Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

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Black Panther Film Club! (Warning: Spoilers!)

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After wrapping up tonight’s installment of Black Panther Book Club, FanGirl and I couldn’t resist turning to a conversation about the film! Watch out – spoilers abound in this free-wheeling, far-ranging conversation about Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther.

Have you been keeping up with the reading assignments to get to know some of the stories that inspired this film? Visit the Guide to Black Panther to learn how to collect these issues, and then check out our past three discussions.

May The Force Be With You (on your bookshelf): The Guide to Star Wars Comics & Canon

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While I’m seeing the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie in the theatre tonight I couldn’t let that be my only celebration of space on Star Wars day, so I spent all last month cooking up something special for you: The Guide to Star Wars Comics, Films, Canon Stories, & Legends Comics

Yes, you read that right. This is not just a guide to Marvel’s comics from 2015 forward. The guide includes all of Marvel’s current Star Wars comics, a complete Star Wars canon viewing/reading order broken up by film era, and a chronology of the old Expanded Universe comics – now known as “Star Wars Legends” and collected in Epic Collections and Omnibuses.

Star_Wars_1977_0044I know I’ll never approach being the biggest or most well-informed Star Wars geek on the internet, despite my enduring love for the franchise. I wanted to create a guide for other geeks like me – who love the movies and want to branch out to novels or comics, but don’t need an exhaustive encyclopedic list of the placement of every event and magazine short story.

Also, I’ve had a ton of recent conversations with other parents who wanted to show their young children Star Wars stories and had no idea there were young readers versions and Little Golden Books corresponding to every film in the series. That’s why every film page lists ALL of the major adaptions, including YA novelizations and read-along books/CD sets.

However, the biggest undertaking in the guide was the page for “Star Wars Legends.” With the help of CBR forum all-star Taral, I not only got the Marvel Epics in the right order, but mapped exactly what issues are still to come in each Epic line, plus listed where they appear in Dark Horse’s paperback omnibuses.

Taral is a walking Star Wars encyclopedia – I couldn’t have figured this out without his aid! He just started a new blog about comics, and he’s setting out to re-read ALL of the Star Wars Legends comics. He’s only two posts in so far, so please leave him comments letting him know you’re excited for him to continue:

I hope this guide can help you find the exact Star Wars stories you’re most interested in reading!

May the Force be with you!

 

The Matrix Re-Reloaded?

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Over the past two days, the internet of geeks has been in turmoil over the news of a potential new Matrix movie. The word “reboot” was used.

[s]ources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. is in the early stages of developing a relaunch of The Matrix, the iconic 1999 sci-fi movie that is considered one of the most original films in cinematic history, with Zak Penn in talks to write a treatment.

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Joel Silver, who produced the original trilogy, is said to have approached Warners about the idea of mining The Matrix for a potential new film. However, Silver sold his interest in all his movies to the studio in 2012 for about $30 million, according to sources.

Predictably, most people responded with a resounding “DO NOT WANT.” For all the flaws of The Matrix‘s pair of sequels, the world-building and powerful casting of the original movies isn’t something that needs reimagining – the movies still hold up visually against new sci-fi films out in the past year!

In the past 24 hours, potential writer Zak Penn very deliberately walked back the idea of a reboot on Twitter, as recapped by Slashfilm. This was part of his response:

What interests me about that – past the total denial of a reboot – is that Penn’s answer goes to the same place my brain did when the news first broke. In fact, I didn’t even mind the idea of a reboot, as long as it wasn’t a remake. [Read more…] about The Matrix Re-Reloaded?

Wonder Woman Comic-Con Trailer!

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I’ve already recently covered my lifelong love of Wonder Woman, so I don’t think I need to explain that I found this trailer to be heart-stoppingly good. I gasped out loud the first time Diana used the lasso of truth.

I also appreciated that Chris Pine is playing the same mouthy handsome guy he always plays, but that every one of his little pieces of pith in the trailer was undermined by the somber score. While this still has a little too much “defining Wonder Woman as the inverse of a man” to it for my liking, it never once gives the illusion that Pine is the star or that the camera mirrors his gaze.

Oh, and: Etta Candy is wonderful.

This is not a review of Ghostbusters and I don’t like things that are funny

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Last night Jake, Ashley, and I enjoyed an acoustic rehearsal on Ashley’s roof deck (sans Zina, whose drums would never make it up the four flights of stairs) followed by a band trip to see Ghostbusters!

Ghostbusters-2016-posterLong story short: Ghostbusters was a slightly better-than-average summer blockbuster.

Almost entire unrelated to that fact: I loved it. I think all four lead actresses were phenomenal and I am now obsessed with Kate McKinnon.

Before you all say, “Duh, Peter, you are a feminist fanboy, this was bound to happen,” let me tell you the longer story about how I legitimately had no reason to like this movie yet still managed not to be a total tantrum-throwing child about it.

The original Ghostbusters is one of a group of sacrosanct films from my youth that I loved not just for the kid-friendly silliness, but for the references and adult themes that would continue to reveal themselves to me as a grew older. It’s also probably my most-quoted movie of all time thanks to “There is no Dana, only Zuul” and “Don’t cross the streams!”

Despite that, and being a white male in my 30s, I didn’t see the coming of a new, all-female Ghostbusters flick as some sort of threat to my precious and beloved film or my childhood memories. I saw it as what it seemed to be – a cash-in on ripe intellectual property by a relatively hot director and his major star.

That I find Paul Feig and his entire cast to be completely and totally unfunny just meant I assumed this movie wouldn’t be for me.  [Read more…] about This is not a review of Ghostbusters and I don’t like things that are funny