On this episode of Cinphomaniac, we discuss the unusual arrival of would-be Summer Blockbusters in August, such as James Gunn's The Suicide Squad and Shawn Levy's Free Guy, starring Ryan Reynolds. With the former, Marcus and Dana explore what a DCEU reboot-quel means, how the film compares to Gunn's Guardians films, whether or not the film's attempts to be surprising fall flat, and if it's even worth discussing its winks towards American Empire in the Global South. With the later, they find a shocking amount of depth and perhaps a very real call to, anti-corporate and anti-capital, collective political action, along with a whole lot of resonance to social philosophy, and just the sheer joys of surface level Big Hollywood Cheese coming back in a big big way thanks to the efforts of Ryan Reynolds and his collaborators.


From The Archive: August 18th, 2021