NOT OT: My Favorite Comic Book Movies PART THREE
(Well this third part is actually more OT...but I ran out of space on PART TWO.)
Its actually starting to feel like "the old days" of movie releases pre-COVID . The last REAL "summer movie season" was in the summer of 2019. 2020(especially), 2021 and 2022 really didn't have all that many releases to keep the whole summer going, though Top Gun 2 performed great for the entire summer of 2022 and rather propped the whole summer up.
Well, they are starting to announce a fairly good crop of summer 2023 releases and it almost feels like old times. Not necessarily NEW old times -- its the "same old same old" in terms of franchises:
ONE: Another Fast and Furious (I remember seeing the itty bitty little original -- a true B movie about car thieves -- way back in 2001 on a trip to Palm Springs. It felt like nothing -- and now look where it is. I remember the ticket taker was a little old man who tore the tickets and said: "Be careful, there are gangsters in the theater -- I was on edge but he meant IN THE MOVIE. No wait, that was for Sexy Beast, which I saw at the same theater the next night. Actually I think he said it for both movies; sweet lil' ol' man.);
TWO: Another Guardians of the Galaxy. The first one is on my list of Marvel movies I enjoyed -- Vin Diesel from Fast and Furious and Bradley Cooper were fine VOICE talents and Chris Pratt is an amiable star.. I saw the second one with some older men friends who HATED the opening scene for all its CGI overkill; we stuck around to see our old favorite Kurt Russell (at first "de-aged") but even he and Sly Stallone couldn't save the overkill.
THREE: Another Indiana freakin' Jones. "...and the Dial of Destiny." Nice, simple title after that tongue-twister of 2009 (...Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."). 80-year old Harrison Ford seems to be pulling off the role with a stunt double and carefully lit shots -- plus they have clearly de-aged HIM in at least one scene. Noteable: Spielberg isn't directing this one, the first time for that. Noteable: the female sidekick is that witty Brit gal from Fleabag(a series which opens in the first scene with her wittily consenting to , er, deliveries in the rear from her boyfriend in bed -- we've never had THAT kind of woman in an Indy.) I do love how the movie is set in 1969...and the trailer is accompanied by the Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil." An Indiana Jones "period piece" from a year I LIVED.
And...
Another Batman, but with all kinds of twists:
Its not called Batman. Its Called "The Flash."
And Ben Affleck plays Batman but...wait...
Michael KEATON plays Batman, too. Ah ha, Another one of those time travel plots no doubt. Worked for Spiderman.
But I must admit, having watched the trailer for The Flash, that to see Michael freakin' KEATON playing Bruce Wayne(yes, he is incredibly fit at age 71) say "You wanna get nuts? Let's get NUTS!" -- a line from the 1989 movie that started it all -- created a great surge of powerful nostalgia in me. "Batman" 1989 remains my favorite of all comic book movies; Mr. Nicholson can no longer appear on screen, but Mr. Keaton CAN; and to hear Keaton saying that line...well, it was a great feeling and I guess I'll have to go to this.
As exciting as it is to see Keaton and hear that line in the trailer...its a bit demoralizing to see Keaton et al wrapped up in yet another "CGI overkill trailer" -- the practical effects, natural stunts, and Gothic matte paintings of Tim Burton's 1989 original are from a long, long time ago...and rather more like a "real movie" in effect and memory.
Warners/DC seems out to "swamp The Flash in Batman and Superman plots" because the young person playing The Flash "got nuts" on them last year. In some ways acceptable, in some ways not, the gossip columns were filled with it.
Enter Michael Keaton...and Ben Affleck...and a new Supergirl? And the estimable Michael Shannon playing General Zod(a Superman villain.) The idea seems to be to make a Flash movie that isn't about the Flash.
CONT