Shmee.Me

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014

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

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

Villians:

The Joker: Jared Leto

Harley Quinn: Margot Robbie

Lex Luthor: Jesse Eisenberg

Heroes:

Deadshot: Will Smith

Rick Flagg: Tom Hardy

Captain Boomerang: Jai Courtney

Enchantress: Cara Delevingne

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.

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!

I 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!

December 1, 2014

The Paladin graduates from VGHS

Video Game High School (VGHS) is a series on YouTube made by the guys at Rocket Jump. VGHS was a long form series that brought high production value, professional acting, and well written scripts to a place on the web mostly known for music videos, make-up how-to’s, and cat videos. The third and final season came to a close about a week ago and I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

A brief intro for VGHS is as follows – VGHS is an exclusive Video Game High School where students learn, master, and play video games as part of the school curriculum. The stars of the school are the First Person Shooter (FPS) team led by The Law, the greatest, most handsomest, man alive. By accident lowly Brian D is able to kill the unkillable The Law and earns a scholarship to VGHS. Here he meets his new best friend Ted Wong, highly intelligent Ki Swan, and the driven Jenny Matrix. Hilarity ensues, many other colorful characters are introduced, and the video game world is brought to life via Rocket Jumps signature style. You should totally check it out.

VGHS Season 3 however just didn’t do it for me at first. The first few episodes reintroduced the problems leftover from the last season – Ted hates Brian, The Law plays for Napalm Energy Drink High School, and Ki is facing Shane Pizza in a battle for Class President. Brian and Jenny’s relationship is progressing and the FPS team is doing pretty well. That all falls apart in the lackluster second episode, which does have a good film noir section, but is otherwise for me a shift in VGHS’s tone. Overall the third season seems too much like a rehash of previous season arcs – I mean we’ve already had the Brian and Jenny breakup because she’s driven to be the best and he’s afraid of losing someone he loves and therefore overreacts. And as I said the tone is a little crasser this time around; not that VGHS wasn’t juvenile to begin with but this time around there was more stuff that took away some of the show’s innocence.

The last half makes up for some of the season’s mistakes and the final episode feels like the epic conclusion the series really needed. I especially liked how it ended the Napalm Mega Mall part of the story. I also liked how the last shot, showed us good friends who were connected through games and then so much more. In this season of gaming, where gamers are bitterly fighting other games, it’s good to be reminded that games can also bring us together and should. If you’ve watched VGHS’s first two seasons be sure to follow up with this one. If you have not enrolled yet, do so and remember – It’s all about the game.

November 25, 2014November 25, 2014

DC Comics TV/Movie News!

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.

November 14, 2014November 14, 2014

Do TV Ratings Even Matter Anymore?

So I think we should be less than surprised that Constantine’s ratings have not been great. Not horrible, but not the ratings hit like Fox’s Gotham or CW’s Arrow/Flash have become. Why should we not be surprised? It launched on a Friday, and not just any Friday a Friday that had a World Series game. Then the next week it was Halloween. I am not sure that NBC wanted Constantine to be a hit with a one two punch like that. Now in week three the ratings did go up a bit. Not a lot, but enough to at least get it to respectable levels.

Friday’s are always bad for a show, and are the death knell for shows that skew younger because kids got stuff to do on Friday nights. However something interesting has started to happen. NBC is adding in all the “Other devices and media” views, and the ratings grow by over 2.9 million people, and that doesn’t even track all the places that Constantine is viewable on. Now that is not a run away hit, but a large group of people are watching, and it looks like they are tuning in every week, just not on “live” TV.

Now if we were just to use the Nielsen Ratings alone Constantine would probably have enough viewers to justify one full season, and then shut it down, but if you throw in all the extra watchers through “other media” it would be hard to cancel. I know Nielsen is doing its best to try and come up with a way to track online TV viewers, but it looks like it is doing a poor job. People are watching TV in a totally different way now, so it might be time to gage the public’s interest in a TV show differently too.

November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

The Evil Dead TV Show Is Official!

The Raimi brothers said they were working on an Evil Dead TV show at the San Diego Comic Con this year, but they are always working on something for Evil Dead it just never comes out, but it looks like they followed through this time with Starz picking up the show. The best news of all is that Bruce Campbell will be returning as Ash. I am not sure how the series will transfer over to the small screen, but I am sure they will figure it out.

I guess Sam Raimi is helping get the show started, but his brothers will take over after that. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get a free Starz subscription. Something tells me I may have to wait for Netflix for this one, but still this is exciting news for all us Evil Dead fans out there!