Category: Movies

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We Now Know The Cast Of The Suicide Squad And More!

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Well after months of speculation we now know the cast of the Suicide Squad!  It is as follows:

Villians:

The Joker: Jared Leto

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Harley Quinn: Margot Robbie

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Lex Luthor: Jesse Eisenberg

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Heroes:

Deadshot: Will Smith

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Rick Flagg: Tom Hardy

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Captain Boomerang: Jai Courtney

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Enchantress: Cara Delevingne

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This is a pretty great lineup (even though I was way off with my list)!  But what I like most about this cast is that it includes Enchantress.  That means the DC Movie Universe is going to introduce magic right away.  They are not waiting around like Marvel has been.  We still don’t know who will be the group’s morally gray leader Amanda Waller, but I am sure we will shortly considering this movie starts shooting soon.  David Ayer who is known for his critically acclaimed crime movies is writing and directing.  He will be a good fit for this group of rouges forced to be good.

Along the same lines the rumor is that CBS has found its Supergirl! Claire Holt from Vampire Diaries and its spinoff The Originals.  This would make a lot of sense since Warner Brothers likes to use people they have worked with before.  I have not seen the shows she has been in, so I can’t speek to her talent, but she does have the look.

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Lastly it looks like the Sandman movie is about to get rolling.  They have a script everyone likes, Neil Gaiman is very involved, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt has agreed to be the titular character.  If Neil Gaiman on board so am I!

Joseph-Gordon-LevittI have been giving you a lot of DC news lately, and once Marvel does something interesting I swear that I will let you know, but for now DC is making a lot of excting moves!

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The Mockingjay Part 1 Needs Part 2!

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is a first half looking for a second half.  There is a lot of setup and tension building, but no conclusion or release.  It is sadly as the title says “Part 1”.  The Hunger Games movies have always been one continuing story, but the pervious two at least had some form of an ending.  This movie does not.  It is still a fine movie, and a must watch for fans of the films and the books, but when Catching Fire was so good, this was a little bit of a letdown.

The story picks up directly after the events of Catching Fire, and Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is having a hard time coping with previous events.  She is also very upset they did not save Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) like they had promised, and now he is in the hands of The Capitol being used as a propaganda tool.  Katniss agrees to be a propaganda tool herself as the Mockingjay (Hey it is the title of the movie!) to fight back and lead the rebellion.

While I am not happy they split up the last book in to two movies, I have to admit that they are continuing to adapt the book very well for the big screen.  They are adding scenes that fill in the blank spots, and the dialog is spot on.  I have never missed all the internal monolog that the books have because of they way they have set up the scenes and framed the characters’ reactions.

The other big reason that characters’ reactions and emotions pay off so well is that the cast continues to be superb.  Jennifer Lawrence has become one of the best actors of her generation, and she deserves all her accolades.  Josh Hutcherson similarly has come on very strong.  His scenes as the propaganda spewing puppet, all the while seeing the pain behind his eyes, were quite gripping.  He has come in to his own.  If there was one person that was a little flat, it was Liam Hemsworth as Gale.  I am not sure if they didn’t give him enough to work with or what, but for the most part his character was very dull.

Francis Lawrence continues his fine work as director, and he films what little action there is nicely.  He gets all the actors to do what they need to do.  The only complaint I have is that he should have cut down the running time by about thirty minutes, but these days people expect two hour movies, so maybe he felt obligated to pad the time a little.

This movie could have been great if it was complete.  The script, the actors, and the director were all in place, but instead Lionsgate thought with its pocketbook and tried to get one more movie out of this franchise.  With all of this buildup, I hope they knock it out of the park with Part 2 because that is what this franchise and the people who paid to see half a movie deserve.

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Jurassic World Verus Pan!

Two major trailers came out yesterday, Universal’s Jurassic World and Warner Brothers’ Pan.  While they may not have a lot in common, both studios hope that these will build to future franchises, and they are both trying to use existing material lure you in.  Let’s start with Jurassic World shall we!

I have been skeptical of this movie since it was announced, but this trailer did a good job of getting me interested.  I love the idea of exploring a working Jurassic theme park, also Star Lord, but I am less keen on having a giant velociraptor be the main threat.  With that many people in the park it doesn’t seem like a super-smart predator is necessary.  But like I said, I am interested in this film now, so job well done.

Let’s see what Warner Brothers brought us with Pan shall we?

Again I am more interested in this movie now than I was before, but I still have a lot of reservations.  I am not sure that Peter Pan and Hook need an origin story, and this movie has the same problem that all prequels do, we already know where this movie ends up: One’s experiences make him a hero, the other a villain (I will let you figure out which is which).  Oz The Great and Powerful suffered for the same reason.  Though the special effects look amazing, so it may be worth the price of admission just to see cool stuff.

Two big movies banking on you wanting to see more based on well known material.  Do you?  I am still struggling to figure out if I do, but it is hard for my inner thirteen year old self to turn down dinosaurs on the big screen.

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DC Comics TV/Movie News!

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First up it looks like Constantine might be DC TV’s first casualty.  According to Deadline, NBC has halted production after 13 episodes.  Now for most shows this would be the end, but it looks like NBC is going to continue to evaluate how the rest of these episodes do.  The ratings are getting better.  Its per-episode reviews are going up, not that they were ever bad, and its online fan base continues to grow, so it has a better shot then a lot of shows to get picked up for another 13 episode run next year, maybe as a midseason replacement or something.  Though once production is halted getting back on the air is always a long shot.

Now to the two DC TV shows that are no where near getting canceled, Arrow and The Flash, it looks like we will not be seeing Batman or Superman any time soon.  In an interview with ComicBook.com the producer of those shows, Andrew Kreisberg, has said that the big two are completely off limits, as are their cities. It looks like Nightwing is still on the table though, so we may not get Batman, but we still may get his former ward.  It is a shame Warner Brothers Movies and Warner Brothers TV can’t work together better.  If we can have two Flashes, we can certainly have two Batmen.  Heck it would make my Earth 2 theory work better anyway.

From TV to movies, Wonder Woman has a director!  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michelle MacLaren, who has directed some of The Walking Dead‘s best episodes, has signed on to direct this block-buster for Warner Brothers.  It has been long rumored that DC/WB was looking for a woman to direct this movie, and it looks like they found her.  She has been doing good work on TV for a long time now, so it is a great time for her to make the move to feature films.