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Max Schindler

2930 Posts
20 May

Spider-Noir Final Trailer Puts a New Twist on an Enduring Spider-Man Question

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Even if you’ve never read a Spider-Man comic, you probably know the eighth page of Amazing Spider-Man #50. That splash page features a trash can in the foreground with the Spider-Man costume stuffed on top. In the background, Peter Parker sulks away in his civilian clothes. The page, recreated in all manner of media, including 2004’s Spider-Man 2, pays off the promise of the story’s title: “Spider-Man, no more!” The new series Spider-Noir takes place in a different universe than that of Amazing Spider-Man #50, a 1930s New York populated by gangsters and super-people. And instead of Peter Parker, the…
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19 May

14 Movie Sequels That Were Way Better Than Anyone Expected

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Movie sequels usually have lower expectations, because audiences have seen too many rushed, unnecessary, or feeble attempts to match an original. Every once in a while however, a sequel surprises everyone by improving the story, expanding the characters, or becoming far more entertaining than expected. Instead of feeling like cash grabs, these sequels earned genuine praise from audiences and critics alike. In several cases, they even became more beloved than the original movies that introduced the franchise. IMDb Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) The sequel unexpectedly turned into a tense political thriller rather than another routine superhero movie. IMDb…
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19 May

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu Review: This Is Not the Way

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
I don’t know how much screen time in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is actually Pedro Pascal in the shiny chromatic suit, but I hope not much for a couple of reasons. First of all, Brendan Wayne is credited as the “Mandalorian Suit Performer” right under Pascal in the final ending credits scroll, which means Wayne deserves his fair due. But secondly, and in spite of how spiffy that costume looks (and it’s real spiffy!), there’s little here of the enigmatic presence and physicality that Pascal brings to so many other roles, be it the lasciviously limber Red Viper…
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19 May

Keanu Reeves Is Voicing a Samurai Because Of Course He Is

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Keanu Reeves has done a lot of things over the course of his career. He’s been an action hero, a bullet-dodging computer hacker, an air-headed high schooler, and (arguably most importantly) he’s been his sweet self.  Now, the actor is set to voice the main character in the ambitious stop-motion epic, Hidari, announced yesterday at the Cannes Film Market. If Reeves’ track record with animation is anything to go by, he probably didn’t need much convincing.  The action-packed feature comes from the mind of Masashi Kawamura who was inspired by real accounts of the life of the legendary Edo era…
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19 May

Her Private Hell: Drive Director Goes Greek Myth Noir in Trippy Trailer

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
This summer, an idiosyncratic filmmaker from overseas who got his start make unique crime movies releases his latest movie, an adaptation of a classic Greek myth. No, I’m not talking about The Odyssey. I’m referring to Her Private Hell, the latest from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. The first trailer for Her Private Hell lacks anything you’d expect from a Greek myth: no gods wearing laurels, no heroes in togas, not a single transformation from human to animal. Instead, it looks a lot like Refn’s other Hollywood films, all attractive young people, glowing lights, and strange music. Yet, the voiceover…
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19 May

Mob Psycho 100 Fans Are Convinced the Reigen OVA Is Coming

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Ten years ago, one of Studio Bones’ crown jewels, battle shōnen anime Mob Psycho 100, premiered. And to mark the milestone, a wave of anniversary projects have been announced for fans who have stuck around since the beginning.  Mob Psycho 100 is based on the manga by ONE, who is also known for One-Punch Man. The series follows middle schooler Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed Mob, who possesses extraordinary psychic abilities but has a complicated relationship with them; when his emotions hit ‘100’ his powers erupt. As Mob navigates general teen angst, a lack of social skills, and working his daily job…
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19 May

Lanterns Trailer Cements Kyle Chandler As the Perfect Green Lantern

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
To be a member of the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, you must be without fear. Green Lantern fans, however, have been quite a bit more fearful, especially with most of the marketing of the HBO series Lanterns. Many of the promos and interviews leading into the show have been strangely reluctant to embrace the franchise’s sci-fi roots, describing the show as a grounded mystery in the vein of True Detective and even stripping the color green from the series’ title and marketing. The latest trailer for Lanterns tries to correct course, giving us glimpses of…
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19 May

Don’t Expect Any Gen V Resolution in The Boys Finale

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Last month, we heard that Prime Video would not be moving forward with a third season of Gen V, which naturally upset those who had been following the show’s story alongside The Boys on the streamer. Now, we’re hearing more thoughts about Gen V’s cancellation from The Boys creator Eric Kripke, who seems as sad about the spinoff’s demise as its fans. Saying he’s “bummed” about it, Kripke also warned Gen V fans that The Boys finale won’t be wrapping up the spinoff’s story this week, but will instead find the Godolkin kids going off to have “more adventures”. “I’m…
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16 May

Devil May Cry Season 2 Review: DMC Takes Daddy Issues to Extreme Power Levels

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Fan-favorite gunslinging “Jackpot-”saying half-demon mercenary Dante Sparda is back for season 2 of Netflix’s Devil May Cry, joined by his equally powerful, more stoic and demonically-leaning twin brother. Dante (Johnny Yong) returns to TV with a renewed purpose: to defeat the king of the demons, Mundus (Ray Chase), and get his brother, Vergil Sparda (Robbie Daymond), back on the right side. However, Vergil is not the same little boy that Dante believed had died in the attack that killed their mother. Instead, he is now one of Mundus’ top soldiers.  In the ending of season 1, Dante was betrayed by…
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16 May

The 5 Most Unusual (But Realistic) Choices to Play James Bond

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
The hunt for James Bond is on. Even though it has been years since Daniel Craig ended his run with a bang in No Time to Die, a year since Amazon bought the rights from Eon Productions, and months since Denis Villeneuve was announced as the next director, apparently the search for the next 007 has just now begun in earnest. Amazon MGM has named Nina Gold as the casting director. In a statement released through Variety, the studio said, “While we don’t plan to comment on specific details during the casting process, we’re excited to share more news with…
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16 May

Star Wars Has Forgotten Its True Villains: The Company Men

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
At the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, after all of the heroes have perished on their mission, Darth Vader arrives to absolutely wreck a bunch of rebels. The 60-second sequence shows Vader slashing dudes with his lightsaber, crushing enemies with the Force, and deflecting every laser blast. Yet, even within that bravura moment, Darth Vader will never be as frightening as Admiral Motti, the little snot played by Richard LeParmentier in the first Star Wars. Even if you don’t know Motti’s name, you certainly know one of his lines: “This station is now the ultimate power in…
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16 May

Rivals Stars on Rupert and Taggie’s “Emotional Edging” in Season 2 

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
The following contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Rivals season 2. Rivals is back for a second season, and it’s bigger, bolder, and more complicated than ever before. But while the show has garnered plenty of buzz for its copious amounts of sex, hedonistic attitude, and gleeful depiction of some of the worst excesses of life among the British elite in the 1980s, at its heart, Rivals is a romance. From Declan (Aidan Turner) and Maud O’Hara’s (Victoria Smurfit) fractious marriage to the sweet but definitely forbidden attraction between Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson) and Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer)…
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15 May

Alien: Isolation 2 Might Be Losing the Original Game’s Best Feature 

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
The blaring sirens of a space station’s decontamination room are set to hit gaming consoles once again with the sequel to Creative Assembly’s survival horror game Alien: Isolation.  In the teaser for the sequel, a 25-second clip titled A False Sense of Security, we are introduced to the familiar intense atmosphere of a deserted ship, only for the door to open to a desolate planet, then the image of a payphone reading “Emergency,” introducing the idea of a storyline taking place on the surface of a planet, a drastically different scenario than the first game.  Released in 2014, Alien: Isolation…
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15 May

Nicolas Cage and Spider-Noir Team Talk Hard-Boiled Inspirations for Spider-Man Series

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Spider-Noir is a strange mix of the familiar and the strange. On one hand, you have a web-spinner doing battle against classic villains like Sandman and Tombstone. On the other, the hero here is Ben Reilly a.k.a. the Spider, a superhero who turned private investigator after a tragedy took away the love of his life. And that doesn’t even get into how the series nods to classic film noirs, starting with Humphrey Bogart staples The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. For star Nicolas Cage, Bogart is the best guide to mixing hard-boiled detective fiction with spectacular superhero adventures. “The…
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15 May

Netflix’s East of Eden Trailer Gives One of Literature’s Cruelest Women an Antihero Rewrite 

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel East of Eden is being adapted yet again to question if identity truly is based on what you choose. Now Netflix has released a trailer for the upcoming limited series starring Florence Pugh that makes clear it’s choosing a new narration of the original story.  The novel follows the lives of the Trask and Hamilton families across a multigenerational, interconnected saga about good, evil, greed, violence, and neglect. The story, which takes place between the American Civil War and the end of World War I, begins with Adam Trask and his half-brother Charles Trask, whose father’s…
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15 May

Lanterns May Be Reviving a Controversial Origin Story

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Like any superhero concept that’s existed for more than 80 years, Green Lantern has undergone some significant changes. Most notably, the Green Lantern introduced in 1940 had a magical ring vulnerable to wood, while today’s Green Lanterns are sci-fi superhero space cops with power rings. Furthermore, some beats in the Green Lantern story have aged poorly, and get retconned or ignored over time. One would expect Chris Mundy, creator of the HBO series Lanterns to make liberal use of retconning, choosing not to adapt the time that Green Lantern Hal Jordan repeatedly used a racial slur to refer to his…
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15 May

Doctor Who’s New Streaming Home Raises Fresh Questions About the Franchise’s Future

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Doctor Who has a new streaming home, but not quite in the way that fans were likely expecting. AMC+ has acquired the streaming rights to the popular sci-fi series, and most of the show’s “reboot” era—over 150 episodes from 2005 to 2022—will be available on the streamer from June 11. But his news will likely have surprisingly little impact (at least for the moment) on the franchise’s larger future, a fact that is sure to frustrate those still desperate for any crumb of news about what’s next for the beloved time-traveling space adventure. The deal covers the bulk of Doctor…
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15 May

My Adventures with Superman Season 3 Trailer Settles a Sartorial Debate

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
The past few years have been strange for Superman fans. On the big screen, you had David Corenswet famously convincing James Gunn to put the Man of Tomorrow’s underwear on the outside for 2024’s Superman. On the small screen, the second season of My Adventures with Superman gave Kal-El new duds with undies on the inside. The depictions once again got fans arguing about the Man of Steel’s best look. Yet, just when things looked bleak for Team Visible Underwear, the trailer for season 3 of My Adventures with Superman has arrived, as if on a quest for peace. In…
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14 May

Can Ahsoka Season 2 Solve Star Wars Live-Action TV Woes?

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
Ahsoka Tano is finally slated to return to Disney+ subscribers’ screens in early 2027. But now that Ahsoka season 2 has a general release time period, the future of live-action Star Wars television is starting to take shape — and it might all hang on the Togruta jedi. From Ahsoka season 1’s premiere in August 2023 to now, live-action projects made for Disney+ are in a significantly different environment. When new episodes of Ahsoka were dropping weekly, The Mandalorian was still a show and not a movie, the last episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi had released just a year before, and…
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14 May

The Invincible Character That Deserves the Next Battle Beast Comic Treatment

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
The long-awaited (and long-teased) fight between Battle Beast and Conquest is finally hitting shelves June 17 in Invincible Universe: Battle Beast Issue #10. Readers will finally learn how Battle Beast ends up in the Viltrumite prison Allen releases him from, all while enjoying the carnage-filled brawl between two of the strongest characters in Invincible. Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley’s Battle Beast comic spinoff follows the titular galaxy-hopping warrior as he pursues his ultimate goal: death in glorious combat against a superior opponent. Since the end of the original Invincible comic run, and with reignited fervor spurred on by the Prime…
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