Mark Gibbon, known for smaller roles in Man of Steel and Smallville, has been cast as General Zod in the CW’s Supergirl. He is expected to be introduced in the season 2 finale.
Gibbon has appeared in numerous roles on film and TV, including Smallville, Arrow, Stargate: Atlantis, and The X-Files. He also has a voice-acting resume that includes playing the Incredible Hulk, The Thing, and Nick Fury in various Marvel animated films and shows. In Man of Steel, he played an oil rig worker saved by Superman.
Kara and company already have a lot to deal with. There’s Rhea, Mon-El’s murderous mom played by Teri Hatcher. Lillian Luthor and Cadmus are still making life on earth difficult for extraterrestrials. And then there’s President Olivia Marsdin, played by Lynda Carter, an alien with unknown intentions sitting in the Oval Office.
Perhaps Zod’s appearance will somehow fit into one of these story lines. What is more likely, however, is that he will make a brief cameo at the very end of the episode, setting up season 3 of Supergirl.
Zod is one of Superman’s most formidable foes in the comics, movies, and TV shows. He is a radical leader of Krypton’s military forces, who is imprisoned in The Phantom Zone just before the planet’s destruction.
In 1980’s Superman II, General Zod was played by Terrance Stamp and later by Michael Shannon in 2013’s Man of Steel. In 2010, Callum Blue took on the role of the menacing Kryptonian in the 9th season of Smallville.
Supergirl returns Monday, April 24 at 8pm on The CW.
What do you think of the casting of Gibbon as Zod? Let us know in the comments!
Exercising restraint can be hard. Some creators are just more suited for writing to a more adult audience with their work and when they have to scale it back for a younger crowd, not all of the material comes off as entertaining. So a series created by the American Greetings Entertainment, a group known for creating content for younger audiences, and produced in conjunction with Stoopid Buddies Stoodios (the team behind Robot Chicken and SuperMansion) could easily create a show which many would find awkward and cringe-worthy. Worry not dear reader, for instead, this collaboration has created something unique entirely: Quality family programming.
Writing
The story focus on titular character Buddy Thunderstruck, a semi-truck racer in the town of Greasepit who enjoys nothing more than winning, hanging with his best friend/mechanic Darnell, and munching down hot wings. Together, the pair get into hijinks focusing on Buddy’s obsessive need to always be number one while making life difficult for their rivals, Big Tex, Big Tex Jr. and the mystery man (later revealed to be named Belvedere Moneybags).
The show features some very off the wall and random bits of comedy. Story lines include Buddy becoming a repo man, break dancing to get out of jail, racing the pizza delivery service which is faster than him, and becoming a cop with an obsession for justice. The writers are able to produce a large amount of humor despite the show being for a family audience. The series makes frequent references to adult entertainment like The Big Lewboski, CSI: Miami, and Office Space. They also make use some creative wordplay to make nods to more adult terms such as “Son of a buck” and using a beaver dam to mean the explicative instead.
There are plenty of great moments for the younger crowd as well. Physical humor moments such as when Buddy throws a billy club at a car with an expired meter causing it to explode will have kids giggling hysterically. Also, Hoysenberry, the deputy who is an adorable character who is too cute and friendly to be a cop. She is the kind of character you feel for but can’t help but snicker at as they experience misfortune. Also the kind of character who would be perfect as a stuffed animal.
Acting
Family entertainment also has a stigma when it comes to voice acting. Many actors simply phone in their roles and deliver bland performances. Not here though, as the entire cast of Buddy Thunderstruck delivers the perfect amount of energy and style to their characters.
Brian Allen as Buddy is perfect. He seems to be channeling Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights with a hint of Jason Lee from My Name is Earl. Darrel is played by Ted Raimi (Ted Hoffman from the Spiderman Trilogy), who performs a dual role as Darnell and Moneybags. As Darnell he is the perfect best friend who will be there for a person no matter what. As Moneybags he plays the perfect snide villain who just wants to prove how much better he is than everyone else. The entire cast delivers a phenomenal performance and creates characters which are a joy to behold.
Animation
The team created this show with some fantastic stop motion effects. Unlike some of their Robot Chicken sketches, where the figures have their joints exposed or there are moments where you can tell where the clay didn’t seal properly, there are no flaws to be seen here. There isn’t a moment of the show brought down by a bad effect or poorly created character in the cast. Every visual seems to be a great representation of the studio’s work and sells the physical comedy moments employed in the first season.
Conclusion
This show finds the balance between comedy intended for young and older audience and succeeds in being a perfect show for the family. All it needs now is more viewers so there can be a possibility of a second season. If you find yourself needing a show which is binge-worthy than blame it on the thunder and check out Buddy Thunderstruck! Kaboom!
This week’s episode of Attack on Titan played to one of its great abilities by being able to create atmosphere. By surrounding the characters in danger and putting them in impossible situations, the viewer’s pulse skyrockets as it looks like everyone may easily become a meal for the Titans. Previously this has involved waiting for Titans to move into position for counterattacks or riding on horseback at top speed, all to put the cast into situations which leave the audience concerned for their safety. Once again, the original creator of the series found a way to reproduce the same feelings by leaving characters stranded and without a way to get out.
The rookies are stuck in an old castle in the middle of nowhere. They are no weapons of their own, a horde of Titans trying to kill them, and the senior officers with equipment are soon overwhelmed by the odds. A typical day for this anime. There are a few moments of character introspective though mixed in with the suspect as Ymir teases Connie as a way to distract him so he is not worrying about his family and Reiner remembers a companion who saved him from being eaten by the Titans. By the look of it though, both of these characters seem to know more than they are letting on. At least Ymir’s secrets should be expanded upon very soon. Probably will be awhile before it’s revealed what else happened in Reiner’s past.
At the end Ymir reminds Christa of a promise they made before, which thanks to the preview will be revealed in the next episode. Not like it will be hard to get people to come back. This episode ends on an insane cliffhanger which is guaranteed to get the audience to return. Intense action, good character moments, and just the right about of horror so it’s impossible to relax makes this episode pretty satisfactory overall.
Attack on Titan: Season Two is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Tears Are Shed And Shade Is Thrown On This Week’s Untucked
Following a musical tribute to the Kardashians, things get intense on this week’s ‘Untucked: RuPaul’s Drag Race‘. There’s about as much talk of sabotage and conspiracies this week than last election. On the main stage, Nina Bo’Nina Brown feels shafted by her role in the musical, while Alexis Michelle let her feelings known backstage.
Alexis Michelle has shown this “Mommie Dearest”-side to her before but it boiled over this week. Though she was highly praised for her performance in the challenge, the judges didn’t enjoy her runway look. With a different dress, Alexis Michelle felt she could’ve won. Why didn’t the fellow queens step up and say something? That’s the question she posed.
Ranging from Trinity Taylor and Eureka O’Hara, the queens spoke up about not wanting to step on toes or their own self-doubts about their looks. This is one of the more interesting exchanges with Alexis Michelle and the queens. That level of picture perfection she strives for is beginning to slip. Let’s hope next week she can regain her composure because this attitude can send someone home.
“Think about every little dark-skinned brown girl out there that anyone has told they didn’t deserve it, they didn’t belong, that they’re not worth it, and that it was too much for them to want it. You do it for all of them. Not just you. Every single one of them” -Shea Coulee to Nina Bo’Nina Brown
Speaking of toxic attitudes, Nina Bo’Nina Brown broke down again on the runway. She seemed more composed backstage but the aura was different. The queens were talking candidly about her “Debbie Downer” personality and how it can ruin her. Judges RuPaul and Michelle Visage both echoed the sentiment. Unlike Alexis Michelle, this episode of ‘Untucked‘ seemed like the moment of realization of Nina Bo’Nina Brown. After a great pep talk from Shea Couleé, I expect a different Nina going forward.
The biggest story leaving both ‘Untucked‘ and ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race‘ is the shocking elimination of Eureka O’Hara. All the way back in episode 2, Eureka O’Hara mentioned injuring her knee but no one expected the extent of the injury. Turns out she tore her ACL and going forward in the competition wasn’t safe. For the first time in the show’s history, someone was sent home for a medical reason but there was another first this episode. Do to the circumstances around Eureka’s exit, RuPaul extended an invitation for her to return for Season 10. It looks like we already know the first cast member of next season!
What do you think of this week’s ‘Untucked’?
Let me know in the comments below!
Don’t forget to check out ‘Untucked: RuPaul’s Drag Race‘, every Saturday morning on WOWPresents Youtube page.
British actor Callum Turner (Green Room, Victor Frankenstein) is in talks to join the wizarding world as Newt Scamander’s (Eddie Redmayne) brother for the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them sequel.
Theseus Scamander is mentioned in passing in the Fantastic Beasts film. He is Newt’s older brother, and was a hero during World War I. After the war, he became an auror, tasked with tracking down Grindelwald (Johnny Depp).
Not much else is known about the Fantastic Beasts four sequels. Jude Law has recently been cast as a young Albus Dumbledore, who is set to take on Depp’s Grindelwald. The two had an epic duel in 1945, which was mentioned in the Harry Potter series. The Fantastic Beasts series will inevitably lead up to that battle.
David Yates, who directed the final four Harry Potter movies and returned for Fantastic Beasts, is set to return for the next movie.
Eddie Redmayne, who will remain as the prime protagonist throughout the series, recently said that the sequels will keep the “Fantastic Beasts and” portion of the title, with the second part changed for the sequels.
The sequel is already scheduled to hit theaters in November 2018, with the third film planned for November 2020. This probably means we’ll see the fourth Fantastic Beasts in 2022 and the fifth and final movie in 2024.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an extension of the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling, set decades before Harry Potter and his adventures in Hogwarts.
What do you think of Callum Turner joining the Wizarding World? Let’s discuss in the comments!
Colossal has the appearance of an odd creature feature but is profound and heartfelt.
Summary
Colossal opens with a scene that appears to be ripped from any number of Japanese monster flicks. We see a little girl in the middle of a park in Seoul, South Korea searching for her lost doll only to be terrorized by a large monster. We quickly jump to 25 years later to see Gloria (Anne Hathaway) stumbling into her boyfriend’s apartment after a long night of drinking. Her boyfriend (Dan Stevens) appears to be at his wit’s end and demands that she leaves. With nowhere to go and without a penny to her name, she departs to New Jersey and heads back to her parents’ vacant home. Moments after arriving in her hometown, Gloria runs into an old classmate of hers named Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). Oscar quickly becomes very focused on her well-being offering her a job and some old furniture for her new home. They start to hit it off and decide to go out drinking one night. Gloria and Oscar end up in a playground nearby which apparently has mystical powers as well. We quickly learn that when they step foot into the playground, an avatar (one of them resembles a robot, the other a “kaiju”) appears in downtown Seoul causing havoc and destruction around. At first, Gloria seems to be having the time of her life, but then she quickly realizes that her actions have severe consequences.
Acting
Anne Hathaway delivers another solid performance as Gloria. While on the surface she comes off as a slacker, in reality, Gloria is ill. She’s using booze and a laissez-faire lifestyle to mask her inner demons, not the least of which is the rage she has bottled up inside. The last good thing she had was her boyfriend, Tim, and when he is gone due to her lifestyle choices, she’s alone.
In many ways, it’s her illness that connects Gloria to Oscar. Jason Sudeikis’s character certainly has his demons to fight. He feels repressed as his life has not amounted to a whole lot. Instead of looking for a way to improve his life, Oscar spends his nights with his good friend Jack Daniels. While Gloria’s rage stems losing everything, Oscar’s stems from not amounting to anything. Even though Oscar certainly has feelings for Gloria, part of him can’t even stand her. Sudeikis embodies all of these things and manages to take his “good guy” image and smash into a cold hearted mix of rage and regret. Seeing this transformation was certainly the highlight of the film for me and the best role of Sudeikis’s acting career.
Writing/Direction
Writer/Director Nacho Vigalondo crafted a narrative that is incredibly balanced between absurdity and poignancy. Every scene that we have of Gloria trying to have some fun with her monstrous avatar includes real moments of reflection. For Gloria and Oscar, reality has always been a difficult thing to navigate. The arc of the story has moments of pure hilarity mixed in with sprinkles of awkwardness. At times you’ll feel uncomfortable, but overall it’s a satisfying story.
What stood out was how Viglondo was able to switch between such an intimate film to one where we are witness to large scale destruction. It would have been an error had he decided to stick with one type of film or the other. Colossal is a movie focused on how people cope with their inner “monsters” but seeing the impact of those demons was indeed crucial.
Overall
Colossal will certainly go down as one of the bigger surprises in 2017. What appeared to be a light-hearted creature feature ended up being about the demons we all face. While this film won’t get much of a run at the box-office while The Fate of the Furious is on the majority of screens; that doesn’t mean it should be ignored. These types of films deserve our support and should be on your radar this weekend.
It’s 1947. The second world-war is over but the cold war is just beginning. Critics rave about David Lean’s film adaptation of Great Expectations. Or, for the more lighthearted movie-goer, Miracle on 34th Street and Friz Freleng’s animated Rabbit Transit also hit the big screens.
In the world of comics, things were changing. The distant moans and groans of the emerging horror genre could be heard with the publication of Avon Periodicals’ Eerie #1. Timely Comics cancelled their All-Winners title with issue #21. Timely’s rival National/DC cancelled their More Fun Comics title with issue #127. And, in a sad turn of events, Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston, died. He was only 53. But, just as this pioneer of super-heroines died, a new super-heroine, the brainchild of Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, was on her way. She didn’t carry a magical lasso. Instead, she was a martial arts expert who looked great in a blonde wig.
Golden Age Black Canary – A Thundering Origin
“Hey, Thunderbolt, can you just come whenever I’m in trouble rather than whenever I accidentally say something?”
Proving that behind every good woman is a goofy jackass, the Black Canary, AKA Dina Drake, started out as a supporting character in Johnny Thunder’s monthly stories in Flash Comics. For those unfamiliar with Golden Age Johnny Thunder, Johnny is an exceptionally lucky, if clumsy, guy who can summon a genie-esque, sentient thunderbolt whenever Johnny says the words “say you.” If you’re wondering, yes, Johnny Thunder comics are about as good as they sound. Luckily, though, the Black Canary ditched Mr. Thunder for her own monthly title by 1948 and never looked back.
Instead of the hackneyed Johnny Thunder tailing after her, with Flash Comics #92 and the first solo appearance of Black Canary, readers meet Larry Lance. Lance is a down-on-his-luck private eye who works out of Dinah Drake’s flower shop to save money on rent. And, though he works with Black Canary on every single case, he doesn’t figure out that Dinah and Black Canary are the same woman … some private eye.
Golden Age Black Canary – Feminist in Fishnets
One interesting element that came out of having Black Canary start out as a supporting character to Johnny Thunder was the power dynamic that her relationships with men presented. Rather than the chauvinistic, if traditional, story of a beautiful woman acting as either an object of passion for the male lead (Betty Dean, Rathia, Betsy Ross) or as his charming but generally brainless assistant (Namora, Lady Dorma, Betsy Ross), the old power dynamic is turned on its head. Instead, Black Canary is the able-bodied and brilliant investigator. Her male counterparts are just window dressing or unwitting victims of her enemies.
It’s also worth noting that rather than having special powers, the Golden Age Black Canary just beats guys up. Much like Golden Girl (Betsy Ross’s super-pseudonym), she just knows how to kick butt, but unlike Golden Girl she has no bulletproof clothing.
Golden Age Black Canary – Split Personality
More than some of her contemporaries, the Golden Age Black Canary’s superheroine persona seems rooted in a desire to escape from her official identity as Dinah Drake. Unlike other super-folk, Batman for one, the Black Canary isn’t on a crusade against crime. Instead, she seems to get a thrill out of her super-job. That her crime-fighting garb consists of a blonde wig, leather jacket, black bathing suit, fishnets, and utility choker (not belt) definitely supports this notion. And, though these costume elements are the result of springing from a generally chauvinistic medium (Golden Age comics), Dinah Drake’s transformation into the Black Canary reads as a sloughing off of patriarchy in favor of her own sense of unbridled sensuality.
Instead of donning a suit of armour and doing battle with the night, Black Canary seems as if she’s connecting with a secret and sensual part of herself every time she dons her fishnets. Dinah Drake’s tightly wound black bun is replaced by a flowing blonde shoulder-length wig and her all-business personality as a semi-successful florist makes way for that of a kickass martial arts expert freed by the night, or the wig — it’s hard to say.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 looks like it will have even better visuals than the first movie! A bunch of new images from the Marvel sequel were revealed in Entertainment Weekly’s Summer Movie Preview, and tease a beautiful looking planet, as well as the new line-up of Guardians all, assembled together.
“Set to the backdrop of ‘Awesome Mixtape #2,’ Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues the team’s adventures as they traverse the outer reaches of the cosmos. The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel cinematic universe continues to expand.”
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2’ stars Chris Pratt as Star-Lord/Peter Quill, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket Raccoon, Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, Michael Rooker as Yondu, Kurt Russel as Ego The Living Planet, Karen Gillian as Nebula, Dave Bautista as Drax, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Sean Gunn as Kraglin, and Sylvester Stallone in a currently unknown role. The film is directed by James Gunn.
Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi attended the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 premiere and took to Twitter to share his thoughts on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next film.
Turning up to the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 premiere and it looks like the Taikapaths are out in full force! Love my fans!!! pic.twitter.com/kfU1OkNqPa
“G.o.t.Galaxy v2 is sick! @JamesGunn has made abeautiful, fun, crazy, and emotional film.”
Are you looking forward to GotG Vol. 2? Why or why not? Be sure to sound off in the comments below.
“Set to the backdrop of ‘Awesome Mixtape #2,’ Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues the team’s adventures as they traverse the outer reaches of the cosmos. The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel cinematic universe continues to expand.”
GotG Vol. 2 stars Chris Pratt as Star-Lord/Peter Quill, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket Raccoon, Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, Michael Rooker as Yondu, Kurt Russel as Ego The Living Planet, Karen Gillian as Nebula, Dave Bautista as Drax, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Sean Gunn as Kraglin, and Sylvester Stallone in a currently unknown role. The film is directed by James Gunn and hits theaters on May 5.
Waititi’s installment in the MCU, Thor: Ragnarok, hits theaters on November 3.
What do you think of this week’s ‘Untucked’?
