Films and TV (Untagged spoilers)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbl5Lbi4xEs

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51F0wfZBV0c

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUJzJxsA654

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_abIA--OY3Y

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF5-sMc154k

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroDaO0xmdQ

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FKnTxSC16E

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRE0PUvgsKo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j6xAf0uqhc

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fyja48qK2g

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M0dfRRWGpY

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hflCiNtY6MA

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvjaPIEIBs

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bL1ftuxgOE

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USYjnkBBNSc

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The next Monsterverse movie set after Godzilla vs Kong has begun filming. Shooting supposedly ends mid-December. Right now they're filming a scene at Gold Coast, Queensland Australia (which is being made to stand in for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) featuring 250+ extras of beach goers, police, soldiers, etc. The people were told to run and act scared because "something is coming out of the water".

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Origins confirmed for the working title. Perhaps all that Hollow Earth lore that got cut from GvK will finally get fleshed out. And if so, I'd like them to bring this image back that we saw from the art book and set production photos:







It's generated a lot of wild speculation online, including some claiming this is hinting at SpaceGodzilla of all things. That theory seems really far-fetched and implausible to me in all honesty. The wings on the blue Godzilla look like Mothra's wings to my eyes. I'd argue that the simplest and most likely explanation is that it's a symbolic representation of Gojira and Mothra teaming up to put an end to the war because it had gotten so out of control from both sides it was threatening the planet. But that's just me.

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"Pat Carroll, best known as Ursula in The Little Mermaid, died July 30 at age 95."

"Nichelle Nichols, best known for playing Uhura on Star Trek, died at age 89 on July 30."

"Actor Paul Sorvino, best known for playing Paulie Cicero in The Goodfellas, died on July 25 at age 83."

"Creed III Release Date Delayed to 2023."

"Creed Spinoff Focusing on Dolph Lundgren's Drago in the Works at MGM; The script will be written by Robert Lawton."

"Jason Momoa Reveals Ben Affleck Returns as Bruce Wayne in Aquaman 2."

"Jurassic World Dominion Nears $950 Million at Global Box Office."

"Top Gun: Maverick Soars Towards $1.3 Billion at the Global Box Office; The film grossed an additional $22 million at the box office."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvueouCojgM

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKOegEuCcfw

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRXsXxaGO8

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCDEGP6VjYY

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEM8EhGxi90

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLil-mR8YeQ

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Saw Thor: Love and Thunder, and it was a frustrating watch to sit through, because the skeleton of a great movie is there, but all the proverbial meat on the bones like plot and characterization and the like is sacrificed for the sake of making cheap jokes. It's like that had a grand ambition, gave up halfway through, and didn't care to finish the work they set out to do and tried to mask it with trite sarcasm and lazy quips. The film has its moments, it does have some neat visuals, monsters and action sequences, but I had some real key issues with this. The film's problems really weight it down, so I wouldn't recommend going to a theater to see it. Also, the pacing of this movie is crazy rushed, making me feel like a ton of important scenes were chopped out, much to the narrative's detriment. This is also a movie that desperately wants you to turn your brain off, because once you start thinking about it logically, huge holes in the story start opening up. Including stuff that would have been very useful in previous MCU movies; would have changed the outcome of a lot of things. Jane-Thor actually worked out pretty good, and I also really enjoyed with what they did with Gorr--who was the best thing in this film by a mile--which is saying something from me, as I never liked Gorr in the comics. There, he comes across as an unsympathetic tryhard edgelord, but here the whole "a grieving father who's tragically lost his only daughter learns everything he put his trust in has not only failed him, it was a lie from the start and cruelly mocks him and his effort to save said daughter, and at his lowest point, a good man gets corrupted by an outside demonic force and becomes a monster" thing really worked for me. I feel like there was enough to him to warrant him sticking around for multiple movies, both because his character arc and pathos could have been really mined for some good material and because for someone called "The God Butcher", he didn't really get to do a lot of god butchering onscreen.

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We finally get introduced to Eternity in this, though he's not really a character, just a MacGuffin. He sits at the center of the universe, and people who reach him get granted a wish, and only those with the Bifrost can reach him. How convenient. (And imagine instead of that time travel heist in Endgame to get the Infinity Stones, they just got a wish from Eternity to undo everything Thanos did! Tony and Nat would still be alive, for starters.) Gorr gets convinced to give up on his wish to kill all gods, while he's mortally wounded, and instead of saving himself brings back his dead daughter after Thor agrees to raise and protect her when he's dead, though the manner of her resurrection raises a lot of questions, as her reflection in the water makes her out to look like cosmic being just wearing a mortal shell, and she can now shoot godly energy blasts out of her eyes. (Also, no one ever considers the option to wish for more wishes, or bestow upon themselves the ability to grant their own wishes. Eternity never speaks, so its not like there was a list of rules given on how these wishes work!)

Also saw Jordan Peele's Nope, and I absolutely loved this movie. Highly recommended; Nope was great all the way through from start to finish. Engaging characters, multiple well-told themes giving the story extra weight, an interesting spin on the UFO genre, good cinematography, smooth pacing, nice score, a really gripping climax, spooky thrills, the whole nine yards.

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The twist is that the UFO isn't a ship piloted by aliens, it IS the alien. It's an extraterrestrial animal. People and horses aren't being abducted for experimentation, they're prey being eaten and digested for food. (We even get to see people in its stomach, and hear their screams as they're being digested alive. Chilling stuff.) The creature's true form is a huge jellyfish looking beast, but it folds itself up into the flying saucer shape for better speed and maneuverability in Earth's atmosphere, up until the climax when our heroes try to fight it and its starts playing serious. This movie is similar to Jaws, or the countless other animal attack movies out there featuring dangerous man-eating predators, only this one hides in the clouds and swoops down to grab you from the sky. Its like Tremors, but opposite in terms of the nature of the threat.

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https://variety.com/2022/film/news/batg ... 235331897/

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/batg ... 235332062/

https://ew.com/movies/batgirl-movie-she ... rner-bros/

https://deadline.com/2022/08/warner-bro ... 235083809/

https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/08/ ... ion-movie/

https://nerdist.com/article/warner-bros ... lie-grace/

https://www.ign.com/articles/warner-bro ... se-batgirl







Man, just how badly did they screw this up?

Ironically, I'm actually curious to see it now.

This might not have happened if you would just do a movie about Cassandra Cain. Cass is the best Batgirl, not Babs, and I will die on that hill.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zgttt8Q2Rw

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esqxTzc3lgM

Wait, this is a movie about a bathroom glory hole haunted by a Lovecraftian Horror voiced by J.K. Simmons? WTF?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRu3zLOJN2c

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Checked out The Gray Man on Netflix, and while its a John Wick clone, it's a very fun John Wick clone. Its one of those movies that just takes off like a roller coaster and prioritizes action over story and character arcs, but delivers such over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall, non-stop action that its an enjoyable ride even without those things given proper room to breathe. Also helping this movie is the villain, a psychopathic man-child assassin for hire which Chris Evans plays with relish and aplomb.

Also checked out the new Predator movie on Hulu, Prey, and what a welcome surprise, it was pretty fun! It's not amazing like the original, it has its flaws, but for what it is, with its smaller scale and limited budget, it is a worthy entry in the Predator franchise. After the rancid garbage we've gotten from this franchise from Hollywood, this is a good step in the right direction, which it does by going back to basics, and pulling a page from the expanded universe by having a Predator go on a hunt in a different time period. The smaller budget does show itself in the cgi, but it's tolerable. The Predator here has a new design that isn't a good as the classic, but its better than the "Mr. Black" Pred or the Hybrid Super Pred. I liked how they kept the Predators' code of the hunt intact, and gave this individual a personality of someone who's arrived on Earth for the very first time, eager to work on his skull collection, and is working his way up the food chain, testing out which creatures are worthy prey or not. This is a Pred who challenges a grizzly bear to a physical fight for the fun of it. We get some creative kills, and this one has a new bag of tricks to show off, which is fun. The human characters aren't great, but they're serviceable.

I'd rank the films as:

Top Tier: Predator
High Tier: Predator 2 (the first half is lame, but the second half more than makes up for it)
Mid Tier: Prey
Meh Tier: Predators
Low Tier: Alien vs Predator
Garbage Tier: The Predator, Alien vs Predator Requiem

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There's an Easter egg to Predator 2 here: the pistol from 1715 the elder gives to Harrigan. In the old lore from the comics, its was a pirate pistol the elder got when killing pirates who betrayed their captain, and the captain gave it to him in his final breath as he died. Here, it comes from a French fur trapper and ends up in the possession of this Native American tribe, though its possible the pistol trades hands and distance before eventually ending up in the hands of a pirate.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dajBhMSd00

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5j1Po7KH18

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpgz8Hfoz1k

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3QYUOjnL_s

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnybUT2yq8k

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Interesting.

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"King Kong vs Godzilla was released 60 years ago today."

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"Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have announced that Kung Fu Panda 4 will release on Friday, March 8, 2024."

"Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Sets Release Date for December 20, 2024.".

"Live-Action Pac-Man Movie in the Works."

"‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Passes ‘Titanic’ as Seventh-Highest Grossing Release in Domestic Box Office History."

"'Prey' Becomes Hulu's Biggest Premiere to Date."

"Stephen King’s The Regulators heading to the big screen with movie adaptation."

"Warner Bros. Weighing Options on How to Proceed With Ezra Miller: The Flash is set to be one of the biggest comic book releases in Warner Bros. Discovery’s upcoming catalog, but the recent drama surrounding star actor Ezra Miller has left the company unsure of how to proceed. According to The Hollywood Reporter in a recent story, the ongoing issues surrounding Miller — including their most recent charge with a felony burglary on Monday — have left Warner Bros. Discovery unsure of how to proceed with the planned The Flash film. The report mentions that as of right now, the studio is weighing three options for how to treat the film as the issues grow. First, the report mentions that Warner Bros. Discovery has received indications that Miller will be seeking professional help after returning to their family’s farm in Vermont. Should that happen, Miller would then likely give an interview at some point in order to try and explain their recent erratic behavior, in which case they would then likely do limited press for The Flash, with the film opening in cinemas around the world as planned. The second scenario, according to the report, would see WB still release the film should Miller not seek help, but would essentially exclude Miller from any and all marketing and publicity for the film. This would also mark the end of Miller’s time as The Flash, as the report mentions Warner Bros. would be recasting them in any and all future projects. Finally, the last and most severe scenario would see WB outright canceling the film should more issues with Miller arise. This is likely to be seen as the most drastic outcome, but due to Miller’s involvement with the film — the report mentions that they are “in almost every scene” of the movie — and how impossible it would be to reshoot it, the company would have no choice. However, due to the large budget of the film and how well the film is reportedly testing amongst audiences, it’s likely that is the very last thing that the studio wants."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY2bw_nkXUU

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhV6bc4FhPU

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H94Vfb12Hkw

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JmIj29VYqw

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaT24pCXsvA