I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of both Top Gun: Maverick and Thor: Love and Thunder recently, it seemed like an opportunity to unpack what might be described as “the rise of the anti-legacyquel.”
The term “legacyquel” emerged in the middle of the last decade to describe a new kind of franchise film, one that allowed an aging cast to gracefully hand over the series to a younger generation. For a few years, it seemed like this might offer a sustainable model for Hollywood’s future. However, recent years have seen a very firm rejection of this approach, with Maverick and Love and Thunder serving as two very recent and very high-profile examples of stories about an older generation seemingly welcoming a new generation of heroes, only to take back control at the climax of the story.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I’m thrilled to be launching movie 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 three-minute film review of Thor: Love and Thunder, which is in theatres this weekend.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the looming release of Thor: Love and Thunder, it seemed like as good an excuse as any to take a look back at the character of Thor within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what makes him unique within the shared universe.
Interestingly, Thor is perhaps the only major character within the shared universe who feels like an old-fashioned superhero rather than a product of the military industrial complex. This is particularly apparent within Kenneth Branagh’s Thor and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, both of which are essentially stories about Thor being exiled from or rejecting the structures of Asgardian society. The result of all this is interesting. In a universe where so many heroes are defined by their relationship to the armed forces, Thor actually feels like a superhero.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because it was Labour Day on Monday, officially marking the end of summer, it seemed like an appropriate opportunity to take a look back on the summer from a decade ago. The summer of 2011 was arguably the blockbuster movie season that defined the modern cinematic landscape.
Many observers would trace the root of the modern blockbuster era to the summers of 2008 and 2012 with epoch-defining smash hits like Iron Man and The Dark Knight or The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. However, these movies were exceptional. They were seismic. Doing something like that was an innovation and a miracle. However, the key for Hollywood is to find a way to make these sorts of models sustainable and reproduceable. That is why 2011 was such a big year, because it marked the season that Hollywood found a way to mass produce movies like Iron Man and The Dark Knight.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. Following the premiere of Loki, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at some of the meta-fictional aspects of the beloved trickster.
At its core, Loki is essentially the story of a character trying to escape their own narrative and wrest control of the story in which they’ve found themselves trapped. The title character of Loki has always been a supporting player, an antagonist or an ensemble player. Loki finds the character pushing his way to the fore, trying to figure out his own arc and his own place when he is no longer defined by the role that he has played for the past decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
So, as I have mentioned before, I am launching a new video series as a companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch with every second Monday’s article, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel the following week. 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 Loki launching on Disney+, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s God of Mischief. The character has an enduring and popular appeal, but what is it that makes Loki such a breakout character?
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With Loki arriving on Disney+ on Wednesday, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s God of Mischief and what makes Loki such a compelling character.
There are lots of reasons why Loki has succeeded where other Marvel Studios villains have failed. Part of this is undoubtedly the casting of Tom Hiddleston. However, part of it is also down to the way in which Loki offers an interesting twist on the classic Campbellian archetype. Arguably more than any other character in the MCU, including his own brother, Loki is defined by has complicated and contradictory relationship with his father.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because it was released three years ago this month, I took a look back at the postcolonial politics of Thor: Ragnarok, and put them in a broader cultural context.
Ragnarok is one of the most enjoyable superhero movies ever made. It’s both fun and funny. However, it’s also one of the best and smartest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a joyous exploration of the legacy of colonialism and an interrogation of the consequences of imperialism. Ragnarok is bold and provocative, but is also so shrewd and slyly constructed that it manages to sneak a genuinely revolutionary perspective under the radar.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Tony Black, 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, Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Endgame.
At time of recording, it was ranked 6th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
the m0vie blog 