Shmee.Me

September 23, 2014September 23, 2014

Who Will Be Shazam?!

Since Dwayne Johnson threw everyone for a loop when he announced that he would be the villain Black Adam and not Shazam himself that means we need to find someone to do battle with the former Captain Marvel! This one is a little tricky since the actor will need to be older to separate him from the actor that will be playing his child alter ego Billy. But I think I found a good group of guys!

5: Vin Diesel

This one is kind of a stretch because I am sure that he is under contract with Marvel for Groot, and he has been hinting that he will soon be announced as an Inhuman for a future Marvel movie, but audiences would line up to see The Rock face off against Diesel again, or least that is what the Fast and Furious movies keep telling me.

4: Luke Hemsworth

Now I am not sure about the eldest Hemsworth brother’s acting talent, but it would be fun to have a little sibling DC versus Marvel rivalry, and he seems like the bulkiest of the bros. I think it would be fun, and fun is something that the DC movies need.

3: Jon Hamm

He would need to work out a little bit, but what twelve year old boy doesn’t want to look like Jon Hamm when they are older? He has proven with 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live that he could handle this fun character very well.

2: Joe Manganiello

I know I use him a lot, but he is like 6’5″ and has a 36 pack, so I will keep using him in my lists until he is wearing a cape. Plus if they are worried about his acting they needn’t be since with Shazam all he has to do is fight and pose because the younger actor with be doing all the character work.

1: Brandon Routh

I know he just signed on to play The Atom in The Flash TV show, but I think it would be a fun crossover. Plus the reason DC has Shazam at all is because they sued the creator because he looked too much like Superman, so why not have a former Superman play Shazam! It would be fun, and he was not the reason Superman Returns did not live up to expectations.

That is my list for Shazam, and I am sure that they will use none of these actors to fill this spot, but one day they will listen to me! Who would you pick?

September 22, 2014September 22, 2014

Look Out It Is Godzilla!

I love giant monster movies, but the last American Godzilla movie staring Matthew Broderick was so bad that when they announced a new Godzilla movie, I was hesitantly optimistic. They promised not to screw it up this time, and for the most part they succeeded, but they still have a lot of room for improvement for the next one.

This is usually the part of the review where I go over the plot, but I am not going to, not because there isn’t any plot, in fact there is far more plot than there should be, but this movie is about Godzilla fighting monsters, MUTOs in this case, and that is all that really matters. For the middle part of this movie they seem to forget this and instead follow Bryan Cranston’s family, who seem to only excel in poor decision making.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen are fine actors, but all they do in this movie is chew screen time. They are given nothing interesting to do but to make bad choices that throw them in harms way. Which would be fine if there was a little more in the “harms way” department. Ken Watanabe likewise is one of my favorite actors, but all he does is act sullen and mopey because his bad choices killed a lot of people, and now no one is listening to him because his bad choices killed a lot of people. Also his only thought on how to fix everything is to “Let them fight!”. Now from a viewer’s perspective “Let them fight!” is exactly what I want to hear, but if you are resident of San Francisco, I don’t think that sounds like good advice.

When the monsters do fight it is great. It delivers on all the promise of an American production company making a Godzilla film. It is grand and epic, and Godzilla and the MUTOs look incredible. The problem is that it is all is in the last twenty minutes of the movie, so the first hundred is the aforementioned family of the year. It is a really good twenty minutes though. So it is kind of like waiting in line for a ride at Disney Land, sure you wait a long time, but the pay off is pretty great.

Unlike Pacific Rim which packs in a bunch of boyish glee when the monster’s aren’t fighting, Godzilla tries to be more serious, and it almost ruins the movie. Still once the titular big guy shows up, he was well worth the wait. It is a shame they didn’t cut down the running time of this movie a little, it would have made a big difference.

September 19, 2014September 19, 2014

Deadpool Gets His Day!

It was only a matter of time before Fox decided to do a Deadpool movie. Besides the X-Men themselves, Deadpool is the most popular character they have got, and to keep him sidelined for long just didn’t make sense. The date they picked was perfect too: Valentines Day weekend 2016. What is a better date movie than one about a jerky loudmouthed mercenary?

They haven’t announced who will star in the movie yet, but due to its rapidly approaching date, I am sure that it is <sigh> Ryan Reynolds, but we will see. As much Reynolds has killed a lot of other superhero movies, this is the role that I would pick him for. If they don’t announce it is him soon it may be time for me to get out the casting couch.

2016 is shaping up to be a good year: Deadpool, Batman V Superman, Captain America, and Shazam! That is a lot of comic book movies, and I can’t wait.

September 18, 2014

DC Doing Full Court Press For Justice League!

Bruce Timm who has brought us several amazing DC Universe cartoons over the years including the great Batman: The Animated Series is hard at work on an animated movie Justice League: Gods & Monsters. The movie should be out in 2015. Now one thing from Bruce Timm is good news, but what is great news is that they are also producing a short prequel series on Machinima to go with it.

I couldn’t believe it when Warner Brothers let Timm step down from his role at with DC, but it looks like they are bringing him back, and he gets start the hype machine for the Batman V Superman by reintroducing us to the Justice League. I am very excited for a new DCU movie and series. DC has needed something since Justice League: Unlimited went off the air.

September 17, 2014September 17, 2014

It Is Not Kickstarter’s Fault!

There has been a lot of backlash about Kickstarter lately. People are rightly upset that the things they have backed on Kickstarter are getting canceled and not coming out, but they should be mad at themselves too.

So far my Kickstarter experience has been very good. All the projects I have backed have either been produced, or they are at least making good progress towards their goal. Now every single one of the projects has been late, and sometimes the games weren’t as good as I was hoping for, but that is just part of the risk with Kickstarter.

I think the biggest problem is that people see a game or device that looks really awesome, so to help the developer out they throw lots of money at it. They don’t check to see if this developer has ever made or developed something before, or has a sound business plan in place. They just figure that a person with “a lot” money can make it work.

But in the grand scheme of things the budgets on Kickstarter are very low, and it is easy to blow through those budgets. $400K seems like a lot until you have to buy molds, or pay artists, and if you have never done any of that before, you are probably not getting a good rate on the work that is being done. Soon the project is late and over budget and there is nowhere to really get more funding, and it dies.

Now I am not saying we shouldn’t be upset when this happens, but that is part of the risk when starting any venture. Most businesses fail, and that is a sad truth, and it is sad to see your money go down with it. The promise of something new and exciting makes it is fun to back stuff on Kickstarter, but remember to do it only with extra money that you will not miss (much). I would say never back a project with more money than it takes to get what you want, so in the case of a video game. If the game costs $20, only back it with $20. That way if the project fails you can just write it down as a bad video game and move on.

Kickstarter has produced some amazing things, and I am sure more good stuff is still coming, but remember that it is not all going to work, so spend your money wisely.