Michael B. Jordon was in the movie Chronicle, and he's (gasp!) black...

Don Glover (community) made a good point: Seeing Micheal Ceral play 'Shaft" would be awesome to see, but it wouldn't fit the character.  He made this in reference to a rumor about himself playing Peter Parker in a role that went to Andrew Garfield.
(I still think Glover should have played Spidey!)
Sometimes it's about the character, and sometimes it's about the continuity. Morgan Freeman played 'Red' in Shawshank Redemption, when the character in the book was an Irish redhead. I couldn't imagine that character being played by anyone else, even someone who might physically fit the role.
When a movie has racial tones (Like the Color Purple, or American History X) you need the character to be a certain ethnicity. If they make the Marvel movie Black Panther I don't think Kevin Spacey is a good fit, even though he's an amazing actor, because that superhero has also had to deal with racism, something that wouldn't translate if everyone is reacting to Panthers skin color and not trusting him based on that (Government officials and the like).
(Peter Parker was picked on for being a nerd, so his character could really be any ethnicity).

Johnny Storm did meet Black Panther when he was in college, so that's really the only story issue that might ever develop ie why are they treating Panther with racial overtones, but not Johnny? Also they may make him adopted or make Sue Storm, his sister, black as well).

“But you would never let Gweneth Paltrow play Rosa Parks in a movie!”

Well, Rosa was a real person.  So no, we wouldn't do that.

Fictional or not, some characters face ordeals based on culture. Gwen playing Rosa couldn't work because of, yes, Rosa's story is an ethnic and cultural story. Black Lightning is a fictional character, Steel, Black Panther, too. We wouldn't change those characters race because it is part of their origin. And that's where race comes into a character, fictional or not. Would Rosa's life be different if she had been born white? Yes. Would Peter Parkers life have been different if he was black? No, because of the environment he was raised in; he was bullied, smart, had a hard working family that loved him. Is that something only exclusive to white people?

I for one welcome African-American Johnny Storm.   Sometimes the best books don't make the best movies, and certainly some of the best movies wouldn't make very good books.  I can think of movies I have seen that were amazing and read the book and said "What the hell is this sh*t!"  (My Life Without Me was adapted from the novel Pretending the Bed is a Raft by Nanci Kinkaid, and in my opinion is about "idiot people doing idiot things because they are idiots".  Whereas the film is a poignant lesson in life after our own death, our selfish wants against our altruistic motivations, and really heart wrenching).

There have been many changes to superheros when they cross to the bigscreen, and sometimes I am very grateful.  I could tolerate the giant blue penis in the Watchmen because of Dr. Manhattan's disassociative behavior.  I could not have watched X-Men with Wolverine in tight yellow spandex: those are two very differently motivated characters.  And c'mon, in the real world would a cigar chomping Harley riding guy with a metal skeleton and giant claws really wear tight yellow spandex?  Not unless he was REALLY comfortable about his sexuality.

It's October, and I wasn't going to do a series of monster reviews. I tried watching a few “horror” movies, like the action adventure (not scary at all) Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, that made me roll my eyes so much that I actually found the buried memory of Van Helsing, and compared the two.
I wasn't even going to review Hansel and Gretel. The movie was so full of “look-how-tongue-in-cheek-we-are” it was like when a babysitter who has no connection to the child they are taking care of reads them a story: it's somewhat condescending and very aware of itself.

I can buy witches.  I can buy trolls. I can't buy gas powered rifles and hypodermic needles. Even if this is to take place in an alternate world (which I could buy over something historical, the faery tale having been written in 1812, a time I would assume H&G is set), the technology needed would be so crude the "needle" would punch a deep wide hole in the skin, and there is no way he could just stab that into his leg, pull it out without ripping muscle tissue, and have a serious limp.

Hansel has “The sugar disease”.  He has a kitchen timer that he wears to remind him every hour that he must take his insulin (not called that) or else he'll die. 
C'mon.
The first use of insulin was in 1922, and children born  it's invention rarely saw past the age of two. Even taking into account the fact that this all takes place in a world where magic is real, the fact is that H&G DO NOT USE MAGIC. They are using technology far in advance of their pseudo-historical world. This movie would have done better had it been set in modern times, and used a science vs. magic motif, instead of this pathetic attempt at popularized steam punk.  Then other technology got used.  Tech very far out of the age this is supposed to take place.
The French invented the first phonograph (called by them the paleographe) in 1877. I assume that the metal disk that is etched with sound would have been made sometime after 1888. I write this because Edison was a thief, and it also plays in the movie with no foreshadowing that this kind of technology is available to H&G.  Often when trying to rationalize somthing I've seen I try to recreate what may have led to the various decisions to put something into a movie.
What I imagine the writers talked about while writing the film: “Dude, if it was medieval times and some Harry Potter chick flashed a wand at me, I'd pull out my bazooka man, and just blow her away”
There is a stun gun. The stun gun is actually less unbelievable. However the cranking needed to generate the voltage they show in the movie is a little far fetched.

I hated this movie. I found the jokes to be contrived and the plot to be a cheat that established the rules of it's universe, and then changed them as the story saw fit. When they kept referring to the “rules” of finding a witch and how witches work, I felt like there was a giant asterisk floating around that said *”Except when we're trapped, or something happens that contradicts that rule. In any case, we're not going to tell you what the exception is until after we've already broken the rule, so good luck!”




Thank god I didn't review that movie. Instead I was galvanized after watching a very underrated movie called Skinwalkers (2006), starring Elias Koteas.

Werewolf movies are always difficult to make. I've seen almost every werewolf movie ever made (I'm sure there are ones I haven't seen, I'm just trying to get across that I'm a big fan of the mythology), and there is always something that doesn't quiet work.
It's extremely difficult to sell a werewolf movie to someone who doesn't dig them in the first place: They're nothing like vampires. They aren't sexy, they don't glitter in sunlight. They roar and remind us of how dangerous the beasts of nature are, and how much more dangerous is a man without social or moral restraint...
Werewolves are the blue collar creature. They're always running, fighting, and sweating for everything they need. We never see them living in fancy castles or driving expensive cars. They are the loner among monsters, yet are the ones that are seemingly closer to the world around us. By contrast, vampires seem to be outside the world, not part of it. Vampires have taken themselves out of the cycle of life and death. The mythology of werewolves comes from our social roots, it represents the fear humans developed while tending to flocks, and the wolves that came in the night to take livestock. Further into our roots there is rabies, deepening the mythos of the natural world impinging on our structured world by very real force.
If the vampire can be seen as a symbol of power, corrupt leadership, and sexual lust, the werewolf can be seen as a break from corrupt government and a return to nature that's just as lethal.


I honestly liked this flick. Some that view it who aren't into horror may get a little left behind due to the fact that instead of taking the traditional 20+ minutes to establish where the town is and who lives there and how old the kid is and what Bobby Ray the janitor heard in the boys locker room, it immediately throws you into the story. It is assumed that we all know about werewolves. Maybe not everything, but we've seen the movies or read the Coles notes. Full moon, check. Werewolf, check. Small town, check. Granny with a pistol protecting the embodiment of werewolf salvation, che...WHAT!

Yes. This movie surprised me. They start the clock running from the outset and establish that a single boy holds the key to the destruction or salvation of a race of werewolves, loosely based on the Native myths of Skinwalkers.


This movie garnered a combination of bad and good reviews based on things I would not rate a movie on. There was a lot of hubbub about the creature effects for the film that was apparently a letdown. No, there isn't a detailed transformation scene where they go from human to werewolf, and you know what? I've seen that a dozen different ways in other movies. Know what it does for story arc and character growth? Zilch. Frankly I get bored with those scenes. My brain starts going “Yes, they are a werewolf, I get it, move on with the story. Yes. Fine. Transformed? No? Still sprouting hair. I see. No, no, I'll wait. Yes, there was a particularly vulnerable man who was making his way towards a gun to shoot you, but if you feel it's really necessary to show me the rolling yellow eye that signifies you're blood-crazier-than-shit, go ahead. I'll just hum a little tune. Done? Okay. Good thing we established that there are werewolves in this werewolf movie, otherwise I may have been confused.”


I can forgive a movie with bad special effects (to me, this movie didn't have bad effects. I was actually surprised at how well the effects were, given the genre and time it came out). I cannot forgive a movie that has amazing special effects and no story or character. Sometimes a director and their actors are trying to get a story across and and it fails in the delivery and editing and no amount of 'splosions or gore will save it.

This movie has decent acting, a decent story, a good pace, and an ending that I actually didn't see coming.


If you are hoping for that True Blood “I'm a sexy naked Vampire/I'm a sexy naked Werewolf, and that's pretty much the whole show” movie, you will be disappointed. This film is rough. It smells like blood and sweat. It has a frenetic craziness to it that other creature feature movies don't have.

Skip Hansel and Gretel, a movie where I turned off my brain only to be slapped with stupid so much that it started up on it's own volition, and watch Skinwalkers, where I started with my brain whirring away and got caught up in the ride.