Review by D.S. Foster
SYNOPSIS:
Determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts, transcending that which has held them back, and allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. The team united, may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid and their dreadful intentions.
REVIEW:
Mired in real-life tragedy and arguably poor bets placed by one of Hollywood’s longest-lived studios, “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” offers it’s director and producer a huge win for artistic integrity, and for its intended audience a satisfying franchise mea culpa haunted by the ghosts of an abandoned cinematic universe; ingraining the idea of its impossible sequels to the realm of mythic cinema not at all unlike that of “Jodorowsky’s Dune…”
As a consequence, we’ve been given a visually stunning and intriguingly dark take on the DC comics monomyth. A colossal and ambitious cinematic experience billed as the director’s original vision. A four-hour narrative behemoth, produced exclusively for a streaming audience, divided into acts ostensibly for one’s viewing ease, however, there’s no fat to cut and for much of its epic runtime, pacing is not an issue when style becomes substance within the “Snyder aesthetic.”
While Snyder’s methodical, detail oriented visual language is for some audiences a lot to chew, gourmet cinema like this is in no way filled with empty calories. The action is more visceral and the characters more developed. It’s silly to compare the 2 versions of this film as everything from performance blocking to costumes and CGI have been elevated. Even fan service is of a higher quality in both humor and scope with the addition of fringe characters that only its core audience can appreciate.
The film’s strengths lay in its visual edge and narrative risks. What’s easiest to write off as another comic-book movie is filled with lofty blows of philosophical commentary often trivialized by Snyder’s harshest critics, undervalued as pseudo intellectualism or pretension – all of which have peaked within this latest effort: a bracingly coherent heroic opera with which there is nothing to compare, yet entirely referential to Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey.” A Virgilian poem about the movements of gods among men.
This more adult tone is palpable, boasting a constant sense of legitimate danger in a world still mourning the death of Superman, forcing archetypal heroes to face the demons of their own pasts and transcend that which has held them back on their journey to become the comic book versions of themselves we all know and love. “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is guaranteed to satisfy the audience for whom it was produced, living up to its own hype and surpassing that of the internet hype machine that willed it into existence.
by Emily Nagle
This past weekend was the second biggest this month for the box office, grossing $16.7 million.
Top 5 Highest Grossing Films for Weekend of March 26-28, 2021:
1. Nobody
2. Raya and the Last Dragon
3. Tom and Jerry
4. Chaos Walking
5. The Courier
Nobody just rolled into theaters on Friday, and quickly became number 1 in the box office. This action thriller, which stars Bob Odenkirk, grossed $6.7 million this weekend. It has been met with mostly positive reviews, and follows a man on a mission to save his family from a revenge-seeking drug lord.
The second highest-grossing film of this past weekend was Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon. Currently in its fourth week at the box office, this movie features a predominantly Asian-American cast as it tells the story of Raya, a warrior on a quest to track down the last dragon in her homeland of Kumandra before it gets attacked by evil monsters. Currently available in theaters, as well as on Disney+ for an additional fee, Raya and the Last Dragon grossed $3.5 million over the weekend, and has now grossed $28.3 million in total.
Tom and Jerry, currently in its fifth week of release, came in at number three, having grossed $2.5 million over the weekend. When this live action/CGI hybrid arrived in theaters at the end of February, it had the most successful opening weekend all year. It features the famous animated rivals when they escape to the Big Apple and their long-lasting feud threatens a lavish, high-profile wedding. Since its release last month, Tom and Jerry has grossed $37.1 million.
Chaos Walking, which stars Tom Holland as a boy named Todd who lives on a mysterious planet populated entirely by men, grossed $1.2 million. It has now grossed $11.5 million since its release four weeks ago.
Two weeks into its release, The Courier has grossed $3.4 million in total. This weekend, the Cold War thriller film about a Russian spy (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) on a mission to end the Cuban Missile Crisis raked in $1 million.
by Emily Nagle
Tubi has bought the rights to add the 90’s hit children’s show “Barney and Friends” to their free, ad-supported streaming lineup.
After making a deal with 9 Story Distribution, Tubi has the rights to the first six seasons of the show, and it will become the exclusive home to seasons 7 through 9. Seasons 10 through 12 will be available non-exclusively.
“Everyone’s favorite purple dinosaur is a wonderful addition to our happy family of iconic characters in Tubi Kids,” Adam Lewinson, Tubi’s chief content officer, announced in a statement. “We’re pleased to super serve our audience with six seasons of ‘Barney & Friends’ to delight a new generation of children.”
“Barney & Friends” ran from 1992 to 2009 on PBS Kids. Targeted at preschoolers, the show incorporated musical numbers to teach kids the lifelong skills of friendship and sharing, in addition to various subjects such as colors, shapes, safety, and animals.
Barney will be joining cherished children’s franchises on the platform that features VeggieTales, Transformers, The Wiggles, and Scooby-Doo. Children’s content helps in attracting more users to the free platform that boasts nearly 2,000 children’s series, such as “G.I. Joe,” “Sonic the Hedgehog,” and “Naruto.”
Tubi is accessible online, on Android and iOS devices, OTT platforms such as Amazon Fire or Apple TV, or any smart TV. It hosts more than free 30,000 shows and movies.
Don Cheadle has been casted as the narrator for ABC’s upcoming reboot of the “Wonder Years”. Cheadle will voice the adult version of the main character Dean as he looks back at his childhood memories. The younger Dean will be played by Elisha Williams. In the original series, it was narrated by Daniel Stern.
Unlike the original series, the reboot will follow a black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1960s civil rights era. Along with Elisha Williams, ABC has casted Dulé Hill, Laura Kariuki, and Saycon Sengbloh.
The new series will closely connected with the original series, as Fred Savage, who played Kevin Arnold in the original show, will direct the pilot and executive produce. Neal Marlens, the creator of the original show, will serve as consultant while in production. The reboot hails from writer and executive producer Saladin Patterson.
by Emily Nagle
Beginning on Friday, March 26th, Disney+ will be raising their prices for the first time since the platform’s launch.
The mass media conglomerate’s streaming service – which celebrated reaching 100 million subscribers earlier this month – will be raising its monthly rate from $6.99 to $7.99 (for a full year, the price will increase from $69.99 to $79.99). The bundle containing Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN Plus will also be increasing in price by a dollar, with a new price tag of $13.99 a month.
Why the price increase? Disney has unveiled a variety of new content for the platform, from original series including WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to films that can be watched at home as opposed to in theaters, such as Cruella, Black Widow, and more recently, Raya and the Last Dragon. In December is when the company unveiled their biggest content slate yet; they confirmed at their live-streamed Investor Day their plans to release 10 Marvel series, more than 10 Marvel films, 10 Star Wars series, and 15 other original series, all to be released over the next few years. More money will allow them to fulfill these goals, producing more content for their rapidly growing platform.
In only a year, Disney+ reached 73.7 million subscribers worldwide. That’s nearly twice the amount that Hulu has. The company predicts that by the end of 2024, the platform will have 260 million subscribers. The reason for its successful launch? Even after the price increase, it’s still much cheaper than its competitors – HBOMax goes for $14.99/month, while the monthly rate for Netflix’s standard plan is $13.99.
The price change is taking effect in other countries as well – in Canada this took place last month, as the price changed from $8.99 CAD to $11.99 CAD. Meanwhile in Europe, the service’s monthly rate will be increasing from £5.99 to £7.99.
By Kurt Balingit
Launching on March 27, XFCTV will be available on Galxy.tv and downloadable through the Roku channel store
DESTIN, FLORIDA and Philadelphia, PA – March 23, 2021 – Xtreme Fighting Championships (OTC: DKMR) and Invincible Entertainment are pleased to announce the launch of their newest broadcast venture, www.XFCTV.com, a mixed martial arts (MMA) linear streaming network that will go live shortly before the XFC’s next MMA event, YoungGuns 1, on March 27 at FireLake Arena in Shawnee, OK. The service will be offered in Portuguese, Spanish and English, with potential to reach an audience of over 100 million MMA fans worldwide. The partnership comes at a time when opportunities for premium content remain strong within the OTT ad-supported space, as traditional cable and satellite services continue to lose subscribers.
XFCTV brings combat sports fans around the globe closer to the action in the XFC’s Hexagon than ever before. Managed and distributed by Invincible Entertainment, XFCTV subscribers will have access to the XFC’s vast catalogue of archived fights, fighter profiles, live events, behind-the-scenes content they can’t find anywhere else, and much more.
“The XFC prides itself on bringing our fans what they want to see, intense and violent matches between the most hardcore athletes and of course the xgirls, said XFC President Myron Molotky. We’re extremely excited to launch XFC TV before our next event because we know it’s something that our fans around the world are really going to enjoy.”
As the CEO of XFC, Steve Smith defined the vision for creating a platform that would not only take XFC to new heights within the combat sports world, but also to include many other partners in creating a combat sports network universe. Mr Smith stated “When we first became involved with XFC, we had the advantage to understand historically how fight fans engaged in watching not only the XFC on various broadcast channels, but also combat sports as a whole. The shifting preference by sports fans has enabled the XFC to partner with Invincible to offer more engagement and selection, which had been the desire, and now the demand of sports fans worldwide”.
The services are powered by Invincible’s proprietary Galxy TV™, a highly-scalable app development platform for OTT services. Invincible continues to focus on bringing well-established brands and film and television content from leading content owners into the growing free ad-supported television marketplace.
Tom Ashley, founder and CEO of Invincible Entertainment, added: “Streaming TV networks have been exploding but what’s been lacking is high-quality live sports. XFCTV solves that problem. The XFC is a premier MMA league with a fantastic track record of producing first-class events. We are proud to partner with an organization of this caliber and bring their iconic fights into the living rooms of XFC fans—those who are new as well as longtime, diehard fans.”
Plans are already underway to further expand the channel’s reach and additional details will be announced in the coming weeks. For more information, visit www.XFCTV.com.
About XFC
Xtreme Fighting Championships, Inc. (formerly Duke Mountain Resources, Inc.) is the first publicly-traded premier international mixed martial arts (“MMA”) organization with offices throughout the United States and South America, trading under the ticker symbol DKMR. Xtreme Fighting Championships (“XFC”) is now partnered with NBC Sports in the United States, and has previously been carried on some of the largest open television broadcasters in Latin America – Rede TV! as well as HBO, ESPN, Esportes Interativo, Terra TV (the largest internet portal in the world), and UOL – the largest internet portal in Latin America, and premium cable & satellite television network. The XFC has had over 185 exclusively signed fighters, representing over 35+ countries worldwide with even more growth expected. Boasting the signing of The Next Generation of Male & Female Superstars, the XFC is known for entertaining fans with the most action packed MMA events both on television and in stadium venues. The Next Generation of MMA.
About Invincible
For more than twenty years, Invincible has been a leader in the digital transformation of the entertainment industry, having built some of the earliest streaming services over a decade ago. Today, Invincible entertains hundreds of millions of consumers around the globe by providing premium content, streaming channels and technology services to the world’s largest media, technology and retail companies. For more information, visit https://www.invincibleent.com/
Get Some Strange!
