MickyDolenz said:

Superhero movies are definitely the modern equivalent of westerns when it comes to market saturation. Which begs the question, how much longer will superhero movies remain popular. I figure that they have reached peak popularity with Avengers Endgame. So unless they start doing something new the only way to go is downhill. I think it's very telling that both Marvel and DC are doing nostalgia-baiting multiverse crossovers now. In DC's case, when all else fails, bring back Michael Keaton's Batman. It's not a terrible plan if they can execute it well enough. It could potentially give their DCEU the adrenaline shot it so desperately needs. In Marvel's case, I suppose it's more of a "what more can we do after Endgame" kind of thing. You can't really get bigger than Endgame so what do you do to keep your audience's attention? Bring back popular characters and actors from previous iterations of your movies.

How long will all these nostalgic movies last though? In 20 years time will we see a digitally de-aged Robert Downey Jr stepping back into the MCU as an alternate universe Iron Man? Or perhaps we might get something new. Personally, my fingers are crossed for westerns to make a comeback.

EmmaMcG said:

my fingers are crossed for westerns to make a comeback.

I don't see that happening. In a lot of old westerns, the Native Americans (aka Indians) were the bad guy. That's not going to fly with today's audience. Also a lot of real cowboys back in the old west were Mexicans & Black people, not only white guys like John Wayne. The Lone Ranger is said to be based on on a real guy named Bass Reeves, who was Black. Animal safety was also often ignored when the western was popular. So I don't think there could be nowhere near the same amount of westerns made today beacuse there's now the Animal Humane Society (& others like PETA). In a few recent movies about dogs, there were CGI dogs instead of real ones. There is the popularity of the video game series Red Dead Redemption, but there's no real horses in that.

EmmaMcG said:

MickyDolenz said:

If you go before the 1970s, they were all in westerns. Starting in the 1920 singing cowboy era, there were way more westerns in the movies and later on TV than there are superhero movies today. Gunsmoke was the longest running primetime show until The Simpsons & SVU. There were a lot of musicals too.

Superhero movies are definitely the modern equivalent of westerns when it comes to market saturation. Which begs the question, how much longer will superhero movies remain popular. I figure that they have reached peak popularity with Avengers Endgame. So unless they start doing something new the only way to go is downhill. I think it's very telling that both Marvel and DC are doing nostalgia-baiting multiverse crossovers now. In DC's case, when all else fails, bring back Michael Keaton's Batman. It's not a terrible plan if they can execute it well enough. It could potentially give their DCEU the adrenaline shot it so desperately needs. In Marvel's case, I suppose it's more of a "what more can we do after Endgame" kind of thing. You can't really get bigger than Endgame so what do you do to keep your audience's attention? Bring back popular characters and actors from previous iterations of your movies. How long will all these nostalgic movies last though? In 20 years time will we see a digitally de-aged Robert Downey Jr stepping back into the MCU as an alternate universe Iron Man? Or perhaps we might get something new. Personally, my fingers are crossed for westerns to make a comeback.

THE BATMAN and BATMAN AND ROBIN – The 1940s Serials. ... Batman starred Lewis Wilson as

Batman/Bruce Wayne, Douglas Croft as Robin/Dick Grayson, and J. Carrol Naish as the diabolical Japanese criminal mastermind Dr. Daka.

Adventures of Captain Marvel is a 1941 American 12-chapter black-and-white movie serial from Republic Pictures, produced by Hiram S. Brown, Jr., directed by John English and William Witney, that stars Tom Tyler in the title role of Captain Marvel and Frank Coghlan, Jr. as his alter ego, Billy Batson. The serial was adapted from the popular Captain Marvel comic book character, then appearing in the Fawcett Comics publications Whiz Comics and Captain Marvel Adventures. The character is now owned by DC Comics.

Then you had your sci-fi super heroes of the 1930's

MickyDolenz said:

No I don't see it happening either.

I never got into John Wayne. I love the spaghetti westerns and the non-spaghetti western Clint Eastwood movies. The Magnificent Seven, Butch Cassidy, Tombstone etc. The recent Deadwood movie was absolutely brilliant too and a perfect follow up to the series. Unfortunately there are very few actors around now who I feel could play a good cowboy. Timothy Olyphant is definitely the best but DiCaprio could do it. Maybe Clint Eastwood's son too. Josh Brolin. One or two others but for the most part the big actors now are a bunch of pretty boys bred for superhero movies. Give me a manly cowboy any day of the week. Both in the movies and in real life

EmmaMcG said:

No I don't see it happening either. I never got into John Wayne. I love the spaghetti westerns and the non-spaghetti western Clint Eastwood movies. The Magnificent Seven, Butch Cassidy, Tombstone etc. The recent Deadwood movie was absolutely brilliant too and a perfect follow up to the series. Unfortunately there are very few actors around now who I feel could play a good cowboy. Timothy Olyphant is definitely the best but DiCaprio could do it. Maybe Clint Eastwood's son too. Josh Brolin. One or two others but for the most part the big actors now are a bunch of pretty boys bred for superhero movies. Give me a manly cowboy any day of the week. Both in the movies and in real life

A western is also probably too slow and boring for the people who made Fast And Furious movies popular. I don't think westerns have the same worldwide appeal as Fast And Furious or MCU, which are the big moneymakers. I doubt cowboy movies are a big thing in China. I don't see The Rock or Kevin Hart in a western, they're probably the most popular Hollywood actors today (as in box office draw or movie star). People today watch movies based on video games like Sonic & Mortal Kombat or brands like Star Wars.

MickyDolenz said:

EmmaMcG said:

No I don't see it happening either. I never got into John Wayne. I love the spaghetti westerns and the non-spaghetti western Clint Eastwood movies. The Magnificent Seven, Butch Cassidy, Tombstone etc. The recent Deadwood movie was absolutely brilliant too and a perfect follow up to the series. Unfortunately there are very few actors around now who I feel could play a good cowboy. Timothy Olyphant is definitely the best but DiCaprio could do it. Maybe Clint Eastwood's son too. Josh Brolin. One or two others but for the most part the big actors now are a bunch of pretty boys bred for superhero movies. Give me a manly cowboy any day of the week. Both in the movies and in real life

A western is also probably too slow and boring for the people who made Fast And Furious movies popular. I don't think westerns have the same worldwide appeal as Fast And Furious or MCU, which are the big moneymakers. I doubt cowboy movies are a big thing in China. I don't see The Rock or Kevin Hart in a western, they're probably the most popular Hollywood actors today (as in box office draw or movie star). People today watch movies based on video games like Sonic & Mortal Kombat or brands like Star Wars.

Please pay the Rock the big bucks and he'll star in any western movie

MickyDolenz said:

EmmaMcG said:

No I don't see it happening either. I never got into John Wayne. I love the spaghetti westerns and the non-spaghetti western Clint Eastwood movies. The Magnificent Seven, Butch Cassidy, Tombstone etc. The recent Deadwood movie was absolutely brilliant too and a perfect follow up to the series. Unfortunately there are very few actors around now who I feel could play a good cowboy. Timothy Olyphant is definitely the best but DiCaprio could do it. Maybe Clint Eastwood's son too. Josh Brolin. One or two others but for the most part the big actors now are a bunch of pretty boys bred for superhero movies. Give me a manly cowboy any day of the week. Both in the movies and in real life

A western is also probably too slow and boring for the people who made Fast And Furious movies popular. I don't think westerns have the same worldwide appeal as Fast And Furious or MCU, which are the big moneymakers. I doubt cowboy movies are a big thing in China. I don't see The Rock or Kevin Hart in a western, they're probably the most popular Hollywood actors today (as in box office draw or movie star). People today watch movies based on video games like Sonic & Mortal Kombat or brands like Star Wars.

The last real Western I saw at the movies was Clint Eastwood's classic "Unforgiven." Can't think of any since then... although I heard good things about Leonardo DeCaprio's "The Revenant."

kpowers said:

Please pay the Rock the big bucks and he'll star in any western movie

Maybe the sequel to this Bobby Brown is in it.

MickyDolenz said:

kpowers said:

Please pay the Rock the big bucks and he'll star in any western movie

Maybe the sequel to this Bobby Brown is in it.

purplethunder3121 said:

If you've never seen the Deadwood TV series, you should definitely check it out. And then, once you've seen that, watch the Deadwood movie.

3:10 To Yuma and Seraphim Falls were decent. Tombstone is an excellent movie. As was the remake of True Grit. The Assassination of Jesse James was alright. The remake of The Magnificent Seven was better than you'd think it would be. And of course, the Tarantino westerns, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. They were both really good. Mel Gibson's Maverick is a fun movie. And speaking of Mel Gibson, he's directing a remake of The Wild Bunch which could be pretty good. Say what you want about his personal life but the man is a very talented director.


I wish Clint Eastwood would direct another western before he dies. Maybe even do it as a passing of the torch. Have his son star as The Man With No Name or something.

MickyDolenz said:

What a sad indictment of modern day Hollywood

uPtoWnNY said:

kpowers said:

Affleck's is the closest to Frank Miller's 'Dark Knight Returns', which to me, is THE definitive Batman. Frank Miller (and later John Byrne) made the character great again.

I'm going to 100% disagree with that. I can't stress how much I hate the artwork from those comics. Like the Nolan movies IMO the Frank Miller Batman is overrated. For me who made the character great again (as well as the whole DC universe overall) is Bruce Timm. His Batman the animated series captured Batman way better than anyone else has. Let's not forget he brought us the greatest Joker ever voiced by Mark Hamill. Bruce Timm also helped created the character of Harley Quinn. I wish that when Michael Keaton left the role of Batman they would have brought in Bruce Timm to take over the movie franchise. Let's face it the best Batman movie ever was Mask of the Phantasm. If Bruce Timm would have taken over the live movies I know he would of cast Kevin Conroy as Batman. At this time Kevin Conroy would be 40 and still young enough to be the Batman of the 1990's and early 2000's. Besides having the best Batman voice ever, at 6'2" he would be very believable in the role. Bruce Timm also would have done a way better job of doing a Justice League movie, just look at Justice League the series as well as Justice League Unlimited. But that's just my opinion.............and I know Emma also has her opinion on the subject.

Kevin Conroy

[Edited 9/11/21 10:28am]

EmmaMcG said:

What a sad indictment of modern day Hollywood

It has nothing to do with Hollywood. They're in business to make money and they're just giving the audience what they want. Why do you think TV is full of reality shows and true crime programs? That's what the mainstream wants to see and those shows are cheaper to make. The main MTV channel stopped showing music videos because people aren't interested in that or they can watch videos anytime they want on Youtube. People don't have to wait for MTV to play a particular song/video. The majority of people go to the movies to see spectacle like MCU & Mission Impossible. They can watch talky type movies & comedies on Netflix or rent it from Redbox, don't need to pay to see that on a big screen.

kpowers said:

I agree. 100%. Ever since Michael Keaton left the role of Batman the quality of the movies went down. For many different reasons. If, instead of bringing in Joel Schumacher to ruin the series, they hired Bruce Timm to write Batman 3 with Kevin Conroy in the lead role I think we would have gotten the definitive live action Batman. It's not too late though. WB are pushing HBO Max pretty hard at the moment and a guaranteed success for them would be a live action Batman Beyond series starring Kevin Conroy as an old Bruce Wayne with Bruce Timm brought in to run the show.

EmmaMcG said:

That sounds interesting

kpowers said:

uPtoWnNY said:

Affleck's is the closest to Frank Miller's 'Dark Knight Returns', which to me, is THE definitive Batman. Frank Miller (and later John Byrne) made the character great again.

I'm going to 100% disagree with that. I can't stress how much I hate the artwork from those comics. Like the Nolan movies IMO the Frank Miller Batman is overrated. For me who made the character great again (as well as the whole DC universe overall) is Bruce Timm. His Batman the animated series captured Batman way better than anyone else has. Let's not forget he brought us the greatest Joker ever voiced by Mark Hamill. Bruce Timm also helped created the character of Harley Quinn. I wish that when Michael Keaton left the role of Batman they would have brought in Bruce Timm to take over the movie franchise. Let's face it the best Batman movie ever was Mask of the Phantasm. If Bruce Timm would have taken over the live movies I know he would of cast Kevin Conroy as Batman. At this time Kevin Conroy would be 40 and still young enough to be the Batman of the 1990's and early 2000's. Besides having the best Batman voice ever, at 6'2" he would be very believable in the role. Bruce Timm also would have done a way better job of doing a Justice League movie, just look at Justice League the series as well as Justice League Unlimited. But that's just my opinion.............and I know Emma also has her opinion on the subject.

Kevin Conroy

[Edited 9/11/21 10:28am]

For me, 1986's 'Dark Knight Returns', 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' and John Byrne's 6-issue 'Man of Steel' renewed my interest in DC. I was strictly a Marvel fan, and didn't pay much attention to DC until they rebooted their characters, particularly Batman.

uPtoWnNY said:

kpowers said:

I'm going to 100% disagree with that. I can't stress how much I hate the artwork from those comics. Like the Nolan movies IMO the Frank Miller Batman is overrated. For me who made the character great again (as well as the whole DC universe overall) is Bruce Timm. His Batman the animated series captured Batman way better than anyone else has. Let's not forget he brought us the greatest Joker ever voiced by Mark Hamill. Bruce Timm also helped created the character of Harley Quinn. I wish that when Michael Keaton left the role of Batman they would have brought in Bruce Timm to take over the movie franchise. Let's face it the best Batman movie ever was Mask of the Phantasm. If Bruce Timm would have taken over the live movies I know he would of cast Kevin Conroy as Batman. At this time Kevin Conroy would be 40 and still young enough to be the Batman of the 1990's and early 2000's. Besides having the best Batman voice ever, at 6'2" he would be very believable in the role. Bruce Timm also would have done a way better job of doing a Justice League movie, just look at Justice League the series as well as Justice League Unlimited. But that's just my opinion.............and I know Emma also has her opinion on the subject.

Kevin Conroy

[Edited 9/11/21 10:28am]

For me, 1986's 'Dark Knight Returns', 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' and John Byrne's 6-issue 'Man of Steel' renewed my interest in DC. I was strictly a Marvel fan, and didn't pay much attention to DC until they rebooted their characters, particularly Batman.

Horrible artwork and very overrated But the John Byrne's 6-issue 'Man of Steel' was good

[Edited 9/14/21 10:38am]

I did not know Harley Quinn was voiced by the actress who played Calliope Jones on Days of our lives. OK I was never into soap operas unitl they brought in Calliope and Eugene (Played by Star Trek's Q). They were so fun to watch and all the kooky adventures they had. Why NBC never gave them their own sictom I will never know. I should have known by the voice but never put 2 & 2 together.

kpowers said:

Yeah, Arleen Sorkin was the voice of Harley Quinn in the animated show and a bunch of other things. One of her last appearances as Harley Quinn was in the videogame Arkham Asylum, which was written by Paul Dini. She still sounded pretty good but she was replaced by Tara Strong in the sequels. I don't know if you're into videogames but all of the Arkham games have been edited together as movies on YouTube. They're really good, as you would expect from Paul Dini. The second game, Arkham City, is probably my favourite. It's essentially Escape From New York only set in Gotham City, with Batman taking on the Snake Plisskin role.

kpowers said:

uPtoWnNY said:

For me, 1986's 'Dark Knight Returns', 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' and John Byrne's 6-issue 'Man of Steel' renewed my interest in DC. I was strictly a Marvel fan, and didn't pay much attention to DC until they rebooted their characters, particularly Batman.

Horrible artwork and very overrated But the John Byrne's 6-issue 'Man of Steel' was good

[Edited 9/14/21 10:38am]

I always loved Byrne's take on the character (that Clark considers 'Superman' as the disguise). Some fans had a problem with that, but I thought it was interesting. Toning down Supes powers, making Luthor a businessman, only having one form of kryptonite and the adversarial relationship with Batman were well done.

Honorable mentions;

George Perez amazing run on Wonder Woman

Frank Miller's Daredevil

Walt Simonson's Thor

Todd McFarlane's Spider-man

and my all time best is Peter David's 12 year run on my favorite character, The Incredible Hulk. He took the character to places no one has done before or since.

Peter David's Hulk | Crea...eading ...

EmmaMcG said:

kpowers said:

I did not know Harley Quinn was voiced by the actress who played Calliope Jones on Days of our lives. OK I was never into soap operas unitl they brought in Calliope and Eugene (Played by Star Trek's Q). They were so fun to watch and all the kooky adventures they had. Why NBC never gave them their own sictom I will never know. I should have known by the voice but never put 2 & 2 together.

Yeah, Arleen Sorkin was the voice of Harley Quinn in the animated show and a bunch of other things. One of her last appearances as Harley Quinn was in the videogame Arkham Asylum, which was written by Paul Dini. She still sounded pretty good but she was replaced by Tara Strong in the sequels. I don't know if you're into videogames but all of the Arkham games have been edited together as movies on YouTube. They're really good, as you would expect from Paul Dini. The second game, Arkham City, is probably my favourite. It's essentially Escape From New York only set in Gotham City, with Batman taking on the Snake Plisskin role.

I like video games but don't own a X-Box or play station and so on.

kpowers said:

Well like I said, all the Arkham games have been edited as movies on YouTube so you could just watch those. Just type in "Arkham Asylum movie" on YouTube. They have the same cast as the animated series so you've got Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill etc all reprising their roles. They even did an actual animated movie spin off of the games called Assault On Arkham too.

EmmaMcG said:

kpowers said:

I like video games but don't own a X-Box or play station and so on.

Well like I said, all the Arkham games have been edited as movies on YouTube so you could just watch those. Just type in "Arkham Asylum movie" on YouTube. They have the same cast as the animated series so you've got Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill etc all reprising their roles. They even did an actual animated movie spin off of the games called Assault On Arkham too.

OK will check out it

MickyDolenz said:

EmmaMcG said:

No I don't see it happening either. I never got into John Wayne. I love the spaghetti westerns and the non-spaghetti western Clint Eastwood movies. The Magnificent Seven, Butch Cassidy, Tombstone etc. The recent Deadwood movie was absolutely brilliant too and a perfect follow up to the series. Unfortunately there are very few actors around now who I feel could play a good cowboy. Timothy Olyphant is definitely the best but DiCaprio could do it. Maybe Clint Eastwood's son too. Josh Brolin. One or two others but for the most part the big actors now are a bunch of pretty boys bred for superhero movies. Give me a manly cowboy any day of the week. Both in the movies and in real life

A western is also probably too slow and boring for the people who made Fast And Furious movies popular. I don't think westerns have the same worldwide appeal as Fast And Furious or MCU, which are the big moneymakers. I doubt cowboy movies are a big thing in China. I don't see The Rock or Kevin Hart in a western, they're probably the most popular Hollywood actors today (as in box office draw or movie star). People today watch movies based on video games like Sonic & Mortal Kombat or brands like Star Wars.

Yeah sure Hollywood wants a global market for all their movies (not just Westerns) but they are going to make movies regardless if people in China are going to watch it or not (and that is how it should be). Hollywood will always make a western, maybe not a lot like they did in the early days. "Boring" well that all depends on the script. You can have an action pack Western movie such as Young Guns, Back to the future part 3 or Cowboys VS Aliens or a more dramatic movie such as Unforgiven. And like I said earlier you give the Rock the big bucks and he will do a western. Heck if they offer Kevin Hart a role in a western he better take it because eventually Hollywood will stop considering him for roles. If they can get Harrison Ford to be in Cowboys VS Aliens they can get anybody they want.

[Edited 9/15/21 10:52am]

Totally not getting what you all are talking about. But in my fashion I'm busting in anyway cause I see Clint Eastwood is coming with Cry Macho, which I plan on seeing since I enjoyed The Mule. And I can't wait for The Harder They Fall which is an all black cowboy flick which usually don't do well in box office but it's got Regina King who's been spectacular in her recent projects and Idris Elba who I saw in Concrete Cowboy which I loved so definitely giving this a chance. Can't say I'm into westerns or cowboy movies as a genre so I'm no expert in it but when I think it's a good movie the genre isn't a big deal to me.

onlyforaminute said:

Genre isn't a big deal to me either. I just like cowboys

onlyforaminute said:

Totally not getting what you all are talking about. But in my fashion I'm busting in anyway cause I see Clint Eastwood is coming with Cry Macho, which I plan on seeing since I enjoyed The Mule. And I can't wait for The Harder They Fall which is an all black cowboy flick which usually don't do well in box office but it's got Regina King who's been spectacular in her recent projects and Idris Elba who I saw in Concrete Cowboy which I loved so definitely giving this a chance. Can't say I'm into westerns or cowboy movies as a genre so I'm no expert in it but when I think it's a good movie the genre isn't a big deal to me.

This sounds good!

EmmaMcG said:

Do you like Bruce Campbell?

EmmaMcG said:

Last month I went to the black cowboy rodeo in AZ and I'll just say it was very very nice, will return next year and the year after so on and so forth.

EmmaMcG's Shang Chi Review

Of all Marvel's upcoming movies, Shang Chi was one of my most anticipated. I had zero prior knowledge of the characters, plot or even most of the actors starring in it. So you might wonder why I was looking forward to it so much. Well, I am a massive fan of Hong Kong cinema. Have been for almost 20 years now, which is two thirds of my life. I've seen literally thousands of HK movies. So when Marvel announced a movie based on Shang Chi I couldn't have cared less. BUT, when they announced that it was to star Michelle Yeoh and, in his first ever Hollywood movie, Tony Leung, my interest shot through the roof. Then, I later find out that the action choreography (a massively important task in HK action movies) was to be done by Brad Allen, a former member of the famed Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Which gets me even more hyped. So it's fair to say that I was expecting big things.... And now that I've seen the movie, I'm slightly disappointed.


It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's actually quite good. It just.... could have been better. The fight scenes are all incredible (thank you Brad Allen, RIP) and Tony Leung gives one of the best pure acting performances of the entire MCU, But the lead actor just doesn't feel right to me. He's got zero charisma and his female sidekick is just plain annoying. The "humour", if you could call it that, constantly falls flat. Even the post credit cameos from a couple of Avengers feels tacked on. Tony Leung's "Mandarin" gets a lot more screentime than I thought he would and to be honest, I would have preferred if the movie just focused solely on him and his wife's relationship. It was far more interesting than the generic storyline they went with.

Again, it's not a bad movie despite the obvious flaws. One particular extended cameo from a returning MCU character was a nice surprise. Tony Leung was great. Michelle Yeoh did what she had to well enough. The inevitable sequel will probably be better now that they've gotten all the introductions and set-up out of the way. I can't help but think though that the whole movie was kind of inconsequential to the MCU. I guess I've become accustomed to every MCU movie having big knock-on effects to the wider MCU. There's none of that here. What is here is a decent superhero movie with some good action, one or two funny moments and Tony Leung's Hollywood debut. And I'd say it's worth seeing for that alone.


3/5