Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2093

See Layers of THE 100 in Beautiful Paper Fan Art

The submissions I receive for Fan Art Friday continually surprise me. Sometimes I get whimsical digital creations, sometimes someone sends art made from seeds, and sometimes paper art comes into my inbox. The latter is the medium for this week’s gallery. Dylan Holt creates layered paper art portraits depicting characters from The 100. The way Dylan uses colors and careful paper placement to give the finished pieces life and personality.

Clarke and Lexa

The way the pieces come together kind of remind me of topographic maps. That anyone can invest the time into coming up with the design and cutting each piece of paper is remarkable to me.

The Commander

More of Dylan’s intricate paper creations are in the gallery below. Go visit, you’ll like it. You’ll find other images inspired by The 100, like Anya, a rainbow paper design for Lexa, Clarke as Wanheda, and Raven. Warning: you might experience a severe case of emotions while looking at this art; The 100-related things have that kind of effect. You can keep tabs on all of Dylan’s creations by following along on Twitter and/or Tumblr.

Do you create any sort of fan art? If so, I want to see it. Whether you focus on a specific fandom or pull inspiration from multiple stories and mediums, I’d like to highlight what you do. If you’re interested in being featured in a future edition of Fan Art Friday, get in touch with me at alratcliffe@yahoo.com with examples of your work. If you’re not an artist, feel free to email me with recommendations for Fan Art Friday!

Images: Dylan Holt

Kurt Russell Won’t Let James Corden Escape from THE LATE LATE SHOW

Next weekend, Kurt Russell is going to be in one of the biggest hits of his career, if the box office projections for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hold up. In terms of roles, it doesn’t get much bigger than playing Ego the Living Planet, even if Russell’s cinematic legend was already built over the last three decades. So naturally, Russell was able to get a little bit creative with his movie promotion on late night television.

During his appearance this week on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Russell took part in a comedic skit called “Escape From Kurt Russell,” which took its title from Russell’s classic John Carpenter films: Escape From New York and Escape From LA. Unlike his Escape character, Snake Plissken, Russell portrayed himself as an overly gregarious movie star who just couldn’t help getting rambunctious every time he saw Corden in Los Angeles.

If anything, the skit was over far too quickly. But it was very entertaining to see Corden, or rather, his stunt double, go through a couple of walls as Russell escalated the roughhousing. The only thing that would have made it better is if Russell had worn Snake’s famous eye patch and outfit while knocking his friend around.

Naturally, Russell wasn’t the only guest on Thursday night’s episode. Silicon Valley star Thomas Middleditch was ridiculously excited to meet one of his cinematic idols. To prove his dedication to Russell, Corden produced a photograph of Middleditch as a nine-year old wearing a Backdraft t-shirt. And during the commercial break, Russell gamely gave it a Backdraft themed signature: “Did you check that door for heat, Thomas?”

What did you think about Russell’s visit to The Late Late Show? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Image: CBS

MAGIC: THE GATHERING Issues Emergency Ban on a Particularly Strong Card

The creators of Magic: The Gathering made a surprise announcement on Friday that has some fans venting their frustrations across the internet. The company, Wizards of the Coast, announced that one half of a particularly strong killer combo can no longer be used in standard format play. Sad to say that it’s this bad-ass cat beast called 

The now-banned card is fairly strong on its own but–as reported earlier on Kotaku–becomes a game-ending threat when paired with another called Saheeli Rai. Introducing both into play allows for the infinite replication of the neon cat beasts which has affectionately become known as the “Copy Cat Combo.”

Wizards of the Coast put out an explanation/apology for the card being pulled noting the likelihood of the combo showing up in decks would result in some rather unfair game-play. In the grand scheme of things, the company’s statement reads a whole lot better than most apologies by politicians or corporations dealing with life or death scandals.

They end their statement by taking responsibility for the hassle that it’s caused saying they “understand we shouldn’t let combos like Saheeli-Felidar get out the door in the first place. For that we take ownership and are making changes to try to prevent this from happening again. But our highest priority is keeping Magic fun and enjoyable for our players. We believe this banning coupled with a number of internal testing process improvements will be significant steps toward making Standard the fun, dynamic format we all want it to be in perpetuity.”

And while some may scoff at the serious nature of this card being banned and comment things like “it’s just a game!” should know that Magic: The Gathering has become a serious economy for expert players. Tournaments are held pretty much worldwide with some prizes in the hundreds of thousands. So, developing strategies with your deck and confidence in certain cards being allowed in tournament play is some pretty serious business.

What are your thoughts on the card ban? Did Wizards of the Coast handle the ban well? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Card Images: Gatherer

Featured Image: Wizards of the Coast

Ever wanted to be an Alien?

Finally, Our First Real Peek At WONDER WOMAN’s Villain, Ares

In just over a month, the long-awaited Wonder Woman will arrive in theaters to give the Amazon superhero the spotlight she deserves. Curiously, Warner Bros. has given so little promotion to the film, it would be easy to forget that it’s coming. Think about it: at this point last year, we had Jared Leto’s Joker permanently tattooed on our brains for a movie that didn’t even come out until August! But all is not lost, movie fans! WB is finally starting to raise its game and the latest ads have finally given us a glimpse of the God of War himself, Ares! But is there a deeper secret behind Ares’ appearance in this film? Find out on today’s Nerdist News!

Please note, there are potentially massive spoilers ahead for Wonder Woman! We are not kidding, one of the movie’s big reveals may have been exposed. So if you don’t want to know, then you should stop reading now.

Join host and Barbara Minerva’s former partner, Jessica Chobot, as she walks us through the very brief look at Ares. Notice how we don’t get to see his face? We can’t help but think that is a very deliberate choice, and one of the rare examples of self-restraint from the promotional team. Until now, we’ve believed that Danny Huston’s Erich Ludendorff would turn out to be Ares’ human form.

But recent reports have suggested that David Thewlis will actually be the one to play Ares, and it’s actually pretty clever. Who would suspect that Harry Potter’s beloved Professor Lupin had such a dark side? And Thewlis’ human character, Sir Patrick Morgan, is supposedly devoted to the ideals of peace. But if the current reports are true, then Sir Patrick’s real agenda is never-ending warfare, and that’s not something that Wonder Woman is going to allow.

Are you excited about the potential Ares reveal? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

THE CIRCLE Doesn’t Really Have Much to Say (Tribeca Review)

The Circle can’t exactly be accused of having nothing going on upstairs. Our journey alongside Emma Watson‘s nubile young desk jockey, hired at the beginning of the story by the titular Google-sized and social media-oriented megacorporation, careens through plenty of intrinsically meaty speculative sci-fi concepts and sociopolitical quandaries. In its considerably breezy 110 minutes, The Circle touches on questions about surveillance and privacy, corporate-government fusion, and the affects of digital immersion on our lives and self-worth. The problem is that these aren’t questions that can be satisfyingly touched on and let to rest, but that’s really all the movie does.

Although Dave Eggers published the novel The Circle just four years back, our world has since stridden with great haste toward the reality his pages projected. There’s very little onscreen in The Circle that reads as too big a leap to accept as inevitability, let alone an immediate possibility. And yet, the film seems satisfied to merely acknowledge the existence of its concept, the spotlighted likes of which include omnipresent cameras and human identities enveloped by online ranking systems.

The film’s central conceit kicks in when Mae (Watson), who evolves rather quickly from disconnected outlier to the veritable face of the Circle, agrees to transmit her every waking moment to a ‘round-the-clock live video feed for all Circle users to view and interact with, all in the name of the company’s maxim of total connectivity. While the turn reaps an amusing bounty of kooky internet comments, popping up onscreen alongside Mae’s any given activity—no matter how banal—it barely skirts the ramifications of this kind of especially drastic submission to the social media sphere.

Though Mae functions essentially as the everywoman, both befuddled and seduced by the increasingly cliquey changing world, the characters who surround her essentially stand in for platitudes. Tom Hanks, always an amicable screen presence, serves as the Circle’s answer to Steve Jobs—a media-savvy zealot whose only drive is to extend and expand his company’s reach as far and wide as possible. As the company’s co-head, Patton Oswalt, though someone I’m always happy to see onscreen, isn’t asked to contribute much more than a supplement to Hanks’ subdued villainy. Rounding out the Circle staff are Karen Gillan as Mae’s workaholic colleague and friend and John Boyega as a reformed tech genius who sees the peril in the Circle’s increasing might.

What exactly that peril is, however, the film never seems too interested in digging into. What we’re treated to instead of furtive examinations of these larger philosophical problems are vague and ominous diatribes and a few isolated episodes of tech-adjacent misfortune. All that and a cockeyed conclusion lend to a film that feels decidedly unprepared to handle its subject matter.

And yet, The Circle doesn’t quite skulk by without a fair dose of entertainment. Though often self-serious, the movie’s more humorous jabs at Silicon Valley culture and the cesspool that is the typical online comment forum are its most enjoyable assets. Frankly, these hints of cleverness make me curious about if a devotedly comedic adaptation of The Circle might not have been a more successful, and probably even more insightful, endeavor. Given that the wealth of the film’s best social commentary comes through in joke form, I certainly have to wonder.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Images: EuropaCorp/STX Entertainment

Michael Arbeiter is the East Coast Editor for Nerdist and spends way too much time on the internet. Find Michael on Twitter @micarbeiter.

AMERICAN GODS Cast Explains Why Book Fans Should Be Extra Hyped for the Show

If you’ve been reading through Neil Gaiman’s American Gods with Nerdist’s Alpha Book Club this month — or if you’re just a longtime fan of the book — then you’re probably so much more excited for the Starz series to premiere on April 30. But of course, no adaptation is exactly like its source material, and having the text so fresh in our minds is going to make those differences stand out all the more. So what should longtime book fans be the most excited to see? I got the chance to sit down with the cast of the show, as well as its creators, and ask them exactly that.

A lot of people get upset when changes are made to a story they love, but in the case of American Gods, it means more time fleshing out parts of the world that we don’t get to see all that much from Shadow’s perspective in the book. “Where we get to see tiny little glimpses of characters of the books, there’s this whole area of ‘what did they do? Who knows?’“ Bruce Langley, who plays Technical Boy, said. “we really get to expand in the series and see what they were doing in that time.”

So if you’ve ever wondered how Shadow’s wife Laura Moon was able to follow him across the country while still being extremely dead, or what raucous adventures Mad Sweeney was having while trying to track down his lucky coin, then your curiosity will definitely be handsomely rewarded. In fact, you’ll get a lot of cool bonus content, so to speak. “The first season is only the first 100 pages of the book!” Emily Browning, a.k.a. Laura herself, noted. “I think that will be cool for fans of the book. They get to see what they’ve already loved from the story, but there are still going to be surprises for them as well. “

There were also some logistical changes that needed to be made to update the story for 2017, which will no doubt be interesting for book readers to encounter along the way. For example, Laura couldn’t be a small town travel agent anymore, author Neil Gaiman explained, because there are no more small town travel agents. But as co-creator Michael Green also pointed out, “The issues and themes brought into that are going to be relevant for a long time.”

Moreover, the visual elements in the show will feel exactly like what you’d expect a series based on Gaiman’s lush, stunning prose to feel like. According to Kristin Chenoweth, who plays Easter, “The look of these worlds are all very specific and very well documented in the book, and I think they’ll enjoy seeing that come to life.”

Finally, Mr Nancy actor and internet darling Orlando Jones was also a huge fan of the book going into the series, so naturally he had the best and most accurate answer for what fans should get excited about: “Bilquis.” Honestly, enough said.

Is there a scene from American Gods that you can’t wait to see recreated on screen? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Images: Starz

DEATH NOTE: THE MUSICAL Exists and Looks Kind of Awesome

Ghost In The Shell may be the anime of the moment in light of the live-action movie starring Scarlett Johansson, but soon enough, it will be time for Death Note to take the reigns. Nat Wolff and Willem Dafoe are leading a live-action remake of the dark anime for Netflix, which is scheduled for release this summer on August 25. The show deals with murder, morality, and some pretty heavy topics, so while “musical” might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Death Note, the show does have its own musical adaptation, and you can take a quick look at it now (via Comic Book).

The musical has been running in Japan since April 2015, and Comic Book calls Death Note: The Musical “one of Japan’s most successful play adaptations of an anime.” It’s hard to get a feel of what the show is like based on the 30 seconds of footage above, but if there’s one thing we noticed, it’s that the actor portraying L seems to have his odd and sometimes creepy mannerisms totally nailed.

Aside from the theater production, music has always been an important part of the Death Note anime. Like a ton of anime, you tend to hear the same compositions over and over during the course of the series, but on its own, the Death Note soundtrack is actually a pretty solid post-rock-style album. My personal favorite tracks include “Death Note,” “Jiken,” and “L’s Theme B,” but listen to it for yourself below and let us know in the comments what songs stand out to you.

Featured image: ホリプロオンラインチケット/YouTube

The best anime of 2017!

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ’80s-Style TV Spot is Delightfully Retro

Although it’s one of the biggest movie franchises of today, there’s something undoubtedly retro about Guardians of the Galaxy, whether it’s the old-school soundtrack or the timeless heroism of Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord. Well now, that warm nostalgic feel has been cranked up to 11 in this new ’80s-style ad for the new movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

The clip is short, simple, and sweet: The 30-second spot begins with a stylized logo for the film, that features a blend of big chrome letters and gold cursive writing that just screams throwback. From there, we get a few bits of personality from the main characters, the clips dressed with some canned laughter and other reactions pulled from your favorite ’80s sitcom of choice. Then each character gets their own title card screen and that’s essentially it. It’s a fun piece of film promotion that, like the movie itself, is good and authentic without taking itself too seriously.

This is just the latest of many early looks we’ve gotten at the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie, which hits theaters on May 5. For instance, we got to sit down with some of the cast, and they told us about their favorite music, and we also asked them about who their favorite characters from the film are. We also checked out Disney’s new attraction based on the movie, and as you probably expected, we were blown away.

If you loved this fun new trailer, head to the comments and let us know!

Featured image: Marvel

We’re stoked for these Summer 2017 blockbusters!

BATMAN Reanimated – ‘Over the Edge’ is Sheer Perfection

1992’s Batman: The Animated Series had a number of character-, series-, and genre-defining episodes, many written by head writer Paul Dini. “Heart of Ice,” “Almost Got ‘Im,” “Harley and Ivy,” and others come to mind. The 1997-1998 follow-up, The New Batman Adventure certainly has fewer of these standouts, but when an episode hit, boy did it ever, and arguably Dini’s best work came in the 11th broadcast episode, “Over the Edge,” which shows us the worst possible outcome of the Bat-Family’s nightly activities, and features break-neck action direction to boot.

So far, the aspects of The New Batman Adventures that have stood out to me most during this re-watch have been the animation direction (though character designs I don’t love) and the hints that Batman is perhaps a reckless mentor figure for bringing children into his world. “Over the Edge” addresses those concerns head-on, but instead of having Batman himself deal with them directly, we get another character’s fear-induced fever dream rendition. It’s a bit of a cheat, but the episode is no less a gut-punch.

The episode opens in the middle of an insane action sequence — Yuichiro Yano directed the episode, another key animator from Japan who became indispensable on Batman, Superman, animating “Never Fear” and “Mean Seasons” — where Batman and Robin are running for their lives in the Batcave as Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD open fire at them. Gordon tells “Bruce” to give it up, and the SWAT team blows up the Batmobile, forcing the Dynamic Duo to jump down to the water below for the Batboat, narrowly escaping getting shot because Alfred jumps on Gordon. Police boats give chase in Gotham Harbor and it’s only Nightwing’s sudden appearance that lets them get away.

After regrouping, we get a flashback of exactly what happened: Batman and Batgirl were fighting Scarecrow on a rooftop and he wallops Batgirl, sending her down to the streets below, right in front of Gordon and Det. Bullock. As they call for an ambulance, she weakly says “Dad” before dying. Finally Gordon knows the truth, and he’s angry. Bullock attempts to arrest Batman for murder (I mean, by association, I GUESS. Reckless endangerment resulting in death for sure) but Batman takes off. Gordon proves not to be a blind fool, and quickly figures out that Batman is Bruce Wayne, which leads to both Dick Grayson and Tim Drake becoming wanted fugitives as well. Dick even gets arrested.

Unmasking the Batman in public and the ramifications of the PD’s tacit allowance of vigilante activity then leads to a cadre of villains coming forward and starting a class action lawsuit, citing the Batman as the cause of their fragile mental conditions. Harley Quinn, Mad Hatter, the Riddler, and the Ventriloquist even go on a talk show to tell their sob stories about the horrible Batman. Gordon, meanwhile, hires Bane to find and take out Batman and after a double-cross, the three men end up on the roof, and Bats and Gordon fall to their deaths…

…just in time for Barbara Gordon to wake up, in the Batcave, finally having kicked the Scarecrow’s fear toxin. It was her dream all along, her biggest fear being her secret life catching up with her real life. She decides to tell her father the truth, but he more or less says “you’re an adult, you can make your own decisions, and I’ll support you the whole way.”

It’s sweet, granted, but I found myself incredibly troubled. We saw, albeit in a nightmare, what would happen if her father found out the truth following an accidental death, and instead of getting out ahead of it, Barbara just hugs her dad when he says she can do whatever she wants. Not to mention that Batman IS guilty of endangering the lives of children and youths to further his incredibly dangerous nighttime activities.

“Over the Edge” is a dark what-if story of the worst case scenario for both Gotham City and anyone associated with Batman, and to Dini’s credit, the episode ends back at status quo but none of the legitimate problems are addressed. Batman is still culpable for everything, Commissioner Gordon would be completely justified in being kept in the dark by his friend and ally for so long, and Gotham City would effectively collapse. It’s brilliant writing, and a brilliant episode top to bottom.

Next week, however, we talk about what is considered a pretty poor episode by most fans: “Torch Song,” in which a pop singer is stalked by an obsessive pyrotechnician who’s calling himself Firefly. Oh good.

Let me know your thoughts on “Over the Edge” in the comments below!

Images: WB Animation

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He’s written the animation retrospectives Batman: Reanimated, X-Men: Reanimated, Cowboy Rebop, and Samurai reJacked. Follow him on Twitter!

MY FRIEND DAHMER is a Portrait of the Horrors of High School…and Serial Killers (Tribeca Review)

To call My Friend Dahmer an “origin story” may sound flippant, given that we’re discussing not a caped crusader confined to comic book lore but one of the most infamous serial killers in American history. But as the film slowly unveils the inner demons of its pre-homicidal titular character, you may feel as though you’re watching the first installment in a three-plus-picture series. Perhaps my senses have been cooked to a crisp by inundation with this sort of franchise filmmaking, but My Friend Dahmer certainly does seem to lean hard on the “what we know comes next” in order to keep the “what is happening now” running with verve.

Following Jeffrey Dahmer through his junior and senior years of high school, the film jumps between his ill-conceived efforts at making friends—teenage loner Jeff (a very good Ross Lynch) discovers a regular comic routine in mocking cerebral palsy to get cheap laughs in class—and his decreasingly safeguarded fascination with animal carcasses and bones. While it’s not exactly as though these vignettes couldn’t play as interesting on their own accord, they all feel as though they’re letting Dahmer’s common knowledge reputation do the heavy lifting.

Still, the Tribeca Film Festival premiere has its share of appeal, most notably in the complicated relationship the audience will no doubt harbor with young Jeff. Though everything we know about the boy demands revulsion, it’ll be tough not to empathize as he careens through the hallways of his decidedly John Hughesy high school, desperate for affection. The closest thing he gets is attention from three callous classmates who treat their new pal foremost as a comic prop. The central player of the bunch is “Derf” (Alex Wolff), whose real life counterpart is actually the artist and author behind the graphic novel on which My Friend Dahmer is based.

Surprisingly enough, the movie’s best work is not in the portraiture of a killer in the making, but in that of the nuance lining typically toxic teenage friendships. There’s something regrettably familiar in the way Jeff’s would-be friends (Tommy Nelson and Harrison Holzer round out the group) treat him, their fellow schoolmates, and one another—that My Friend Dahmer is just as willing to point out the monstrous nature of their behavior as it is of Jeff’s proves that the film has more on its mind than just exploiting the intrinsic intrigue of the Dahmer’s legend.

All this grim and grievous material aside, My Friend Dahmer is considerably breezy and enjoyable all the way through, rarely getting too heavy-handed in the delivery of its dark material. As an examination of a notorious American killer, it may be in over its head. But as one of something just as notorious–American high school life–it’s fun, sinister, and remarkably thoughtful.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Featured image via Tribeca Film Institute

Images: Abrams Comic Arts

Michael Arbeiter is the East Coast Editor of Nerdist. Find Michael on Twitter @micarbeiter.