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https://blacknerdproblems.com/cowboy-bebop-and-john-wick-directors-team-up-for-lazarus/

At first glance, Lazarus looks to be a fast paced, jazzy, thriller that I am sure will dazzle the hell out of us all when it finally arrives. Featuring a character being chased throughout the short preview trailer, the animation is smooth, sleek even, and worth re-watching for its short one minute and thirty-one second run time. There’s enough Mirror’s Edge-like parkour to make me a little dizzy and and a variety of characters on screen to keep me interested and speculating until we get more.

San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone. While this year was lighter on big time celebrity sightings and panels, it led way to more niche programming and panels. A big highlight from this year was the reveal of Shinichirō Watanabe presenting a first look at the series at the Adult Swim Festival. Watanabe, the prolific director responsible for helming several of our faves including Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Carol & Tuesday has a new world for us to eyeball and get lost in.

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What is Lazarus About?

According to Anime News Network:  “The year is 2052 – an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity prevails across the globe. The reason for this: mankind has been freed from sickness and pain. Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has developed a miracle cure-all drug with no apparent drawbacks called Hapuna. Hapuna soon becomes ubiquitous… and essential. However, soon after Hapuna is officially introduced, Dr. Skinner vanishes.

Three years later, the world has moved on. But Dr. Skinner has returned – this time, as a harbinger of doom. Skinner announces that Hapuna has a short half-life. Everyone who has taken it will die approximately three years later. Death is coming for this sinful world – and coming soon.

As a response to this threat, a special task force of 5 agents is gathered from across the world to save humanity from Skinner’s plan. This group is called ‘Lazarus.’ Can they find Skinner and develop a vaccine before time runs out?”

Who Else is Involved in the making of Lazarus?

Off jump, we know that Lazarus is being directed by Shinichirō Watanabe. Thanks to Anime News Network, as confirmed through Twitter that Watanabe is directing every episode. One of our favorite heavy hitting animation studios MAPPA (Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen) is responsible on that front with the series being produced by Sola Entertainment. Another name attached to the program that pulled all the eyeballs is Chad Stahelski, perhaps best known as the director behind the amazing John Wick films.

Stahelski apparently designed and/or storyboarded several action sequences for the series which continues to elevate who and what we know of the creative team so far. Another wonderful surprise is the addition of the anime jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, and producers, DJs, and musicians Floating Points and Bonobo. We are to expect that Lazarus will feature a score by music created by Washington, Floating Bonobo, and if the trailer’s music is anything to go by, we’re in for a treat.

Final Thoughts:

The short trailer for Lazarus has intrigued me and left me a little star struck, to be honest.  I have really always loved the science fiction world in the anime projects that Watanabe has been involved in. He’s also had a great hand in collabs with musicians and artists that I love listening to.  Additionally, Stahelski, a renowned stuntman in his own right has brought us some engaging and entertaining fight sequences in recent years through the John Wick movies. The world building and lore of the John Wick franchise continues to fascinate me to this day, as well.

With just a few other names of the creative team announced, I am hyped for this project involving not just faves of mine but talented folks who are sure to bring us all something visionary and authentically original to watch in the near future! We are anticipating more previews and sneak peeks of Lazarus as the new series will eventually premiere on Adult Swim sometime soon. Stay tuned as we all learn more! 

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The post ‘Cowboy Bebop’ and ‘John Wick’ Directors Team Up for ‘Lazarus’ appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/dallas-house-of-rebirth-transgender-women/

The deaths of two transgender women in Dallas inspired a rebirth house for others like them.

21Ninety, via Yahoo, reports that Robyn “Pocahontas” Crowe started the Dallas House of Rebirth after Muhlaysia Booker and Chynal Lindsey were killed. The house is a refuge for transgender women and provides useful resources, including housing, case management, and HIV prevention.

The Dallas organization’s website states, “We work to build the safety and self-determination of Black trans communities through advocacy, housing, resource navigation, and intercommunal programs.” 

The house carries out its mission “through a coalition of allies, advocates, organizations, donors, and community members who extend time, expertise, and access,” the Dallas House of Rebirth’s site notes.

Transgender women can find community and build lasting relationships at the House of Rebirth. According to its website, the “House of Rebirth is a network of communities, families, and friends, bridging barriers to access alongside Black transgender women and femmes.”

Crowe considered Booker a granddaughter. 

In 2019, Booker was found shot and killed on the road, according to The Dallas Morning News. Booker was also reportedly involved in a car accident that later led to the arrest of Edward Dominic Thomas, who was captured on video hitting Booker. The transgender woman suffered injuries from the attack.

The Dallas Morning News interviewed civil rights attorney Lee Merritt. Merritt, according to the paper, felt Booker’s slaying was “doubly concerning for members of minority communities who fear retaliation for reporting crimes against them.”

Merritt added, “There is a legitimate concern that the community doesn’t take seriously.”

That same year Lindsey was found beat and choked to dead in a lake, according to the The Dallas Morning News.

Prosecutor Melody Louis said then, “This case is not about her choice to live as a female. This is about a human life.” Ruben Alvarado was arrested later in connection to Lindsey’s death.

https://nerdist.com/article/barbie-vs-oppenheimer-who-won-the-head-to-head-barbenheimer-showdown/

One of the biggest weekends in Hollywood history delivered everything audiences hoped for and more. Barbie and Oppenheimer are both critical and box office hits. More importantly their combined force has reignited the public’s love affair with going to the movies.

But we know it’s not enough to simply enjoy each film for what it is. Only a fool would let themselves appreciate two distinct works of art on their own merits. I mean, they had the audacity to come out on the same day! That kind of confrontational release schedule, which was pretty common not that long ago, is basically begging very smart people to declare one a winner instead of celebrating that each is elevating the other while also lifting the entire medium and industry. And since we’re not idiots we’re pitting each film head-to-head in a scientific, totally objective, totally serious Barbenheimer showdown. And we’re doing that with categories that apply equally to both films.

Best Explosion

In a matchup this tough it’s always nice to start with a layup. Obviously this goes to the movie which features an explosion of neon-pink. Advantage: Barbie

Best Use of Color

This is another easy category to hand out. Only one is partially shot in black-and-white, making all of its scenes in color really stand out in comparison. A classic case of “less is more.” Advantage: Oppenheimer

Best Costumes

Barbie has great costumes, absolutely. But they’re mostly based on toys lots of people have purchased. That pre-existing template likely made it super easy to recreate countless extravagant, stunning, memorable looks. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer needed clothes covering a span of nearly 40 years, from 1924 to 1963. During that time men went from wearing dark suits and hats to slightly different dark suits and hats. And it’s not clear they even have cameras back then. Talk about a tough assignment! Advantage: Oppenheimer

Most Times Saying the Movie’s Title

People say “Barbie” a lot in Barbie, but they also say “Oppenheimer” a lot in Oppenheimer. We tried to count each instance but lost track of both after roughly 20 minutes, so this analysis is maybe a little less objective than we’d like. Considering people sometimes chant or call him “Oppy,” whereas no one ever calls her “Barb,” we feel good about which one is probably correct. Advantage: Barbie

Best Musical Number

Tough break for Oppenheimer. Despite being three hours long, director Christopher Nolan inexplicably didn’t find room for a single musical number. Will that cost the movie at the Oscars? It definitely won’t help. Meanwhile “I’m Just Ken” will likely take home three or four Academy Awards on its own. Advantage: Barbie

Best Use of a Line From the Sacred Hindu Text the Bhagavad Gita

We swear this is true: nothing said in Barbie comes directly from the Bhagavad Gita. No, not even anything Weird Barbie says We can’t believe it either! Advantage: Oppenheimer

Second Best Use of a Line From the Sacred Hindu Text the Bhagavad Gita

More like “Now I am become repetitive, the repeater of words,” amirite? But a technical win is still a win, so… Advantage: Oppenheimer

Smartest Lead Character

Who adds a random “J” to the start of their name for no reason? Oppenheimer was literally no Einstein. Meanwhile, Stereotypical Barbie was busy saving her world with a genius plan while the “brilliant” scientist was busy blowing up his. Advantage: Barbie

Biggest Crybaby (In a Good Way)

Some of Barbie‘s best, most emotional, most important scenes feature its lead character crying. Advantage: Barbie

Biggest Crybaby (In a Bad Way)

How many people in history have had the sitting U.S. President call them a “crybaby” in the Oval Office? Gotta be a small list. Advantage: Oppenheimer

THE ULTIMATE BARBENHEIMER WINNER

Uh oh. Our thorough, all-encompassing categories—meticulously designed to fairly compare a heartfelt, lively comedy about an iconic toy that explores what it means to be a woman and a grand, somber biopic about one of the most consequential and complicated scientists in history—resulted in a final score of 5-5-1. You don’t need to be an astrophysicist to know that equals a tie. We haven’t been this disappointed since we found out the patriarchy isn’t just about horses. Better add one more category to break it.

Best Existential Crisis By a Main Character About How Their Life Hurt So Many People

Advantage: Push

Dang. Looks like there’s no clear “winner” in our big Barbenheimer showdown.

THE ULTIMATE BARBENHEIMER TIE

…Is it possible no one “won?” In fact, is it actually childish to evaluate art in a binary way that diminishes movies into arbitrary winners and losers? Should we instead focus on each film’s deep themes that get to the very nature of what it means to exist and how we help shape the world we live in? In fact, aren’t the real winners everyone who loves movies, because we got two excellent, star-studded original films by talented directors on the same day?

Yeah, maybe. But we’re going to go see both movies a few more times just to be sure.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post BARBIE vs OPPENHEIMER: Who Won the Barbenheimer Showdown? appeared first on Nerdist.

https://nerdist.com/article/disney-haunted-mansion-movie-review-surprisingly-scary-tonally-uneven-theme-park-ride/

As a fan of spooky things, and also fun, I of course love the Disney Parks’ Haunted Mansion rides. I want to go on more of them. I hear the ones in Paris and Shanghai and Tokyo are really cool. For fans of these rides, specifically the Disneyland one, Justin Simien’s Haunted Mansion movie has plenty of “Oh hey, it’s that from the ride!” moments. Katie Dippold’s script offers a surprising amount of tragedy to go along with the ghosts, which surprised and delighted. There’s even quite a few scare moments that just stay on the family side of the line. And yet, they felt like it needed to mostly be a weird comedy, too. Some of it worked, some did not.

If you’re someone like my mother, you might have asked “Why would they make another Haunted Mansion movie?” To which I’d reply, “Well, the 2003 Eddie Murphy version was notoriously terrible and people still love the theme park ride.” And it seems like this is the raison d’etre. After years of toying with whether they’d give Guillermo del Toro the keys to the spookiest house in Disney’s neighborhood, the company instead decided to play it very, very safe and effectively just retread a lot of the same ground as the first movie. A family moves in, ghosts haunt them, they have to “find a way out” out of the situation.

The family in question is Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase Dillion) who buy and move into the Gracey Mansion in Louisiana when they find it for cheap on Zillow. Uh oh, it’s very haunted, so they need some help. The seemingly exorbitantly wealthy single mother then assembles a Dream Team of ghost hunters, including the priest Kent (Owen Wilson), psychic medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), and professorial haunted house expert Bruce (Danny DeVito). However, chief among them is physicist-turned-tour guide Ben (LaKeith Stanfield) who had invented a spectral energy camera, prior to a personal tragedy. They have to figure out why the ghosts are so aggressive, and why ghosts follow them home.

In addition to all of these people are some of the ride’s more famous ghosts. We have the psychic-in-a-crystal-ball Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis) who helps them, and the Hat-Box Ghost (Jared Leto) who is the movie’s main villain. Want your Black Widow husband killing ghost? She’s there. The portraits of the two guys killing each other in a duel? Here too. Long hallways, stretching rooms, hitchhiking ghosts, all in attendance. And some of them provide legitimately good scares, the likes of which I wasn’t expecting in a Disney movie.

I’d love to say the movie works all the time. Stanfield gives a remarkably grounded, touching performance as a man dealing with profound grief. All good ghost stories have to have an element of sadness, and this one doesn’t shy away from that. The ghosts are never played for laughs, either, which I think is incredibly smart. The Haunted Mansion ride is fun-spooky. It needs to keep that kind of “ooh!” For the most part, this movie does that. And we learn about the ghosts and their history and how to end this weird curse. The plot and emotion are all there.

However, the biggest issue is they hedged their bets by making it a studio comedy. Haddish, Wilson, and DeVito all have chops for days, and some of what they have to say and do is really funny. Especially Wilson, who has some legitimately funny moments. But did we need them? Did this movie need to be a comedy full of improvised or extended jokes? We also get a number of big-name cameos doing especially silly things. Honestly, it felt like Simien (who directed Bad Hair previously) and Dippold (who wrote 2016’s Ghostbusters) had battling sensibilities that ended up both coming out in the finished film. I know I’m a horror guy first and foremost and others’ mileage may vary, but it just felt unbalanced.

I also need to point out some truly bizarre product placement. Every movie has product placement, but because this movie takes place in an old house, it’s harder to have new products just sitting around. So at various points in the movie, one of the characters will say a store or business by name. I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed it to this degree. It happens at some truly inappropriate times and pulled me right out of the story.

Haunted Mansion is not a train wreck or anything. It’s enjoyable enough. Family horror was something I grew up with and I miss it. I don’t think Hocus Pocus 2 was good at all, and this is much, much better than that. I think it could have been very good if it had let some of the zanier comedy fall by the wayside and embrace the family drama and spooky thrills. Stanfield is doing some amazing work here and I think that alone needs recognition. But I think the movie is not funny enough to warrant so much attempted comedy, especially when the ghost elements work so well on their own. Let the grim, grinning ghosts socialize without lame attempts at comedy getting in the way.

Haunted Mansion ⭐ (3 of 5)

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION Is Surprisingly Scary, Tonally Uneven Ode to the Theme Park Ride appeared first on Nerdist.