Tag: Paul Bettany
-
Not even halfway through “WandaVision,” it became clear the show’s pass or fail was going to be how well it treated lead Elizabeth Olsen by the end of it. Despite top-billing, she was secondary to Paul Bettany for a while because he was the viewer’s angle of entry. Once it did get to centering on…
-
I was not expecting that mid-credits reveal; I read the comics, I even read some threads, I even recognized the comics I’d read from the thread but not how they’d end up using it. They’re jumping around a lot from source material, but that mid-credits reveal… I may end up with the Paul Bettany as…
-
I’m going to be very basic about “WandaVision” and the reveals in this episode. The show’s been very subtly leveraging one of the cast for a big turn—with this alternating intensity device—and it works and it’s the only easy out I’d be okay with. It was rumored a few weeks ago but I didn’t pay…
-
I’m not going to write it but there’s a very good academic paper called “The Blipped Hero: Why Marvel Can’t Do a Heroic Age, in Comics, Film, or Streaming.” Also this would be the perfect time for Sentry to do the hero stuff, because then Randall Park can do an “Agents of Atlas.” More than…
-
There are a couple moderate surprise choices in the episode—first is when Randall Park (who gets some really good moments even though the action thriller aspect of the episode is very secondary) makes a Captain Marvel mention and it gets a reaction from Teyonah Parris, which is the first acknowledgement of her being the little…
-
The most important success of this episode of “WandaVision” is not Randall Park not just returning as Jimmy Woo—he previously appeared in Ant-Man and the Wasp—but the show “fixing” his character (he was incompetent comic relief in Ant-Man 2), thereby laying the potential ground work for an Agents of Atlas adaptation; it’s probably not even…
-
This episode does an excellent job changing the tone—first with color (the show looks and sounds very “Brady Bunch,” but without the kiddie antics), then with a big reveal in the finale. Director Matt Shakman has been doing a good job with the show so far, with this episode the first time where he’s been…
-
When this episode started—again in black and white, with a glorious animated title sequence (homage to “Bewitched”), I was a little confused because I thought they were doing a different sitcom style every episode. But it turns out it’s part of the narrative, which is rather a nice turn of events given the alternative is…
-
Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany never got much to do in the Avengers movies—when we recently watched them in preparation for “WandaVision,” it turns out I’d made up my favorite Bettany moment in my head. It doesn’t appear in any of his three appearances. And, indeed, Olsen’s accent does disappear over the years, even as…
-
Creation is the not the story of how Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) and the ghost of his oldest daughter (Martha West) collaborated in the writing of On the Origin of Species. That story would make a much better movie. The film opens with a title card explaining it will be about Darwin writing that book,…
-
I’ve always found A Knight’s Tale’s lack of popular (or critical) success surprising. Besides the obvious–Heath Ledger when he was still doing the young Mel Gibson thing, only mixed with a more mature Gibson’s consciousness of his charm–it’s absolutely hilarious. Helgeland had a problematic relationship with Gibson, but certainly knew how to write for him…
-
So is it just a coincidence Legion came out while James Cameron was busy with Avatar‘s theatrical release and the Terminator rights were getting sold? I mean, someone’s got to be keeping an eye out for filmic plagiarism, right? Legion is the first two Terminator movies with an Old Testament God thrown in (I actually…
-
Hans Zimmer did the score for The Da Vinci Code? I hope he apologized to James Horner for all the plagiarisms (particularly from Horner’s two Star Trek scores and then Aliens). I don’t know where to start with The Da Vinci Code, except maybe to say it’s the finest film of its kind. It’s actually…
The Stop Button 