John Marcotte

Secret identity of a father raising two super-heroic young girls

“The Eagle Huntress” Overcomes 2,000 Years of Male Tradition

The Eagle Huntress directed by Otto Bell and starring teenager Aisholpan is a new documentary that opened to standing ovations at Sundance this year.

The movie follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old nomadic Mongolian girl. Aisholpan’s family are nomadic Kazakh herders in the Altai mountains region. They eke out a harsh existence by herding cattle and goats. An crucial part  the herders’ lifestyle involves training golden-eagle chicks to help them hunt foxes and other small mammals they use for food and clothing.

Eagle Hunters hunt on horseback with their golden eagle partners. The film follows Aisholpan as she fights to become the first female Eagle Hunter in 2,000 years of male-dominated tradition.

NPR’s Barbara King sat down with Aisholpan and her father Nurgaiv at Sundance, and filed this report.

As a young child, Nurgaiv told me, Aisholpan helped him care for his own eagle; even then he could see that she was doing things “accurately” and with intense interest. A seventh-generation eagle hunter, Nurgaiv soon encouraged his daughter to become his apprentice — a noteworthy act in a culture where such a thing had simply never happened before.

The director, Otto Bell, brought his film to Sundance looking for a distributor. Based on the audience reaction and rave reviews coming out of the festival, a distributor shouldn’t be too hard to find.

via NPR

“The Flash” Casts Its First Female Speedster

Trajectory
Trajectory

Soap star Allison Paige has been cast as Eliza Harmon, a.k.s. “Trajectory,” and will make her debut in an episode later this year.

Trajectory was the name of a short-lived heroine introduced during the “52” crossover event a few years ago.  A lifelong fan of the Flash, Harmon volunteered for Lex Luthor’s “Everyman” project and received the gift of super-speed with the hope of one day becoming the new Kid Flash. Her story was cut tragically short when Luthor intentionally removed her powers during a battle with the supervillain Blockbuster.

The television version of Trajectory will give the Flash plenty of difficulty when she arrives in Central City and creates super-powered chaos — chaos that is blamed on the Flash.

Paige’s version of Trajectory will make her television debut on the CW in Episode 16 of season 2 of The Flash.

via TVLine

Wonder Woman’s Chris Pine Talks about the Importance of Female Heroes

Chris Pine stopped by the Jimmy Kimmel show and the conversation turned to the project he is currently working on: Wonder Woman. While Kimmel seemed completely bewildered by the idea that a man would take a supporting role in a female-lead film, Pine spoke eloquently about why female heroes are important and what he thinks they bring to the table.

“For all of these big tentpole, and they’re fun and they’re action-packed and the whole bit, and I’m being honest [but] what I think is really neat about it is that with all of the Thors and Captain Kirks, and I feel with men at the the helm, it’s always this kind of revenge cycle thing. It’s an eye for an eye, ‘We’re going to go get the bad guys,’ and the bad guys are defeated.

“What I think is really lovely having a woman at the helm of something like this is just by virtue of her being a woman, there’s a great deal more compassion [and] love at the center of the story, which for something as big as a film as this is going to be, and with the kind of eyes that will watch it, I think it’s wonderful. The little bit we can do to hopefully inch this universe towards something not as aggressive and as violent as this world can be.”

A minor side note is that even though he was obviously not supposed to reveal anything at all regarding the specifics of the film, Pine pretty much confirmed that there will be no invisible jet in the movie, since he had no idea what Kimmel was talking about when it was mentioned during the interview.

First Wonder Woman Footage Released

Last night the CW previewed it’s new TV show, Legends of Tomorrow, as well as Warner Bros. upcoming superhero movies — primarily Batman vs. Superman. But we were most excited about the very brief glimpse we were given of the still filming Wonder Woman, which is not set for release until the summer of 2017.

It looks like Warner Bros. has decided to do a classic origin story for the character, to explain to movie goers who she is and why she is important in the DC universe. This bucks the recent trend of eschewing origin stories in films like the upcoming Batman and Spider-Man films. But unlike those characters, Wonder Woman has not already had her story told multiple times on the big screen and introducing the character to the audience is probably necessary.

Wonder Woman is scheduled for release on June 23, 2017

Suicide Squad Is The DC Movie We Have Been Waiting For

We’ve been pretty underwhelmed by Warner Bros’ recent attempts to start a DC Cinematic Universe — until today. Farewell grim, joyless and colorless Zack Snyder drudgery. Writer/director David Ayers (Training Day, Fury) has found the fun in the DC Universe. It’s with the bad guys. The Suicide Squad.

The trailer for Suicide Squad dropped today, and it looks like DC might have a team movie that can compete with Marvel’s The Avengers, its just not the superhero team they thought it would be. While they are technically bad guys, the squad looks like they are having fun with their powers in a colorful and exciting world. So far, the same cannot be said for either Superman or Batman.

In the comics, the Suicide Squad is an elite black ops task force comprised entirely of supervillains (not “reformed supervillains” — just “supervillains”), who are given their freedom in exchange for going on the most dangerous and insane missions the government can dream up.

Led by the tough-as-nails Amanda Waller, members of the Suicide Squad have a bomb placed in their skulls that can be remotely detonated if they disobey orders or compromise the mission.

Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 8, 2016.

We can’t wait.

Suicide Squad – Poster
Suicide Squad – Joker
Suicide Squad – Harley Quinn
Suicide Squad – Deadshot
Suicide Squad – Rick Flagg
Suicide Squad – Enchantress
Suicide Squad – Captain Boomerang
Suicide Squad – Killer Croc
Suicide Squad – Diablo
Suicide Squad – Slipknot
Suicide Squad – Katana
Suicide Squad Poster

Netflix Orders Second Season of Jessica Jones

Break out the bourbon and the sarcastic wit, Netflix just ordered up a second helping of Jessica Jones.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Netflix confirmed the news during its the Television Critics Association’s press tour sessions on Sunday.

Although details are scarce, it was confirmed that the show was renewed for a full 13 episodes, and that showrunner Melissa Rosenberg will still be firmly in the driver’s seat. No release date was announced.

Rosenberg did tell reporters, “I think I just want to continue with her character. She’s a very damaged character and her damage goes beyond Kilgrave [David Tennant]. There’s a lot to mine from in her backstory and in her present day situation. I think we’ll find something.”

In other exciting news, Netflix also mentioned that more Marvel spin-offs might be on the way.

When asked about spinning off characters from the streaming company’s current crop of Marvel titles into stand-alone shows, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos told reporters Sunday that “any character that’s in there is on the table … It’s always possible. All the characters in the universe could also spin out.”

Top on my list would be a show for Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat, but we are also going to get a look at the Punisher and Elektra in the upcoming second season of Daredevil. Anyone else out there that we’re not thinking of?

Agent Carter Season 2 Has a Connection to Dr. Strange

Season two of ABC’s Agent Carter sees Peggy (Hayley Atwell) and her right-hand man Jarvis (James D’Arcy) head to Los Angeles to investigate the mysterious Isodyne Energy. Investigating Isodyne puts the super-spy in direct conflict with the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of longtime Iron Man villain Madam Masque played by Wynn Everett.

In a recent interview with CBR, Agent Carter showrunner Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, explained that Isodyne Energy will allow them to tie the show both to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the upcoming movie Dr. Strange.

From the CBR interview:

When asked if Isodyne Energy is connected to the Darkforce, Fazekas answered affirmatively. “Basically, Isodyne is a company that we invented based in part on real life companies like Radiodyne or General Atomic or the beginnings of the Jet Propulsion Lab — all of which were in L.A. in the ’40s, and were developing the space program and were developing nukes,” explained Fazekas. “That’s what Isodyne is, and what you’ll learn is they were involved in the nuclear testing out in the desert when they were testing the, at the time they were calling it the atom bomb — and one of these tests didn’t go as expected. You’ll learn more about that in Season 2, but they stumble upon what people in the Marvel Universe will know as Darkforce, but because they’ve never seen it before they just name it Zero Matter. That’s our tie-in to the ‘Doctor Strange’ universe, and also to ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ because you’ve seen it in ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ as well.”

Agent Carter returns with a two-hour premiere on Tuesday, January 19, at 9 pm ET/PT on ABC.

Dr. Stange
Dr. Stange
Black Widow Header

Russo Bros. Vote “Hell, Yeah!” on ‘Black Widow’ Solo Movie

Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo are doing the press circuit to promote the upcoming film. At a recent press conference in China, they were asked what they thought about a Black Widow solo movie.

“Hell yeah! We love that character,” said Joe Russo.

“And we love Scarlett,” Anthony added, referring to Scarlett Johannson.

“We find that [Black Widow] is one of (if not the) richest character in the Marvel universe,” continued Joe Russo. “A very complex character, haunted by demons and her understanding of the world is fascinating. I think there is a lot that can be done with that character.”

(Black Widow discussion occurs at 6:30 in the video above)

The Russo Bros. themselves are likely too busy. After the success of Captain America: Winter Soldier, Marvel gave them the keys to their biggest franchise with Avengers:Infinity War, parts I and II. But their voices carry considerable weight in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point. Hopefully, that will be enough for Marvel to find a space for Black Widow on a very busy schedule of upcoming superhero movies.

via Newsarama