comic books | the m0vie blog

386. Deadpool and Wolverine (#—)

Posted on August 11, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Graham Day, Luke Dunne and Phil Bagnall, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, Shawn Levy’s Deadpool and Wolverine.

Wade Wilson wants to “matter.” Rejected by the Avengers, he finds himself working as a car salesman. However, when agents of the Time Variance Authority show up promising to spirit the vigilante away to “the Sacred Timeline”, Wade finds himself forced to choose between fulfilling his dreams and protecting his family, with the aid of the most unlikely of heroes.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: comic books, Comics, Deadpool, deadpool and wolverine, graham day, imdb, luke dunne, phil bagnall, podcast, The 250, wolverine | Leave a comment »

337. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (#19)

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and with special guests Graham Day and Deirdre Molumby, This Just In is a subset of The 250 podcast, looking at notable new arrivals on the list of the 250 best movies of all-time, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Sixteen months into his career as Brooklyn’s one-and-only Spider-Man, teenager Miles Morales is reunited with his old friend from another universe, Gwen Stacy. However, Gwen brings word of a team of multiversal spider-people headed by the mysterious Miguel O’Hara. Miles quickly discovers that things are not as he expects, and that membership of this team may come at too high a price.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 19th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: animated, belief, comic books, coming of age, defund the police, deirdre molumby, god, graham day, male bodies, miguel o'hara, miles morales, multiverse, Oscar Isaac, podcast, politics, sony, spider man, spider-man: across the spider-verse, Spidey, superhero, The 250, The Talk | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Arkham City” Uses the Language of Video Games to Make the Player Feel Like Batman…

Posted on June 1, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earleir this week. As part of a Patreon goal, I will be playing through the video game of The Last of Us for the website, but to warm up, I decided to take up playing some video games that I remember from my own childhood: the Arkham games.

Replaying Batman: Arkham City, I was taken at how well the game uses the narrative structures unique to video games to immerse the player in the world and the psychology of the Caped Crusader, beyond what is possible in comics, film or television. The game places the player in an artifical countdown, and gives them sets of competing objectives, forcing them to decide what to prioritise and how best to respond to the immediate crisis as the situation keeps escalating around them. It’s an approach that manages to make Gotham feel like a real and living place, with the Dark Knight caught in the middle of it.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arkham city, batman, batman: arkham city, comic books, level design, open world, rocksteady, sandbox, the escapist, video game design, video games | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The Sincere Nerdery of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Slate…

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist last month. With new creative heads James Gunn and Peter Safran announcing their slate of upcoming DC films, it seemed worth taking account of a production schedule that includes oddities like The Creature Commandos, The Authority and Swamp Thing.

In modern pop culture, “fannishness” is worn as a badge of honour. Producers and writers will often give interviews stressing their sincere affection for the source material with which they are working. However, these adaptations are often superficial or shallow, drawing on surface level details from the rich tapestry of these very old properties. What makes Gunn and Safran’s slate so appealing, even if it may never actually materialise, is that it genuinely feels like the work of enthusiastic and hardcore fans with a deepset and long-standing appreciation for the source material, complete with deep cuts.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Comics, Movies, Television | Tagged: Authority, comic books, Comics, creature commandos, dc, James Gunn, swamp thing, the authority, Warner Bros | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” as a Parable About the Legacies of Interventionism…

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seemed like a good opportunity to look at the movie’s thematic preoccupations.

Quantumania is something of a frustrating jumble of a movie. However, there are some interesting ideas nestled within it. Most engagingly, Quantumania feels like a movie that is about the legacy of foreign interventionism, dropping its characters into a strange realm that was forever altered by the pragmatic alliances made decades earlier. It’s a film about whether characters that call themselves heroes owe any obligation to help those less fortunate, particularly when that suffering is a direct consequence of earlier choices and actions. Quantumania doesn’t necessarily say any of this particularly well, but it tries.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: allegory, america, ant man and the wasp, ant-man and the wasp: quantumania, comic books, in the frame, metaphor, politics, quantumania, the escapist, War on Drugs, war on terror | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The “Ant-Man” Movies as the Most Marvel of the Marvel Movies…

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the way in which these films – for better and worse – feel like the statistical mean of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Part of what in interesting about the Ant-Man movies is how little they actually adapt from the source comics, largely marginalising characters like Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne in favour of porting over out-of-continuity characters like Hope van Dyne. They deliberately structure themselves to avoid key character and plot beats from the comic book franchise, and so offer the purest distillation of the adaptation storytelling of the comic book film franchise. The Ant-Man franchise is the Marvel Studios franchise that feels most generic, most cribbed together using the studio’s narrative shorthand.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: ant man and the wasp, ant-man, ant-man and the wasp: quantumania, characters, comic books, continuity, in the frame, Marvel Studios, mcu, paul rudd, storytelling, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Luther” as a Superhero Show Without Superheroes…

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the looming release of Luther: The Fallen Sun, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about the show. In particular, the interesting space that it occupies as a police procedural that arguably owes more to comic books than anything else.

Luther is a fascinating show. It is ostensibly something similiar to Law & Order or CSI, the story of a detective who works grim and sensationalist crimes to their conclusions. In practice, however, Luther is something altogether more heightened. It occasionally veers over into outright horror, and Luther himself often seems to face characters more like comic book supervillains than ordinary criminals. The result is fascinating, a show that arguably feels closer to a certain strand of comic book storytelling than any of the actual comic book shows out there.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, comic books, constantine, john luther, luther, netflix, police procedural, superheroes | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Back to Basics” Message in the Marketting of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”…

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This week saw the release of the final trailer for the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. What was most interesting about the trailer was the extent to which it contained no surprises or teases. It was a very matter-of-fact “this is what the movie is” trailer.

It’s an interesting approach, particularly for a studio that takes pride in keeping secrets and teasing the audience. The trailer for Quantumania looks very much like a blueprint for the movie, mapping a lot of its character and narrative arcs very clearly, including a third act twist. It’s an approach that feels a little desperate, very much in keeping with the general sense of how Marvel Studios has been packaging and selling Phase Five. The past two years have seen some small erosion in the studio’s cachet, and the trailer for Quantumania feels like the studio trying to convince audiences that it still adheres to the old template.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: advertising, ant-man, comic books, in the frame, Marvel Studios, mcu, paul rudd, popularity, the escapist, trailer | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the DCEU and the Chasing of the Shared Universe…

Posted on December 25, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist last weekend. Since James Gunn and Peter Safran have taken over the running of the DCEU, they have made a number of dramatic cuts and decisions, including the reporting scrapping of the company’s Wonder Woman and Aquaman franchises. There is some suggestion that the entire primary cast of the shared universe is gone, and that the team is starting over to rebuild a new shared universe from scratch.

It is a bold decision, and one that sidesteps a fairly obvious question: why are DC so excited for a shared universe? After all, it was the company’s over-enthusiastic pursuit of that ideal that left their continuity feeling like a mess in the first place. For all the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shared universes are not easy to build, and DC has enjoyed a surprising amount of success with standalone projects like The Batman and Joker. Why is the company throwing everything away to try a strategy that already failed for them, and is showing signs of wearing off for their main competitor?

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: comic books, continuity, dceu, James Gunn, share duniverse, shared universe, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Wednesday” and the “Superherofication” of Everything…

Posted on December 2, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the massive success of Wednesday on Netflix, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the show in the context of larger pop culture trends.

Wednesday is an addition to the larger Addams Family franchise, focusing on the family’s eldest child. The show is built around the decision to send Wednesday to an elite private school for freaks and monsters, “Nevermore Academy.” The series obviously riffs on the genre conventions of young adult drama, particularly the high school show. However, it is also notable for leaning into another inescapable trend in contemporary pop culture. At its core, Wednesday is a superhero show.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.