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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 6 years

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Press: Secrets of the Marvel Universe

VANITY FAIR – After a decade of unprecedented success, Marvel Studios is at a pivotal moment: the looming farewell to some of its founding superheroes, and the rise of a new generation. Kevin Feige, the creative force behind the $13 billion franchise and a slew of Marvel stars, discusses its precarious beginnings, stumbles, and ever-expanding empire.

On a sweltering October weekend, the largest-ever group of Marvel superheroes and friends gathered just outside of Atlanta for a top-secret assignment. Eighty-three of the famous faces who have brought Marvel’s comic-book characters to life over the past decade mixed and mingled—Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, bonded with Vin Diesel, the voice of Groot, the monosyllabic sapling from Guardians of the Galaxy. Angela Bassett, mother to Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, flew through hurricane-like conditions to report for duty alongside Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brie Larson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Laurence Fishburne, and Stan Lee, the celebrated comic-book writer and co-creator of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men.

Their mission: to strike a heroic pose to commemorate 10 years of unprecedented moviemaking success. Marvel Studios, which kicked things off with Iron Man in 2008, has released 17 films that collectively have grossed more than $13 billion at the global box office; 5 more movies are due out in the next two years. The sprawling franchise has resuscitated careers (Downey), has minted new stars (Tom Hiddleston), and increasingly attracts an impressive range of A-list talent, from art-house favorites (Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange) to Hollywood icons (Anthony Hopkins and Robert Redford) to at least three handsome guys named Chris (Hemsworth, Evans, and Pratt). The wattage at the photo shoot was so high that Ant-Man star Michael Douglas—Michael Douglas!—was collecting autographs. (Photographer Jason Bell shot Vanity Fair’s own Marvel portfolio shortly afterward.)

But it wasn’t Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury or even Chris Evans’s Captain America who assembled Earth’s mightiest heroes. They came for Kevin Feige, the unassuming man in a black baseball cap who took Marvel Studios from an underdog endeavor with a roster of B-list characters to a cinematic empire that is the envy of every other studio in town. Feige’s innovative, comic-book-based approach to blockbuster moviemaking—having heroes from one film bleed into the next—has changed not only the way movies are made but also pop culture at large. Fans can’t get enough of a world where space-hopping Guardians of the Galaxy might turn up alongside earthbound Avengers, or Doctor Strange and Black Panther could cross paths via a mind-bending rift in the space-time continuum. Other studios, most notably Warner Bros., with the Justice League, have tried to create their own web of interconnected characters. Why have so many failed to achieve Marvel’s heights? “Simple,” said Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers 3 and 4. “They don’t have a Kevin.”

Before Feige, Marvel Studios wasn’t even making its own films. Created in 1993 as Marvel Films, the movie arm of the comics company simply licensed its characters to other studios, earning most of its money from merchandise sales. (The popular 2002 Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man movie, for example, was made by Sony’s Columbia Pictures.) Feige was part of the team that pushed for the studio to take full creative control of its library of beloved characters, a risky move at the time. “For us old-timers—me and Robert [Downey] and Gwyneth [Paltrow] and Kevin—it felt like we were the upper-classmen,” Jon Favreau, director of the first two Iron Man movies, told me shortly after the photo shoot. “We were emotional . . . thinking about how precarious it all felt in the beginning.”

Feige has never really forgotten that feeling of uncertainty. He confessed that he experiences pangs of anxiety “multiple times” on every film, and told me he often wonders, “What is the movie that’s going to mess it all up?” But, as the vaunted Marvel Cinematic Universe enters its second decade, perhaps the more pressing question is: What’s the movie that’s going to keep it all going?

After Avengers 4, an ambitious multi-franchise crossover movie slated for release in 2019, at least some of the original characters who sit at the center of the billion-dollar Avengers team will be hanging up their capes and shields. That’s partially because the Marvel contracts with the actors who play them—Evans (Captain America), Ruffalo (Hulk), Downey (Iron Man), Johansson (Black Widow), Hemsworth (Thor), and Renner (Hawkeye)—are coming to an end. Meanwhile, DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, one of the top-grossing films of 2017, proved that Marvel doesn’t have a monopoly on beloved superhero icons.

Disney promises that Marvel has at least another 20 years’ worth of characters and worlds to explore—for starters, the studio is finally delivering films with black and female heroes at the core—but declines to offer up any secrets of that ambitious slate. Moviegoers, for now, will simply have to trust in Feige. Luckily for Marvel obsessives, the 44-year-old studio executive is one of them. “At the heart of Kevin is a real”—Scarlett Johansson paused before using the same word everyone does to describe her boss—“fanboy.”

THE FANBOY

On the morning of the premiere of the latest Avengers film—Thor: Ragnarok—Kevin Feige sits in his office on the second floor of the Frank G. Wells Building, on the Walt Disney Studios lot. Alongside a shelf of his trademark baseball caps, some stacked four deep, Feige’s walls and tables are adorned with reminders of the characters, narratives, and modern-day myths he’s brought to the big screen. But when it comes time to tell his own origin story, Feige smiles warmly at me before . . . pretending to fall asleep.

It’s not that he’s told the story too often—Feige rarely talks about himself in interviews—he just finds his own journey deeply uninteresting. Mark Ruffalo thinks this is actually the key to Feige’s success: “The people that I think are great, like Daniel Day-Lewis, don’t make it about them—it’s about the material,” he said. “You don’t see Daniel Day-Lewis trying to show you how fucking great Daniel Day-Lewis is, and he’s our greatest actor. Kevin’s like that.”

Feige obligingly zooms through his biography for me: childhood in Westfield, New Jersey, in the late 70s and 80s, an obsession with blockbusters (Superman, Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future), terrible grades in junior high, movies at the local theater every Friday night. Comics were O.K., but movies were his thing. Feige’s grades improved in high school, and he got into the University of Southern California—his goal since he was 11 or 12 years old—only to be rejected from its selective film school five or six times before he got in. All he wanted to do, his entire life, was make films.

As he relaxes in the interview, Feige’s storytelling instincts kick in, and he begins to infuse his own narrative with touches of destiny or, as he calls them, “Can you believe it?” moments.

The first of those moments came years before when Feige landed a college internship working for director Richard Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. Later, when each Donner was looking to hire a full-time assistant, Feige thought the choice was clear. Richard Donner, who directed Superman, was one of Feige’s idols. (“Superman was formative,” he says.) But he ultimately decided to work for Shuler Donner—the busier of the two—and set himself on the road to becoming a producer. Which is how he found his way to Marvel and an important lesson in risktaking.

Shuler Donner was a producer on, and a driving force behind, X-Men, a 2000 Fox film starring Marvel characters. One day on set, Shuler Donner and Avi Arad, then head of Marvel Studios, watched as an exasperated stylist, at Feige’s insistence, sprayed and teased actor Hugh Jackman’s hair higher and higher to create the hairstyle that would become the signature look of the character Wolverine. The stylist “eventually went ‘Fine!’ and did a ridiculous version,” Feige recalls. “If you go back and look at it,” he admits, “he’s got big-ass hair in that first movie. But that’s Wolverine!” The experience stuck with Feige. “I never liked the idea that people weren’t attempting things because of the potential for them to look silly,” he says. “Anything in a comic book has the potential to look silly. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make it look cool.”

Feige’s passion and geeky attention to detail caught Arad’s eye. (He affectionately refers to Feige as a Trekkie.) Arad hired Feige and sent his new employee to studios that licensed Marvel characters to monitor the company’s intellectual property, offer helpful notes, and generally serve as a Marvel ambassador. Feige watched directors like Sam Raimi with fascination and others, occasionally, Favreau noted, in “frustration” in the era of films such as Daredevil, Ang Lee’s Hulk, and The Punisher. Feige’s advice was sometimes ignored, and many of those films became notorious flops. “The answers,” Feige still says, explaining why comic-book adaptations go wrong, “are always in the books.”

By the time Arad had a financial plan in place for Marvel to finance its own films, Hollywood had turned its back on the superhero genre. Even Marvel’s most popular character, Spider-Man, disappointed at the end of his trilogy in 2007. “Some people were giving last rites” to the genre, Favreau said.

Feige downplays it now, but like Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Marvel Studios bet everything on the first roll. Borrowing money by offering up film rights to its biggest characters as collateral and tirelessly pitching the idea to skeptical foreign buyers, Feige and Arad finally hired three directors to make movies for Marvel Studios: Favreau for Iron Man, Louis Leterrier for The Incredible Hulk, and Edgar Wright for Ant-Man. (Only Favreau would become part of the enduring Marvel legacy.) “People forget Iron Man was an independent movie,” Feige says.

The gamble paid off. Iron Man premiered to rave reviews and a huge box office in 2008, giving Marvel the financial cushion and industry credibility it needed to forge on with its strategy. Meanwhile, as the ranks of Marvel Studios swelled beyond a skeletal operation, its C.E.O. decided to depart. “You can talk to my friends and enemies, and they’ll tell you my weakest point is I’m a one-man show,” Arad said. Not wanting to deal with the infrastructure that comes with launching a major franchise, Arad stepped down before the first Iron Man hit theaters but not before anointing his heir apparent. At only 33 years old, Feige was officially in charge of the first significant independent studio since DreamWorks.

BIRTH OF A UNIVERSE

Marvel’s run as an indie studio didn’t last long. The Walt Disney Company had been looking for a producer of “tentpole” films that could expand its audiences beyond family-friendly fare and the girl-centric princess line. Marvel, with its built-in audience of young men, fit the bill, and Disney acquired the company in 2009 for $4 billion. (Another “Can you believe it?” moment for Feige, who spent annual childhood vacations at Disney theme parks.)

Even with Disney’s deep pockets, Marvel continued to run a lean operation. Up until four years ago, Feige operated out of a series of unassuming offices—one shared with a kite company in West Los Angeles, one above a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Beverly Hills, and one Manhattan Beach office that, even after the success of The Avengers, was “cheap” and “dreary,” as Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn remembers.

On the wall of one of those early, drab offices hung a 1988 Technicolor poster by Marvel artists Ed Hannigan and Joe Rubinstein, crowded to the margins with hundreds of characters from all different story lines with the words MARVEL UNIVERSE emblazoned across the top. Feige would challenge visitors to find the smallest figure in the scrum.

Feige said he had long believed in the storytelling potential of weaving together Marvel’s superheroes and plots—in essence bringing that Marvel-universe poster to life. His hunch was validated by the media coverage around the astonishing $ 98 million opening weekend of Iron Man. Samuel L. Jackson’s brief appearance in that movie as Nick Fury, director of a counterterrorism agency central to the Marvel universe, initially was meant as an Easter egg, a knowing wink, for die-hard fans. “We put it at the end so it wouldn’t be distracting,” Feige said of the post-credits stinger that launched a decade-long trend. But after he saw how audiences—not just devoted comics fans—responded to Fury’s appearance, Feige knew the idea of cross-pollinating characters and movies had legs.

One early challenge was getting actors to sign up for Marvel’s ambitious vision. A character might star in one film, be part of an ensemble in another, and just make a goofy guest appearance in yet another. Jackson signed an unheard-of nine-picture deal with Marvel shortly after Iron Man came out, ensuring his participation in the subsequent Avengers movies and other Marvel properties. Feige found it particularly challenging to secure Chris Evans as Captain America, a character who acts as leader of the Avengers. Evans, who’d previously tackled the comic-book genre as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four movies, was hesitant to sign a long-term deal that would prevent him from doing other projects. Evans asked for a weekend to make his decision—Feige cited those few days as among the most nerve-racking of his tenure—before committing to six movies. Once Hemsworth agreed to play Thor, another foundational Avenger, Feige’s grand plan was under way. (It doesn’t hurt that Marvel contracts can be supremely lucrative. Robert Downey Jr. reportedly made $ 80 million in 2015, thanks largely to his work as Iron Man.)

Still, it wasn’t until a celebratory night in Rome in 2012, on the Avengers press tour, that the Marvel extended family really understood what its boss had planned. “I’m socially awkward,” Feige said. (“He’s short on kibitz,” Downey likes to say.) “So I talked about what we can do next.” As the hotel staff shushed them and the hour grew late, Feige pulled back the curtain on his master plan—or at least some of it. “I would like to take all of the comics and start to build the Marvel universe,” Feige declared. “We’ll have 15 productions in the next two years!”

THE MARVEL WAY OR BUST

Marvel’s first decade of moviemaking has not been without its misses and heartaches. Neither Iron Man 2, which came out in 2010, nor 2013’s Thor: The Dark World won critical raves. Two prominent directors—Edgar Wright and Joss Whedon—very publicly parted ways with Marvel after squabbling with the studio over artistic control. Wright, who wrote an early draft of Ant-Man but left the project in 2014 before filming began, declined to comment for this story. Whedon, who wrote and directed two Avengers movies and severed ties with Marvel in 2016, did not respond to requests to talk about his departure. But in published interviews both men have said they felt they had to sacrifice their own vision to serve Marvel’s interests.

The exodus of two admired artists (Wright was known for his genre send-ups Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Whedon for creating the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series) was not a good look for Marvel, which until then had enjoyed a fanboy-friendly reputation. From inside the family, James Gunn, Anthony Russo, and Evangeline Lilly, an Ant-Man star, described this period as a messy “divorce” and the tone around the studio as “uneasy.” Some critics argued that Marvel’s success spawned so many big-budget copycats that creativity didn’t stand a chance in Hollywood. Even one of Feige’s childhood heroes, Steven Spielberg, took a public shot at the glut of comic-book movies.

Feige doesn’t deny that directors need to play by a set of rules when they join Team Marvel, especially now that the concept of a single cinematic universe is non-negotiable. “Filmmakers . . . coming in understand the notion of the shared sandbox more than the initial filmmakers did because the sandbox didn’t exist then,” he said.

At the same time the studio seems increasingly willing to let directors be experimental and original in other ways. “Guardians is probably the best example of the audience validating even our more esoteric instincts,” Feige said. The unabashed goofiness of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and the gonzo tone of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok signal a radical departure from, say, the staid bleakness of Thor: The Dark World. Director Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Black Panther movie marks another major shift for Marvel: in February, the studio will launch its first movie with a black actor, Chadwick Boseman, in the lead. Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson in the title role of a female air-force captain with superpowers, opens in 2019. “I can’t think of anybody [at Marvel] that hasn’t directly approached me and had very, very in-depth conversations about Panther,” Boseman told me.

LIFE WITH IKE

It seems like more than happenstance that Marvel’s emphatic inclusiveness coincides with a long-overdue 2015 management re-structuring by Disney that put Feige firmly in control of the studio and quietly sidelined Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, Marvel’s controversial chairman and former C.E.O. Perlmutter is a shadowy but essential figure in the world of Marvel. The 75-year-old mogul helped rescue Marvel Entertainment Group from bankruptcy in 1998, when he merged it with Toy Biz Inc., a company he co-owned. Though Perlmutter endorsed Marvel’s decision to make its own films, he clung to outdated opinions about casting, budgeting, and merchandising that ran counter to trends in popular culture, sources close to the studio said. For example, Perlmutter, citing his years in the toy-making business, reportedly made the decision to scale back production of Black Widow-themed merchandise in 2015 because he believed “girl” superhero products wouldn’t sell.

Director James Gunn chalked up every conflict he had making Guardians of the Galaxy to Perlmutter and the Marvel “creative committee”—a legacy of the studio’s early days—which read every script and gave writers and filmmakers feedback. Said Gunn, “They were a group of comic-book writers and toy people” who gave him “haphazard” notes. The committee, for example, suggested Guardians of the Galaxy ditch the 70s music that the film’s hero loves. (The movie’s soundtrack, featuring retro hits, would later go platinum.) Members of the creative committee declined to comment for the story. Perlmutter also declined to comment, but a person with knowledge of his approach said, “Ike Perlmutter neither discriminates nor cares about diversity, he just cares about what he thinks will make money.”

In August 2015, a few months after rival Warner Bros. earned serious feminist bragging rights with its announcement that Patty Jenkins would direct Wonder Woman, Disney confirmed that it had changed Marvel’s management structure: Feige would report to Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, ostensibly as part of an effort to integrate Marvel into the bigger Disney film family. Perlmutter remains chairman of Marvel Entertainment. An early Trump supporter, he also advises the White House on veterans’ issues.

Critics sometimes forget that Feige announced Captain Marvel and Black Panther in 2014—during the Perlmutter era. Instead they focus on how Marvel missed the chance to make the first female-led superhero movie of the modern era. I asked Feige if he wished Marvel had gotten there before Wonder Woman. “Yeah,” he answered carefully. “I think it’s always fun to be first with most things.” Ever the fanboy, Feige got chills recounting the heroine’s powerful stand in No Man’s Land for me in his office. “Everything’s going to work out,” he said cheerfully. “Captain Marvel is a very different type of movie.”

THE AVENGERS, AND EVERYTHING AFTER

One week before the Marvel 10th-anniversary photo shoot, on the set of Avengers 4, I watched Marvel’s biggest stars lounge on comfy couches under a canopy in the long stretches between takes. Mark Ruffalo scratched Scarlett Johansson’s back, while Johansson, Chris Evans, and several other Avengers hunched over their phones in a competitive game of Words with Friends. I reached for a camera to record the moment—some of the most famous faces in the world lit up by phone screens just like the rest of us—but the ever vigilant Marvel security team had wrapped my phone in layers of protective tape. Later, Chris Hemsworth mentioned that very moment to me. “I thought, Could somebody take a photo of this? We’re all aware that this is going to be the last time we get to hang out like this.”

And yet the actors who have contributed so much to Marvel’s past successes have little doubt about the studio’s future. “I feel a lot of joy for the next generation,” Johansson said. “It’s a bittersweet feeling, but a positive one.”

In true Marvel fashion, members of the original Avengers team will help pave the way for the new guard. The latest Captain America introduced fans to Boseman’s Black Panther while Downey’s Tony Stark mentored Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming—“serving at the pleasure of young Master Holland,” Downey said with characteristic flair. Spider-Man’s return to the Marvel fold is a coup for Feige, who helped orchestrate a hero-sharing arrangement with Sony.

To hear Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger tell it, Marvel’s next wave is just beginning. He notes that the studio has rights to 7,000 characters, who can travel anywhere their creators wish to take them. “We’re looking for worlds that are completely separate—geographically or in time—from the worlds that we’ve already visited,” Iger explained.

Both Iger and Feige hinted at how the franchise will expand into different realms, with James Gunn working in close collaboration to possibly spin off some characters from the extraterrestrial world of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel is “22 movies in, and we’ve got another 20 movies on the docket that are completely different from anything that’s come before—intentionally,” Feige said.

While Feige refused to reveal any details about the characters and stories Marvel has yet to introduce, he did promise a definitive end to the franchise that built Marvel. Avengers 4, he said, will “bring things you’ve never seen in superhero films: a finale.” This may mean a lot of dead Avengers at the hands of the villain Thanos, who has appeared sporadically and tantalizingly since the first Avengers movie back in 2012. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe will live on. “There will be two distinct periods. Everything before Avengers 4 and everything after. I know it will not be in ways people are expecting,” Feige teased.

“Everything after,” without these Marvel mainstays, will be hard work. The studio constantly needs to cast new actors, develop surprising new narratives, and risk looking a little silly—as Feige did with Wolverine’s hair—all under the harsh glare of millions of fans and detractors watching the studio’s every move. Feige, however, has no worries about Marvel’s longevity, a point he illustrated by quoting one of his personal heroes: “On opening day, when people asked Mr. Walt Disney if Disneyland was finished, he said, as long as there’s imagination in the world, Disney will never be complete.” And as long as people are willing to watch superheroes save the world, Marvel—and Kevin Feige—won’t be done, either.

Press: Secrets of the Marvel Universe was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #Lizzy Olsen #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Marvel

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stacks-reviews · 7 years

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New Releases 8/22/17

Happy New Release Day! Got three books coming out today; a graphic novel, a manga, and a sci-fi novel. And in movies we’ve got two seasons arriving today and a movie.

In Books --The Few by Sean Lewis, illustrated by Hayden Sherman “In an America divided between the have and the have-nots, Edan Hale is a solider on the run. Saddled with a gas-mask wearing infant and aided by the very terrorist she was once sworn to hunt, Edan is suddenly a woman without a country in a place you can only survive if you have allies.” (Images website) “The Few introduces readers to a futuristic world of militias, roving cults and an American government that has decided to cut off ties with poorer states. Hales is a US Palace Soldier who when witnessing a massacre while under cover, escapes through the forgotten American badlands with a gas mask wearing baby in tow. Now hunted by her country and the cult she was watching, her life falls in the hands of two survivalist brothers.” (from B&N)

This collection is the complete series (issues 1-6). I really want to give it a try because of an article I had read a while back. Though now I can’t remember where said article was from or why exactly it sounded so good, to be honest. The descriptions I relooked up today just didn’t do it justice. I’m going to guess that it had something to do with Edan. But the story sounds like it has potential and I like the art work that is on the cover, so I want to give it a try.

--Land of the Lustrous Volume 2 by Haruko Ichikawa “Under the sea Phospophyllite is determined to find a job more suited to Cinnabar’s many talents, but with no easy answers to be found on land, the quest turns seaward. Ventricosus the sea snail suggests that the creatures who live there may have the clue Phos is looking for. But the sea is hardly the optimal environment for a gemstone - will Phos make it back to shore in one piece?”

I read the first volume when it came out back in June. In this world there are gemstone people called The Lustrous (28 in total) who are being hunted by the beings from the moon. Each Lustrous is given a job and typically the most durable gemstones; like different kinds of diamonds, fight off the moon people. Phospophyllite really wants to help defend her home and the other gems but she is very fragile and tends to break very easily. Because she is so fragile and isn’t very good at basically anything; Phos is picked on a lot. But is given the job to compile a natural history. One evening Phos meets Cinnabar, a gem who has been forced to live in isolation. And makes it her duty to find a job more suited to Cinnabar so that she won’t have to isolate herself.

When I first read the description it made me think of Steven Universe which became the main reason I tried it out. I had trouble telling several of the characters apart and remembering each of their names. And I hated how the others treated Phos. But I enjoyed the story and I love the art style. I just feel like it would work better as an anime. Especially if done by the group that did Flip Flappers. As it turns out, it is currently being turned into one and is set to premiere in October of this year. I think the series has really good potential.

--Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore “First we live. Then we die. And then...we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to ‘get it right.’ Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her. More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living - as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again.....Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle - if only he can piece together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity.”

From some early reviews I looked up this book doesn’t just take place in that ‘layover’ place. It also shows how he lives each time he comes back. And it sounds like he doesn’t always come back as a human. Which I can’t wait to see how that chapter(s) will turn out. I’m not sure if he remembers all his past lives when he is reincarnated. I would assume so since he is trying to solve ‘the great cosmic puzzle’. But it would make it that much more of a challenge and would put more on the line for him if he doesn’t remember until he is in that layover place. And I just enjoy the thought of Death getting her own happy ending since so many are afraid of her.

In Movies --Daredevil S2 In season 2, “After defeating Fisk and his empire, Matt Murdock patrols the night as the vigilante hero, Daredevil. However, just as he stands at his tallest, the arrival of a new threat, driven by the same impulse for justice but warped by need for violent vengeance, enters the city in the shape of Frank Castle. However, the arrival of a face from Matt's past also signals an even darker, ancient threat emerging to claim Hell's Kitchen.”

I still need to watch this season. I really enjoyed the first one but I just haven’t had time to start the second season.

--Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (spoiler(s) in this one) The second movie of the Guardians movies. This time around the Guardians find themselves in trouble and run across a man claiming to be Peter’s father.

I think I enjoyed the first one a little bit more than the second, which the second was very well done. Except for freaking Vandu. I’m still mad about it. It was great seeing how the team has evolved and turned into a family; the overall theme of the movie. There was a side story which felt out of place but it was mainly used to help set up the third film. But other than that, it’s a really good movie. My favorite joke was the bit about the Zune, mostly because I still use mine frequently. Baby Groot is everything.

--Jessica Jones S1 “Jessica Jones opens her own detective agency after her superhero career comes to an end. Initially hired to investigate the disappearance of an NYU student, Jones' investigation takes a dramatic turn when a mysterious figure named Kilgrave resurfaces, bringing Jones' past into light and putting her directly in harm's way.”

I still need to finish this series. I watched a little over half of it a while back but I had watched it at a friends house who I no longer spend time with. After several months I forgot where I left off and finally restarted it. I have maybe five episodes left to go. Once I finish it I’m finally going to start Luke Cage, then Iron Fist, after that Daredevil S2, and only then watch The Defenders.

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trunewsofficial · 5 years

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The End of May British PM Announces Intent to Resign

It’s the end of May—British Prime Minister Theresa May, that is. As TruNews reported Thursday, the prime minister is leaving office two weeks from today. In a brief statement delivered outside No. 10 Downing Street, she said: "Ever since I first stepped through the door behind me as Prime Minister, I have striven to make the UK a country that works not just for a privileged few but for everyone, and to honor the result of the EU referendum. "Back in 2016 we gave the British people a choice. Against all predictions the British people voted to leave the EU. I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide. I have done my best to do that. "I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbors that protects jobs, our security and our union. I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly I have not been able to do so. I tried three times. "I believe it was right to persevere even when the odds against success seemed high. But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new Prime Minister to lead that effort. So I am today announcing that I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday, June 7, so that a successor can be chosen. "I have agreed with the party chairman, and the chairman of the 1922 Committee, that the process for electing a new leader should begin in the following week. "I have kept Her Majesty The Queen fully informed of my intentions and I will continue to serve as her Prime Minister until the process has concluded. "It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit. It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honors the result of the referendum. To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in Parliament where I have not. "Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise. "For many years, the great humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton - who saved the lives of hundreds of children by arranging their evacuation from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through Kindertransport - was my constituent in Maidenhead. At another time of political controversy, a few years before his death, he took me to one side at a local event and gave me a piece of advice. "He said: 'Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.' He was right. "As we strive to find the compromises we need in our politics, whether to deliver Brexit or restore devolved government in Northern Ireland, we must remember what brought us here. "Because the referendum was not just a call to leave the EU, but for profound change in our country, a call to make the UK a country that truly works for everyone. I am proud of the progress we have made over the last three years. "We have completed the work that David Cameron and George Osborne started. The deficit is almost eliminated, our national debt is falling and we are bringing an end to austerity. "My focus has been on ensuring that the good jobs of the future will be created in communities across the whole country - not just in London and the south-east - through our modern industrial strategy. "We have helped more people than ever enjoy the security of a job. We are building more homes and helping first-time buyers onto the housing ladder so that young people can enjoy the opportunities their parent did. "And we are protecting the environment: eliminating plastic waste, tackling climate change and improving air quality. This is what a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government, on the common ground of British politics, can achieve - even as we tackle the biggest peacetime challenge of any government has faced. "I know that the Conservative Party can renew itself in the years ahead. That we can deliver Brexit and serve the British people with policies inspired by our values. Security, freedom and opportunity: those values have guided me throughout my career. "But the unique privilege of this office is to use this platform to give a voice to the voiceless. To fight the burning injustices that still scar our society. That is why I put proper funding for mental health at the heart of our NHS long-term plan, it's why I'm ending the postcode lottery for survivors of domestic abuse. It is why the race disparity audit and gender pay reporting are shining a light on inequality so it has nowhere to hide. "And it is why I set up the independent public inquiry into the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, to search for the truth so nothing like it can ever happen again, and so the people who lost their lives that night are never forgotten. "Because this country is a union, not just a family of four nations. But a union of people. All of us. Whatever our background, the color of our skin or who we love, we stand together. And together, we have a great future. "Our politics may be under strain, but there is so much that is good about this country. So much to be proud of. So much to be optimistic about. "I will shortly leave the job that has been the honor of my life to hold. "The second female Prime Minister, but certainly not the last. "I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love." Prime Minister May’s announcement, although expected, triggered an avalanche of statements—from supporters and opponents both in and out of her party—thanking her for her service and wishing her well. Almost all of them agreed, however, that her resignation was necessary. But Labor Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who leads the official opposition in the House of Commons, was less than diplomatic, saying he agreed the PM should leave—but added that her replacement should immediately hold a new general election. Meanwhile, other European leaders are coming to the realization that they won’t be dealing with a friendly British government in future Brexit talks. The PM’s decision means the Tory leadership race has officially kicked off, but in reality, it’s already been underway for some time. The obvious frontrunners include former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and Environment Secretary Michael Gove. Interestingly, the official statement on party leadership rules was not signed by 1922 Committee Chairman Sir Graham Brady. Instead, it was signed by his deputies, fueling speculation he may decide to make a leadership bid himself. Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis says nominations for leadership will close the week of June 10. It will be followed by several rounds of voting to whittle down the field … a process that should end in the final week of June, which will result in a group of finalists. The new prime minister should be selected by mid-July, just as Parliament returns from its summer recess. (Photo Credit: No. 10 Downing Street) source https://trunews.com/stream/the-end-of-may-british-pm-announces-intent-to-resign

#TRUNEWS - Rick Wiles

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Sir John Hurt obituary

British actor became an overnight sensation after playing Quentin Crisp in the 1975 television film The Naked Civil Servant

Few British actors of recent years have been held in as much affection as Sir John Hurt, who has died aged 77. That affection is not just because of his unruly lifestyle he was a hell-raising chum of Oliver Reed, Peter OToole and Richard Harris, and was married four times or even his string of performances as damaged, frail or vulnerable characters, though that was certainly a factor. There was something about his innocence, open-heartedness and his beautiful speaking voice that made him instantly attractive.

As he aged, his face developed more creases and folds than the old map of the Indies, inviting comparisons with the famous lived-in faces of WH Auden and Samuel Beckett, in whose reminiscent Krapps Last Tape he gave a definitive solo performance towards the end of his career. One critic said he could pack a whole emotional universe into the twitch of an eyebrow, a sardonic slackening of the mouth. Hurt himself said: What I am now, the man, the actor, is a blend of all that has happened.

For theatregoers of my generation, his pulverising, hysterically funny performance as Malcolm Scrawdyke, leader of the Party of Dynamic Erection at a Yorkshire art college, in David Halliwells Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs, was a totemic performance of the mid-1960s; another was David Warners Hamlet, and both actors appeared in the 1974 film version of Little Malcolm. The play lasted only two weeks at the Garrick Theatre (I saw the final Saturday matine), but Hurts performance was already a minor cult, and one collected by the Beatles and Laurence Olivier.

He became an overnight sensation with the public at large as Quentin Crisp the self-confessed stately homo of England in the 1975 television film The Naked Civil Servant, directed by Jack Gold, playing the outrageous, original and defiant aesthete whom Hurt had first encountered as a nude model in his painting classes at St Martins School of Art, before he trained as an actor.

Crisp called Hurt my representative here on Earth, ironically claiming a divinity at odds with his low-life louche-ness and poverty. But Hurt, a radiant vision of ginger quiffs and curls, with a voice kippered in gin and as studiously inflected as a deadpan mix of Nol Coward, Coral Browne and Julian Clary, in a way propelled Crisp to the stars, and certainly to his transatlantic fame, a journey summarised when Hurt recapped Crisps life in An Englishman in New York (2009), 10 years after his death.

Hurt said some people had advised him that playing Crisp would end his career. Instead, it made everything possible. Within five years he had appeared in four of the most extraordinary films of the late 1970s: Ridley Scotts Alien (1979), the brilliantly acted sci-fi horror movie in which Hurt from whose stomach the creature exploded was the first victim; Alan Parkers Midnight Express, for which he won his first Bafta award as a drug-addicted convict in a Turkish torture prison; Michael Ciminos controversial western Heavens Gate (1980), now a cult classic in its fully restored format; and David Lynchs The Elephant Man (1980), with Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.

In the latter, as John Merrick, the deformed circus attraction who becomes a celebrity in Victorian society and medicine, Hurt won a second Bafta award and Lynchs opinion that he was the greatest actor in the world. He infused a hideous outer appearance there were 27 moving pieces in his face mask; he spent nine hours a day in make-up with a deeply moving, humane quality. He followed up with a small role Jesus in Mel Brookss History of the World: Part 1 (1981), the movie where the waiter at the Last Supper says, Are you all together, or is it separate cheques?

Hurt was an actor freed of all convention in his choice of roles, and he lived his life accordingly. Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, he was the youngest of three children of a Church of England vicar and mathematician, the Reverend Arnould Herbert Hurt, and his wife, Phyllis (ne Massey), an engineer with an enthusiasm for amateur dramatics.

After a miserable schooling at St Michaels in Sevenoaks, Kent (where he said he was sexually abused), and the Lincoln grammar school (where he played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest), he rebelled as an art student, first at the Grimsby art school where, in 1959, he won a scholarship to St Martins, before training at Rada for two years in 1960.

He made a stage debut that same year with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Arts, playing a semi-psychotic teenage thug in Fred Watsons Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger and then joined the cast of Arnold Weskers national service play, Chips With Everything, at the Vaudeville. Still at the Arts, he was Len in Harold Pinters The Dwarfs (1963) before playing the title role in John Wilsons Hamp (1964) at the Edinburgh Festival, where critic Caryl Brahms noted his unusual ability and blessed quality of simplicity.

This was a more relaxed, free-spirited time in the theatre. Hurt recalled rehearsing with Pinter when silver salvers stacked with gins and tonics, ice and lemon, would arrive at 11.30 each morning as part of the stage management routine. On receiving a rude notice from the distinguished Daily Mail critic Peter Lewis, he wrote, Dear Mr Lewis, Whooooops! Yours sincerely, John Hurt and received the reply, Dear Mr Hurt, thank you for short but tedious letter. Yours sincerely, Peter Lewis.

After Little Malcolm, he played leading roles with the RSC at the Aldwych notably in David Mercers Belchers Luck (1966) and as the madcap dadaist Tristan Tzara in Tom Stoppards Travesties (1974) as well as Octavius in Shaws Man and Superman in Dublin in 1969 and an important 1972 revival of Pinters The Caretaker at the Mermaid. But his stage work over the next 10 years was virtually non-existent as he followed The Naked Civil Servant with another pyrotechnical television performance as Caligula in I, Claudius; Raskolnikov in Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment and the Fool to Oliviers King Lear in Michael Elliotts 1983 television film.

His first big movie had been Fred Zinnemanns A Man for All Seasons (1966) with Paul Scofield (Hurt played Richard Rich) but his first big screen performance was an unforgettable Timothy Evans, the innocent framed victim in Richard Fleischers 10 Rillington Place (1970), with Richard Attenborough as the sinister landlord and killer John Christie. He claimed to have made 150 movies and persisted in playing those he called the unloved people like us, the inside-out people, who live their lives as an experiment, not as a formula. Even his Ben Gunn-like professor in Steven Spielbergs Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) fitted into this category, though not as resoundingly, perhaps, as his quivering Winston Smith in Michael Radfords terrific Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984); or as a prissy weakling, Stephen Ward, in Michael Caton-Joness Scandal (1989) about the Profumo affair; or again as the lonely writer Giles DeAth in Richard Kwietniowskis Love and Death on Long Island.

His later, sporadic theatre performances included a wonderful Trigorin in Chekhovs The Seagull at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in 1985 (with Natasha Richardson as Nina); Turgenevs incandescent idler Rakitin in a 1994 West End production by Bill Bryden of A Month in the Country, playing a superb duet with Helen Mirrens Natalya Petrovna; and another memorable match with Penelope Wilton in Brian Friels exquisite 70-minute doodle Afterplay (2002), in which two lonely Chekhov characters Andrei from Three Sisters, Sonya from Uncle Vanya find mutual consolation in a Moscow caf in the 1920s. The play originated, like his Krapp, at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.

His last screen work included, in the Harry Potter franchise, the first, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone (2001), and last two, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts One and Two (2010, 2011), as the kindly wand-maker Mr Ollivander; Roland Joffs 1960s remake of Brighton Rock (2010); and the 50th anniversary television edition of Dr Who (2013), playing a forgotten incarnation of the title character.

Because of his distinctive, virtuosic vocal attributes was that what a brandy-injected fruitcake sounds like, or peanut butter spread thickly with a serrated knife? he was always in demand for voiceover gigs in animated movies: the heroic rabbit leader, Hazel, in Watership Down (1978), Aragorn/Strider in Lord of the Rings (1978) and the Narrator in Lars von Triers Dogville (2004). In 2015 he took the Peter OToole stage role in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell for BBC Radio 4. He had foresworn alcohol for a few years not for health reasons, he said, but because he was bored with it.

Hurts sister was a teacher in Australia, his brother a convert to Roman Catholicism and a monk and writer. After his first short marriage to the actor Annette Robinson (1960, divorced 1962) he lived for 15 years in London with the French model Marie-Lise Volpeliere Pierrot. She was killed in a riding accident in 1983. In 1984 he married, secondly, a Texan, Donna Peacock (divorced in 1990), living with her for a time in Nairobi until the relationship came under strain from his drinking and her dalliance with a gardener. With his third wife, Jo Dalton (married in 1990, divorced 1995), he had two sons, Nicolas and Alexander (Sasha), who survive him, as does his fourth wife, the actor and producer Anwen Rees-Myers, whom he married in 2005 and with whom he lived in Cromer, Norfolk. Hurt was made CBE in 2004, given a Bafta lifetime achievement award in 2012 and knighted in the New Years honours list of 2015.

John Vincent Hurt, actor, born 22 January 1940, died 27 January 2017