Yes No Maybe So: "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"

by Nathaniel R

The Marvel Cinematic Universe stands alone among franchises in that it may well reap great benefits from the pandemic. Avengers Endgame had brought the franchise to a world-saturating record-breaking close in the spring of 2019 followed by the digestif of the much smaller scale Spider-Man Far From Home in July 2019 (though smaller scale with these gargantuan budgeted action movies is relative). And then just as a new wave of heroes was set to emerge, an unexpected intermission;  Kevin Feige couldn't have timed the pandemic better. Not that we're starting any daft conspiracy theories!

With Black Widow's release pushed to July 2021, moviegoers have essentially had a full two year break from the MCU (apart from recent Disney+ tv shows). We think this will actually benefit the MCU (which was at an oversaturation point culturally and bound to begin to falter) as demand is now theoretically pent-up to Endgame heights again without the studio having to do any of the narrative work to get there...

Click to read more ...

Streaming Roulette (April Pt 1): Clive Owen's breakthrough, a Marvel dud, and the Rocky franchise

And the state didn't even think to verify it just once? To check on this madman who got into every hospital. Just once to check this stuff used by all the hospitals!

Reminder: Collective, which is up for Best Documentary Feature AND Best International Feature is now streaming on Hulu.

Yes it's time for another round of streaming roulette where we point out titles that are new(ish) to streaming or about to leave and just for fun, freeze frame them at totally random places in the scroll bar and whatever comes up we share. Let's go...

Click to read more ...

Link grab bag from Disney strategies to new Auteur projects to Sean Young speaking out

It's been approximately 1,000 years since our last link roundup. It's always tough to keep up with news during Oscar season when more important things (shiny gold statues!) are on the mind.

• Variety Disney is shifting release strategies and dates again for Black Widow, Luca, and Cruella among others. We're disappointed that Adrian Lyne's long awaited return with erotic thriller Deep Water is now a 2022 movie (that's well over a full year since it was first supposed to come out.) 
• IndieWire meanwhile Warner Bros announces that it will end the opening simultaneously on HBOMax treatment for its new movies starting in 2022 which will play in theaters for 45 days first. (We're guessing the people behind Dune are pissed that this doesn't apply to them) since none of their deals imagined a non-theatrical world.
• Towleroad Lady Gaga has already upset the woman she's playing in Ridley Scott's Gucci biopic

More after the jump including Oscar Isaac, Helen Mirren, Elliot Page, Steven Spielberg, and Clint Eastwood... 

Click to read more ...

What did you think of WandaVision?

by Nathaniel R

DO NOT READ OR COMMENT IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED WANDAVISION - SPOILERS

Today we were treated to the final episode of Disney+'s hit WandaVision, returning us to the Marvel Cinematic Universe by way of streaming sidebar. Watching WandaVision was a like a meta experience on steroids. The show itself was intentionally constructed that way using Wanda Maximoff's (Elisabeth Olsen) love of TV sitcoms to comment, however broadly on them, but more pointedly on nostalgia and the human need for escapism...

Click to read more ...

Showbiz History: The Help, Madame Butterfly, and the first superhero comic?

7 random things that happened on this day, February 17th, in showbiz history...

1904 Puccini's beloved opera Madame Butterfly premieres in Italy in what was essentially rough draft form. After audiences booed, he revamped it for four months and the streamlined version became a global success. The opera was based on the play by David Belasco. The story has made it to the big screen six times beginning with the silent film era. Two of the subsequent films were versions of the opera itself, one a Japanese film in 1954 and the other a French film in 1995. Have you seen any film version of this or the opera itself?

1936 The daily newspaper comic strip The Phantom launches (and is still running if you can believe it) essentially giving rise to the superhero genre...

Click to read more ...