By George Chrysostomou.

Every few months cries of despair can be heard from the internet: people are going to get bored of superhero films, they’re all the same, bring back original movies, I can’t keep up with all these TV shows, they’ve clearly run out of material! Every time I read the criticisms, contemplate for a moment and then go back to doing whatever it was I was doing, before I got lost in the internet underworld of complaints.

It’s true, there are a hell of a lot of comic book adaptations coming to our screens, especially superhero ones (you can sit this one out Kingsman). Everyone with a superhero to hand is having a crack at launching their own little franchise. DC and Marvel are of course the frontrunners here, with Marvel’s own properties being spread across FOX, Sony (no one knows what’s going on over there at this point) and Disney. Even The Tick managed to find a home over at Amazon. The train is stopping for no one, content to smash through all obstacles in its quest for dominance; think a Denzel Washington movie but with colourful costumes and suited CEOs maliciously laughing, whilst rolling in vats of money sporting printed portraits of Stan Lee upon them. Sounds menacing doesn’t it? Sounds like we’re doomed for all eternity to sit through endless beat ‘em ups, as Zack Snyder force feeds us popcorn with a modified t-shirt gun. Except, nearly every time I sit down to endure another super powered flick (I know this is not representative of all heroes and can only apologise) I find myself genuinely enjoying it. But there’s a reason for this…

It’s Not A Western Because It’s Not A Genre

I thought I’d address the be all and end all of superhero fatigued arguments; the Western genre died out and so will this. If I could show you how hard my eyes roll at that, I would. The Western genre, a successful series of classic films spanning years of audiences lives, was just that, a genre. Whilst some try to revive the golden age of Chuck Norris and midday duels and others try to pay homage to it, to varying degrees of success, it cannot be denied that the days of cowboys and saloons dominating our screens are firmly behind us. The superhero adaptation, in whatever form that may be, is not a genre. You could not put The Dark Knight, Guardians of the Galaxy and Flash in the same category. They all come from comic books and they all involve superheroes but they are not the same genre.

Let’s take Logan, a fantastic film by any standard no matter the genre, as an example of what I am trying to show here. It’s an action film with a R rating, not an association with the stereotyped ‘superhero genre.’ It’s a sci-fi film with its futuristic setting and advanced technology. It’s a dramatic adventure film, with a journey across country, fleeing from a group of villainous pursuers. Most importunately of all, it is a Western, in its tone and visuals; featuring the classic picture Shane, which director heavily influenced James Mangold’s interpretation of the Old Man Logan narrative arc, found in the pages of Mark Millar’s and Steve McNiven’s comic book run. Logan doesn’t meet some sort of ‘superhero genre’ and neither does any other comic book adaptation involved heroic or sometimes, not so heroic individuals. There is no genre for novel adaptations, so why should there be for comic book adaptations, specifically those featuring superheroes.

Originality Will Always Win Out

What have been the most successful superhero adaptations in recent memory? Or course, the first Avengers film, unique in its time for being the first feature film to involve a superhero team up of unprecedented scale. Deadpool, an action, romantic-comedy, unique for its meta-humour and the first of FOX’s R rated superhero films. Legion, a show so unique with its visuals, exploration and representation of mental health that it acquired near-universal critical praise. Wonder Woman, the very first female lead superhero film, DC’s first massive success and a period piece. Look across the rest of this article to see mentions of The Flash, The Dark Knight and Guardians of The Galaxy, three unique success stories, with critical and commercial acclaim but no shared genre. Each one of these successes are unique in their own right, with the talents involved bringing flare and originality to the source material that others might not have achieved. The key to keeping superhero films fresh and varied is to keep their genres unique.

What Could Bring Triumph To The Fatigue Theorists?

The simplest way in which fatigue could be found within superhero properties is with the over-saturation of a particular genre. If successes are copied and formulas are created, audiences with grow tired of the same story being told to them with different characters. The most successful superhero adaptations today tell original stories, featuring unique genres to their field and a cast of characters that are like no one else. If this is lost, then so too are superhero films to the audience.

‘So, over the next few months, if you pay attention to the trades, you’ll see Hollywood misunderstanding the lesson they should be learning with Deadpool. They’ll be green lighting films “like Deadpool” – but, by that, they won’t mean “good and oriningal” but “a raunchy superhero film” or “it breaks the fourth wall.” They’ll treat you like you’re stupid, wich is the one thing Deadpool didn’t do.’ – James Gunn

Fatigue will come if The CW replicate their superhero shows again and again, over saturating the unique tone of the individual properties. Fatigue will be found in every film trying to be gritty and realistic, akin to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Fatigue will be welcomed with open arms by those superhero naysayers, when the Avengers start asking why the X-Men aren’t in their films, whilst wearing costumes oddly similar to the Justice League.

If superhero films are not a genre then how can the genre die out? Audiences will grow tired of repetitious work from lazy studios, if originality does not continue to win. Don’t watch out for the fatigue, just watch out when those fresh ideas fade away.

The word ‘seminal’ is a fairly over-used adjective these days but it’s absolutely applicable to Neil Gaiman’s wondrous novel, ‘American Gods’. Telling the story of the Old Gods and the New Gods as they battle for the worship of the American masses, the novel is a story of immigration, religion and folklore as much as it is a rollicking fantasy adventure and, we’re pleased to say that Bryan Fuller and Michael Green’s small screen adaptation not only honours its source material, it builds on it. American Gods: Season One arrives on Steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD on July 31^st, ready for fans of the novel to lap it up. But there’s plenty to get on board with even if you haven’t read the book, and with Season Two already confirmed, it really is time to get on at the ground floor.

That said there’s a lot going on; with the exception of the New Gods, our hero Shadow Moon (played by Ricky Whittle), his reanimated wife Laura (Emily Browning) and a Muslim taxi driver (Mousa Kraish), almost all of the characters in the show leap from the pages of religious texts or tales of folklore, with some more familiar than others. Never fear, however, helpful creatures that we are, we’ve come up with a handy guide to the major players so you can settle down to your new box set obsession with the ability to impress and educate your friends. Because people love that, don’t they…

THE OLD GODS 

Character Name: Mr Wednesday

Inspiration: Odin

As much thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as anything else, people are broadly familiar with the world of Norse mythology these days but the version of Odin on display in American Gods is a different beast to Anthony Hopkins’ benevolent Allfather from the Thor movies. Played with hypnotic charm by Ian McShane, Mr Wednesday is an Odin down on his luck and in need of his fellow Gods’ help if he’s to combat the waning of his power. In Norse mythology, Odin is the supreme deity, father of Thor and Loki, and he famously sacrificed his left eye for a drink from the Well Of Wisdom (hence Mr Wednesday having different coloured eyes in the show). The fact that he’s a god of war should influence your take on the proceedings as they unfold on screen. Impossible not to be reeled in by, Odin is not necessarily someone to trust.

Character Name: Mad Sweeney

Inspiration: Leprechaun / Buile Suibhne

Mad Sweeney is little more than a footnote in Gaiman’s original work but the author sounds as gleeful as anyone when discussing his happiness at American Gods taking the opportunity to expand and examine the minutiae of these seemingly throwaway characters. Played by Pablo Schreiber, Mad Sweeney is, simply put, a 6’5 leprechaun with the ability to pluck gold out of thin air. There’s plenty of suggestion that Sweeney is more accurately based on the legendary Irish hero Buile Suibhne, a warrior who went mad following the loss of a battle in 637 AD, but regardless of the truth, Sweeney himself adheres to the folklore roots of the leprechaun by pointedly not going down the route of the Lucky Charms school of clichés – there’s little to suggest leprechauns were ‘little people’ so much as larger, tree-dwelling sorts.

Character Name: Bilquis

Inspiration: The Queen Of Sheba

The Queen of Sheba fell in love with King Solomon in biblical myth, although her story has also been absorbed into a number of different cultures and religions. Not technically a god, the Queen of Sheba was nevertheless worshipped for her beauty and is represented in the series by the character of Bilquis (Yetide Badaki), a faded ‘god’ who straddles the methods of worship of both Old and New Gods (she uses a Tinder-style app to attract ‘worshippers’). Gifted with perhaps one of the most mind-bogglingly ‘did I actually just see that’ moments in the first season, Bilquis demonstrates a unique way of benefitting from worship – she literally absorbs her worshippers as they pray to her through the act of sex. Alright, she swallows them with her vagina. There, we said it. For sheer, excuse the pun, balls-out crazy, Bilquis is worth the price of admission all by herself but also the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the knock your socks off visual flair seen in American Gods: Season One.

Character Name: Mr Nancy

Inspiration: Anansi 

Mr Nancy is another character that enjoys significantly more screen time compared to Gaiman’s novel – indeed, his Coming To America section remains one of the first season’s most powerful as he both succinctly explains the advent of racism and delivers an incendiary response to it in a barnstorming performance from Orlando Jones. Anansi, the trickster god Mr Nancy takes his cues from, originated with the Ashanti people in the country now known as Ghana and is often represented as a spider, just as he is in the show itself. Whilst not as focused on war as Odin, Anansi isn’t averse to a little human sacrifice when the time calls for it, something witnessed in the Coming To America section when he effectively condemns a ship of slaves to death just as he inspires them to revolt.

Character Name: Czernobog

Inspiration: Chernabog 

If you want someone to channel grimy, angry darkness, you cast Peter Stormare, simple as that. Fortunately, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green got the memo, resulting in the perfect interpretation of Czernobog, the first God Shadow meets (after Wednesday) at the start of his road trip. The representation of a Slavic ‘black god’, Czernobog, variously known also as Chernabog, Chornoboh, Čiernoboh, Crnobog and Tchernobog is essentially all that is dark and violent, a point literally hammered home by the fact that the manifestation of him found in American Gods passes the time working in an abattoir slaughtering cattle in a desperate bid to remember the good old days. Tellingly, he also loves to play chequers in a not too subtle attempt to communicate his relationship with light (his counterpart in Slavic lore is Belobog, which literally translates as White God).

Character Name: Zorya Vechernyaya / Zorya Utrennyaya / Zorya Polunochnaya

Inspiration: The Evening Star / The Morning Star / The Midnight Star

Czernobog lives in a state of abject decay in his Chicago apartment with the three Zorya ‘sisters’ (with TV legend Cloris Leachman perfectly playing Zorya Vechernyaya). The Zorya, in Slavic mythology, are deities who are also the daughters of Sun God Dazbog, with the Morning Star opening the gates to his sun palace every morning to let his sun chariot leave, whilst the evening star closes the gates each evening following his return. In Gaiman’s novel, the Evening Star is the only one of the sisters able to read fortunes, giving the down on their luck fading gods a route to at least earning a living. The Midnight Star is an addition to the family borne solely out of Gaiman’s mind to balance the two sisters and is named after the Iggy Pop song, ‘Sister Midnight’.

Character Name: Ibis and Jacquel

Inspiration: Thoth and Anubis

Brought to America by the Egyptians when they travelled up the Mississippi, Ibis and Jacquel are the manifestation of the deities Thoth (who was thought to govern over writing, wisdom and magic) and Anubis (the god who watched over the practice of mummification, leading to him being closely associated with all things to do with death). Fittingly, then, the duo, who sassily live in Cairo, Illinois, have been caring for the dead via their funeral home for many, many years. Ibis (so-called because Thoth is usually represented with the head of an ibis) is also the scribe recounting the Coming To America sections which explain how the show’s gods arrived in America), whilst Jacquel is also seen administering celestial judgment on the dead, including one Laura Moon who pointedly refuses to play ball with the natural order of things.

Character Name: Jinn

Inspiration: The Djinn / Ifrit

American Gods: Season One pushes boundaries as much as it entertains and enthrals. Matching Gaiman’s book in both open-mindedness and diversity, the show is rare for matching character with race. Sure, it’s a crying shame that this should be considered a plus rather than just the norm but in displaying this kind of faith in its source material, American Gods has also produced some of the most uniquely emotional TV moments of the year, not least of which being the touching one night relationship between the earthbound, taxi-driving Jinn and the heartbreakingly lonely Salim which deftly manages to transcend headline-baiting whilst breaking down barriers at the same time. In folklore, Djinn or Ifrits have their roots in Arabian myth. Creatures with flaming, demonic wings who wield great power and who can grant wishes are re-imagined by Gaiman, and Jinn’s act of magic here is to lift Salim out of loneliness and back to life – one of the series’ few moments of genuine tenderness and all the more powerful for it.

Character Name: Vulcan

Inspiration: Vulcan

The only God so far to be added to Gaiman’s original roster, Vulcan is a smart addition given America is the centre of the firearms world. In ancient Roman mythology, Vulcan was the god of fire and the forge, so essentially the god of making weapons – and if a god thrives on worship the god of all things shooty, stabby and skewery is going to live like a King in the United States. Played by the legendary Corbin Bernsen, Vulcan fulfils a pivotal role in American Gods: Season One, and is another example of an Old God not entirely at odds with the allure of the New.

Character: Easter

Inspiration: Ostara

Also blurring the boundaries between the Old and the New, Easter is the very definition of a modern Old God. Conflicted by the fact that the worship she benefits from is received through the prism of Christianity after Jesus effectively stole her festival, Easter is Gaiman’s version of Ostara or Eostre, a Germanic goddess worshipped in times gone by in order to ensure the onset of Spring. In American Gods: Season One, Bryan Fuller re-teams with Pushing Daisies stalwart and stage icon Kristin Chenoweth, who brings her usual bubblegum-with-edge lustre to what transpires to be a pivotal role. Stating that her collusion with the New Gods (Easter lives on as a media-centric festival just as Christmas does, whether or not celebrants are also Christian) is just ‘religious Darwinism’, Easter nevertheless can’t resist the call of her worshippers when Wednesday shows up on Easter Sunday to place the cat firmly amongst the pigeons.

 

THE NEW GODS

Character Name: Media

Media, by her own admission, was born at the beginning of the radio age. As soon as Orson Welles caused panic on the streets of America with his pioneering radio broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’, people began to understand the power of Media and Media began to understand the power she could wield as people starting worshipping their TV, cinemas and radios and forgetting about their churches. Appearing to Shadow Moon first as Lucille Ball in a shopping mall TV wall, and later channelling David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland, Media is played to perfection by Gillian Anderson, clearly having the time of her life and proving that the dream pairing of her and Fuller on Hannibal was no flash in the pan.

Character Name: Technical Boy

In Gaiman’s original novel, Technical Boy was an overweight, food-obsessed mass of unpleasantness. In the years since its publication, however, the geek has indeed inherited the earth so the version we meet in American Gods: Season One channels every tech-obsessed, snot-nosed, scared of being left behind teenager who’s ever sneered at your outdated phone on the tube. Characterised beautifully in the series by the seemingly adorable Bruce Langley (seriously, watch a DVD extra on the box set and fail to fall a little in love with him), Technical Boy nevertheless has a face for punching, not to mention a bank of seriously cool gadgets. Oh and henchmen with no faces. There really isn’t anything not to love about this series, is there?

Character Name: Mr World

Ostensibly American Gods: Season One’s big bad (there’s so much more to it than that, but we are at least supposed to fear Mr World and seemingly everyone else does too), Mr World is something akin to the embodiment of globalisation and as such is a mass of insecurity, uncertainty and probing, preternatural surveillance. He seems keen to offer the Old Gods, or Wednesday at least, a violent truce (with Wednesday’s Allfather named as the destroyer of North Korea, a violent act sure to get him noticed again), but it’s not hard to see why the offer is declined when you look at the mighty Crispin Glover’s unhinged portrayal. Equal parts terrifying and ailing, Mr World is in just about as precarious a state as the globe he represents but don’t expect things to be quite as simple as that as American Gods continues.

AMERICAN GODS: SEASON ONE IS AVAILABLE ON STEELBOOK, BLU-RAY AND DVD FROM JULY 31^ST COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL

CHiPs: Law & Disorder arrives on DVD on July 31 and is available now on Digital Download. Comedy legends Dax Shepard (Hit & Run, Parenthood) and Michael Peña (Ant-Man) star in the action comedy CHiPs: Law & Disorder the contemporary American Buddy Cop movie full of adventure and side-splitting moments.

In CHiPs we witness a whole host of laughs with Ponch and Jon when their Highway Patrol hijinks lead to some hilarious mishaps. To celebrate we take a look at some of the best funny fails in film…

21 Jump Street

This take on the 1987 classic television series sees two officers who are unfit to carry out the duties of regular police men, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum), who are sent back to high school to investigate ongoing crimes.

In one scene, Jenko and Schmidt are practising what to do if you’re hit by a car. Jenko demonstrates effortlessly, but when it comes time for Schmidt to do the same he completely fails by rolling off the hood of the car onto the ground. Setting the tone for the rest of the hilarious remake.

The Hangover

Possibly one of the funniest films of all time, The Hangover sees Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha in a hilarious comedy about a Las Vegas stag do gone awry. Panic, shock and confusion result in a bundle of hysterical moments and comedic gold.

If losing the stag at the stag do isn’t a fail in itself, Stu (Helms), a practising dentist, wakes up the morning after a night out to find he’s missing his front tooth. It’s ironic, hilarious and a complete fail on Stu’s part.

Zoolander

Zoolander is the 2001 wacky satire on the fashion industry starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

One of the funniest moments involves Derek (Stiller) going head-to-head with his rival Hansel (Wilson) in an attempt to copy his underwear removal. Derek falls short, causing uproar in the crowd and embarrassment.

Step Brothers

Step Brothers is silly humour at its finest. The film follows middle-aged juveniles, Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) forced to become roommates when their parents marry.

Possibly the most iconic fail of all time is the bunk bed blunder. Brennan and Dale attempt to build a bunk bed out of their two beds. However, when Dale lies on the top bunk it completely collapses onto Brennan.

CHiPs: Law & Disorder

The 2017 action comedy, CHiPs: Law & Disorder, starring Dax Shepard and Michael Peña is a contemporary recreation of the 1977 television series. Jon Baker (Shepard) and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello (Peña) have just joined the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in Los Angeles, but for very different reasons.

These two dim-witted cops are no strangers to failure. Jon and “Ponch” are aimlessly parading in their motorcycles when “Ponch” accidentally tears off the side mirror of a car, causing an accident followed by a major explosion.

CHIPS: Law & Disorder is available now on Digital Download and on DVD on 31^st July

By George Chrysostomou.

With the summer releases of Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets and War For The Planet Of The Apes it has become clear that our popcorn flicks are relying more and more upon the amazing technology available within the industry today.

The CGI in both films are visually stunning and deserve all the accolades they have earned. However, there is a stark difference between the latest space opera from Luc Besson and the third instalment of the Ape franchise, which centres upon Andy Serkis’s Caesar. Whilst Besson’s impending commercial flop, used it’s CGI to give audiences visuals they had never seen before, Matt Reeves’s War For The Planet Of The Apes, used its motion capture technology and state of the art equipment to tell a story that could be told in no other way. Whilst one focused on bright aliens and an expansive world, the other aided and abetted the emotional performances of its cast; its visual effects becoming a means to better telling the narrative arc of the primate protagonists.

With all this in mind I turned to previous CGI-fests and their practical effects counter-parts, asking the simple question, do visual effects weaken the quality of our blockbusters?

When Visual Effects Aid A Story

Much like War For The Planet Of The Apes, there are numerous examples of visual effects aiding the story telling of our big screen adventures. Disney’s mission to reboot many of its animated features with CGI remakes have been to mixed results; although both Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass were weakened by their overuse of the tech-magic, Beauty And The Beast and The Jungle Book, both benefited from their imaginative retellings, with the latter seeing a vast improvement upon it’s xerography animated predecessor. With the current development by Jon Favreau of The Lion King in a CGI retelling, it is clear that this technique of rebooting old animated features through visual effects provides a fresh take for the movie going audience to enjoy. It allows not only for old storytelling flaws to be improved upon but also updates the narratives for a modern generation; a fine use of visual effects helping to improve upon the quality of our blockbusters.

CGI has found another use recently, in telling stories that could not possibly be told through pratical means, specifically when it comes to space. Both Interstellar and Gravity are prime examples of visual effects being used to the films advantage, with vast breathtaking nature of space and the build up of tension that both perform beautifully. In either instalment of a spacecraft going wrong, film lovers are on the edge of their seats, with visual techniques that can only be achieved through a computer. With 10 academy award nominations for Gravity and 5 for Interstellar, it is clear that the industry as a whole appreciated the bold step forward that Alfonso Cuaron and Christopher Nolan took, to bring a whole new narrative experience to our screens.

When Visuals Harm A Story

Of course, for every Interstellar there is an Avatar, visually stunning but from a narrative perspective, weak. For every Jungle Book, there is a John Carter Of Mars, a film so lacking in any coherent of even good narrative, that Disney have tried to erase it from their record ever since. These films along with Jupiter Ascending, Speed Racer and the Transformers franchise as well as countless others, bombard our senses with colour, rubbery aliens and a vomit fest of visuals. Just because it looks good doesn’t mean it is good. Sometimes the CGI is so horrible that it can ruin a beloved blockbuster series that fans had been anticipating for years; looking at you Peter Jackson/George Lucas (I’ll allow you to choose who the biggest offender is). So whilst some may enjoy Tron: Legacy for its imaginative world, or the Phantom Menace for the feeling of nostalgia that it gives them, CGI and visual effects can create a lot of headaches for the general viewing audience and really weaken the narrative and sometimes visual quality of our blockbusters.

Practical Effects Are Still…. Effective

Some have found a solution to this epidemic of glossy heroes and fake looking villains. The art of practical effects has not been left to die like so many believe. Mad Max: Fury Road is in my opinion, one of the best action films of the last ten 10 years. It used visual effects sparingly, with George Miller only allowing their usage to enhance in camera practical effects. The results of this are not only an attention to detail that many CGI films lack, but also a feeling of brutal reality that cannot be achieved through a computer screen. Blending both old and new techniques allow for the best possible film experience with the application of the greatest tools from throughout the industry to create a visual and narrative masterpiece. Many directors have started to turn to practical effects more in their work, J.J. Abrams learning from Lucas’s mistakes in Star Wars The Force Awakens as one such example.

To improve upon the technological developments of our century, we need to turn to our film past to truly make the most of the tools at our disposal. Visual effects may be weakening both the narrative and sometimes the visuals of our blockbusters, but with the use of practical effects, CGI has a very important place in the industry. Whilst films such as Life Of Pi, benefit hugely from the use of a computer, I believe visual effects are at their best in blockbusters when they are used to support in camera, practical footage.