First Podcast: Star Wars The Force Awakens

Two friends and I go in-depth on Star Wars: The Force Awakens in an epic 3-hour podcast:

In the podcast, we discuss the how the film relates to the original trilogy, including its use of the old characters, how it uses the new characters and where it can go in the future. Spoiler: I sing at one point and we all endorse Ryan Coogler as a director on a future Star Wars movie.

Ant-Man movie review

A surprisingly pleasant fluffbuster (fluff blockbuster), Ant-Man is a somewhat awkward standalone movie in the Marvel pantheon (in the sense of "why?"), but has enough ties and references to the rest of the universe to make it a nice addition to the series.

While Ant-Man is a tired retread of Iron Man's arc in his first film, AM has a better final act, although it's villain, Darren Cross, is arguably as weak as Iron Man's first villain; the main reason being that he's evil for the sake of being evil - very surface-level character depth even though they try to play off a fatherly/successor angle with Michael Douglas' character. Speaking of which, Michael Douglas does a satisfying job as Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man; I can't wait to see more of his character in the sequel. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lily do their job, but the real standout is Michael Pena's character, who, while starting out as a near-cringe-inducing stereotype, ends up being the breakout character of the film by the end (won't spoil too much). Some of his dialogue is a bit confusing, particularly his last joke (which doesn't really work), but he's fun and an excellent example of playing a character to the height of the actor's (or writer's) intelligence. 

In addition to the tired retread of the story, a lot of Marvel's weaknesses become more obvious in AM - particularly the ongoing story arcs/building from movie to movie (or lack thereof) and general lack of lead female characters. A majority of AM was about sidelining Lily's character, but there's a reasonable payoff for why. Still, 12 movies in (and seven years later) and it's largely white male superheros everywhere - granted, Black Panther and Captain Marvel are on the horizon, but they are both at least two years down the road. Come on Marvel. 

Here's hoping Phase 3 has more of an ongoing film-to-film story, playing out more like an episodic mini-series than the drawn-out standalone films we've been getting. Time to blow out the universe, highlighting new characters while still continuing an overarching story. If Marvel wants an example of how to do this right, they can look no further than rival DC's Justice League Unlimited. 

Despite the complaints, Ant-Man gets a RECOMMENDATION for having good enough pacing, acting, action and humor to make it an enjoyable experience.