Filmland - History of Horror & the Apocalypse

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

As the fall season comes upon us once more it’s time for that spookiest of traditions: the new season of American Horror Story.  This year’s season will be about something that’s on everyone’s mind lately: the apocalypse.  The end of days is one of those primal fears that’s been with society pretty much ever since there was a society for us to fear the end of.  However, despite being a fairly ubiquitous terror and one that you’d think everyone held a stake in the Apocalypse’s place in the horror pantheon is actually pretty limited.  

Even setting up this timeline I’ve had to fudge want counts as “horror” a bit to include some stuff that’s more schlocky or was featured a lot in the old horrorathons that channels used to show around Halloween when I was a kid.  With that said, I did find enough apocalyptic horror material to create something of a timeline for the genre and how it reflects the anxieties and apocalyptic scenarios of the time.

Week of Review - X-Men: Monster Armor

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

It is X-Men Week here on the Lido Shuffle, specifically because this is the week Fox’s new series The Gifted premieres.  Even though The Gifted is a Monday premiere I’ll be spending the whole week looking at the history of the X-Men on TV starting with the show that started it all: X-Men, the animated series.  Premiering in 1992, X-Men paved the way for a massively profitable decade of Marvel TV adaptations and set the precedent for the initial run of films that are beloved by people to this day.  

It’s also one of the most popular animated series ever made and more or less a direct transliteration of the comics so I don’t have a lot to say about the show proper, which is why this is an Extended Toy Box entry.  The X-Men animated series tie-in toy line lasted a staggering 7 years passing through a ton of variations and unique threads and today I’m spotlighting one of the coolest ones: Monster Armor.  

Wolverine 3 News Update

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

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.

Panel Vision - Who Are The New Mutants

With X-Men: Apocalypse already slipping into the background of the national conversation, Fox has already starting teeing up the next installments of the franchise.   That’s more or less just how things work in the wake of Avengers monster success and the continuing domination of the MCU.  Nowadays, most action films, but especially superhero movies, need to make it clear to audiences there’s some kind of larger syndicated plan in store. 

That’s part of why Amazing Spider-Man was already teeing up Sinister Six and Bryan Singer was already trailing Apocalypse before Days of Future Past came out.  Currently, the X-Men’s future is a little more uncertain with the next confirmed X-Men film coming out in 2018.   Fox’s already talking Phoenix for that installment but there are two more Fox mystery movies in between.  It’s starting to look like one of those two is going to be the long rumored New Mutants movie as it finally has a character line-up, let’s meet them. 

Panel Vision - 10 X-Men Mutants Who Should Appear Next

Edited by Robert Beach

As I write this, the world is still sort of in the midsts of X-Men fever.  I say "sort of" because of this: despite the success of X-Men: Apocalypse, it’s not really dominating the popular conversations or the pop atmosphere the same way Jurassic World did last year or even Batman v. Superman did early this year. That’s not terribly surprising given the nature of the X-Men films. Add on that this entry was of middling value, it also lacked the stand-out characters that tend to act as focal points for online interest like The Force Awakens quartet of breakout characters or Black Panther and Spider-Man in Civil War.  

Regardless, people are still buzzing about X-Men: Apocalypse and what comes next for the franchise, so I’m keen to join in. Over the next 4 years, we’re expecting to see another Deadpool film, another X-Men movie, a New Mutants film, a Gambit movie, and an X-Force movie. That’s in addition to the two live-action X-Men TV shows coming next year. With all that in mind, I’ve combed the depths of the X-franchise to compile my list of 10 mutants who should appear in the X-Men quasi-universe and are not already confirmed. Let’s list them. 

X-Men: Apocalypse Post-Credits Scene Explained

Edited by Robert Beach 

X-Men: Apocalypse has topped the box office for Memorial Day weekend as our third big superhero team movie of the year and 4th comic book movie overall. Ideally, I’ll have a more in-depth review of the film later on, but as we wait on that, we can talk about is the post-credits scene.  Post-credits scenes (stingers) have become the staple of superhero movies nowadays. To the point audiences have been so trained to expect stingers, it’d be weird if a superhero film didn’t have one (that was a Batman v. Superman slam.) 

The entire idea of post-credits superhero teasers originates in the X-Men franchise, first popping up with X3: The Last Stand’s ending clip of Professor Xavier mind-warping into a comatose patient to escape death. Since then, we’ve had big reveals like Nick Fury in Iron Man, funny shoutouts like Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy, and direct sequel set-up like the Apocalypse teaser in Days of Future Past. What type of scene does X-Men: Apocalypse sport? And what does it mean for the X-Men films going forward?  Let’s find out. Spoilers ahead.

Panel Vision - X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

Edited by Robert Beach 

s I write this, X-Men: Apocalypse is set to underwhelm the world as the latest installment of the shockingly subpar X-Men franchise. While, simultaneously, CW’s excellent The Flash show has delved into the well of madness and disappointment that is time meddling and the Flashpoint event comic. Throw in the Captain America’s turn to Hydra and the ongoing launch of DC Rebirth and it all adds up to a swirling cocktail of public conversation towards retcons, reboots, time travel, event comics, the X-Men, and Apocalypse. My point is, there has never been a better time to dive into the well of madness that is X-Men: Age of Apocalypse. 

What could Fox's 2 mystery superhero films be

Well it wasn’t a boring February, that’s for sure.  Between the racial kerfuffle of Gods of Egypt, the critical explosion of The Witch, and the smash hit that was Deadpool February has finally achieved its longtime goal of being a month worth discussing.  And with this unexpected boom of importance comes a shift in priorities, most specifically the priorities of Fox.  

In the wake of February Fox has apparently scuttled this fall’s proposed Gambit movie and announced 2 unnamed new superhero films for 2017 and 2018.  Given that the only thing we know about these movies is that they’re superhero films and I run a column exclusively dedicated to wild speculation on upcoming comic book and superhero fair these are my predictions for what Fox’s 2 mystery movies could be.

Comic Rainbow - X-Men Villains

So, the first trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse is here.  I already gave my thoughts on it but in case you missed that I was less than thrilled.  I’ve never really been on board with the X-Men films and, truth be told, the X-Men comics have always been kind of hit or miss for me as well.  There are runs I like but by and large a lot of it is really mixed, especially when it comes to villains.  

Sure there are great villains but even the good ones can often fall prey to insane and convoluted continuity.  That’s what brings us here today, a look at the various villains of the X-Men, the bad guys often sited as the best Marvel has ever made.  So, let’s get the full spectrum on the foes of the X-Men in all their shades, shames, and successes. 

X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer

Is it weird to say I don’t get the appeal of the X-Men movies?  X-Men is something that has been with me for basically my entire life as a nerd.  When I was a kid growing up in the ‘90s the animated series was in its heyday, I’ve seen all of the live action films at their premiere, watched X-Men: Evolution when it was coming out weekly, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Claremont, Kirby, and Morrison comic runs on the characters.  In my whole life there consuming and critiquing nerd culture content there really hasn’t been anything as continual as the X-Men and yet I’d never call myself a legitimate fan.

 A lot of that has to do with the X-Men’s status quo always coming off far too barebones and uninspired, in the sense that it’s considered some brilliantly cerebral superhero riff even though the subtext rarely factors into the actual story and the status quo is less about a clash of ideologies than it is just about having ideologies that have been arbitrarily assigned good and evil status.  That whole sort of “good enough” aesthetic has always translated over to the X-Men films to and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see some of it in the newly dropped trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse.

Movie Monthly: On The Beach

Edited by Robert Beach

August Apocalypse has been a slightly more sporadic Movie Monthly. That’s mainly owed to my own hectic schedule keeping me from getting to everything I hoped to touch on. I’m glad that things worked out for me to still be able to touch on the incredible under appreciated 1959 post-apocalyptic classic On The Beach. Directed by the great Stanley Kramer and starring treasured actor Gregory Peck, On The Beach is one of the absolute darkest, harshest and most realistic post-apocalyptic tales you’ll ever see. 

What’s so impressive about this, however, is On The Beach manages its chilling vision of a future after the fall of humanity,but not through the crushing melodrama of Walking Dead or the abject human ugliness of The Road. Instead the heartbreaking tragedy of the situation comes from the acknowledgement of a very simple, but affecting, anxiety at the heart of all post-apocalypse movies: inevitability.  

Movie Monthly - Road Warrior

Edited by Robert Beach

Welcome back to Movie Monthly where every month it’s a new theme. This month is August Apocalypse. We’ll be looking at a bunch of films that take place in the wide world of creativity, pyrotechnic adventure, and human ugliness that is the post-apocalyptic wasteland. While I don’t normally focus on bigger films, our first one up is going to be Mad Max 2: Road Warrior. This is partially because Mad Max just saw an incredibly successful revival this year with Mad Max: Fury Road, but because I wanted to talk about Road Warrior through the lens of being an LGBT reviewer.  

Channign Tatum Leaving Gambit?

The rumor mills became a buzz on Tuesday night that Channing Tatum was leaving next year’s Gambit film.  At the time of writing nothing has been more or less confirmed about the status of the film or whether or not Tatum is actually jumping ship but with the Internet panic over the rumblings it’s hard to ignore.  I certainly understand why this would cause such fervor.  Fox has had a pretty solid 3 film run with the X-Men recently as most cinema goers and nerds enjoyed the excellent X-Men: First Class, the serviceable Wolverine, and the for some reason popular X-Men: Days of Future Past. 

All this has helped build up some serious buzz for X-Men: Apocalypse and the franchise overall after its serious drop in relevance at the end of the ‘00s.  Despite the series popularity Fox is still looking to cut down on actor costs so X-Men: Apocalypse is actually slotted as a series reboot in order to drop expensive actors like Michael Fassbender or Jennifer Lawrence.  This has made Gambit the first major post-reboot X-Men film so having its lead suddenly start wobbling is a big deal for all involved. 

Gambit Casting Breakdown

Next year is going to bring a lot of big changes to the X-Men franchise.  For the most part this strikes me as being for the best; the X-Men franchise has been more or less running in place since X2 with a major emphasis on the less.  Despite this series lasting for well over a decade the visual emphasis is still on black leather plastic, Wolverine is still king of the party, and the X-Men’s whole existence is still solely defined by fighting to protect a populous that hates them.  It bugs me because so much of that is just the drabbest iteration of these characters.  Hence why I’m really welcoming the changes that will come with X-Men: Apocalypse.  The costumes are imaginative and vibrant, the conflict vast and not just rehashing previous tensions, and it marks the beginning of the end for Wolverine’s role in the franchise.  However, with the series most recognizable actor and character finally bowing out of the spotlight Fox needs a new face for the franchise going forward.  That’s where Channing Tatum’s Gambit comes in. 

Fantastic Four/X-Men Crossover Coming?

So in a recent interview X-Men director Bryan Singer stated that some of the early machinery is currently working to develop an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover film for Fox.  This has probably been in the works at Fox for way longer than anyone’s willing to admit.  Fox has basically been rendered the odd middle child of superhero films now that Sony has caved to Marvel in the wake of their amazingly embarrassing 2014.  This has put Fox into something of an awkward position as they actually aren’t that interested in making superhero films.  They certainly do it but ever since Wolver Origins Fox has been keeping their superhero work at arms length. 

X-Men: First Class was a quick and dirty job meant basically just to keep the rights to the X-Men away from Marvel and the same is true of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie.  It’s only recently with Days of Future Past that Fox seems at all invested in producing a superhero flick and even then it’s just because Avengers came out in the interim and Fox suddenly realized big budget superhero crossover romps could make mondo bucks once more.  That’s why they actually hired Mark Millar to develop a shared Fox universe around the time Days of Future Past came out and blew up theaters. 

The Strain S2E1 "BK, NY" Review

If you like this review feel free to 'like' Lido Shuffle on Facebook here or follow me on Twitter here.

The Strain returned to televisions this past week and I was there to review it for All-Comic.  It's a mixed 90 minute premiere with a great opening sequence directed by Guillermo Del Toro himself.  Read the whole thing here:

http://all-comic.com/2015/strain-s2x01-bk-ny/