzan wannabe named Mutt Williams who ends up being Indy’s son with his flame from the first movie, Marion Ravenwood. Spielberg acknowledges in this DVD interview that he felt he had moved on to other areas of filmmaking, brilliant historical dramas like Lincoln, for instance, which is why he didn’t want to return to this series.
“Are those gophers supposed to be funny?”
So, next year, we are going to see The BFG, Spielberg’s first animated fantasy film since The Adventures of Tin Tin, and an adaptation of a great book that everyone remembers. Then in 2018, Spielberg’s first attempt at live-action, non-sequel sci-fi in thirteen years with Ready Player One. Then…the fifth movie in a series whose last installment was immensely disappointing and arguably Spielberg’s worst film.
Before you groan too loudly, what can they do to bring back the feel of the original series? Can Disney bring back the feel of the original series by distancing George Lucas the way they did with Star Wars? Or is that a lost cause because Lucas and Spielberg are friends? Well, however that plays out, here are some things that I would like to see in Indy 5.
DISTANCE MUTT.
As much as I hated Shia LaBeouf’s character in this film, I also hate it when they change actors between films. Yes, Maggie Gyllenhaal was an improvement over Katie Holmes between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but it still took some getting used to. I’m still not used to Don Cheadle as War Machine. They could recast Mutt’s role, but there are ways and reasons that they could write him out completely. Hollywood is very youth-oriented, so a movie about an older action hero/older couple would be refreshingly different and something Spielberg may welcome. Maybe Mutt has matured a lot since the last film and went off on his own. Maybe he joined the Army, that’s a good way to write characters out of things. That was how they wrote Richie Cunningham out of Happy Days when Ron Howard wanted to go be a director.
But, yeah, no Mutt. Don’t retcon him either. Acknowledge him like you did with Sean Connery in the last movie and move forward.
NO CARTOONY VILLIANS.
Nazis are probably some of the greatest villains in movie history. They are so notorious that you can just explain that so-and-so is a Nazi at the beginning of your film and the audience instantly hates him. From The Sound of Music to Captain America: The First Avenger, this formula works.
“I think this guy’s the villain.”
The original Indy films had incredibly scary villains because they were Nazis, including a very tense, face-to-face encounter between Indy and Hitler himself in The Last Crusade. But when they set the last film in 1957 and centered it around the Cold War, the villains became Russians. And the accents got louder and sillier, reducing otherwise great actors to cartoony stereotypes. So, yeah, focus on the villain being scary, like those freaky Aztec people in Temple of Doom, and less on the on-the-nose accents.
THIS ONE’S FOR THE FANS.
Seriously, no hate on social media about how old Harrison Ford is. Obviously, he is going to have a stunt man for the stunts. They can replace a stuntman’s head with an actor’s head in the computer these days (Christopher Lee as Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels). And Ford’s a great actor. Should he be sidelined to “old people” movies like Super Exotic Marigold Hotel (or whatever)? No. Like I said, a movie about an older action hero is a nice change of pace for youth-oriented Hollywood, so…bring it. Just do it right. I’d also like to see a Spider-Man movie eventually where he is married and in his forties. Y’know, because they did it in the comics. But that’s an article for another time.
Are you excited for the next Indiana Jones film? What would you like to see/like to see improved in the new film? Comment below.
I never was a real believer in Anime being the one true form of entertainment. However as I get older and start to look for things with the content and structure that I like, most of it seems like its only available in Anime. Now I know that only sounds natural when you think about it. I mean I’ve been watching Anime for over ten years and did so at a very influential part of my life. However I am a firm believer that Anime is a medium and stems off into every possible variety of storytelling however live action shows in the west do not.
For me its honestly hard to think of live action shows, outside of sitcoms, that I actually love. I usually use Breaking Bad as the ace in my repertoire but that’s almost a given. Fargo and Game of Thrones have been good to me so far but like Breaking Bad they all have something that I think is kind of a misstep. They are all way too cynical. HOLD ON, and hear me out. Personally I think that the reason that I watch so much Anime is because it has a wide selection of good/happy shows.
When I say good and happy I tend to mean shows that are essentially good in quality and have generally happy or inspiring narratives. Most western stories that aren’t aimed at kids are almost exclusively dry and dower stories about how shitty life is through the lens of shitty people, and I’m tired of it. Western media has lost its “heroes” as in there really isn’t anyone willing to take the road of good anymore. Don’t get me wrong because some of my favorite shows both Anime and Live Action are dark and depressing stories with less than upstanding people, but when that’s all you see on TV here in the states, it gets me kind of worried. Maybe I could be reading it entirely wrong, but I feel that people see that and think that’s what life is like. I could be too much of an optimist and see the best in people, but I think that’s something that should be explored more in American television nowadays.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m not necessarily knocking the scenarios in these live action shows, most of them are actually very interesting. It’s the way they are treated and where the attention is being drawn to. The Walking Dead isn’t about surviving in a world with zombies, it’s about seeing how shitty humans can be to each other and justifying your horrible actions. Game of Thrones isn’t about trying to repair a nation that has been ruined by horrible people, it’s about seeing who gets killed next and whether they deserved it or not. Jessica Jones isn’t about a young woman trying to find her place in a world that has repeatedly kicked her to the curb, it’s about revealing the horrible and petty nature of human beings. Do you see a common theme here? These are all widely popular shows all with great dramatic premises but they are all churning out the same view of humanity, just in different stories. Now again this isn’t a bad thing but it seems all the effort and creativity seems to be going into these kind of shows with this kind of world view, and that’s the problem.
I don’t know of a show that has family friendly concepts, can be both enjoyed by both adults and children, is live action, and is well written. Sure that may seem like it sounds like a lot to ask for, and I’m far from the mindset that if a show slips up once in its tone that its immediately damning. Still even with that I couldn’t think of a single show that comes to mind. I even tried to cheat and looked at a bunch of top tv series lists and couldn’t find a single show that didn’t focus on the themes and world views that I complained about earlier.
Now Anime on the other hand has a huge variety of shows that spans almost any kind of theme or story that you have an itch for. Naturally its easy to find to family friendly shows that also have some deep and challenging themes and are well written without a horribly cynical view of humanity. Just a few to name, and I promise most of these are off the top of my head, Death Parade, Gurren Lagann, Mawaru Penguindrum, FullMetal Alchemist, Noragami, Blood Blockade Battlefront, and not to mention the plethora of sports and idol anime. Each one of these shows surely has some elements of the live action series I aforementioned but one clear difference. The main themes are generally good-natured and positive. These shows don’t make their bank on the badness of humans but make it on the good. They show struggle, but don’t always have it end in such a dark and unfulfilling way. There are moments of happiness and levity where characters gain true bonds instead of “friends for personal gain”. Again I can’t express enough that I’m not saying that American live action shows don’t have similar things in their shows, it’s what is focused on and given the most attention is what I’m talking about.
So variety is probably the main reason that I almost exclusively watch Anime. I know that idea may have been lost in my ramblings but I think this was also a chance to say what I think about modern television in our culture. Anime just has the wider range of things I like and I personally think a balance is good for people in general and that maybe there should be some more kid accessible shows that are also good. Sure there are things like Steven Universe and Avatar/Legend of Korra, but certainly nothing live action. Meanwhile there are new Anime coming out every season with a wide variety of stories for every age. That is why I mainly watch Anime, because Anime has a variety of genre’s I want to watch and live action only has one. And while there will still be live action shows that will hold my interest, I’m not in the business of having those kind of dark and depressing stories as the basis of my entertainment. I’d also like to be so bold to say that you shouldn’t either.
It’s that time of year, when America’s pastime is in the hearts and minds of fans around the country. The Spring Training has kicked off the grind. Baseball is as much a thread in the fabric of our history, and baseball movies have almost always followed in its footsteps. Throughout the years, baseball movies have stoked the fires of our love for the game as much as the game itself; maybe they are even more important these days. Say what you will about the corporatization of the sport, baseball at its core is still pure and beautiful, at least to this fan of the game. And the greatest baseball movies carry that spirit with them. Here are 10 essentials.
10. Bang the Drum Slowly – Part baseball film, part terminal-illness melodrama, one of Robert De Niro’s earliest roles had him playing a dimwitted catcher suffering from Hodgkin’s Disease. De Niro’s Bruce Pearson and star pitcher Henry “Author” Wiggen (Michael Moriarty) are the focus of the film, and their friendship carries the emotion of the story. This is a baseball film about the way tragedy can cloud even the most beautiful and purest of games.
9. Moneyball – Brad Pitt and Bennett Miller’s surprising 2011 hit was based on what seemed to be an unfilmable book by Michael Lewis. The focus here was less about the game on the field, and more about the influx of analytics into the game and Athletics’ eccentric GM Billy Beane struggling to change the way we see the game. With all the mechanics of a plot like Moneyball, one of the greatest achievements of Miller’s film is the way it captures the essence and emotion of the truest baseball movies, and Pitt delivers a complete and layered performance with a fantastic assist from Jonah Hill.
8. The Bad News Bears – Arguably the most infamous character in the history of baseball movies is one Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), a burnout and a lush former minor-league manager tasked with coaching a ragtag group of little league miscreants. The Bad News Bears became shorthand for any sad-sack team throughout the years, and the hilarious glimpse at late 70s little league organizations is a wonderful time capsule of a bygone era.
7. The Sandlot –The Sandlot was an important film for a generation of kids. Here, the magic of baseball was encapsulated by the unwavering desire of neighborhood kids to play the game anywhere and everywhere. They lived and breathed baseball, and it shaped almost everything in their young lives. And the imaginative framework of the film – like the fantastic embellishment of the junkyard dog eating their errant baseballs – captures what it means to be a child, yet unfettered by harsh reality.
6. The Pride of The Yankees – Gary Cooper delivered an Oscar-nominated performance in one of the most celebrated early cinematic glimpses into the world of baseball. Cooper plays New York Yankees star Lou Gehrig, who was forced to retire from the game after being diagnosed with ALS, a disease which would eventually carry his name. The most heartbreaking moment here is also one of the more heartbreaking moments in the history of baseball; Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” speech. And Cooper nails it.
5. Major League – While it did borrow a great number its colorful characters from Bull Durham, Major League amped up the nuttiness and built a great comedy on the shoulders of truly convincing performances. There is the aging catcher, the flashy speedster who isn’t as great as he thinks, the imposing voodoo masher who can’t hit the curve, and a wild thing. And on and on we go through a delightful summer journey with the hapless Cleveland Indians.
4. A League of Their Own – Such a unique baseball movie, not only because it focuses on the short-lived women’s baseball league that sprung up during the height of World War II. Geena Davis and Lori Petty anchor a stellar team of female actors, and Tom Hanks ties the whole thing together with one of his best and brightest comedic roles. I still wanna know what he says when he hops off the bus and yells at the girls to get back on board.
3. The Natural – Barry Levinson’s love letter to an era of baseball that has long since disappeared, The Natural strikes all the right chords of melodrama, triumph, and longing. Robert Redford’s aging masher Roy Hobbes is so ingrained in the culture of baseball he almost feels like a real player from the past. The Natural captures something magical at the core of baseball, the mystical side of a sport played, at one time, by hardworking men. And that final shot, it’s one for the ages.
2. Field of Dreams – And now we get to Kevin Costner, who is as much a part of this country’s baseball narrative as some of the players who have come and gone. Field of Dreams, much like The Natural, deals almost entirely in the magic intangibles that elevate baseball beyond sport. Ray Kinsella hears the voice in his field, he builds a baseball diamond to resurrect “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, he travels to Chicago to rescue a former revolutionary author and a doctor who played one inning in the big leagues, and he eventually is given the opportunity to make amends with his late father. none of it makes sense in the real world, but in Field of Dreams, flights of imagination supersede reality. We go with it, and we are swept up in the very human emotions in this very inhuman world.
1. Bull Durham – What makes Ron Shelton’s seminal baseball movie so incredibly textured is the authenticity at play. Shelton played for a cup of coffee in the minors, so he knows the material, and he loves the sport, and this all is woven masterfully into a film about the nostalgic charm of a town and their minor-league Durham Bulls. Kevin Costner is the aged vet, Tim Robbins the dopey superstar pitcher, and Susan Sarandon is the woman in the middle of these two vastly different representations of minor-league ballplayers. These hopefuls ride buses and carry their own luggage, and they love the game. And Bull Durham loves them back.
Here we are with yet another Divergent movie (Allegiant), inspired by the razor thin narrative written by Veronica Roth. Lionsgate couldn’t possibly be thinking of releasing yet another one of these films across the globe this weekend … right? Just when it seemed that it couldn’t get much worse, we get a screen filled with our teen savior Tris, her boy-toy, Four, a post-apocalyptic Chicago that closely resembles a dump, a lot of running, and wondering what lies ahead of us. As they say in the faction Candor, “ May the truth shall set you free” and the truth is that Allegiant is a lifeless, laughable, coma inducing film that will leave people feeling as if they experienced a head trauma.
In this latest installment of The Divergent Series, dystopian Chicago is erupting in a civil war. Without Jeanine in place (Kate Winslet, killed in the last film) a power struggle is starting to emerge between Evelyn (Naomi Watts) and Johanna (Octavia Spencer). Here’s where it could’ve got interesting because, amongst this power struggle, Tris (Shaline Woodley) and Four (Theo James) decide to escape from the city with their friends (Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Maggie Q, and Ansel Elgort.) They decide that the best way to escape the city is to scale a gigantic wall and cut through a fence (that’s electrified). Spoiler Alert: If Tris turns to any of your favorite characters in the movie and utters the phrase “We made it”, they are seconds away from being killed.
They eventually make it over the wall after experiencing a “shocking death” and make it to the remains of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The Airport is a Genetic headquarters run by a person named David (Jeff Daniels). The group realizes they have been part of a larger genetic experiment where this group has been trying to create a perfect society. David has been leading the charge in this experiment, and the only success that he has had was Tris. He wants to take her to Providence (which I guess is some home base in this new world) to show that his experiment could work.
You’d think with all these factors occurring that we would, at least, get some palpable performances from this cast. After all, we are dealing with some shocking events – dystopian world, finding out that your whole world was some experiment, and, of course, being shot at regularly. Instead, everything is on autopilot. Shaline Woodley, no matter what’s occurring on screen, has the same hopeful/optimistic look. Theo James (Four) is constantly sporting the very generic look of a man with a “past”; the problem with that is no one is interested, and nobody cares about his past anymore. Miles Teller is mildly amusing in the film, and the laughter he elicits is more of a shock than anything. Jeff Daniels has this glazed look in his face as if he’s in shock that he agreed to be in such an awful project. Speaking of terrible, let’s talk about the special effects.
Visually, here is an uninspired shellacking of red paint on green screens. Never will anyone ever see a more hideous shade of red as the mess we get about 20 minutes into the film. The special effects weren’t much better, seemingly conjured up on iMovie. A real sign that your film is headed into a deep dark abyss is when your scenes that involve special effects are funny when they aren’t supposed to be. Maybe they did this to detract from the terrible writing and awful performances in the film? If they did then bravo, because it’s distracting.
Allegiant’s screenplay was written by Adam Cooper and Noah Oppenheim. It would seem that neither of them had any desire to try and entertain audiences. However, they sure as hell built a cookie-cutter screenplay and teased a grand finale occurring in the final film (yes, that’s right, we have to endure another one of these films in March of 2017).We shouldn’t have expected much from a writing duo who’s claim to fame is that one of them wrote A New York Minute (that’s right … it’s the Mary Kate and Ashley Olson film), and the other is best known for his producing work on the Today show.
So yes, you can call me annoyed. I’m annoyed that we are expected just to be okay with horrendous films. Annoyed that studios don’t seem to understand that not every Young Adult novel needs to be turned into a full-length movie.
The Divergent Series: Allegiant
Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Jeff Daniels, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Zoe Kravitz, Octavia Spencer, Johnny Weston
Screenplay: Noah Oppenheim, Adam Cooper, based on the novel by Veronica Roth
Superman: American Alien #5 is a blast. Like each issue so far, this one feels like it’s over too soon. It deals Superman’s early days “on the job” with him mixing his internship at the Daily Planet with his “flying vigilante” activities. Unlike the Superman we know and love, he has donned a Batman-esque costume, with cape and goggles. Don’t expect armor of any kind, for Clark only wears a shirt and jeans. Clark generally seems to be having a good time flying around and saving people, but he wonders: Is it all worth it? Can he stand up to his enemies like he means to?
The best Superman stories acknowledge that being the most powerful man in the universe is harder than it looks. With this issue, I can safely say that American Alien is one of the best Superman stories. Writer Max Landis doesn’t settle with giving Clark an easy way out with his powers. Instead, he goes straight to his head and his heart. We witness how Clark’s good conscience can get the best of him despite his powers. Landis honors characters like Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, while also keeping them fresh. Clark gets a great rapport with Lois; she plays her smart, no-nonsense personality against his sweet naïveté. Meanwhile Luthor’s manipulative nature can even set the Man of Steel against himself. It’s almost heartbreaking to read.
And like the rest of the series so far, this issue is beautifully illustrated. The art by Francis Manapul offers some stunning panels. I am sure that in years to come, comic fans will want them framed and hung in their walls. Once this issue was over, I felt a tug in my heart. I wanted more. It’s sad to realize that this series will soon come to an end. I can’t wait to see what its final destination has in store for us.
In the episode entitled “Worlds Finest,” Supergirl joins forces with a lightning-fast—and super dreamy—hero, The Flash to take out two villains. Lost and confused after spiraling from his universe and landing in Kara’s, The Flash asks for her help in finding his way back home. Kara agrees on one condition: The super-runner has to help her take down her ultra-competitive co-worker and screeching malefactor Siobhan, aka Silver Banshee, and Supergirl’s old nemesis, Livewire.
CBS promises an episode packed with action and a bit of super-flirting. ‘Worlds Finest’ premieres Monday, March 28 at 8/7c.
Fans are less than two months away from Captain America: Civil War, and you better enjoy Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as it appears that his run as Tony Stark is coming to an end.
Downey spoke to USA Today about a potential fourth Iron Man film.
“I don’t think that’s in the cards, in a way it’s Cap 3 but for me it’s like my little Iron Man 4 and then it’s back to the thing we all recognize. Everything pulls over to the side of the road when the thunder of an Avengers thing comes through because that’s how it is until it changes. If it changes,” said Downey.
Downey does sound like this is the end of the line for him, but there is still the brutal film schedule of Avengers: Infinity War ahead of him. Part 1 and 2 will shoot back-to-back starting this fall, and the expectations are the filming will take nine months.
Avengers: Infinity War – Part I May 4, 2018 Avengers: Infinity War – Part II May 3, 2019
2019 would put Downey at 54-years-old, and if a film came out in 2021, that would put the star at 56 at the time of release.
If this is the end, at least fans will get to enjoy his work the next three out of four years.
