James McAvoy Archives | Otaku No Culture

On X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Tales of Future Past

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Writer-Director Simon Kinberg redeemed himself from his involvement in the lamented X-Men: The Last Stand, the third chapter of the saga about mutants just looking for a place to belong in modern human society. This subtext has been running throughout the films and it’s been explored in the past films to varying degrees of success.

His film, The Dark Phoenix, gets a treatment that is not too out there and it works without having to resort to sending the mutants to the moon.

When I have seen all the movies to date and followed the saga of the Phoenix up till the mid-90s (Excalibur, Series one), I had specific expectations in mind. While Kinberg’s work lightly touches upon a few things coming full circle, I suspect The New Mutants will have to provide some answers about the human and mutant relationship before Marvel Entertainment rewrites the mutant chapter for Phase Five of their narrative plan.

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Unmasking M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable Trilogy & Glass

I feel with the Unbreakable trilogy, Shyamalan created a what if product based on Charles Darwin’s work, On the Origin of Species.

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.

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Breaking Through the “Glass.” Details Revealed of Home Video Release!

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Writer-Director M. Night Shyamalan‘s Glass is coming digital on April 2, 2019 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™, DVD and On Demand on April 16, 2019! This release may seem quick, but for those wanting to see the entire trilogy back to back, the wait is not long at all. To understand how it comes together, like a puzzle, does require the release to have a lot of featurettes included. The commentary track can explain a few things that I might not have noticed before.

Universal Pictures is on the mark with getting this title out sooner than later, so fans can see how this auteur envisioned this trilogy. It took twenty years to make, and some nuances can easily be missed unless fans are watching the series back to back.

Unbreakable hinted at dangerous things to come. With Split starring James McAvoy (X-Men, Atonement), it only got scarier. This series of films spotlights Samuel L. Jackson (Hitman’s Bodyguard, Avengers Franchise), Bruce Willis (Unbreakable, Die Hard), Sarah Paulson (Ocean’s Eight, “American Horror Story”) and Anya-Taylor Joy (The Witch) at their best.

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You Can’t Shake Atomic Blonde

This film is slick and is filled with plenty of high octane moments. Broughton’s combat prowness can put the Black Widow of Marvel fame to shame.

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

I’m fairly sure the producers and directors behind Atomic Blonde wanted to avoid a huge cliche when selecting the music for this film. When I first read about how well this film is doing in the festival circuit, I wondered if Blondie’s song, “Atomic” might get used. Thankfully, it was not and much of the soundtrack is focused on bringing to life the atmosphere of a war-weary Berlin. Nena’s “99 Luftballoons” is certainly indicative of that spirit and even Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom” (heard in German no less!) hits the point when communication is cut between what’s going on in Germany with the rest of the world.

The cold war is coming to an end, but for Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), a top level agent for M16, there’s still one more mission. She has to retrieve a microfiche containing a list of double-agents smuggled to the West, but things go awry when there’s an individual who has memorized it and the KGB will stop at nothing to get it.

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An X-Nerd’s Guide and Review of X-Men: Apocalypse

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler alert!

When X-Men: Days of Future Past (DoFP) introduced a young En Sabah Nur building a pyramid in ancient Egypt after the movie credits, I was very excited for the next film. While I knew the film would not be set entirely in the past, the introduction of this character was all too brief in that past instance and only a few new details are revealed in X-Men: Apocalypse.

He’s the world’s first mutant who has a god complex and he wants to wipe out humanity to forge a new empire. In the comics, he’s out to create a new world order and he is a lot more patient about it. Many months passed in his quest to find his ideal knights. In the film, he’s rushing the end of days and whom he chooses to be the four horsemen are not necessarily those of the biblical version of the four horseman of the apocalypse. The title of which, Nur uses as his codename.

Angel (Ben Hardy) transformed into Archangel and he’s easily recognizable as the Horseman of Death. He’s the only character from the original X-Factor comic book arc when the villain made life tough for the team. Unlike the source, Angel lost his wings (those fragile bones were shattered) and Apocalypse offered to regenerate them at the cost of becoming a servant. Little is known about the character in the film. He’s a slave forced into cage sports. He looked very cool at the start, but once he became evil, the punk look does not suit him well.

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