In case the moment is, indeed, slipping away from us*, here are nine Marvel Cinematic Universe achievements that Hulk will enjoy for all time, always:
Continue reading “HULK REMIND YOU OF GREATEST THINGS MARVEL MOVIES EVER DID!”
Like most folk, I’m not too keen on reminders of my ever-increasing age. But this one, well, it’s not too bad of a milestone reminder.
Miles Morales, Marvel’s best Spider-Man, debuted nearly 10 years ago! You read that right, it’s been almost a decade since Miles inherited the Spidey title from Peter Parker and immediately one upped the kid from Queens.
Continue reading “Marvel Celebrates Miles Morales’ 10th Anniversary with Variant Covers”
This past year has been a busy one for the Star Wars universe. Aside from the release of the final film of the Skywalker saga, The Rise of Skywalker, there has also been the beginning of the first live-action series, The Mandalorian, released last fall on Disney+, as well as the conclusion of the beloved animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, this past spring. For Lauren Mary Kim, a stunt actor who has been working in Hollywood for the past 16 years, she has been involved in the making of both of these Star Wars productions. Continue reading “Lauren Mary Kim on Developing and Performing Stunts for Two ‘Star Wars’ Productions”
It’s that time of year again where I become irrationally excited for a Batman movie. Last night on twitter, director Matt Reeves sent out a link to camera test footage for his new movie and lit the entire internet on fire.
Continue reading “Matt Reeves Teases Robert Pattinson as ‘The Batman’”
2019 has been full of terrible happenings and counter-happenings, but here we are now at the 50th San Diego Comic-Con! (Or #SDCC19, if you’re into the brevity thing.) Perhaps owing to the superlatively non-racist good vibes induced by Into The … Continue reading Into The San Diego Comic-Con Cosplay-Verse, Part I (2019 Edition)
Guest co-host — and The Defenders greatest, uh, defender — Dominic Mah joins Keith to look back at Jessica Jones season 3 and the end of the Marvel Netflix era.
Continue reading “Hard NOC Life: ‘Jessica Jones’ and the End of Marvel Netflix”
Iron Fist is cancelled, Titans is launched, and Superman returns to The CW! All this and more on a new episode of Hard NOC Life.
Continue reading “Hard NOC Life: The Show That Shall Not Be Renewed”
Shawn returns to Hard NOC Life to go over the latest and greatest developments in Nerd World.
Continue reading “Hard NOC Life: The DCEU is Gunning for Marvel Studios”
It’s one of my favorite times of the year. It’s where I review the best and brightest that television had to offer in the previous year. If you haven’t already, you should check out my Top Films of 2016. Go ahead, check it out, I’ll wait. No really, I’ll wait. You back? Awesome.
As is the standard with my movie year-in-review, my television selections have to pass the Upkins Media Litmus Test.
Without further adieu…
Continue reading “Super Sixteen: Top Television Shows of 2016”
Daredevil Season 2 has been up and streaming on Netflix for some time now and if you haven’t watched it, are you okay? Should we call someone? Just kidding. But seriously, go watch it if you still haven’t. It was another successful team-up for Netflix and Marvel after an exceptional Jessica Jones. If you haven’t watched that yet, that’s it, I’m coming over! As I’ve previously written, I recognize my bias and personal history with Daredevil, but in my opinion, especially in terms of tone, the series continues to be the MCU’s masterpiece (ducks).
I wasn’t gonna do this, but in a conversation on twitter, @BlackGirlNerds asked me to expand on what I recently called “Daredevil‘s White Virgin/Whore of Color Complex” and I would hate to disappoint. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not just trying to dump on Daredevs. I still love the first season, and the second season, despite serious problems, is still great television in a lot of ways.
But I hope — on this site especially — I don’t need to go over again why/how problematic representations of POC and women spread like mayonnaise over a beloved television property can be like an all-day, all-you-can-take, face-slapping machine. And Arthur Chu has already shown you the wasabi-infused mayo currently salmonellizing on Daredevil‘s bread.
I’m here to show you the ketchup.
Continue reading “White Virgin/Whore of Color: #DaredevilProblems”
So.
I can’t say what I would have to say about the orientalism in Daredevil Season Two any better than Arthur Chu, so I will leave you to read that and bristle at will.
My thought process upon reading about Daredevil killing Nobu and not counting it as killing a person went as follows:
Continue reading “Racist Like Daredevil with this One Weird Tip!”
Originally posted at The Daily Beast
I liked Daredevil Season 2 a lot. I didn’t like it quite as much as Season 1, but it was always going to be impossible to find someone to live up to Vincent D’Onofrio’s take on Wilson Fisk (who still effortlessly steals the few scenes he gets this season). But the writing and the acting for Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, is compelling as hell, enough to spark a lively debate about the appeal of vigilante justice and gun violence in American culture.
The tangled, messy web of corruption behind the death of the Punisher’s family, the complicity of the state and the media in creating him, his turnaround in becoming a criminal defendant in the Trial of the Century, and the moral ambiguity of Castle’s past as a soldier who exposes the American public’s hypocrisy by bringing the brutal logic of the overseas War on Terror stateside — that’s all great stuff.
The problem is all that great stuff is only half of Daredevil Season 2. There’s a whole other half that’s almost totally disconnected from the Frank Castle plot, the Nelson and Murdock law firm, and New York City politics. There’s a full 50 percent of Daredevil Season 2 that’s total crap, and that half is the part with the ninjas.
Marvel’s Agent Carter had its season premiere Tuesday night with a double episode, and all sorts of things are new.
For one, the somber, immediate-post-WWII-New-York-values tones have been replaced by a lighter, sunnier, Californian color that suits the show’s inevitable slide into the fifties. For another, Agent Daniel Sousa’s childish crush on Peggy Carter seems to have deepened into a reciprocal — if ambiguous — relationship. (On this, more later.)
Continue reading “Agent Carter Adds Superhero TV’s Newest Trope”
They say there’s nothing good on television. Clearly, more than a few shows were trying to disprove that saying. 2015 kept me busy in terms of reviewing shows but more than a few proved to be well worth it.
As is the standard, for a series to be reviewed (much less nominated), it must meet the guidelines of my Media Litmus Test.
So without further adieu, the following are my Top 15 Television Series of 2015:
by MC Nedelsky in collaboration with MCU Exchange
What exactly is the problem with bringing Iron Fist to Netflix? It’s hard to know. Though the latest news is that the show is still on track, it’s clear they haven’t yet figured it out — they don’t have a star; they don’t have a showrunner; and for some reason, no one has bothered to ask Lexi Alexander on how she could make Iron Fist “the most popular show ever.”
One of the issues is apparently no one at Marvel Studios can figure out how to bring the character’s “mystical” elements into the grim and gritty universe established for its Netflix series. Devin Faraci, who first reported on Iron Fist’s troubles back in July, writes that “one of the big hold-ups is the mystical element, with lots of different opinions on just how much weird wuxia to bring in to the show.”
This seems like an odd concern, given that these shows share a cinematic universe with Asgardians, Kree, and Inhumans.
Continue reading “Fixing Marvel’s Iron Fist Problem: Why Netflix Can Handle Mysticism”
In this case, “all time” refers to two years. You see, today marks the second anniversary of the official launch of the site. Since that time, we’ve amassed dozens of contributors, hundreds of articles, thousands of readers, and hundreds of thousands of views. It’s humbling, and as the site’s lead editor, I want to thank each and everyone who has made the Nerds of Color what it is today, two years later.
So before we move forward into Year Three, I wanted to look back at the last two, and share ten of the most read posts in the history of the blog. Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to follow us on twitter and Facebook where we’ll be sharing links to these classic posts all week. Anyway, on to the countdown!
Some of my fellow NOCs and other contributors have written eloquent season reviews and critiques of Daredevil so I’ll keep this brief. I’m pretty biased with this character and while I tried to restrain some and was somewhat critical, there was a lot of praise throughout my recaps. When something that’s been a part of 2/3 of your life finally is treated correctly, it can be quite the emotional ride. Congrats to Netflix for this, their greatest and most-watched original series. Netflix and Marvel: the new Kingpins. Best superhero show? Yes. Best Marvel property? Yes. Best show, movie, anything a camera has filmed? Shit, probably. Sure. Yes.
Last night, the trades broke the news that Marvel Studios had finally cast Elektra for the second season of Daredevil, which is currently in production in New York City. G.I. Joe: Retaliation star Elodie Yung will be taking up the sais opposite Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock when the series returns to Netflix next year.
That’s right, Elektra will be portrayed by a mixed race Cambodian actress! Does this mean an Asian American Danny Rand is still in the cards? We shall see. In the meantime, holy shit Elektra is Asian!
Continue reading “Elodie Yung is Elektra in Daredevil Season Two”
What a groundbreaking ride this has been. I am so thrilled that this character and his world that connected with me as kid has finally fallen into the right hands and ended up not just revolutionizing the superhero genre, but TV and film in general. Therefore, it’s fitting that show runner Steven DeKnight took the writing and directing duties for the finale. After all the defending of Daredevil I’ve done up to this point with haters of the “lesser Spider-Man,” not to mention the failure of the movie, it feels personally triumphant for me. Bill Everett and Jack Kirby have passed, but I can’t imagine how Stan Lee must feel watching a Pavarotti moment with these characters in the finale culminating the origin story and thusly named: “Daredevil.” I think Puccini would approve.
“The Ones We Leave Behind” is another dense episode that fortunately doesn’t feel like it drags. Two of the leads deal differently with killing, there’s some backstabbing in the consortium, some classic Daredevil roof hopping, and another climactic and shocking ending. Damn. Fucking Sony.
It opens with Karen tossing the gun in the river. She’s obviously messed up after murdering Wesley and this plays out once she gets home and hits the bottle hard to put herself to sleep. She wakes up startled thinking she hears something, but then relaxes and decides to switch to beer for bed. Does that ever work? She turns from the fridge and our bald menace is staring her down. He delivers another stellar speech telling her he knows how hard it is to take a life. He goes on about how you feel the weight of the person’s life, the cherished moments, and such. Then he says: “I want you to know something, something important that I’ve learned: that it gets easier the more you do it.” And he attacks. And Karen wakes up. Really wakes up this time. The old nightmare within the nightmare. Well played writers.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Daredevil: So Much for a Complete Daily Bugle Staff”
Four of our favorites are paired up once more and give us some outstanding on-screen chemistry. Claire’s patches up Matt again, even if it’s for a brief moment. While Vanessa is in recovery, Fisk and Wesley share some very tender moments as Wesley tries to balance his BFF’s sanity with keeping the machine moving. Nelson and Murdock Attorneys at Law continues to unravel with Karen upset and the boys still not talking to each other. Mr. Potter battles like a gladiator and we get quite the climatic ending in “The Path of the Righteous.”
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Daredevil: Saw Blades & Tender Villains”
Yes, the boys are fighting and Foggy Bear attacks like a… bear. It’s Foggy’s turn to learn about Matt’s powers and the first part of “Nelson v. Murdock” basically repeats previous scenes and flashbacks of folks that know about Matt. Nothing new that we don’t already know until the way Foggy plays it at the end. Besides Foggy’s cross examination of Matt, we get flashbacks to their meeting and law school daze days, Madame Gao puts Fisk in another time out, Karen tricks Ben in a game changing way, and a benefit dinner really could have used a Medieval cup-bearer.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Daredevil: The Trial of the Incredible Matthew Murdock”
