"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Kemp Powers’

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Wednesday, June 7th, 2023

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is the first sequel to SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, the brilliant 2018 movie I still believe is a watershed moment for computer animated features* as well as super hero cinema. I’m happy to say that ACROSS is a worthy sequel that finds a smart way to build on the first film’s clever multiverse premise and push its revolutionary visual style into the stratosphere. Miles gives me the same “it’s weird to see him taller” feeling as real kids I’ve seen grow up, and the series’ already astonishing artistry has also experienced a growth spurt. Honestly the gimmicks and the eye candy would be enough to make this a classic, but they’re not the only reason these movies have become a phenomenon. They’ve also given us characters to really care about as they live their lives in that perfect Spider-Man intersection between regular every day problems and universe-shattering super shit.

This one works particularly well on the level of a teen movie. You may remember that our main characters Miles Morales/Spider-Man (Shameik Moore, Raekwon on Wu-Tang: An American Saga), and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld, 3 DAYS TO KILL) exist in different realities. As in, different dimensions, timelines, worlds, whatever. They met when a super-collider brought Gwen and people from various other realities into Miles’s, but now they’re apart, trying to get through life as their reality’s Spider-Person. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Comic strips/Super heroes | 41 Comments »

One Night in Miami…

Tuesday, February 16th, 2021

ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI… is a very good straight-to-Amazon-Prime movie in that odd genre of “What if we got to see a bunch of familiar cultural and historical figures spend a night hanging out together?” In other words, it’s based on a play, in this case written by SOUL co-director Kemp Powers, who also wrote the screenplay for first-time-feature director Regina King. Of course we’ve known King as an actress since 227 and BOYZ N THE HOOD, and then she played Huey and Riley and got an Oscar for IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK and was a Watchman, but she’s also been directing TV since 2013. Her million dollar quartet here is made up of important Black Americans of the ‘60s who really were friends, but it’s a fictional story about them getting together at a hotel after Cassius Clay (Eli Goree, “PO No. 3,” GODZILLA)’s surprise victory over Sonny Liston on February 25, 1964.

In town for the fight are Clay’s spiritual advisor Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir, KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, THE COMMUTER), the singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr., RED TAILS) and NFL great Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge, DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE), there to do color commentary. After the fight they meet up at Malcolm’s humble hotel room, guarded by two Fruit of Islam, the very serious Kareem X (Lance Reddick, JOHN WICK) and young Brother Jamaal (Christian Magby), who does a really funny double take and star struck grin when he realizes the guy he’s letting into the room is Sam Cooke. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 3 Comments »

Soul

Tuesday, December 29th, 2020

SOUL is one of the best and most ambitious movies Pixar has made, and they had to release it straight to Disney+ (great job, Covid). It comes from MONSTERS, INC. director Pete Docter, co-directing and co-writing with Kemp Powers, the writer of ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI (both the play and the upcoming movie), and it’s another one of Docter’s hard-to-explain emotional high concept fantasies like UP and INSIDE OUT, but this time squarely centered in Black culture.

The protagonist, Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx, and I honestly never thought of him as Jamie Foxx), is a New York City middle school music teacher. Not a bad one, but not currently seeming to motivate kids like he’s Mr. Holland or somebody. He’s finally been offered a full time job at the school, which impresses his mom (Phylicia Rashad, CREED) but sparks feelings of failure that his occasional gigs as a jazz pianist haven’t led anywhere and he might have to settle in doing this less exciting work. (read the rest of this shit…)

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cartoons and Shit, Reviews | 15 Comments »

  • Hey bud, thanks for reading.

    Don't feel obligated, but here are some

  • WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHIT OUT OF VERN & OUTLAWVERN.COM

    if that's your thing:

  • 1. Patreon

    Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!

  • 2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody

    click here for my Amazon author page

    (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)

    EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.

  • 3. If you ever buy from Amazon, go through my links or search engines



    (you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)

  • I also have an Amazon UK one:

    (I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)

  • 4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products

    (I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)

  • 5. Spread the word

    Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.

    THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN

    * * * *

  • Recent commentary and jibber-jabber

    • Crudnasty on Nobody: “Hahahaha I appreciate you Vern, and CJ too, for the reassurance and rebuttals. I was looking at the card’s issue…” May 16, 12:10
    • Crudnasty on Sin City (20th anniversary revisit): “Seeing this review pop up made me smile. The movie was a mixed bag for me, but as you note,…” May 16, 11:07
    • Mr. Majestyk on Last Bullet: “So I blasted through all three of these yesterday, and that was probably the way to do it. They were…” May 16, 06:18
    • Skani on Havoc: “Finished it, and my overall impression didn’t changed, but I thought the fight inside the cabin with the harpoon was…” May 15, 20:12
    • Felix Ng on Last Bullet: “I like the way they show that Areski and Yuri have martial arts training as cops. Lino is more of…” May 15, 15:14
    • jojo on Sin City (20th anniversary revisit): “Sin City — the comic — caught on because it was so stupidly audacious. It was buying $100 worth of…” May 15, 14:36
    • CJ Holden on Sin City (20th anniversary revisit): “Something must’ve been in the air, because the movie was on my mind recently and I was planning a rewatch.…” May 15, 14:01
    • VERN on Nobody: “To me one of the ways it’s a subversion of that type of story is the whole set up. The…” May 15, 14:00
    • CJ Holden on Nobody: “Honestly, I took this part of NOBODY less like “Real men blablabla”, but more like “This motherfucker craves violence and…” May 15, 13:26
    • Crudnasty on Nobody: “I think I have to turn in my action movie fan card, because I was excited to watch this movie-…” May 15, 12:28
    • MaggieMayPie on Nobody: “I am 100% on board for the John Nobody Family Vacation: Mayhem at the Amusement Park.” May 15, 11:02
    • VERN on Nobody: “Yeah, we’ll see how it goes but seeing the trailer I thought it was a pretty brilliant premise. You immediately…” May 15, 10:23
    • sparker on Last Bullet: “Also, my eternal appreciation and gratitude goes to whoever decided that the English release of this would be titled “LAST…” May 15, 09:35
    • Borg9 on Last Bullet: “For those wondering about AKA, it’s fine, a diverting 90-minute movie crammed into just over 2 hours. I can’t remember…” May 15, 09:02
    • Toxic on Nobody: “When they said there would be a JOHN WICK 5 I remember being worried that, after their own in-universe acknowledgement…” May 15, 08:38

  • Recent Commented on Posts

  • Most Comments