Donald Glover has won numerous awards and praise for his portrayal in NBC’s Community, FX’s Atlanta, and as rapper Childish Gambino, but his biggest dream is finally coming true in this month’s Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Continue reading “‘Star Wars’ Was Like the Bible for Donald Glover”
Last week, I got some grief for writing about why I was done with Gotham. So naturally, I not only tuned in for Episode 3, “The Balloonman,” I live-tweeted it as well. The fact that this episode had nothing to do with the B-side to Prince’s “Batdance” was already strike number one for me.
I won’t go into all of the problems I have with the show’s premise — since I already did that. A couple times. I will say that I realize that the reason I’m so bitter about this show is because I always wanted a Gotham Central series, and that Fox’s attempt is just a half-assed one. Because Gotham Central is the non-Batman police procedural series we deserve, just not the one we’re getting right now, apparently.
It may have taken four years, but the internet’s “Donald Glover for Spider-Man” campaign has finally found success. No, Avi Arad and the folks at Sony have not changed their minds about bringing a black Spidey to the big screen. Instead, Donald Glover has been cast to voice the hero in an upcoming episode in the new season of DisneyXD’s Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors.
Over the weekend, The Amazing Spider-Man 2′s $92 million opening — despite a middling reception from critics and comics fans, alike — has all but guaranteed that the powers-that-be at Sony Pictures have got the green light to launch their own foray into superhero mega-franchise-dom and build their Spidey-verse over the course of several movies. What isn’t certain, though, is how many of those coming movies will continue to star Andrew Garfield. Of Sony’s slate of yet-to-come Spidey themed flicks — Sinister Six, Amazing 3, and Venom — Garfield is only contracted to appear in the threequel, and that’s it. So what is Sony Pictures going to do without their lead?
In a recent interview with Comic Book Resources, Garfield himself had some ideas:
Continue reading “Why Miles Morales Needs to be in a Marvel Movie”
If you haven’t heard, this Saturday, May 3 — at comic shops and libraries across the country — is Free Comic Book Day, that annual celebration of the four-color floppy. As the name implies, it’s a day in which comic shops give away specially marked comics to readers of all ages.
Conceived by comic retailer Joe Field and coordinated by industry giant Diamond Comic Distributors, FCBD — as it is affectionately acronymed — has been around since 2002 and occurs every first Saturday in May. To generate some extra pub for this year’s event, the folks behind FCBD shot this extra cool testimonial on the importance of reading and the power of comics.
But you don’t have to take my word for it.
Continue reading “LeVar Burton Promotes Free Comic Book Day”
I guess Bryan Singer has a complex about Marvel movie announcements that aren’t about the X-Men. Back in October, on the same day Disney/Marvel released the long-awaited trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Singer and Fox Instagrammed a teaser vid of their own X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer. So last week, when Sony debuted their trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Singer took to twitter to divert the attention of those fans who might have been willing to give Marc Webb’s sequel a chance:
https://twitter.com/BryanSinger/status/408707930116980736
Also because the internet has a short attention span. If the X-Men eighth-quel is indeed about the classic “Age of Apocalypse” storyline from the 90s — in which a mutant time-travels to the past and accidentally kills Xavier, thus setting off an alternate timeline in which Magneto assembles the X-Men, only to have Apocalypse choose that moment to launch a war that places mutants at the top of the food chain because he slaughters humans by the millions (holy run-ons, Batman!) — then that would mean back-to-back alternate timeline movies for the X-Men. But it got the Nerds to reflect on other media that took advantage of the alternate timeline/evil twin conceit. So we took to the Roundtable once again.
Continue reading “NOCs of the Roundtable: The Darkest Timelines”
Since the The Nerds of Color is not the only awesome thing on the internet, we spent the weekend scouring the web for some of the most NOC-relevant links around. Here are five stories that have gotten the most buzz around the N.O.C. office.
Over at the Huffington Post, arts and entertainment reporter Mallika Rao asks “Is it Time to Retire Apu?” for their first installment in a series on Indian Americans and the entertainment industry. In an interview with Hank Azaria, the Caucasian actor who has voiced Apu on The Simpsons for over two decades, the actor credits a viral video featuring comedian Hari Kondabolu for making him reevaluate his take on the character.
Kondabolu says he… didn’t appreciate how many people would respond to his bit. Perhaps he underestimated the sanctity of The Simpsons in the comedy world (he’s a fan himself, but, as he points out, “you can be critical of the thing and still love the thing”). The Apu problem is a well-worn topic in his inner circle — in his mind, he was courting the danger of being “hacky” by rehashing it.
But the rant went viral, eventually making its way to Azaria. The actor credits the monologue with stirring his first misgivings. “If the only representation of Jews in our culture was Robin Williams’ impression of a Yiddish guy [from “The Birdcage,” starring both Williams and Azaria], I guess I might be upset with that too,” Azaria says. He cites one line of Kondabolu’s that stuck with him: Apu’s accent sounds like “a white guy doing an impression of a white guy making fun of my father.”
“Hard N.O.C. Life” is back for its second episode!
Keith welcomes fellow NOCs Raymond Chow, Julie Kang, Shawn Smith, and Jason Sperber to preview the upcoming Fall television season.
