Matt D. Wilson
‘Arrow’ Season Three Recap, Episode 3: ‘Corto Maltese’
The CW’s superhero series Arrow re-imagines Green Arrow for a TV audience as a tough, often ruthless vigilante bent on setting things right in his home of Starling City by punishing the wicked. ComicsAlliance’s Matt Wilson is back for the third season of the popular series in our recap feature we’re officially dubbing Pointed Commentary.
This week: Team Arrow goes on a trip, Laurel deals with her seething rage and two different women get beaten up by men on screen. Oh, also, Ollie shoots a bunch of guys. Let's get started.
James Franco Recreates Banana Boat Scene From ‘Beetlejuice’ In Batman Costumes For Some Reason
Look, we all know James Franco is a weird guy. He has practically made a career out of being a weird guy. But it's still sort of astonishingly strange how the actor and director came together with a group of friends (at least, they seem to be friends) to mash up the famous dinner scene from Beetlejuice with Batman.
The video is part of Franco's "Making a Scene" series on Aol Originals, where Franco and pals spin a wheel twice, two movie titles come up, and they have to throw them together. They've all been quirky and funny, but this one is probably the oddest of the bunch.
Long-Planned ‘Y: The Last Man’ Movie Isn’t Happening
New Line Cinema's rights to the Vertigo series Y: The Last Man have officially lapsed, reverting back to creators Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, according to director Dan Trachtenberg.
The studio announced early last year that Trachtenberg -- who doesn't have any features to his credit, only a handful of short films, including a very well-received Portal film -- would helm the project. He and the studio only had a limited window of time to get a movie finished, and that time has come and gone.
‘Project Greenlight’ Short Film Illustrates The Argument Against Sexist Superheroine Costumes
Over the past few years, comics fans have been embroiled in a debate over the double standard that applies to superhero costumes. While men's costumes are increasingly depicted as totally functional, women's costumes remain what they've been for decades: skimpy, overtly sexualized, and all too often, anything but what would be practical for the purposes of patrolling the streets and fighting crime.
Filmmaker Luke Patton's short film "Sexy Superhero" faces that debate head-on and makes something really funny out of it.
Andrew Garfield Describes Studio Meddling Behind ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2′
The critical and popular consensus on this summer's Amazing Spider-Man 2 was that it was, to put it diplomatically, underwhelming.
As The Daily Beast's Marlow Stern put it, the movie felt overstuffed and "like a setup film for The Sinister Six spin-off." In fact, he put it that way directly to actor Andrew Garfield, who has played Peter Parker in the last two Spidey flicks. Garfield defended the movie to a point, but he also laid any blame for its failures solely on the studio behind it, Sony.
Trust Us: This Comedy Video About Batman’s Parents Not Really Being Dead Is Funny
I'm going to tell you this right up front: This Nerdist video that presents a what-if scenario about the Waynes faking their deaths instead of really being killed in Crime Alley will inspire a lot of quibbles. You'll want to quibble with it like crazy. I know I did. Fight that urge, because it is genuinely funny.
The Guinness-Certified World’s Largest Comic Collection Is 94,268 Issues Deep
After nearly two years of convincing Guinness' record judges that his comic book collection is, in fact, the world's largest, Mission Viejo, California man Bob Bretall was able to announce on his Facebook page that it's finally official: His comic book collection is on page 172 of the new Guinness Book of World Records.
Bretall's collection totals 94,268 issues, all of which are "unique" books, which presumably means there are no duplicates. The whole collection weighs a whopping 16,800 estimated pounds. That's more than eight tons of comics.
‘Creepy’ #18 Celebrates 50 Years Of The Macabre With All-Star Creators Lineup
About a decade after the formation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 effectively killed off EC Comics' popular line of horror comics, Warren Publishing aimed to bring back some of that malevolent magic. The result was the anthology series Creepy (and later, its sister book, Eerie). Published as a black-and-white magazine, the series didn't have to adhere to the Comics Code's strict content standards, and as such, was able to push the envelope in ways comics in the mid-1960s generally couldn't.
Now, the book's current publisher, Dark Horse, is celebrating the magazine's 50th anniversary with a big, blowout issue featuring work by Fred Van Lente, Corinna Bechko, Dustin Nguyen, Peter Bagge, Alison Sampson, and Art Baltazar, among others.
‘Arrow’ Casts Matthew Nable As The Latest White Man To Play Ra’s Al Ghul
The CW has announced that Australian actor and former rugby player Matthew Nable, who American audiences may know best as Boss Johns from the movie Riddick, will play Ra's al Ghul in the upcoming third season of Arrow, starting with the fourth episode, "The Magician."
Why So Serious: Warner Bros. Reportedly Orders ‘No Jokes’ In New DC Comics Movies
Comics fans have become well acquainted with the notion that sometimes, creative people learn the wrong things from successes. It's why certain comics have been dominated for going on 30 years by a "dark" and "mature" sensibility that often comes off as grim, self-serious and overcooked.
Well, get ready for that way of thinking to make its way to movie theaters very soon. According to a report at Hitfix, Warner Bros. has a strict rule for its upcoming DC Comics movies: "No jokes."