Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2297

Comic Book Club: Gotham’s David Mazouz and Sean Pertwee

David Mazouz (Bruce Wayne) and Sean Pertwee (Alfred Pennyworth) of Fox’s “Gotham” hit the stage to tease what’s coming up in Season 3 – and teach the world about “revenge dusting.”

Check out the website at comicbookclublive.com to find out how to watch the show live! And follow the show on Twitter: @comicbooklive, @azalben, @jtsizzle, and @realpetelepage

 

Conan O’Brien and Wiz Khalifa Play GEARS OF WAR 4 in a Cloud of Weed Smoke

At this point, Conan O’Brien has had a bunch of guests on his Clueless Gamer segment, where he, a self-professed video game novice, plays some hot new game with celebrity accompaniment. But he’s never had a guest as 4/20-friendly as his partner in the latest segment: Wiz Khalifa. The two got together to play Gears of War 4 (which we thought was fantastic), and while Conan thought Khalifa’s chill vibes would mellow out the chaotic, gory experience of the game, but regardless if who you’re with, war is intense.

Smoking blunt in mouth, Khalifa showed great enthusiasm as he (mostly incompetently) waddled his way around the battlefield, and per usual, Conan isn’t going professional anytime soon either. There’s one career change Conan could smoothly make today, though: hip-hop hype man. He gave Khalifa a taste of it, putting on an old-timey affectation and saying, “That’s right, there he goes! Laying it down, Wiz style, see? Here comes a real corker from Wiz! Here we go now! Not too loud, everyone, settle down.”

That might not get a crowd too hyped up, especially not if Aaron Bleyaert’s explanation of the game’s lore follows. He clearly knows his stuff, but Conan wasn’t having it, to the point where he finally lit up the joint that Khalifa gave him earlier. Does that make Conan the first late-night host to smoke weed on the air? Regardless, Gears of War 4 comes out on October 11 on Xbox One, so if you’re not sure if you want to pick it up, check out the video above, and our review of the game should also assist you in the decision-making process.

Featured image: TBS

CERTAIN WOMEN is a Modern Masterpiece Told Through an Old Lens (NYFF Review)

From the moment Certain Women opens its lens on the dividing wall of a dusty motel room, you feel as though you’re watching something torn from another time. And yet, the conflict at hand is a perennial one: the opening scene leads us through the silent aftermath of the sort of extra-marital ordeal that motels have always signified on the big screen, before calmly bleeding out into the first of its three independent stories. All the while, you’re steeped in the kind of stunned comfort you usually enjoy when first exploring an esteemed classic you’ve been saving for a rainy day.

Christopher Blauvelt’s cinematography contributes heavily to the flavor of 1970s screen drama that emanates from Certain Women’s every shot, beckoning us back to the dawn of Vilmos Zsigmond through a fuzzy brown wormhole. But it is damn near miraculous how director Kelly Reichardt uses Blauvelt’s colors, her assortment of actors, and the very fabrics of time and space to so effectively recreate the recipe of an age that lives with the stature of legend.

Though it is appropriate to hearken back to an era of cinematic reinvention for a movie with as progressive a motive as the articulation of modern feminism, it’s still jostling—and rewardingly so—to see attorney Laura Wells (Laura Dern) malign her clientele for raising eyebrows at the same advice they’d accept without a shrug from a male lawyer. Keep in mind: all of this is filtered through the aesthetic of an artistic chapter that was, for all its revolution, a veritable boys’ club.

The weight of such normalized sexism is a carrying theme through the first two of Certain Women’s three stories. The first story tosses Laura into a hostage crisis instigated by a crusty and unbalanced client (Jared Harris), all in the name of conducting a conversation on the disarmament of the professional woman. Only a small but significant thread connects this and the following chapter, which homes in instead on female demonization by way of a series of conversations waged between an aspiring homeowner and frustrated parent (Michelle Williams) and her husband and colleague (George Rowles).

The final and most engrossing chapter deviates just a bit, working with a different sort of emotional head-to-head, this time between two women: attorney and part-time teacher Beth (Kristen Stewart), a loner by virtue of geography, and farmhand Jamie (Lily Gladstone), a loner by virtue of internal makeup. Gender remains on Reichardt’s mind in this chapter, though she shifts exploration of her women’s conflicts from the world outside of womanhood to that within.

What results, thanks to a good sum of confidence in her audience’s ability to complement the story onscreen with the gender-swapped equivalent peppering the annals of pop culture tradition, is a vignette you’ll wish you could spend an entire feature with. One just as biting and even more empathetic than its predecessors, and a stage for the two best performances in the film. Reichardt derives a symphony from the silent stares shared by a jaggedly uncomfortable Stewart and a self-swallowing Gladstone, whose deficit of prior screen credits is astounding considering how much she manages to mine out of wordless grimaces.

The valor in Gladstone’s silence is quintessential of Reichardt’s larger operations. The director wrangles all sensory fibers at her disposal to imbue Certain Women’s every moment with mood—every passing moment howls a smoky, velvet richness that disguises the incantations of Reichardt’s eagerly modern anthology as cautionary tales espoused from a would-be wiser time. With so much on its mind, it’s this devotion to mood that keeps Certain Women as satisfyingly visceral as it is excitingly cerebral, and as flavorfully classical as it is tastefully new. Really, Certain Women doesn’t leave you wanting for much… except more of the same.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 burritos.

Images: IFC Films

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

Forest Whitaker Joins The Cast of Marvel’s BLACK PANTHER

Well, it looks like Marvel‘s Black Panther has traded one Star Wars actor for another: in the wake of erroneous reports that John Boyega would be joining the cast of Ryan Coogler’s forthcoming movie about the Vibranium-clawed hero from Wakanda, it looks as though Forest Whitaker, Rogue One’s Saw Gererra, will join the already stacked cast. Whitaker will be playing Zuri, an elder statesman in Wakanda, who served Black Panther and his father before him.

In addition to Whitaker’s role, Marvel.com officially announced that Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, and Florence Kasumba would also be joining the superstar cast that already includes Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, ruler of Wakanda; Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger; Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia; and Danai Gurira as Okoye. Both Nyong’o and Gurira will be portraying members of the Dora Milaje, a.k.a. Black Panther’s badass, all-female personal bodyguards.

So where does Forest Whitaker fit into this picture? Well, we know that he will be playing the role of a trusted advisor who counseled T’Chaka, Wakanda’s previous king before T’Challa, but does this mean he will be central to a present-day plot, or will he merely show up as an aside in some flashback. While there are reasons to argue for both, the only thing that we can say for sure is that we are too excited about this development and wish the movie would get here sooner than 2018.

What do you guys make of this news? Are you excited for Whitaker’s role in Black Panther‘s film debut? Did you expect to see the veteran actor in two beloved franchises in such quick succession? Let us know on Twitter and in the comments below.

Black Panther will hit the big screen on July 6, 2018.

Want to know more about Black Panther? We’ve got you covered.

Image: Lucasfilm, Disney

Luc Besson’s VALERIAN Looks as Loony and Imaginative as THE FIFTH ELEMENT

If you speak to Luc Besson for even a few moments about his adaptation of the 1960s comic book Valérian and Laureline, you’ll know for sure that this isn’t just another gig for the storied filmmaker. Besson has had a relationship with the comic since his childhood, and even cites Laureline as the first girl he ever fell in love with.

And Besson is hardly all talk. The six minutes of footage shared to select press at New York Comic Con prove that the director is undertaking this developing film adaptation with a tremendous amount of vitality and fun. In fact, the collection of quick scenes we saw from the yet unfinished Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets exuded the same spirit that won Besson the world’s love back in the days of The Fifth Element.

“The Fifth Element was the last film done with old-fashioned special effects,” Besson told a table of reporters Friday morning at NYCC. In fact, he suggests that the climate of filmmaking technology has changed so drastically over the past two decades that Valerian could never have been made before today. “[Jean-Claude Mézières and I] met on The Fifth Element,” Besson said of the Valérian and Laureline comic’s original illustrator, who accompanied him to Comic Con this morning. “He’s the one who said, ‘Why don’t you do  Valérian rather than this f**king Fifth Element?'” As Besson explains it, “At the time, to be honest, you couldn’t make it. There’s like five or six characters; all the rest are aliens. The technology was not ready. You really had to wait [until] Avatar.”

Eventually, the time did come for a Valerian movie, reaping the benefits of what we saw at NYCC.

The sneak preview opened with a gadget-addled Valerian (Dane DeHaan) scurrying about an un-navigable space station setting. DeHaan barks requests into his unseen communication device, through which comrade Laureline (Cara Delevingne) clues him into the quickest route to his desperately sought destination: through a solid wall.

We cut away from this sequence to catch up with an imprisoned Laureline, who, in proper badass form, tricks the two space guards (forgive the lack of technical terminology) escorting her to her would-be doom to actually take a shot at handcuffing her—“It is protocol.” In little more than a moment, she gets the drop on the duo, rendering them beaten, bruised, and cuffed to one another.

From there, we jump to the first scene of Valerian and Laureline together… bickering, as she pilots their ship recklessly through space, much to his anxious chagrin. As we learn, Laureline doesn’t take too kindly to her comrade’s constant criticism.

Although much of what we’d seen up to this point was action-oriented, we got a good look at some of the comedy, not to mention the visual imagination, set to feature in Besson’s Valerian film. One standout element was a trio of babbling Shingouz, an alien race that always travels in threes that serve as couriers of valuable information.

“They’re in lots of comic books,” Besson said. “They are informers. They sell information to everyone. The way they work, their brains are in three parts. One starts a line, the second continues, and the third one finishes the line. If you kill one of them, you lose the information. No one can kill them. They hate them! But you can’t kill them.”

We also got to see a seedy futuristic underworld in which Ethan Hawke plays a space pimp who runs an exotic dance emporium that employs the talent of shape-shifting aliens… including one played by Rihanna, so it seems.

To amp up the excitement once more, we rounded out the footage with a sequence featuring Valerian and Laureline evading the wrath of a charging rhinoceros-like alien, and, most visually stunning of all, one of Valerian sprinting through a series of increasingly outlandish atmospheres, including a realm of bubbles and a vacuum of space in which he must support his own steps by shooting out platforms of energy.

All in all, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets looks perfectly in step with Besson’s past exploits in kooky sci-fi, with all the great advancements in technology to make it work. Are you looking forward to the film? Let us know, and check out our gallery of images from the Valerian booth at NYCC.

Here’s what Besson and the cast had to say to us at Camp Conival!

Images: Michael Arbeiter

Michael Arbeiter is the East Coast Editor for Nerdist. Find him on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter.

Breaking Down Zack Snyder’s JUSTICE LEAGUE Footage!

Even though it’s still a year and some change away, Justice League production sure is having fun, fun, fun! As they’re wrapping up shooting in the UK, Zack Snyder shared a super-fun behind-the-scenes celebration reel to show everyone how not-dark the new film will be. Seriously, look at all those grins! This is not a dark, heavy movie, we swear. Overbearing smiles aside, we’ve spent all morning digging in and finding all the secrets hidden in the deep, dark crevices of the clip, and here’s what we’ve found!

First up, about twenty seconds in, it looks like we’ve got some moments in the remnants of Wayne Manor (note the W and the broken up bricks on the ground). So it would make sense that he’d restore the place so he can have somewhere to crash before The Batman.  But will it be the official home base of the Justice League? We do see Batman bringing the team down in an elevator, sans cowl, but he might just be showing off. I mean, I would if I had a bat cave…

Out best guess is, however, that the Flying Fox will be their main chill zone. The BTS clip from Snyder shows a ton of hijinks on the Fox, which is coincidentally the same location we saw the Deathstroke footage shot. Later in the footage, we’ve got a bunch of mo-cap goons getting killed aboard the ship. Are these villains with the Terminator? Or, parademons, the movie’s main CG bad-guy fodder?

Speaking of surprising characters, are these two women catching a massive, falling CG object Amazonians or stuntwomen rehearsing? Our money’s on Amazonians, and I couldn’t be more excited. Then, we’ve got the dudes in jumpsuits getting knocked around, the guy in the pin-striped suit getting flung by a grappling hook. Most likely they’re just low-level goons for the JL to take out. But the biggest but also hyper-casual reveal of the day–Superman! Yep. Just hanging out all sorts of alive in the classic red and blue suit. Then shirtless a little later. So, yeaaaaah, he’s not dead anymore. We knew he’d be in the film, but we still don’t know exactly how he gets revived, so there’s that to look forward to. Plus, we might’ve gotten a peek at his makeshift memorial, covered in flowers behind a Metropolis PD barricade.

But what do you guys think? Did the BTS clip get you more or less psyched for Justice League? What’s happening with Superman and why is he so casual? Are the other JL members annoyed that Cyborg gets to rock pj’s every day? Let’s discuss!

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES NYCC Footage Shows Caesar Preparing for Battle

Keeping in mind just how different 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ended up looking and feeling from its 2011 predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I approached Thursday night’s New York Comic Con presentation of the forthcoming threequel War for the Planet of the Apes with no shortage of curiosity. How much will Caesar’s world have changed since we last saw him take up arms in the Muir Woods?

Although, as director Matt Reeves mentioned, War takes place a paltry two years after Dawn (which had trailed the franchise’s first chapter by an in-universe decade), the evening’s serving of world premiere footage from the 2017 film suggests that our hero and the neo-ape world’s alpha prime has brought his civilization quite a ways since our last check-in.

Reeves, producer Dylan Clark, and star Andy Serkis bequeathed unto a crowd of Con-goers a yet unfinished seven-minute sequence from War, and one depicting what appears to be a pivotal moment for Caesar and his inner circle.

Caesar and recognizable cronies Rocket (a fellow chimpanzee whose principal claim to fame, at least as far as my memory will carry, is having been cookied back in the pre-revolution days of Rise) and Maurice (the kindhearted orangutan with a soft-spot for youngsters and bookworms) close in, on horseback, on a human-occupied oyster shack on the California coast, taking out an armed adult man before he could get the drop on the bunch of them.

The trio explores the deceased man’s shack, finding, in addition to a fair helping of supplies and resources, a small child. While Caesar and Rocket survey the residence for whatever they can carry, Maurice takes note of the young girl’s apparent poor health, managing to comfort her by stroking her stuffed animal.

Although Caesar insists that she is not their burden—moreover, he implies she has no place among apekind—Maurice lets his intentions known: he cannot and will not leave her to suffer alone. The next thing we know, the silent child is riding backseat to Maurice as the apes trek the beach, presumably headed back home.

The scene cuts out there, espousing a good deal of excitement for what Caesar’s army is up to this time around. It’s worth nothing that the sequence hadn’t been completely translated into proper computer animation prior to its showcase. To clarify, where we’re expected to see fully formed apes come the movie’s theatrical release in July, we instead saw (at many, though not all points) colorless ape-shaped alien beings or, somewhat comically, human actors draped in cumbersome mo-cap suits.

On the other hand, the first full trailer for War for the Planet of the Apes offered a bona fide glimpse at what is yet to come. Caesar lays waste to encroaching enemy (human) soldiers before squaring off with head honcho of the homo sapiens: Woody Harrelson, a former U.S. Army ripped straight from Apocalypse Now, complete with full-on face paint and a head-shaving scene.

If there’s one overarching takeaway from the footage and trailer shared with us at the Con, it’s that War for the Planet of the Apes should indeed live up to its militant title.

Are you excited for the third chapter in this increasingly interesting franchise? Let us know!

And if you want, check out Clarke’s interview with Matt Reeves, Andy Serkis, and Toby Kebbell about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:

Images: 20th Century Fox

Michael Arbeiter is the East Coast Editor for Nerdist. You can finally make a monkey out of him on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter.

Lynda Carter to Celebrate WONDER WOMAN DAY with the United Nations

She’s pop culture’s most famous female superhero, and now Wonder Woman is going be honored by the United Nations with her very own official day, recognizing her 75 years of inspiration to young women all over the globe. And according to magazine Closer Weekly, actress Lynda Carter, who made the DC Comics heroine an icon to millions of people all around the world, will be on hand in New York City when the United Nations declares Oct. 21 “Wonder Woman Day.” In a statement, Carter said, “to honor Wonder Woman and women all over the world is just amazing.”

In the comics, Wonder Woman has long been the United Nations ambassador from the secret island nation of Themyscira, home of the Amazons, and she’s a diplomat first and a superhero second. So it’s most fitting that it is the United Nations which is the organization who recognizes this icon. Especially when there are several countries represented in the U.N. who still treat women like second class citizens, or worse. It’s a bold statement that needs to be made, even if it is about a fictional character.

Carter, who will soon appear on the CW Supergirl series as the female president of the United States, spoke of Princess Diana’s enduring popularity in an interview with Closer Weekly, saying “Wonder Woman taught women to be who you are. I have received the greatest letters from people telling me what an inspiration she was to them because she represents an inner strength every woman has.” Carter added “TV executives didn’t think there was a market for a female holding a show like Wonder Woman.” We know now who had the last laugh.

What do you think of Diana Prince being recognized by the United Nations? And do you secretly hope that our new Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, joins Lynda Carter for the ceremony? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images: Warner Brothers/ DC Comics

DEXTER Would’ve Loved This Bloody Yarn Art Installation

With art there’s usually more than meets the eye, and this large-scale installation in Berlin is definitely more than its bloody appearance. Created by Chiharu Shiota—a Japanese artist based in Berlin, for the gallery Blain|Southern—Uncertain Journey takes the viewers of this space along for a powerful ride that verges into creepy-pasta terrain. At first glance, what caught our attention was the very bloody, very vibrant color of the intricate yarn. As if something straight out of an episode of an early episode Dexter (or even Hannibal), the strands of blood-red yarn are woven into dense clusters overhead, splattered on every single open area of the ceiling above. Anchoring these yarn networks are the bare corpses of small boats placed on the floor.

Viewers of this vast exhibit are encouraged to get a haunting bird’s eye view of the installation from the second-floor mezzanine of the Gallery. Shiota has been working with crimson yarn in the past as well as pitch-black yarn—according to a post from The Creators Project—creating similar works of art that resemble intriguing yet almost nightmarish spider webs. Shiota commented on the effect of Uncertain Journey, stating, “It’s like a red ocean you can see from the top. When people look in the space, they immediately can see the universe, it’s huge. . .the installation is like one vast network, with the boats carrying us through on a journey of uncertainty and wonder.”

This was Shiota’s first site-specific work for Blain|Southern. In 2015 she created another fascinating exhibit called The Key in the Hand for the renowned research and innovation in contemporary art competition, the Venice Biennale. Even though Shiota mostly creates around Japan and Germany, she’s taught at California College of the Arts in 2011 and has shown her exhibits in the USA in solo and group shows. Let’s hope she can bring Uncertain Journey, or a similar work, to the USA again soon.

Uncertain Journey first opened in September this year and will stay on view at Blain|Southern in Berlin, Germany until November 12. Hope some of you can take a look at it IRL! Leave us your thoughts on this intense work of art.

Image Courtesy: Chiharu Shiota and Blain|Southern

Photos by Christian Glaeser

GAME OF THRONES Re-Throned: “Garden of Bones” (S2, E4)

Winter is coming, but not soon enough. So to help pass the time until season seven of Game of Thrones, we’re doing a weekly re-watch of the series, episode-by-episode, with the knowledge of what’s to come and—therefore—more information about the unrevealed rich history of events that took place long before the story began. Be warned, though: that means this series is full of spoilers for every season, even beyond the episode itself. So if you haven’t watched all of the show yet immediately get on that and then come back and join us for Game of Thrones Re-Throned.

Because the next best thing to watching new episodes is re-watching old ones.

——

Season 2, Episode 4: “Garden of Bones”

Original Air Date: April 22th, 2012

Director: David Petrarca

Written by: Vanessa Taylor

This episode gets its title—”Garden of Bones”—from Daenerys and her small khalasar arriving at Qarth. Yeah, that’s right, it took four episodes just for her to walk through the gates of the greatest city that ever was or will be, and even then nothing actually happened. So after ending season one with her walking out of a bonfire with baby dragons, season two decided to take almost half a season of aimlessly wandering through the desert to proceed to the next story for Daenerys. It was frustrating in the moment, and it seems really strange now.

But we aren’t worried about bones or dragons this week, but rather shadows. A shadow baby to be exact, because this was the episode that ended with Melisandre giving birth to a Stannis-shaped, man-sized shadow baby assassin. The scene is still unsettling all these years later, and it definitely makes the Lord of Light and his followers feel less like the salvation of mankind and more like practitioners of dark magic.

I’ve long been of the belief that R’hllor and his fire-loving worshippers are the flip side of the same coin as the White Walkers, and Melisandre’s evil shadow son—the one bred to kill Renly—is in many ways more dangerous than any blue-eyed monster. At least you can see a White Walker coming and possibly protect yourself.

But even before that final horrible moment, Melisandre says something that gives us insight into who she is, and why she might yet be able to help save mankind. Ser Davos was tasked with smuggling Melisandre ashore (though he didn’t know exactly why), and on the boat she asks him if he is a good man or a bad man.

Davos: “I’d say my parts are mixed, my lady: good and bad.”

Melisandre: “If half an onion is black with rot, it’s a rotten onion. A man is good or he is evil.”

These are the words of a religious fanatic. “You’re either with me or against me.” She sees the world in terms of absolutes, even though the world of Game of Thrones is a world of gray, where people like Jaime Lannister can be both good and bad, even in the same moment. Few people are wholly good or bad, noble or evil, and what constitutes doing good or bad is often impossible to discern by even the wisest of leaders.

Now that we know Melisandre is really an old woman that has been given some form of eternal youth by her god, it’s easy to understand why she has complete faith in her lord. This birth shows us just how much power, evil though it might seem to us, she gets from her faith. And for sure, even while we view what is happening here as wrong, it reaffirms her belief that she is wholly good. When Ser Davos asks her the same question she says, “I’m a knight myself, of sorts, a champion of light and life.”

Fanatics are dangerous, and few think of themselves as being anything but warriors in a holy war, meaning their ends justify the means. That absolute devotion and faith in R’hllor led her to advocate burning poor young Shireen alive. How many acts have been as heinous in the Seven Kingdoms? She thought it was a sacrifice that would lead to good, but if that’s true, what kind of god are they seeking salvation in?

That’s why Melisandre’s crisis of faith, after her visions falsely led her to believe that Stannis was Azor Ahai reborn, could be the very thing that not saves her from her fanaticism, but also results in her truly being a champion for the living. Now she knows that those decisions and “truths” aren’t black and white. She was so sure of everything, and she was wrong about all of it.

But we know that she has power, real power, that can be used for good–or bad. She always wanted to do good, but it’s only now that she isn’t sure what that truly entails that she might be capable to actually be helpful.

She might be out in the world meandering after Jon cast her out, but it’s hard to imagine we’ve seen the last of her. Her shadow hangs over all of this, and the light will be needed to defeat the coming darkness. Her loss of faith might be something to believe in.

What do you think the future holds for Melisandre? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Images: HBO