Today I went back to AMC in Dubuque for the first time since prior to the pandemic. AMC had a film that I had never seen advertised anywhere. It was a sci-fi story called The Pod Generation.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “In a not-so-distant future, AI is all the rage and nature is becoming a distant memory. Tech giant Pegazus offers couples the opportunity to share pregnancy on a more equal footing via detachable artificial wombs, or pods. But at what cost? Rachel (Emilia Clarke) and Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a New York couple, are ready to take their relationship to the next level and start a family. Rachel’s work gives them a chance to fast-track to the top of the Pegazus waiting list. But Alvy, a botanist and devoted purist has doubts. Nonetheless, his love for Rachel prompts him to take a leap of faith. And so begins the wild ride to parenthood in this brave new world with all its twists, turns, and bumps along the way.“
Honestly, the sci-fi aspects of the film were very odd. The film felt very modern with the exception of this weird pregnancy thing.
I found this to be overlong. It was almost two hours and I think it needed to cut that down to about an hour and forty minutes or so. Some of the early scenes were dull at times. Then the ending came out of nowhere and it was just done. I’m not sure the main plotline was fully dealt with.
However, I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor in this. He was remarkably charming and relatable in every scene as he bonded with the pod. Without him, this would not have been an enjoyable film at all. Emilia Clarke was solid too. I liked how it played against type having her not immediately bond with the pod and seeing how other pregnant women, especially those who were having the natural way, bonded with their child. That was clearly lacking for Clarke and she played that confusion well.
I do think that the movie had some really big ideas with its themes, but I do not think that the film reached those goals at any point in the time. It feels like a film that could have been better with another run or two through the editing bay.
Still, Ejiofor is great and does have some good chemistry with Clarke. There are some funny moments and the film gets credit for trying something different.
I have been a Los Angeles Dodger fan since I have been a fan of baseball.
I remember when I became a Dodger fan. I was in fourth grade and two of my classmates asked me who I was cheering for in the World Series, the Yankees or the Dodgers. I had no idea. My parents were not sports fans so I was not exposed to baseball. I remember hearing Dodgers so I responded the Dodgers. They both said ‘Yeah!’ and ‘Alright!’ so I figured I made the right choice. From that point on, I became completely engaged in the sport and the history of it. I learned everything I could about baseball and the Dodgers.
One of my favorite players of all time is Fernando Valenzuela. I will always remember his amazing rookie season and how much I was behind him. Fernandomania was massive and created a unbelievable culture among the Mexican-American community of LA and nationwide!
Tonight in Los Angeles at Chavez Ravine, the Los Angeles Dodgers retire Fernando Valenzuela’s number 34.
The Dodgers have had a rule that the only numbers that are retired were members of the MLB Hall of Fame. The only numbers retired by LA have been Jackie Robinson’s #42, Pee Wee Reese’s #1, Tommy Lasorda’s #2, Duke Snyder’s #4, Gil Hodges’ #14, Jim Gilliam’s #19 (an exception to the rule as Gilliam was not a HoF member), Don Sutton’s #20, Walter Alston’s #24, Sandy Koufax’s #32, Roy Campanella’s #39, and Don Drysdale’s #53.
Nicknamed ‘El Toro,’ Valenzuela was a left hander who brought one of the more devastating and unusual pitches to the forefront of baseball, the screwball. Plus, during his windup, Valenzuela would look to the sky, and then close his eyes…before delivering his pitch to the batter. How difficult it had to be to be the batter and know this guy isn’t looking at you.
Fernando had a career record of 173-153, and, in his rookie season of 1981, went 13-7 (after winning his first 8 games), had 20 complete games (which is unheard of today), won the Rookie of the Year Award, the Cy Young Award and helped lead the Dodgers to the World Series victory.
Fernando is currently working as one of the Dodgers’ broadcasters on their Spanish broadcast.
He is one of my favorite players of all time and he deserves the honor that he is receiving tonight in Los Angeles. It is way overdue.
So this film turned out to be much different than I expected it to be.
Milton (Ben Kingsley) is an older man living alone, beginning to show signs of forgetting things that worries his daughter Denise (Zoe Winters). One day, a spaceship crashed landed in Milton’s backyard and he finds an alien on his back step. Taking the alien inside, Milton bonds with the silent spaceman despite some of his comments to other people in the town lead to Denise doubting whether Milton could take care of himself anymore.
There are some parts of the premise for this movie that made me iffy about it. Specifically, the choice for the alien, eventually named Jules, to be silent is always a challenge. With one character that is verbal and the other character that is non-verbal makes it difficult to connect. However, the film does a smart thing and gives Kingsley two verbal connections in the film in Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris, as the characters of Joyce and Sandy respectfully, to interact with.
Truthfully, this film is not about Jules. It is about the three human characters and the loneliness that they feel. Jules is just the catalyst of the plot to bring Milton, Joyce and Sandy into their own orbits and to examine their personal issues at a deeper level. Each of the three characters brought a different set of troubles that were very familiar to any person, especially those of an advancing age.
I absolutely loved Harriet Sansom Harris in this film. She was such a warm and loving person who seemed to find such a connection with Jules, something that she was missing in her life. Harris is a great actor and she had excellent chemistry with Ben Kingsley. Kingsley was also excellent here as a lot of his acting came with some specific non-verbal moments, with glances and looks that told more than just his words could. Jane Curtin had less to do in the story, but she did knock home what she got to do.
The relationships were the key, but the plot itself was not working near as well. In fact, a lot of the plot of the film seemed just in the way, in particular part of the story that involved a government agency. There was also a story beat involving cats that was simply weird.
So while the film does not come together very well, the strength of the ensemble really works. This is much more of a character piece than a sci-fi movie. There are some funny moments and some deeper than expected ideas. Though everything does not necessarily work well together and I may not have loved the ending, the strength of Kingsley, Harris and Curtin made me want to know what was to become of these characters and that is a success for a film.
Dracula returns in a manner in which we have never seen him before in the latest horror film called The Last Voyage of the Demeter from director André Øvredal, known for 2010’s Troll Hunter and 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe.
This story is adapted from a chapter of the original Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, detailing the voyage of a ship that transported Dracula from Romania to London. This film goes into more specific details of the crew of the Demeter and the victims of the ill-fated ship.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter creates a creepy atmosphere and goes all-in on some choices that were surprising and unexpected in the narrative. It basically took the character of Dracula and looked at it more as a monster that the crew of the Demeter were desperately trying to survive.
The film, for the most part, looked really great. Its dark mood was translated with the use of the shots on the ship and it built a hopeless feel with its claustrophobic setting. The full shots of the ship on the sea was consistently beautiful giving us the feel of how trapped the sailors must have been.
Most of the performances were well done. Corey Hawkins was the lead protagonist, Dr. Clemens, who had a strength throughout the film. The Demeter captain, Eliot was played by Liam Cunningham, who brought a soulfulness to this character, trying to maintain his leadership through a terrible loss. David Dastmalchian played Wojchek, the second in command. Dastmalchian never fails to be excellent. The young actor Woody Norman, who played Toby, has some difficult scenes to carry out and does an admirable job of it. I should also shout out the performance of Stefan Kapicic who has some of the best and most frightening scenes of the film.
Now, there are some problems with the film. It is about 15-20 minutes too long. There was a repetitiveness that comes from the length. Even shaving off about 10 minutes would have helped the narrative. The finale of the third act was not as well done as the remainder of the film. Some of it just felt like they needed to end with a big confrontation and it did not all work.
There was a lot of really positive things in the film, but a lot of it just does not tied together too well. One of the issues I had was that none of these people, even the Cambridge-educated doctor, seemed to be very smart. Maybe I brought my own Vampire-lore knowledge into the film and these people would not have the prior background knowledge I had about vampires, but it seemed as if there was enough physical evidence that occurred during the film that they could have formulated a better, more effective plan than the silly one they eventually came up with at the end.
The movie was the most effective when it focused on the psychological aspects of the situation instead of the action beats.
Still, I found it to be mostly entertaining, included a great character design for Dracula and some truly brutal moments that were bloody and a couple that hit hard.
Whoa, I have been working hard on my comic collection. Bags. Boards. Boxes. It’s been insane. I decided the other day that it was time to dive into the piles of comics around here in an attempt to get everything boxed and boarded and organized. It is quite the chore.
I bought four short boxes at Comic World just yesterday and they are basically accounted for, though I am still filling one with completed series. The box I am working on right now has Web of Spider-Man (2021), Savage Spider-Man, Sinister War, The Conjuring: The Lover, Silver Surfer: Rebirth, Ben Reilly: Spider-Man, Namor, Heroes Reborn in it so far. The biggest challenge is finding these complete issues. I know I have them, but who knows where they are boxed.
I pulled out a short box last night and it had a ton of issues from other series in it, with no organization at all. I have a bunch of boxes to go through that are already bagged and boarded and some that are not.
When I get through with this, my hope it to go into the older part of the collection and re-box/bag/board those books as well. That however, is down the road. A long term goal, if you will.
Yesterday was also the last day this summer that I could go to Comic World on NEW COMIC BOOK DAY and spend the afternoon reading and hanging out with the employees there. My friend Todd, who has been a regular character in the Comic Cavalcade, has made my Wednesdays a lot of fun. I’m going to miss it when I have to head back to school next Wednesday. Of course, I will head down to Comic World after school next Wednesday to pick up my comics. Still, it will not be quite the same.
Update: Good news this week because Haunt Your to the End #3 was in my box at Comic World. It was the most recent issue 3 that was out this week. It is a pretty decent horror story, with the characters in search of ghosts to prove their existence. However, the issue three trauma remains as I am still missing The Seasons Have Teeth #3. I have #4 in my hands right now, but three is still a mystery.
This week’s DC Knight Terrors issues were really good. Night Terrors #3 was really enjoyable despite one of the ugliest variant covers I have seem. Knight Terrors: Robin#2 was excellent with Jason Todd and Tim Drake working together. Knight Terrors: The Flash #2 was probably the weakest of the issues, but told a good story with Barry and Wall. Knight Terrors: Zatanna #2 was very good too. I liked the pairing of Zatanna and Robotman. Knight Terrors: Shazam #2 featured Mary Marvel and showed her strength. Finally, Knight Terrors: Green Lantern #2 was ok. Probably down with Flash this week.
By the way, the Marvel books this month are honoring the life of John Romita Sr. who passed away earlier this year. They have three pages at the beginning of their books highlighting some of his classic work. RIP John Romita Sr.
Here are the rest of the books this week…
Amazing Spider-Man #31. Written by Zeb Wells and drawn by John Romita Jr. & Emilio Laiso. Cover art was by John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna and Marcio Menyz. This featured the attempted wedding of Robbie Robertson to Beetle. Crime lords of New York all were in attendance and things only went to crap. Very good story. There are also a bunch of shorts at the end of the oversized issue (the Legacy number was 925 so I guess it’s time for a celebration. All the shorts deal with things that are going to be happening in the Spider-family books over the next few months. My favorite was the one with Ms. Marvel and Spidey talking about her death.
The Enfield Gang Massacre #1. “Chapter One: The Bad Death of Bill Barley.” Written by Chris Condon and featuring artwork by Jacob Phillips. Set in the world of That Texas Blood series that I loved so much, I was really excited to see this new issue and I was not disappointed. The time frame was earlier than the other series, but this moved quickly as we learned about the man known as Montgomery Enfield and the death of Bill Barley. The best part of the comic was the design. It had a definite feel of an old time comic. The pages seemed like I was reading an old comic. it even had the smell of old paper. It was a cool reading experience.
Barnstormers #2. “Chapter Two” Written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Tula Lotay. Bix and Tillie find themselves in trouble after they were found by her former fiancée. Until this moment, they had been bonding and falling for each other as they continued their air show. Big trouble arrives at the end of the issue setting up for a dramatic conclusion next month.
Damn Them All #7. Written by Simon Spurrier and illustrated by Charlie Adlard. Elle and her bad behavior returned to search for the coins that possess the demons from Hell. A new wrinkle has arrived though in the form of angels.
Swan Songs #2. “The end of… a Marriage.” Written by W. Maxwell Prince and art by Caspar Wijngaard. This anthology series about apocalyptic moments focused in on the falling apart of an actual marriage and how these two people fell in and out of love. And how they wind up fighting each other forever. Neat twist on this book.
House of Slaughter #16. “Alabaster Part One.” A new story arc for this book. I had a little difficulty getting into this one. Here’s hoping that I will be able to grab more of an interest as it moves along.
Ghost Rider Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance #1. “Sympathy for the Devil.” Logan and Johnny Blaze team up to pursue a child possessed by some monster/demon. The child had come to see Professor X, but was turned away as he was not a mutant. We get some look at Logan and Blaze’s past and their beginnings.
Guardians of the Galaxy #5. “Last Stand at Torment Pass” Written by Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing and illustrated by Kev Walker. Marco Checchetto did the cover art. The Guardians have come together and are trying to find a way to save Groot. Things do not look like it is going very well.
Ghostlore #4. Written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Leomacs. Lucas and Harmony are heading their separate ways… or at least that is what Harmony has decided. As she was writing a letter to her father, Lucas is dealing with a spirit in his church that was tied to a witch execution in the past.
Silk #4. Written by Emily Kim and art by Ig Guara. Dave Johnson did the cover art. Cindy Moon is out of the movie-inspired dream world and is facing off with the monster that Saya Ishii has turned herself into. Silk is doing a dream storyline too at the same time as DC’s Knight Terrors is happening.
Red Goblin #7. Written by Alex Paknadel and drawn by Jan Bazakdua with Rafael Pimentel. Normie can not control his symbiote, Rascal, who is out of control in his attempt to save Tim. Can Miles Morales help out?
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #9. “Spun Out Part Two.” Written by Cody Ziglar and drawn by Federico Vicentini & Federico Sabbatini. Dike Ruan & Alejandro Sanchez did the cover art. Miles and Starling go into a deep battle with Hobgoblin.
Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #2. “Part Two: The Spooky Case of the Girl with the Pocket Portal.” Carol Danvers and a group of kids try to survive in space as the new villain Nada and Nitro are trying get revenge on Carol.
Children of the Vault #1. “Tomorrow’s Children.” Written by Deniz Camo with art by Luca Maresca. Variant cover by Betty Cola. My variant cover featured Loki’s Miss Minutes, which was fun, but not tied to the book at all. We got a bit of a team up with Cable and Bishop along with a group of characters that I did not know at all. I liked the MIss Minutes cover, but the rest of the book was iffy at best.
Spider-Man Annual #1. “Contest of Chaos: Part One.” Written by Stephanie Phillips and drawn by Alberto Foche. R.S. Silva did the cover art. The Contest of Chaos is a storyline that will be carried over the annuals in Marvel. This one found a fight between Spider-Man and Wolverine over a mysterious orb. It is tied to the newly young Agatha Harkness. It looks to cross over with all of the annuals moving ahead.
Avengers #4. Written by Jed MacKay and art by C.F. Villa. Stuart Immonen did the cover art. The Avengers are facing off with the new force called The Ashen Combine, and they are being pushed to their limits.
I was reading the graphic novel Ultrasound the other day and, after I was done and was working on the EYG Comic Cavalcade, I realized that there was a movie based on the graphic novel too. In fact, it was being filmed before the graphic novel was released.
I found the movie version on Hulu and I was excited to see if the movie was as much as a crazy ride as the graphic novel was. And the short answer to that question was… absolutely.
According to IMDB, “After his car breaks down, Glen spends one hell of an odd night with a married couple, setting into motion a chain of events that alter their lives plus those of several random strangers.“
It is difficult to go into any details on this movie without spoiling things… even if I was sure what exactly had happened. It did help that I had read the graphic novel because it helped me see what was going on at times. The movie was a fairly honest adaptation of the graphic novel by Conor Stechschulte.
Performances were all solid, even though I did not recognize any of the actors. Vincent Kartheiser played Glen and Chelsea Lopez played Cyndi, the main two protagonists in the film. They do a great job of carrying the strange story with these characters whom you are never sure what they are like.
It felt like a low budget independent film at times, but it moved well and it does a really good job of telling this challenging story. I see on IMDB that Conor Stechschulte wrote the script on the film as well as the graphic novel so I can see why it was such a honest translation.
Hulu’s original series, Only Murders in the Building, debuted late last night with two episodes. Season three features Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd joining the cast.
The end of season two saw Paul Rudd’s character Ben Glenroy, apparently being murdered during the start of the new play directed by Oliver (Martin Short). He fell done and looked to have been poisoned.
After he was declared dead, Oliver insisted that the whole crew still go back to his apartment for the opening night wrap party. Surprisingly, Ben showed up very much not dead.
Never fear, Ben’s fate was soon to be sealed as he would die once again by falling down the elevator shaft. Thus it works with the title of “Only Murders in the Building” and it will lead to the return of the podcast.
Lots of little to vital pieces were being laid out to set up this season’s mystery. These moments included:
Oliver had a minor heart attack and is supposed to manage stress… something that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Mabel was feeling lost as she has to move out of her aunt’s apartment in the Astoria in a few weeks. She was a fan of Ben, who was a well known actor.
Charles & Mabel are kidnapped by one of Ben’s stalkers, who was going to kill them for his belief that Charles had killed Ben. The police are blaming the stalker for the murder of Ben, but Mabel was not convinced.
Oliver and Loretta (Meryl Streep) have some kind of connection, potentially romantic.
Loretta was an aspiring actress who had never got a break.
Ben was a real jerk, being the over-the-top actor type character who is blunt and rude to many people.
Charles had gotten Ben fired from a job on the cop show when Ben was a child and Ben was still angry over it.
There was a musical interlude during one of Oliver’s dreams that included his son, Charles and Mabel. This was a tremendous moment of the show and it led to Oliver wanting to rebrand his play, Death Rattle, as a musical.
The chemistry with Steve Martin and Martin Short is once again just off the charts and Selena Gomez fits beautifully in with the two legends. You can’t go wrong with Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd either so the acting should be wonderful this season. Each of the characters have their own arc centering around the main murder story too.
Hey, new banner! I really like this new one, with the yellow background. I wanted to debut this one so this is a light edition.
In fact, I only have one thing to talk about here, but it is a wild one. It is an Eisner Award nominated graphic novel called Ultrasound, by Conor Stechschulte.
I see that it is also a 2021 movie of the same title, which now goes on my to watch list. I found it on Hulu and I played it on my watchlist. I hope to get to it sometime this week.
What a wild book this is.
This is what was written on the back of the graphic novel. “Following a strange sexual encounter, Glen and Cyndi become entangled in a web of gaslighting, mind control, deception and political intrigue in this dizzying thriller.“
“Who can you trust when your own memory becomes a tool for manipulation.”
This story was amazingly challenging to follow as you are never quite sure what is going on and if it is actually happening. Glen and Cyndi are fascinating characters that are easy to root for, but who are they really? How much of what happened to them actually happens to them? I’m still not 100% sure. I love that kind of uncertainty in my books.
This is an absolutely adult-themed books, with some graphic scenes of a sexual nature. However, that sex scene is vitally important to what goes on in this story. The artwork is good, but the coloring makes it really stand out.
It is 376 pages, but it reads very fluidly. It definitely feels like a graphic novel that could benefit from a re-read. This was a very compelling tale.
A movie that had been filmed five years ago was dropped on Netflix last week and had some initial success. Hidden Strike featured a team-up between John Cena and Jackie Chan.
According to IMDB, “Two ex-special forces soldiers must escort a group of civilians along Baghdad’s “Highway of Death” to the safety of the Green Zone.“
This is not a great movie. It is not the worst thing I have seen, but it definitely depends on the personalities of John Cena and Jackie Chan to get by and, unfortunately, the writing does not give them much help because some of the dialogue is eye-rollingly bad.
There is a lot of action, specifically with hand-to-hand fights featuring Cena and Chan. There is nothing here that we haven’t seen before and better.
There was a lot of poor CGI in this movie too with some very ugly work. Not only in the fighting sections, but some areas that were painfully obvious green screen.
The chemistry between the two main leads help to make this a serviceable thriller, but so much more could have been done with this film. There was a reason why it hadn’t been released until it was dropped on Netflix.
One of the goals I set for myself this summer was to finally watch the extended edition of Zach Snyder’s Batman v. Superman. I had never watched the extended version and I had heard from lots of people that it helped fix some of the things in B v S that were wrong. SO I had time today before SummerSlam so I pulled up Max and watched the 3 hour + film.
Sadly, there are so many things still wrong with this movie that I just did not find enough new to say that I enjoyed it.
It seemed to me that most of the added pieces gave more time to the secondary stories that helped to build the world around Batman and Superman and that part of this movie was not a problem for me. In fact, I still think the set up of the story worked for the most part. I understood Batman’s desire to stop Superman (maybe not his bloodthirsty desire to kill him).
Luthor’s plan still makes no sense. Superman’s decisions when Lex confronted him still feels forced. And lets not get started on “Martha,” perhaps the worst moment in any major comic book movie.
I wonder what it would have been like had we not known that Wonder Woman and Doomsday were going to be in this movie? Both were spoiled in trailers and both could have been total WTF moments if they hadn’t been.
This movie tried to shove way too much into this film. A film that should have been two at the very minimum wasted the Death of Superman arc by cramming it into a third act explosion-fest. I have to say though the constant explaining that the areas were deserted or uninhabited after the controversy over Man of Steel’s third act was veyr funny.
So much of the dialogue of BvS was forced and did not feel as if real characters would speak that way. In particular the scenes between Superman and Batman just was so wooden and the entire fight could have been solved by one sentence.
I found nothing that was added that made things better. Batman v. Superman remains one of the biggest missteps in comic book movie history and is one of the major reasons why the DCEU could never find continued success.
Big week in the world of comics. I helped my friend Todd move his ridiculously huge comic collection from one storage unit to another that had more room. He needed it. I saw some amazing comic books in that collection that made it (basically) worth the hard work and sore back.
I do have to say that seeing Todd’s collection and the piles of comics that he had in his unit, I felt much better about my own piles.
Plus, I was able to pick up some back issues myself. I picked up Devil Dinosaur #1, 2, 3,4, 6 (yes, not #5) which was written and drawn by EYG Hall of Famer, Jack Kirby. I looked through the books, which were in really good shape considering that they were put out in 1978. I have always liked Devil Dinosaur and this was a fun group of books to add to my own collection.
There were five issues in the Knight Terrors series this week, all of them #2s. These books will continue through August and they continue to be pretty solid. The separate books are building toward the Knight Terrors #3 & 4. This week’s best issue was Knight Terrors: Batman #2. Then followed by Knight Terror: The Joker, Knight Terrors: Poison Ivy, Knight Terrors: Black Adam and then, bringing up the rear, Knight Terrors: Ravager.
Then, I picked up a trade paper back of Southern Bastards: Volume 1: Here Was A Man by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour. I had heard about Southern Bastards before but never picked it up. This trade paperback collected issues #1-4 of the award winning series. I knew I was in for something different on page one as we see a dog pooping. This was brutal and very well written. Earl Tubb came back to his hometown to wrap up his father’s old house because his uncle (who was living there since Tubb’s father had died)went to an old folks home. Earl Tubb cambe back into town to find that everything is being run by Coach Boss, the local football coach, and everyone is looking the other way. This was sensational and I might have to look into finding the full series, not just being happy with the trades.
Other new books this week:
Strange Academy: Miles Morales #1. Written by Carlos Hernandez and with art by Juann Cabal, Alvaro Lopez, and Guiu Vilanova. Nick Bradshaw & Edgar Delgado did the art for the cover. I love the Strange Academy, though this is a new creative team. I liked what I saw so far. Using Miles Morales in the book worked surprisingly well and who knew that the 2023 Multiversal Math Bowl would be so impactful.
Astonishing Iceman #1. “Out Cold Part One” Written by Steve Orlando and drawn by Vincenzo Carratù. Jesus Saiz did the cover art. I was afraid this was going to be one of those series that take place in the past (like another X-book I’ll talk about later), but I was happy to see that it was set after the Hellfire Gala. It seemed as if Bobby Drake had been killed in the Hellfire Gala book, but something else is going on here. It was interesting and I want to find out what is happening.
Fantastic Four #10. “The Long Way Home” Written by Ryan North and drawn by Leandro Fernandez. There is a page promoting the upcoming G.O.D.S. series that was written by Jonathan Hickman. The cover art was Alex Ross. This was a one-issue story arc with a group of aliens were aboard a ship and the Fantastic Four tried to help them out. The story was all about POV and it was nicely constructed.
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. Written by Erica Schultz and penciled by Julian Shaw. I have the C variant cover of Wolverine (?) by George Perez. Not only do we see Hallows Eve back trying to get to Ben Reilly, but we also see this tied into the events of the Fall of X as Mary Jane’s Aunt Anna goes crazy from the poisoned medicine from Krakoa. RIP George Perez.
Love Everlasting #10. Written by Tom King and featuring art by Elsa Charretier. Joan Petersen has become an old woman in a nursing home. While there, she finds love and… after being in 1963 for a long time, she finds herself in a new place. And she does not take it well.
Moon Knight #26. Written by Jed Mackay (and Jonathan Hickman) and art by Federico Sabbatini. Stephen Segovia & Rachelle Rosenberg did the cover art. We get a story centered around Hunter’s Moon.
Magneto #1. “Chapter One: Things Past!” I mentioned earlier about Astonishing Iceman taking place in current continuity… well, the new Magneto series does not. This takes place back with the New Mutants days when it seemed as if Xavier had died. I still am not a fan of these flashback series because they just do not feel important because if they were important, they would have told the story when it started. I do not think I am continuing with this Magneto series.
Nocterra Nemesis Special. Written by Scott Snyder and Tony S. Daniel with art by Liam Sharp. This looks to be setting this book up for the conclusion of the storyline with Nox and the darkness.
Warlock Rebirth #5. “Theory of Evolution.” Written by Ron Marz and penciled by Ron Lim. This flashback series finishes up with Adam Warlock and Eve Warlock teamed up to face off with the High Evolutionary.
Peacemaker Tries Hard #4. “Book Four.” Written by Kyle Starks and with art by Steve Pugh. Cover art by Kris Anka. Peacemaker vs. Snowflame (the cocaine-powered super villain). Nuff said. This book has the same awesome feel as the Peacemaker HBO Max series did.
Scarlet Witch #7. Written by Steve Orlando and art by Lorenzo Tammetta & Sara Pichelli. Russell Dauterman is the cover artist. Wanda gets a visit from her father’s clone, Joseph. And they go to Oz… off with the Wicked Witch of the West. Yeah, I’m not kidding.
X-Men #25. “From the Shadows.” Written by Gerry Duggan and art by Stefano Caselli. Joshua Cassara & Marte Gracia were cover artist. Heavily focused on Kate Pryde and her identity within the X-Men. Haven’t seen Kate this brutal before and it sounds like she is going by the name Shadowkat once again. X-Men is currently fire with the latest Mutant Massacre by Orchis.
What If…? Dark: Venom #1. Written by Stephanie Phillips and featuring art by Jethro Morales. Philip Tan, Jay Leisten & Rachelle Rosenberg did the cover art. What happens when the Venom symbiote, after Peter Parker gave it to Reed and the FF, wound up hooking up with an angry Ben Grimm? Lots of trouble. This has been my favorite of the What If Dark issues so far.
Doctor Strange #6. “Life During Wartime.” Written by Jed MacKay and drawn by Juan Gedeon. There is another page focusing on G.O.D.S. that was written by Jonathan Hickman. Alex Ross does the cover art. We find out that Dr. Strange spent thousands of years fighting for the Vishanti against the Trinity in the War of the Seven Spheres. This turned Dr. Strange into a wild warhound and looks to be leading into a face off between two Dr. Stranges. Intriguing stuff here. Jed MacKay has been providing some top notch work for Marvel recently.
The Mildly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #2. Written by Tate Brombal and art by Isaac Goodhart (based on an idea by James Tynion IV). Cover art by Nick Robles. There is all kind of weird stuff going on with Christopher Chaos. There is Dracula Boy. There is The Wolf. The Helwing Corp. This was been fun so far.
Black Cloak #6. Written by Kelly Thompson and art by Meredith McClaren. The first story arc comes to an end here as Phaedra uncovers the total truth behind the murder of Frey. The truth behind the city’s magical power is also revealed and Phaedra takes a step that will change everything.
Grim #12. “Lost for Life” Written by Stephanie Phillips and drawn by Flaviano. Jessica is still trying to save her friend, and she may have to claim the role of the Grim Reaper. And what about her mother?
When I saw the trailer for Meg 2: The Trench and Jason Statham used his legs to hold off one of the megalodons, I knew what kind of movie this was going to be. Sadly, the reality of Meg 2: The Trench did not reach that expectation.
In one of the worst movies of 2023 so far, this sequel truly is filled with nonsensical decisions, both on screen and behind the camera.
Jason Statham is back, now as a environmental warrior, trying to keep the oceans clean while the group he is tied with continues to investigate the Trench, the place where the prehistoric sharks live. When they headed down into the Trench on a mission to explore a section, they come across a giant megalodon and also discover an undersea base that they had no idea was there.
After an explosion set off by one of the film’s nondescript villains traps them under a landslide, the crew has to walk across the ocean floor to the station, hoping to avoid the Megs and other ocean faring monsters. This sequence is just horrible. It is hard to see a lot of what happens and it did not look like they were underwater at all.
Let’s talk about the positives of this movie….
Um…
Well…
It was mostly in focus.
To be fair, some of the film looked pretty good. It was not the greatest CGI I have ever seen, but it was not the worst either. There were some pretty apparent green screen scenes though.
The last 20 minutes or so had a fairly cheesy shark battle, which is what the whole film should have been about. Yes, the ending sequence in the third act was cheesy in nature, and some of the actors involved seemed to know that was what the film was, but some of the things that happened were so dumb and impossible that even for this type of a film, it was too much.
I will say that the scene with Jason Statham’s super strong legs did look a little better in context as there were some chains involved that I did not see in the trailer, so it is not completely inane.
However, what there was not too much of in Meg 2 was sharks. The first two acts of this film had a minimal amount of Megs in a Meg movie. There really was much more of plot involving the human characters and the espionage and betrayal of said human characters. The villains in the movie so just so cardboard cutout that they created zero tension or conflict. I think one of the villains (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) may have actually twirled his mustache once.
The dialogue of Meg 2 was terrible. Nobody talks like they had these characters talk. Then you throw in some of the most cringeworthy one-liners from Statham and some of the other actors, and it only fails even more.
Meg 2 was also almost two hours long, which was really 30-40 minutes too long. The first half was just boring and dragged along with these uninspiring and uninteresting characters that we have no connection with in a plot that had to do with illegal underwater mining instead of Meg fighting.
Then, if you saw the trailers for Meg 2, you have seen absolutely every minute of any scene with the shark that could be considered cool, even a little bit.
I did laugh several times, but I was laughing at the movie and not with the movie. There was no humor in the flick… at least, intentional humor.
As I was coming out of the theater, I heard a young boy, probably around 9 or 10, say that this was his favorite movie of the summer. I believe that because that is about the level that Meg 2: The Trench is fishing for.
The WWE has always done solid documentaries about their WWE Superstars. Their latest venture debuted this week on Peacock and features a legacy performer who has been one of the top performers in the ring recently.
Cody Rhodes was a wrestler who spent the first ten years in the WWE, but reached a point where he could not see a path for him to escape the midcard in the company, and he chose to bet on himself by leaving the WWE and going out into the world of the independents, smaller organizations around the country/world.
This led to Cody, matching up with some other wrestlers (The Young Bucks in particular) and forming an alternative wrestling company in AEW.
Then, when his contract came up with AEW, Cody Rhodes made a return to the WWE at Wrestlemania 38, taking a new turn in his wrestling career.
This documentary does an excellent job of showing us who Cody Rhodes is and how he wound up getting to the point where he is one of the most over stars in the profession.
Cody spoke from his heart, an interview that was at the center of the doc, and displayed true emotion when discussing areas of his life and career that make him such a compelling figure to the fans.
One of the bets parts of the documentary was the discussion of Cody’s relationship with his father, wrestling legend “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. The relationship between Dusty and Cody was complex and comes across so real and genuine in the doc that it easily stands out as the highlight.
Another epic moment was the discussion of the moment when Cody tore his pec muscle during training a few days before he was scheduled to perform in a match with Seth Rollins inside a Hell in the Cell, a brutal cage match. The imagery of the bruised pec was one of the moments that define who Cody Rhodes is.
There were plenty of interviews with other WWE stars for the doc, giving their thoughts on Cody Rhodes including Randy Orton, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Triple H, Diamond Dallas Page, The Undertaker to name a few.
Cody comes off as a family man, whose family means the world to him and as a driven professional who wants to become the top of the wrestling community.
The doc does a great job of covering everything from his career, from his days wrestling in high school to his defeat at Wrestlemania 39.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 