2017 – Page 46 – The Medium is Not Enough

News

[ 22 December 2021 ] The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: The most Nicolas Cage movie ever?
[ 22 November 2021 ] Unexpectedly, there’s a Russian Film Festival and no one told me
[ 22 October 2021 ] December 2021 at the BFI, including Jack Clayton and Dirk Bogarde at 100
[ 5 October 2021 ] BFI Japan comes to big screens UK-wide this Autumn

Weekly Wonder Woman: Trinity #11, Justice League #25

20 July 2017 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Yes, it’s Weekly Wonder Woman – keeping you up to date on pretty much anything involving DC Comics’ premier superheroine, including her motorcycle gang

So I think probably everyone’s now a little bit surprised by how well Wonder Woman did at the box office. It’s just surpassed Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to become the biggest grossing movie of the summer (so far) and is on course to beat Beauty and the Beast to become highest grossing movie of the year, if it gets a following wind. Indeed, it’s just passed the final Harry Potter movie to become the third highest grossing Warner Bros film ever.

Gosh. Small surprise therefore that Warner Bros has decided to juggle with its schedules a bit to include two more mysterious, untitled DCEU movies in 2020. With no Wonder Woman 2 in the current Warner Bros game plans, have a guess what one of those might be…

Of course, before then, we have Justice League, which might take the sheen off the whole enterprise if handled badly. Don’t like that new photo of the Justice League above? I’ve got another one on the right:

I won’t lie to you – it ain’t looking good.

Before even Justice League, though, there’s Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, which is a biopic of Wonder Woman’s creator(s) starring Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote, with Connie Britton and Oliver Platt lending a hand to proceedings, too.

I wonder what the world will make of that.

Meanwhile, over in the comics world, DC is capitalising on the apparent success of comics that are based on somewhat dodgy lines of action figures (cf DC Comics: Bombshells) with a new digital title in August: Gotham City Garage, written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and drawn by a rotating team of artists including Brian Ching and Lynne Yoshii.

Gotham City Garage is an anti-fascist anthem for the open road, starring reimagined takes on DC’s great female characters through an outlaw lens. We’re bringing Big Barda, Steel, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Silver Banshee, Hawkgirl and the first Kryptonian this world has ever seen—the mysterious girl named Kara Gordon—into a world of bikes, outlaws and elaborate tattoos.

It’s been a decade since Governor Lex Luthor saved his people from devastation and turned Gotham City into the modern utopia known as The Garden. With the rest of the world in ruins, Luthor’s city continues to thrive—but not for everyone. Order has been kept only by the LEXES technology that networks the entire population under one mindset—and if a citizen steps out of line, the Bat and his minions are brutal in restoring the status quo. So when a young Kara Gordon comes under suspicion by her LEXES superiors, she heads straight into the dreaded wasteland—where she’ll discover the fierce oil-and-gear rebels of the Gotham City Garage.

Basically, it’s all a big excuse to have the DC comics characters dress like bikers, including our Diana.

Oh dear. I don’t know what’s worse – the crop top or the fact she appears to have put on Captain America’s trousers by accident.

Wonder Woman 2‘s going to do about $4.50 at the box office, isn’t it?

After the jump, a round-up of this week’s new releases featuring Di: Trinity#11 and Justice League #25.

Continue reading “Weekly Wonder Woman: Trinity #11, Justice League #25”

Help crowdfund Blood on Satan’s Claw with Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith

20 July 2017 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Them there Bafflegab people (producers of Baker’s End, The Scarifyers, Hammer Chillers and The Brenda and Effie Mysteries) have a new crowdfunding project on the way that will feature those highly famous League of Gentlemen people Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith:

46 years after the original film, Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith are fronting a new audio adaptation of ‘70s horror classic Blood on Satan’s Claw.

Produced by Bafflegab Productions and adapted by horror writer Mark Morris, Blood on Satan’s Claw will also feature the star of the original film, Linda Hayden, alongside a stellar cast that includes Alice Lowe (Sightseers, Prevenge), John Heffernan (Ripper Street, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), Ralph Ineson (The Witch, The Office) and Philip Hill-Pearson (Shameless, Good Cop).

Some scenes were recorded earlier this week, but Bafflegab will be starting a crowdfunding campaign in coming weeks to finance the remainder of the project. Crowdfunders will be able to receive exclusive rewards by donating towards production costs. There will be more details at www.bafflegab.co.uk or Bafflegab’s Facebook page in the next few days.

Mark Gatiss says: “I first saw Blood on Satan’s Claw in the Friday night horror slot on Tyne Tees television, when I was a kid. I remember it vividly because it scared the life out of me. It’s so distinctly different. The pitch for the film is so strange, and it’s very much in that folk horror tradition: dark, bucolic, earthy and genuinely disquieting. It’s a fabulous tale.”

Linda Hayden added: “It’s lovely working with Reece Shearsmith and Mark Gatiss, as they’re huge fans of the film. I’m really honoured. It was always a really atmospheric piece, and the script to this new audio really captures that.”

Scriptwriter Mark Morris says: “I was first captivated by its unsettling, nightmarish atmosphere at the age of 12 or 13, since when it’s been one of my favourite horror films. I leaped at the chance, therefore, to adapt and expand the original screenplay for this new audio version, and from day one this has been a real labour of love. The calibre of the cast we’ve been able to attract to the project is phenomenal, and a testament to the film’s enduring impact. Blood on Satan’s Claw is back – and I’m incredibly proud, this time around, to be a part of it.”

Blood on Satan’s Claw sits alongside Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man as one of the three films which make up the sub-genre known as folk horror. In it, a village in 17th Century England is overcome by a Satanic plague, after a hideous skull is found in the furrows of a farmer’s field. The village youth fall quickly under the devil’s spell and retreat to the woodland to conduct games of sexual violence and sacrifice.

Gatiss is, of course, correct: Tyne Tees television scares the life out of everyone. Fingers crossed, with a bit of your cash, he and Shearsmith will be able to scare you with this new version of the movie.

Amazon’s Julia Roberts series; HBO’s alternate US history; Teen Wolf reboot; + more

20 July 2017 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Internet TV

Amazon green lights: two seasons of Sam Esmail Homecoming adaptation, with Julia Roberts
New teaser trailer for season 2 of Stranger Things

International TV

Suranne Jones to star in HBO (US)/BBC One’s Gentleman Jack (formerly Shibden Hall)
Hakeem Kae-Kazim to play Zeus on Netflix/BBC One’s Troy: Fall of a City

US TV

Tuesday ratings

US TV show casting

Mykelti Williamson to recur on NBC’s Chicago PD, Wendell Pierce to guest
Eloise Mumford to recur on NBC’s Chicago Fire
Lena Dunham to guest on FX’s American Horror Story
Forest Whitaker to recur on Fox’s Empire
Mitch Pileggi to return to Fox’s The X-Files
Ian Anthony Dale promoted to regular, Meaghan Rath and Beulah Koale join CBS’s Hawaii Five-0

New US TV shows

MTV developing: Teen Wolf reboot, Faith Evans biopic mini-series and showbiz comedy drama Calabasas
HBO green lights: alternative history drama Confederate

New US TV show casting

Sarah Dumont, Billy Malone and Aaron Abrams to recur Crackle’s The Oath
Zach McGowan to recur on USA’s Damnation

Third-episode verdict: Will (US: TNT)

19 July 2017 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 9pm (ET/PT), TNT
In the UK: Not yet acquired

It’s no coincidence that the best moment in the third episode of Will was a straight lift of the famous opening scene of Trainspotting, complete with Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust for Life’ playing in the background, since it’s a show that very much excels when it remembers to have a lust for life. Unfortunately, when it forgets that zest, it becomes just an ordinary, turgid period drama.

It’s a retelling of William Shakespeare’s ‘lost years’ when he first came to London, all given a punk make-over by Baz Luhrmann’s long-time writing partner Craig Pearce and Elizabeth‘s director Shekhar Kapur. Will‘s first episode is a truly exciting piece of work giving us a contemporary Elizabethan London, full of fire and joys and a Clash soundtrack, yet still clearly anchored in the history of the time. We get to see Shakespeare’s first (possible) play performed, while he does his best to hide his secret catholicism from the authorities, who include spy and writing rival Christopher Marlowe. There’s also a love interest to inspire him, although given he’s married to Anne Hathaway and has a whole bunch of kids, he’s torn between his new love and his catholic beliefs.

And it was all marvellously exciting in the same way A Knight’s Tale and Moulin Rouge were. Episode two (Cowards Die Many Times), however, was a far duller, joyless piece more interested in Marlowe’s pouting and Shakespeare’s potential as the leader of a Catholic uprising than life and theatre in all its glories. 16th century theatre as the punk rock of its time? Who cares when there’s torturing of the innocent to be had?

For about half of episode three (The Two Gentlemen), the show looked like it had lost its way and was continuing on the path set by episode two. But along came Iggy Pop (unfortunately without show co-star Ewen Bremner around to join in) and once again, all was right in the world, as Shakespeare learns that good artists borrow, great artists steal – in this case, literally – and before you know it, he’s crossing out the names from a Spanish book to give us The Two Gentlemen of Verona, all while Marlowe is having rampant gay orgies to try to inspire a Doctor Faustus out of himself.

Provided Will confines itself mainly to the man and his work while maintaining its fabulous punk aesthetic and appreciation for time, place and language, it’ll be must-see TV. It throws away dusty, tedious period dramas to give us something far more compelling and joyful that still manages to give us some actual history. But when it gets lured back into the ordinary and the conventional, it’s as unremarkable as John Ford.

Barrometer rating: ‘2 or about as good as John Barrowman’s appearance in Doctor Who‘