I’m somewhat bewildered over how outraged people have been over the new version of The Crow (don’t call it a remake!). Many are calling it a stain on the legacy of the late, great Brandon Lee, who infamously was killed in an on-set tragedy, but by examining the franchise as a whole, it’s clear that as far as these things go, the franchise has been exploited to death. There have been no less than five Crow movies at this point, and guess what? We’re going to rank them all! That said, as far as our Crow movies ranked list goes, they’re all varying degrees of bad outside the first movie and the new version, which isn’t half bad.

Dishonourable Mention: The Crow: Stairway to Heaven

Yes, ladies and germs, they once made a TV version of The Crow, and it was abysmal. You can find out everything you need to know about the show in the video embedded above, but suffice it to say virtually every successful genre movie got a bad TV version made in Canada in the nineties. There was Poltergeist: The Series, F/X: The Series, Highlander: The Series (actually, that one wasn’t so bad) and The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. Despite starring the great Mark Dacascos and earning surprisingly OK reviews, this show only lasted a single season of twenty-two episodes before the version of Eric Draven was allowed to rest in peace.

The Crow: Wicked Prayer

Some of you may be scratching your heads over this title, as the fourth Crow sequel barely got any release before being dumped to video. But, in 2005, The Weinstein Brothers resurrected the series through their Dimension Films label, basing the new movie on a graphic novel by Norman Partridge. With cult director Lance Mungia of Six String Samurai at the helm, the hope might have been that this scrappy sequel would win back fans of the original, but it was not meant to be. While star Edward Furlong does a fine job in the early scenes of Wicked Prayer, once he becomes The Crow, he comes off as slight and laughable, and Mungia’s pseudo-spaghetti western tone feels less like Sergio Leone and more like a (bad) Robert Rodriguez riff. At least David Boreanaz is around to have a whale of a time as the movie’s villain, Luc Crash (his lover, played by Tara Reid, is named Byrne – get it – Crash & Burn?), and Dennis Hopper plays a satanic priest named – and I’m not making this up – El Niño.

The Crow: Salvation:

Unlike Wicked Prayer, this was always intended to be a major theatrical release. But, in this era, The Weinstein Bros had a habit of shelving movies indefinitely or releasing them direct-to-video if test screenings weren’t good. This went the DTV route, and the director, Bharat Nalluri, didn’t direct another movie for eight years, later reinventing himself as a director of prestige fare such as Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and The Man Who Invented Christmas. As such, this is a pretty bad entry into the franchise, with some laughably dated aspects, such as a bad riff on The Matrix’s bullet time, which was all the rage in 2000. But Eric Mabius delivers a decent take on the titular character, with him more of a demonic prankster than a heroic avenger. Plus, there’s Kirsten Dunst in an early role I’m sure she’d love to forget.

The Crow: City of Angles:

Like all the other sequels, this one went through a tortured post-production process, with Harvey “Scissorhands” Weinstein having director Tim Pope’s film cut down to a mere eighty-four minutes. Pope went on record saying that he tried to make a sequel unlike the first movie, only for the Weinstein Bros to change the approach at the eleventh hour, resulting in a disastrous theatrical version that ended a few careers. After this, star Vincent Perez gave up on a Hollywood career, returning to France, where he remained a big star. Like the other movies, though, it does have some good elements, such as the yellow-coloured visual palette, a cool performance by Iggy Pop as one of the villains, and a killer soundtrack. Maybe one day, Pope can reconstruct his original version of the film.

The Crow (2024)

While fans have been sharpening their knives ever since Bill Skarsgard’s look as the title character was revealed, it’s really not that bad. Were it not for the terrible pacing and lacklustre story beats, I think fans would react more positively to this new take on the character, with Skarsgard and villain Danny Huston delivering memorable performances.

The Crow (1994)

Of course, the only movie on this list I’d actually say is legitimately good is Alex Proyas’s original. Fun fact: I was a goth kid many years ago, and we all wanted to look exactly like Brandon Lee in this movie. While the fact that he died is an unimaginable tragedy, his legacy lives on like someone like James Dean or Heath Ledger does, as he’ll always be frozen in time as the romantic avenger Eric Draven. Alex Proyas directed a gorgeous movie with one of the best soundtracks of all time (The Cure’s ‘Burn’ is a particular favourite), plus Michael Wincott played one of the most memorable evil villains of the ’90s, Top Dollar. If you love this movie, and I doubt you’d be reading this column if you don’t, you owe it to yourself to check out the gorgeous new 4K disc from Paramount. 

How would you rank The Crow movies? Let us know in the comments!

The post The Crow Movies Ranked: From Worst To Best appeared first on JoBlo.

Blue Eye Samurai is an absolute gem of a show. Since its debut in November, this animated Netflix hit has become a major cult favorite, with many claiming it’s one of the best shows of its kind…well…ever? In it, Mizu, a female mixed-race blue-eyed samurai (voiced by Maya Erskine) seeks revenge against the four men (one of whom is her father) who did her wrong. With an all-star voice cast that includes George Takei, Kenneth Branagh, Masi Oka, and many others, it’s quickly become a favorite of our own Taylor James Johnson, who you may know as the host of one of our most enduringly popular series, WTF Happened to this Celebrity, as well as the recent reboot of C’Mon Hollywood. 

Taylor recently sat down with the creators of Blue Eye Samurai (which is nominated for two Emmys including Outstanding Animated Program), Amber Noizumi & Michael Green (the writer of Logan) to discuss his new favorite show. 

Taylor James Johnson: First off, I just want to say thank you for creating such an amazing show. I had no idea what I was getting into when I first watched it with my son-

Amber seems concerned about Taylor’s parenting skills.

My teenage son. Don’t worry.

Amber Noizumi: Yeah…hopefully, age okay.

Then my father-in-law joined us in the living room, probably just to take a nap on the couch at first, then he went back and re-watched the whole show just so he knew what was going on.

Michael Green: I love that!

Three generations there.

Amber Noizumi: Multigenerational! 

Michael Green: That’s great! Is he an animation guy?

Taylor James Johnson: No, not at all. That’s what’s so amazing about it.

Michael Green: Even better. We’ll take that. That is the highest praise.

It was a chance to watch something together that everybody could enjoy, that was not a little kid movie. That brings us to my first question. How did yall approach the violence in the show? How far did you think you were you going go with the gore?

Amber Noizumi: I mean, I think we always intended there to be violence. It’s a revenge tale and we wanted to be able to feel this sort of visceral rage and make it artful too. The blood has its own personality in the way it flips across the screen.

Michael Green: We deliberately made sure that it was part of the story. In the opening three minutes, Mizu cuts off a guy’s fingers and on the script, I think we actually had the line of “insert slow-mo, a ballet slipper of blood arcs across the screen.”

Beautiful. 

Michael Green: Everyone got it. Everyone on our team was so sophisticated in their approach on how to make everything beautiful. Even shocking things should be beautiful. 

Amber Noizumi: But then undercut with a little humor too. We tried to strike the right balance. 

Michael Green: The fingers that are cut off and land in a little bowl just so…

Taylor gestures a chef’s kiss.

Michael Green: Exactly, chef’s kiss.

Yes, a little bit of everything in there. That’s what I like about the show. One second, you’re terrified. One second, you’re laughing, One second, your heart is broken. You can really connect with all the characters. Every character has an arc, it was really something I enjoyed seeing. 

Like I said, I watched this show with my son. We’d order a burger and watch it every Wednesday. We usually watch Star Wars or Marvel shows and nothing against them, but we wanted something new. And then we clicked on this. What is this? I like Samurai! You like cartoons! Sure!

Michael Green: Thank you for that. We wanted a show that would sit alongside Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Marvel, Star Wars… for the audience who like big sweeping, David lean inspired, grounded epics. Also, I love that you watched one a week.

Yeah, like a real television show! How TV used to be!

Michael Green: We always debated how we were going to release the episodes. We found out people are bingeing and we’re like, “Hey, we won’t tell you how to eat your food!”

I appreciate both ways. But sometimes you want to digest and kind of make an event of it. Sometimes with bingeing you lose something special. 

Amber and Michael pretend to understand what Taylor is saying. 

You mentioned influence from David Lean. I’d like to hear about other influences. I’m sure there’s some Kurosawa in there and some Tarantino and more all throughout Samurai Cinema. You could just feel it in there.

Michael Green: Mishaguji. 

Amber Noizumi: Lady Snowblood was a big one for us. Of course, you see Lady Snowblood in Kill Bill and we were very overt in our appreciation of Kill Bill. We used the training montage song.

Michael Green: Our sound designer was the sound designer on Kill Bill as well. Lone Wolf and Cub make some nods of appearance. I don’t know if we have anything from it, but I just love Samurai Jack so much. I think you can pick up any episode of that anytime, 200 years from now someone could watch that and enjoy it just as much as they did when it came out.

Most definitely. It feels like y’all are kind of following or continuing on this train of influence that started with Kurosawa turned into Spaghetti Westerns then turned into Star Wars and Tarantino. Y’all are practicing the art of the homage in the best way possible and bringing it to a new level.  That’s what I mostly took away from the show. It’s like they are doing something that maybe shouldn’t work on paper, especially with the Metallica song! 

Michael Green: It just comes down to taking everything grounded. Funny enough….

Suddenly, within arm’s reach, Michael Green pulls out a comic book and geeks out for a moment.

Michael Green: I have a reprint American Frank Miller cover of Lone Wolf and Cub. It’s when the little boy is holding the sword in the horse stance and everyone goes, “Where did that learn that stance? He must be a devil child!” Frank Miller did the cover!

Beautiful, beautiful.

Michael Green: Sorry, influences… One thing we learned from Game of Thrones, and our director Jane Wu had been a storyboard artist in Game of Thrones, is one of the things that works so well about that show is it was heightened fantasy with so many crazy things happening. Yet the shooting style was very classic David Lean intentions in lensing and camera movement that the grounded reality the show existed in. Making the supernatural much more believable because it was in a vocabulary that the audience could glom onto. We tried to use the vocabulary of live action in animation as much as possible. Through lenses, we tried to honor our sets as if they were real brick and mortar sets; moving the camera the way you would. We wanted the trust of the audience that they were watching something that felt more like a drama than what they might have expected. Whatever that might be.

Yes, I see this show kind of as a stepping stone or an introduction to someone who doesn’t really look at animation the way they look at live action narrative filmmaking. Not so much anymore, most everyone I know appreciates animation as the art form it is, but you still got those few that say, “cartoons are for little kids”, even the bloody ones. Has that affected how y’all approached this show at all?

Amber Noizumi: When we conceived the idea, we wanted the people who watched Game of Thrones. We were hoping they would tune in and like this. We were hoping that our own parents would like the show and not just watch it because we made it. We hope that it would generate some interest from an audience who wouldn’t normally see animation as their cup of tea and we did that. I hope we continue to do that and I hope more shows like ours will try to show the world that animation is just another form of storytelling.

Exactly. You kind of spoke of the future there. What’s the future like for Blue Eye Samurai?

Michael Green: On the table right in front of us, we have episode 2. I’m going to open it up and start reading. Would that be ok?

Amber Noizumi: A table read! Yeah!

Yeah! yeah, please right now! 

We don’t have a table read…. 

We’re all really excited and looking forward to everything y’all are gonna come out with. Whenever I watch a great show, I always text my friends, “You gotta watch this!” But with Blue Eye Samurai, I texted them again to made sure they watched it.

Amber Noizumi: We appreciate that!

Michael Green: Thank you so much and for getting your father-in-law in on it. 

He has a hard time staying awake during anything and he went back and watched every episode! 

Michael Green: That’s the audience we were hoping for, the people who didn’t know this was the show for them. Some of the best things people told us was that this is the show they love and I didn’t even know they wanted it.

Ah yes, and finally a show for us blue-eyed people!

Michael Green: Finally! 

Amber Noizumi: Yes, finally all the blue eyed monsters out there people! 

Michael Green: …who feel terrible about themselves!

We all laugh at the silly sarcasm. 

Thank you so much. It’s been great talking with both of you. We can’t wait for what’s next. Best of luck at the Emmys and everything! You deserve all the awards! Even ones you weren’t nominated for!

Amber Noizumi: Thank you.

Michael Green: And thank you for waiting between seasons. We’re looking at November 2026 for when season 2 comes out. These things take time. Yeah.

Take your time. We want the best product possible. Don’t worry, it’s worth the wait. Thanks y’all.

Are you watching Blue Eye Samurai? Let us know in the comments!

The post Blue Eye Samurai: We Interview Creators Amber Noizumi & Michael Green appeared first on JoBlo.

Now that Deadpool & Wolverine’s been out for just over a month, the cameos are fair game, so it’s time for us to turn it over to our readers and have them vote on what they think the movie’s best cameo is. Is it Wesley Snipes as Wolverine, Channing Tatum as Gambit, or any other ones? It’s time to have your say via the poll below!

The post POLL: What Was The Best Deadpool & Wolverine Cameo? appeared first on JoBlo.

This week’s catch-all of gaming “tips” has caught all manner of things, from an early look at just how mages will play in Dragon Age: The Veilguard to pointers for the best skills to invest in early on in Black Myth: Wukong. We’ll also point you toward a host of deals on must-play indie gems, and show you what the…

Read more…

This week’s catch-all of gaming “tips” has caught all manner of things, from an early look at just how mages will play in Dragon Age: The Veilguard to pointers for the best skills to invest in early on in Black Myth: Wukong. We’ll also point you toward a host of deals on must-play indie gems, and show you what the…

Read more…

All of us non-goldfish will remember that when Ted Lasso wrapped up its third season last year, it seemed like the whistle had blown on the series. But we may see the team taking the pitch once again, as it is being reported that Warner Bros. could be using three core cast members as leverage for a fourth season.

As per Deadline, Warner Bros. has optioned the following Ted Lasso cast members: Hannah Waddingham (AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton), Brett Goldstein (player-turned-coach Roy Kent) and Jeremy Swift (the lovable Leslie Higgins) via through the UK-based Actors’ Equity Union. With SAG-AFTRA contracts expiring soon, this will allow the studio to pursue Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard) and Juno Temple (Keeley Jones). It has been noted that Phil Dunster (Jamie Tartt) may have other commitments that would block him from a large role. Efforts are also in line to get a writing team together; the original team took home the Writers Guild of America Awards for Comedy Series and New Series.

Ahead of season three, Sudeikis seemed confident that those episodes could wrap up the show in a satisfying way, saying, “This is the end of this story that we wanted to tell, that we were hoping to tell, that we loved to tell.” That said, he didn’t object to more expansions on the characters, adding, “I think that we’ve set the table for all sorts of folks…to get to watch the further telling of these stories.” That doesn’t exactly make us feel confident in his return, which would more suggest a spin-off series that could focus on any number of other characters. Certainly Sudeikis would be the biggest catch for more Ted Lasso, but the rest of the characters are all so fleshed out and gloriously brought to life by their portrayers that a spin-off could absolutely work.

Ted Lasso made its mark immediately, providing the sort of hopeful outlook that we just don’t get on television. With so much uncertainty and dread in the world, it’s just the kind of show that made us “believe” – in people, in optimism, in the warmth of a brilliant Christmas episode. With that, even if we don’t get a fourth season of Ted Lasso, those episodes we do have are, by and large, some of the finest of the decade.

Are you in support of a fourth season of Ted Lasso or would you rather see a spin-off?

The post More biscuits with the boss? Ted Lasso may be getting a 4th season appeared first on JoBlo.

James Cameron has always been on the cutting edge of technology in the film industry. His ideas, too, have proven to be gauges of just where our future was headed, especially in the realm of sci-fi with films like The Terminator. So what does it say about our society when even James Cameron struggles to find ideas?

As James Cameron put it, “We’re at a point right now where it gets harder and harder to write science fiction because we’re living in a science fiction world on a day to day basis.” He noted that he is currently trying to expand on a fan favorite universe but is hitting snags due to the current state of artificial intelligence. “I’m working through some of the themes that I want to bring into a new Terminator film or possibly even a kind of a reboot of a larger story framework and it’s difficult right now because I want to let the smoke clear on the whole thing. That’s going to be a ride that we’re going to be watching for probably the rest of human history but certainly the next few years are going to be quite telling.”

Artificial intelligence has been a hot button issue with James Cameron as of late, although not in the ways that The Terminator could have predicted. Instead, we have seen a number of his films suffer from the use – or, rather, overuse – of it when it comes to 4K. Everything from Aliens to True Lies to, yes, The Terminator, have all seen controversial “upgrades” as of late, by and large sparking disdain from fans.

James Cameron has criticized people for being overly picky about these transfers, saying they need to “move out of mom’s basement.” Instead, he is less concerned about glossing up Ripley than the widespread effects of AI on our society. Concerning the original Terminator, he thinks “qualitatively [it] is pretty obsolete, although story-wise it’s still pretty intriguing. There’s some interest around this idea that it was a bit prescient on certain things, like the emergence of AI, the potential existential threat of AI, which is transforming our world before our eyes.” What the continuing transformation will be remains to be seen, although we are getting some frightening looks to be sure.

What do you think the sci-fi genre needs to stay ahead of our society? Give us your predictions for the genre in the comments section below.

The post James Cameron: Writing sci-fi is harder than ever because our world is sci-fi now appeared first on JoBlo.

As Marvel readies The Fantastic Four for the MCU, it was inevitable that everyone from the earlier movies would be recast. And while Chris Evans has gone on to play a key role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – thus bumping to the top of the list for a Deadpool & Wolverine cameo – that hasn’t been the case for the rest of the team. Fortunately, at least Jessica Alba is taking it in good stride, even lending words of wisdom to Vanessa Kirby, who will take over Invisible Woman aka Sue Storm in next year’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Jessica Alba – who played Invisible Woman in both 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Rise of the Silver Surfer – recently stated that she thinks Vanessa Kirby should embrace the wide fandom of the characters, saying, “I think [the advice is to] just have fun. The fans are so amazing.” She added, “It was probably one of the best times of my life, going around the world and meeting all of the people that just love The Fantastic Four and love these comic books and can relate to these stories. That, to me, and to be able to meet so many different people that you can touch and bring joy to them, I would say that’s first and foremost for anyone who gets the honor of playing one of these awesome characters. So I’d tell her to just have fun and soak in the moments.” Rebecca Staab has yet to comment…

It should be noted that these comments are in stark contrast to past comments Jessica Alba made about working on Fantastic Four, which she said was an experience that almost pushed her to quit acting altogether. Granted, most of this had to do with director Tim Story. Even still, it’s pretty great to see just how generous she is passing the torch (no, not that one) despite a genuine interest in reprising the character should the opportunity arise.

As it stands, Vanessa Kirby will be our Invisible Woman for the foreseeable future, beginning with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which launches Phase Six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on July 25th, 2025.

What did you think of Jessica Alba in Fantastic Four? What will Vanessa Kirby bring to the character?

The post Jessica Alba praises Fantastic Four fans while passing torch to Vanessa Kirby appeared first on JoBlo.

BioWare put out a 10-minute showcase video breaking down Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s action-based combat. Most of what we’ve seen of the RPG thus far has been in the early game, so we still didn’t have a strong grasp of what high-level encounters look like. There have been a lot of questions surrounding the sequel, as…

Read more…

BioWare put out a 10-minute showcase video breaking down Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s action-based combat. Most of what we’ve seen of the RPG thus far has been in the early game, so we still didn’t have a strong grasp of what high-level encounters look like. There have been a lot of questions surrounding the sequel, as…

Read more…