Podcast Grab Bag: The Oscars, Moon Knight, Halo, & The Canadian Film Festival

Oscars, Halo, Moon Knight, Canadian Film Fest

Greetings programs and welcome back to the Awesome Friday Podcast. This week is a little different than most weeks, instead of two things we are covering a whole bunch of things in a grab bag format. There have just been too many things to narrow it down you see, so join us for brief discussions about The 94th Oscars and the slap heard ‘around the world, Halo, Marvel’s Moon Knight, and the films of the Canadian Film Festival.

There are streaming links for the films and series discussed here on this page, and the episode is live wherever you listen to podcasts (including an embedded player also on this page). Join us!

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Marvel’s Moon Knight is a bit disjointed

Moon Knight

Comics are weird. There’s no denying this simple fact, and there’s no use trying. This fact is universal and can be a barrier to entry for new fans. Sometimes 50 years of lore is a lot to wrap your head around. One of the great strengths of Marvel’s ongoing cinematic universe is that initially, at least, it distilled all that lore into something easier to swallow. Twenty-plus films later, its greatest strength is that when a new character walks onto the screen and says, “I’m a man with split personalities, one of whom in the warrior avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu and I’m here to punish the wicked” most people’s reaction will be “sure, that makes sense.”

Of course, this can also be a flaw –as it is with Marvel’s latest series– in which there is so little explanation that there is almost no reason to care. There is no trial by which Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spectre obtained his powers or much in explaining his back story; he walks on-screen fully formed. Well, half-formed, because if you glossed over it in the previous paragraph, this is a man with multiple identities. This show is, in a word, a lot.

Being a lot isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but while there are many things to love in this series, there are just as many that make it a complicated watch.

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Review: ‘Dune’ is a vast, beautiful film that loses sight of its emotional core

Dune

Expectation, thy name is Dune. Years in the making and then delayed for an entire year thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Dune has the weight of expectations hanging over it. Director Denis Villeneuve is an accomplished visionary with a clear eye for details and world-building alike, but how can the story of Dune –a famously dense work– be adapted into a movie?

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’Dune’ Trailer: Stop what you’re doing right now and watch this

Dune

If you have been paying attention to cinema these last few years then the name Denis Villeneuve should be an exciting one to you. His particular aesthetic sense for visual narrative has made him one of the most well regarded director of the day.

If you’re a fan of science fiction then the name Dune should also excite you, being that Dune is one of –if not the– most influential and important science fiction novels of all time.

“Denis Villeneuve has been making a Dune movie” is maybe the most exciting sentence I have read or uttered this year.

Here’s a trailer for it.

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer Breakdown: Thoughts, some guesses, and 60+ high res ​images

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

The final film in the Disney Era Star Wars Trilogy, which promises to bring to a conclusion the story started in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi is coming this December and this week Lucasfilm finally released a full-blown trailer for it.

Since we’re all bunch of nerds around here I figured it might be neat to take a closer look at that trailer, and in the process, I grabbed more than sixty high-definition stills.

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