SHAZAM! 2: Lightning Boogaloo

Is it too late to change the title of SHAZAM! Fury Of The Gods to SHAZAM 2: Lightning Boogaloo or SHA2AM? It was among the DC movies originally scheduled to premiere last year before the WBD merger shuffled or cancelled projects. David Zaslav still having the top job at Warner Bros. only makes sense in Bizarro World. This sequel is the first of four DC films scheduled to release in 2023, but I still worry Blue Beetle & Aquaman 2 aren’t safe. Speak “SHAZAM!” to see sequel SPOILERS! You don’t even need to be reading this at  Amersham Shazamersham station.

Captain Cheesesteak has to settle for Skittles since Babybel funded the wrong Captain Marvel!

Thanksgiving For The GOTG Holiday Special?

The trailer for The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special debuted right before Halloween. The Disney+ special presentation premiered right after Thanksgiving. For international readers, that’s the American gluttony holiday with a parade to make folks paranoid about getting everyone presents on time for the greed holiday. (Canada has its Thanksgiving earlier than the states, so substitute Battle Of The Haligonian Kaiju here.) So my annual Thanksgiving post became more of a Black Friday/Cyber Monday post due to this awkward scheduling. The headline’s going to be obsolete until next year. It just says holiday in the title, but it’s clearly meant to be a Christmas special. Can we please give the autumn/winter holidays room to breathe? This review contains SPOILERS, but you can inoculate just by watching this feature first since it’s under an hour. Just come back & read this or I’ll cry.

Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever Boogaloo!

The Wages of Cinema reunited to collaboreview the bittersweet Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. If you’re not ready for SPOILERS, I have a mishmosh of X-Men ephemera for you in the meantime.

Wakanda Forever refutes all MCU movies being formulaic. While I’m predisposed to enjoying them, this feels like one that could appeal to those who’ve sworn off the MCU. (Of course those are least likely to see it unless they’re dragged along or stumble upon this recommendation out of morbid curiosity.) It’s a meditation on grief & legacy. (These wouldn’t be so rare if rightsholders weren’t compelled to reboot main characters not just their mantles.) This feels tonally consistent, which is a notion I often dislike. While there is humor, it’s used sparingly. You don’t need to have seen all the other MCU movies & shows to understand it. The geopolitical stakes are easier to get invested in that multiverse metaphysics. Ruth E. Carter’s costumes & Ludwig Göransson’s score are immersive. Nothing is phoned in. It’s not a rehash of the first film, & there’s forward momentum!

Stargirl’s Three Thousand Years Of Longing

The headline was originally going to be “Three Thousand Years Of Longing For Stargirl,” but it sounded a tad too skeevy. I doubt anybody’s been that horny for Stargirl for so long anyway. I’m glad its third season is now here though! Ordinarily I’d wait until the season was over to review it all at once, but those posts might be prohibitively long. Also The CW series I watch that haven’t been massacred aren’t returning this fall, so there’s not going to be as much topic competition this year. I did want to recommend Three Thousand Years Of Longing though since it’s unjustly bombing. Both include a Djinn, so they’ve got more commonality than Riverdale & The Sandman (aside from serial killer conventions). Do you wish for SPOILERS?

A Decade Of D-Cat!

It’s cat bloggin’ time! Recently I celebrated my cat’s tenth birthday. (I waited until after to write this headline & introduction so as not to jinx it with tragedy.) I don’t know if it’s her real birthday, but it’s the one I assigned her in lieu of a birth certificate. It’s also not her tenth anniversary of being the feline in residence. (Until her family pays her ransom, this cat will continue to be my hostage.) Rather than continuously refer to her generically, I will reveal her first name starts with D. This will maintain a level of privacy for her & prevent me from having to commit to one spelling online. Happy decade to the D-Cat!

Unlike the inflatable birthday hat fiasco, this year I went out of my way to purchase her Yeoww! catnip toys from Pet Goods she actually appreciates. The path of least resistance works to placate pussycats! Hopefully they’ll make some catnip fish in new colors because I believe she now has the complete set. She’s quite fond of nip-pineapple. I was able to get plenty of photos of her playing with her new toys, but the lighting wasn’t ideal. So here’s some of her wielding hammers instead!

“These tools are mine now. I am become a hammerist.”

Does Netflix’s The Sandman Bring Us A Dream?

There have been numerous aborted attempts to adapt Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed The Sandman to live action for years. Netflix is the first to see it to fruition. Or one could argue it’s runner-up to Fox’s Lucifer, whose eponymous piano bar Devil & Mazikeen were spin-offs. David Goyer is one of the executive producers, which is worrisome. Allan Heinberg as the other executive producer & showrunner is less alarming. I wasn’t sure what to make of its trailers. Does it live up to its reputation of being Sleepwalker done wrong?

His helm is inspired both by Wesley Dodds’s gas mask & Alien’s Space Jockey.

Season Six is Riverdale’s Magic Number!

Sayonara, San Diego! A new age of wonderment is upon us! Riverdale is now all aboard the cuckoo bananas supernatural train! This formerly listless show finally got onto some rails. They may be rails of coke but rails nonetheless. Huzzah for season 6(66)! Sometimes I think the cast deserves hazard pay for reciting their dialogue. The cruel premature cancellation of Legends Of Tomorrow inflicted so much psychic trauma upon me that Riverdale now fills me with excitement rather than ennui. (I’m a very disturbed individual.) Shun the nonbelievers that claim season six jumped the shark! Verily Riverdale finally blossomed into its ideal self. I’m extra mad at seasons four & five sucking so badly that they made viewers quit before this legitimutantly good season.

It’s kind of genius that all the mundane context for these characters was laid out well in advance of the spooky stuff. It’d have to vie for attention if it were horror from the outset. The supernatural storylines feel better less nonsensical than the supposedly realistic ones of seasons past. (I got “Twin Babies Levitating Over a Fire as Part of a Cult Ritual Led by Chad Michael Murray” in the “What Riverdale Subplot Are You?” quiz!) They’re better foreshadowed than the gobbledygook The Flash has been spewing lately too. Now that it’s genuinely supernatural, the kooky character motivations & loopy internal logic actually make more sense. Strap in cause I’ve got fifteen more episodes full of weird mysteries to synopsize. If you bailed earlier, you won’t believe the following are real SPOILERS & not me slowly dying from a gas leak!

You may also substitute another favorite prematurely cancelled show of your choice. There’s no shortage.

How Marvelous Is Ms. Marvel?

Ms. Marvel is the second of the unofficial Disney+ Phase Two introducing new headliners. She made it onto a billboard that looks blatantly photoshopped. The proudly ignorant are boycotting the series. Or is that just Poe’s Law in action?

Marvel Studios has had great success streamlining decades of continuity for modern audiences whilst maintaining the comics’ spirits. Kamala Khan only dates back to 2013. They shouldn’t need to make any drastic changes. I generally feel that unless there’s a compelling reason for altering things, adaptations should be as close to the source material as possible to best represent the stories they’re ostensibly based upon. Marvel’s alterations range from good (inventing Layla El Faouly) to neutral (Kate Bishop being Hawkeye’s only fan) to bad (America Chavez as a damsel in distress). Rejiggering this fan favorite headliner filled many with trepidation as to where in that spectrum it’d land. So in addition to season one SPOILERS, this review will contain additional kvetching about changes in translation. (I do that anyway, so I’m not sure if it’s to a greater degree this time.) I HATE CHANGE!

Will You Love & Thunder Thor 4?

The end of June/start of July was jam packed with season finales for Superman & Lois, The Flash, & Stranger Things. Now it’s finally time for my most anticipated movie of the year, Th4! If you’ve already read my teaser reaction for Thor: Love & Thunder & my Marvel Legends gallery, a fun game will be seeing how much of this review I directly plagiarized from myself. If you’ve not read those blogs, all this will be new to you! Either way, this The Wages Of Cinema collaboreview crackles with SPOILERS for the fourth Thor! Grab your Mjolnir popcorn bucket & rock onward!

Moon Knight Is Disney+ Going Through A Phase

Before we get to the Moon Knight meat, I implore you not to give up the fight to get Legends Of Tomorrow a proper conclusion in the face of premature cancellation. I just sent a three page email to HBO Max, Warner Bros. TV, & Netflix in an effort to save the Beeboverse’s best show. Let’s screw things up for the better!

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Where’s Moon Knight’s bread? He should eat only croissants! Hopefully Moon Knight works out better than the last time Oscar Isaac played an Egyptian-flavored Marvel character that’s space slut adjacent. This is the first of the D+ series not to headline a pre-existing MCU character. Ms. Marvel & She-Hulk will follow his lead. So get your psyche straight for SPOILERS! Bill Sienkiewicz’s cover for Empire is better than the photo variant. Check out his awesome nine panel action grid!

Mr. Knight’s wardrobe provided by Suitkovia.