Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2189

VOLTRON Recap: ‘Escape from Beta Traz’ is a Prison Break of Fun

You know the drill at this point, people! This is a recap of Voltron: Legendary Defender season two, episode 10, “Escape from Beta Traz.” There’s gonna be spoilers in this. If you don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading until you’ve seen the episode. Thank you all, and Merry Christmas.

We’re deep into a season that has real stakes, and I love it. With the fate of the universe in the balance, and the paladins of Voltron being essentially the only thing standing between the free systems and Zarkon’s total dominance, the back half of Voltron: Legendary Defender season two is gripping. And episode 10, “Escape from Beta Traz,” builds evermore to the ultimate actuation of their good-guy plan. Hunk and Keith gathered crystals in “The Belly of the Weblum,” and “Beta Traz” showed us what Lance, Pidge, and Shiro had to do.

In the Blue Lion, Lance–believing himself to be the team’s sharpshooter (that’s his THING, he says)–launched Shiro and Pidge toward the floating prison of Beta Traz. Beta Traz is holding a prisoner named Slav who is said to be a brilliant genius engineer the team needs to build their massive wormholer, and they were surprised to learn that Slav is their only prisoner. Pidge scanned the the prison and learned there were two cells, so Shiro took one and Lance took the other, looking for Slav. They had no idea what Slav looked like, which is very important to the story.

The prison’s warden was a brute of a Galra who looked like some kind of Pirates of Dark Water castoff and he tortured the people in both prison cells…hmm, who could Slav be? Shiro’s freed prisoner was…interesting. A kind of owl mixed with a caterpillar mixed with I don’t know what. He also has genius-level ability to be worried about stuff, constantly talking about the percentage that this reality will result in a bad outcome. He naturally drove Shiro insane, but did have some hilarious dialogue. He wasn’t going to leave his cell despite Shiro’s pleas, but when Shiro told him he was the pilot of the Black Lion, the prisoner asked if it had particular range of telehertz. “Yeah,” was Shiro’s response, to which the other said, “That’s my lucky range of telehertz!” and finally decided to go with Shiro.

Lance’s discovery, on the other hand, was a large purple beasty creature who, when asked if it was the Slav Lance was looking for, it responded “Yup.” In fact, any time Lance asked it anything, or said anything, it would respond “Yup.” Lance found this very cathartic, as he was able to open up to it as they attempted to make their way back to the Lion. He mused about his place on the team and whether he was worthy to be part of Voltron. Was he the fifth wheel? Or, including Allura and Coran, the seventh wheel? That’s even worse!

While all of this happened, Pidge was busy searching the Galra prison archives for any evidence of where her family were taken. She did indeed find security cam footage of her brother Matt escaping with some insurgents. Things are looking up for our friend the Green Paladin. But it began looking down once Shiro and Lance each got back to where they were going and realized they both thought they had Slav. Go figure, Lance’s wasn’t the real Slav, but was instead the warden’s pet…a Yupper, turned out. And the warden had some weird Bane-like serum in his neck that made him enormous, and much harder for our heroes to defeat.

Ultimately, Pidge was able to open the airlock, sending everything sucking out into space, and Lance remained behind at Shiro’s urging to be the sharpshooter who could take out a particular weapon. He succeeded, because he really was the sharpshooter of the group after all. In true Lance fashion, after firing and hitting his target, he turned toward the camera, gave a smile, and put his thumb and first finger under his chin, like Justin Bieber or something.

Elsewhere in the episode, Zarkon believed he was ready to be his own RoBeast. Dun dun dun!

I love episodes where only a few of the characters are on a mission. They’re so much fun, and this one had me rolling with laughter quite a bit. Slav is a very weird character but a fun addition to the roster of heroes. His “telehertz” line still has me laughing.

Share your opinion on this episode, and all of the previous episodes, in the comments below!

Images: DreamWorks/Netflix

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

Watch The Iron Giant Wreak Havoc on The Commonwealth in this Fallout 4 Mod

I’m going to rattle off some words that have no relation to one another and you tell me what comes to mind: War. Robots. Nuclear anxiety. If you thought Fallout 4 or The Iron Giant you wouldn’t be wrong! There are similarities between the game and the movie — the most obvious being pretty nuclear. On one massive hand you have a desolate apocalyptic world born from the Cold War question of: “what’s the worst case scenario if the bombs dropped?” and on the other you have a giant friendly robot prevents who that scenario from ever happening.

Fallout 4 is no stranger to mods. From smaller cosmetic changes to full-on gameplay modifications, the modding community over at NexusMods is a dedicated bunch of creatives doing fantastic work (like creating different textures for Dogmeat. Thank you.) Created by 3D artist Matthew Swanton, this particular mod replaces the enormous death machine known as Liberty Prime with the loveable automaton sent from outer space.

I have to admit, it is disconcerting to watch the Iron Giant bend down and pick up a super mutant before snapping its neck. Nothing says “ruined childhood” like watching the 50-foot giant with a heart of gold wreak havoc across the Commonwealth. But if you’re interested in downloading the mod, anyway, it’s available for PC and XBox One at the Nexus.

What do you think of this mashup? Let us know in the comments or join the conversation over at our Facebook Page.

Images: YouTube/Matthew Swanton

Is Julia a Villain on THE MAGICIANS? Stella Maeve and the Cast Discuss

Warning: this story contains spoilers from season one of The Magicians! 

Syfy’s fantasy hit series The Magicians doesn’t ever sugar coat situations, so we won’t either: Quentin (Jason Ralph), Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and the rest of the Brakebills crew is royally screwed. By the time season one ended, they’d failed in their mission to kill the Beast (Charles Mesure) and pretty much all their lives were hanging in the balance. Alice was bleeding out on the floor, Penny (Arjun Gupta) had both of his hands sliced off, Eliot (Hale Appleman) and Margo (Summer Bishil) were laying on the floor with broken necks, and Quentin was left all alone with the realization that Julia (Stella Maeve) left them all to die. Because when Alice hesitated with the god-killing knife, Julia stepped in and took it from her, holding the Beast at knifepoint and making a deal with him: if he would help her kill Reynard (Mackenzie Astin), the trickster fox demon god who had raped her, she would give the Beast the only weapon that had the power to kill him. He agreed, they vanished, and Quentin was left all alone with no idea what to do next.

While many viewers viewed Julia’s actions as a betrayal of Quentin and his friends, does teaming up with the Beast make her a villain? And what is The Magicians trying to say by making the two sexual assault survivors—Julia and the Beast himself—the two main villains, if so? By the time season two begins, pretty much everyone except for Quentin seems to think that Julia is now against them. But if you ask the cast, that’s not the case.

“I don’t agree with that,” Maeve told Nerdist while filming season two on set in Vancouver. “When Julia teams up with the Beast, I don’t think she’s intentionally doing that to spite everyone else. It’s her way of almost trying to save everyone by putting herself on the line while also utilizing him as a tool.”

If you take a closer look at the events of the final minutes of the season one finale, it’s clear that Julia stepping in when she did prevented the Beast from inflicting any further damage on the group. But in the heat of the moment and from the perspective of “our heroes,” it’s hard to see that.

“I don’t think that in Julia’s mind, [that] it was to spite everyone or to go against them,” Maeve said. “It was genuinely that she wants one thing and this is a distraction so I can save them. It was like killing two birds with one stone. I get asked that a lot though.”

The other cast members feel the same way.

“I get a lot of questions like, ‘How do you feel about Julia betraying the group?'” Ralph said. “And I never really felt that way. As Quentin it feels like, first of all, she’s really the only person in the room that had a handle on the situation literally. Had she not been there, we don’t know what else we could have done but potentially we could have died since Alice was unsure of her powers. There was no way of knowing what Alice would have done, so Julia stepping in didn’t necessarily stop them from winning.”

Dudley can see both sides of the coin, but said she doesn’t blame Julia for doing what she did.

“It’s easy to place blame in a situation like that but everyone was doing what was right for them in the moment,” she said. “We were all left in pretty terrible positions, so everyone’s going to be very protective of themselves. Our walls are up. And you’ll see as time goes on that Julia isn’t just looking out for herself, she’s also making strides to protect her friends from the Beast. She knows who she’s dealing with and she’s not going in blind.”

When you also look at the personal trauma Julia had just suffered as a victim of rape, it’s understandable why she would be fueled by revenge right now.

“She didn’t do any of this with malicious intent,” Maeve said. “I do think the similarities between her and Martin Chatwin [a.k.a. the Beast] are interesting because they both were victims of trauma. We’re about to shoot episode 208 and you’ll get to see something that happens to Julia that the Beast went through that shows how she could go that same, dark route and that underlying question ultimately proves why she’s not the villain.”

She paused, and then continued, “This is really showing her humanity. She is so consumed by her assault and her rape and she’s trying to get back to herself and find a way to validate the things that happened. Right now, revenge is that way.”

When it came time to filming the scene in which Reynard raped her, Maeve recalled that it was an extremely heavy experience on set.

“It was really intense. Any way you go at it, it’s not easy,” Maeve said. “Having read it prior and then having to go through it after, your character doesn’t know it’s happening but you know it’s happening so you have to kind of succumb and allow this situation to happen. For Julia, she’s in a level of such grief and denial that the only way to move past it is just keep moving.”

Maeve “loved” the way it was handled as the writers brought that scene from the page to the screen.

“There are so many people who have been through so many tragedies and so many victims of sexual assault that we wanted to let the world know that we can talk about these things and it’s not something to be ashamed about,” she said. “And actually because of that I got involved with the Stuart House Foundation which is a center for rape victims, and that experience was incredible.”

Fans of Lev Grossman’s books on which the Syfy series is based were surprised to see just how much of Julia’s story from book two was featured in the first season, and how it differed from the character’s journey in the books. Maeve herself was a fan of the books, and while her character was given more to do in the first season than if the writers had followed Grossman’s books exactly, she still struggled with knowing how much the show was changing the character’s arc.

“I love anything from the books so one of my biggest struggles last season was letting go of [what I expected],” Maeve said. “I was right there with the fans. I kept reminding myself that Lev has signed off on this, Lev has given us his blessing, it’s going to be okay. It’s always hard to let go of the source material because you want it to be done in this way that in your mind, that’s the way it’s supposed to go. But it’s amazing to embrace the unknown.”

And according to Maeve, season two will feature some big departures from the books. But she loved the changes the showrunners made.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this spoiler but there’s going to be a character that’s otherworldly that comes in and normally these characters are females,” Maeve said. “But when they pitched the idea to Lev it was a man, so that got written into the script. Julia even says to this thing, ‘Aren’t you guys normally females?’ So cool things like that happen where things get shifted and changed and poked fun at, and it’s cool because Lev is on board.”

Because the show is going to be set in the fantastical world of Fillory more in season two, that allows the story to grow in ways that fans may be not be expecting. “You will get to see a lot more of Fillory this season,” Maeve teased. “It’s its own character this season, truly.”

What do you think about where Julia’s story is heading as The Magicians season two premieres? Do you think she’s a villain? What are you most excited to see from season two? Tweet me your thoughts and opinions at @SydneyBucksbaum!

Images: Syfy

The Magicians season two premieres Wednesday, January 25 at 9 p.m. on Syfy.

And for more silly magic, check out Alicia’s tutting lesson with Jason, Stella, and Olivia:

Surprise! POKÉMON DUEL is a New Mobile Game You Can Play Right Now

There’s a deep multiplayer Pokémon experience that you can enjoy on your Apple or Android device right now, but we’re not talking about Pokémon Go (which absolutely dominated the world this summer, we know: we’re not n00bs!). The game we’re referring to is Pokémon Duel, and yes, it’s a complete surprise to us as well!

So what is it? What Pokémon Duel seems to be is a pretty nuanced digital board game that appears to borrow some mechanics from the main series of Pokémon games. According to IGN, Players have a six-creature party and battle other Pokémon when they land on the same space, but instead of wiping the other team out, the goal is more like capture the flag, as you’re supposed to reach a space on the opponent’s side of the board before they reach yours.

As you’d expect, each Pokémon has different abilities in terms of attack and movement across the board, so like in the original RPGs, choosing the right team is an important part of your gameplan. To attack, you spin the Pokémon’s Data Disk and attack with whatever move it lands on, with the intention of either knocking out the opposition or moving them out of the way. There are also items you can use during your turn (here called “plates), and plates can do everything from swap positions of Pokémon to enhance their own attacks.

While competitive online multiplayer is a main feature, what’s also notable about the game is that it was developed with HEROZ, a Japanese company whose game Shogi Wars has AI so advanced that it’s capable of giving professional players actual competition.

Our Japanese friends have had their hands on the game for months now—as it was released in Japan back in April as Pokémon Comaster—but now we can play it ourselves, so learn more about Pokémon Duel here, watch the trailer above, download the game for iOS or Android (it’s free, with in-app purchases), and let us know what you think about this surprise bit of Pokémon fun in the comments below!

Featured Image: The Pokémon Company

Silcon Valley’s Clay Tarver Reunited His ’90s Band Chavez and They Made Us a Playlist

“The music is horrible, but it rules.”

This was Butt-head’s concise summation of the music video for indie rock band Chavez’s “Break Up Your Band,” which the animated high schoolers ripped on during a 1995 episode of Beavis and Butt-head. “Yeah we should watch this all the time; this rules,” Beavis agrees. As the intentionally half-assed music video unfolds with male strippers gyrating in different kinds of store-bought costumes, the two imbecile friends are completely besotted with the visuals, a rare occurrence on the required, yet classic music video portion of the MTV cartoon. And then in a moment of pure philosophical excellence the two arrive at a rare moment of clarity that doesn’t even seem to be related to Chavez.

“Everybody sucks” Butt-head realizes through his incessant laugh. Beavis agrees, “Yeah, everybody is stupid.”

It must have been this precise segment that Mike Judge and Clay Tarver, founding guitarist of Chavez, connected on a deeply spiritual level, laughing at themselves and the absurdity of everything in general. Fast forward 20 years and these two co-created the beloved HBO comedy, Silicon Valley, which at its core lives by the everybody-sucks-and-is-stupid creed. That worldview, as it applied to malaise in ’90s pop culture, feels as relevant as ever in 2017, even if as it takes more active forms.

Recently, after a roughly 20-year hiatus, Tarver and the rest of his bandmates reunited Chavez, realizing a pipe dream for devout indie rock fanatics of the mid-’90s. The group was one of the brightest gems of alternative rock before they disappeared, so that they have come back at all is nothing short of college radio rock miracle. Their main mission: “Avoid sucking.” Now that is something we can all aspire to.

To celebrate the return of Chavez, legendary guitarist Matt Sweeney made us a special playlist of tunes that have inspired the band throughout their career. We also got in touch with Tarver to talk about his role in Silicon Valley, what it’s like to work with Mike Judge, his new EP, and how he thinks of himself as Richard Hendrix. Check it below.

Nerdist: What character do you most identify with from Silicon Valley

Clay Tarver: Well, I suppose I identify with Richard. It’s his story, after all. He’s a guy who wants to do something cool and worthy. He wants his algorithm to be and do all it should be and do. But he wants to do it all without selling his soul. And he wants to keep his guys together. That’s who I identify with. But I think the people in the office probably identify me as more of a Gilfoyle, for pretty obvious reasons.

N: What show did you binge watch most recently?

CT: We’re right in the throes of Silicon Valley and watching TV feels like work for me. So lately it’s been all music docs, YouTube K-Holes, or hitting up records I haven’t fully experienced in a while. A couple of weeks ago I listened to Metal Machine Music all the way through in one sitting. It was a joy. And I don’t know why anyone ever had a problem with it. Not sure what that says about me.

N: Did your experience in Chavez inform the creation of Silicon Valley at all?

CT: Yes. We reference music stuff in the writers room more than you’d think. I mean, the company is basically a band. The guys all live and work together. That’s their identity. They really have no lives outside of it. And they’re all trying to go for this dream without killing each other. Only the stakes in the Valley are ridiculously magnified compared to something as meaningless and trivial as the dying music business. If you think about it, the hurdles are remarkably similar. You want to work with people and not get ripped off. You want to not get distracted from the core mission, but any form of success or recognition makes that harder and harder. You want to get somewhere before you die. But it’s almost impossible. There’s a saying in the Valley: “Being too early is the same as being wrong.” Sometimes I feel that a little tiny bit about Chavez.

N: How is working with Mike Judge?

CT: I’ve worked with Mike for almost 20 years now. The first fifteen were all feature projects. SV is the only TV show. He’s a Texan, like me. He’s amazingly cool. And a very, very, very sick stand up bass player. He was in bands for years and years before he did Beavis and Butt-head. Mostly rockabilly and blues stuff. I guess we kinda connect over that.

N: What is Chavez’s mission statement now after all this time

CT: The mission statement was to make Chavez music and to avoid it sucking. It’s a tough thing to get us all into a room together. And yet there’s nothing in this world that I enjoy more. We always kept playing together, kept writing music. I loved the stuff. Loved it. And I got to a place where I felt like if I died without putting out at least SOME of this stuff we made I would die a total asshole. So I guess the mission is really not letting me die a total asshole.

N: If the Pied Piper Guys formed a band what would it be called?

CT: Don’t make me come up with another band name. The last one I came up with was Chavez. And look where that got us all.

Image: HBO

Matt Grosinger is the music editor of Nerdist and really needs to revisit Beavis and Butt-head. You can talk to him about regular ass shit on Twitter. Chavez’s Cockfighters EP is out now via Matador.

Functional OVERWATCH Pulse Pistol Brings Tracer’s Tech Into Reality

Tracer’s backstory from Overwatch is pretty out there. Becoming a test pilot for a teleporting fighter jet, getting lost in (presumably) another dimension, and then coming back months later like Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse-Five getting stuck and unstuck in time, is all firmly in the realm of fiction. But Tracer’s pulse pistols are a different story. They can be built (approximately) in real life, and thanks to YouTuber LaserGadgets, now they have.

LaserGadgets, who’s made myriad brilliant real-life adaptations of laser weapons from pop nerd culture — including this 84-watt Death Star that can cut through steel — turned his laser-like attention (many apologies) to Tracer’s pulse pistols for his latest creation. And the fully functional weapon is perfect if you’re looking to blink into an enemy’s backlines and do some damage, or pop a kid’s birthday balloons.

The pulse pistol duplicates the video game version almost exactly, at least in terms of visual design. LaserGadgets notes that the side of the pistol “has spinners, just like in the game,” and that the firing mode can switch in and out of pulse mode. The laser can also set lots of things on fire, which means that this decidedly on-point costume addition is definitely not “convention-proof.”

In-game look at Tracer’s pulse pistols. 

If Tracer isn’t your favorite Overwatch character, but you still want to celebrate the game’s out-of-this-world weaponry in… this world, you can go with the Hacksmith’s real-life version of Reinhardt’s rocket hammer. (It’s also great if you have any old Pontiac Sunfires that you need to get rid of.)

What do you think about LaserGadgets’ real-life pulse pistol? Recall your thoughts in the comments below!

Images: LaserGadgets

5 Things Not to Miss at Disney’s Lunar New Year Celebration

While January 1st is the start of the calendar year, for those celebrating Lunar New Year the festivities are just beginning. What better way to start a fresh new year than with a little Disney fun? Disneyland Resort’s guests will get to experience the Year of the Rooster through live performances, cuisine, and special feature every night before World of Color.

Disney California Adventure Park’s Lunar New Year festivities kicked off this weekend and we previewed all the food and new entertainment. The event runs from now through February 5, 2017, with many activities available for the whole family. Here are five unmissable things at this year’s celebration.

1. Traditional Cuisine

Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese cultures traditionally celebrate the Lunar New Year and, as with all celebrations, food is at the forefront. The Lunar New Year Marketplace and Paradise Garden Grill are serving up Asian-inspired dishes for guests to try. My favorites were the soup dumplings, which are a popular food trend right now, Vegetable Japchae noodles which are sure to please even the most picky of eaters, and the Kalbi beef short ribs which are tender and flavorful. Families can even order up a whole crispy tilapia dish to share, something that is usually only available at restaurants.

2. “Hurry Home”

Fans of World of Color adore the fountains and lighting effects, and for the Lunar New Year, Disney has added a 6-minute feature beforehand called Hurry Home. The story follows the journey of a Little Lantern returning home for the new year celebration. The show features fully rendered CG animation as well as sequences inspired by traditional Chinese paper cut-out animation. Mulan fans should keep an eye out for the heroine and her pal Mushu.

3. Characters in Lunar New Year Costumes

Speaking of Mulan and Mushu, they’ll be leading Mulan’s Lunar New Year Procession. Disney parades are always colorful and full of surprises. This parade is filled with umbrella dancers and performers, featuring music from Disney’s Mulan. Disney characters are a treat for kids but a lot of adults try and collect selfies with their favorite characters too. Mulan and Mushu photo opps will be available as well as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Chip ‘n Dale all dressed in their new year attire.

4. Musical Performances

Live musical performances are a critical part of Disney’s history. For this celebration, authentic musical performers will play music on traditional instruments for guests to enjoy. There will also be daily performances by the Acrobats of China, a cultural art form that has been performed for more than 2,500 years.

5. Commemorative Merchandise
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What’s Disney without fun, collectible merchandise? Available for purchase are specially designed t-shirts, pins and a decorative trinket box. My personal favorite are Lunar New Year-inspired Disney red envelopes. Traditionally given to children for the new year, the red envelopes are usually filled with money that ends with an even digit for good luck. These special envelopes feature Mickey and a rooster, the symbol of this Lunar New Year.

Check out photos from Disneyland Resort’s Lunar New Year in the gallery below.

Which part of the Disney Lunar New Year celebration are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments and tag @nerdist and @justjenn on twitter so we can see how you are celebrating Lunar New Year at the parks!

Images: Jenn Fujikawa, Disney

New CALL OF CTHULHU Game Trailer Embraces Lovecraftian Madness

For the better part of a century, the elder god known as Cthulhu has been an icon of horror fiction, but now his might is being unleashed in a new Lovecraftian video game.

Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game is based on the long running RPG of the same name by Chaosium, which was itself inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Cthulhu was easily one of Lovecraft’s most famous creations, but the author’s true genius was the sense of dread that he instilled in his stories. Lovecraft’s influence is apparent in this new Call of Cthulhu trailer, which offers an unsettling glimpse of a man’s descent into madness.

Within the game, players will assume the role of Edward Pierce, a private detective whose investigation into a string of bizarre whale mutilations and missing bodies leads him into the orbit of “the great dreamer,” one of Cthulhu’s many titles. Consequently, Pierce’s sanity will slowly erode by the horrors he endures. The game will depict that dark journey by forcing players to wonder whether they can trust the perceptions of their own character as the line between reality and insanity blurs into nothingness.

Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game will be released later this year on Playstation 4. However, the final release date has not yet been announced.

What did you think about the new trailer for Call of Cthulhu? Awaken the Great Dreamer with your thoughts in the comment section below!

Image: Cyanide SA/Focus Home interactive

MUDBOUND Is a Triumphant Discussion About Race (Sundance Review)

Even if you somehow manage to walk away unenthused by the Sundance Film Festival premiere Mudbound, there’s no conceivable way to be unimpressed by it. The task that sophomore filmmaker Dee Rees shoulders in adapting Hillary Jordan’s like-named novel is no mean feat, nor is the vivid communication of themes that much of the world seems bent on turning a blind eye to. Sure enough, such a trying endeavor reaps no shortage of hiccups. Slow stretches and film-unfriendly monologues pepper Rees’ picture as she unravels a yarn about two families, one white and one black, sharing a patch of land in a merciless 1940s Mississippi. But none of Mudbound’s flaws is too fatal to distract from the ultimate rewards of its ostensible mission: to tell a story, even if set 70-odd years back, illustrates the American racial divide as it persists today.

Where Mudbound shines most stunningly is in the nuance of its characters. While we’ve all seen our share of “racism movies” that rely on easy archetypes to sell bold distinctions between good and evil, Mudbound sprinkles its central players across an ideological spectrum. We see this in the McAllans, an extended family of white landowners whose collected members represent a wide range of moral fiber. On one end is patriarch Pappy (Jonathan Banks), who wears his hate like a badge of honor; on the other is World War II veteran Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), who eagerly flaunts his friendship with black fellow soldier Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) in front of his racist dad.

More interesting material comes from those who occupy the middle ground. Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke), to whom we’re warned from the get-go as an intellectual, a family man, and a prospector of the American dream, is pathologically indebted to the systematic alienation of black from white. He and his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan) exhibit not the hostility of Pappy nor the relative progressivism of Jamie, but the complacency that makes the normalization of the latter such an impossibility. In delivering so much of the film by way of Henry and Laura’s perspectives, Rees manages the tall order of articulating just how would-be ordinary people could so easily enable such sociological atrocity.

Perspective doesn’t stick exclusively with the McAllans, however. We spend the other half of the film looking at the world through the eyes of the Jacksons, a farmhand family employed by the enterprising Henry. Not satisfied to confine any of her characters to the margins of victimhood, Rees takes great effort to show father Hap (Rob Morgan) and mother Florence’s (Mary J. Blige) own psychological submissions to the system at hand, unraveling their own ideologies with particular insight.

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Of course, the focal member of the Jackson family unit is the aforementioned eldest son, the bright-eyed and strong-willed Ronsel, whom we see earn his brass as a war hero only to return home to a world of disgust and derision. After an hour and change devoted to introducing and deconstructing each of the major players, the second half of Mudbound homes its efforts on a budding friendship between the PTSD-stricken Jamie and the newly confident Ronsel. Perhaps the best, if not only the brightest, element to the film, the pair’s charming relationship may outshine a wealth of the material to have come before. With so much on its plate—Mudbound takes care in illustrating the individual relationships between brothers Henry and Jamie, Henry and his wife Laura, yearning in-laws Laura and Jamie, Henry and Hap, Pappy and Jamie, Florence and Ronsel, et al…—no one faction is given as much time to flourish as it really deserves. This borders on unfortunate, though keeps our appetites consistently whetted.

This contradiction may spell out just how effectively Mudbound compromises its pros with its cons. It may take too long to arrive at some of its finer points, but the wait always seems retroactively worth it once we arrive at the good stuff. Sure enough, it’s worth wading through some hazy backstory about the McAllans’ broken marriage if it brings us to the Jackson family’s troubled navigation of 1940s America. She may hit a few slip-ups en route, but eventually, Rees finds success in most everything she aims to accomplish. And these are no paltry deeds, either.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Images: Sundance Institute

LOGAN Doesn’t Fit Into the X-MEN Universe, Plus Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison

Happy Monday, my fellow Movie Morselers! Let’s get this work week started with the most intriguing news we’ve yet heard about Hugh Jackman’s final movie as Wolverine — Logan. Plus, a casting update for Black Panther, a first look at Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison in The Current War, and lots more to make your Monday just a little merrier. But first!

Logan

Snikt! So it turns out that Logan might not be the final word on Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine—at least not in the X-Men universe we’ve come to know on the big screen. In a new interview with Digital Spy, the actor reveals that “When you see the full movie you’ll understand… Not only is it different in terms of timeline and tone, it’s a slightly different universe. It’s actually a different paradigm and that will become clear.”

“It’s a standalone movie in many ways,” adds Jackman. “It’s not really beholden to timelines and storylines in the other movies. Obviously Patrick Stewart was in there so we have some crossover but it feels very different and very fresh. [Following the timelines] becomes a chess game that you try to serve, which actually doesn’t help to tell a story and it’s sort of been a bit all over the place. I’m not critical of it—X-Men was the first movie really in comic book, no one thought there’d be another and there were different directors different offshoots.”

[Digital Spy]

Black Panther

Another Marvel movie veteran has signed on to appear in Black Panther! Captain America: Civil War‘s Martin Freeman will show up again as Everett Ross, the Deputy Task Force commander of the Joint Counter Terrorist Center. Marvel readers who follow the Panther’s adventures will be especially happy to hear this, since Ross is a frequent ally of the King of Wakanda in the comics, providing yet more evidence of how faithful the film may be to the medium from which it sprang.

Martin Freeman joined the cast of #BlackPanther on set in Atlanta! Check out pics: https://t.co/Ysvr0ka2C1 pic.twitter.com/4cNKD7jWGR

— JustJared.com (@JustJared) January 21, 2017

[Twitter]

The Current War

Speaking of Marvel… While Doctor Strange was a lot of fun, do you folks wanna see what Benedict Cumberbatch will look like the next time he speaks with an American accent? Then check out the image below, which gives us our first look at the Batch as legendary inventor Thomas Alva Edison in The Current War. And for even more fun, check out the video below that one industrious student shot while one of of the film’s scenes was being lensed at their school!

Benedict Cumberbatch has been dancing on set again – this time as Thomas Edison https://t.co/WgEBL66uqM pic.twitter.com/eCH1POxin0

— Radio Times (@RadioTimes) January 22, 2017

When Benedict Cumberbatch comes to your university and gives a speech as Thomas Edison. Goosebumps #BenedictCumberbatch #UCL #TheCurrentWar pic.twitter.com/sVdWlzuBQs

— Seb (@s_collinson32) January 22, 2017

[Twitter]

Suicide Squad

Since the final cut of this summer’s critically derided but commercially successful Suicide Squad went not to its director David Ayer but to the folks who edited its much ballyhooed trailer, it’s not at all surprising that Ayer is a bit dissatisfied with the end product. Now Ayer is explaining the details of his dissatisfaction. The most interesting tidbit is that he would have preferred the Joker, and not the Enchantress, to be the film’s principal antagonist.

@PensFanboy pic.twitter.com/scIdV9PYSP

— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) January 21, 2017

[Twitter]

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

Finally today, Al Gore’s sequel to his award-winning documentary about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, had its premiere at this month’s Sundance Film Festival. And with so many climate change deniers moving into Washington right now, An Inconvenient Sequel couldn’t be arriving at a better time. Here’s a clip from the film featuring the former Vice President himself:

[Paramount Pictures]

What do you think of today’s top stories? Let us know below!

Featured Image: Fox

Images: Fox, Warner Brothers