CW's "FLASH" Looks Like The Flash And Nothing Makes Sense Anymore

It's been so long since we've seen a visual or story-element "reveal" for a Warner Bros-backed DC Comics adaptation that was depressing, awful or just too headscratching to really contemplate that this headshot from the "ARROW" spinoff actually has me taken aback quite a bit:

I mean... if I wanted to I guess I could speculate as to why it's just the headpiece - does the rest of it look like crap? Will they not do the chest-insignia? - but for now... huh. Not bad. If WB was keeping some kind of functional connectivity between these TV projects and the movies I'd want to speculate about whether this is an indicator for the next bat-suit, but they aren't so for now... hey, cool. They got his head right.

Escape to The Movies: "SON OF GOD"

Holy crap.

ALSO: Oscar handicapping.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Son of God

"PERSECUTED" Trailer Isn't; But Probably Deserves To Be...

You'll hear from me in detail on "SON OF GOD" later today, but until then here's the new trailer for "PERSECUTED" - the Christianity versus (Modern) America B-movie starring a very, very tired-looking James Remar as a preacher that The Gub'mint is trying to frame and/or kill because he's resisting a bill that would require religious broadcasters to present all faith's points of view instead of their own singular but which is actually being pushed as a backdoor method of crushing Team Jesus in particular. The point of reference is likely the old FCC Fairness Doctrine rules for editorial-journalism, the repeal of which under the Reagan Administration cleared the way for the right-wing talk radio explosion in the mid-80s:




I'll admit a peculiar "fetish" for this particular brand of fundie paranoia, which also gave us "THE LAST EAGLE SCOUT." The basic spectacle of one of the largest, longest-lived and most powerful groups/movements in the history of the world play-acting at being genuinely "persecuted" because more and more of the world is moving on from being governed by their arcane "moral" dictums (arcane moral dictums which, incidentally, have been responsible for more actual persecution throughout history than almost any other force on the planet since its inception) is strangely compelling in a "conversation with a toddler and/or crazy-person" kind of way.

"GODZILLA" Has a Full Trailer, Still Not Much Godzilla

I am so nervous about this.



Godzilla should be easy. The basic appeal of Kaiju movies (disaster movies where the disaster itself gets to be a character with a "face," personality, personal narrative, etc) is so, well... basic it's maddening that so few (modern, Western) filmmakers try and so many of those who do keep fucking it up.

This is, to be clear, a really good scifi/disaster movie trailer. They're clearly anchoring the emotional center of the story to Bryan Cranston as an ordinary, utterly average human whose clearly being destroyed by having this unimaginably huge, horrible event falling down around him; which is the right way to go for this project but also a seriously smart move for Cranston, who really needs for his first huge post-"BREAKING BAD" stardom feature to highlight the range that he has beyond Walter White. I'm just sure I'm getting much in the way of a "genuine Godzilla vibe" out of this, which worries me because "genuine Godzilla" is such a broadly-defined thing to begin with.

I like the idea that this is a semi-sequel to the original (that's how all of Toho's reboots have worked so far: The first movie always happened, everything else is new) though I'm curious how they plan to make this "cover-up" angle work: This Godzilla seems to be the largest in size yet, and the ubiquity of cameras today makes the idea of "covering up" that whatever is going on is being caused by a giant dinosaur (climate-change denialist metaphor, I'm assuming?) could seriously strain credulity.

Above all else, I'm trying not to let how much I detested "MONSTERS" taint me on this. We'll see.

BIG PICTURE: "Who Are The 'Guardians of The Galaxy?'"

Who, indeed?

And hey, here's a "filler" column about a TV show with too much filler so far.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Who Are The Guardians of the Galaxy?