Welcome back! After a somewhat-long hiatus (we explain why, sort of), we get right into it and talk about some things that have happened and movies Jack and Andrew have seen since the last FULL recording (as in, before episodes 90 and 91 on Spider-Man and Dunkirk, which we hope you've heard and enjoyed by now.

1st - Jack brings up some people who have passed on since last recording, and while Martin Landau, John Heard and Sam Shephard get some notice, it's the father of the "Zombie" movie, GEORGE A. ROMERO, who gets a spotlight in discussion here and about his impact on independent and horror cinema.

2nd- at 32:02 minutes in (if you care to skip ahead to this specifically), we discuss the eighth feature film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky in 50 years, ENDLESS POETRY, and about how it fares compared to the previous Jodorowsky autobiographical piece, THE DANCE OF REALITY (fyi, we feature some Spanish language track from the trailer here so you've been warned).

3rd- Trailers from Comic-Con came out and so we talk about a few of them, chiefly THOR: RAGNAROK, JUSTICE LEAGUE (Andrew continues to have some words about this one, following some talk on previous episodes, but here more aimed at what "lobbing" lines of dialog means), and Spielberg's READY PLAYER ONE (chiefly: what's with that description Spielberg is given in the trailer?)

4th- Jack talks about having seen BABY DRIVER three times, and also ATOMIC BLONDE, WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (briefly), and Andrew sees THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETY or, more accurately, tries to.

5th- Jack tries to put up a defense for Roger Corman after reading what may or may not be a "Required Reading" (we'll just label it as such in a playlist) of Corman's memoir: "HOW I MADE A HUNDRED MOVIES AND NEVER LOST A DIME" against a very skeptical Andrew.

Thanks for listening and please subscribe and write reviews on iTunes!

"Hocus Pocus" by Focus

What is bravery, or courage, or heroism? What happens when, well, there's no hope in sight and you may find yourself on a beach off the North coast of France - where England is a good stone's throw away for the typical superhero - and... no one is coming to get you and the enemy (who, conveniently due to the director's bravura sense of spacial cinematic sense, you don't get to really see like in other war movies where the German is the easy target) is out to kill you many times over dead?

Christopher Nolan, that filmmaker who sometimes will try and walk up shyly to the mic and no one expects too much and somehow manages to BECOME THE MOST IMPORTANT FILMMAKER OF ALL TIME (borrowed that from a long dead IMDb message board post surely), now has his war film, the story of the desperate straits of the British as they, 400,000 in number, had no way of getting home as the Germans were advancing further in France. Fish in a barrel, you say? What happens when this is told THREE different timelines - one in a week, one in a day, and one in an hour? Who would try to pull that off?

Inception guy? Memento dude? Sure. What's this prankster got this time?

We saw Dunkirk. Should you? Listen and find out as Andrew and Jack take a look at the latest Nolan film starring Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branaugh, and a cast of thousands (intentionally, really, many look alike).

Song: Pink Floyd's "Bring the Boys Back Home" from THE WALL

Here comes you're friendly, neighborhood Hollywood world-wide billion-dollar franchise!

Now that we're on to the... 249th Marvel Studios movie, what else is there to say about them? That they make entertaining product for the masses to masticate on marvelously? (We need a lot of 'M' words, don't we?) Or that they may be getting stale and have the same formula down pat? We aren't going to say either way just yet, but what we can say is that there is the SIXTH motion picture feature that is starring an actor playing Peter Parker, the intrepid young man (or old kid, whichever you'd like) who got bit by a spider, lives in Queens, yada-yada-yada, now he's got a super-suit provided by Tony Stark and he's unsure how to balance his schoolwork and having a crush on Liz (not Liz Allen, we'll explain later), while at the same time fighting a street-level arms dealer of alien-mechanized tech called "The Vulture" (also not to be confused with someone that sounds more like a wrestler like "The SHOCKER", goodness knows).

So what else is new? Well, there may be a lot actually... or some not so much. But we here at the Wages of Cinema thought we should take a look for ourselves, along with two (reluctant?) guests in Matthew Catania (of the https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com blog) and Korey Hughes of House de Jack.

[email protected]

"Spider-Man" performed by THE RAMONES

Imhotep. Karras. Your mama. Whatever you want to call him or it or 'what', you don't want to #&%@ with the Mummy. And yet, strange as it may seem, the Mummy is a bit of an underrated, or at least underestimated, character in the scope of horror cinema. Everyone can dig on Dracula with his Hungarian accent and eyes, or Frankenstein's monster with that head and arms, or even the Invisible Man because... hey, it's Claude Rains after all! But does the Mummy ever get his due? What if the Mummy is really, as the song goes, a prisoner of... love?

Jack and Andrew decided to coincide with the release of the Tom Cruise Mummy reboot to watch, for either the first time or for the first time in many years (actually it's both of those), the *other* movies that are also called the Mummy: the 1932 Universal-Monsters original directed by Karl Freud and starring Boris Karloff; Hammer's 1959 Warner brothers released remake starring Christopher Lee and directed by Terence Fisher; and the 1999 blockbuster reboot (the, uh, first time they tried it at Universal) with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo as the titular Imhotep Mummy directed by Stephen Sommers (pre Van Helsing).

We look at all three and break down what works, what doesn't, and if the movies are still scary, or why Brendan Fraser once worked as a leading man (no really, don't laugh, it's true... maybe).

Also, be sure to look out for us on GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC! Just search under Podcasts and type our name!

(trailer and clips from the 3 Mummy movies, including the theme from Swan Lake, and Syd Valentine's "Rock & Gravel" to close it out)

Most filmmakers when given a screenplay that starts with a scene involving a floating, talking, demon (or is it an alien?) head (excuse me, a "Daruma", got that right, thanks internet) in a high school classroom making the tykes heads literally explode one by one as blood (and bloody marbles?) go flying everywhere would probably throw it across the room and go, "Kill it, KILL IT!" For Takashi Miike, he'd put it down carefully and go, "How soon do we start?"

We watched the 2014 adaptation of the Muneyuki Kaneshiro manga, AS THE GODS WILL, by that wildman of modern Japanese cinema Miike himself, and... we had some thoughts!

Potential SPOILERS (and an audio goodie) at 28 minutes in.

So, there's a new Mummy movie out... no, not THAT Mummy from a few years ago (yeah, the last one was nine years ago with Brendan Fraser, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor). This is part of the NEW deal, the one that Universal wants to get into the "Universe"/franchise game with their old Universal-Monsters, and this goes back to one of the first movie franchises with the likes of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Dracula (of which the original 1932 Mummy took more than a little inspiration from, but we'll get to that on a future podcast).

What does one make of Tom Cruise saddling up with writer Alex (Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, Amazing Spider-Man 2, uh... Xena Season 5) Kurtzman taking the helm as a director on only his second feature film? Well... there's a lot to make of it actually. Is it all bad? Is it all good? You have to open the sarcophagus and step inside... but be warned there be SPOILERS at 38 minutes in (just listen for the non-proper-mixed audio from an actual mistakenly released trailer of screams and music).

This review is by Wages of Cinema. Clips owned by Universal.

(Sing it with me, "IIIIIIII.... IIIIIIII..... I'm Wonder Woman..." as disco plays on and on....)

Anyway, we saw Wonder Woman, the fourth film in this thing that Warner brothers is trying to do called the "DC Cinematic Universe". This time Zack Snyder isn't as deep into the mix as in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice... no, he only co-wrote the story and produced it. Yeah. So he's still in it, and one may be able to tell.

But it's also the first major comic book blockbuster (not counting the previous one, thanks Lexi Alexander) that's directed by a woman, and Gal Gadot goes into being a movie star here as Diana, the superhero made out of clay that is *not* Gumby! And on this episode as Jack and Andrew talk about the movie (will they agree? you'll have to listen to find out), they're joined once again by Guest Star Matthew Catania of Matt the Catania Blog, and the newly named "Wifely Duties" Korey (how did she get this name? You'll... also need to listen to find out).

Get out your lasso, your shield and that sword of destiny (and this time there's not as much legend as the 'Streets' guy Arthur), and saddle in for this review of the World-War-One set Wonder Woman. So many W's!

visit Matthew Catania at https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com

visit us at https://www.facebook.com/wagesofcinema

Song: The Wonderland Disco Band's "Wonder Woman Disco"

Clip: From 'Wonder Woman 2017'

Sometimes a movie bombs or doesn't do well at the box office and no one notices. Other times... you get George Lucas hitching his wagon to frequent collaborators Willard Huyuck and Gloria Katz (American Graffiti, Temple of Doom) and with his love for comic books he decided to take his try at producing one (by Star Wars comics creators MARVEL no less, making this the first feature-length adaptation of one of their properties).

And... we got duck boobs. Oh yeah.

Lea Thompson in full 80's hair (think she'd escape it); Tim Robbins going full ridiculous; Jeffrey Jones going full Loony Tunes Demonic mode; Cleveland being a place where barely anyone is nice, but a lot of people point and go THAT'S A DUCK, MAN!

In the beginning there was.... HOWARD THE DUCK!

We watched the first Marvel movie and the first MEGA disaster from Lucasfilm LTD.

Clips from Howard the Duck, this podcast by Wages of Cinema

And now we turn our attention to a King Arthur movie neither of us have heard of from the 1960's starring Ronald Lewis and Janette Scott.

What have we done?

(PS: This replaces a previous upload of this episode segment, listen to THIS one and not that one as the previous one has been deleted)

First, in this end-of-May episode 3 part blow-out, Andrew and Jack read some messages from some listeners (one of whom you may know as a certain Guest Star who's name rhymes with 'Hat'). A lot of this concerns the Alien movies, most especially Covenant which we reviewed episode 85. This ends at 21:55

Then, Jack and Andrew talk MORE Comic book movies that are NOT adapted from DC or Marvel comics - remember, there are more comic book movies out there that aren't the big two (we previously talked about this in episode 48.3 last year). We go from talking sources that were comic strips, underground comics, and a Manga. Andrew's choices are wholesome. Jack's are too. Sometimes.

Thanks for listening, and send any messages to [email protected]; https://facebook.com/wagesofcinema or https://www.twitter.com/wagesofcinema

1) MEN IN BLACK (1 and 3; 1997 and 2012)

2) THE PEANUTS MOVIE (2015)

3) THE ADDAMS FAMILY movies (1991/1993)

4)DICK TRACY (1990)

5) TANK GIRL (1995)

6) PRINCE VALIANT (1954)

7) FRITZ THE CAT (1972)

8) THE PHANTOM (1996)

9) ICHI THE KILLER (2001)