#BizTrends2019: 2019 at the movies

My original article here.

15 Jan 2019



Let's take a look at what 2019 has in store in the movies, shall we?

In tribute to the creator of worlds

On 13 November 2018, we lost the great Stan Lee, the man who gave us iconic comic book characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, and Black Panther. In tribute to this storytelling icon, we’re going to kick off our 2019 at the movies with all the comic book goodness in store for us.

“Unbreakable, what, you thought they'd call me Mr. Glass?” Are we allowed to still quote Kanye West? Anyway, we kick things off with M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass. The sequel to Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016), making up the third part of the Unbreakable series. Bruce Willis returns as the superhero David Dunn and James McAvoy in the persona of The Beast and his other split personalities. Samuel L Jackson’s Mr. Glass serves as the villain that orchestrates events. Glass hits cinemas on 18 January.



Avengers: Infinity War left many cinemagoers traumatised by Thanos’s finger snap and we need to know how the good guys will make a comeback in the sequel. From the end credits scene, we do know that Captain Marvel is going to play a part in saving the day. So while we wait for the second part of Infinity War we can get ourselves clued up on Carol Danvers’s backstory in Captain Marvel on 8 March. Then bounce right over to DC’s Captain Marvel, who can’t be called by that name, Shazam. On 5 April, we get Shazam! The comic book movie we never really asked for. But here we are and at least it means we’ll see The Rock play Black Adam’s character somewhere down the line. The Hellboy series gets a more welcome revamp with David Harbour (Stranger Things) as the Big Red Demon. The film’s coming out guns blazing with an R-rating on 12 April. We get the Infinity War sequel, Avengers: End Game, on 27 April. You know, the story we’re really looking forward to.



Ah, the X-Men film series, where I have only the vaguest idea of what the timeline is. The 12^th film in the series, Dark Phoenix comes out on 7 June with Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) reprising her role as Jean Grey and unleashing the iconic Phoenix character. Apparently, our favourite neighbourhood Spider-Man survives that whole Infinity War mess, but he’s going to make it home late for supper and poor Aunt May’s worried. Spider-Man: Far From Home comes out in theatres on 5 July. The rest of the year gives us New Mutants on 2 August and Joker on 4 October.

“Go then, there are other worlds than these . . .”

It’s always okay to quote Stephen King. There’s more to the world than just comic book movies, so let’s look into that.

Remember that amazing 2011 French film, The Intouchables? It’s a pretty great film, right? Well, now you get to see it in American as The Upside, starring Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart on 11 January. Who understands French anyway? The Lego Movie gets a sequel on 8 February and How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World gets a 22 February release.



Jordan Peele brings us another horror film on 15 March titled, well, Us. Plot details are still pretty hush-hush for now and the film stars Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. Tim Burton has not just been sitting around twiddling his thumbs either and 29 March sees his take on Dumbo. The film stars Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, and Eva Green.



As I said, you can never go wrong with Stephen King and Hollywood agrees. We get two movies based on his books in the form of Pet Sematary on 5 April and It Chapter Two on 6 September. Another movie that we didn’t know we want but it turns out we really do is Pokémon: Detective Pikachu! I can’t even front, you guys, I’m in. I’ll be there on 10 May to watch Pikachu solve things.



John Wick is not done killing his way through hordes of bad guys in John Wick 3: Parabellum on 17 May. Disney is still on a roll and Aladdin gets the live action treatment on 24 May; Will Smith gets the role of Genie. A living legend, Sir Elton John gets a biographical musical film based on his life in the form of Rocketman on 31 May, the same day we have Godzilla trampling a city or two in Godzilla: King of Monsters. You still have a friend in Toy Story in its fourth installment on 21 June.



The second half of the year brings highlights such as The Lion King in its CGI format, Artemis Fowl and Frozen 2. We also get a Quentin Tarantino picture titled, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on 26 July with the Manson Family murders of 1969 serving as a backdrop. The film stars names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, and Dakota Fanning. We get a Star Wars Christmas again this year with Episode IX on 20 December. JJ Abrams is back in the director’s chair in the closing chapter of the new trilogy.



That's that from me. Here’s to a great 2019 at the movies. Excelsior!

Avengers: Infinity War lives up to high expectations

My original article here.

2 May 2018

Ten years, 18 movies, a lot of hype and finally Avengers: Infinity War arrives. The question is, does the movie deliver?

Especially when expectations are so high? When the Avengers first assembled in 2012 it was the sort of ambitious event that comic book fans never dreamed was possible for a film. When 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron landed the magic was still there but Joss Whedon, the man at the helm of both those Avengers films felt the strain and bowed out. After a great showing with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), directors Antony and Joe Russo were hired to direct Infinity War and its 2019 sequel. 

One epic package

Over the last 10 years, Marvel Studios has managed to deliver blockbuster after blockbuster and the Russos were tasked with taking all of that material and putting it together in an epic package. I am happy to report that they deliver a movie that takes all the different tones and characters from all of the preceding movies and blends them together to produce something quite magical. There are a lot of moving parts in this movie and somehow it all comes together perfectly.

Infinity War is not the best movie Marvel Studios has produced if you look at it as a standalone and it was never meant to be. This is meant to be grand-scale spectacle following 10 years of build up and, yet, the movie manages to have pathos and carry itself with a sort of grace I did not expect. You know that the stakes are quite high coming into the film but you don't expect the movie to make you feel as deeply as it does. As a fan who knows that the movie draws heavily from Jim Starlin's 1991 comic book The Infinity Gauntlet, I knew what to expect coming in but somehow the events that take place managed to surprise and somewhat shock me. 


All the characters we know and love are all there but this is Thanos's story, for the most part, Thanos on his quest to collect all of the Infinity Stones. Josh Brolin's Thanos is larger than life, he has gravitas, commands respect and dominates all the scenes he is in. As soon as you first see him you feel that you are in the presence of a superior being. He is on a mission to wipe out half of life in the universe, balance the scales, as it were and he has an indomitable will to get it done. He is not just a generic big bad, there is a charm to him and a certain sadness. You almost want to take his side.

Character continuity

We have seen the Avengers assemble and have had a bunch of them onscreen at the same time, but not like this. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) did stand out for me among the good guys and his arc is quite strong and well done. All your other favourites are here and definitely not to be messed with. Events pretty much kick off straight after Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther. All the players in those movies are where we last saw them, in space and in Wakanda. 

The Guardians of the Galaxy show up (with all the humour they always bring to a party), as do Doctor Strange, Wong, Iron Man, Spider-man, Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, Scarlett Witch, Vision, and War Machine. There are some surprise characters that are a nice touch as well. The story even takes time to throw in some Norse mythology Easter eggs with Thor's storyline. You can't be a self-respecting villain without some henchmen and Thanos has some zealous and pretty scary ones referred to as his Children. There is the hulking (pun intended) Cull Obsidian, the truly terrifying sorcerer Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive.

The film is quite long at 149 minutes but the pacing is done so well that you don't get tired of watching or feel like scenes are merely there as padding, which was the case in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Like The Last Jedi, this movie does spend some time subverting fan theories and delivers some nice surprises as a result. Many people will find it annoying that issues aren't resolved and that is to be expected. The movie does all it can to be the spectacle that it is and that we wanted, it delivers a villain worthy of waiting 10 years for and it is a good story that manages to juggle a huge cast of characters and locations quite nicely. 



Avengers: Infinity War manages to live up to very high expectations and though it's quite self-contained it does leave you wanting more, which you will get in the 2019 sequel. As is tradition, stay for the end-credits scene and its Easter egg.

2017 at the Movies

I won't lie, you guys, I have let life capture my nerd flag for the last few months. I have not even seen Dr Strange or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them yet. The year 2016 shall go down as just the worst - seriously, just the worst. But enough of that, take my hand and let's look ahead towards 2017 and see what good things will fill our movie loving hearts with gooey goodness.

Here are some of the movies that we can look forward to:

1. A Star Wars Christmas

This is still a 2016 feature, but since it will be on circuit quite a bit into 2017 it warrants a mention. As you all know, Disney does not mess around when they take over a franchise. We will have Star Wars for Christmas in one way or another for the rest of our lives. As long as there are Star Wars fans and Disney can make money from us there will be Star Wars. 



Last year gave us JJ Abrams’ beautiful love letter to the original trilogy, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. This year, we get the first of probably one million anthologies that are meant to tide us over in between the main movies, of which we’ll get one every two years. The first anthology feature that we will receive is titled Rogue One and it looks brilliant. You know how you have always wondered how the rebels got the plans for the first Death Star? Or exactly how many Bothans died to get information on the second Death Star? No, you never wondered? Well Rogue One will answer the former question for you anyway. Just take a look at the trailer and get excited about more Star Wars. 

The cast looks to be pretty impressive too with Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, 2014) in the lead role and cool people like Mads Mikkelsen (Dr Strange, 2016), Alan Tudyk (Firefly) and Forest Whitaker (Arrival, 2016) lending their support.

2. Marvel v DC: Comic Book Movie War

This war is rather one-sided with Marvel pretty much still dominating. 2016 saw them release their first entries in Phase 3 with Captain America: Civil War and Dr Strange, both of which received favourable responses at the box office and with the fans. 2017 looks like it will up the ante with Guardians of the Galaxy 2 set to drop in May (hopefully with another killer soundtrack); our favourite neighbourhood Spider-Man gets his time in the sun with Homecoming in July; and things get apocalyptic in Thor: Ragnorok in November.



The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has had a rocky start with Batman v Superman being a hit in some ways and quite a miss in many other ways. With Suicide Squad, their heart was certainly in the right place, but it also failed to hit the mark in many ways (and you thought Deadshot never misses). What DC does have is some strong characters to work with and a good foundation for their Justice League venture. Batman and Wonder Woman were amazing in Batman v Superman and Harley Quinn became an instant hit in Suicide Squad. 2017 will give us the much anticipated Wonder Woman movie in June and the first Justice League movie in November.

Superheroes seem still to be a thing for the foreseeable future. Who knew?

3. A little nostalgia

You are over superhero movies you say?

Say no more, Fam. Say no more. 2017 knows that you are all about reliving your childhood and will hook you up with that good stuff. Remember watching Power Rangers before school in the morning and then ending up being late? Well, now you get to see the movie in March 2017. 

Baywatch? Hot bodies and slow motion beach running. May 2017 will have that for you and there is no hotter body to do the slow beach running for you than The Rock himself. Speaking of The Rock, you liked Jumanji as a child, right? 2017 will hook you up with that too in December and throw The Rock in for good measure. The whole The Rock thing probably made you think of Vin Diesel and 2017 is like don’t worry we know you didn’t like the XXX 2 movie with Ice Cube, so we will hook you up with XXX: The Return of Xander Cage in January and Fast 8 in April just for fun. You know how it is, The Rock, Vin Diesel, fast cars, hot women, family and not really eight characters. It’s like 12 people who are somewhat fast. 2017 is lit. It even has the live action version of Beauty and the Beast up its sleeve for you in March. All I will say is Emma Watson. Hopefully that means something to you (#heforshe).

4. Dropping names and all that

You always have to end off with that name dropping session, just to show that you know who’s who in the biz. In 2017 you’ll also have Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Kong: Skull Island, Logan (that’s Wolverine by the way), Transformers: The Last Knight, Alien: Covenant, War for the Planet of the Apes, The Dark Tower, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Ghost in the Shell (we’ll have to talk about Hollywood whitewashing when this hits), John Wick: Chapter 2 and Fifty Shades Darker.



There are many more titles scheduled for good ol’ 2017, but those are the ones scheduled to make some waves.

Here’s to a happy 2017 at the movies.

My Magical Place: Captain America: Civil War Review

My original review on: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/482/144024.html

29 Apr 2016

I was sick for a week and on my return to the land of the living I found out that we were getting Civil War on 27 April (Freedom Day in South Africa). I just wasn't ready though, you guys. I was still working with that 7 May release date and I am still reeling from the first episode of Season 6 of Game of Thrones. Can the old gods and the new please give a nerd a break out here? But it's all good, I got my game face and Marvel fanboy underwear on and got ready for the biggest cinema spectacle of the year!

Civil War is the best Marvel movie to date

Captain America: Civil War is the third Captain America movie and the thirteenth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the huge success of the second Captain America movie, The Winter Soldier, the Russo brothers returned to the helm for Civil War and they made a movie that hits all the right notes. I am going into full fanboy mode here. This movie is perfect and it seems that every year I say this about a new Marvel movie, but it’s Odin’s honest truth every time. What especially makes Civil War great is that it taps into all of the history and lore of the universe it takes place in. This movie is not here to accommodate anyone by explaining too much. It is simply the culmination of all Marvel’s Earth-based movies to date.

Plot overview

Civil War is set in a universe where all the actions of every hero in the Avengers team have led to this point in time. The world owes the Avengers a great deal for the amount of times they have saved it, but at the same time, who watches the watchmen? Who takes the Avengers to task when innocent people die in the collateral damage of their battles? This is the overarching question that Civil War poses and it is a fair question and difficult to deal with.

Civil War takes a lot of beats from Winter Soldier in that it is a political spy type of thriller, but it borrows tonnes from other Marvel movies like Iron Man 3 that shows that superhero characters don’t have to be in their suits the whole time - they can deliver powerful, emotional performances just as themselves. After an incident gone wrong in Lagos, Nigeria the US Secretary of State, General Thunderbolt Ross, calls the Avengers in to inform them that the world cannot tolerate them operating unchecked and that the United Nations has come up with what they refer to as the "Sokovia Accords", which will establish an international governing body to monitor and regulate all enhanced individuals like the Avengers.

The battle lines are drawn in a response to this development. Captain America’s response is that he does not agree to having the team effectively being run by the UN, which is a political entity and has its own agenda. By signing the act, the Avengers would only be able to work according to the say-so of the UN. Since waking up in the modern world, Captain America has had to deal with quite a lot. The guy is Marvel’s ultimate boy scout and is usually the sort of team player who would never question orders. Unfortunately politics is a messy business and the Cap has been burned on many occasions dealing with organisations like SHIELD/HYDRA and he is loath to allow the team to become puppets of such agendas. Cap thus rallies the members of Team Cap to his side, because they share the same belief, or in Hawkeye’s case, because he called first.

Tony Stark is also carrying a huge load on his shoulders since the incident in New York and even more with the incident with Ultron, which he was directly responsible for. The man has been having panic attacks and sleepless nights, because he knows there are dangers outside of our planet that the Avengers might not be able to deal with (we know that Thanos is lurking out there, after all. Does that guy just sit in his space chair all day by the way? I digress though). Ultron rose from these fears and Scarlett Witch didn’t help by giving him visions of a bleak future where everyone dies either. Tony is almost on the opposite journey that Cap is on in the sense that he starts off as this carefree character who doesn’t adhere to rules and picks up a lot more responsibility on the way to the events in Civil War. It's difficult to decide whose stance is right.

This is just the simplistic view of the plot, because there are other forces at play and there is an actual villain in the movie. Batman v Superman takes itself very seriously and Civil War finds a sweet spot between the seriousness of everything that is happening with friends fighting each other, but there are many moments where you can just laugh and have fun. The movie is long at 147 minutes, but it never feels like it and it is cut in a beautifully economic way.

Enter new characters

All your favourite characters are back and are all running around punching, kicking and shooting each other and the bad guys in super cool ways. All of them are there ... well, except for Thor, because he is doing Asgardian things and Bruce Banner is doing hiding out things. The highlights in terms of characterisation are the new people though. Chadwick Boseman makes his debut as T'Challa / Black Panther, the prince of Wakanda, the technologically advanced African Nation that is known for living in isolation and being the place where vibranium comes from. Marvel is pretty much done with long and windy introductions, so they just throw Black Panther in there with a brief but powerful introduction and the character then hits the ground running. The character is intriguing and I can’t wait for his solo movie and to explore Wakanda where, interestingly enough, they seem to speak Xhosa. I died of laughter in the cinema when T’Challa shares a moment with his father, King T'Chaka (played by South African actor, John Kani) and they just kick it in Xhosa, but with an East African accent.

Our favourite neighbourhood Spidy also gets a quick and punchy intro. Peter Parker is played by Tom Holland and he is the witty, funny, awkward Peter Parker we love from the comics. The movie also makes fun of the fact that his aunt, May, is so attractive (played by Marisa Tomei) in response to people freaking out on social media last year, because Aunt May is “too hot”.

Marvel just keeps winning and Civil War is just great. I can find zero fault with this movie. It delivers solidly on everything and all the characters are given their due in terms of screen time and personality. The action sequences are a feast, but the times where there is no fighting are also intense and while you’re still reeling from an emotional reveal they offset it with humour that provides the comic relief you need while not taking away from the gravitas of the situation. The new characters fit in and their roles aren’t just as cameos. All the Earth-based stories in the Marvel universe have led to this movie and it draws from and builds on the history and lore from the previous titles beautifully. Just go out and watch this one a few times. Just do it.

The movies in review: A look back at 2015

The movies in review: A look back at 2015

Hi Blogger buddies,

I am closing my year in style by taking a look back at 2015 at the movies over at my other goodbuddies' house, Bizcommunity.com. Check out my article there.

All I can say is merry Star Wars! Christmas can take a backseat this year ;).