Friday B-Movie Pick: Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad
Probably the best DC live action movie since the latest Batman trilogy. A good action movie. Personally, I thought all the Jared Leto/Joker hype was seriously over rated after watching this film. Cesar Romero could have done it better, given the freedom of a R rating. Much better performances were given by Margot Robbie and Viola Davis. Will Smith was good playing Will Smith, which was more convincing than Leto’s Joker. Still it was worth the rental and the popcorn.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Justice League: Gods and Monsters
Justice League: Gods and Monsters
Yet another example of excellence from DC Comics animated movie team. This is an alternate universe where the Justice League is made up three, and I use the term loosely, heroes. Superman is the son of General Zod, not Jor-el, Batman is a vampire (created by Science!), and Wonder Woman is one of the New Gods. All them have no issues what so ever in killing bad guys. Just to set the tone for this universe a bit more firmly, Amanda Waller is President. Ya, it’s a dark reflection of the DC Universe. Things only get worse when the Justice League starts getting framed for killing scientists. In the end, it’s a wake up call for the League, with some help from Lex Luthor, who seems to be crossed with Stephen Hawking in this setting.
Monday Book Pick: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD: Empyre
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD: Empyre by Will Murray
Will Murry is well known to pulp fans for his new Doc Savage novels. This book is about Marvel’s Nick Fury, Director of Shield. It was published back in 2000, and features the “old school” Nick Fury. The one who lead the “Howling Commandos” back in WWII. This is before someone decided that Sam Jackson would make a Bad Ass Nick Fury (which he did/does). In this adventure, Nick Fury has brought back the psychic division (called “Special Powers” in this iteration), and just in time too. The Special Powers group plays a major role in solving the latest evil plot from Hydra to cause death and destruction around the world. The afterword to the book says that Will Murry is a practicing psychic and has used all the of the techniques the SHIELD Special Powers group uses, including remote viewing. For you skeptics, consider this. This book was published in 2000. Spoiler alert here: It has a Middle Eastern base group (a fragment of Hydra and a thinly disguised Saddam Hussein) using commercial airliners to attack major cities by crashing the airliner into the target city. OK, Tom Clancy also used that one his books back before 9/11/2011. Still, the point had to be made. Either way, this is old school Marvel adventure with a flying SHIELD Humvee taking out Iraqi (of course they use another name, but it’s not hard to figure out) MIGs and Nick Fury at his cigar chomping best.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Phantom
Set the Wayback Machine to 1996 for this comic hero movie staring Billy Zane. Action and humor highlight this flick that also stars the Movie Buffy, Kristy Swanson and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Friday B-Movie: The Spirit
Another comic adaptation movie. This time it’s Wil Eisner’s classic indie comic. The cast is top notch and clearly had a lot of fun making this. Samuel L. Jackson is the villian, and Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes, well it really doesn’t matter what role they play, they raise the eye candy factor a bunch of notches. The fact that they do a fine job of acting just adds to the fun factor of this movie. Eisner fan Frank Miller was behind this and it shows in his unique visual style.
Archie’s decision is out.
Here is the news straight from Archie Comics.
Starting with issue #600, there will be a six part story titled “Archie marries Veronica.”
Issue #600 is part one, “The Proposal.”
The cover art shows Betty standing outside the jewelry store, where Archie is on one knee and Veronica is saying “Yes!”. Betty is clearly crying and yes, you Hooper X fans out there, Jughead is outside too and he looks a little broken up.
A major change to a bedrock of American culture
After decades of chasing both Betty and Veronica, Archie Andrews is going to propose to someone is September 2009!
This should be bigger than the Archie/Punisher cross over book!