Jokershorts — Pop culture round-up for 18 August 2017
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What’s caught the blog with long-reads, cartoons and a smirk’s eye over the past half-month?
This Jokershorts: Marvel’s missing family, us missing The Leftovers, James Bond can’t stop returning, auteurs are split over Netflix, Sony eyes a spidey-opportunity, comics fight Nazis, Jim Carrey paints, The Exorcist hits the stage, Munsters meet Hannibal, Millarworld’s prized, Gremlins bounce back, Game of Thrones loses it and Red Dwarf XII gets wordy…
Trailers of the Moment!
The Death of Stalin: We’ll kick off with the trailers this time, a wonderfully mixed bag. First off…
Aha — Veep’s loss was Stalinist Russia’s… Loss.
Batman vs Two-Face: The final Adam West role is almost upon us. West vs Shatner, we’re lucky to have it. So pleased his 60s Batman went out on a renewed, legend-assured high.
Jigsaw: It’s good to have Saw back. This time in prequel guise. But can it set the same, annual fill of avenging horror that the first seven films managed? Total franchise haul so far: $873m — it was always a shame to miss out on that billion…
Jokershorts
Hiss On: Stop everything. James Bond returns. And “We take joint responsibility and apologise for SPECTRE” isn’t the worst name for a Bond film…
Old webs: Everyone can rest easy, knowing that the latest Spiderman reboot was not just a success, but stronger than the last. So, typically, there’s renewed interest in looking at the what ifs:
Silver and Black: And the web thickens. With the property partnership proven, Sony are inevitably reassured enough to break out once again. It all points to the greatest summer of super-congestion cinema’s ever seen.
The Jess Men: And talking of those other Marvel rights holders. Fox have even dispensed with announcing major casting coups…
End program: And such regrets are contagious.
Spiderman and Enterprise aren’t the only pop culture icons to have hindsight thrust upon them. In that lean spell between Star Wars films, the prequel trilogy’s woulda shouldas —
Splicing the past: From regret and grabbed chances to second chances. Stanley may have his return to the Island of Doctor Moreau. Just keep the actors’ heads out of boxes…
Good Omens: Oh they really are. BBC Radio’s 2015 adaptation was brilliant, but on the back of American Gods’ success, Auntie and Amazon eye a further dimension.
Close Projection: They’re coming back. Probably without these crib notes…
X-Files babies: Remember the Godzilla, Toxic Avengers and Beetlejuice cartoons. Yeah… Then, there was…
From Fullerverse to fava beans: Been lamenting the fall of Mockingbird Lane lately, but always have to remember that there quite possibly wouldn’t have been the excellent Hannibal. And guess who’s looking likely to return. Seldom have such series had gold dust still in the bag… Hanny’s coming back… WE HOPE.
And sadly enough, NBC can’t keep a monstrous family down. Sometimes they come back. Again.
Winter worsens: There was the sense of a step change, and not necessarily a great one, with a mission of supernatural kidnap… But has GoT toppled off the rails in the space of a week? No.
Mr Mercedes: IT, The Dark Tower and Trump replies are grabbing the attention, but there’s hidden King to keep an eye on.
Counter-strike: Think YouTube film responses are a brand of witty, amateur public service? Jordan Vogt Roberts gets on it.
Absolutely will not stop… Directors have been flexing their larynxes this past fortnight. Cameron Speaks. Netflix gets it.
Coen then: Other auteurs snap it up. Netflix, eh?
RAWK! Like you don’t exist
Not just the Invisible Girl: We’re in the Marvel zone. Andjust look at that milk carotn. Four still missing. is anyone out there looking? Missing, huh? Ain’t that the truth.
Because frankly, the whole sordid Family affair is utterly unbelievable…
After the Inhumans: We’re closer to SHIELD than we thought. The emphasis on In humans is still uncomfortable.
Missing Peggy: To the point of holding back Agent Carter. Sadly, her series never did quite enough.
Malevolent Men: All we are saying, is give men a chance…
Wicked Women: Although, the counter is the rise of awful bloody women in GoT…
How to set out your stall. It’s becoming easier to forget that the role of a showrunner, would you believe, isn’t just about pounding out a killer show to the best of their abilities. Still, the UK’s truest and foremost ‘SR’ Jed (Line of Duty) Mecurio turned in an astoundingly composed Desert Island Discs the other month, of course, but the likes of Bryan Fuller and Russell T Davies — who can translate their plans to press excitement and fan adoration — are few and far between as soap producers seem to be falling on retractable swords all over the place. And that’s why this brilliant interview with the exec of one of UK TV’s most consistent programmes is such a treat.
Last laugh: Meanwhile on the Beeb, Arthur Strong’s extended career has been cut short… what a wonderful fan base for one of the Corporation’s current comedy highlights.
Little news from far, far away: Word from the R. Man on the left there — is there a higher pressure job than this middle film?
Well, maybe penning the third part of this 80’s classic franchise…
Comic agenda: An article from less than a week ago that’s scarily become more relevant with every passing day.
Under the Mask: An insight into Jim Carrey’s art
King Ralph: And guess who’s back?
Super bricks: Batman Lego wins… Just
Cable up. Tragic news broke from the Deadpool set in the past week, just after the Ryan Reynolds big reveal — on Twitter of course — of his big , bad friend. Four picture deal for Brolin’s Cable you may note. All the best to this production.
Gorilla marketing: On the small screen, DC’s making Grodd Legendary
Jenning up: Unexpected backlash still spilling out of The Passengers.
Raising Hats: Halloween news so exciting we quickly snapped up some tickets, before realising exactly what we’d done.
Netflix goes four-colour: The rare merger of the tech and the pop it is — this is epic news. Millar was already huge, but he’s now he must be confirmed as the most important active comic creator on the planet. Crikey. Really, crikey.
Super-super group: The course to mega rock never did run smooth.
Furiously real: Move over The Grand Tour…
Urban peacekeeping: Dredd. Could be on.
Word up: let’s end with the Boys from the Dwarf and the art of a puzzling reveal… All the new Series XII’s episode titles are in there somewhere. And no, I doubt Boc counts…
RIP
Haruo Nakajima: The original Godzilla, donning the suit in 1954 to spawn a franchise that would span 31 films… so far. If your only exposure to Godzilla is the Arrested Development skit, now’s the time to get on board. See more on his legacy below.
Victor Pemberton: Proclaimed the inventor of the ubiquitous sonic screwdriver in the obituaries last week, but who can forget: father of the Pescatons, troupe member of the Moonbase, script editor of Tomb of the Cybermen!. We can all hope that one day his great missing serial Fury of the Deep emerges from the depths.
Been Watching
Shin Godzilla: Or Godzilla Resurgence as we in the West are told. And resurgent it is. Bursting onto screens for one night only, and a year since release in its home country, it’s a treat. The first reboot in founding studio Toho’s mega-kaiju franchise, there’s none of the American virus of shared-universe cramming here. Mostly a ridiculously compelling In the Loop/Veep study in bureaucracy, dripping in references to recent Japanese crises, it’s low on the titular lizard for some time. But when it arrives, the nods are as fast and furious as the sub-titles, from Studio Ghibli to classic and some stomping special effects.
Aptly named — the ‘god incarnate’ of analogy is resurgent with it. And like many of the most timely and telling comments on our times, from the perils of government, nuclear conflict for and stomping mega-monsters (just that crucial few feet taller than the 2014 American version…) manages to be utterly relevant and made before everything really kicked off. More to come on the king of kaiju on Jokerside shortly. As characters say more than once: “This new Godzilla surpasses all my expectations.
Dunkirk: Wow. Just wow. Visceral, compelling. Not Nolan’s best film as far as we’re concerned, but possibly his finest achievement so far. Another viewing will convince us about the temporal tricks of the film, on first pass it seemed unnecessarily tricksy. Although crucially it threw up some of the tiniest details of pure and black comedy. It was hell, from the invisible enemy to the constant failures, it’s meant to be confusing and disarming. Bravo for making it, everyone involved. We’ll see you at the Oscars.
Which reminds us of this treat. We’ve never thought Nolan the most visual director, despite the quality of his cinematographers, but really there’s some astonishing gold in the midst of a consummate all-round helmer.
The Leftovers: We are now post-The Leftovers. And that is painful to admit. What a series, increasingly praised throughout its years (although two’s still our favourite) and rightfully started to be talked about a s masterpiece in the golden age. What is there to say? You must all watch it, all of you. for the first time or again. From the parables to the black comedy to the masterful way Justin Theroux found to say, “what?” Sublime, all of it. Up to and including that willfully beautiful finale of closure and enigma. Utterly, utterly sublime. Even Christopher Eccleston’s accent.
Been visiting
The Doctor Who Experience: A final trip to Cardiff for the last month of the show’s permanent exhibition. A crazy move? As fun as it was, there’s something wonderfully BBC about it all. The concept, not as strong in the Capaldi run as the former Smith Experience, a little tattered around the edges, the staff just a little haggard. It should be soaring and it’s not quite there. Much like the show itself, 12 years on from its glorious resurgence. As Steven Moffat always propounds, a little too much, it’s a show about change. And time for change it is.
Been Reading
Neil Gaiman’s Eternals: A reach into the past and near-past with Neil Gaiman’s take on the late, great Jack Kirby’s cosmically out there Eternals. Beautifully illustrated by the ever-brilliant John Romita Jr, dipping in quality narrative it’s a bold reawakening of Marvel’s occasionally fallow franchise. But in a title based on confusion, something stuck out in light of this year’s San Diego Comic Con. Published a decade ago, the implications of Civil War aren’t too over-stated but where they appear, in spite of some interesting conundrums it throws up for these immortals, they date badly. It was notable in Jim Lee and co’s speech at this year’s SDCC panel that he mentioned Neil Gaiman’s name when talking about creators and the need for evergreen storytelling. As fascinating as these Eternals are, that’s exactly what this tale should have been, but didn’t emerge.
That’s been our rolling half month… Fill the gap until your next fix with just about 200 long-reads, cartoons and features running the gamut of Pop-Culture at Jokerside.com. See you in two! :)
