I’m thrilled to be launching 3-Minute Reviews on Escapist Movies. 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 three-minute film review of the new Jupiter’s Legacy series that is now available on Netflix.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: jupiter's legacy, netflix, review, streaming | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday evening. With the release of the first season volume of Jupiter’s Legacy on Netflix, it seemed like an opportunity to talk about the weirdness of the Netflix bloat.
The first season of Jupiter’s Legacy is eight episodes long, but covers about as much narrative real estate as the first two issues of Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s comic book. The season doesn’t even get to what is effectively the big inciting incident for the bulk of the comic book, instead stretching certain plot points and certain threads past breaking points. It’s not that Netflix departs or deviates from the source material; it’s often quite faithful in quoting from the comic. It’s that the show can’t seem to even get started.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: decompressed storytelling, decompression, escapist, frank quitely, in the frame, mark millar, netflix bloat, streaming, the escapist | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the announcement that Anthony Mackie would be reprising his role as Sam Wilson in Captain America 4, it seemed like a good opportunity to take stock of what is happening with Marvel’s streaming series.
Disney have long insisted that streaming represents the future of the company, investing heavily in bringing their existing brands to the medium. However, even with the boost that the pandemic has brought to streaming, there is a question to be asked about where the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe lies. Are shows like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier paving the future of the MCU? Or are they just commercials for big-ticket feature films?
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: anthony mackie, captain america, captain america 4, continuity, disney, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, sam wilson, steve rogers, streaming, the falcon and the winter soldier | Leave a comment »
With a slew of Marvel Studios productions coming to Disney+ over the next six months, The Escapist has launched a weekly show discussing these series. I’ll be joining the wonderful Jack Packard and the fantastic KC Nwosu to break down WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki as they come out.
This week, we take a look at the final episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which has a lot to wrap up. Can the show stick the landing?
Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: a marvelous escape, audience, jack packard, kc nwosu, marvel, sam wilson, streaming, Television, the falcon and the winter soldier | Leave a comment »
With a slew of Marvel Studios productions coming to Disney+ over the next six months, The Escapist has launched a weekly show discussing these series. I’ll be joining the wonderful Jack Packard and the fantastic KC Nwosu to break down WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki as they come out.
This week, we take a look at the fourth episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which I continue to really like, even with some caveats about possible “both-sides-ism.” It’s continues to be an interesting and clever reworking of certain flawed elements of both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War.
Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: captain america: civil war, Civil War, comic books, disney, marvel, mcu, Podcasts!, streaming, Television | Leave a comment »
I published a new review at The Escapist this evening. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is premiering on Disney+ tomorrow, so I took a look at the first episode.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier obviously exists as a follow-up to the thrills of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, but the most canny shift is to swap the obvious influence of seventies paranoid thrillers on those earlier films for a more bombastic sort of action inspired by eighties action action movies. It’s a switch that works well enough, playing very much to the strengths of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: disney, escapist, falcon and the winter soldier, review, streaming | 1 Comment »
The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard and Will Cruz for the third episode of the year. We talked about the announced Wonka prequel film from Warner Bros., the rumours that Chris Evans might return to the Captain America role, and the difference in watching in a pandemic.
You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.
Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: captain america, chris evans, jack packard, mcu, mortal kombat, streaming, the escapist, the escapist movie podcast, will cruz, wonka | Leave a comment »
I published a new column at The Escapist last week, but didn’t get a chance to share it. With WandaVision now streaming on Disney+, it seemed like a good idea to take a look at it.
The most striking thing about WandaVision is how immersed it is in the language of television. Previous attempts to bring the MCU to television treated it as secondary to movies; Netflix shows like Daredevil or Iron Fist were treated as thirteen-hour movies, while Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter lived off scraps from the films that drove the shared universe. In contrast, WandaVision is not just a thriving celebration of television as a medium, it’s also an exploration of it. This is very firmly and very definitely the MCU coming to television.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: Comics, marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, streaming, Television, wandavision | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With WandaVision launching this weekend, it seemed like a good time to take a look back at Marvel’s first foray into streaming.
The series produced by Netflix are largely forgotten and overlooked in histories of the shared universe, which makes sense given that they operated at a remove from contemporaneous features like Avengers: Age of Ultron or Captain America: Civil War. However, when it originally premiered, the first season of Daredevil was jaw-dropping. It was bold and ambitious in a way that stood apart from the rest of the live action content associated with the studio. Marvel Studios could learn a lot from it as they return to the medium.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: charlie cox, daredevil, escapist, in the frame, netflix, streaming, wandavision | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because the new season of Cobra Kai arrived on Netflix last week, I thought it was worth taking a look at the show’s relationship to Netflix.
Cobra Kai is just the latest in a series of shows that have been “saved” by the streaming service, with earlier seasons struggling on other providers only for Netflix to find an audience and even take up the bill; Arrested Development, You, Lucifer and so on. However, things are changing. As companies like YouTube bow out of the streaming wars and as companies like NBC begin consolidating their broadcast and streaming wings, there’s both fewer of these gems produced and less room for Netflix to get the ones that are produced to larger audience.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: cobra kai, netflix, netflix bump, streaming, the karate kid | 1 Comment »
the m0vie blog 