BEFORE: January usually gets a bad rap, because after New Year's Day there often isn't much going on - most good TV shows are on break, Hollywood focuses on getting people to see the Oscar-nominated movies but otherwise treats the month as a dumping ground for terrible movies, plus the weather often sucks, everyone's sick or still reeling from the holidays, and it's hard to get motivated to do any work around the house because of all the above reasons (who wants to take down the Christmas lights, anyway, can't we just leave them up all year and just not turn them on?)
Meanwhile, February seems like a much more happening month, with Valentine's Day (there's Groundhog Day, too, but who cares?) and now the Super Bowl is usually in February (or watch the Puppy Bowl if your team's not in the big game), plus there's the actual Oscar telecast, Black History month if you're into that, meanwhile the days are going to start getting noticably longer and thanks to climate change, it may even start to feel a bit like spring. Plus it's sweeps month on TV and most shows will be back on (Survivor, The Masked Singer, and the final season of Star Wars: the Clone Wars are my can't-misses).
A couple of changes going into effect around here, as always, on Feb. 1. First, I'll switch over to all-romance-based programming - I usually have enough built up to cover the whole month plus a little extra, and that worked out very well for me last year. I always come close to clearing the board each year, then I say I can't possibly find more romances for next year, but there are always more to watch. (Bear in mind, I count films about divorce and break-ups to be romance-based, because you have to take the bad with the good where relationships are concerned.). Plus I'll start charting my progress with regards to how many of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" films that I've seen, my stats tend to increase a little each year. I'm stoked because once again they're linking films by actor, as I do, and I've thought of a good way to list their schedule here. Hey, whatever I can do to help them out.
But first I have to get through the ass-end of January, so now that DC Comics Week is over, it's five random (more or less) films that will get me from here to what I've determined is the best place to start the romance chain. Though you never know, there could still be a surprise gem within the linking material, and any of the romance films could turn out to be stinkers. That's why I play the game, because I just never know.
The voice of Fred Tatasciore carries over from "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies".
THE PLOT: A fostered boy in search of his mother instead finds unexpected super powers and soon gains a powerful enemy.
AFTER: Speaking of DC characters that are connected to Marvel character, the superhero we now know as "Shazam" used to be called Captain Marvel, and I think he's been around longer than any of the 5 Marvel characters who have used the name (the most recent of course, is Carol Danvers, who got her own movie last year.) But if I remember correctly, this character's stories were first published by a third company, Fawcett Comics, and it wasn't until DC bought up the rights in 1972 and tried to add him to their universe that the threat of lawsuits loomed, because by this time Marvel had published their own Captain Marvel comics (Mar-Vell, the former Kree soldier who came to earth and later died of cancer). Which was ironic, because DC had once sued Fawcett Comics, claiming that the character was too much of a rip-off of Superman.
But this character also had a cheezy Saturday morning TV show when I was a kid, in which Billy Batson traveled around the U.S. with his mentor (conveniently named Mentor) and when needed, transformed into a hero with the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury, which even then seemed like a weird mix of Biblical characters and Greek mythology. (No Greek Gods or heroes begin with "S", I guess...) which also turned the teen into an adult to access his powers. Because a teen with super-powers is just silly, I guess? And then you're infringing on "Spider-Man" territory. Anyway, there seems to be a lot of redundancy with that skill set, several of the Greek heroes are known for strength, like Atlas and Hercules, but I guess they didn't want to give him the blacksmithing powers of Hephaestus, what would he do with those?
Anyway, this is a new take on Billy Batson, in the old days when Billy would transform into Captain Marvel, suddenly he would talk and think like an adult, but at some point there was a shift, and he would retain his memory and childlike attitude in his adult hero body. (So in mash-up terms, it's like "Spider-Man" meets "Big"). More changes down the line as DC's reboots tweaked the character, and after that "Flashpoint" event I mentioned the other day, the storyline "The New 52" created the version of the character that this movie adapted, with Billy's sister Mary, friend Freddy Freeman and three other kids all becoming similar heroes that would work together as a de facto family. Then it seems like the characters were conspicuously absent from the DC Universe after the "Rebirth" reboot, but with the movie in production it seems that sparked another revival of the "Shazam Family" comics. What's a movie without a tie-in comic to sell, after all?
And just as one director tried to tie the Joker's origin story to Batman's, so has another director tried to tie together the origins of Shazam and his arch-nemesis, Dr. Sivana. Here Dr. Sivana was earlier offered the Shazam! power by an aging wizard, only Sivana couldn't ignore the tempation of the seven deadly sins to choose their "Eye of Sin" power over the deal offered to him by the wizard. Maybe he wasn't as pure of heart as the wizard thought (so, umm, why did he pick that kid in the first place?) or maybe the glowing Eye just looked a lot cooler, but come on, who would listen to the nasty growling statues instead of kindly old wizard? Thank you, next, and Sivana was rejected, then spent years interviewing other people who also failed the test to figure out how to get another shot at it.
Years later, Billy Batson, a foster kid known for running away from every group home so he can look for his missing mother, does a good deed by sticking up for his foster brother, Freddy, when he's the target of school bullies. Ah, finally someone with a moral compass who might actually pass the test! (Umm, why didn't Freddy get a shot at winning the wizard's powers?). This leads to Billy gaining super-powers and the ability to transform into an adult body, and totally trashing the bullies' truck. As I've said several times in this space, Hollywood films always get this wrong, you can't defeat bullies with more violence, because then you become just like them. As hard as it is, you've got to find another way, whether that's turning them in, showing them compassion, or buying them off - any of these answers are better than lowering yourself to their level of violence. This may be the first film I've seen where the bullied characters (eventually) realize that responding in kind is not a valid solution.
Billy and Freddy also realize they have to do something with these new power, besides using it to buy beer (which tastes terrible anyway to teens, especially if you buy the cheap stuff, nice touch) and Billy gets his chance when one of his lightning bolts causes a bus to teeter on the edge of an elevated highway, several stories above the ground. But here's something else that Hollywood movies always get wrong about falling things - you can't just catch a bus, or a falling person, a few feet above the ground and have everything be OK. That bus built up a HUGE amount of momentum as it fell, and just preventing it from hitting the ground is not going to prevent it from breaking or crumpling. It should have crushed or shattered after hitting Shazam, because he did nothing to slow its fall. In the same way, if someone is falling off a building or from a plane, a superhero can't just catch them safely in mid-air without slowing their descent first. It's not the ground that kills people, it's the sudden stop, and that also happens if they hit a superhero's arms on their way down. Giant-sized NITPICK POINT here.
But this leads to Sivana (who finally figured out how to get back to the wizard's lair and get those sin-based powers) to find Shazam, the wizard's true champion, so he can try to get those powers too. Hmm, that's altogether lazy and envious and greedy, not to mention gluttonous - maybe this guy really does understand the 7 deadly sins. And he tracks down Billy's whole foster family to try to hold them hostage, leading to a final showdown at the Philadelphia Winter Carnival.
Last year it was lighthouses that kept turning up in my movies, this year it seems to be carnivals - there was the hastily contructed Liberty Park in "The Nut Job 2", the run-down abandoned carnival that Joker used to torture Jim Gordon in "Batman: The Killing Joke" and now this film features a winter carnival where Sivana fights Shazam & his friends. Maybe it reaches back to "Toy Story 4" last September, which was also partially set in a carnival. But already twice this year I've seen ferris wheels coming loose or falling over used as a plot point, that's an odd coincidence. Throw in three appearances of the Joker, who worked as a clown in the recent origin film, and it's really been a circus around here lately...
But hang on, because I'm about to tie the whole superhero-based week together - from Joker and the other Batman films to the three Superman-based films, plus this one. Right now there's a storyline going on in DC Comics, part of their "Year of the Villain" crossover, which involves the Joker from another universe crossing into the main DC-verse - but it's really that universe's Batman who got infected with Joker toxin, and he's now known as the "Batman Who Laughs", (playing off a nickname for another alt-Joker called "The Man who Laughs"). This evil hybrid even joined Lex Luthor in the Legion of Doom, as seen in Justice League comics! Then recent issues of the "Batman/Superman" title, it was revealed that this villain (though imprisoned in the Hall of Justice) had managed to previously dose several other characters with his mind-control toxin, turning them into his infected helpers. Those six enslaved characters include Supergirl, Shazam, Commissioner Gordon, and Donna Troy (who used to be one of the Teen Titans). So now we have to wait to find out if Batman and Superman together can track down the "Secret Six" who were infected and find a way to save them, then defeat the Batman Who Laughs....
I will get back to superhero movies, I'm just not sure when - I think I've cleared them all off my list except for that "Suicide Squad" animated film, but Marvel's got at least three movies coming out this year in theaters - "The New Mutants" (delayed from last April), "Black Widow" and "Morbius", and DC's got "Wonder Woman 1984" on tap for June. We'll see if I can work those in, but I'll wait until mid-March to start working out more of this year's schedule.
Also starring Zachary Levi (last seen in "Thor: Ragnarok"), Mark Strong (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer (last seen in "It"), Adam Brody (last seen in "Yoga Hosers"), Djimon Hounsou (last seen in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"), Faithe Herman, Meagan Good, Grace Fulton, Michelle Borth (last seen in "Lucky You"), Ian Chen, Ross Butler, Jovan Armand, D.J. Cotrona, Marta Milans (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Cooper Andrews, Ethan Pugiotto (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"), John Glover (last seen in "52 Pick-Up"), Wayne Ward, Landon Doak, Caroline Palmer, Andi Osho, Carson MacCormac, Evan Marsh, Lotta Losten, the voices of David F. Sandberg, Steve Blum (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), Darin de Paul, with a cameo from Seth Green.
RATING: 7 out of 10 superpower test videos on YouTube
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