Blog
RE:Animation – My Happy Marriage
BUMPED: (1/17/24) I pushed this up because season 2 has started. Frankly, an anime second season is definitely hit or miss. There are lots of different reasons for that but at the end of the day you don't know what you're getting until you see it. So far this second season is very promising. Miyo and Kudou are having to stay with his parents for reasons. His mother loathes Miyo on sight and makes her...
HardDrive-By: The Killing Antidote
As you’ve already guessed from the title, this is a Chinese game. As such there isn’t a lot of info on its studio MetalStar (or at least that’s not in Mandarin) so I’ll just be concentrating on the game itself. The Killing Antidote is a Resident Evil-like third-person shooter. Although it leans pretty heavily into Stellar Blade’s market. You play as “Jodi” an intrepid reporter who is trying to find the evil perpetrator Dr “Ryan” (I think). Anyway, she sneaks into...
Diamond Comics Distributor Has Filed for Chapter 11
I’m honestly rather shocked it took this long. But the company that is arguably the most responsible for the entire American comic book industry failing has failed itself. From Business Wire:Diamond Comic Distributors (“Diamond” or “the Company”), today announced that it has filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland to facilitate the restructuring of its business. As part of the restructuring...
The Fall of Neil Gaiman
I've said this before and I'm saying it now. Power does not corrupt. Power only reveals. If you gain power you will do the things you always wanted to.It's finally happened. It was fascinating to watch the system failing to protect one of its chosen own. It tried for a while. After all, there were too many high-cost projects with Gaiman's name inextricably attached to them. It's been possible to bury revolting antics...
The Last of Us Season 2
F-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-R-R-E!!!Since I never got into the first game I never really cared about the second but I could certainly understand why the fans were furious. I also didn't watch the TV show because I can't keep up with all the sewage that is getting blasted out of Hollywood's broken pipe. People I trust said, yeah, it was kind of good for the most part.People who are plugged in know what to expect from season 2. The trailer makes...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend DC’s Creature Commandos
This show was weak.Given how little attention Gunn could afford to give it because of the crash program demands of Superman, it was always going to be weak. However, its worst problem was clearly a budget cut. In the last episode, it just ran into a wall and stopped dead in its tracks. Worse still, the series commits the original writer’s sin of being completely predictable. Gunn usually throws in a few twists here and there but not this time. ...
Jude Law Was NOT Kyle Katarn
I published a rumor from a new source back in July, long before Skelton Crew was released. I was more than a little leery about this new source. Normally I try to get some kind of confirmation that the guy is who he says he is but that isn't always possible. I shouldn't have run it but I did. I goofed, my bad, I own it.The rumor was that the Unnamed Force User, Jude Law was playing...
The Dark Herald Recommends: Dune Prophecy
I’ll start by saying it’s not for everyone. If you didn’t like the Villeneuve Dune movies you’re out and there isn’t any point in you reading further. The same goes if you’re simply not a fan of Dune in general. There’s nothing here for you.This show was definitely a slow burn but it did finally catch fire in the last two episodes. The series’ biggest problem was viewer expectations. After the movies, they were hoping for something a bit more exciting...
Disney – The Dollar Store Tech Giant
Disney has announced something that Bob Iger lives for, a big merger. Hulu+ Live TV will be merging with FUBOTV. For those of you who are unaware of what FUBO is, it’s a streaming service that covers cable and local channels. It’s the streaming version of Comcast and so for that matter is “Hulu+ LiveTV.” Basically, Disney wants to Swallow HL+TV’s biggest competitor. Now I think there is a very good chance it’s going to get shot down by the...
The Dark Herald Recommends Last Knights
This is from Slant Magazine. I’m only posting this quote so you can laugh at the writer’s breathtaking ignorance, unearned arrogance, and hilarious stupidity.“Last Knights is another macho celebration of honor and self-sacrifice, of fighting for “freedom” because someone else told you to, that’s devoid of any acknowledgement(SP) of the inherent irony of that ideology. This film’s neurotic code of conduct is best encapsulated by a character who insists that “the wounds of honor are self-inflicted.” When Bartok (Morgan Freeman), a...
It’s A Little Late for Half-Life 3 Gabe
(*sigh*). It's a little embarrassing to report on this but everyone else is doing it, so... https://twitter.com/mikeshapiroland/status/1874213952680607922 I will have to give this Half-Life 3 rumor a little more credence than would be my usual want.Mike Shapiro has never blue balled his audience before and he sure as hell wouldn't have posted this without Valve's explicit permission.I had wondered when I saw that Valve had put so much effort into their documentary on the twentieth anniversary of Half-Life 2. It was...
Sweet Baby Poisoning Detected
John Trent, the founder of Bounding into Comics and the only real journalist in pop culture reporting has YouTube channel.Please Like and Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77hXG8DmFRg Discuss on Social Galactic
2024 – End of Year Wrapup
It’s dinner time and I finally have a moment to jot down a few thoughts about the year in pop culture.This was the year where Woke was supposedly closing up shop and the entertainment business was getting back to entertaining people. Not to be Negative Nancy but I regard this assessment as positively Doomcockian in its evidence-free optimism. DEI has fallen out of fashion and will have to have a completely, completely different name but beyond that acknowledgment, I’ve seen...
The Dark Herald Recommends: Nosferatu (2024)
(Note for the reader, I don’t normally do this but I would strongly recommend reading my essay on the original Nosferatu (1922). Some of what I reference below won’t make sense otherwise. *** Spoiler Alert: This film follows the plot of the original 1922 film. Given that the story is literally a century old I will make no effort to avoid spoilers***)Gothic horror has at long last returned from the dead.For years the grand school of cinematic fear was...
The Dark Herald Recommends Squid Game
BUMPED (12/27/24). Since my essay on season 2 is rather brief, I've bumped up my season one review as a courtesy extra.I’ve heard several reviewers claiming this series is like Battle Royale.It’s not. It’s The Prisoner with a high body count and lots of gore.*** Spoilers from here on out. ***The title comes from a children’s game in Korea that is roughly analogous to King of the Hill. It’s a last-man-standing kid’s game. Although, there is apparently some cultural significance to squids being...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend Squid Game Season 2
Writer-Director Hwang Dong-hyuk (hold the comments you are three anymore) has not delivered I’m sad to say. This isn’t season 2, It’s season 1.5.The original Squid Game was a surrealist horror story about people finding out what they will do to survive. Hwang, wrote the first iteration of Squid Game back in 2008. It was a project he couldn’t get made but never stopped pitching and when Netflix decided to start randomly financing K-Drama’s someone probably liked the rather...
The Amazon Bondoverse
Amazon wants to turn James Bond into a cinematic universe. This is a classic groupthink decision. We must have a multi-character franchise. We already have a single-character franchise. We must turn that into a multi-character franchise.Let the creatives do something with our brilliant decision.I really don’t know what they can do with it. Going with the movie characters (because that’s all the general audience knows about) you have James Bond, his boss, M, there used to be a secretary called Money Penny*...
Rudolph’s Propagantastic Beginning
There are no Gen-Xers that don’t have fond memories of Rankin/Bass Christmas specials (at least the ones who aren’t sad and miserable). They were part of the magic of Christmas for my generation. Earlier generations had one-horse open sleigh rides, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and Bing crooning about how he’d be home for Christmas.I suppose we still had Bing, but it was Charlie Brown and Rankin/Bass that signified we would soon be getting a two-week break from school and driving...
Christmas Ghost Stories
Americans are an odd bunch, even those of us holding on to our great heritage get a lot of that heritage wrong.Take a look at Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Americans can identify with the familiar aspects of the story, but there are others that feel like they would be more at home at Halloween. There are strong undertones of the eerie and the uncanny throughout the book. That there is a darker reason that children are tucked into their beds with care, and blankets...
The Dark Herald Recommends Klaus
BUMPED 12-24-2024 A redemption story for Christmas? The nerve of some people!This is exactly the kind of excellence that Disney can no longer achieve.This was advertised as a Netflix Original. Which is a lie, but I understand why Netflix does this. Calling something a Netflix Original sounds a lot better than, “Dumped on Netflix.” If you can’t get a distribution deal these days, then your best hope is dumping your movie on Netflix.Netflix does have some standards for this. Usually,...
Is Activision Plagiarism Laundering??
An interesting and tricky legal question that I will have to be careful in dancing around. While credit laundering is legally speaking not the motive, it looks rather a lot like it’s the effect.Not too long ago Activision/Blizzard had yet another scandal. Hearthstone had sold some cards that turned out to have been created by generative AI. Now this was not actually company policy, this was just some stuff that was outsourced to an “artist” who let his computer do...
Christmas Weekend Roundup
Sonic 3 Runs Mufasa Into the GroundThe spikey blue hedgehog ran the Lion King's old man into the ground. Sonic's take is $62 million. Mufasa pulled in a decidedly second place $35 million. This isn't remotely a surprise. This loss was mostly due to Disney's corporate arrogance. They moved Mufasa onto Sonic 3's weekend and just assumed that Paramount would slink away with its tail between its legs when challenged by the awesome might of Disney's biggest animation...
Looks Better Than Snyderverse Superman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhUht6vAsMY My opinions:I don't think a single movie has ever had so much riding on it or had so many things going against it.Marvel doesn't have anything warming up in the batter's box that's going to make any money. Sam Wilson's Captain America movie has cost so much to make it would have to pull in $2 billion before it could see a profit and it's not going to be doing that. The Thunderbolts is already dead and...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend: Kraven
Yeah, I can tell you’re surprised. The Spider-Man-free Spider-Man movies were an idea only a Hollywood producer could love. Certainly, no one else did. As far as I can tell, Amy Pascal knew she was in the process of being fired. She had been caught up in the Sony email scandal saying some excessively honest things about people like Angelina Jolie. That, plus a string of underperforming movies that had her name attached to them had her in Tom Rothman’s gun...
Dear Jag, This Is How You Take Care of a Brand
First a little background. Everyone except car dealers hates car dealerships. Yeah, I know and water is wet. Car dealerships were one of those FDR Goldilocks programs, they showed up for dinner uninvited and never left. The thinking at the time was that it would allow car manufacturers to concentrate on research and development. A few of its advocates had the nerve to claim it was a huge success because of America's automobile dominance in the 1950s, ignoring...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend War of the Rohirrim
I shall now damn this movie with the faintest praise I can give to anything. It’s not as bad as The Rings of Power.The story this is based on is in the appendices. Here is the quick and dirty. The Dunelendings were the descendants of swarthy men who had sided with Morgoth. Like all of his servants they served unwillingly but serve him they did which gave the Numenoreans a beef with them when they got that far East. When the kings...
Never Apologize
REPOST: Originally posted Dec 2021Why was In the Heights #canceled?Oh, there is the official reason but that has nothing to do with why it got put on blast by all the major media outlets within twenty-four hours. It wasn’t the real reason the film had its box office burned to the ground and its creator was forced to make a groveling apology.The Dark Herald will fill you in on that a little later.First the background. In the Heights, was a 2008 Broadway...
The (Sony Exclusive) Game Awards 2024
Well that was hot garbage. At least I played one of these award winning Sony Exclusives this year.Astro Bot — 4 wins (including Game of the Year), 7 nominationsMetaphor: ReFantazio — 3 wins, 6 nominationsBalatro — 3 wins, 5 nominationsBlack Myth: Wukong — 2 wins, 5 nominationsHelldivers 2 — 2 wins, 4 nominationsSenua's Sage: Hellblade 2 — 2 wins (including lead actor Melina Juergens' win for Best Performance), 4 nominationsHelldivers 2 did win my heart last night. During the awards what...
The Sony Buyout of Kadkowa Moves Forward
That headline either means nothing at all to you, or it makes you sick to your stomach. I can’t think of a worse custodian for Kadakowa unless it’s Disney. It’s hard to come up with an anime studio with a richer history than Kadokawa. Yes, Ghibli is more beloved but when you compare the body of work… Well, you can’t compare the body of work because they are on two entirely different planes of existence. Putting the studio that created Your Name...
Sony Kills the Spiderverse
Tom Rothman has had enough. The chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures is done with superheroes. He got bumped up from Tri-Star to head Sony Pictures after his predecessor ran Columbia Pictures so far into the ground Sony Japan was seriously considering dumping it on the highest bidder. The problem was that Columbia was in such bad shape nobody was interested. In the post-DVD-crash world, franchises were king and Sony only had two. Spiderman and Adam Sandler. Everything...
Ubisoft Buyout Hits a Snag
Ubisoft's only hope right now is a buyout from Chinese giant Tencent. It looked like that was exactly what was going to happen. Except it turns out that Tencent isn't insane, which is a considerable stumbling block to this buyout going through. You see, the Guillemot, who has led the company into its current disastrous state wants to retain control of Ubisoft after the deal goes through. Tencent hasn't said why it's not cool with leaving Ubisoft's founding...