Say My Name…Shazam!

There are at least three moments in Shazam! that made my inner-nerd do a little leap of delight.

We’ll get to them in a moment.  First though, I want to reflect upon the film’s general strengths and weaknesses, beyond it’s obscure comic book appeal.

Shazam! is the latest film based on a DC Comics character to hit the big screen.  It’s arrived with much critical and financial success, and carries with it the reputation of being the kind of light-hearted whimsical escapist superhero fantasy film that the DC Extended Universe has thus far been famous for not making.

And this reputation is sort of deserved.  Sort of, but not quite.

Incidentally, there are spoilers ahead.  Big spoilers. Big Big Spoilers!

Weekly Geeky Question #33: Modern Superhero Epic Movie History

Every week in 2018, the plan is that my friend Rod is going to ask me some geeky question that will answer in a post. This week is Week #33, and this week’s question is again about comic books and superheroes:

How did we get to the modern superhero movie?

Batman v Superman: Who Will Win? (Not really the fans, I don’t think)

Super-busy, traveling soon, managed to get to the theatre to see the new movie that theoretically should everything my geeky and DC Comics-loving heart would want to see…

Must…write…blogpost…about it…

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Diego Riselli

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Scripts I Will Never Shoot: The Legion of Good

Not long ago, I was going through some old documents on my computer and came across a couple of scripts I wrote a long time ago, back in my early days of living in Australia.  The two main ones that I was interested in are both superhero stories, in which the characters are all riffs of friends of mine (people who we thought might play them).  The first one is called The Legion of Good.

My Most Highly Anticipated Superhero TV Show of the Season: Familiar but Fresh

‘Tis the season to be jolly if you are a fan of comic book characters brought to life in movies and on TV.  I try to be a fan of such things on the basis of their individual merit, but I do admit that I do get excited at the prospect that maybe the latest cinematic outing of my favorite comic book heroes might actually be good, and I enjoy at least giving them a go.

I’m particularly interested in the fact that superhero properties are finding their way to TV, as the weekly TV show is the audio-visual format that I think is most akin to the comic book experience – ongoing, serialized adventures that have the opportunity to build story and plot over multiple installments.

And even though it’ll be a while, probably, before Doctor Who is toppled from its position as my most highly anticipated television program of the year, there is one American show whose new season had me waiting with bated breath.  More than Agents of SHIELD, more than Gotham, more than Arrow (a whole lot more than Arrow, actually), that show is…The Flash.