Superman's Been Chosen!

And he is....

Wait, who the Hell is Henry Cavill?

British actor Henry Cavill has just been cast as the role of Superman for the upcoming Zach Snyder reboot. Interestingly enough, Cavill was up for the role when Bryan Singer was casting for Superman Returns but got beaten out by a cardboard cut-out/model Brandon Routh.

I'll admit, I have no idea who Cavill is, but apparently he stars in a cable show called The Tudors. With Nolan the beind-the-scenes puppetmaster of this movie, the casting was bound to have been a wise move. Nolan, for all the arguments about his overly intricate plotlines and drawn out runtimes, is a master at picking the right talent (not the most famous) for his films. To say Snyder didn't have a major say in the casting would just be dumb of me, so I won't say this decision is purely Nolan. Although, fellow Brit Christian Bale did take the reins as Batman, so...

Anyway, what're your thoughts? Good move? Too obscure? We'll seeeeeeeEEEEEEEE!

Thoughts on the Super Bowl (and a tirade on sports in general)

Heeeey, kittens.

I've found myself at a crossroad (cue Bone Thugs music). I'm torn between rooting for Aaron Rodgers, a 27 year old dunce in Green Bay who does the "belt" move whenever he scores a touchdown, or a hillbilly QB in Pittsburgh who went to a college bar and raped a girl. Choices, choices.

Actually, it's not a choice at all. I'll have to root for Green Bay in the Super Bowl come February. It's bound to catch flack from my co-host, and most of my family and friends, but I really do refuse to root for a rapist. Especially one that's celebrated by Sports analysts and ESPN hosts daily for his work on the field. Especially one that's famous and has millions of dollars. Nope. Gotta go Green Bay.

I started thinking about how awful it's going to be watching these two teams play in the Super Bowl, and I came to the (not so stunning) realization that I'm probably not going to watch the Super Bowl. It really is just a pretty disgusting affair, an unprotected orgy of neon lights, pop star anthems and commercials for phones and nacho chips that cost over 10 million dollars just to air. The whole thing is an awards show, a big, over-inflated self-congratulatory money-making machine. There's 3 hours of bands and promotional ads and interviews and speculation and celebrity hand jobs and retired athlete ass-play before the "show" even begins. It's a big pageant, that's all it is. It's the least "sports-y" event in sports.

I'm a sports fan. I'm die hard Cubs and love the Bulls, and I watch every Bears and Blackhawks game (although I'll admit to not being a huge fan of either sport). But I'm growing increasingly disgusted with the shape of professional sports today, and the way we celebrate folks who would otherwise be criminals because they're really good at the game they play. I don't think raping someone and being allowed to play in the Super Bowl the next year is exactly fair. I don't think butchering and burying dogs and getting to play in the playoffs your second year back is fair. I don't think being caught with assault rifles in your home, or shooting yourself at a night club, or getting in a gunfight outside a strip club, or being an accomplice to a murder, and still getting to play your sport is fair.

The counter to this argument is that these are just guys doing a job, and that they've paid their dues and we have no right to not allow them the option of coming back and making a living. Yes we totally do. This isn't the same thing as a contractor who rapes a lady, goes to prison and is denied coming back to be a contractor. In that instance, I'm sure the argument could be made for both sides. But kids aren't going to be wearing jerseys with that contractor's name on it. He's not going to be doing endorsements for power bars or heating pads. He's a regular schmo, and the public doesn't look to him for anything. Athletes, whether they like it or not, are held to a higher standard. Whether that standard is fair or not is debatable (I'd be one to say it's an unnecessary standard that's only used to sell merchandise and air-time), but if you want the millions of dollars you're getting paid to play a fun game with your friends, then you need to suck it up and not be involved in a hit-and-run under the influence of alcohol that winds up murdering a person (Dante Stallworth did 4 months in prison for that, by the way).

I'm finding myself depressed by professional sports. It's a polished, shiny spectacle of nothing. It consistently promises more than it could ever hope to deliver, which is a group of individuals playing together that represent the hopes of their respective city. Now it's about Kobe Bryant being the good guy after his Colorado hotel altercation with one of the cleaning ladies, and Lebron James being the bad guy because he plays with his friends for more money.

That's the Super Bowl for you. A reality show with whistles, and more locker-room skeletons than the league knows what to do with.

Catwoman and Bane Announced for Nolan's Batman Movie

 Chrisopher Nolan announed on Wednesday the news we've all been waiting months for. The villains in the upcoming Dark Knight Rises have not only been chosen, but cast! Tom Hardy, who was announced as cast in the movie several months ago (although no role was attached) is now playing Bane. Anne Hathaway, who's best known for such roles as "Whatever Movie She's In Where She Whips Her Jugs Out", is now slated to play the role of Selina Kyle, Catwoman.

I for one am all for Anne Hathaway playing Catwoman. She's a talented enough actress that it won't simply be a "be hot and purr seductively every once in awhile" kind of role (although I'm hoping there's a good amount of that in there), and I'm confident enough in Nolan's script that we won't have a Halle Berry fiasco on our hands (have you seen that movie? Good lord, it's just Catwoman vs. Sharon Stone, just strange...).

I do hold a little bit of concern for the choices, however. Nolan's Batman franchise steers away from any "fantasy" elements that may exist in comics. His movies are making a character like Batman believable, and showing how someone like that would exist in the real world. I don't see how many dimensions can be pulled out of a "sexy cat burglar" or "roided up luchador". But I do like the actors chosen for the roles.

Hardy can get beefed up (go watch the movie Bronson) if he needs to, so I'm not expecting cheesy bodysuit, but the characters do lead to speculation as to how they'll be used in the film. Some sites are speculating that Bane will be taking over the League of Shadows, and will attempt to take over Gotham by force. that idea makes a lot of sense, because it would then open the door for a character like Catwoman, an "opportunistic" quasi-villain if nothing else, to be believable in Nolan's Gotham.

Christopher Nolan does go for the odd choices in casting though, doesn't he? I was part of the majority that thought Heath Ledger would be an awful Joker, and an Oscar win later we were all proven wrong. Anne Hathaway's got a good mix of "classy filth" that's pretty much the summarization of Catwoman's character. I've only seen Tom hardy in Inception and Bronson, but they're completely different roles and he's proven himself to be a pretty versatile actor.

I would have liked to have seen Black Mask in the film. Hell, we could've picked up Halle Berry for that role too (raciiiiiism)!

Either way, with Hathaway's track record of "boobage", she'll at least look good in the part.

Batgirl #17 Reviewed!

Batgirl #17 - Review

- John

Yep, I love me some Batgirl.

Bryan Q. Miller has been able to do what few can in the long laundry list of Bat-titles, and that's write a book that's not only consistently top notch but also delivers on humor and heart. Too often the Bat-books (or the ancillary character books that depend on Batman being the reason for their existence) are dark and gritty and angry, which is perfectly fine for a character like Batman. But Stephanie Brown's Batgirl is a lighthearted character, and the book definitely plays off of her bubbly, borderline cartoonish thought process.

The latest issue is a one-and-done story that sees Batgirl and Damian's Robin team-up to stop a child kidnapping at a Gotham museum. It's a simple premise, and there's not a single batman rogue to be found, so the book's main theme is the characters of batgirl and Robin. Not only are the two a perfect match (the Devil's grandson mixed with the ditsy blonde), but Miller finds a nice part of Damian's character that hasn't been explored by any writer yet. This is a 10 year old kid raised and trained by assassins; he's never had fun in his life, and the idea of "having a good time" is just completely lost on him. Miller manages to capture the humor in it, as well as a couple really great moments of heartbreak for the poor kid.


Pere Perez steps in for Dustin Nguyen, and his pencils are as sharp as ever. Perez has the uncanny ability to not only mirror other artists' styles (we've seen him do it already for Lee Garbett and Ryan Sook), but he's got an exceptionally clean, vividly detailed style to him that I really appreciate. I'm still waiting for DC to give Perez his own book to pencil (preferably a fun, lighthearted one), because this guy is a breakout waiting to happen. Until then, I'm going to appreciate every fill-in spot this guy does.


While next month will bring us back into the fold of Batgirl's current story arc, this issue makes me anxious for two things; 1) More team-ups between Batgirl and Robin, and 2) a Robin solo book written by Bryan Q. Miller.


Who says comics can't just be fun?

First Spider-Man Photo



Spiderman walking home
from school. I'm assuming.
I mean, he's got a backpack
on, for God's sake.



Sigh....

Hey my little kittens, John here. So I hate to say it, but this looks really awesome. Like, really really awesome. When I picture what Peter Parker would look like as a real person, this is kinda it.

So as much trash talking as I did in the last post about how "teen angst-ish" this movie was beginning to look, this photo set up a complete 180. Things that show promise;

1) They got the age right: At least from an Ultimate Spider-Man perspective, this is teenage Peter Parker to the T. No 30 year old Toby Maguire mugging up the screen with his gigantic eyes and fat, fat cheeks. We get it Toby, you're really sad all the time!

2) The costume quality: Not to say that the last costume was bad at all, because it wasn't. It really did look impressive (with the exception of the mask). I can only hope that the mask used in this movie will improve on the previous attempt.

3) They've got the mood right; Peter Paker's life kinda sucks all the time, right? I don't read Spider-Man a lot (or at all), but I do know that Parker has typical teenage problems, but since he's just some kid it's all he knows, so he can get bummed out by things like getting turned down at the dance (I'd be all, Fuck you bitch I'll go dance by myself, fo' sho!). I'm happy that this is giving the impression Spider-Man just got his ass handed to him, cuz powers or not he's just a kid.

That's all for now, kitts! Tune in this weekend for another exciting J&R podcast!

The Cape Reviewed!

The Cape Review

- John

So.... The Cape. The show I've been waiting for after seeing the initial previews, what, a month ago? The show I've heard faux news reports about on the radio while I'm driving to work. The show I've been completely amped up to see ever since the first inkling of its existence was made known to me.

And it's fucking dreck.

I thought Heroes was an awful attempt to bring the idea of the 'superhero' to a mainstream, mass-consuming audience. And it was, honestly. But The Cape... The Cape reminds me of the guy you knew back in school who really liked technical guitar players. He bought music magazines, went to all his favorite guitarists' shows, and knew all the hammer-on, pull-offs, double stops and finger picking. Then he finally got the courage to buy a guitar and learn it himself to show his friends what he was talking about.

And he was fucking dreck.

The Cape suffers not only from a poor budget (which I can't fault NBC for, you really need money to pull of a believable superhero concept), but the writing and acting is just so stagnant and by-the-numbers, it really is impossible to immerse yourself in the story. And on paper, it really is a sad story. Guy's a cop, gets framed for murder, has to stay "dead" to protect his family, and through his new-found association with some less than sordid characters, he becomes a superhero. Sound familiar? Hey "Darkman", how's it going?

The show has its strength's. Summer Glau as "Orwell", the show's Oracle-type character who feeds the Cape intel and stays behind the curtain. Keith David plays every Keith David character he's ever played (which is totally not a bad thing) wrapped up as Max, a circus ringleader who teaches The Cape the ways of... er, the cape.

David Lyons plays Vince Faraday, the framed cop who now dons THE CAPE to become THE CAPE, and he's really not very good. He's your typical everyman, who makes mistakes all too often, but it's okay because he's noble and righteous and pious and will kiss a baby on the cheek if asked. Too cookie cutter, too rigid.

The villain of the show is James Frain, who plays Peter Fleming, the business mogul who controls a privatized police force that's going to control the city. Hi "Kingpin", how are you? The funny thing about Fleming is that his villanous alter-ego is "Chess", who's meant to be a criminal mastermind. But too often "Chess" resorts to his one move of threatening the families of his underlings in order to get his way. In one scene, he's angered by a subordinate, and in order to put him back in line.... wait for it....

Pulls out a framed photo of the man's family.

A framed picture?!? You had to frame it? Is that your "checkmate" move? Did you just "castle"?

The CGI isn't overly used and is sparse enough to look cool when it's used, but there's nothing redeemable about the show. I feel bad, because this could've been something more than just "Hey, he fights crime! Here's his weapon, here's his team, here's his lair! Now.... story!" And it really does make the general audience who doesn't regularly read comics think that this is what we read. This is more the framwork of a potentially good comic, decompressed and ruined by hackneyed writing and poor TV talent.

The Cape makes me yearn for the days of The Tick... that there's some real writing.

Season of the Witch Update!

Nicholas Cage battles the
patience of the audience

No, I still haven't seen it yet. I might just wait until it comes out at RedBox, and then I'll just walk around burning all of the RedBoxes.

Earlier in the week we had listed Nicholas Cage's movies from 07' to 10' and their overall Rotten Tomatoes reviews. Well, the votes are in, kids! Season of the Witch has earned......

A 4%!

My favorite quote from the selection of reviews; "Even an actor like Nicolas Cage cannot elevate such a disappointingly anachronistic and incoherent religious epos."

Yes, even the great Ghost Rider couldn't pull this turd out of the toilet without getting his hands stinky! I'd like to think the movie is an aborted brother-fucks-sister cinema abomination because of Cage, not despite his best efforts.

But at least we'll have one thing come out of this Epoch Fale (that's old English speak), and that's the obvious porn parody. I'll be on pins and needles for the upcoming "Pleasin' of the Bitch".

Pins. and. Needles.

Nicholas Cage Likes Being in Movies

Nicholas Cage rides again!

Nicholas Cage is starring in what I can only hope will be the lousiest movie of all time this Friday, "Season of the Witch." It got me thinking of all the recent Nicholas Cage movies of late. Take a look below at Cage's recent films, as well as the general percentage of Rotten Tomatoes reviews for each. The key highligh is Bangkok Dangerous, in which he played a character named "Joe".

Rule of thumb; if nobody saw it, it was a pretty well-received movie.

2010 The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Balthazar Blake

TOMATOMETER: 43%

2010 Kick-Ass
Damon Macready / Big Daddy

TOMATOMETER: 76%

2010 Season of the Witch
Behmen

TOMATOMETER:

2009 Astro Boy
Dr. Tenma (voice)

TOMATOMETER: 48%

2009 The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
Terence McDonagh

TOMATOMETER: 87%

2009 G-Force
Speckles (voice)

TOMATOMETER: 22%

2009 Knowing
John Koestler

TOMATOMETER: 33%

2008 Bangkok Dangerous
Joe

TOMATOMETER: 9%

2007 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Ben Gates

TOMATOMETER: 33%

2007 Next
Cris Johnson

TOMATOMETER: 28%

2007 Grindhouse
Fu Manchu (segment "Werewolf Women of the SS")

TOMATOMETER: 83%

2007 Ghost Rider
Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider

TOMATOMETER: 27%

The New Spiderman Movie!

Hey, my little kittens. John here, with a quick post before any comic reviews later this week and our 2nd official podcast this weekend. I wanted to highlight a quick shot of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy in the new Spiderman movie that's currently shooting.



First off.... nice legs, Emma Stone.

Second, WOW is this going to be bad. "Hey I'm Peter Parker, I'm a troubled teen with issues, and I wear a long sleeve shirt over a short sleeve shirt under a hoodie under a jacket."

"Oh Peter, I'm Gwen Stacy, and I wear a peacoat with a meaningless scarf and a super-short skirt!"

...Actual dialogue.

Next podcast coming up this weekend, stay tuned later in the week for a review of Salt on Bluray! No? You think it looks like shit? Okay, you're probably right I won't rent it.

JOHN REVIEWS DETECTIVE COMICS #872

Detective Comics #872 REVIEW

There's something to be said for writers new to a comic who play a slow hand. Too often we see new writers who get into "the sandbox", so to speak, and get an itchy trigger finger, piling on characters unnecessarily. I saw a little bit of that in David Finch's Batman: The Dark Knight, but even that wasn't too overplayed. Scott Snyder is delivering a 3-issue arc that not only slow plays the drama, but manages to put together a number of "sandbox" moments in a natural, unforced way. Sufficed to say, it's a pretty brilliant book.

In part 2 of the 3 issue "Black Mirror" arc, Grayson-Batman is digging deeper into the mysterious "Mirror House", an underground auction house of criminal and superhero items. As you can guess, it's put together by a cast of less than honest characters, but it does appear that they are new characters (always a tough feat in the packed ensemble of Gotham characters existing in the DCU). Along the way we get some answers to the unanswered deaths in the first issue, as well as meet up with Barbara Gordon/Oracle and Tim Drake. Snyder hits the nail on the head with his characters' voices, and the back-and-forth between Dick and Barbara is a perfect mix of natural humor and just-under-the-skin sexual tension. The Dick/Tim conversation, although only delegated to one page, succinctly captures the brotherly feel of these two. Hell, we even get a Batman/Bullock conversation (can you remember the last time??).

The second-feature of Gordon and his son wraps up the book, and it may be too slow for what it wants to acheive. We essentailly get a dineer conversation between Barbara and Jim, and although the dialogue is fresh and gives a better impression on the mystery behind Gordon's son, it's much too confined to be as mesmerizing as the first chapter.

I'd be kicking myself if I didn't mention that Jock's pencils have never looked better. Ever. There are Jock detractors who say that his angular look is too "stylish" and not consistent enough, and they're right to a certain extent. Jock sacrifices facial consistency to deliver mood and tone to the story. His Grayson face on page 4 doesn't really look like the face on page 5. But that's alright, when he keeps putting splash pages together like Batman nose-diving out of Oracle's spire. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone will say anything about Francesco Francavilla's art in the Gordon back-up except that this guy is going to be huge in the coming year. Since Francavillaa does his own pencils and coloring, you can't really tell where the pencils end and where the paint-like tones begin. It envokes a lot of Tim Sale memories, and that isn't a bad thing by any stretch.

All in all, we all know that part 2 of a 3-issue arc is usually story set-up for the big bang in the conclusion, but this issue is still successful in that respect. With Synder stating in interviews that he's been putting all of his focus into Detective Comics, you would think he would want to mash everything he could into the story. Synder's use of story over flash pays off in spades, and I for one am more than willing to wait for the conclusion to this debut story.

OVERALL: 9/10