Who would dare to open a new movie opposite both Batman and Superman? A one-hit-wonder filmmaker who’s smack-dab in the heart of a mid-life crisis, that’s who.
The idea was first teased via a billboard shown in the middle of run-down Times Square in 2007’s ‘I Am Legend‘. Nine years later, you can finally see Batman and Superman go toe-to-toe in the first true tentpole of the year, ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice‘. Director Zack Snyder has returned to pit the Man of Steel against the Caped Crusader in a screenplay penned by the Oscar-winning writer of ‘Argo’ and the dull hack who latched on and somehow received writing credits for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy. The rebooted Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) is introduced to the ‘Man of Steel‘ world of Henry Cavill’s Superman in a very dark and complex way. Much like the upcoming ‘Captain America’ sequel, the two superheroes disagree with each another’s ethics and methods, leading up to a climactic battle of principle, salvation and redemption. With too much movie crammed into the 151-minute runtime, the film frequently feels extremely rushed, but ultimately raises the stakes, delivers the goods and sets itself up for a potentially awesome series of ‘Avengers’-like movies to come.
In 2002, Nia Vardalos exploded onto the big screen with the sleeper hit indie comedy ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding‘. Produced on a $5 million budget, it ultimately grossed $368.7 million in worldwide ticket sales. Since then, writer and star Vardalos has made several more movies – none of which ever found traction – and a ‘Big Fat’ TV series spinoff that was quickly canceled. Once again attempting to live off her past success, Vardalos and the entire cast have returned for ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2‘. The sequel hinges on the trope that the character’s marriage in the first movie was never actually legit, so her family is forcing her to have another big, fat Greek wedding just so we can have a sequel. As it turns out, she and her non-Greek fiancé are having marital issues, so this official wedding might serve as the band-aid to help heal their relationship. Placing it on more than 3,100 screens opposite the 4,200 screens of ‘Batman v. Superman’, Universal is betting on counter-programming to work its magic.
In limited release, the successful producer of ‘Children of Men’ and many other titles has taken to writing and directing with a great-looking bio-pic starring Tom Hiddleston. ‘I Saw the Light‘ tells the rise and pitfalls of the career of iconic country music performer Hank Williams. Elizabeth Olsen, Cherry Jones and Bradley Whitford co-star. Reviews have been mixed, but I’m still looking forward to Sony Pictures Classics expanding its platform release in the coming weeks.
NJScorpio
I know ‘Batman Vs Supeman’ would be a pain to sit through at the movies, and I know I’d get sick from eating too much popcorn, and that the movie will be disappointing…and that nobody I know wants to go see it with me…but I just may end up going to the movies to see it this weekend.
I mean, it’s better than ‘Alien VS Predator’, right?
Luke Hickman
AuthorDon’t you mean, ‘Alien v Predator’? 🙂
NJScorpio
Or, ‘AVP’!
Luckily, there was ‘Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem’, to make ‘AVP’ seem good (well, good enough).
EM
I did the “Easter-weekend movies” thing last weekend, attending one of the Fathom Events screenings of The Ten Commandments (1956). Not that The Ten Commandments really has anything to do with Easter, but it’s a Judeo-Christian story, and the movie has a tradition of Eastertide viewings.
Saturday a friend and I are seeing some arthouse screenings of a couple of animated films, O Menino e o Mundo (Boy and the World, a nominee for the 2016 Oscar for animated feature) and Akira.
Timcharger
Passover was a big event to get the Jews
out of Egypt. If not for the leap month in the Jewish
calendar this year, your screening would coincide
with Passover.
Chris B
I had a “christian” co-worker tell me to today that he doesn’t celebrate easter or christmas because they’re actually Pagan holidays and therefore “anti-god”. So celebrating these well-known christian holidays is considered practically satanic by some…religion is hard.
Timcharger
Rabbits and eggs combined always seemed
suspicious to me. If a rabbit ever laid eggs, that would
certainly be the devil’s work!
Elizabeth
There are egg laying mammals so an egg laying rabbit wouldn’t be that strange. They are remnants of the first mammals to evolve (assuming you believe a couple centuries of research and thousands of scientists).
Timcharger
Ha ha. 🙂
Let me try that logic. It sounds fun.
There are flying mammals. So it
wouldn’t be so strange to see a
flying human.
That was so fun!
Timcharger
Not a grammar comment.
Just noting your choice of capitalization:
christian
easter
christmas
Pagan
god
You say so much with just the shift key.
EM
Indeed. Pagans are usually pro-god—often pro-gods, in fact.
Chris B
I think somethings wrong with your eyes or computer. The only word I intentionally capitalized was Pagan. The other two (I, So) were just the begining of new sentances. Not sure why you’re seeing a ton of capitals….
Al
He’s pointing out that you DIDN’T capitalize the words: Easter, Christmas, Christian, or God; but you DID capitalize the word “Pagan.” Again, you say so much with the shift key. Get it, now?
Chris B
Big deal, I capitalized Pagan, (oh wow! I just did it again!) because it was the main subject of my comment. Tim needs to stop reading into shit so much and put his energy elsewhere.
Thanks for the clarification though. 😉
EM
One can say even more with the blame-shift key.
Chris B
Oh wow EM! Thanks so much for your always clever and amusing quip. Shouldn’t you be watching the Phantom of the Opera or something?
EM
More instructive is The Wizard of Oz, in which telling people to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain does nothing to change the fact that there is a man behind the curtain nor to draw any attention from him.
Timcharger
For the record, whatever your practice of
capitalization (or religion) is “kosher” with me. I wasn’t
implying that you must capitalize some/all/none. I didn’t
read into it; I just read carefully. Sometimes too carefully.