A place for things and stuff
I am still struggling with a Hellboy not being helmed by Guillermo del Toro and not staring Ron Perlman, but I have to admit David Harbour looks pretty dang good as HB. If the rest of the movie can match the quality shown above, maybe, just maybe, they will get my butt in a seat January 2019, but they are going to have to keep showing me good stuff like this.
For the most part Marvel’s Netflix shows have been pretty great. Yes there have been some downer moments, but most of the time Netflix/Marvel has delivered a quality product. However, the fight scenes on the shows have started go down hill, and nowhere was this more apparent than The Defenders. This should have been the show where they pulled out all the stops, but instead it was generally just four people fighting in the dark next to each other. There were a few decent one on one fights, but the group together was pretty meh, and getting the gang together was the whole point of this show.
Now on the other hand DC’s Legends of Tomorrow can sometimes have some pretty meh storylines, but holy heck, a few times a season the fight scenes are just crazy awesome. Granted on Legends of Tomorrow there are a lot of heroes with different fighting styles and powers, while The Defenders mostly just kick stuff, but still, they could have found a way to feature them all in a better light (or just in the light).
Look, I believe in the writing team behind the Marvel Netflix shows, but they need to find a new fight coordinator, or at least one that watches some of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. I just want the action in the shows to be as good as the story telling.
It seems like Disney can’t hold on to their directors for Star Wars. They have now lost two directors (well three, but two come as a set) for their upcoming Star Wars projects in the same year. Colin Trevorrow’s exit from Star Wars IX isn’t as stunning as Lord and Miller’s from Han Solo, but clearly Disney has a specific vision for their films, and if you can’t deliver it, you are out. Really at this point they just need to lock in Howard or J.J. to long term deals and have them direct the next few movies, since both of them can deliver a pretty solid Spielbergian adventure film.
On the Warner Brothers side of things, we are finally getting details about the upcoming Suicide Squad sequel. It looks like Gavin O’Connor has been called in to write and direct. He is an okay choice. I say that because most of his movies are, you know, okay. Much like The Accountant which I recently reviewed. If you go look at his IMDB page you will not find a bad flick. Though you will probably not find a movie you feel super strongly about either, so this is probably a smart choice for a studio trying not to have any more critical failures, but just not one the fans are going to get supper pumped up about. Hey, maybe he will get to direct an upcoming Star Wars movie!
The Tick in its previous TV incarnations were off the wall slapstick fun. The new Tick however is sad and strange, but in a good way if that makes any sense. It is still funny, but it is more awkward humor instead of slap stick. Though sticks are still slapped from time to time. It is like a direct response to the Netflix Marvel shows. The Marvel shows are dark and gritty and show heroes in ‘real life’. The Tick holds up a mirror to that and shows how real life heroes would really work. It turns out, not well.
Right now you can only watch the first half of season one, so six episodes, and they deal with Author (Griffin Newman) meeting The Tick (Peter Serafinowicz) and accepting his destiny. The Tick obviously has some things to say about his best friend destiny. Author is not keen on becoming a superhero due to personal trauma and mental health issues, so he needs quite a bit of convincing. Right off the bat the show is swimming in different seas story wise.
Peter Serafinowicz’s Tick is perfect. He is dumb, sincere and unwavering in his quest to rid the city of crime. Even if he doesn’t know who he is. His random monologs will no doubt make long time Tick fans very happy. Author of course is the exact opposite, and Griffin Newman captures Author’s nervous unease perfectly. The rest of the cast is quite good as well.
The main complaint so far is that there are only six thirty minute episodes to watch, and that they need a bigger budget. While The Tick has always been more about the comedy than the action, its limited cash flow is very apparent any time anything superhero-y is going on, and that is a shame. Come on Amazon, give the big dumb blue guy a little more green!
If you love The Tick, you have already watched the two and half hours of new content Amazon has produced, and if you are like you me, you enjoyed yourself. For everyone else, if you think the Netflix Marvel shows need to get made fun of a little, The Tick is well worth watching. Even if it is a bit more melancholy than I was expecting. Another thing to note, if The Tick were a movie it would be rated ‘R’ for language and at times graphic violence, so it is not for the kiddoes.
I told myself that I needed to finish Stephen King’s The Dark Tower books before the movie came out, and I did it, barely, so now that I am free to watch the movie, the reviews say that I should skip it. Which is a bummer because the books are excellent, and people that love fantasy novels should give it a shot.
The series is as weird and crazy as you would hope a Stephen King fantasy series would be, and it is always fun to see his other characters show up in unexpected places. Not that you need to read his other books to enjoy The Dark Tower. He has had such a profound impact on pop culture that you will get a lot of the references by just having lived in the 20th and 21st centuries.
If you are thinking you need a few thousand pages to read and you are sick of all the current gritty fantasy books out there, why not travel with The Gunslinger to The Dark Tower. Who knows it may just be your Ka to do so.