ThaOGDreamWeaver

Sly & The Family Stone - Thank You Sly & The Family Stone - I Want To Take You Higher

Now that James Bond on-screen is... paused, Amazon MGM's first full release is a video game. (And given how many of us fondly remember GoldenEye - hell, even NightFire wasn't bad - that's a lot to live up to.) Dev crew are IO Interactive of Hitman fame - which bodes well if they let James get creative about completing missions. And the storyline gives us a young, inexperienced Bond, but in a modern setting. (I get the feeling we'll play through some of Bond's formative experiences, similar to the Young Lara levels in Tomb Raider.) It's hard to judge from a trailer, but all the right ingredients seem to be there - world travel, guns, girls, explosions, toys, and of course, product placement (a Moore-era Omega with some handy extra complications, and an old-school Aston). The humour and delivery feels like a young Brosnan with a side order of Tom Holland. All the familiar MI6 support cast like M, Moneypenny and Q are there, though coming over a little anodyne in this short watch. The only potential villain mentioned is 009, though he could also be a rival/even-more-rogue agent involved in an op. The only new addition is long-suffering mentor John Greenaway, aka journeyman Brit actor Lennie James (Walking Dead, Snatch, Save Me, and Darkwing in Invincible). Should be a good foil for an impetuous boy. And I'll be ANNOYED if they fridge or face/heel him, which are both cheap shots. What do we think, agents?

Why yes, I'm running COH on my Nemesis 2000.

Starting a new thread, because of a nice discovery... Tony Gilroy's Andor series was filmed largely on location. The Galactic Senate ext. scenes (and Lonni's unfortunate conversation) were in Valencia's City Of Arts & Sciences, while the Mothma estate was just up the road in Xativa. So that's another place in Spain I need to go visit... https://www.filmvalencia.com/new/dentro_del_rodaje_en_valencia_y_xativa_de_la_serie_de_star_wars_andor Also: Aldhani -> Cruachan Dam, Scotland Coruscant Starport - McLaren F1 HQ (appointment only) Coruscant Flats / Hideout - The Barbican, London Saw's hideout is a disused British quarry (ah, keeping up Dr Who traditions) ...and the dreamy resort planet of Niamos is in fact Cleveleys, near Blackpool. Which, to a Brit, is pretty hilarious. So what locations have you always wanted to visit - or do you have any near you? There are several movies that have been filmed in my home town - Stardust and Jingle Jangle both took over Elm Hill and several of my friends were in both. But the real surprise was Avengers: Age Of Ultron. We knew they'd been up to something, but not that it was The Avengers Mansion, and the whole place erupted in cheers and laughter. https://www.visitnorwich.co.uk/article/visit-norwich-and-norfolks-filming-locations/ And I do know that RDJ stopped while filming to chat with a five-year-old who happened to be wearing an Iron Man outfit that day, and was quite happily convinced that he was Tony Stark and RDJ was another Tony. Because having another you drop out of the sky in a Stark Industries helicopter is the kind of thing that happens every day when you're five. Just on the inside of your head.

I'm not sure if the whole series is worth it just for Clark Gregg's magnificent facial hair. ...and yes, it's just as appalling as Murderbot fans could have wanted.

There are a lot to choose from, mind. It's been filmed as far back as 1910... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_Frankenstein's_monster ...yes, including Frankenstein's Great-Aunt Tillie. It's not "definitive" - the ending's a copout - but it's iconic: I still like the OG Karloff version, and it's pretty much genre-defining. (How many times have you heard it's alive... it's aliiiive!) The Ken Branagh / Robert de Niro "Mary Shelley's" take in 1994 isn't as terrible as it's cracked up to be, but he wasn't quite ready as a director to handle anything that big. (As for the Dan Radcliffe one... nope, sorry kid.) And then of course all the various borrowings and rip-offs like Rocky Horror and Poor Things. But out of all of 'em, there's one scene that they've still got to better...

Much as this is a coup for streamers, hot damn this needs the biggest screen you can find.

So some big news…

The Go-Go's - Vacation

Y Y'know, there's a book about why you don't touch ancient gold skull-motif rings with weird writing on them. And a movie. Quite a long one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0k7k3pwg4o

You'd hope so. I've just had a brief Interweb rabbithole moment, and the actress Finn Carter has... had quite a time of it. If her character makes a comeback in a new series, it'd be a nice turnaround for her story too. Regrettably, and with hat tip to m'learned coll' @TTRPGWhiz... it's likely more bloody clickbait. The original production team have won back rights to the original script and concepts, but not to other elements of the series (especially the Graboids, which Universal still owns. You can't really have a giant worm show with no giant worms. That'd be just ridiculous.) So it seems the viral post was "speculative" - or as we say in the vernacular, "utter BS." It'd still be fun, though.

All grist to t't Interweb rumour mill, lad. Gotta punt those meal boxes, dodgy crypto schemes and old weird tricks somehow... The only even slightly contro bit about confirming runtime is there was a rumour of a major recut, and/or one of the editors getting quietly fired. It's also mildly ridiculous that two one-line replies debunking the runtime are, of themselves, worthy of another clickbait article. Seriously, you're right, the whole thing's got a bit weird, and the critics should all go back to reading copies of Sight And Sound wearing berets, drinkng coffee sourly in hipster cafés and fretting about perspective. Quietly. EDIT: I've just found out I've been clickbaited myself about a giant worm show that isn't allowed to have giant worms in it, so none are immune.

Denied! I'm not sure movie directors should respond to fan questions directly, but Gunn seems to be fearless and enjoy teasing fansites. The rumour that it's 122m was just a rumour, as was another site that said 140m (with international variations). Neither are correct because the movie hasn't finished final VFX and edit yet, so even JG doesn't know the exact runtime - and took the time on Threads and Insta to say so. When the movie is locked and sent to print - which even in the digital age is still a thing, though post-release edits have been known - that's when the exact runtime will be released. That said, Gunn's movies tend to clock in at a distro-friendly 95m (Slither, Super) to 150m (GOTG3) anyway. He knows his audience...

Didn't say that. There are many people throughout history (and stories, and comics) who people looked to for leadership and wound up becoming the villains. Conversely, there are many people who never wanted to be heroes and wound up that way. What RiRi is (or isn't) is up to the writers. The only thing we can say on her balance right now is that she has a (generally) good heart and good intentions... ...but is also ambitious, dislikes rules and strictures, and is prepared to take shortcuts to get where she wants. Which makes Ironheart, in my humble opinion, the be careful what you wish for flavour of Hero's Journey story. Hero sets out to do something. Hero takes unwise shortcut. Things go A over T: hero has to fix the problem they helped create. You also have to play by their rules. Such as progress reports, expense claims, waiting on grant forms, so on and so forth. So someone who's maybe a little bit distrustful of rules, bored by procedure and impatient to get where they want to be... ...might be tempted by an unfettered source of money from an apparently kindly sponsor with a similar attitude. Take it from me: there is almost always a catch. (In my case, having said funding source on the front page of the Financial Times. Not for good reasons. I mean, probably not in league with actual demonic forces: being a man of wealth and taste, I don't think Mephisto would have any truck with him.)

IMHO - I have no idea what's in the writers' heads at this point... The MCU world has just been through a lot. Billions of people exterminated and then blipped back. Millions still died in incidents related to the Snap (eg: whoever was left on that unfortunate airliner that drops out of the sky at the end of Infinity War.) After which, the Avengers buggered off. Tony and Nat are dead. Cap took a much deserved reward. Bruce's mostly retired. Thor left to walk the cosmos. And when people are traumatised, they look for people to lead and protect them. Not always the right ones, but you wanna know about that, hit up your library's history section. And it's not always the right people who step up to try and fill that gap, either in capability or motivation. (In-universe - Thunderbolts: Bob/The Sentry is shoved to the front by Valentina as a new superhero under her control. It goes badly. She then tries to front up the Thunderbolts crew and... well, given the end creds, nobody quite believes them.) So people still need heroes. There are literal murals to Tony Stark all over NYC (and yes, it seems odd that people still live there, but when you've lived through the Summer Stench on Broadway or dealt with the Bronx Expressway, maybe eighty-foot intergalactic centipedes aren't quite as traumatic.) Riri, understandably, would want to step up, and has an evident need to prove herself. Whether Tony'd ever admit out loud she was an equal is one thing, though he always recognised game.

Law brains and tech brains don't always work well together. And it's not like universities haven't actively tried to rip off unsuspecting students' and researchers' work over the years. (Not to mention the universities' sponsoring corporate institutions like Google, Roche, and many others). If you want a nicely capey example, Madey vs Duke (2002). In which Duke U tried to keep the designs and prototypes of two electron lasers for "experimental purposes" (while developing their own commercial versions.) In that case, Dr. Madey lucked out with patent law and got his work and kit back. Good thing all round, really. I mean, imagine an experimental laser researcher with a grudge against the world... ...that's an origin story right there.

Adam Lambert - Ordinary World

Cheap Trick - The Flame

Explaining the parsecs thing could have been a little over-splainy too but worked in the end… “we cut the distance (NOT THE TIME I NEVER MEANT THAT) by doing something spectacularly dumb and dangerous”. If I had a problem, while it assiduously tied up or into a lot of threads of lore, it left a lot of others dangling open for a sequel that never came (although later comics picked up Qi’Ra and co.) And while Alden may have been a little short for a stormt… nerfherding pirate, he did channel a LOT of Harrison’s charisma. I don’t think anyone could have matched it, but damn good try: especially when paired up onscreen with Glover. Felt like the marketing crew really didn’t get to grips with how to pull punters in, and still not sure where some of that $275m budget (ouch) went. But it’s ahead of the sequel trilogy in my affections and… just a good, fun popcorn movie.

Not just in the East. I’m aware Take That’s fame stops dead at the edge of the North American continental shelf… but if you can, do yourself a favour and find Better Man on streaming. Yes, it’s a true(ish) story, but if it helps, think of Robbie Williams as an outlandish cartoon caricature of a popstar. The real Rob would probably agree. It’s laced with vicious invective against the music industry, the band and the man himself. And it’s an astonishing, moving, gut wrenching and funny piece of filmmaking that deserved better at the box office and Oscars. (And there are tunes too.)

He's not on any official cast list yet - they could be hiding that one for a late reveal. The rumour and sighting at Marvel Pinewood is from back in 2022, so that's well before this production began. And being something of a master of disguise, he could have had a walk-on in more or less any Marvel production we've seen since then and we'd never know. https://deadline.com/2022/10/sacha-baron-cohen-mcu-ironheart-mephisto-marvel-disney-plus-1235147636/ One interesting side note: he's been attached to a period-superhero project for Mandrake The Magician (King Features comic, from the same stable as The Phantom, Flash Gordon and Popeye) since 2016. I think he'd have a lot of fun with that. Also, nice to see Alden Ehrenreich of the unfairly-maligned Solo movie back. (I had a lot more fun with that than the prequels or sequels - though it might have played better as a D+ series of capers, as a comedic parallel to Andor.)

Interesting little oddity for your Netflix queue list... Despite the big banner from from the same studio as Spiderverse, there's not one shared senior cred on it. That said, it seems to share something of the same sense of humour and fluid art style.

Have finished Andor now… and I’m just going to say that in almost every respect, it was eminently satisfying…

Prince - Arms Of Orion

No idea. Somehow a small-town American cop winds up mixed up in this, so - unless she gets mixed up with a Lantern or becomes a Star Sapphire, which her character's name (Sheriff Kerry) does not suggest - I suspect it may be a mostly Earth-bound investigation. And I'm going with the Dr. Who explanation, which is Earthlings are the pain in the ass kids of the Universe. Important, inventive, sometimes fun, often selfish, occasionally capable of great acts of genius or heroism... and they need a lot of looking after.