By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Tito and the Birds is a Brazilian animated movie that transcends. His avian friends are everywhere, and they symbolize a higher power he immediately recognizes. The alien rocks (that were once human) he finds are bumps on a log for a reason…
Praise is high for this work, and it will soon land on home video on April 23 courtesy of Shout! Factory.
Release Date: April 16, 2019
Although M. Night Shyamalan‘s Unbreakable trilogy took nearly twenty years to finish, the wait was certainly worth it. Ever since I saw the first film, I could not help but think of the line from Snow White, “Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all?” Instead of considering the response from the Disney movie, I feel another meaning can be pulled from it. Anyone who has looked upon this reflective surface is asking to themselves, “Who am I, really?”
Not everybody will like what they see of themselves reflected back. With titles in part two and three suggestive of different mental states, I have enough theories going on in my head wanting to break down what this auteur’s films are about. The bonus material which comes in the home video release of Glass, however brief they are, offer more than a few teasing answers and confirmations in what I already believe. Upon seeing all three films again, back-to-back, I have a few theories.
By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Say what you will about the lads from Mötley Crüe–Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx–but after watching The Dirt on Netflix, I felt rebellious again! I wanted to thrash it up and relive those glory days. Yes, I listened to a lot of heavy metal back then. Plus, the ’80s to ’90s was a memorable time in music history. We went from punk rock to heavy metal to grunge. To say what’s next this style of music, who knows.
This heavy metal band’s sound was toned down when they entered their glam phase and I’m thankful I had Judas Priest’s hard-hitting edge to counterbalance. The Crüe gang had another thing coming with the rockstar lives they led; not every telling moment and scandal was revealed.
All The Legends & Lore That Inspired Shazam
20 AprBy Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Amongst Baby Boomers, The Adventures of Captain Marvel defined the pulp-action superhero who would later be known as Shazam. For Gen X’ers, The Shazam/Isis Hour was a maligned television show of the mid-70s and it has its cult appeal. Jump to 1981, The Greatest American Hero showed how Stephen J. Cannell developed a fun, purposeful superhero sporting a different kind of symbol who wants to do what’s right in a cop buddy sitcom formula. The problems the character faced as the series progressed include learning how to use his powers, talking to the aliens in why he was selected and trying to keep those he loved safe.
To bring all those previous iterations of a superhero sitcom movie, Shazam, took several decades of storytelling in the television world to experiment with and the payoff is terrific. Ignoring the troubled property when it was first introduced in the ’40s to its reinvention by DC Comics, this 2019 movie borrows on many comedic tropes from the small screen as Billy Batson (Asher Angel) tries to figure out what being a superhero means. He has no book to guide him. He only has a comic book superhero obsessed foster brother Freddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) to offer tips and his own moral compass to keep him pure. The only misfire is in how nothing new is added to make it stand out.
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Tags: Asher Angel, Commentary, David F. Sandberg, DC Comics, Jack Dylan Grazer, Superhero, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Zachary Levi