Comics | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On the Unfulfilled Promise of “Into the Spider-Verse”…

Posted on June 4, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. With the premiere of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, it seemed like a good opportunity to consider the legacy of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse five years after it was originally released.

The influence of Into the Spider-Verse can be keenly felt on animated films like The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. However, it’s strange that the movie has had no real impact on comic book adaptations. Despite early adventurous comic book adaptations like Hulk, Sin City or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the modern comic book blockbuster has demonstrated a lack of visual experimentation that feels very much like a betrayal of the source material. What’s the point in making a comic book movie if it can’t be as visually inventive?

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: animation, blockbuster, Comics, epic, films, live action, Movies, spider man, spider-man: across the spider-verse, spider-man: into the spider-verse, spider-verse, superhero storytelling, superheroes, visual style | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Video! “Shazam! Fury of the Gods Proves that Lightning Doesn’t Always Strike Twice”

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie and television reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which was released in cinemas this weekend.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Comics, david f. sandberg, dceu, escapist, review, shazam!, shazam! fury of the gods, superheroes, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On Phase 4 as Marvel’s Midlife Crisis…

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Darren

We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, with the recent launch of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we took a look back at Marvel’s Phase 4, trying to make sense of one of the shared universe’s most disjointed and uneven phases.

Filed under: Movies, Television | Tagged: age, Comics, demographics, films, imperial phase, in the frame, marvel, mcu, meaning, midlife crisis, Movies, phase 4, popularity, success | 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 Podcast! Craft Disservices – “Constantine”

Posted on November 1, 2022 by Darren

I was delighted to join the wonderful Aaron Coker for an episode of his film podcast, Craft Disservices.

The premise of the podcast is built around the discussion of movies that were perhaps undervalued at the time, or that were greeted with critical hostility, and placing them in a broader context. Constantine is an interesting subject for such a reappraisal, and not just because there has recently been a sequel announced. Constantine represents one of the last of a certain breed of comic book adaptations, movies willing to play fast and loose with the lore in the process of translating them to screen. It is also a movie that exists among the last of a wave of truly diverse comic book adaptations before the superhero genre takes over.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: alan moore, cast, comic books, Comics, constantine, Craft Disservices, devils, Keanu Reeves, podcast, sequel, smoking, Warner Bros, Warner Brothers | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “She-Hulk” and Unnecessary Origins…

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of She-Hulk, which is streaming weekly on Disney+. The first episode of the show released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

Like a lot of these streaming shows, She-Hulk suffers from an identity crisis. It is caught between the show that it clearly wants to be and its obligations to the familiar formula of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In particular, She-Hulk begins with an extended and unnecessary origin story, which the show itself doesn’t seem particularly enthused about. It’s strictly formula. Giving the first thirty-odd minutes of the show over to this generic and paint-by-numbers exercise undermines a lot of the show’s potential appeal.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: a normal amount of rage, Ally McBeal, comic books, Comics, disney, formula, lawyer show, marvel, Marvel Studios, mcu, origins, she-hulk, streaming, superhero, tatiana maslany | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Sandman” and the Art of Adaptation…

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. It’s a big weekend for media releases, and one of those new releases was The Sandman from Netflix, an adaptation of the comic book series from Neil Gaiman.

The Sandman is a remarkably faithful adaptation of the source material, often lifting images and dialogue directly from the comic. However, it’s also an interesting illustration of the art of adaptation as it purtains to ten-episode seasons of streaming television shows. It’s interesting to see how the source material is tweaked and altered to make it fit that familiar template, and what the adaptational choices say about what the streaming service and the production studio want from the show.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: adaptation, Comics, dc, dc universe, neil gaiman, netflix, streaming, the sandman, warners | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Spookies Podcast – “The Dark Knight And The Joker “

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Darren

I was thrilled to be invited to join the wonderful Michael and Stephanie Little for an episode of their new podcast, The Spookies Podcast.

It was a fun conversation, in which I got to chat a little bit about The Dark Knight, one of my favourite blockbusters ever. The nominal topic of the conversation was the Joker himself, but it was a broad and wide-ranging discussion that ended up touching on everything from modern fandom to Christopher Nolan to the state of modern auteurism. I hope you enjoy.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.

Filed under: On Second Thought, Podcasts! | Tagged: auteurism, batman, blockbusters, Christopher Nolan, Comics, fans, heath ledger, michael black, stephanie black, The Dark Knight, the spookies | Leave a comment »

271. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (-#86)

Posted on January 29, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Graham Day and Niall Glynn, 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.

So this week, Sidney J. Furie’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

It is a turbulant time in the life of Clark Kent. He finds himself considering selling the family farm. The Daily Planet has been brought out by an aggressive media conglomerate. A young boy has begun to question his faith in Superman, asking whether the Man of Steel can truly protect the world from the threat of nuclear annihilation. Tired of standing by as a passive observer, Superman decides to finally take action. However, an old enemy is lurking in the shadows, waiting to spring a trap of his own.

At time of recording, it was ranked 86th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: cannon films, christopher reeve, comic books, Comics, dark and gritty, eighties, fandom, gene hackman, goofiness, graham day, jon cryer, niall glynn, nuclear man, nuclear war, sidney j. furie, silliness, silver age, superman, The 250, The Bottom 100 | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Topps Comics #1 (“Not to Be Opened Until X-Mas” / “A Dismemberance of Things Past”)

Posted on January 15, 2022 by Darren

I’ve been thrilled to guest on The X-Cast over the past few years, and have really enjoyed digging into The X-Files with the guests and hosts. However, this is particularly thrilling, because it’s particularly geeky. The wonderful Tony Black asked me join him for a discussion of the first two stories published by Topps comics, Not to Be Opened Until X-Mas and A Dismemberance of Things Past, written by Stefan Petrucha and illustrated by Charlie Adlard.

I have made no secret of my long-standing affection for these comics. I think that they are probably among the very best licensed comic books ever published. So it was a delight to be asked to talk about them, and to get to geek out with Tony about these stories. There’s a lot of fun stuff here, including context about the comics industry in the nineties and the question of what was possible in a monthly tie-in to a weekly television series.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.