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Monday, October 10, 2016

Doctor Who/Class News Update


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Edited by Robert Beach 

It’s been a little under a year since Doctor Who left our screens, but if you think the show runners have been dormant in that time, think again. Firstly, the proposed Doctor Who spin-off show Class went into development with plans to premiere sometime later this year. Secondly, Doctor Who is now primed for his triumphant return for this year’s Christmas special ‘The Return of Doctor Mysterio.’ Both productions have more or less wrapped, and the major details are now starting to filter through in the form of some production stills, a behind-the-scenes video for the Christmas Special, and a full on trailer for Class, though the spin-off still lacks any release date. 








Saturday, October 8, 2016

Iron Fist Trailer Analysis


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Edited by Robert Beach 

So far, Marvel has produced three original series on Netflix (Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Daredevil); Iron Fist will be the studio’s fourth foray into this particular arena.  Scheduled to premiere in March 2017, Iron Fist will be the last original show before Defenders, which will feature a crossover between all four of the Marvel series along with, presumably, the Punisher. All of the Marvel shows have followed along a somewhat similar track: emphasizing brutal violence, a dark and gritty aesthetic, and a very street-level vision of New York. 

Iron Fist will be the first to break from this aesthetic as the titular Iron Fist, AKA Danny Rand, is both a wealthy CEO and a living weapon, master of the mystic kung-fu technique of the Iron Fist. The whole mythos is full of that kung-fu fantasy weirdness like secret hidden cities, other living weapons, and outright dragons, magic, and chi channeling. It’s a different aesthetic is my point. After months of controversy, campaigns, and disappointing casting announcements, we have a full trailer to give a voice to that tone and boy, is it ever mediocre. 










Power Rangers Trailer Analysis


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Edited by Robert Beach 

Something that’s been nagging me as we inch ever close to the release of Power Rangers 2017 is the question: who is this film for? We’ve had a ton of ill-advised ‘90s revival flicks lately. While they were all garbage, I at least understood why most of them were made. Independence Day: Resurgence and Jurassic World were bad movies, but, from a marketing standpoint, I get that their progenitors made a ton of cash and are still regarded by many as unassailable classics. 

If you’re an older fan who grew up with the Power Rangers show, I don’t really see what’s meant to be enticing about the new film. The steps it has taken to betray the series's core identity of sincerity and fun, the two things that made the original show worth watching.  

If you’re a younger fan, there’s already a version of this on TV right now that’s far more imaginative and consumable for free.  It’s the same situation that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Amazing Spider-Man were in, so I guess it’s fitting that this first trailer for Power Rangers draws so heavily from those sources. 









Friday, October 7, 2016

Get Out Trailer Analysis


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Edited by Robert Beach 

It’s always been strange that black voices in horror are so thoroughly underrepresented.  Maybe “strange” is the wrong word. The fact that black voices are marginalized in America has never been strange, just an abject tragedy and a national disgrace.  

What I rather mean is that there’s almost no major standard barer for black horror, and its impact on the genre the way there is for, say, queer horror or Japanese horror. There have been a few entries with a broader appeal like the Candyman or Blackula films. Unless we stretch the definition to include Blade as a horror series, there’s really no classic of the genre defined by black creators and performers.  

Finally, drought of black stars and creators of horror seems poised to change with the long-awaited release of Get Out, a racially charged horror thriller from Jordan Peele of the sketch comedy duo Key and Peele. The film has finally received its first trailer, and it’s a stunner. 








I must say; I’m not sure what I expected from this movie, but it certainly wasn’t this. And yet, I’m certainly pleased with what we’ve got here. What’s most striking for me about this trailer isn’t so much the racially charged structure and subject matter, but just what a command of genre and cinematography Peele seems to have in this trailer.  

While I’m a major Key & Peele fan, I had never associated the duo with the deeply unnerving anxiety and paranoia invoked by this trailer, or the surreal, nightmarish deconstruction of reality that spills forth in its final moments. It’s an amazing introduction to Peele’s talent for conception and execution within the genre. 

As to the plot, the set-up is pretty classic for horror. I’ll get back to that in a bit. Chris, played by Daniel Kaluuya, visits the parents' home of his girlfriend Rose, played by Allison Williams. Her parents (most notably the father is played by Bradley Whitford) seem outwardly accepting of this union, even though they come from an affluent white background and their neighborhood exudes a sense of exclusionary discrimination.  

However, as the trailer goes on, it becomes clear something very sinister is going on in this community. It has a history with missing black people, and it’s clear the few that are still left have been changed in a deeply unsettling way. As things deteriorate, we see flashes of a secret and terrifying world of the secluded, white, and affluent and how they prey on people of color. 


It’s obvious from the start that the film is looking to externalizes the racially charged fears and tensions that inform the lives of Black men in America today. We see this right from the start when Chris is hassled by local cops over an accident he wasn’t even involved in.  

That little scene is a major plot element for the trailer as it touches on how much the black experience, as it is, reflects what have become horror clichés. The idea that there’s no way the police would believe him works as a contrivance for most horror films, but here it’s all too tragically realistic. 

As to my earlier comments about the classicism of this trailer, it’s most reminiscent of The Stepford Wives, a point of comparison I’m sure was intentional. If you haven’t seen it, The Stepford Wives is about an enlightened, liberated woman who moves to a new community where she suspects the men have been secretly replacing their wives with automated duplicates.  

You can see threads of that idea sprinkled throughout this trailer with hints at hypnosis and surgery being used to mold the black visitors to the community into more servile versions of themselves. The whole structure of the newcomer to the strange community that’s secretly plotting against them is a major horror staple. But the Stepford Wives similarities feel so deliberate I have to assume it’s an allusion.


The big difference between Get Out and The Stepford Wives, aside from the change of viewpoint, is the pace and style. Stepford Wives, along with its spiritual predecessor The Wicker Man, were slow, deliberately methodical films of the ‘70s. They’re difficult to watch by modern standards.  

By comparison, Get Out is a thoroughly modern approach to this idea, especially in that nightmarish final breakdown near the end of the trailer. The addition of hypnosis as a plot point is a superb call in how much it would allow the film to explore more surreal embodiments of its fears and anxieties. 

What stands out to me, though, is the way the movie turns the trappings of preppy white privilege into the core components of its horror. Stuff like Chris being menaced with a lacrosse stick, the constant stag imagery, or even the gazebo gathering are all coded very white and deeply othering, even to a white guy like me.  

At the center of a lot of that is Bradley Whitford, who walks a great line here between a relatably cool guy and creepy cult leader. Whitford was already in one of the decade’s best horror films with Cabin in the Woods; it’d be impressive if he managed to end up in two of the 2010s best entries in the genre. 


We’ll obviously have to wait until February to see how Get Out actually shapes up, but this is a dynamite first trailer that throws down the gauntlet on what this movie is going to be. There’s a defiant blackness to the proceedings in the vein of Luke Cage or Atlanta that’s both uplifting and inspiring. It seems like we’ve had more movies, shows, and music lately that embraced black excellence and the black perspective as both a badge of honor and an act of bold defiance. 


It’s clear we need these voices and have needed them for a long time, but it’s still deeply unfair that the very act of presenting a decidedly black point of view in a show or a song or a movie feels like an act of defiance, like just being black in America is prohibited. I’m glad we’re getting films like Get Out that are addressing this head on. Here’s hoping we can do the same in the real world too. 

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Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Trailer Breakdown


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There is no more peculiar Hollywood property persisting into the present day than the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.  The series was one of the few standout blockbusters of the 2000s, making a ton of money with its initial trilogy and actually turning out three decent films.  However, it’s been nine years since World’s End, nine long years of bad Jack Sparrow impressions, terrible Johnny Depp flops, and an evolving blockbuster landscape that has quickly left the Pirates movies in the past. 

Their single attempt to keep up with the times was Stranger Tides in 2011, which turned out to be the worst film of the series and did nothing to delay the series slide into irrelevancy.  Now, Disney aims to bring the series, and Johnny Depp’s viability as a blockbuster draw, back from the dead with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.














Thursday, October 6, 2016

Wolverine 3 News Update


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s the Internet has pointed out on several occasions, it’s something of a minor miracle that Hugh Jackman remains the only live action Wolverine.  Part of that obviously has to do with technology- before the advent of CGI, it wouldn’t have been practical to do Wolverine’s claws, so the idea of adapting him was out of the question for about three decades after his inception.  

Even then, the fact that Hugh Jackman has consistently returned to the role for 16 years appearing in every X-Men film except for Deadpool.  He’s seen the franchise through its initial success, it’s tragic lows, its shocking return, and it’s current situation of running in place while waiting for Marvel to make Fox a shared custody deal.  However, after 16 years Jackman looks to finally be pulling the plug on his role as Wolverine with this next and final outing in 2017’s Logan.
















Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Winston Duke Cast as Man-Ape in Black Panther


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As the first black lead superhero film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s safe to say Black Panther has a lot on its shoulders.  The film is already in a weird place, with the character’s origin story already getting laid out in Captain America: Civil War and his archenemy appearing as a bit player in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Speaking of Civil War, that film’s ending also set-up the issue of the Winter Soldier to be resolved in Black Panther, with the brainwashed bionic assassin interred to Black Panther’s custody until he can get his head screwed on right.  Throw in the looming fact that Black Panther is the last Marvel Phase 3 film before Avengers: Infinity War and it’s starting to seem a bit like the movie might be biting off more than it can chew.  That fact has now been exacerbated by the addition of Man-Ape as the film’s newest and possibly a fourth major bad guy.
















Monday, October 3, 2016

Static Thoughts - Luke Cage


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So here we are at last- the premiere of Luke Cage.  After months of previews going all the way back to the end of Daredevil season 2, we’ve finally arrived at the next stepping-stone in the road to Defenders.  The new series has been hotly anticipated as the latest and greatest push for diversity from everyone’s favorite cinematic guardian Marvel Studios.  

That’s not even touching on the social importance of such an explicitly black-informed superhero story working on the power fantasy of a bulletproof black man in 2016.  Even beyond the rank and file of Marvel Studios, Luke Cage represents the first significant, black led superhero adaptation since Blade Trinity- it’s a big deal.  So, with all that weight on its shoulders and the world watching how is the final show?  Good Enough, spoilers to follow.  

















Sunday, October 2, 2016

Static Thoughts - X-Files: The List


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As I write this, the largest prison strike in US history is currently going on and is getting almost no media coverage.  It comes on the heels of a year of major push back against what’s come to be called the prison-industrial complex; the system by which states prisons have become a massively profitable business and proliferated mass incarceration throughout the US.  

Earlier in the year Obama actually made a visit to a US correctional facility and spoke with prisoners there and later he officially closed down all 13 federal sanctioned for-profit prisons.  It’s a major issue that seems to have sprung up over night alongside the rampant police fascism that’s been in the news since 2014. It’s tempting to consider these to be new problems facing society and while that’s partially true past had its fair share of misconduct by the justice system, that’s where the X-Files comes in.




















Panel Vision - 6 Questions About Fox's Black Lightning


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As the superhero genre continues its absolute dominance of the media landscape of the 21st century, we’re finally starting to get more diversity in the genre.  Obviously there’s always been some diversity in our offerings so far, Marvel, in particular, has made an effort to give all of their heroes a black best friend (War Machine in Iron Man, Heimdall in Thor, Falcon in Captain America) and DC’s Suicide Squad featured a shockingly diverse cast of supporting characters, but now we’re starting to see diversity in the headliners as well.  

Wonder Woman is finally getting her own movie, Aquaman in Polynesia, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel are both headed for the big screen, and Black Lightning will be getting his own TV show on Fox.  Black Lightning’s show is a pretty major achievement, going hand-in-hand with Luke Cage on Netflix as the first black superhero shows since Blade.  Given that, and the revelation that it will be a Berlanti produced show airing on Fox, I’ve got six major questions about the Black Lightning show.