by Stone Marshall | Mar 5, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
On this episode of Collider Heroes, Jon Schnepp, Amy Dallen, and Robert Meyer Burnett discuss the following:
- Benjamin Melniker has passed away at 104 years old. He had purchased the rights to Batman in 1979 and was listed as a producer on every Batman film since 1989. He also produced other superhero films like Swamp Thing, Constantine and The Spirit.
- Thor: Ragnarok contains a special feature called “Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years – The Evolution of Heroes”. In it, Joe Russo states that the next two Avengers films will be the culmination of all the Marvel storylines from the last 10 years.
- Nightwing director Chris McKay took to Twitter to give an update on the film. He tweeted that it’s “going to be a LONG process. So don’t expect casting news any time soon. We are taking our time.”
- THR is reporting that Fox is fast tracking a number of its superhero films including X-Force, Silver Surfer, Doctor Doom, along with three new X-Men films for 2019 and 2020.
- A reddit user posted a first look at Zachary Levi in his costume for Shazam!
- Thor Odinson will be reclaiming his name and title as the God of Thunder in Thor #1 from current The Mighty Thor writer Jason Aaron and artist Mike Del Mundo.
- Marvel Studios concert artist Andy Park takes to Twitter to showcase some of his Black Panther concept art for T’Chaka, including a tribal sash and the classic cape from the comic books.
- Deadline is reporting that Humans star Gemma Chan has been cast to play Minn-Erva aka Doctor Minerva in Captain Marvel.
- In an interview with the French site Allocine, Joaquin Phoenix responds to a question about playing The Joker with “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
- That Hashtag Show is reporting that Wonder Woman 2 will feature Cheetah as the main villain.
- FX has released a new, creepier promo for Legion Season 2.
Image via Warner Bros.
Heroes: ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Avengers 4′ Will Be the “Culmination” of the MCU
by Stone Marshall | Mar 5, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
Well, this isn't going to make Dwayne Johnson very happy. Walt Disney and Marvel just announced that Avengers: Infinity War will be opening everywhere, all over the world, on April 27, 2018. That's about when it was going to open in much of the world in a standard MCU overseas rollout, but the change means that North American audiences get it a week early as well. That's horrible news for A) Dwayne Johnson's Rampage which opens (for now) on April 20 and B) STX and Amy Schumer's I Feel Pretty which probably thought it had that Other Woman/Baby Mama pre-summer slot wrapped up.
This is a huge change both for the overall summer schedule and for the MCU release schedule. At a glance, there are four reasons for this shift, none of them particularly conspiratorial.
1. This gives them an extra week before Deadpool 2.
When Fox moved Deadpool 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) from June 2 to May 18, many of us saw it as a direct attack (or at least a challenge) to Solo: A Star Wars Story. But it also plopped two of the year's biggest comic book superhero movies into the same month. So, at the very least, this gives Tony Stark and friends some room before Wade Wilson and Cable show up. Granted, I'm sure both big flicks can co-exist, but this is probably good news for both parties. It also means that I may have to revise my thoughts about A) April being a relatively quiet pre-summer jaunt and B) Rampage being the biggest earner of the month.
This also leaves the key early May slot without a major movie, and I'm curious to see if any other studio will dare stand against the second weekend of Infinity War. But considering the history of smaller female-led comedies and dramas flourishing over the second weekend of summer (which is usually Mother's Day), I wouldn't be shocked to see I Feel Pretty move back a week and open on May 4th. As for Rampage… yeah, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe The Rock and his giant monsters will stay put, but we'll see.
2. It gives Solo: A Star Wars Story an extra week of marketing space.
We are reaching a point where the biggest competition for Walt Disney blockbuster offerings are other Walt Disney blockbuster offerings. We got Thor: Ragnarok, Coco and The Last Jedi within about six weeks of each other last year, and we got Doctor Strange, Moana and Rogue One within the same holiday stretch in 2016. Right now, the biggest competition for Walt Disney's Black Panther is Walt Disney's Wrinkle in Time opening next weekend. Sure, if the films are well-received and profits are made, then this is more about market share domination than making sure each big movie grosses as much as possible. But since Disney is willing to start the summer a little early, they are giving their Star Wars Story, which opens over Memorial Day weekend, a month of space.
Even if Infinity War is super leggy, it will be somewhat played out by the time the Han Solo flick takes priority. Even The Avengers had already earned around 90% of its $623 million domestic gross by the end of its fourth week in theaters. This move allows Disney to devote more attention to both summer biggies, which is arguably more to Solo‘s benefit than Infinity War‘s. So this ought to be to rest any talk of Disney moving Solo out of its Memorial Day slot, as it's full-speed ahead after this.
3. Disney and Marvel want the world record for a global opening weekend.
Consider this revenge for Universal/Comcast Corp.'s Fate of the Furious breaking The Force Awakens‘ global opening weekend record just under a year ago. The eighth Fast and Furious movie opened around the world in April 2017 with a whopping $532 million worldwide in 63 markets, bigger than The Force Awakens‘ $529m global opening in December 2017. Since the MCU flicks usually spread out their debuts over a week or two, that wasn't necessarily on the table until an hour ago.
I'm not going to sit here and argue that a new global debut record is a done deal, but that has to be at least part of the thought process here. Ironically, the last time a super-duper movie opened in late April was Universal's Fast Five in 2011, which kickstarted the summer with an $85 million debut weekend one week before Marvel's Thor opened with $65m. The goodwill earned by the MCU overall and by Black Panther only makes this a more appetizing proposition, along with the whole “casual fans who checked out years ago show up for the finale” appeal. Could we see a $550m global debut in late April?
4. Spoilers!!
In the past, Disney and Marvel haven't necessarily cared about MCU spoilers ending up online via Wikipedia or the like when said films debut overseas first. Yet, by coincidence or design, the global debut of this specific would-be climax is going to be that much less spoiled by paying audiences when it opens around the world at essentially the same time. Sure, reviews will (presumably) be out beforehand, but most critics aren't going to give away the heart-stopping sequence where Thanos blows up Tony Stark (thus saving Marvel hundreds-of-millions of dollars in Phase Four expenses) or the third-act beat where Hugh Jackman's Wolverine shows up in yellow spandex to save the day, so the bigger concern is general audience leaks. I don't necessarily think this was a prime reason (did knowing that Coulson died before The Avengers opened affect the box office in any palatable fashion?), this does seem to be a case where Disney is treating an MCU flick like a Star Wars movie. Let's just hope they let the press see this one before (or during) CinemaCon.
What does this mean?
Well, aside from the factors discussed above, this throws the April release schedule into comparative chaos, especially for the Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. Dwayne Johnson video game adaptation. If there is a downside, it's that Avengers: Infinity War will now have that much fewer weekdays where the kids are mostly out of school, which can make a difference even as the industry embraces year-round tentpoles. That's partially why Jurassic World ended up bigger (and leggier) than The Avengers. And it's why, if we can count late December holidays in the same category as summer weekdays, why The Last Jedi is still running ahead of Black Panther. Blockbuster season may now be year-round, but having the kids out of school is still a boost.
It's a gutsy move, even if Avengers: Infinity War could probably snag a $200 million+ opening weekend in the post-Thanksgiving slot if Disney went that route. And it again shines a light on the sheer amount of big offerings that Walt Disney tends to pack together, to the point where Disney is becoming its own biggest competition. And if the line between summer blockbusters and offseason tentpoles becomes blurrier and blurrier, you can expect more weird release dates like this one, as getting breathing room before or after the other biggies becomes a top priority.
So, yeah, in 2018, the year of the year-round blockbuster schedule, summer begins in late April. There's something… appropriate about that. The Russo Bros.' Avengers: Infinity War, starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston, Zoe Saldana, Chadwick Boseman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, Tessa Thompson, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle and a host of others, now opens April 27, 2018, around the world. As always, we'll see.
4 Reasons Marvel And Disney Moved ‘Avengers: Infinity War' To April
by Stone Marshall | Mar 4, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
Jeremy Smith wanted to talk about Jesus, so he picked up a shovel and headed out to build a tunnel.
A virtual shovel, that is. As both a Christian and a fan of the video game Minecraft, Smith has one foot in two different communities coming into contact more frequently in the fuzzy halls of cyberspace.
And, as a senior writer at the online ministry ChurchMag, Smith uses each of these communities to serve the other. He “vlogs” — creates online videos of himself playing Minecraft — while simultaneously explaining Christian ideology in a series titled “Minecraft Theology.”
“I wanted to look at some of the more basic stuff, some of the core competencies of Christianity,” he said in one of these videos as his Minecraft icon sped across a screen full of the chunky landscape Minecraft allows users to create and navigate via a computer mouse.
“Part of the prayer process is admitting that you’ve sinned. If you are of the mindset that you are perfect, then you should probably just go ahead and turn this episode off because I got nothing for you,” he continued. “We have confession when we say ‘yes’ to Jesus and become saved.”
In the realm of video games, the 149 views Smith’s video has logged may be far from viral, but Minecraft is becoming what some video game makers hoped Christian-themed games like Catechumen and Adam’s Venture that failed to sell well would become — a tool for exploring and advancing religion among gamers.
“Because Minecraft is so open any player can design a world,” said Vincent Gonzalez, a scholar who did his doctoral dissertation on Christian video games. “And whenever things are open, religious people tend to use it to express themselves.”
Ithaca College professor Rachel Wagner sees the use of video games like Minecraft as part of what she calls the “gamification” not only of religion, but of the world. She says religions and video games have several things in common — rules, rituals and a bend toward order and structure.
“Even if they are ‘open’ in the sense of allowing players to construct entire worlds for themselves, as Minecraft does, games always offer spaces in which things make sense, where players have purpose and control,” she said. “For players who may feel that the real world is spinning out of control, games can offer a comforting sense of predictability. They can replace God for some in their ability to promise an ordered world. ”
Minecraft is what techie types call a “sandbox” game: It has few rules, so players can dig in anywhere and build what they like. They build with virtual bricks — think digitized Legos — to create bulky buildings, plants, people, anything, in mostly primary colors.
There are Minecraft versions where players try to survive or go on adventures of their own devising. And there are versions where people — sometimes children, sometimes adults like Smith — construct homes, buildings, bridges, churches and other houses of worship.
Some Minecraft users even “build” their own religious icons. Using blocky “skins” — Minecraft lingo for a character — they create Jesuses, popes, priests, rabbis, angels and more to populate Minecraft worlds everywhere.
But while Minecraft can be used by players of every religion, it seems to be most popular among Christians. Gonzalez, who catalogs religious video games at religiousgames.org, estimates there are about 1,500 religion-themed video games, of which two-thirds are Christian.
Take a peek at Planet Minecraft, a fan site where users can share their creations. It lists 716 “Jesuses” and about 1,000 Catholic priests, but only 58 Jewish rabbis. There is even a Minecraft Richard Dawkins for virtual atheists.
Certainly, not all Minecraft players use religious skins or the churches and other houses of worship they build for some spiritual purpose or for proselytizing. But how they use them is hard to pin down.
“No one’s pastor is telling them the best way to minister to people is to pretend to be Jesus in a Minecraft world,” Gonzalez said. “So the question of why people want to dress up as Jesus and go around in Minecraft is hard to say.”
Still, Minecraft and other computer and video games have become so closely aligned with religion in some circles that the American Academy of Religion created a scholars’ group dedicated to its study four years ago.
“For most people, their virtual lives are an extension of their real lives,” said Gregory Grieve, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro who has studied the two decades religious people have engaged in video games. “Among Christians it was a place for proselytizing and a place for meeting people they would not otherwise meet. People who are religious just see these games as an extension of their religious practice.”
Some build houses of worship — YouTube is rife with virtual tours of churches, cathedrals, synagogues and mosques, both real and imaginary. Some build Noah’s Ark or Solomon’s Temple or their own versions of Jerusalem and other “Bible lands.”
The Australian digital design firm Islam Imagined encourages young users to build the “mosque of the future,” and Jewish educators are enlisting Minecraft to visualize Jewish history and culture for students.
Others users create faith-based Minecraft “servers” — private virtual enclaves where members agree to certain rules (no swearing is a common one) and play the game in a form of religious fellowship.
These groups recently became a meme — or joke spread rapidly among internet users — in which users sardonically responded to foul language by uttering different versions of: “Sorry sir, this is a Christian server. No swearing allowed!”
But Eric Dye, editor of ChurchMag, says its Christian-oriented Minecraft server is merely a reflection of how its users see, or want to see, the real world.
“We can build things in it, like themed cities, and there is actually a church,” he said. “It is not like we have church services or anything but it seemed something fun to have. It seemed fitting. That is why you see religion manifested in Minecraft — it is just an extension of people’s interests in what they create.”
If you build it, they will pray? Constructing religious worlds with Minecraft
by Stone Marshall | Mar 4, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
By Shabana Arif Minecraft's Xbox characters are finally coming to the Switch and Wii U versions of the game. The popular skin pack will bring a plethora of Xbox exclusive character skins to the Nintendo platforms.
The latest update on Minecraft's official site details that the character skins include Master Chief, Banjo, Cole Train, ‘Splosion Man, heroes from the Fable series, and more, all ready for their first trip to Nintendo consoles.
The update will also see the addition of the Moana Character Pack, featuring Moana, demigod Maui, and even the perennially dumb chicken.
Various islanders and sea creatures will also be included in the pack, which you can download on the Marketplace.
Now you can enjoy the novelty factor of seeing Xbox characters like Master Chief swanning about on your Switch. This follows the Better Together update which allows for cross-platform platform play between PC and consoles – with the exception of the PS4.
You can find the new Switch and Wii U Skin Packs on the Marketplace.
New Minecraft Skin Pack Adds Master Chief, Banjo to Switch and Wii U Versions
by Stone Marshall | Mar 3, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
Along with Moana, for some reason
Minecraft still has not received the “Better Together” update on Nintendo platforms, but we're getting a step closer to that reality. Launched just today, people with a Switch or Wii U can dress up their characters as Master Chief from Halo, some of the characters from Gears of War, rock some Banjo-Kazooie skins and even cosplay as characters from the Disney film Moana. Yeah, I don't get that last one.
I reported a few months back how Master Chief would finally be gracing a Nintendo platform, but I'm still in awe that this has actually happened. If only other companies were as happy to let people experience what they want, where they want it, but we'll just have to make due with a blocky, chunky Chief on Switch for now.
Moana and Xbox Characters Come to Minecraft! [Minecraft.net]
;)
Minecraft on Switch and Wii U gets some Microsoft skin packs
by Stone Marshall | Mar 3, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
Much like the horror genre, action cinema demands a slightly different critical analysis than other categories of film. An airtight plot and compelling thematic undertones aren't nearly as important as good editing and innovative fight choreography. Hammy acting will get a pass (and maybe even be encouraged) if the actor has impressive martial arts technique. And breaking new narrative ground isn't nearly as important as doing something simple well, even if that something simple has been done a dozen times before. There's a whole slew of worthwhile action films on Netflix that remain underappreciated to this day. If you've got a subscription and prefer roundhouse kicks to Oscar-worthy performances, you'll have a blast with these.
13 Assassins (2010)
If you're a fan of Audition or Ichi the Killer, here's another classic from Takashi Miike. This one's less brutal than those films but was favorably compared to The Seven Samurai, which is about the highest praise it could get. Taking place near the sunset of feudal Japan, our group of samurai gather together to defeat a sinister lord before he takes the throne. With 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, this might become a new action favorite.
The Finest Hours (2016)
Chris Pine stars in this tale of a daring 1952 Coast Guard rescue. Based on a true story, the film received some pretty positive reviews but kind of fell off the radar. Maybe because The Finest Hours is pretty generic for a title. It might as well be called A Heroic Movie. But this real-life tale is full of thrilling moments and moving drama. There's even a little bit of a love story, but don't worry–it doesn't bog things down. So before The Finest Hours slips from your memory again, give this fine historical drama a try.
Alive (1993)
You have to see Alive, which is based on the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team struggling to survive in the Andes after a plane crash. After only 25 people live through the initial accident, the team members go to desperate measures to stay alive. If you didn't already guess, yes, this is the movie where the survivors end up eating each other. But it's not some bloody horror film. Watching these people struggle with the idea of eating their dead team members and grasping at hope through the very worst conditions is fascinating and harrowing. Though the movie sounds kind of gross and possibly depressing, it's actually an uplifting tale of survival and the unbelievable strength of mankind.
Super (2010)
If two installments of Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't enough to satisfy your love of James Gunn films, luckily Netflix has a classic waiting for you. Know that before you watch Super, Gunn's first superhero film, that it is very dark. Very dark. It's rated R for a reason; not a good one to watch with the kids. That said, it's an incredibly interesting comedy about a man (Rainn Wilson) who decides to dress up as a superhero to save his ex-wife. This may not have the budget of Guardians, but you can see Gunn's flare for action and humor shine through.
Trollhunter (2011)
A crew goes out to find real trolls in the frozen tundra of Norway in Trollhunter. After our heroes find out that the existence of trolls has been covered up by the Norwegian government, they make it their duty to capture the elusive monster on film. This is no Troll 2. These trolls look amazing, are actually scary, and don't have to turn humans into plants to eat them. Shot like a mockumentary, the film is often hilarious, though not without its tense moments. Moira MacDonald, film critic at the Seattle Times wrote, “Those fog-draped fjords provide a distractingly pretty backdrop to this tale of mysterious, massive creatures who roam the forest by night, searching for Christians on whom to munch.” You're not going to find a better movie about massive monsters eating religious folk, so stream it on Netflix now.
Zombeavers (2015)
Don't worry, Zombeavers is a movie that knows it's a movie about zombie beavers. Thankfully, it's a fun horror parody that makes the idea of undead beavers as funny as it could possibly be. Critic Tim Brayton called it “the funniest horror-comedy since, at the very least, The Cabin in the Woods.” If you want a campy, diverting comedy that's full of laughs and gross-out gags, Zombeavers is exactly what you're looking for.
Welcome to the Punch (2013)
Mark Strong and James McAvoy star as a criminal and cop who team up to uncover a conspiracy. This movie is straight-up action. Since the stars are amazing actors, they lend a bit of seriousness and depth of character to the story, but we're watching this for awesome chase scenes and gun fights aplenty. Welcome to the Punch is pretty violent, but you'd probably expect that from a film that invites you to a beating in the title.
Skin Trade (2015)
Tony Jaa. Dolph Lundgren. Ron Perlman. Michael Jai White. Throw in Peter Weller for good measure. Do we have your attention, action fans? If we don't, you should check your pulse. That's a dream action movie cast if we've ever seen one, and Skin Trade delivers on its promise in spades.
Lundgren plays a cop hellbent on catching Ron Perlman's mobster character, so relentless in his pursuit that when Perlman escapes to Thailand, Lundgren follows him (with partner Michael Jai White in tow). Once there, they have to catch the well-connected mob boss while simultaneously avoiding Jaa's detective character, who's trying to catch the two cops as they're operating outside of the law. The plot is pretty flimsy, but the thrill of seeing these action cinema legends all in one place doesn't wear off. Lundgren manages to keep up with the much younger and more agile Jaa in some wild action scenes, and Jai White is, as always, a magnetic onscreen talent. Come for the talent lineup. Stay for the insanity of Dolph Lundgren fist-fighting Tony Jaa
Kill Zone 2 (2015)
For fans of modern martial arts cinema, a film in which Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) and Wu Jing is a match made in heaven, and Kill Zone 2 lives up to the promise of the pairing in a big way. Bearing no real connection to the prior entry in the Kill Zone series (Wu Jing, who appeared in the first, plays an entirely new character in this one), it starts fresh with a breakneck story about black market organ dealers, a father desperate to cure his daughter's leukemia at whatever cost, and a cop who finds himself stuck in a private prison on the authority of said organ mob. While the whole film brims with unreal stunt work, the final battle is one for the ages and easily stands among the best work by all involved. If you're coming for the action sequences, you won't be let down, but you'll likely find yourself surprised by how well the story is handled. It's relatively simple, but there's a lot of heart behind its spin kicks and Muay Thai strikes.
Savage Dog (2017)
Scott Adkins is pretty much the (ahem) undisputed king of direct-to-DVD action movies these days, and Savage Dog is an impressive and unique entry in his filmography. We rarely get to see Adkins in what is, effectively, a period piece, and the film stands out as unique and worth checking out for that alone. But beyond the unusual setting and aesthetic, Savage Dog is still something special.
Featuring narration by the great Keith David (who also has a role in the film), Savage Dog opens with the unbelievably cool image of Adkins' character digging his way out of a shallow grave. He's been left for dead, but the bad guys clearly should have stuck around a little bit longer to make sure it stuck. The film then takes on a nonlinear form, catching us up to the moment of his burial and then sending him on a brutal path of revenge featuring some gut-churning violence and stunning fight sequences. Adkins' oeuvre is littered with cool action hits, but Savage Dog is a clear-cut high point.
Death Sentence (2007)
Modern horror master James Wan, of Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring fame, took a brief hiatus from the genre in 2007 in Death Sentence, a Kevin Bacon vehicle that follows a tried-and-true narrative of a man out for revenge. When his son is murdered in a gang initiation ritual, Bacon's Nick Hume decides to take the law into his own hands, waging a one-man war on crime in his city and protecting his family from the death sentence that gang puts on them.
It's nothing action fans won't have seen before—Death Wish is the clear prototype—but you haven't seen it directed by a wiz like James Wan or with an actor so effortlessly good in everything as Kevin Bacon. Bacon channels Nick's relentless drive, grief, and rage in stunning, understated fashion. Throw in John Goodman as the film's seething villain and you've got yourself a good time. It may be well-trodden ground, but it's worth visiting, no matter how familiar it may feel.
Bullet to the Head (2013)
Walter Hill, director of cult classic The Warriors, dropped this little gem in 2013. It's pure grindhouse fun, which is exactly what a Walter Hill action flick starring Sylvester Stallone should be. Having already directed the first entry in the Undisputed franchise, Hill is right at home making movies about tough guys solving their problems with their fists and firearms.
The film features Stallone teaming up with Sung Kang, of Fast and Furious franchise fame, as a hitman (Stallone) and a cop (Kang) forced to team up and bring down some bad, bad dudes. And bring down bad dudes they certainly do. Bullets fly, bodies drop, and cars are blown to bits over the course of this romp. It's a great time, solidified by Jason Momoa's role as the film's villain, which he plays with devilish glee. And then there's the big climactic fight between Stallone and Momoa, which is one for the books. All we're saying is one of them has an axe. You don't want to miss it.
Boyka: Undisputed (2016)
Scott Adkins holds together the later installments of the Undisputed series as Yuri Boyka, a prison inmate who participates in a brutal underground prison fighting ring. His role in the second film in the series was as the antagonist, though the next installment saw the focus shift to him as a new unlikely good guy. Boyka: Undisputed takes Yuri out of prison and into the real world and examines how a man like him, one who stakes his claim on this earth through violence, functions in the real world.
Undisputed sees Boyka fighting professionally under legitimate terms when he accidentally kills one of his opponents in the ring. He soon finds that said opponent's wife is in trouble and takes on a series of fights to keep her out of it. It's not unfamiliar ground for action cinema, but it sees Boyka grappling with some real internal struggle and evolving into a more complex icon of modern action movies than he has any right to be. Adkins is, of course, a physical specimen and his fight sequences are brutal, choreographed with just enough flair to keep things flashy and grounded enough to feel authentic. Four movies in, Undisputed is as fun as it's ever been. Bring on the next one.
Small Soldiers (1998)
Children of the '90s are likely to remember the toys that spawned from director and horror legend Joe Dante's Small Soldiers, though the film has become something of a forgotten gem. Rewatching it now is a blast. It's incredibly strange for a big-budget film from the '90s, and kind of worth seeing for that alone, effectively playing out like Toy Story for high school students.
The film tells the story of a war between armies of toys with military technology that has given them sentience. One is a crew of G.I. Joe-esque soldiers and another an alien race, the Gorgonites, with an environmentalist message. The film is definitely made for a younger audience, but an action movie is an action movie, and this one is a lot of fun. Small Soldiers is weird, campy, and features some wild action sequences in which action figures go to literal war with one another. It's a bizarre trip and absolutely worth revisiting. That this one hasn't already become a cult classic is astounding.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
In a just world, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow would have been a box office smash and ushered in a new era of elegant, stylistic action cinema. Despite the fact that we do not live in the world in which that happened, we still have the film itself, and what a film it is. It was one of the first releases to pioneer the digitally-composed soundstage filming method later utilized by Sin City, giving it an astonishing, ethereal visual sheen.
Drawing heavily from pulp cinema and comic books, Sky Captain is a wild comic book-style romp through a steampunk reimagining of a pre-World War II world. The titular Sky Captain is a charismatic ace pilot who leads the daredevil Flying Legion. Played by Jude Law, he's joined by reporter Polly Perkins (Gwenyth Paltrow) and a brief appearance by Angelina Jolie as an eyepatch-sporting Royal Navy officer, Franky Cook. It's a killer cast heading up a fun, visually inventive action film that deserves a far larger fan following than it has today.
Officer Downe (2016)
Want to watch the craziest movie on Netflix? Officer Downe has got you covered. Adapted from the comic by writer Joe Casey and artist Chris Burnham, Officer Downe is that rare instance where you read a comic and can't at all imagine a film or television adaptation. There shouldn't be a way to translate its insanity from page to screen. And yet, under the direction of Slipknot's M. Shawn Crahan, the film manages to pull it off. And if a movie is directed by a guy from the band that plays heavy metal in nightmarish monster masks, you know you're in for quite the ride.
Starring Kim Coates of Sons of Anarchy fame, it's a hyperkinetic neon thrill ride that plays out like Dredd on mescaline. It's tough to describe this movie without sounding like a Stefon sketch from Saturday Night Live, but this movie has everything: drug dealing nuns with shotguns, an unkillable super cop, mutilation, and a hidden government conspiracy. It's the kind of movie you'll immediately text your friends about when the credits roll, imploring them to come over the next weekend with some beers and check it out. Run to Officer Downe's sweet embrace as soon as possible.
Fighting (2009)
It's kind of hard to remember these days that Channing Tatum wasn't always a megastar who guaranteed a film's success. Fighting is one of the movies that came out during the No Man's Land of his career, that awkward patch between Step Up and Magic Mike when the actor was still finding his place in Hollywood and figuring out what kind of roles suited him best. And before he teamed up with director Steven Soderbergh and we realized he's a pretty killer character actor, Tatum appeared in this little-seen gem.
Tatum plays the tough-as-nails Shawn, a hustler who discovers he's a prodigy as a street fighter. The film follows a prototypical pro fighting narrative, with his character finding an opportunity to make something of himself through fighting, but quickly ending up in over his head with the wrong people. Said fight scenes are brutal, no-holds-barred affairs that channel the intensity of street fighting to the screen very well. Honestly, Fighting is by no means an egregious Oscar snub or anything. But it's a very interesting note in a talented actor's career. Plus it's got Terence Howard sleazing it up as a fight promoter, and that alone is worth your time.
Hidden gems on Netflix all action fans need to see
