Posted by Bob Muir on Feb 18, 2015 in
Television 
Last June, PlayStation announced their plans to enter the non-TV TV market occupied by companies like Netflix (House of Cards) and Amazon (Transparent). Their first offering is Powers, an adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis’s superhero procedural comic. The ten episode series is produced by Sony Pictures, which previously did Breaking Bad. Of course, since this is a new market for Sony, it’s not a bad idea that they finally put out this behind the scenes overview of the series before its March 10 premiere. Three episodes will go up on the PlayStation Store, with a new episode following each Tuesday. Powers has caught my interest, so I might as well check it out with my PlayStation Plus account. Read more…
Tags: Powers, PS3, PS4, Sony, Superheroes
Posted by Ben Huber on Oct 19, 2014 in
Cinema 
Most folks know Maisie Williams as Arya in Game of Thrones, but she’s been starting to expand and do more roles. She recently did an interview with Flicks in the City, talking about several projects. One is the long-gestating The Last of Us movie, which has essentially offered up the role of Ellie to Williams freely. Sadly, nothing is set in stone yet, she says. She goes on to talk about a personal project, a superhero series with her in the lead role. It sounds very far off, but she sounds passionate about it: “It was kind of inspired just from walking around Comic-Con and seeing so many woman dressed as all these sexualized female superheroes and just thinking if I was a superhero, I would just want to wear a hoodie and jeans, and taking that and making it into a superhero that isn’t wearing spandex and isn’t a sexy Catwoman or that sort of thing.” Read more…
Tags: Maisie Williams, Superheroes
Posted by Bob Muir on Jul 9, 2014 in
Cinema 
Technically, Scarlett Johansson looks deadly without a gun, but in this clip from Luc Besson’s Lucy, she’s using a gun to escape captivity. What follows is some very efficient shooting, probably because she’s using more than 10% of her brain. (You know, that old pseudo-scientific concept that’s been disproven over and over again, but whatever.) It looks like what I imagine the auto-lock slow-motion feature in some videogame shooters looks like, where time slows and you pick several targets to shoot instantly with no need for aiming. Will she be this cool the rest of the movie? I liked Leon: The Professional, but I disliked The Fifth Element, so I’m not sure about how much I should get excited for Lucy. Read more…
Tags: Science Fiction, Superheroes
Posted by Bob Muir on Apr 3, 2014 in
Cinema 
After playing Black Widow several times in Marvel’s films, it seems like Scarlett Johansson wants to continue being an action star. She’s starring as Lucy in Lucy, a new sci-fi superhero movie that’s directed, written, and produced by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element). After bad guys put drugs inside of her, intending for her to smuggle them, the drugs leak into her system, giving her superpowers. (That’s how drugs work, right?) Morgan Freeman is also there, which is fine by me, because I could listen to that guy’s voice forever. Anyway, check out this trailer for what could be a really fun movie when it releases on August 8, 2014. Read more…
Tags: Science Fiction, Superheroes
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 14, 2013 in
Cinema,
Comic Books 
Well this is a pleasant surprise, kind of just like the first film. MTV premiered a trailer for Kick-Ass 2, the sequel to 2010’s adaptation of Mark Miller’s comic. And it’s looking pretty nice! Everyone seems spirited, and Jim Carrey’s inclusion doesn’t seem too forced. My only concern is that it is directed by some no-name instead of the talented Matthew Vaughn, who is only producing this time around. Still, it may turn out good. Check out the trailer below, but be warned it’s a red band trailer full of naughty words that are potentially NSFW. Read more…
Tags: kick-ass 2, Superheroes
Posted by Bob Muir on Dec 12, 2012 in
Cinema,
Comic Books 
I admit, I’m not the biggest Superman fan. The character is often just too powerful, removing tension and making everything around him dull, and when combined with his unwavering good nature, I find it hard to care about any of his problems. Why worry when you can throw any problem into the sun? If Superman’s personality is altered or presented in a different light (Red Son), then I can find enough interest to stick around. Fortunately, that seems to be what’s going on in this full trailer of Man of Steel. Read more…
Tags: DC Comics, Superheroes, Superman, Warner Brothers
Posted by Bob Muir on Oct 12, 2012 in
Anime,
Cinema 
Though mainstream audiences may know the series as Battle of the Planets or G-Force, depending on how old they were when it was on the air, to old-school anime fans it has always been Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, or just Gatchaman. The adventures of the five-member team was widely popular the world over and spawned an additional OVA, as well as laying the foundation for franchises like Super Sentai, which was eventually adapted into Power Rangers for America. A movie had been planned by Imagi, but the company cancelled it in 2011. Now, there’s a new film project, coming this time from Japanese producer Nikkatsu. Read more…
Tags: Superheroes
Posted by Bob Muir on Oct 4, 2012 in
Comic Books,
Television 
Superheroes are big business in entertainment, even more so after the spectacular success of The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises this year. It’s not that surprising that we’d see a comic book character adapted into a TV series, which is what the CW is doing with Arrow, a live-action take of Green Arrow. But just as comics are becoming more accepted in the mainstream, Arrow seems to be doing its best to distance itself from its origins, as shown in this three-minute featurette. Read more…
Tags: DC Comics, Superheroes
Posted by Bob Muir on Sep 6, 2012 in
Anime,
Cinema 
April 2011 saw the release of Tiger & Bunny, an anime about two superheroes competing to be better than other superheroes on a corporate-sponsored reality TV program. It was a sleeper hit, leading to two compilation movies being produced based on existing animation, with new animation added in to smooth over the cut content. The first of those movies, Gekijo-ban Tiger & Bunny -The Beginning-, is premiering this month, not only in Japan, but also in America. Read more…
Tags: Anime, Superheroes
Posted by Michael Sacco on Nov 26, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Fabian Glez created these 77 rectangles, each of them representing a superhero with a bare minimum of detail. How many of them can you identify? If you can’t figure them all out, Fabian has a cheat sheet on his Flickr page. Prints of the work are available if you’d like to make your wall minimally super. Read more…
Tags: Minimalism, Superheroes
Posted by Michael Sacco on Nov 8, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Talk about seeing superheroes from a different angle! Or several of them, really. Mike and Matt of Wonder Bros. created these Cubist paintings of several superheroes, and they’re available as prints from their Etsy shop. Personally, I love these kinds of reinterpretations, though other people get so used to seeing superheroes presented in the same ways over and over that they tend to freak out when they’re not rendered “accurately,” and it’s hard to get more inaccurate than Cubism. Read more…
Tags: Cubism, Superheroes
