Panel Vision - Hawkworld

So, once again Hawkman has come stumbling into the world of DC live action television, this time through the lens of the CWniverse and its lead up to Legends of Tomorrow rather than his previous one-off appearance on Smallville.  Hawkman’s one of those weird comic book characters like the Fantastic Four or Green Lantern in that he’s been around for a long time but every time people try and slot him into a live action context it tends to end in disaster.  

In Hawkman’s case he kind of has a greater excuse than most given that his origin and history don’t even begin to make sense.  Seriously, I initially planned this as a “history of” article but the history of Hawkman is so needlessly convoluted and full of retcons and revisions not even I can really follow it.  Case in point: even though the latest version of the character seen on CW is the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian prince the version I’m spotlighting for this review is an alien police man.

Movie Monthly - Rollerball

Welcome back to Movie Monthly’s celebration of the very thin crossover line between sci-fi and sports this November with a look at all things future, techno, and athletic.  Last  week we looked at Robot Jox, the story of a distant future wherein nations hashed out their disputes through the tried and true method of giant robot fights, this week we’ve got arguably the opposite inverse film with Rollerball, the 1975 dystopian future sports film starring James Caan.  It’s actually kind of amazing how much Rollerball serves as a counter point to Robot Jox; corporations instead of nations, teams instead of individuals, entertainment rather than politics, a well known star with an actual career rather than “that guy from Alien Nation,” a really awful remake in 2002 instead of a reappraisal by nerd culture in recent years, and most key of all: Rollerball was the product of ‘70s pessimistic futurism while Robot Jox was the result of ‘80s blockbuster fun giving way to ‘90s shallowness and polish.