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The Batman

LONG movie, but still very much enjoyable. It's unfortunate the primary villain's Endgame always feels like a letdown but the buildup to that point was really fun.

This was one of the best iteratons of Batman on screen. Pattinson doesn't do the Bruce Wayne rich douchebag schtick, he also doesn't growl all his lines like Christian Bale did.

They went REALLY dark with the Riddler too. Fun Easter Egg--the dorky clear-framed glasses he sports over his mask are very similar to the same ones Jim Carrey sported in "Batman Forever."

Here's a deleted scene, about five minutes, featuring Batman's conversation with The Joker, who, in the final cut, only makes a brief appearance at the very end of the film. Boy if they keep going darker with this particular character he's gonna be eating people alive on-screen.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/the- ... 235213725/

No spoilers are really in this clip BTW, so if you haven't seen it yet you can watch without any big plot points being given away, but it'd probably be better to know the context before you do.

Darker seems to be the only way to go with Batman after Nolan jackhammered the corny 90s films and the Suicide Squad/Leto movies tanked.

I had an idea for a potential Batman reboot: Do it like the campy 60s but incredibly violent. Like Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

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That would be fun. Very twisted. I'd say the closest they ever came to that was "Kick-Ass," which I believe Matt Reeves directed as well.

Also should note, best on-screen iteration of The Penguin I've ever seen. Colin Farrell channels De Niro channeling Capone from The Untouchables. It's perfect, and he might be the most enjoyable part of the film. The scene where the Batmobile finally shows up is worth seeing in the theatre--they take full advantage of surround sound and big screen.

The Elementals wasn't as bad as I'd heard. It wasn't among the best MCU movies but it wasn't awful.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

You mean Eternals, right?

The more I think about the movie the more I dislike it. But in a way it was very much like the source material--grand, ambitious, and at its core, just not very good. Not everything Jack "The King" Kirby created was great. He had some missteps. And apparently the Eternals were something he created upon returning to Marvel after a rather tumultuous time at DC, where he created something very similar, the New Gods (who also have not exactly translated well to the big screen yet).

I've said before I'd prefer a movie be outright bad than just mediocre. And that was largely a mediocre film. You're right, not awful, but also not really that good either. We will see if they follow up on it but I'd be fine if they just conveniently forgot about the whole thing.

Yes, I meant Eternals. I think my wife mistakenly called it Elementals once and it stuck in my head. She has also called my friend Rob "Dan" for so long that he answers to Dan. Shrug. I did like the plot twist at the end, even if I saw it coming a bit in advance.

I feel like the MCU writers have no intention of letting any characters fade away. They seem to love tying characters and storylines together.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Well, they've had remarkably few misfires, but when they do they try and sweep it under the rug as quickly as they can. I doubt we'll be seeing Iron Fist (at least not the incarnation we saw on Netflix) anytime soon. They also had plans for an Inhumans film, but then decided on a TV series that was universally despised and promptly forgotten about (they kinda just covered the whole Inhumans thing in Agents of SHIELD).

I'm sure they'll try a sequel but I'd be shocked if they let Chloe Zhao direct it again. I mean, they hired Jon Snow to be the Black Knight, surely they'll follow through on that if nothing else.

The thing that just got my goat about that movie is that this particular creation was the most Jack Kirby-est of the Kirby brainchildren, and they did a lot of things that moved away from that. Taika Waititi, a die-hard Kirby fan so much so he literally had a helmet made from a Kirby sketch, went out of his way to make Thor: Ragnarok look like Jack Kirby directed it. From the costumes to the set designs. Eternals made the Celestials all look the same for some stupid fucking reason, and that was one of many mistakes made.

The big thing they might be building up toward is Kirby's most enduring creation, the Fantastic Four. They literally put the comic on the shelf just so Fox couldn't mine it for movie ideas and thereby keep the rights. Now that they got the rights back, the comic is back in full force and rumors still abound that John Krasinski and Emily Blunt will be Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. That would be cool.

You've gone way too far into Marvel lore than I'm aware of. Perhaps sometimes it's good to be ignorant of the comics when watching the MCU movies.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

That is probably true.

To be clear, I never want to see a slavish adaptation of anything--those are usually way worse than a plain bad adaptation (Watchmen was definitely one of those)--but this one kinda focused on all the wrong stuff. Overall, it was just dull.

To be honest, I usually get annoyed if I pick up a Marvel comic and the Eternals show up. It's like, "Aw shit, not the stupid Uni-Mind/Fourth Host/whatever bullshit again!" Admittedly the Eternals lore is so complex I can't make heads or tails of it.

Funny side fact--they cast famed Korean actor Don Lee as Gilgamesh, which was probably a wise move as he did fine with the role. Both creators and fans alike are almost united in their hatred of that particular character in the comics. Probably a reason why they killed him off.

Do you mean The Watcher?


I watched Eternals with Miss18.2, who is well steeped in mythology. She knew most of the characters, what real world mythology they were from, etc. I was like "Icharus- he flies too close to the son" which I knew... thanks to Iron Maiden.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

Oh, just for funsies I picked up a recent issue of Eternals--forgot that in the comics, Thanos is an Eternal/Deviant hybrid, and the brother of Eros (Starfox), who showed up in the post-credits scene in the form of Harry Styles.

Anyway, I watched "The Adam Project," which plays out as a nice, enjoyable and short family sci-fi action film. Nothing great, but not bad by any means either. I think the kids would love it. The only grating part to me was that they cast Catherine Keener as the primary villain and had to CGI-up her face to make her appear younger as required by the storyline, and it's really obvious. But...whatever, watch the film with your kids. It's fun.

Turning Red

This Pixar film got kinda savaged online for some weird reason. I enjoyed it immensely. It's set in early 2000s Toronto and features a Chinese-Canadian family, centered around a tween girl. As the son of an Asian woman myself, I really identified with a lot of the cultural conflicts that came into play. People criticized the pacing and rather erratic storytelling, but...that's what young people are like, and the story is told from her POV.

Good movie, and the little one seemed to like it too. Five pucks.

My younger daughter watched it. I saw parts. Pretty good.



New Fantastic Beasts is pretty good too. I thought it would wrap up a trilogy. Apparently it's going to be at least a quartet. I wouldn't be surprised (or upset?) if they fill the gap between this timeline and the first war with Voldemort.

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Posting your political views on social media is like sticking your head up your ass & whispering: You're just as likely to change someone's mind, and you'll always come out looking like a shithead.

I thought "The Batman" was horrible. As bad as the original Suicide squad for me. I sat for 3 hrs of that shit? ughhhhh.

Give me a great story or give me tons of cool gadgets but this had none of that.

I thought the scene where the Batmobile finally showed up was fucking great.

I also agree the damned movie was WAY too long, and didn't love the climactic "battle" at the arena, but otherwise I thought it was a wonderfully filmed movie. Even when Matt Reeves serves up a terrible film, I always think he nails it in terms of aesthetic. Overall I really enjoyed the film despite its flaws.

I've never bothered with the first Suicide Squad movie. My wife started it and I saw about five minutes and bailed pretty quickly.

First Suicide Squad was really a Will Smith vehicle, but he was the least interesting member, I'd like to have gotten to know the other members of the squad who other than Margot Robbie were about as noticeable as the red shirts in the original Star Trek. It should have had more Margot Robbie, far less Will Smith, and zero Jared Leto and it would have been a better movie.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Jared Leto...he pretty much ruined Blade Runner 2049 for me.

Venom: Let There be Carnage

streaming on.....nope not streaming its a steaming pile of dog poo on Amazon. I was so looking forward to this movie, really liked the first one. This felt more like hey, lets get Woody Harrelson to be a bad guy, that will be so cool, then we'll take whatever few dollars are left in the budget after paying for Woody and we'll churn out a script. Like they felt Woody and CGI can overcome any piss poor script. And of course he couldn't.

If you have choice between Suicide Squad and this, go with the one with Margo Robbie in tight shorts.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

I didn't care for Fantastic Beasts but the kids enjoyed it. One puck.

Batman was just ok, didn't appreciate the aesthetic film noire-look it was going for (at least in my eyes, anyway). Three pucks. I had more fun trolling my daughter with, "Oh Edward! Where could Jacob be in this story arc?"

Had a good laugh with Venom, but I agree Woody Harrelson stole the movie as bad as it was. Two pucks.

Started The Eternals but couldn't stay with the storyline long enough to finish the damned thing. Still don't know where it's going.

Really enjoyed Shiang Chi but the climactic ending was a bit of a letdown. Three pucks.

Top Gun: Maverick was a thrill ride from start to finish, fun as all hell, didn't try to be anything other than a souped-up version of the original. It's not a spoiler at this point to reveal that Val Kilmer makes a very poignant and touching cameo, which was my favorite part of the film.

Go see it in the theatres.

Five goddamned pucks. The only letdown was Lady Gaga's big throaty ballad at the end, which doesn't hold a candle to Berlin's "Take My Breath Away." But they wisely start the movie out almost exactly like the original to let you know they ain't screwing around, Kenny Loggins and dramatic carrier catapult jet launches galore.