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In the pantheon of the best superheroes of all time, Shang-Chi probably doesn’t rank high on anybody’s list. A superhero best described as “basically Bruce Lee,” Shang-Chi’s street cred is recognized only to readers of his original Marvel Comics series, Master of Kung Fu, when it was published during a widespread kung fu fad that dominated the American zeitgeist.

Despite a modest hit movie in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings with sitcom star Simu Liu, Shang-Chi doesn’t have nearly the same recognition as the MVPs of the Avengers, either. It’s why rumors that Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi may co-lead the onscreen Avengers in the upcoming Avengers: The Kang Dynasty have encouraged mockery online, with fans loudly wanting to return to the pre-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But the best superheroes exist as answers to powerful questions. Batman asks what happens when grief is fueled by vengeance,...

Disney and Marvel Studios announced at the D23 Expo that “Unorthodox” Emmy nominee Shira Haas is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the superhero Sabra in the upcoming fourth “Captain America” movie, officially titled “Captain America: New World Order.” In the comics, Sabra is a mutant who serves as a Mossad agent. The character’s inclusion in the comics has long generated controversy, but Marvel confirmed to Variety that it’s taking a “new approach” with Sabra for the big screen.

“While our characters and stories are inspired by the comics,” the studio said in a statement to Variety, “they are always freshly imagined for the screen and today’s audience, and the filmmakers are taking a new approach with the character Sabra who was first introduced in the comics over 40 years ago.”

Sabra first appeared in the comics in the early 1980s courtesy of “The Incredible Hulk.” Her presence...

Written by Kim Newman | Art by Paul McCaffrey | Published by Titan Comics

This has been a fun world to visit over the last 3 issues. Full of ‘new’ characters inspired by their classic literary counterparts, it is a new story that still feels strangely familiar. Kim Newman has pulled a Alan Moore by tying together characters in a story that weren’t meant to ever meet, has given them all a horror spin, and now they all seem very at home with each other. Dracula, The Lord of Strange Deaths (Fu Manchu), The Professor (Moriarty), Graf Von Orlok (Nosferatu) are but a few faces in a sea of near familiar ones, with roles both large and small to play.

The main pieces on our board right now though are Kate Reed, The Limehouse Ring, The Council of Seven Days, and Penelope Churchward. If you came in late you have missed far too much to recap,...

Here’s a spicy hot take—I’m as far as one could get from excited for Universal’s new film The Mummy. This isn’t exactly the movie’s fault, per se, as much as it is the world the movie inhabits, a sort of bizarro realm where a Brian Tyler-scored Tom Cruise action spectacle that’s meant to lay the groundwork for a Marvel-style cinematic universe, complete with Dr. Jekyll in the role of Nick Fury, is the most commercially viable way to make a movie about an ancient mummy’s curse. Now, I can see why the film’s being made, and you can’t exactly fault a studio for wanting to chase the money train that is the McU, but personally, I couldn’t care less about the picture being released. Because when I think of mummies, I don’t think of Tom Cruise, or Brendan Fraser,...

An admiring nod to ’60s dream siren Daliah Lavi! American-International leaps into an epic Jules Verne comedy about a trip to the moon, a good-looking but slow and unfunny farce that must squeak by on the goodwill of its cast of comedians. Burl Ives is excellent casting as P.T. Barnum, promoting a Greatest Show Off the Earth.

Blast-Off

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1967 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 119 99, 95 min. / Street Date March 21, 2017 / Those Fantastic Flying Fools; Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon / available through Olive Films / 29.95

Starring: Burl Ives, Terry-Thomas, Gert Fröbe, Lionel Jeffries, Troy Donahue, Daliah Lavi, Dennis Price, Hermione Gingold, Jimmy Clitheroe, Graham Stark, Edward de Souza, Judy Cornwell, Allan Cuthbertson, Sinéd Cusack, Maurice Denham.

Cinematography: Reginald H. Wyer

Film Editor: Ann Chegwidden

Original Music: John Scott

Written by Dave Freeman, Peter Welbeck (Harry Allan Towers) inspired by the writings of Jules Verne

Produced by Harry Allan Towers

Directed by Don Sharp...

Mark Harrison May 25, 2017

The Pirates Of The Caribbean movies have not been easy films to make....

As Michael Bolton once belted out: “This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow.” The Pirates Of The Caribbean film was a surprise sleeper hit in 2003, astounding the higher-ups at Disney who had long been sceptical of how a pirate movie, based on a ride at Disneyland, would appeal to audiences.

Off the back of this success, the sequels only got more ambitious and expensive in scale, with their use of practical effects and convoluted character dynamics serving to complicate the adventure format, with mixed results. It shouldn't shock you then, to hear that each of the movies released so far had some serious behind-the-scenes battles to make them shipshape.

The fifth and apparently final instalment, Salazar's Revenge (or Dead Men Tell No Tales), has had some very public battles before it has even been released,...

With Run The Series, The A.V. Club examines film franchises, studying how they change and evolve with each new installment.

In these theoretically more enlightened times, Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu is the dictionary definition of “problematic.” Created in 1913, the character is “yellow peril” personified, a renegade Chinese warlord and evil genius bent on world domination and the extermination of the white race. His nemesis: resourceful Scotland Yard commissioner Nayland Smith, who stands for everything good, proper, and most importantly, British. An unmistakable product of an imperial power on the verge of losing its supremacy, Rohmer’s adventure yarns (which he continued writing until his death in 1959) were extremely popular with the reading public, and eventually the viewing public, when they were brought to the screen in two dozen silent shorts made in the U.K. in 1923 and 1924, with Irish actor H. Agar Lyons playing ...

Yvonne Monlaur: Cult horror movie actress & Bond Girl contender was featured in the 1960 British classics 'Circus of Horrors' & 'The Brides of Dracula.' Actress Yvonne Monlaur dead at 77: Best remembered for cult horror classics 'Circus of Horrors' & 'The Brides of Dracula' Actress Yvonne Monlaur, best known for her roles in the 1960 British cult horror classics Circus of Horrors and The Brides of Dracula, died of cardiac arrest on April 18 in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Monlaur was 77. According to various online sources, she was born Yvonne Thérèse Marie Camille Bédat de Monlaur in the southwestern town of Pau, in France's Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, on Dec. 15, 1939. Her father was poet and librettist Pierre Bédat de Monlaur; her mother was a Russian ballet dancer. The young Yvonne was trained in ballet and while still a teenager became a model for Elle magazine. She was “discovered” by newspaper publisher-turned-director André Hunebelle,...

Written by Kim Newman | Art by Paul McCaffrey | Published by Titan Comics

The first issue of the Anno Dracula 1895 comic series, from the mind of Kim Newman, threw in enough ideas and concepts to fill a dozen issues of most other series. I say ‘new’, but the series grew out of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula world he has been building through his novels. In what has become a familiar genre now, Newman creates his own fictional stories using real world people and events, but always with a twist. Queen Victoria marrying Count Dracula for example, or Jack the Ripper murdering prostitutes because they were actually vampires. A lot of clever ideas bobbing around gave me extremely high hopes for this 5 part series.

Very tough to give a complete summary of last issue if you missed it, but essentially Count Dracula has been in control of The British Empire for 10 years,...

Pay attention now. There’s a lesson to be learned here today and you should believe what I’m about to write, but we’ll get to that later… after we produce some evidence.

Here’s the lesson – in italics to emphasize its importance: Authority figures are often full of shit.

I’m not saying all authority figures are wicked per se. They are, after all, a gift of evolution and anything that evolution offers has a reason for being. But keep your skepticism at the ready when visiting the experts, especially if they’re speaking outside of their specialties.

You might want to heed a brain surgeon’s recommendation regarding your gray matter, but pass on his political opinions.

And about those specialties: be at least a tad skeptical there, too. A few months a medical specialist with the white jacket and the framed certificates on the wall – the...

Spring already? Well, okay, but I look out the window and see ten inches of snow. (And you may now imagine me sniffing and grumbling.) But, alas, just because I may not happen to like it, this spring bushwa, doesn’t mean anything surprising is about to happen. I can’t help noticing that the universe seldom alters its plan to accommodate my preferences. Rotten, but there you are,

So I guess we make the best of it, which is what we grumbling homo saps have always done, more or less, when we’ve gotten our grumbling out of the way. (First things first.) Okay, anything interesting on the immediate agenda? Ummmm – nope. But before I offer a tepid correction to that last sentence (if sentence is what it was) let me call your attention to an entertainment that lurks in the shadows of Thursday night. You might as well...

Dark Horse's The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man comic book series tops today's Horror Highlights, which also includes Wizard World Cleveland, new releases (respectively) from Cavity Colors and Blue Underground, Apocalypse Kiss, and the New Jersey Horror Con.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man Comic Book Series: Press Release: "Milwaukie, Ore., (March 14, 2017)—Victorian horror fans, rejoice! Dark Horse is delighted to announce the follow-up to 2011’s cult classic The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde, with The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man. Mr. Hyde’s Cole Haddon brings fans even more Thomas Adye adventures, while Sebastián Cabrol (Thief: Tales from the City, Caliban) lends his beautiful art to the story, and Hernán Cabrera (Caliban) brings the art to life with his gorgeously grotesque color palette.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man finds Inspector Thomas Adye of Scotland Yard struggling to return to normalcy after his run-in with...

Dr. Orloff’s Monster

Blu-ray

Redemption / Kino Lorber

1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 84 min. / El secreto del Dr. Orloff, Brides of Dr. Jekyll, Les maitresses du Dr. Jekyll / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Hugo Blanco, Agnès Spaak, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Luisa Sala, Perla Cristal, Magda Maldonado, Pepe Rubio, Pastor Serrador, Daniel Blumer, Manuel Guitián, Mer Casas.

Cinematography: Alfonso Nieva

Film Editor: Á Serrano

Original Music: Fernando García Morcillo, Daniel White

Written by: Jesús Franco, Nicole Guettard, A. Norévo

Produced by: Marius Lesoeur

Directed by Jesús Franco

Arguing the merits of Jesús Franco seems a blind alley to me. I know academic film writers that have seen dozens of his films and who assure me that they perceive an artist amid all the exploitation and pornography. Why not? I continue to see Franco as a fringe filmmaker of little talent and less interest. Keep anything up long enough and it...

The world’s first streaming provider dedicated to Australian movies launched this week with commendable but questionable ambition

I’ve got a guy in Melbourne who gets me the good stuff. Or perhaps “good” isn’t the best word; maybe “rare” is better. He’s the person I go to with titles of Australian films that never got a release on DVD or video and can’t be purchased online. I don’t know how he finds them and I don’t ask any questions.

This modern-day Santa figure introduced me to the lofty highs of the 1992 Hey Hey It’s Saturday! telemovie Silence of the Hams, starring Daryl Somers as a hardboiled detective and Red Symons as a Chinese villain (you read that right) complete with Fu Manchu moustache. If pressed, my movie dealer talks modestly about his collection – “I don’t have everything,” he’ll say – but it...

The Sicilian Clan

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1969 / Color B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 122 min. (French, without exit music); 118 min (American) / Le clan des Siciliens / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle Volle, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Elisa Cegani, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Sydney Chaplin.

Cinematography: Henri Decaë

Production design: Jacques Saulnier

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by: Henri Verneuil, José Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri from a novel by Auguste Le Breton

Produced by: Jacques-e. Strauss

Directed by Henri Verneuil

American crime fanatics wary of European imports now have access to a fully Region-a disc of a big-star, big budget French-Italian-American gangster film from 1969, Henri Verneuil’s exciting The Sicilian Clan. It was filmed in two separate versions, a multi-lingual European original and a less exciting, English language cut for America. A huge hit overseas, The Sicilian Clan didn’t...

Beyond pouty gangsters, Catholic guilt is the most reliable theme in Martin Scorsese’s movies. From its overt expression in “The Last Temptation of Christ” to the undercurrents in “The Departed,” Scorsese’s filmography embraces the notion of a spiritual code governing the lives of deeply conflicted men. “Silence,” a gorgeous and reverential treatment of 17th-century Jesuit priests facing persecution in feudal Japan, epitomizes this side of the Scorsese coin while dulling its edges. A slow-burn tale filled with beautiful imagery and understated performances, its elegance yields one of Scorsese’s most subtle efforts.

By no means a masterwork, “Silence” nevertheless displays the first-rate craftsmanship. However, it’s a surprisingly subdued approach to a story filled with vicious struggles involving men wandering the wilderness at their wits’ end, avoiding perils such as torture by boiling water and decapitation. (Even so, it’s less violent than the 1971 version; both are adapted from Shusaku Endo’s book.

Overnight success takes years. Just ask Jon Spaihts. The screenwriter has two of the most anticipated genre films of 2016 hitting theaters over the next few months. Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt and Doctor Strange, Marvel’s first real foray into expanding beyond the boring mortal plane. Coming down the pipe, the writer also has his hand in Universal’s reboot of The Mummy, a take on Van Helsing, and is working with Guillermo del Toro on Pacific Rim: Maelstrom. All of which would be exciting enough on its own, but Spaihts is also a huge nerd. One of us. One of us. With Doctor Strange out now, HitFix Harpy spoke with Spaihts by phone to get an idea of how massive a shift Marvel is making by cracking open the door to the multiverse. Image Credit: Marvel Entertainment Hitfix Harpy: Way back in June of 2014, you announced your...

“Doctor Strange,” the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, follows eponymous hero Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) as he navigates his way through an unlikely origin story that heavily involves the teachings of an enlightened elder – known as The Ancient One – who sets him on the path to both righteousness and cape-clad ass-kicking. In the original comics, The Ancient One is portrayed as an older gentleman of Tibetan descent. In director Scott Derrickson’s film, the character is played by Tilda Swinton.

Unsurprisingly, the project has faced continued criticism for its casting of Swinton as the character, though Marvel brass and the film’s creative team have long maintained that their casting choice came after the character was already changed with the express purpose to avoid racist undertones. As Swinton explained to IndieWire in a recent interview, the “Doctor Strange” team aimed to circumvent the original character by radically changing many of his trademark attributes.

I did a little bit of research for today’s column just to make sure I had my facts right, Googling “Jewish influence on comic books” in honor of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. There were 509,000 hits, from Den of Geek’s Mensch of Steel: Superman’s Jewish Roots to the Daily Beast’s Superman is Jewish?: The Hebrew Roots of America’s Greatest Superhero to Stormfront’s How and Why the Jews Stole the Comic Book Industry.

Wait. What?

Stormfront is a white supremacist site whose “welcome” page reads:

“We are a community of racial realists and idealists. We are White Nationalists who support true diversity and a homeland for all peoples. Thousands of organizations promote the interests, values and heritage of non-White (sic) minorities. We promote ours.

“We are the voice of the new, embattled white minority!

“Tell the truth and fear no one!”

The article is a mixture of facts,...

Nick Aldwinckle Oct 25, 2016

Fancy some horror? We've been taking a look at the discs of Ghoulies, The Burning, Psychomania and more...

“Have you ever heard a frog scream?”, the tag-line to George McCowan’s 1972 ecological horror Frogs (out now on Arrow Blu-ray) should have read. Indeed, for any of you readers that have ever been rudely awoken at 2am by the sound of a traumatised frog being gifted to you by your pet cat/furry psychopath, an amphibian cry of terror is probably the second worst sound there is (behind, of course, Kaiser Chiefs).

See related Will Arnett confirms more Arrested Development Arrow's Stephen Amell stars in Lego Batman 3 Dlc trailer

Not that frogs themselves are inherently evil, though viewing this classic dose of seventies green-themed nastiness might convince you otherwise. Slugs are Ok, too, though we’ll get on to them later on in this month’s vague...

Chan Is Missing has long been considered a benchmark in Asian-American cinema — some would say that, unfortunately, it’s by default the benchmark — but, 34 years later, writer-director Wayne Wang mostly has other things on his mind. Speaking to him on the occasion of that film’s Metrograph run, Wang was more keen to talk about what he’d wished to do with the movie, other movies in his filmography, and what’s happening elsewhere.

The film absolutely deserves your time and attention, and Wang’s attitude is more telling of where his career has gone: many places, and, more importantly, where he’s wanted to take it. Read my discussion with him below.

The Film Stage: After so much time, has Chan Is Missing ceased to yield anything new? Or do you still discover new things?

Wayne Wang: Well, you know, everything about the Chinese-American community has changed. Filmmaking has changed.

Mariann Lewinsky curates several strands at Bologna's festival of restored or recovered films, Il Cinema Ritrovato: this year, she commemorated the centenary birth of the Dada movement and Krazy Kat with her Krazy Serial, in which surviving episodes of incomplete serials were jammed together with shorts and newsreels. The finest moment was perhaps when one serial ended and another, Abel Gance's The Poison Gases, began, but with it's opening title long lost, so that the caption "A few minutes later" seemed to join to wholly unconnected narratives.The preceding serial was Jacques Feyder's bizarre spoof, The Clutching Foot (Le pied qui étreint), which I realized from pervious excursions to Bologna was a parody not just of serials in general but of 1914's The Exploits of Elaine in particular, in which Pearl White was regularly menaced by a secret society led by the hooded and spasm-wracked mastermind The Clutching Hand.

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With news that a Black Widow movie may finally be moving, we look at 11 Marvel films stuck in development...

When the next Avengers movie hits cinemas, it will have been ten years since Marvel Studios came onto the scene since Iron Man. At the time of writing, they've already released 13 movies and so far (touch wood), there hasn't really been a single clunker among them, and certainly no box office bombs.

The studio also has dates staked out for the next 11 movies, including sequels to Thor, Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man, along with films based around Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Black Panther and Captain Marvel, in the run-up to a two part Avengers movie that will tie off a lot of the franchise's over-arcing storyline. They've got plenty to be getting on with, but there have been a few projects along the way that didn't quite get the green light.

Marvel’s Iron Fist Netflix seems to be moving right along. Finn Jones (Game of Thrones) has been cast in the lead role, and now it seems like the rest of the supporting characters are starting to leak out. The series starts production next month and according to The Hashtag Show, Iron Fist might be joined by the following characters:

Shang-Chi:

Son and nemesis of the infamous Fu Manchu, Shang-Chi is a master martial artist who uses his exceptional skills to fight against injustice.

Colleen Wing:

Colleen Wing is a samurai and one half of the detective/bail-bond firm Daughters of the Dragon. She once dated Cyclops of the X-Men. She and Misty Knight co-own 'Heroes for Hire'.

Davos the Steel Serpent:

A fearsome an powerful martial artist and trainer of the Iron Fist legacy from the city of K'un-Lun.

It was also mentioned that Joy and Ward...

There are glimmers of humour in this tale of an international man of mystery chasing a stolen work of art

The poster is awful. The premise is awful. To be frank, quite a lot about it is awful: a middle-aged comedy caper of the kind not seen since Peter Sellers’s final outings as Clouseau and Fu Manchu. But in its dopey and silly way, it does deliver one or two daft laughs.

Some rather grumpy critical reactions were beginning to coagulate around this film online this week. There are other, more solemnly middlebrow offerings that deserve this treatment more. Johnny Depp plays Lord Mortdecai, moustachioed art dealer and international man of mystery who is on the trail of a stolen Goya; he is one step ahead of Scotland Yard, in the form of stern Inspector Martland, played by Ewan McGregor, who happens to be in love with Mortdecai’s wife,...

Albert Zugsmith’s shining moment in an amiably disreputable career that nonetheless included producing pix by Sirk, Welles and Jack Arnold. Only Fu Manchu is missing from this hypnotically retrograde yellow peril hallucination starring Vincent Price and half the Asian actors in Hollywood. Amazingly, in 1959 William Castle was originally set to shoot this in color with Miiko Taka, star of "Sayonara"–in Tokyo! Although Joe Dante laments the home video unavailability of this title in his commentary from several years ago, we’re happy to report that Warner Archive has since issued a stellar transfer that captures all the weirdo beauty of this uniquely odd movie.

Albert Zugsmith's shining moment in an amiably disreputable career that nonetheless included producing pix by Sirk, Welles and Jack Arnold. Only Fu Manchu is missing from this hypnotically retrograde yellow peril hallucination starring Vincent Price and half the Asian actors in Hollywood. Amazingly, in 1959 William Castle was originally set to shoot this in color with Miiko Taka, star of Sayonara--in Tokyo! Although Joe laments the home video unavailability of this title in his commentary from several years ago, we're happy to report that Warner Archive has since issued a stellar transfer that captures all the weirdo beauty of this uniquely odd movie.

The post Confessions of an Opium Eater appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

The Mandarin is one of Iron Man's most recognizable villains, but the ring-clad terrorist almost sat out of the "Iron Man" film franchise completely. It wasn't until director Shane Black officially boarded the project that the Mandarin got a new lease on life, according to Marvel's Kevin Feige.

"He had a take on the Mandarin that fit with where we wanted to take Tony in this movie," Feige told MTV News. "Shane is as much about tone as he is about any specific dialogue that he writes. He brings such a love of cinema and of this character in particular to the movie that I hope will make it feel fresh all over again."

Black's vision for Mandarin veered away from the Fu Man Chu-wearing Mandarin of comic book lore — a classic character in some eyes, but one that Marvel very much wanted to avoid.

"None of us...

Our pals at MTV News have just posted an extended piece from their exclusive chat with Marvel producer and head honcho Kevin Feige. Further explaining how Iron Man 3 director Shane Black provided a take on The Mandarin that guaranteed the iconic villain's inclusion, Feige also addresses how that interpretation intentionally strayed from the character's comic book backstory. “He had a take on the Mandarin that fit with where we wanted to take Tony in this movie,” Feige said of Shane Black. “Shane is as much about tone as he is about any specific dialogue that he writes. He brings such a love of cinema and of this character in particular to the movie that I hope will make it feel fresh all over again. None of us wanted to do Fu Man Chu. We weren't interested in that in the least. When we took away the notion of the...

When editor Michael Jensen scooped the exclusive news back in August that one of the paramedics in NBC's new show Trauma would be gay, we all had fun playing the guessing game as to who it would be.

Well, the show premiered last night ... and we're still playing the guessing game. But with what we now know, we can definitely narrow the field down.

Before we take a look at the frenetic events of last night's pilot (explosions, explosions, explosions! crisis! crisis! crisis!), let's reintroduce the cast, and see if we can "detect the gay!"

Boone (Derek Luke)

Boone is a paramedic, and haunted by the deaths of two colleagues a year ago. He can't bring bring his anxiety and depression home to his wife and kids, so he cheats with random women to relieve the pain (which is certainly an ... interesting excuse for cheating).

Gay Character? - highly unlikely.