Superheroes!

[EgonSpengler]

Ruby Rose has been cast for The CW's Batwoman, which will be part of the Berlantiverse. She looks familiar to me, but I can't remember where I've seen her, so I can't say what kind of an actor she is. She's out herself, and if it makes some people happy to have a gay actor playing a gay character, I say 'cool.' Google says she's 32 years old, 5' 7", which all sounds right to me. I think we have enough teenaged superheroes. She's skinny as a coat-hanger and doesn't look like she could kill you with her hands, but she does have that hard-edged look I was talking about above, with The Huntress, and a little Hollywood magic ought to take care of the rest. Unlike Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and the aforementioned Black Widow, Batwoman wears a mask, so if they can find a rock-and-roll stuntwoman, they should be able to disguise her well. Batwoman is also one of the "nocturnal predator" style of vigilante, so a lot of her action can be shot at night, giving the filmmakers even more options.

 

[Dachs]

I still can't believe that Bloodshot is getting a movie. It's not like Deadpool 2, where you could make Shatterstar a complete joke.

Look at this trash:

I vomited a little inside my mouth. This is the most nineties garbage ever.

She looks familiar to me, but I can't remember where I've seen her, so I can't say what kind of an actor she is.

John Wick Chapter 2? She's the one who doesn't talk.

She's out herself, and if it makes some people happy to have a gay actor playing a gay character, I say 'cool.'

Mmm. Bi isn't exactly the same thing as lesbian, but yes, it's a lot closer to representation than getting ScarJo. It also continues the distressing trend of non-Americans playing Americans, something apparently only I ever get mad about. Whatever.

I'm not sure about her ability to act or pull off a convincing American accent, but we'll see.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Somehow I missed Valiant Comics entirely. I was really into the independents back in the '80s - First Comics; Comico; Eclipse Comics; Warp Graphics - but I must have quit right before Valiant launched.

I still haven't seen John Wick 2. I know, I know. The list of good movies I haven't seen yet is a mile long and getting longer. I only just saw the first John Wick this past Spring.

I don't mind non-Americans playing Americans. 99% of the time, I can hardly tell the difference. Once in a blue moon, an actor's accent will slip - Archie Panjabi in The Good Wife; Katie McGrath in Supergirl - but I wouldn't want to see American television without all those Australians, Brits, Canadians, and Kiwis that I love.

 

[Cutlass]

It also continues the distressing trend of non-Americans playing Americans, something apparently only I ever get mad about. Whatever.

I'm not sure about her ability to act or pull off a convincing American accent, but we'll see.

Americans play non-Americans all the time. So turnabout is fair play. And most of them do fine at American accents. With a proper voice coach a competent actor can do it. Looks like she's been playing Americans for a while. So should be no problem.


______________________
Browsing the library earlier I saw this: Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt

https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Kravens-J-M-DeMatteis/dp/0785134506

Which is a novelazation of a graphic novel story arc. So far not that well written, I feel.

 

[Dachs]

I don't mind non-Americans playing Americans. 99% of the time, I can hardly tell the difference. Once in a blue moon, an actor's accent will slip - Archie Panjabi in The Good Wife; Katie McGrath in Supergirl - but I wouldn't want to see American television without all those Australians, Brits, Canadians, and Kiwis that I love.

Americans play non-Americans all the time. So turnabout is fair play. And most of them do fine at American accents. With a proper voice coach a competent actor can do it. Looks like she's been playing Americans for a while. So should be no problem.

I guess the American accent isn't what I'm really concerned with. Country of immigrants, and all that. I didn't start out here, after all, so there's no reason to expect anybody else to do it.

I'm more annoyed at Hollywood's deep and abiding love affair with the vast overpopulation of British thespians with posh accents. I particularly dislike the convention of using those people for fantasy and historical films. None of which has anything to do with Ruby Rose or Catwoman, so I'm sorry I brought it up.

 

[Cutlass]

I guess the American accent isn't what I'm really concerned with. Country of immigrants, and all that. I didn't start out here, after all, so there's no reason to expect anybody else to do it.

I'm more annoyed at Hollywood's deep and abiding love affair with the vast overpopulation of British thespians with posh accents. I particularly dislike the convention of using those people for fantasy and historical films. None of which has anything to do with Ruby Rose or Catwoman, so I'm sorry I brought it up.

It's better than using actors with American accents as Germans and actors with British accents as Russians in some Eastern Front movie. :shrug:

Hollyweird casting has always had strange choices that I just don't understand. But some of them are so common as to be effectively tropes. Like casting short people to play teenagers. And then what happens when they don't grow taller, and don't look adult later on?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I think Michael J. Fox still plays teenagers today.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Just read a brief and nebulously sourced "scoop" that DC is considering a Supergirl movie. It appears that just like they did with the Flash in Justice League, they intend to discard everything that has made the CW TV series a success in an apparent effort to continue their streak of disappointing film adaptations.

 

[Plotinus]

I'm more annoyed at Hollywood's deep and abiding love affair with the vast overpopulation of British thespians with posh accents. I particularly dislike the convention of using those people for fantasy and historical films.

Right, because Gandalf ought to sound like he's from the Bronx, right?

 

[Dachs]

Right, because Gandalf ought to sound like he's from the Bronx, right?

I think that casting Gandalf as a crotchety old Bronx Jew would've been inspired.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Just read a brief and nebulously sourced "scoop" that DC is considering a Supergirl movie. It appears that just like they did with the Flash in Justice League, they intend to discard everything that has made the CW TV series a success in an apparent effort to continue their streak of disappointing film adaptations.

Yeah, I don't know what they're doing, either. Melissa Benoist is perfect as Kara, and unlike some television actors, I can actually imagine her carrying a movie. otoh, I think I also hate the overall aesthetic that's been established for the DC movies, as begun by Zack Snyder; the color palette, the overuse of CGI, slo-mo, etc. Petty Jenkins made it less aggravating, but I enjoyed Wonder Woman in spite of that stuff, not because of it (same with Black Panther and Doctor Strange, lest any DC partisans think I'm just a Marvel guy). They might be doing me a favor by divorcing a Supergirl film from the show, and I could just skip it.

Right, because Gandalf ought to sound like he's from the Bronx, right?

I think that casting Gandalf as a crotchety old Bronx Jew would've been inspired.

"You shall not pass!!" becomes "You ain't gonna get by me, I'll tell you what!"

 

[Cutlass]

I think that casting Gandalf as a crotchety old Bronx Jew would've been inspired.

Careful. You'll get either Seinfeld or Woody Allen.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So I watched Logan over the weekend. I quite liked it. I had read and/or heard a few reviews when it came out, trying to decide if I wanted to see it (I never saw The Wolverine; X-Men Origins: Wolverine was pretty forgettable). To my memory, the reviews all described it as a super-violent neo-Western with an unusual story about caring for an elderly parent. All true, and all very well done, I thought. The violence really is nasty, but with one exception, I thought it found a good balance between queasy and thrilling.

Spoiler :

I thought the deaths of the family of farmers who took Logan, Laura and Charles in for the night wasn't saddening enough. Maybe I was just numb by that point.

I don't think many people I know have seen Logan, but the one thing I don't remember anyone ever mentioning in any of the reviews is maybe something that only a long-time fan of The X-Men would get:

Spoiler :

It was an incredibly bleak ending to the whole X-men story - not just the movies, even, the comics, too. The X-men were always a parable about diversity, racism, the plight of the misunderstood minority, individuals finding acceptance in a group of misfits. In the end, it's all dust. And no single supervillain won; the mutants were just ground down over time, wiped out and washed away by the society they tried to save. Magneto was right all along. A brief news story in the movie even notes that Charles Xavier himself killed some of the X-Men with his first "psychic seizure." Prof. X, the central figure in that dream of and struggle for a better world - a character who has been called a comic-book version of Martin Luther King, Jr., although I don't know if Stan Lee ever said so - ends up in an unmarked grave somewhere in the woods of North America, and it's unclear whether there's anyone left to even notice that he's gone. And at the end of the movie, we never learn whether "Eden" is real or Logan is right and it was all just a story in a comic-book.

Other bits from the weekend's web-surfing:

• Birds of Prey wants to cast a biracial singer as a "world weary" Black Canary.
  
• Filming of The Punisher season 2 has wrapped.
• The nerdosphere is alight with rumors that Wilson Bethel - credited as "FBI Agent" in season 3 of Daredevil - is in fact playing a certain assassin who never misses. I've never heard of him before.
• The showrunner for Iron Fist was thisclose to introducing Mark Spectre and/or Moon Knight in season 2, but that was cut from early drafts of the script.

 

[Cutlass]

 

[EgonSpengler]

I listened to an interview with Hayley Atwell last weekend, and she mentioned that one of her theater classes had a lot of improv and weird, "interpretive" exercises, and she thought that helped prepare her for roles that used a lot of green-screen and CGI. Using an invisible prop, interacting with an imaginary environment or character, or performing an impossible action (e.g. flying) on a stage. I saw a stage production of Peter Pan when I was a little kid, and the flying and sword-fighting was totally plausible. They saved the wire rig for the flying until late, so when the actress (Peter Pan was played by a woman) actually went soaring out over the audience, it was a big applause moment. I also saw a Superman stage-play many years ago, and I actually can't remember how they did the flying and super-strength and so on. It was a college production, so there was no wire-work or expensive effects, so it was entirely in how the actors could "sell" it. I was an adult when I saw that, but I don't remember thinking that I didn't buy it (obviously, you'd be a doofus to go see Superman without the right attitude). I saw Dracula onstage once, outdoors and at night, and the bats flying conveniently overhead were real.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I saw Dracula onstage once, outdoors and at night, and the bats flying conveniently overhead were real.

But were they paid union scale?

 

[EgonSpengler]

But were they paid union scale?

They got all the bugs they could eat.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Random superhero bits from around the nerdosphere:

• The annual Berlantiverse crossover mini-series on The CW will introduce not only Batwoman, but also Lois Lane. God, they better get that casting right. I've been really disappointed with every Lois since Teri Hatcher. My dream casting for a CW-Lois: Sarah Shahi.
  
• Coming to streaming services in September: Unbreakable on Hulu and Black Panther on Netflix, both of which I'd like to see again. I recently heard a film reviewer make the case for Unbreakable as one of the Top-5 superhero movies. I wasn't totally convinced, but I haven't seen it since before the current epoch began in 2008 with The Dark Knight and Iron Man.
  
• I missed it yesterday, but August 21st was the 20th anniversary of the release of Blade.

Speaking of Lois Lane, have you looked at pictures of a young Noel Neil? The resemblance to Krysten Ritter is kinda freaking me out.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Reading reactions to Ethan Hawke's comments about superhero movies taking over the industry, I was directed to a blog post by Matt Zoller Seitz from 2014: "Things crashing into other things: Or, my superhero movie problem." I wonder if Zoller Seitz's view of the genre has changed at all since then. He had just reviewed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a few days before writing the blog post. I haven't seen that one, but I've heard it's not really the good version of a superhero movie, from people who mostly like superhero movies. This was a few months before Guardians of the Galaxy, before Jessica Jones and Daredevil and Cloak & Dagger, before Taika Waititi, Noah Hawley and James Mangold.

I basically agree with Hawke - or at least I don't disagree - but I wonder what Zoller Seitz thinks of superhero stories, only 4 years later.

 

[Cutlass]

What did Hawke say?