Episode 141 - The Shadow: LIVE! (w/ Pete Davidson)

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I'm not much of a comic book fan, but this Wonder Woman movie looks really good

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lGoQhFb4NM

 

And the poster is just gorgeous

I'm legit buying this poster to hang on my wall now. I'm so picky with my actual movie poster purchases (despite my feelings about AoU I do own the character posters for Black Widow and Hawkeye) and this one is definitely coming home with me.

[Smigg 1488]

I'm legit buying this poster to hang on my wall now. I'm so picky with my actual movie poster purchases (despite my feelings about AoU I do own the character posters for Black Widow and Hawkeye) and this one is definitely coming home with me.

 

I have a few posters from my various interests (usually fight posters and movie posters), and I'm really considering getting one, it would look great next to my stunning 2004 PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix poster

 

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I have a few posters from my various interests (usually fight posters and movie posters), and I'm really considering getting one, it would look great next to my stunning 2004 PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix poster

Oh I have way too many things on my wall that consists of art, fanart purchased at cons, magazines photos that are stunning, and movie posters. That's why I have to be so snobby about my purchases now, just cause I'm in over my head as it is lol.

 

I think for me it would look great next to this Dark Knight poster of mine.

 

 

I haven't even hung the Black Widow or Hawkeye posters yet. I think I'm starting to hit that adult age where I actually want to frame my posters instead of taping them to the wall. It's a weird feeling.

[Smigg 1488]

I'm 32 and I have a frame guy, because the PRIDE poster was imported from Japan a few years ago, I didn't want to just Blu Tac it to the wall. I felt so responsible at that point, like I was actually an adult

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

Hey, ain't nothin wrong with framing art you like. As an illustrator it makes me happy when anyone cares that much. Just try to go for real glass and not plexiglass. It's worth it.

[SlidePocket 707]

HOW IS NO ONE MENTIONING THIS MOVIE WAS MADE BY THE SAME GUY WHO MADE THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART VIDEO

 

Not to mention he helmed both "Highlander" and "Highlander II: The Quickening".

[Auden 1809]

I'm underwhelmed by the Wonder Woman trailer. Here we have another skinny, blandly pretty woman wearing skimpy bodycon costume who doesn't have the physicality to make her fight scenes believable (unlike Scarlett Johansson and Emily Blunt). And it looks like there's going to be some lovey-dovey stuff in the movie, which, if DC can cut out every child of Bruce Wayne from the franchise, why can't we leave out the romantic element in the first major superheroine movie. And I hate the "Well where I'm from, that's called slavery,” line. If being a paid secretary to a man is slavery, what do the people in Theymscira call kidnapping men, women and children from a continent, making them work without compensation, brutalizing, and killing them. Even the poster is problematic (I'll let The Headless Women of Hollywood blog tell you why.)

 

But what do I know. I love a Tibetan goddess who's dark blue and who ended a corrupt dynasty by killing her own son, the crown prince. Who then drank his blood using his skull as a cup, ate his flesh, and used his flayed skin as a saddle.

 

Here is my favorite heroine poster. Emily Blunt in the criminally underappreciated Edge of Tomorrow. Her hair is messy, and tied up, like a soldier's, not cascading down her shoulders. Her face is dirty from battle. Her uniform is a heavy unisex mech suit. Her pose is a traditional warrior's pose, she's not thrusting her chest out and arching her back.

 

 

Oliver Sava of the A.V. Club recently wrote a great article titled "Betty & Veronica, Wonder Woman, and the pitfalls of cheesecake art" about sexualized images in comics.

 

As long as I'm expressing unpopular opinions, I think Suicide Squad is going to bomb.

 

Also, the amount of big graphics make navigating the forum difficult. I got frustrated with the posts after posts of huge graphics and decided not to shrink my image of Palden Lhamo. I've gone back and reduced its size. It would be nice if we could:

 

1. Limit the height of the graphics to 300 pixels (personally I try not to let my images exceed 250 pixels in height) and the width to 750 pixels.

2. Place multiple images side by side rather than one after another.

3. Use thumbnails if your image hosting site offers that function.

4. Try not to quote images and videos.

[EllenM 943]

I'm underwhelmed by the Wonder Woman trailer. Here we have another skinny, blandly pretty woman wearing skimpy bodycon costume who doesn't have the physicality to make her fight scenes believable (unlike Scarlett Johansson and Emily Blunt). And it looks like there's going to be some lovey-dovey stuff in the movie, which, if DC can cut out every child of Bruce Wayne from the franchise, why can't we leave out the romantic element in the first major superheroine movie. And I hate the "Well where I'm from, that's called slavery,” line. If being a paid secretary to a man is slavery, what do the people in Theymscira call kidnapping men, women and children from a continent, making them work without compensation, brutalizing, and killing them. Even the poster is problematic (I'll let The Headless Women of Hollywood blog tell you why.)

...

Here is my favorite heroine poster. Emily Blunt in the criminally underappreciated Edge of Tomorrow. Her hair is messy, and tied up, like a soldier's, not cascading down her shoulders. Her face is dirty from battle. Her uniform is a heavy unisex mech suit. Her pose is a traditional warrior's pose, she's not thrusting her chest out and arching her back.

...

As long as I'm expressing unpopular opinions, I think Suicide Squad is going to bomb.

I agree with a lot here. First thing I noticed about the poster was that we really don't see her face. After watching the Wonder Woman animated film on Netflix (again, I've never read any comics), I found I had problems with Steve Travers as a character in general. They set it in modern times which made me uncomfortable because of how "traditional" he was. This is probably my own bias creeping in, with me being uncomfortable that that's the reality I live in. I understand that the conflict between them is the juxtaposition of Wonder Woman being a no-nonsense badass and Steve being a traditional (yet accepting of her being a strong boss-ass chick) man. Steve just kept talking about how Wonder Woman needed to acknowledge that she even had feelings but got mad when the feelings she expressed were of anger at how he was treating her. This obviously gets fixed at the end of the movie but it didn't sit well with me

 

I'm curious if that's part of the rationale behind setting the movie during the War. It is much easier to wave off any sexism, which will be more overt anyways, as a part of "That's what it was like back then, it sucked. It's better now, right?" I'm curious if that slavery line scene wasn't edited for the joke, or if anyone explains that she does actually get paid for her work. Because if she works for Travers, then doesn't she actually work for the army/government?

 

Emily Blunt was phenomenal in that movie. She did all her own yoga stunts as well, except on a few re-shoots after she found out she was pregnant.

 

I'm super hopeful about Suicide Squad. I want a movie to succeed.

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

I'm super hopeful about Suicide Squad. I want a movie to succeed.

 

God, yes. As disappointing as DC's offerings have been lately, I don't want them to fall so far out of favor that we stop getting to see these movies made at all.

[Blast Hardcheese 636]

 

God, yes. As disappointing as DC's offerings have been lately, I don't want them to fall so far out of favor that we stop getting to see these movies made at all.

 

While I too hope Suicide Squad doesn't fail, I think DC seriously needs a kick-in-the-ass wake up call. They've made Superman glum, Batman into a killer and Harley Quinn into a Hot Topic tart. Worse still, DC's movies are depressing and forgettable. They really need to learn that what works for Batman (and don't get me wrong: Christopher Noland's masterful Batman films are the height of DC's success) can't be grafted onto all of their other properties. It's like they don't understand the tone of each of their characters and need all of their heroes to be cold and brooding. As a movie-making company, DC's instincts suck.

[DanEngler 5249]

They've made Superman glum, Batman into a killer and Harley Quinn into a Hot Topic tart.

For a guy that abhors killing, Batman sure has killed a lot people in the comics and

!

[RyanSz 3140]

For a guy that abhors killing, Batman sure has killed a lot people in the comics and

!

Thank you! As a huge Batman fan it always irks me when people try to say he never killed anyone, that motherfucker straight up murders the shit out of people. Before the Comic Code, he actually carried dual handguns a la The Shadow, but then dropped them after the Code came about, though he did still kill people for a while. Some were pretty gruesome including stomping a guy's head in a window sill to break his neck and hanging Harvey Appolo (the first appearance of Two-Face) behind a movie screen so his silhouette showed to the horrified crowd watching the movie. The movie kills were more accidental deaths caused by Batman but he killed quite a few people in the movies except in Batman & Robin, which didn't have a true Batman kill outside of some of Mr. Freeze's cronies crashing their cars into buildings. As for Superman and Harley, those are basically ripped from the pages of the comics from the last many years, and for me at least it's worked as Superman comes off as more human and vulnerable dealing with the issues of being alone in the universe until Supergirl arrives and basically being a god and Harley has been able to develop into something other than a punchline stooge for the Joker.

 

I haven't seen the Killing Joke yet but the animation does look kind of weak to me, and I understand why they lengthened it as the book itself is only 48 pages. I enjoyed both the Justice League and Wonder Woman trailers, though for Wonder Woman I wish that they would have adapted from Brian Azzarello's recent run with the series as it is a truly epic piece of fiction that melded the Greek Gods into the DC universe and gave Wonder Woman legitimate antagonists in comparison to the Cheetah who i always thought was kinda lame.

[walterwoodsiv 215]

I was surprised to see a Phurba (the knife) in this movie, considering I own this...

 

 

It's a replica of the Phurba from the video game Uncharted 2.

 

They are completely misusing it by the way. They are ritualistic, not for fighting.

 

More about phurbas (sorry if it's already been linked).

[Auden 1809]

I agree with a lot here. First thing I noticed about the poster was that we really don't see her face. After watching the Wonder Woman animated film on Netflix (again, I've never read any comics), I found I had problems with Steve Travers as a character in general. They set it in modern times which made me uncomfortable because of how "traditional" he was. This is probably my own bias creeping in, with me being uncomfortable that that's the reality I live in. I understand that the conflict between them is the juxtaposition of Wonder Woman being a no-nonsense badass and Steve being a traditional (yet accepting of her being a strong boss-ass chick) man. Steve just kept talking about how Wonder Woman needed to acknowledge that she even had feelings but got mad when the feelings she expressed were of anger at how he was treating her. This obviously gets fixed at the end of the movie but it didn't sit well with me

 

I'm curious if that's part of the rationale behind setting the movie during the War. It is much easier to wave off any sexism, which will be more overt anyways, as a part of "That's what it was like back then, it sucked. It's better now, right?" I'm curious if that slavery line scene wasn't edited for the joke, or if anyone explains that she does actually get paid for her work. Because if she works for Travers, then doesn't she actually work for the army/government?

I haven't consumed any of the Wonder Woman products. Anything I know about her is through osmosis. That Steve sounds like a drip.

 

It does sound like the filmmakers are using the past to comment on the present. It also sounds like the comments are going to be really basic and obvious stuff, and maybe even misguided, as the slavery line shows (I don't think it's edited.).

 

Emily Blunt was phenomenal in that movie. She did all her own yoga stunts as well, except on a few re-shoots after she found out she was pregnant.

Girl can fight. In one of my favorite movies, Sicario, Emily Blunt had a very raw fight scene and she's completely believable as an FBI agent who had trained extensively in fighting techniques. I would love to see her in more action movies.

 

I want a movie to succeed.

Ahahaha.

 

I'm just curious to see if my hunches about Suicide Squad will be correct.

 

They are completely misusing it by the way. They are ritualistic, not for fighting.

After watching many nuns and monks in wuxia movies fight with fly-whisks, vajras, khakkharas etc., I'm very comfortable with the unritualistic use of ritualistic weapons. What I find truly disconcerting about the phurba in The Shadow is the knife crawling around like a spider and screeching.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I have to admit that things said against the way that Diana and Harley look make me really uncomfortable. Can we at least wait until the movies come out before we tear apart these women?

[Auden 1809]

I have to admit that things said against the way that Diana and Harley look make me really uncomfortable. Can we at least wait until the movies come out before we tear apart these women?

I don't feel like I'm tearing apart Diana. My objection is against the casting of Gal Gadot and the depiction of Wonder Woman. There have been so many interpretations of Wonder Woman. Throughout the years she got more and more muscular, her costume got covered up more, her features got less soft. It's fine that women in action movies are pretty and skinny, the problem is when they are all pretty and skinny. I thought hey, Wonder Woman is iconic so maybe DC will go against the Hollywood grain and cast a muscular woman, a woman whose features are strong and fierce in such a way that she would get the covers of Bust, Ms. and Diva magazine but she would not get contracts with fashion and comestics company, and she would wear something more functional and less sexy. I'm disappointed I didn't get the Wonder Woman I want.

 

 

ETA: I shouldn't have used the phrase blandly pretty to describe a woman's looks, it's judgmental.

[Smigg 1488]

I was always pulling for Gina Carano to get the role, but considering she's now Angel Dust in Deadpool, and has now broken up with Henry Cavill on two seperate occasions it was probably a no-go.

 

 

 

I love Gina Carano, former Professional Muay Thai and MMA fighter, former American Gladiator, and ridiculously hot. Although, I'm not gonna sell Gal Gadot short, she served in the Israeli Army for 3 years, and also served as a combat trainer for a brief period of time too.

[Smigg 1488]

I'd love for them to make a movie out of the "Injustice" video game, which is set in an alternate realm, where Superman goes fucking mental, and becomes a dictator, and drafts in various superheroes and villains to serve as a New World Order, and the Justice League from this realm become the resistance along with "their" Batman and Joker.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Regarding WW and the DCU:

 

I have to say that the whole "slavery" line didn't work for me as well. First of all, I didn't like it because it wasn't a joke so much as it was a "Joke." Not only was it weird to compare a decent job (that she gets paid to do) to something as horrific as slavery, but it seemed to be completely out of touch from a feminist perspective. Diana almost seems like she's tearing this woman down for not being ambitious enough or living up to her potential. In the early 20th Century (when this movie is set) being a secretary was a very feminist move. It meant that instead of relying on a man to provide for her income, she could--based on her own hard work and talent--provide for herself. Not only is being a secretary or administrative assistant not something she should be ashamed of (or, in this case, shamed for being) back in 1914, it's not something people should be ashamed of now. It just seems incredibly reductive. It makes me worried for the movie as it seems to suggest that while the screenwriters (all dudes) recognize that WW is a feminist icon, they don't really understand what that means. Instead it comes off as pandering and insubstantial.

 

As far as some of the casting choices, I think I want to stay out of that. I wouldn't want to judge a person for who they are any more than I would want to judge them for who they aren't. Hopefully (*fingers crossed*), these women were cast for no other reason than they were the best person for the part.

 

This all being said, based solely on the trailers, I have zero interest in seeing Suicide Squad, Justice League looks like everyone's trying too hard, and Wonder Woman looks like it might (maybe? possibly?) be okay--especially if they ditch her annoying theme music. Oh! And I also really, really wish that WW wasn't a prequel. It just makes its job that much harder when we already know how it's going to end.

[Smigg 1488]

If Warner Bros were smart, they'd focus on an extended Mortal Kombat Universe, and then have an MK vs. Justice League movie. That would be their Captain America Civil War, as Warner Bros own all the rights to DC and Mortal Kombat, and they had a shared game, granted, it wasn't very good, but there's juice in that fruit, a massive, money filled fruit.

[tomspanks 9039]

I'm super hopeful about Suicide Squad. I want a movie to succeed.

 

LOL!

 

I wish Suicide Squad was rated R, but other than that, I'm also hopeful about it. Come on, it can't be worse than BvS.

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

Come on, it can't be worse than BvS.

 

You say that, but we just this week had one of the most popular Batman comics totally trashed by golden child Bruce Timm. Anything's possible.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I don't feel like I'm tearing apart Diana. My objection is against the casting of Gal Gadot and the depiction of Wonder Woman. There have been so many interpretations of Wonder Woman. Throughout the years she got more and more muscular, her costume got covered up more, her features got less soft. It's fine that women in action movies are pretty and skinny, the problem is when they are all pretty and skinny. I thought hey, Wonder Woman is iconic so maybe DC will go against the Hollywood grain and cast a muscular woman, a woman whose features are strong and fierce in such a way that she would get the covers of Bust, Ms. and Diva magazine but she would not get contracts with fashion and comestics company, and she would wear something more functional and less sexy. I'm disappointed I didn't get the Wonder Woman I want.

 

ETA: I shouldn't have used the phrase blandly pretty to describe a woman's looks, it's judgmental.

Believe me I definitely understand the frustrations of everyone that is cast being skinny and beautiful. But in objecting the casting of Gal based on her physical features it does appear to be tearing down the way Diana looks now because Gal is portraying her. In all honesty, Gal Gadot wasn't my first choice either, just like Brie Larson really wasn't my first choice for Carol Danvers.

 

It's just something I never really see when men are cast into roles about how they physically don't meet the standards. I never heard anyone say that Ben Affleck was too small to play Batman, which he clearly worked out for the role anyway, but it just wasn't talked about. Everything I heard was about his acting skills and that's what's really important.

 

ETA: Also, I didn't mean to come at you in a argumentative way.

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

I personally am loving how Harley has visually been re-imagined for Suicide Squad. The character hasn't been around too long so we're bound to see more play in interpretation, especially in a post-Nolan universe. I just hope the movie's good.

[Prezzydent 11]

In all honesty, Gal Gadot wasn't my first choice either, just like Brie Larson really wasn't my first choice for Carol Danvers.

 

It's just something I never really see when men are cast into roles about how they physically don't meet the standards. I never heard anyone say that Ben Affleck was too small to play Batman, which he clearly worked out for the role anyway, but it just wasn't talked about. Everything I heard was about his acting skills and that's what's really important.

 

I think the difference is that Ben Affleck and Brie Larson have impressive resumes that range from drama to comedy to fall back on. Gal who seems to have been a good choice so far had an imdb profile almost entirely composed of Fast and the Furious movies.

 

Slightly different but the only things I ever heard about Constantine were how Keanu Reeves looks or sounds nothing like the character.