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This Is Why Brie Larson Cares So Much About Her ‘Captain Marvel’ Role

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Entertainment Weekly caught up with Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson, and got her to talk a bit on why she thinks the role is so important.

“It feels like such a weight off my shoulders because I really don’t like keeping secrets, and the response was really positive, and that felt really cool. I mean, making movies is hard, and making films of that size is even harder. It requires so much physically, and it’s a lot longer shoot, and there’s also the pressure because this is a character that is incredibly inspiring to people and means a lot. So you just want to get it right. I feel really excited about how everything is shaping up.”

Captain Marvel will be set in the 1990s, and is confirmed to feature Nick Fury. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck with a script written by Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve, the picture will see Carol Danvers’ first ever film. March 8, 2019 is the release date.

Are you looking forward to Captain Marvel? Let us know in the comments below.

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The Lost Boys Turns 30: 80s Punk Rock Vampires Need A Comeback

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Before vampires became mopey, self-hating, glowing pedophiles, director Joel Schumacher let loose The Lost Boys. The vampire story is a rare one by today’s standards. It oozes 80s punk rock aesthetic and attitudes. The monsters are monsters with little sympathy afforded to most of them. The Lost Boys is a raw horror story with a dose of comedy and plenty of attitude. It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination. But The Lost Boys is the very definition of a cult classic. It’s endlessly quotable, features a pitch-perfect cast, and a great soundtrack. The Lost Boys earned every bit of its cult status.

A Look Back At The Lost Boys 30 Years Later

If you’re reading this and have never watched The Lost Boys then do yourself a favor and finish this article, click on a few more articles, then watch the movie. 🙂

The Lost Boys is the story of two brothers from Arizona, Sam (Corey Haim) and Mike (Jason Patric) who move out to a small fictional town in California by the name of Santa Clara with their recently divorced mother. Immediately, the city strikes Mike as weird when he sees “Murder Capital of the World” scribbled on the back of a billboard. As Sam and Mike explore their new surroundings, Mike is mesmerized by Star (Jamie Gertz), a beautiful young woman. Soon after, Mike meets Star’s controlling boyfriend David (Keifer Sutherland) who leads a small gang of hooligans. David, the hooligans, and Star turn out to be vampires.

In any other movie, this scene wouldn’t be memorable. However, in The Lost Boys, the moment is elevated to unforgettable status.

After a dark prologue featuring David as a mysterious, brooding man in black, The Lost Boys moves into a family-friendly ride with Mike, Sam, and mom Lucy (Dianne Wiest). However, the moment Mike sees an ominous message scrawled on the back of the billboard, the film cements its tone. A cover of The Doors’ “People Are Strange” by Echo and the Bunnymen kicks in for a minute of establishing this weird little town. And the sequence flows into the start of Mike’s journey with Star.

Mike sees the alluring Star at an outdoor concert. Schumacher interlaces shots of head banging crowds all listening to a band doing a cover of “I Still Believe” by The Calls. In any other movie, this scene wouldn’t be memorable. However, in The Lost Boys, the moment is elevated to unforgettable status. The lead singer of the band is a sweaty, shirtless body builder pretending to play the saxophone. Bulging sweet bombs for arms pump out towards the crowd while “Sexy Sax Man,” as he’s come to be known, gyrates and roars “I STILL BELIEVE!”

Soon after falling for Star, Mike meets David played with a luscious badassery by Sutherland. In every look and grin from Sutherland, there is a depth that spirals down into a monster. Unlike Louis from Interview with a Vampire or Edward Cullen or Angel, David LOVES being a vampire. Buffy fans won’t be surprised to learn that Whedon acknowledged Sutherland’s character as inspiration for Spike years later.

Fun Fact: Whedon credits The Lost Boys with a lot, including the vampires morphing from man to monster.

The main plot thread of The Lost Boys is David’s attempts to sire Mike and lure him to the dark side. However, Sam plays the counter, trying to retain his brother’s humanity. Haim’s Sam is helped by Edgar and Allen Frog, two serious geeks who know all about the vampires behind Santa Clara. Edgar Frog, played by Corey Feldman, marks the first pairing of the Coreys on film. Feldman channeled every 80s action star into a gruff kid that takes himself too seriously but for all the right reasons. Jamison Newlander as Allen Frog doesn’t say much but accentuates everything Feldman does with sneers, nods, and crossed arms.

vampire-movie-80s-lost boys

For two acts the film plays like the love child of Near Dark and Goonies, and there is a reason for that. Initially, the script for The Lost Boys was designed to be a sort of Goonies with vampires. Sutherland’s David, dripping with a delicious syrup of nefarious was supposed to be a pre-teen. Schumacher changed all that when he was brought in to direct. The American director added the darker elements and used the low budget to his advantage when he conceived of the unsettling “first-person” flying instead of consistently showing the people themselves flying around.

On the downside, sure, the movie’s plot is razor thin. The ending sequence and “twist” are the weakest parts. It’s perhaps the one section of the film where the disparity between pre-teen adventure comedy and stylized horror movie collide instead of compliment. However, it doesn’t matter because of the strengths of the movie, like many Schumacher films, are the director’s sense of style and Sutherland’s David which is angsty villainy at its best.

Happy 30th birthday to The Lost Boys. Like the immortal beings in the film, the movie has aged well.



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Marvel Announces ‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’ Production With Tiny Video

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Marvel Studios announced today that production has begun on ‘Ant-Man and The Wasp,’ the studio released a tiny video to go along with the press release.

About the film:
In the aftermath of “Captain America: Civil War,” Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from their past.

‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’ stars Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Michael Douglas, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tip “T.I.” Harris, and David Dastmalchian.

The sequel up the states with new cast members Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, and Randall Park.

Peyton Reed directs from a screenplay by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari, and Paul Rudd.

‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’ hits theaters on July 6, 2018.


What do you think of the plot? Comment below.

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Hayley Atwell Talks Agent Carter’s Cancellation And Her MCU Future

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All good things must come to an end at some point.This was the case for Marvel’s Agent Carter, which got canceled last year after two seasons. While receiving critical praise, the show struggled in terms of ratings.

Series star Hayley Atwell opens up about why it got the axe. While promoting Howard’s End, Atwell tells IGN how studio politics led to the show’s fate. It turns out to have been a business decision in the end.

Agent Carter

“You know Marvel and all the creatives behind the making of the show loved it,” she says. “And we loved it. We all loved making it. It was a network political thing. They wanted to put me in something mainstream [Conviction] to get their ratings up rather than something that was more genre specific. There were a lot of economic decisions behind it, and I wasn’t a part of the conversation.”

Atwell admits the cancellation did come as a shock. “So we were all really surprised about that because we kind of got the sense that people were liking it,” she says. “It had this cult following.”

Agent Carter "A Little Song and Dance"
Peggy and Chief Sousa dancing up a storm

Atwell still hopes to reprise her role in the MCU. Although Peggy dies in Civil War, she did appear in Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron. During the Ant-Man prologue, Atwell made an appearance as a 60-ish Peggy. Using this logic, she can play her from youth to middle age.

“I’d love to see [Peggy] more in films,” she says. “I’d love to see her in her own film. And if we can keep evolving it so that she does new things so that I can surprise myself and she can keep surprising me then I’d love to do it.

“The fact that we know that she lives until the age of 96 means that technically I could be employed for the rest of my life, you know.”


Were you a fan of ‘Agent Carter?’ Sound off in the comments below.

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“Wonder Woman 2” 2019 Release Date in A Month of Female-led Projects

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While DC was keen to confirm a sequel to their smash hit Wonder Woman at last month’s Comic-Con, they didn’t announce Wonder Woman 2‘s release date until a few days ago. Thanks to Deadline, we know that the film is currently set for a release date of December 13th, 2019.

Delayed Gratification?

The 2019 date seems pretty far off, but fans of Diana won’t have to wait that long to see her on the big screen once more. Wonder Woman joins the Justice League this fall on November 19th. Prince (Gal Gadot) has already more than proven her staying power in her record-breaking solo film. Director Patty Jenkins got much of the credit for the film’s popularity. No director has signed on for the sequel yet.

Wonder Woman and the Wonder of Leading Women

Idina Menzel (Frozen) and Kristen Chenowith (American Gods) originated the roles of Elphaba and Galinda, respectively

Wonder Woman 2‘s release date comes just one day before the long-anticipated film adaptaion of Wicked. The latter, produced by Universal, is based on Broadway’s second-most popular musical of the same name, which itself was adapted from Gregory Maguire’s novel. Wicked tells the story of the Wizard of Oz from a different perspective: through the eyes of the Wicked Witch herself. Elphaba (the wicked witch’s proper name), her sister Nessa Rose and Galinda (not a spelling error) all go to school together. The story rounds out all three characters with deep backstories and political agendas. Winnie Holzman (book) and Stephen Schwartz (score) wrote both the musical and film.

So we have superheroes, witches, and apparently a princess or two. Disney’s unnamed fairy tale project rounds out December 2019 with a variety of powerful women. Here’s hoping all three projects will hire female creators, as well.

Based on characters from DC comics, Wonder Woman 2 is produced by Warner Brothers Studios.

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Trailer: Get Uncomfortable With David Fincher’s ‘Mindhunter’

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Netflix just keeps punching us in the face with good ideas. The streaming service just gave David Fincher a series about understanding the mind of serial killers. How is this not going to be great?

How do we get ahead of crazy if we don’t know how crazy thinks? Two FBI agents set out on a sinister investigative odyssey to discover the brutal answers.

Check out the first trailer for ‘Mindhunter’ below:

Charlize Theron is a producer on the series. It’s exciting to see her influence on the business side of filmmaking.

‘Mindhunter’ stars Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Cotter Smith, Sonny Valicenti, and Tyler James Larkin.

The series is written by John Douglas and Joe Penhall, with David Fincher directing three episodes, Asif Kapadia 2 episodes, Tobias Lindholm (TBD), and Andrew Douglas 2 episodes.

‘Mindhunter’ hits Netflix on October 13.

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‘Landline’ Review – Finding Happiness Is Tough

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‘Landline’ directed by Gillian Robespierre (‘Obvious Child’) starring Jenny Slate, John Turturro, Edie Falco, and Abby Quinn, hits theaters this week.

‘Landline’ is a multi-generational coming of age tale set in 1995 that awkwardly tugs at those tricky heartstrings. The world is not black and white, and Robespierre does her best to explain that relationships take work in this graying of the family dynamic. The nostalgia of the 90s does just enough to make the film unique, but any time period would work for this story. ‘Landline’ has a familiar, pretentious, indie feel to it; but the heart of the characters is what shines through in the end.

The cast is what sells this film and gives the plot movement and life. Jenny Slate’s character Dana is an awful person, but with Slate behind the wheel you can’t help but like the character. What ever the middle is between ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ and ‘Seinfeld’ is where Dana lives. John Turturro at this point in his career has hit the ‘Kevin Spacey level’ when comes to putting on an acting clinic. Turturro’s character, Alan, is where most men hope they don’t end up in life. Edie Falco brings the true grit the role of Pat, the mother of the family. Keeping a family together is rough and takes a toll on Pat. When Pat has finally had enough, that’s where Falco reminds the audience of her power and command. Ali, played by Abby Quinn is the most put together character, and it will be interesting to watch her mature into an actor. Ali is cold-hearted, and Quinn made that resonate in her performance.

Robespierre doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the audience will relate to her passionate storytelling. Where Robespierre succeeds is playing it down the middle with this film, not being too comedic or too serious. Either direction would have ended horribly for this movie. The balance is what makes Slate awful and likable at the same time.

If you want to contemplate your life choices and relationships, ‘Landline’ will get you brain churning.

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Forgotten Films Archive: The Raw, Unchecked Aggression of Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Blue Steel’ (1990)

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Sandwiched in between Kathryn Bigelow’s breakout vampire western Near Dark and her modern classic Point Break, lies Blue Steel, a crime thriller that is aggressive and violent and a modicum of the types of thrillers in this era. It is a film of many different surprising narrative turns, a story that shouldn’t work as well as it does, and a clear indicator of the sort of filmmaker Bigelow would soon become.

Blue Steel is the sort of movie an audience watches, and with every outlandish turn as their jaws drop even further, they find themselves swept up in the thrilling inertia and terrific performances, lost amid the chaos. Jamie Lee Curtis’s Megan Turner graduates from the police academy under the credits, only to be thrust into a grocery store armed robbery day one of her patrol, the sort of grocery store armed robbery that would only exist in the movies. She shoots and kills the perpetrator (a young Tom Sizemore), and his gun goes spinning across the tile floor of the grocery store, where it rests directly in front of Eugene Hunt, who is one crazy sonofabitch just waiting for the right moment to let his inner demons spill out.

This is that moment, as Eugene pockets the gun. The disappearing weapon causes more problems for Megan, who is immediately dressed down and stripped of her badge and gun. Of course. Meanwhile, Eugene begins to stalk Megan, and eventually the two meet, date, sleep together, and almost immediately Eugene reveals himself to be a completely insane human being.

The late Ron Silver plays Eugene Hunt as a mix of yuppie Wall Street douchebag and unhinged psychotic murderer. It’s a weird juxtaposition outside of the satirical realm of something like American Psycho, but Silver’s dedication to the role and his curt, unnerving cadence, the way his voice can slink through a conversation like a snake, gets right under your skin. Beyond his words, Eugene’s increasingly fracturing mental state throughout the film is a sight to behold. It’s almost avant garde the way Silver approaches the physicality of this role, whether it’s trying to scream away the demons in a gym or rubbing blood all over his naked body… Silver is here to do some crazy things, and they all work.

Bigelow’s screenplay – which she co-wrote with Eric Red – lays all the cards out on the table early on, at least as far as the mystery of the plot is concerned. It’s the same sort of reveal she has in Point Break, when we realize pretty much from the get go that Swayze’s band are the criminals. Megan finds out in the second act that Eugene has been murdering people with the missing gun, but she cannot do anything to stop him even though she’s back working with detectives. Because this is a movie.

Blue Steel is not about Megan’s shocking realization, it’s a cat-and-mouse thriller about a mouse eluding a cat in a wide open space. Kathryn Bigelow knows where to find interesting and unique tension, even in films that seem more predictable than they turn out to be. The third act finally loses its grip on the insanity, and the finale reaches its hand out and grabs ahold of near parody. But that’s not enough to dismiss Bigelow’s first action feature. It is one of the rare instances where Bigelow’s protagonist is female, and Jamie Lee Curtis is right at home fending off a madman who seemingly can’t be stopped.

Kathryn Bigelow’s latest, Detroit, opens this Friday.


The Forgotten Films Archive:

Shoot to Kill (1988)

Judgment Night (1993)

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Dead Calm (1989)

One False Move (1992)

Brooklyn’s Finest (2010)

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WGN America Seeks to Reboot Itself with Anna Paquin’s ‘Bellevue’

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The next phase of WGN America is beginning.

The network had recently boasted a diverse lineup of original television series, most of which was the source of moderate critical acclaim. Most notable among these was Underground, a series about the Underground Railroad, which had brought WGN considerable prestige but few viewers. This latter part, the low viewership, however, became a thorn in the network’s side, and ultimately they ended up canceling the vast majority of their original programming.

WGN America’s troubles in this regard are perhaps an early sign that the Prestige TV/Peak TV bubble may be popping. After all, other channels or content creators have also had similar problems, the most notable example being Netflix, which had to cancel a huge swath of content like The Get Down and Sense8. The cancellation of Sense8 in particular was so uproarious that Netflix eventually attempted to pacify fans with an extended finale for the series.

WGN, cutting their losses, has acquired Bellevue, a Canadian drama starring Anna Paquin (True Blood). This is the first show the network has picked up since the departure of their president, Matt Cherniss, and marks a very different trajectory for the channel. After Tribune Media recently acquired WGN, CEO Peter Kern selected Gavin Harvey to serve as the interim president, and under his leadership, the channel is clearly straying from the high production costs of creating original series. Instead, they appear to be acquiring other properties and reruns, although the idea of original content with a lower price tag does not appear to be out of the question.

As for Bellevue itself, Paquin will star in the eight-episode mystery as a detective investigating a missing high school athlete. Jane Maggs and Adrienne Mitchell are co-creators and showrunners, while Allen Leech and Shawn Doyle co-star in the series. The exact air date is not known yet, but it will certainly be sometime in 2018.

What do you think of WGN America’s new direction?

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Hey Asshole, Please Stop Buying Comics! Also, No Fucking MilkShakes For You

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Marvel Comics Editor Heather Antos grabbed a milkshake with coworkers this past Friday and posted a selfie of the group on Twitter. The innocent photo managed to become a beacon for worthless internet trolls.

Here are some of the remarks:

No wonder Marvel Comics sales have nose-dived. Everyone has moved to DC where there is no SJW crap. – @SatansRobots

Can we just get off of feminism and social justice and actually print stories. God DC looks better and better – @Iwishiwashim12

Looks like a bunch of SWJ’s to me – @OutlawForHire

Antos received more negative comments over the next 12 hours.

“Woke up today to a slew of more garbage tweets and DMs. For being a woman. In comics. Who posted a selfie of her friends getting milkshakes,” said Antos in a tweet.


Here is my open letter to any person who thinks we need less Social Justice Warriors in the comic book industry.

“Go fuck yourself,” – Matt Sardo.

The job of a superhero is to inspire us all to be better. Peter Parker makes the right choice, even when it’s not the popular option. It doesn’t matter who you are; Superman will save you because Ma and Pa Kent raised him to be a good kid. When little Steve Rogers jumps on the grenade in ‘Captain America: The First Avenger,’ who do you think he was saving?

Complaining about reboots is one thing, but when you’re angry about diversity in a comic, you have the problem. Moving forward, you have two choices: stop being an asshole or stop reading comics. I would prefer that you cease to be an asshole. Since we launched Monkeys Fighting Robots in 2015, I’ve seen some pretty dark comments about diverse comics and women. I do not give in to internet trolls, but when you start harassing a woman for getting a fucking milkshake, you have too much time on your hands, and I don’t want you part of this community of comic book nerds.

If this were the Ultimate Universe, Captain America would be knocking on your door to kick the shit out of you. I bet 99% of you trolls would piss your pants before the first punch was landed.

Superman would give you a second chance, and that is what I’m going to do, but this is your final warning: STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE!

If you sent an insult to Antos, you need to apologize. Just hit the comment button you used to send the insult and type ‘I’m sorry,’ then send. Very simple and very easy.

If diverse superheroes make you angry, you need to ask yourself some serious questions. If you think you can bully the comic book community, you are wrong and need to stop buying comic books.


If you have an opinion about bullying in the comic book industry, comment below. The conversation needs to continue.

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