Review: "Justice League"

by Chris Feil

Has the DCEU gotten all that brooding out of its system now that the team is finally together? The answer delivered in Justice League is a "yes... but.” Here the combined powers of Batman, Wonder Woman, and (you likely guessed it) the reanimated corpse of Superman are joined by three new cohorts, though they are hardly to blame for the series’s new tonal obstacles that it has created for itself.

As teased in Batman v Superman, we get three new heroes and luckily more texture for the Gotham / Metropolis twin city scene. Ezra Miller as The Flash is the biggest breakout, all snappy wit and wide-eyed amazement at his and the team’s abilities. Cyborg surprisingly plays the film’s emotional core, even though Ray Fisher feels trapped in CGI hell. Aquaman gives Jason Momoa little to do past providing the eye candy. He's also stuck in an unclear characterization that's halfway between this franchise's macho instincts and its uneasy comic relief reaching...

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Justice Link

Boy Culture want to see a web or tv series sequel to Boy Culture  (2006)?
Film School Rejects a new short film starring Oscar Isaac available to watch online
Deadline a huge list of in-development franchises - what's the next big sci-fi fantasy hit?
Coming Soon Nicholas Hoult is in talks to play the Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien in a forthcoming biopic. Those unfamiliar with Tolkien but for book jacket photos, Hoult seems like odd casting but the movie will be about his youth and service in World War I (which of course informed his iconic books)

 

AV Club Raising Arizona was on the cover of a Serbian biology textbook!
/Film Wonder Woman 2 is aiming for a December 2019 release date. Patty Jenkins still not confirmed to return as director
MNPP has a new crush in François Arnaud
Towleroad Ezra Miller kisses a male fan at Comic Con. Crowd goes wild
Ceros why are directors like Christopher Nolan enamored with 70 mm?
Variety Producer vows to "vigorously defend" Feud: Bette and Joan from Olivia de Havilland's lawsuit. But they might not want to harp on and on about "meticulously researched" since we spotted several errors without doing any research at all!
/Film contrary to reports Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) will not be appearing in Avengers: Infinity War

A Detour to the Stage
Playbill in an upcoming revival of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece (well, one of them) Company, the genders will be reversed
Playbill Kathleen Turner's speaking voice is, of course, legendary but now comes word that she's going to sing on stage!!! What? She's debuting a cabaret show "Finding My Voice" in Philadelphia
Broadway Blog Mandy Patinkin is taking over the lead male role in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway for 3 weeks only. MANDY PATINKIN.
Theater Mania Frozen is deep in rehearsals now - Instagram pics of the cast

Girl, where do you link you're goin'?

Comics Alliance The Flash movie, starring Ezra Miller, loses its Dope director
MNPP Matthias Schoenaerts and Jane Fonda on set together!
The New York on The Handmaiden and lesbian historical fiction
EW will give us an extensive first look at Beauty and the Beast in the new issue

The Film Doctor on Woody Allen's Cafe Society - have you caught up with this on dvd?
i09 because once you are all about being on-brand, like Johnny Depp, you can't ever leave franchise-verse, he'll be joining the Potterverse for a Fantastic Beasts sequel
/Film speaking of Ezra Miller is giving a history of the Potterverse to promote Fantastic Beasts
Time Out Two time Tony winner Tammy Grimes (mother of Amanda Plummer) dies at 92
D List after a brief internet freakout Idris Elba denies that he's dating Madonna
Superhero Hype set photos from The Defenders (Netflix's answer to The Avengers) though for now its mostly just Jessica Jones in her trademark leather jacket, blue jeans, and perma-scowl

NY Times "Warren Beatty wants six hours of your time" a profile
Jezebel ,,,Rich Juzwiak on the write-around of that piece
I Like Things That Look Like Mistakes Kyle Turner on the camp value of Lady Gaga's "Joanne"
IndieWire you can now stream Michael Giacchino's Dr Strange's score in its entirety 
Reel Talk time for reunion TV to go? 

P.S. Jason's Polling Skills are Formidable
Two Sophie's Choices in a single day? Right here he asked us to choose between Juliet & Pauline, two such Heavenly Creatures, and at his own blog My New Plaid Pants, this showdown between topless begloved sex gods. How will you vote in both polls? 

Yes No Maybe So: Wonder Woman

They're trying to trick us with this new Wonder Woman poster. Look at all that COLOR. From WB/DC? Could it be possible? Mmmm yes and no. 

Since it was Comic Con weekend the studios were working hard to inundate fans with new superhero footage and the second Wonder Woman trailer is here... which has some color to it but a lot of blue grays since that's how DC (and action movies) likes to play it these days. The trailer is a bit premature as the film is not due for 11 months but we'll take it. It looks pretty good and maybe, just maybe, they'll do right by the Amazon princess?

Our Yes No Maybe So is after the jump but first things first. You must know that we do deeply dig The Little Mermaid shoutout which begins the trailer. Steve Trevor is all washed up on shore like a Prince Eric thirst trap and Diana is eager to drink him up...

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So Linky Together

Such Moving Pictures Clayton picks his top 11 of the year
The Film Doctor and his wife discuss Birdman and crisis of identity
The Backlot does a readers poll of the greatest gay movies but YIKES some of the titles and their rankings. It's also very very American movie centric. No Happy Together on a list of 100 greatest gay movies? THAT'S A DEAL BREAKER, LADIES.
20 Weeks to Oscar - David Poland wonders if it's wide open due to preferential balloting which he hates (and explains why)

NY Times Colleen McCullough author of the Thorn Birds dies at 77. My mom was obsessed with that miniseries when I was a little kid so I vaguely remember it.
Variety reviews Lila & Eve starring Viola Davis & Jennifer Lopez. Yes, I realize they're billed the other way round but let's be real, okay? I really wanted to see this one but it did not screen during the first five days when I was there. I'm hoping Michael saw it.
Film School Rejects talks about release / distribution for Sundance films. Sadly some of the biggest hits will undoubtely wait until the fall or winter to try to get Oscar traction. But a few will open before that like Dope (due in June). 
Salon "I was an American Sniper, and Chris Kyle's war was not my war."
Art of the Title Sequence takes on Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing (1989)
The New Yorker Richard Brody thinks critics have failed female auteurs
/Film whoa. Martin Starr from Freaks & Greeks is all grown up and is playing a romantic lead in Amira & Sam
THR Oooh, a new leading role for Octavia Spencer in Seacole, a biopic of a Jamaican doctor
/Film Ezra Miller interviewed about The Flash on the street with Billy Crudup his Stanford Prison Experiment co-star. Nobody asks Billy Crudup about the time he turned down the Hulk in the early Aughts
Variety ooh Glenn Close & Frances McDormand are both going to be in a new drama called The Wife (Close is the lead who leaves her literary giant husband (Jonathan Pryce) just as he's about to be presented with the Nobel prize). Co-starring: Logan Lerman, Brit Marling, and Christian Slate
THR Megan Ellison saves Vidiots from closure
The Carpetbagger Clothes and character in The Theory of Everything and more 

Allow me to be weirded out for a moment.

Did you know that Kirk (Sean Gunn) from Gilmore Girls played Rocket Raccoon on the set of Guardians of the Galaxy. I am dumbfounded. Perhaps this is common knowledge but I am only just realizing it. That Kirk was always trying new careers on for size in Stars Hollow but who knew he would ever end up like this!?