Dear DC...

Aweful Comic Thursday: Supermand and the...device

Lex Luthor had some...interesting inventions in his earlier years of super-villainy.

Batman vs. Superman (My) Final Word (probably)

New Harry Potter content?

It has recently been announced that JK Rowling will be writing the sceenplay for a "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" movie. It will start in New York, 70 years before the first Harry Potter book. Frankly, I'm very excited about this for a number of reasons.

1. It's in the Harry Potter universe but isn't dragging out the original story.
2. It's a look at global wizard culture, not just the UK's.
3. The 1920s is a unique time period for a fantasy story.

Now, all that said, we know next to nothing about this movie, so really there's little I can comment on besides general excitement. Instead, I'm going to show you something that you've probably never noticed about the Harry Potter books.

Ready to have your collective mind blown, internet?

The numbers 7, 3 and 1 are central to the entire story.

Yes there's the obvious points: there are seven books, seven is said to be the most powerfully magical number, and all that, but here are some more examples.

Harry is born on July 31, aka 7-31.
The philosophers stone is in vault 713.
When Sirius Black is captured in the third book, where do the keep him locked up? Why on the seventh story, 13th room of course.
The third floor corridor houses seven trials to get to the philosophers stone (Fluffy, Devil's Snare, the winged keys, the chess board, the troll, the potions riddle and the mirror).
Seven Weasely children.
Seven players on a quidditch team, three goals on each end, and one ball that can win the game.
The books seem to like putting characters in trios: Harry, Ron and Hermione obviously, but also Fred, George and Lee, Ginny, Luna and Neville and Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. When there was a group of four (the Marauders) one ended up betraying the other three.

Where does this lead up?

It leads up to Harry, the chosen one gaining possession of three Deathly Hallows to overcome Voldermort's seven horcruxes.

I'm sure there are other instances of 7, 3 and 1 showing significance in the books, so feel free to point them out in the comments.

This is the End

Let me preface this by saying that if you like or dislike a movie, it doesn't make you a bad person. You're free to enjoy or hate anything that you want, and I'm in no position to judge you. After all, I'm the guy who thinks “Watchmen” is overrated, so obviously my tastes are terribly skewed in some aspects.

Also, I don't follow celebrities, least of all actors. What they do off camera is frankly their own business, and I find that the less I know about them as a person, the better I can see them as the character that they're trying to play. There are exceptions of course; I will always see David Tennent as the Doctor, and I will always see Emma Watson as Hermione. The latter of those two brings me neatly into the body of this article.

I don't think This is the End is a very good movie.

Hear me out.

It's by no means a “bad” movie, and I suppose I don't regret watching it, but this movie got the absolute hell hyped out of it (no pun intended if you've seen the film) and I mainly just sat waiting for whatever earned such praise to show up. It really never came (again, not a pun for those who have seen it).

For those of you who don't know, This is the End stars a group of celebrities playing themselves dealing with the Biblical apocalypse (or a very loose interpretation thereof). That's not a spoiler, as you should really figure that out early on when the hell-mouths start opening. The story mainly focuses on Jay Baruchel, who has come to L.A. In the hopes of salvaging his friendship with Seth Rogen, who he feels has let Hollywood change him. They're at a party at the house of James Franco when the apocalypse starts. With the world crumbling around them, the group, which also includes Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson, must try to survive the endtimes, and the company of one another.

I'll start by going through some of the positives. Little scenes can be good, like when dealing with Michael Cera. Individual jokes can get a chuckle. Craig Robinson (of Hot Tub Time Machine) is a supremely funny guy.



That's a rather short paragraph, I know, but those are all things worth mentioning. But, its time for why I did not view this as a great film. Firstly, the plot has a strange feeling of going from dragging its feet to overcompensating and rushing way too fast. While individual lines and jokes can be funny, whole scenes rarely are, and many of them drag jokes that weren't especially funny to begin with out to the point that they're just painful. The Emma Watson scene is a perfect example of this, but as the film is so new I won't spoil why.

You will be making this face by the end.

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT



So why the warning? Well, I think this movie could have been accurately titled Dick Jokes and Demons...followed by more dick jokes. One of the most dragged out scenes is where James Franco and Danny McBride are screaming back and forth, arguing over how McBride ejaculated onto Franco's pornographic magazine. Does that sound funny enough to warrant a joke? No? Well, prepare for an entire scene of it. A long scene. A scene that never seems to end. A scene they reference again over, and over, over.
Basically, if I had to sum up the movie, it would be “here's the apocalypse. Celebrities are assholes and penises are hilarious.” Never before have I seen such a diverse rainbow of phallus related jokes. There are subtle ones, overt ones, visual gags, shock value gags, the list goes on.
And they rarely made me crack a smile.



Comedy is about setup. Its about building an expectation, and then dashing it. Storytelling as well relies on a buildup. It relies on things to be set up and foreshadowed, so that when there is a payoff it can be satisfying to the viewer. The biggest nail in the coffin of This is the End, to me, was its failure at setup and payoff. Jokes are just thrown around and dragged out, rarely set up in a substantial way. If you go watch that movie, just keep that in mind when the ending roles around.

You'll know what I'm talking about.

Awesome Comic Tuesday: Cowboy Batman

Don't get me wrong, I think the "Batman through Time" story arc was dumb. However, cowboy Batman is pretty badass. On the other hand...well, tune in Thursday.

Trailer Trashing: White House Down

Dr. Strange: Sorcerer Supreme

Released in the late 2000s, Dr. Strange: Sorcerer Supreme is an animated movie about the titular character's origin. So is this a "Superman vs. the Elite" kind of project, or are we talking more of a "Ultimate Avengers 2"? Join Mike to find out.

If you enjoy this review and would like to see more, visit my site at geekasaurusmike.com . While you're at it, check out my fellow reviewers at geeksotroundtable.blogspot.com

Trailer Trashing: Epic

What can I say about Epic? When the first trailer came out, I'll admit that I was kind of intrigued. It look very mystical, very heavy on the atmosphere and letting the beauty of the natural imagery do the brunt of the storytelling.
Then we learned more about this flick.
With every new trailer that came out, every voice actor that was announced, my expectations for this film sunk lower and lower, hitting its lowest point when I saw this trailer. Mostly this is because of the slug character. I mean this guy looks painful to watch. He looks like some executive sent a note down to the studio demanding that there be a "hip" and "cool" character who spouted comic relief and catch-phrases. I'm calling it right now: this is the Jar-Jar Binks of the summer movie block.
That's not to say that my problems with this preview are limited to the slug though. It seems like virtually every character uses a lot of modern slang. The leaf people, the villain, everybody has a very modern-day way of talking that is not going to age well. Not only that, but it just really does not fit in to the world that they're trying to create. For something that looks so mystical and one with nature, this kind of talk really pulls us out of the movie.
Finally, and arguably most importantly, this movie has been done to death. Oh, its someone being shrunk down and experiencing a smaller world. Oh, its the destruction of the forest by some big evil force.
This movie looks like Ferngully meets The Spiderwick Chronicles, minus anything that made the former two good.

Trailer Trashing: Gallowwalkers

SO
MUCH
YES.
This is a movie set in the wild west, with undead creatures that aren't romantic interests, and Wesley Snipes slaying them. I know I say that this is going to be basically Blade in the Wild West, but you know what? There is NOTHING wrong with that.
In all honesty, I don't think this movie will be "good", in a critical sense. I imagine the characters are going to be shallow, the motivations unclear and the relationships less than well-explored.
But I don't care.
See, a movie doesn't have to be good to be awesome. Was The Man with the Iron Fists "good"? Good God no. But was it awesome? Hell yes it was. Same with Expendables 2 (less with the first one) Machete (reigning champion of this genre if you ask me) and any other mindless shoot 'em up that just goes all out with how ridiculously awesome it can be.
I'm excited for this one, and you should be too.

Trailer Trashing: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters describes itself as a “dark twist on the fairy tale which...”

And I can just stop right there. There is really no reason to keep going. We have all seen the “dark twist on a fairy tale” a million times, we've seen monsters hunters done to absolute death these days, and I guarantee at least half the people who saw this trailer thought “Constantine meets Brothers Grimm.”

I liked Constantine. I...didn't hate Brothers Grimm. I guess. It was just kind of bland and ill-paced, but it had some strengths. This? I don't even know what to make of this.

First of all, where on earth does this take place? Hansel and Gretel clearly sound American, the old guys she headbutts for some reason starts off sounding German, but by the end of his sentence sounds Scottish, the teenager sounds like he's from Iowa, but the whole thing looks like an old time German village.

I also have no idea when this is supposed to take place. There are straw-thatched roofs but also machine guns? Firearms are present, but they still use crossbows?

And then we have the witches. Oh God, these witches. I said in the video that I missed the time when we didn't just lump all mythological creatures into one, gray skinned, super strong entity that had to be killed via decapitation. Witches aren't really strong like the one they're fighting early on. They can't splinter trees or tackle Hawkeye thirty feet back. Also, if witches are so terrifyingly deadly, how do Hansel and Gretel kill one as children, ostensibly just by whacking it with a stick?

But none of that matters, because apparently “we aren't hunting witches.”Okay? Why not? Why set up this elaborate scenario where the primary job skill of your protagonists is killing witches, show us that witches are apparently a big problem, and then throw in this twist that “ermegerd, it's not witches anymore!” It never WAS witches to us. The idea of there just being witches is new to the audience. If it was a sequel to a Hansel and Gretel movie, where they fought witches in the first movie, then it would have some merit, but here, it's just unneeded drama on top of an already confusing premise.

All in all, this trailer is just a mess. The vast majority of it is just posing, and one liners, and explosions. Yes, I know that's the general action movie advertisement, but when they just say “you've gotta be kidding me” with no context, I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel about it.

I don't think there are going to be any surprises with this one. I'm calling another forgettable shoot 'em up here.

Trailer Trashing: The Lone Ranger

I'm going to be honest: I'm not all that up on my Lone Ranger mythos. I know that he's kind of a superhero, sort of a Batman or Green Hornet (the Adam West era versions) of the wild west, I know his horse is named silver, and I know that there is a good chance that this movie will become Johnny Depp is a Native American: the movie.

Man, just look at me be eccentric.

Now I don't know a lot about the Lone Ranger, but I know a lot about what happens when Johnny Depp is given a role that is supposed to be a supporting one: it becomes the Johnny Depp Show. Remember the newest Alice in Wonderland and how that movie is, shockingly enough, supposed to be a bout the titular “Alice”? Yeah, I defy you to tell me that movie wasn't way to much about Depp's Mad Hatter. I mean, seriously, the dance he does at the end? Why? What was the point outside of having him to something quirky? Same goes for his Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That movie was not about Charlie, it was about Willy, and I think the movie was weaker for it.

Note who is in the center here, aka NOT ALICE

That's not an attack against Johnny Depp. I'm sure he's a great guy, and for the charmingly eccentric niche that he fills, he's probably the best that there is. This is kind of an attack on the marketing and editing departments of the projects that he's attached. I'm sure everyone in the production was given memos about making sure they got everything out of Depp that was humanly possible so they could go to town with the marketing later.

Which brings me back to The Lone Ranger. As someone who is not really steeped in the story of the character, my primary fear is that this movie is not going to be about the Lone Ranger, but about Tonto, or rather, it's going to try to be about the Lone Ranger, but all the good lines/scenes and memorable moments are going to be given to Tonto to remind us all “hey, there's Johnny Depp.”

Breaking away from Depp, my next biggest issue going from the trailer is the lack of practical effects. Like I say when the train piece flies off, it comes off as gimmicky. Essentially everything that's over the top, with the train scene bearing special mention, is quite obviously CGI, and it kind of pulls me out of it. I had the same reaction to the Goblin King in “The Hobbit” (see GotRT podcast #3).

Looking at some of the marketing for the game, a predominant thing that comes up is the Lego Lone Ranger line, with a few 3D models that bear a resemblance to the Lego video game franchises. If they're already considering a game, it concerns me on the one hand that this may just be a reboot they made just in the hopes of a cash cow (though really, is there any other kind?) but on the other, maybe if they're going this deep into marketing and products, then they've put a lot into the movie as well.

Hi-Ho...plastic? Away?

So sign me on as pessimistic, but that doesn't mean I'm not open to being wrong.