As the world deals with the aftermath of the invasion, Yu and his team face punishment and…his mom?
Writing
Writer Greg Pek obviously had a mission in mind when he was writing this issue. He wanted to show how there was more story to tell with these characters now with the series now ongoing. The usual methods are put into place: more world building, consequences to the first arc, and additional characters are introduced to help showcase there is more to explore in the world of Mech Cadet Yu.
An interesting aspect which is introduced is the clean up crew. More media involving giant monsters needs to focus on the aftermath from the initial attacks. In this moment it’s made painfully obvious these are the Cadets and robots which were not meant for combat duty. The animosity towards Yu and his team who are there as part of disciplinary action make it clear they don’t take too kindly for their presence. All of which is handled in a very subtle way.
Artwork
The artwork by Takeshi Miyazawi helps to capture the new expansion to the series. The rough and obviously not ready for the field look of the clean up robots helps to illuminate their lower quality construction. Also, the Chief’s mech shows there are far more design possibilities for the robots in this series than originally thought.
The color work Triona Farrell is up to the usual quality but doesn’t have as much a chance to shine as in previous issues. This is due to the lack of explosions or effects which make her draw attention. No deterioration in quality though.
The lettering by Simon Bowland offers some great emphasis on the dialogue. The sound effects also help to add the extra bit of charm to the book.
Conclusion
Mech Cadet Yu is still a lot of fun and this new issue feels like there is going to be a lot of excitement coming in the future. Don’t let this now ongoing comic pass you by.
You might remember that, back in November of 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Nintendo was nearing a deal with Illumination Entertainment, the studio responsible for Despicable Me 1-3 and Minions, to make an animated Mario film.
Nintendo President Tasumi Kimishima has stated on numerous occasions that the gaming giant is closing in on a partner for the film and that an official announcement would follow.
One thing is for sure, the company is serious about making a significant impact in the feature film business. Former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, who passed away in 2015, hoped for the company to be more aggressive in licensing its IP out to various mediums and had intended to make the jump into feature films.
The world needs a great Super Mario film, especially after the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. didn’t quite live up to the hype. One question that remains is whether the eventual animated movie will include more fan-favorite characters, like Luigi and Toad, beyond that of The Big 3 in Mario, Princess Peach and Bowser. Could we maybe see a Mario Kart or even a The Legend of Zelda live-action or animated film(s) down the line as well? Time will tell.
UPDATE: Nintendo has confirmed an upcoming Super Mariofilm (1/31/2018).
From time to time, Hollywood somehow manages to release two similar movies within the same year of each other. There was Armageddon and Deep Impact, Volcano and Dante’s Peak, many many others; and now it appears there is Trust, Danny Boyle’s version of the J. Paul Getty story in which he goes the extra mile and replaces all of Ridley Scott’s All the Money in The World cast with one of his own.
But seriously, this version of the famous kidnapping story has Donald Sutherland in the patriarch role, and given that this is an FX series not a feature, it looks to dive more into the magnate’s luscious lifestyle.
Check out the trailer:
Inspired by actual events, Trust delves into the trials and triumphs of one of America’s wealthiest and unhappiest families, the Gettys. Equal parts family history, dynastic saga and an examination of the corrosive power of money, Trust explores the complexities at the heart of every family, rich or poor.
Told over multiple seasons and spanning the twentieth century, the series begins in 1973 with the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III (Harris Dickinson), an heir to the Getty oil fortune, by the Italian mafia in Rome. His captors banked on a multi-million-dollar ransom. After all, what rich family wouldn’t pay for the return of a loved one? Paul’s grandfather, J. Paul Getty Sr. (Donald Sutherland), an enigmatic oil tycoon and possibly the richest man in the world, is marooned in a Tudor mansion in the English countryside surrounded by a harem of mistresses and a pet lion. He’s busy. Paul’s father, J. Paul Getty Jr. (Michael Esper), is lost in a daze in London and refuses to answer the phone. Only Paul’s mother, Gail Getty (Hilary Swank), is left to negotiate with the increasingly desperate kidnappers. Unfortunately, she’s broke. Trust charts the teenage grandson’s nightmare ordeal at the hands of kidnappers who cannot understand why nobody seems to want their captive back.
Looks interesting, we’ll see what Boyle can do with the TV medium when Trust debuts March 25.
Welcome to the twenty-fifth episode of the Comic Show by Monkeys Fighting Robots! We’re finally back from our holiday hiatus, and we are talking all about Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ Mister Miracle. Issue 6 is out this week, and since it marks the series’ halfway point, why not do a mid-season review?? One of us thinks it’s a near-perfect comic, the other finds it a bit pretentious. Who will win this week’s battle?
Warners Bros. Tuesday night, released the first trailer for Teen Titans GO! to the Movies. Check out the trailer below.
About Teen Titans GO! to the Movies: It seems to the Teens that all the major superheroes out there are starring in their own movies—everyone but the Teen Titans, that is! But de facto leader Robin is determined to remedy the situation, and be seen as a star instead of a sidekick. If only they could get the hottest Hollywood film director to notice them. With a few madcap ideas and a song in their heart, the Teen Titans head to Tinsel Town, certain to pull off their dream. But when the group is radically misdirected by a seriously Super-Villain and his maniacal plan to take over the Earth, things really go awry. The team finds their friendship and their fighting spirit failing, putting the very fate of the Teen Titans themselves on the line!
The film will have the voice talents of Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, Greg Cipes as Beast Boy, Scott Menville as Robin, Khary Payton as Cyborg, Tara Strong as Raven, and Hynden Walch as Starfire.
Teen Titans GO! to the Movies is directed by Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida Michail, from a screenplay by Michael Jelenic and Horvath, based on characters from DC.
Teen Titans GO! to the Movies will hit theaters on July 27, 2018.
Are you excited for Teen Titans GO! to the Movies? Comment below.
A typical method actor will absorb the character they are playing into their soul, and that’s exactly what Bill Skarsgård did with his role of Pennywise the Dancing Clown in last fall’s breakout, horror flick IT.
“I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you’re in,” Skarsgård tells Entertainment Weekly. “Pennywise and Bill go into this sort of relationship together, and I’m trying to figure out who he is, and I have to devote so much time and effort to this other person – or thing, in this case – and that goes on for months.”
Skarsgård’s portrayal of the iconic Stephen King character was sinister and horrifying, and his demonic smirk was an image that stayed with audiences long after leaving their theater seats. Embodying such a menacing character, though, doesn’t come without consequences.
“I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams. Every night, he came and visited. It was in the shape of either me dealing with him, sort of Pennywise as a separate entity of me, and then also me as Pennywise in circumstances that I didn’t appreciate,” Skarsgård said. “Like, I’m Pennywise and I’m really upset that I’m out in public and people are looking at me.”
Pennywise the Dancing Clown is only one physical form of the demon of IT, the supernatural entity that plagues the children of Derry, Maine. The character also took many forms in Skarsgård’s head as well.
Despite the crazy dreams, Skarsgård is ready to embrace the clown again in preparation for the IT follow-up film, which is slated to be released in theaters on September 6, 2019. He tells People Magazine, “I did have so much fun with the character, and I’m really looking forward to getting back under that clown makeup for the sequel.”
You can welcome Pennywise into your home now; IT is available on Blu-Ray and digital download today.
Do you have a fear of clowns? Has a scary movie character ever haunted you in your dreams?
Video games for many people who play them provide an escape from the regular world. When you spend eight hours or more trapped in a cubicle, nothing says freedom like exploring new worlds in Super Mario while wearing your finest Tanooki attire. But for gamers like myself who have one arm, or are missing limbs in general, the question on a lot of people’s minds isn’t how we escape, it’s how we execute our escape. While disabilities and missing limbs differ in all cases, causing playing styles to differ, they all create cause for continuous adaptation during our lifetimes.
Forcing people like myself to think outside of the box in order to solve both simple and complex issues. From tying my shoes to entering the Konami code, to performing Sub-Zero’s famous spine rip fatality in Mortal Kombat. But before I dive into my life as a gamer, I must tell you more about my birth so you can get the full picture. I was born in 1988, five years after the Nintendo Entertainment System was released.
Before I was born my umbilical cord wrapped around my arm cutting off growth just below my elbow. Causing my right arm to look like a club or a submarine periscope made out of flesh. It’s perfect for pointing at things. Before I began playing video games I was introduced to pinball.
Not only did its simplicity make it attractive to play in my eyes, it also helped build my hand-eye coordination. I would work the plunger and left flipper while one of my parents would press the button to activate the right flipper. Creating a bonding experience I won’t ever forget.
It was the simplicity of pinball machines that made my transition into video games at five-years-old easier. My first home console was the Nintendo Entertainment System, which like the machines I grew accustomed to had two action buttons. Except for this time, I could reach them both with my right stub. Bringing me to my answer to the question everyone asks me when I tell them I play video games.
How do I play them? Picture in your mind a standard NES controller (or any other controller if you wish) and divide it down the middle. I control the directional pad with my fully functional left hand, and I press the buttons with my right stub. Now I know what you’re thinking.
How do I press the buttons individually and not mash them all like an eight-year-old playing a fighting game? Well though the end of my stub is round, it consists of bones. One in particular on the bottom of it is pointy and allows me to individually press buttons with pinpoint precision. The same goes for when I play PC games like Starcraft and League of Legends.
What also made learning how to play video games easy was the era of games I grew up with. A lot if not all of the games were sidescrollers and as games became more advanced in their controls and design, and controllers had more buttons attached to them, I was able to grow with them. Making the transition from console to console easier outside of the Wii’s motion controllers. Even though the design of controller’s for the most part change from console to console, a lot of my ability to play comes from muscle memory.
If you play enough then things come naturally. That being said I still do struggle when it comes to playing certain types of games particularly shooters released on current gen systems. Most don’t have an auto-aim feature and require me to navigate two sticks at once to aim instead of pulling a trigger and firing. Which feels like an unnecessary step and results in me taking damage and in some cases dying which leads to frustration and me turning the game off if it happens repeatedly.
When I have to drive a vehicle and shoot at the same time it can also be a bit of a hassle. As I have to use the sticks to aim and press the right trigger against my right thigh to accelerate. Which results in my character crashing a lot or missing turns because I can’t slow down. But whether I’m jumping on enemies, performing stunts with cars, or dunking on an opponent, my love for video games always prevails.
They provide an escape for me and in some cases, they allow me to blow off steam. Not to mention the worlds they showcase help build the imaginations of both myself and the many others who play them. They will always be a part of my life and no amount of buttons or terrible motion controls will change that.
As we know, Snoke was hardly used in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. We expected him to be a vicious leader in the midst of training Kylo Ren. Rather than fitting expectations, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson decided to make Snoke a mere side character and kill him off in the middle of the film. Johnson explained why he handled the character this way:
“In this particular story, it’s much more like the original trilogy, where with Snoke if you think about the actual scenes, if suddenly I had paused one of the scenes to give a 30 second monologue about who he was, it would have kind of stopped the scene in its tracks, I realized. Even though it could have been interesting, something that fans were interested in, as storytellers, we have to kind of serve what the scenes need to be. It was a tough thing, even though I knew some fans were interested in it I also knew it wasn’t something that dramatically had a place in this movie. Hopefully it can be addressed elsewhere or even J.J. may address it in the next movie. But it’s not something that’s particularly interesting to Rey, so we kind of had to follow through.”
Although I was initially against the decision to sideline the Supreme Leader, I eventually came to appreciate the bold decision. The character was not needed to fit the story being told, and it was fitting to kill him off before fans got to know his backstory.
How did you feel about Snoke dying in The Last Jedi? Comment below, let us know.
We already told you that Blizzard Entertainment announced its inaugural Overwatch League, specifically its 12-team field, but now it’s time to play! Fresh off its announcement that it has signed a two-year deal to stream competitions exclusively on Twitch, OWL is ready to go! See below for your ‘Who, What, When, Where, Why and How’ Primer, to get ready for this awesome new sports league.
What (is the Overwatch League)?
This new eSports league allows some of the best gamers in the world to compete in the popular Blizzard combat game, Overwatch. It was announced at BlizzCon in Anaheim, California, back in 2016. It’s a city-based league designed to standardize and structure the Overwatch eSports platform. You can keep up with the league on a daily basis, HERE.
When (is the Overwatch League)?
Fresh off the preseason, which took place in December, 2017, the schedule will begin with the regular season (consisting of four stages) on Wednesday, January 10, 2018, and continue through June 16. The postseason will run from June 17-July 28. The postseason makes way for the championship playoffs, which will be July 11-22, while a champion will then be crowned after the Grand Finals, July 26-28. Beyond that point, players will participate in an All-Star Weekend, similar to that in traditional sports leagues. Matches run Wednesday-Saturday, each week, in the regular season.
Where (does the Overwatch League take place)?
All matches will take place at Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles, Calif., but will be streamed live on Twitch, for those that do not live in the area.
Who (competes in the Overwatch League)?
There are currently 12 teams that will participate in the inaugural season. The field is split among the Atlantic and Pacific Divisions, which both include six teams each. Teams must have at least six players per roster, with a maximum of 12. Teams are locked heading into competition, but the league will allow for a free agent-type signing period later in the year, allowing for new signees and transfers (or trades). Each player is guaranteed a minimum salary of $50,000 (USD), plus benefits, however, some more prominent and recognized players make much more than the minimum. Contracts also include performance bonuses for winning matches, including in-game accomplishments. The teams competing are as follows:
Atlantic Division
Boston Uprising
Florida Mayhem
Houston Outlaws
London Spitfire
New York Excelsior
Philadelphia Fusion
Pacific Division
Dallas Fuel
Los Angeles Gladiators
Los Angeles Valiant
San Francisco Shock
Seoul Dynasty
Shanghai Dragons
The 12 teams expand over four countries, featuring nine teams from the United States, including two from Texas and Los Angeles, three-total from the state of California, and one each from England, China and Korea.
How (can I be the best fan possible of the Overwatch League)?
The matches will take place at Blizzard Areana, so if you live in L.A., you can attend! Don’t live there? No problem. You can stream all the action live via both Twitch and Major League Gaming (MLG). Click HERE for more information, including the schedule for opening day on Jan. 10. Fans can also root on their team by ‘gearing up’ at the Blizzard OWL Shop, or with in-game skins and tokens. More info on that, HERE. Lastly, don’t forget to download the free app, available on both Android and iOS, for exclusive league content.
Why (are people competing in Overwatch League)?
This league is here because the game is amazing and Blizzard has given players everywhere a platform in which to shine. That’s what makes eSports and leagues like OWL and MLG so amazing, is that anyone can be a pro athlete. Need another incentive because international glory and recognition just isn’t enough? Well, check out the payouts, which consists of a prize pool of $3.5 million, below.
Starting in the late 1930s, actress Hedy Lamarr flashed her beautiful face in dozens of Hollywood pictures, but behind the scenes, she was inventing Wi-fi. No, really. The story of Hedy Lamarr is fascinating from start to finish, and her life is documented in a new film called Bombshell! One of the 62 films featured at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, Bombshell! is a look into a woman who lived in two extremes.
Bombshell! expertly takes viewers into the world Ms. Lamarr who, for lack of a better word, is a superwoman. To the world at large, Lamarr is an actress who starred in some of Hollywood’s earliest blockbusters such as Boom Town, Algiers, and Samson and Delilah. Lamarr was gorgeous, a trendsetter, and a terrific actress.
But Bombshell! delves deeper into the life of the Hollywood starlet. Hedy ended her life as a recluse, but as the documentary reveals, a marvelous life preceded the lonely end. The story is wrapped around four cassette tapes discovered in 1990 that contained the last interview Lamarr ever did. Bombshell! weaves in Hedy’s own words with interviews that include friends, family, and the likes of celebrities like Mel Brooks who idolized the actress.
Lamarr grew up with a curiosity for inventing. At an early age, the young girl would take apart mechanical toys and put them back together. And though she entered the world of filmmaking, that passion never left her. And the documentary includes the story of how Hedy was pivotal in the invention of frequency hopping, even receiving a patent for the idea. If you’re not tech savvy, Hedy’s invention in 1941 is the basis for Bluetooth, military communications, and, yes, wifi!
Hedy’s rise and fall and rise again and fall again is the stuff of legend. The story is something that could easily become a hit HBO series and probably win a few awards along the way.
Writer and director Alexander Dean does a fantastic job of pacing the documentary and punctuating the story along the way with Hedy’s own words. Photos, interviews, and clips from movies and TV fill the 90-minute doc and keep it an intriguing watch for the entire runtime. Suffice it to say, there’s rarely a dull moment in Hedy’s life.
Despite the somewhat sad end of her life, Hedy remained a fantastic example of class and glamour. Nothing says this more than the end of the doc. The final words are a sentiment from the brilliant actress that we should all take deeply within us and live with every day:
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish alternative motives. Do good anyway.
The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down
by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and you’ll be kicked into the teeth. Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
