I’ve not been the biggest fan of the “Godzilla” movies made by Toho in the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and beyond.
Let’s say I like the kitschy concept more than the execution.
I’ll be interested in seeing how the new version, starring Aaron Taylor Johnson, Bryan Cranston and others, comes out.
In the meantime, there’s a new trailer that has some very cool imagery. The screencap above is of soldiers parachuting into a city under siege.
Here’s the trailer.
The Warner Bros. movie opens May 16.
Kenneth Tobey was one of those actors who, when he appeared on screen in anything from the classic sci-fi horror film “The Thing from Another World” to the TV series “I Spy,” you just felt like everything was under control.
Tobey, who was born in 1917 and died in 2003, was a character actor in films like “The Howling” who occasionally got to play the lead, as in his 1950s series “Whirlybirds,” about helicopter pilots.
Tobey is one of my favorite actors in one of my favorite movies, “The Thing from Another World.”
In the classic 1951 Howard Hawks production, Tobey played Captain Patrick Hendry, who quickly took control of a remote installation in danger from a fearsome alien (James Arness).
Hendry is low-key and no-nonsense and you had the feeling Tobey was likewise.
How can you – well, I, really – proclaim anything the best of its kind of all time when it’s still relatively new and hasn’t withstood the test of time?
Beats the heck out of me. But I’m inclined to call “Arrow” the best live-action superhero series of all time. And yes, we’re not quite half-way through the CW network show’s second season.
But the gritty and stylish Greg Berlanti-developed series, featuring Stephen Arnell as millionaire crimefighter and adventurer Oliver Queen, who uses gimmicky arrows and amazing trick shots to fight crime, is tops.
Believe me, I didn’t expect to go into this fall season liking “Arrow,” the DC Comics-based show about a Batman-style vigilante in its second season, better than “Agents of SHIELD,” the TV beachhead for the Marvel movie universe.
And yet …
Crowning “Arrow” might sound like heresy for people who loved the simple pleasures of the 1950s “Adventures of Superman” series or the camp 1960s classic “Batman” or even more recent ventures like “Lois and Clark” or “The Flash” or “Birds of Prey,” all of which have their strong points.
But no, “Arrow” is better than all of them, a truly satisfying experience for comic book fans.
I was a little worried about “Arrow” when it was announced by the CW a couple of years ago. The Green Arrow character had been a nice addition to the network’s “Smallville,” the 10-season show about the growing years of Superman and, for me, marked when the series finally got interesting. The Clark and Lex theme of the show was always good but the writers were just too coy for too long. And I have to say I was kind of ticked off when they never actually showed Clark in the suit, even in the final episode. It all reeked of superhero shame.
But despite some coyness of its own – “Arrow” instead of “Green Arrow” as a title – “Arrow” has the courage of its convictions. The series put millionaire Oliver Queen into a green hood right from the word go and put him on the path to avenging criminal activity. He’s surrounded by an engaging supporting cast.
And the series has aggressively set about building its own universe, adding characters like Black Canary, Slade Wilson, Huntress and, this week, Barry Allen, a young police scientist who’s not yet the Flash. The character, as played by Grant Gustin, is apparently destined for his own CW show. If it’s handled like “Arrow,” we’ll have another classic on our screens.
“Arrow” has some problems, certainly. But it feels like they recognized most of them early.
Chief among them is Katie Cassidy, cast as Oliver’s ex-girlfriend Dinah Laurel Lance, who comic fans know is destined to become Black Canary, a tough-as-nails hero and companion to Green Arrow.
But it’s almost as if the producers decided early on that the character and actress combination was just too … I don’t know, awkward? Cassidy seems like she would never for a moment be believable as a street-fighting gal. The show has introduced a new Black Canary, Dinah’s sister, played by Caity Lotz, and she’s more believable.
The cast is pretty uniformly good, from thinking man’s hunk Arnell to David Ramsey as Dig, Oliver’s cohort, to Emily Bett Richards as Felicity, Oliver’s Gal Friday and tech guru who deserves all the online worship she gets.
The show flips back and forth from Arrow’s exploits fighting crime in present-day Starling City (an inexplicable change from Star City in the comics) to five years earlier, when Oliver was shipwrecked on a not-even-remotely-deserted island and learned his survival skills.
The first season gave us an Oliver on a mission to clean up his city and willing to casually kill bad guys. The second season has Oliver pursuing a less murderous campaign. Heck, he’s apparently even about to start wearing the mask seen in the photo at top here.
All the while, “Arrow” is adding characters and mythology and feeling stronger and stronger.
Sometimes you just have to chalk it up to the indisputable silliness of the times.
Here’s the cover from World’s Finest 61, from November 1952.
According to the DC Comics database, Win Mortimer was the artist.
Remember way back in September, when Marvel’s first modern-era TV production, “Agents of SHIELD,” seemed so exciting?
Sure we were all worried about how Marvel and show creator Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “The Avengers”) would be able to translate the excitement of the big-screen world onto ABC’s small screen. That ABC was showing it at 8 p.m. Tuesdays was also a concern. Nobody expected tough-and-gritty stories and atmosphere anyway, although we might see that with “Daredevil” and the other shows Marvel is doing for Netflix. An 8 p.m. timeslot all but guaranteed a fairly family-friendly aura.
But we were genuinely excited at the thought of everything that might happen. “SHIELD” would be a weekly dose of the greater Marvel universe, filled with characters we love, characters that have never been portrayed in live action before. Luke Cage! Moon Knight!
At first, “Agents of SHIELD” seemed like a sure-fire hit. The pilot got very good ratings.
But as the first nine episodes continued to air, audience numbers dropped – and so did our expectations of and faith in the show.
Too many episodes, although they seem “thisclose” to really taking off, somehow fail to. The core team of SHIELD operatives isn’t that interesting. Too much time has been spent teasing the audience about what happened to Phil Coulson after Loki “killed” him. And the roster of comic book characters that have been allowed to make an appearance is lackluster. Graviton? Really?
So here’s what the producers of “Agents of SHIELD” need to do before it’s too late. If it isn’t already too late.
Give us some well-known characters. When Whedon said a while back that “Agents of SHIELD” gave him a few dozen opportunities to make “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” a little less special when it came out in 2015, he wasn’t joking. Obviously nobody at Marvel or Disney or ABC wants to sate the audience’s interest in Marvel heroes before the movie comes out. And obviously Marvel wants to save some characters for big-screen movies, which is why you won’t see Dr. Strange, I’m guessing. But stop with the one-and-done, wannabes and third-raters. There ware many, many Marvel characters the show could introduce.
Retool the cast. Each of the supporting characters is fine, really, but they’re the type of characters that Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson was in the Marvel movies. In other words, just that: Supporting. I loved episodes of “Buffy” that revolved around that show’s “supporting” cast. Remember “The Zeppo” and Xander as below-the-radar hero? “Agents of SHIELD” hasn’t, so far, been able to do that kind of thing with Fitz or Simmons or May or Skye.
Resolve Phil Coulson’s status now. Or at least take it to the next level. Remember in the final season of “Buffy” when Buffy would make a different version of the “this is gonna be a tough battle” speech what seemed like every week? Jeez, that got old. It seemed like the series was treading water. “SHIELD” seems to have fallen into the same trap with its near-weekly reminder that something is different with Agent Coulson. A while back I suggested they needed to let Coulson – who is blocked from viewing his own medical records – find out he’s a clone or Life Model Decoy or whatever, break ranks with SHIELD and go at least a little rogue. “The good guys versus SHIELD” angle appears to be at least part of the plot of next April’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” so it wouldn’t be totally out of character for the Marvel universe.
Bring on the bad guys. SHIELD’s adversaries in the show so far have been weak to only mildly intriguing. I’m not sure I care a whit about Centipede unless it morphs into HYDRA. How about AIM? Advanced Idea Mechanics was referenced in “Iron Man 3.” In the comics, they were guys in crazy yellow hazmat/beekkeeper outfits. I’m sure the show could come up with an updated uniform.
Give us some star power. Samuel L. Jackson’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in an early episode was fine. But we want more meat. Remember Mark Ruffalo’s appearance at the end of “Iron Man 3?” We want that in “SHIELD,” magnified.
Maybe “Agents of SHIELD” will resolve its problems quickly and, by February, be the kick-ass Marvel TV experience we all want. A couple of upcoming episodes hold promise.
But if not, it’s hard to imagine many of us sticking around.
keithroysdon 