Matthew Monagle
The ‘Power Rangers’ Are Ready to Rumble in These New TV Spots
As ScreenCrush managing editor Matt Singer recently noted, March is now the beginning of the summer movie season. That means saying goodbye to all the middling horror movies, low-concept boutique pictures, and genre films we used to see in March and cutting straight to the $100 million dollar blockbusters that are looking for any competitive edge. Last year, the big release at the end of March was the gloomy Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; this year we’re going to get the gentler kid’s version of that movie in Power Rangers, a film about people in bulky suits and flying machines fighting CGI monsters. It’s kind of a nice parallel.
The Original ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Voice Actors Will Dub the Live-Action Movie
As a general rule of thumb, people should avoid watching movies in anything other than the original language. No matter how good a voice actor may be, a film loses a bit of its nuance and timing when the movements of the original actors no longer perfectly match up with their spoken words. It may be a little uncomfortable at first, but turning on subtitles allows you hear the full inflection of each actor without losing any of the dialogue or plot developments as they occur. There’s a reason film nerds get so cranky about dubbed versions of films.
‘Logan’ Screenwriter Explains Why This Film Works Better Than ‘The Wolverine’
There are two ways in which Logan represents a major change for superhero movies. The first, and most obvious, is the maturity of its content. Wolverine swears, Xavier swears, people get decapitated, and both Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen spend the majority of the film covered in fake blood. Perhaps the more interesting change, though, is what Logan doesn’t do. It doesn’t feel the need to wrap up two decades’ worth of canon, or leave the door open for a sequel, or culminate in a big fight sequence with recognizable faces from the X-Men universe. Put it another way: Logan is the best at what it does, but what it does isn’t very superhero movie-ish.
Mark Wahlberg to Produce ‘Alien Bounty Hunter,’ a Comic Book He Hopes Will Be His Next Film Franchise
As people weigh in on the popularity of Marvel and DC movies, they sometimes neglect to mention the opportunities these films create for non-superhero comic books. For every Logan, there’s a handful of smaller titles — movies like American Splendor, Ghost World, and Scott Pilgrim — that benefit from the overall popularity of the medium. Ryan Gosling, for example, recently signed on to produce a film adaptation of independent graphic novel The Underwater Welder, a melancholy story of fatherhood and mortality. Any filmmaker or actor seeking out their next comic book movie need only spend a few hours at their local library branch to see the full scope of the medium.
Watch the VFX Evolution of the ‘Batman v Superman’ Brawl
One of the side effects of CGI is our inability to appreciate the effort that goes into a good movie scene. A few decades ago, you could look at a shot from a movie and instinctively know how much time and energy went into it. You could see the production design, the costumes, the makeup, the lighting, all of which required people to make real things with their hands and put them in front of the camera. These days, we just chalk everything up to computers without thinking much about what that means.
Major Meets the Enemy in the Latest ‘Ghost in the Shell’ TV Spots
Now that March is officially part of the summer movie season, the deluge of blockbuster marketing has started earlier than ever. We used to be able to wait until the summer to comb through a batch of brand new television spots for new footage from upcoming releases; instead, with Ghost in the Shell landing at the end of this month, we’re being treated to the same escalating series of theatrical trailers and short television spots. No wonder the climate seems to be changing so rapidly: if Mother Nature gets her news from basic cable, she’d be forgiven for thinking it’s almost Fourth of July weekend.
The ‘Logan’ Filmmakers Explain Why They Kept the Effects of Xavier’s Illness a Mystery
While much has been made of Hugh Jackman’s last turn as Wolverine, as those who have seen the film can attest, many of Logan’s most haunting moments belong to Patrick Stewart’s elderly Charles Xavier. For nearly two decades, Stewart’s character has been synonymous with both control and wisdom, making his weakened state hard to watch. We’re used to watching our superheroes fight off every enemy, but seeing them eaten away from within? That’s a powerful reflection of our own mortality.
Deadpool Ain’t No Superman in the NSFW ‘Deadpool 2’ Teaser Trailer
Isn’t it just like Ryan Reynolds to upstage a colleague? After listening to critics sing the praises of Logan for the past few weeks, fans around the country took their seats on Friday night ready to watch Hugh Jackman strap on his metal claws one last time. And so it came as quite a surprise when the first superhero to appear onscreen wasn’t Wolverine but Deadpool, everyone’s favorite violent and profane superhero — and, if we’re being honest with each other, the entire reason an R-rated Wolverine movie was greenlit by 20th Century Fox.
Ryan Gosling’s Latest Project Is Deep Sea Mystery ‘The Underwater Welder’
Hey girl, how would you like to watch a movie about someone going crazy underwater? Fresh off the success of La La Land, the internet’s boyfriend — or the internet’s ex-boyfriend, I really struggle to stay on top of these things — has turned to comic books for his next project. According to IDW Entertainment (via iO9), Ryan Gosling will produce a film adaptation of The Underwater Welder, a 2012 graphic novel by renowned comic book author Jeff Lemire.
‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Screenwriter Simon Kinberg Reflects on the Film’s Mistakes
Simon Kinberg is everything an aspiring writer could hope to be. He’s written some of the biggest and most expensive blockbuster movies of his generation. He’s leveraged his talent as a writer into a lucrative career in film and television producing. He’s pushed the boundaries of superhero films and will even tackle his very own Star Wars sequel in the not-too-distant future. He’s been nominated for an Academy Award. By any measure of success, Kinberg is one of Hollywood’s best and brightest.