By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

It’s an open secret that the MCU has been very hit or miss for a few years now. There has been the occasional banger like Deadpool & Wolverine, but there have also been stinkers like Eternals. Even movies that seemed like safe, summer blockbusters (like The Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four) couldn’t withstand the might of James Gunn’s Superman. Amid all this disappointment, though, one of the biggest Marvel hits had nothing to do with the MCU. X-Men ‘97 was a breakout hit, pleasing older fans of the original X-Men: The Animated Series while pleasing younger fans who just wanted to see mutants kicking butt and taking names.

Recently, Marvel released the first trailer for X-Men ‘97 Season 2 along with a release date: July 1. The trailer does an excellent job of teasing what fans can expect, including a plot that spans millennia and the surprising motivation of Apocalypse, this season’s Big Bad. We also get plenty of cool action sequences and even glimpses of beloved characters, including everyone’s favorite Merc With a Mouth. Ready to scope out the trailer and dive right into our analysis of why Season 2 is going to be even bigger and badder than Season 1? Don’t worry, bub: we’ve got you covered!

An Uncanny Trailer

So, what actually happens in this trailer? A little bit of everything, really. It begins with Rogue remembering Gambit, her fearless Cajun lover who died during what was arguably Season 1’s most jaw-dropping moment. An unknown man provides Rogue with evidence seemingly proving Gambit is alive, and you likely won’t have to wait very long to see him. The ending of Season 1 highly implied that, as in the comics, the dead Gambit would be coming back as one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse. 

Speaking of Apocalypse, Bishop clarifies exactly what has happened to the team. According to him, “the X-men are scattered through time. In the past, from the start of Apocalypse’s reign, to the future, at the height of his rule.” Later, we see him teaming up with Forge and vowing to do his best to bring the team into the present day. This may (wittingly or unwittingly) be a way of foiling Apocalypse’s plans. At one point in the trailer, he vows, “I must strike them at their most vulnerable … the 1990s.” 

Cable seems to be his usual pessimistic self about the team’s chances, telling the X-Men, “You fight a battle that cannot be won. Against the dawn of an age that cannot be stopped.” Beyond this, the trailer is mostly cool Easter eggs (more on that soon) and fun action sequences. The latter includes Jean Grey manifesting some psychic Wolverine claws for Cyclops to bounce his optic blasts off of, Morph changing into Deadpool to fight some Brood, and glimpses of exotic locations such as the Savage Land. Fittingly enough, the ultra-popular Wolverine gets the final tagline of the trailer: “we’re back, baby!”

What Are The Coolest Easter Eggs?

While the X-Men ‘97 Season 2 trailer clocks in at a little under two minutes, it goes through more Easter eggs in that time than Wolverine goes through cigars in a year. Let’s start with the costumes. While this may or may not be related to the season’s time-travel shenanigans, we see plenty of outfits from different eras of the comics. A little over 30 seconds in, for example, and we see Cyclops and Jean Grey wearing costumes from the early days of X-Factor. Later (possibly much later, given her longer hair), Jean and Cyclops are wearing the black and yellow costumes from Grant Morrison’s seminal New X-Men comics.

Other characters appear in those uniforms, including a mysterious character who may or may not be Xorn. Speaking of vintage characters, we see several heroes from the popular Generation X comic. There’s also a quick glimpse of Quentin Quire, wearing his iconic “Magneto was right” t-shirt. We briefly see Emma Frost as well as Cerebra, the sentient version of the mutant-finding Cerebro. There’s also one point of interest that’s less of an Easter egg and more of a mystery: a giant X-Men uniform draped over a tree, implying that it was worn by someone who is naturally huge or that can change shape, like Ant-Man turning into Giant Man.

What Comic Stories Are Getting Adapted?

One of the coolest parts of X-Men ‘97 Season 1 was that it wove several familiar comic book storylines into an otherwise original tale. What classic comics stories can we expect to see in Season 2? Based on this trailer showing Jean Grey and Cyclops in a dystopian future, it looks like we’re definitely getting a version of the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries. While it’s not as conclusive, the fact that some X-Men are in Egypt during “the start of Apocalypse’s reign” may mean that we are getting an adaptation of Rise of Apocalypse, the miniseries where Apocalypse gets his powers and begins his whole “survival of the fittest” thing.

The biggest surprise is that, based on some cave etchings of various X-Men and some mystery character rising into the sky, we are getting an adaptation of “The Twelve.” This was a storyline where a weakened Apocalypse had captured twelve very specific mutants, intending to absorb all their powers and become unstoppable. Notably, this was the comic where Apocalypse made Wolverine a horseman and gave him his adamantium back, which restored him to normal (more or less) after he got all the metal ripped out of his body by Magneto (a comic event replicated in X-Men ‘97 Season 1). 

Streaming For A World That Fears And Hates Them

X-Men ‘97 Season 2 will begin streaming on Disney+ on July 1. Based on this trailer, we’re getting something even bigger and more ambitious than Season 1 that will satisfy fans who have been waiting a long time for more of this awesome show. Incidentally, you won’t have to wait this long in the future. Disney confirmed that they have already completed Season 3 and begun work on Season 4, allowing them to release a new season each year for the next couple of years.

That’s right, fellow geeks, the dream of the ‘90s is alive on streaming. And regardless of how bad the MCU has gotten and whether Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars flop, we now have a reason to utter the classic comic phrase that has always meant the world to everyone who didn’t get out much in high school: “make mine Marvel!”

By Robert Scucci
| Published 26 seconds ago

As I’ve said in the past, I have a strange relationship with media in the streaming era because I’ll blindly throw on a title that looks intriguing without first digging into its lore and development. While watching 1989’s Savage Beach, my first thought was, “This is a lot like Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987), but if it played more like Charlie’s Angels.” As it turns out, Savage Beach belongs to the same Triple B (Bullets, Bombs, and Babes) film series spearheaded by Andy Sidaris. Other titles in the series, outside of Hard Ticket to Hawaii, include Malibu Express (1985), Picasso Trigger (1988), Day of the Warrior (1996), and even a sequel, Return to Savage Beach (1998) 

If there’s one thing you should know before getting into Savage Beach, or any of the other above-mentioned titles, it’s that these movies are campy, cartoonishly violent, and sexually explicit in the most egregious ways possible. Savage Beach basically plays out like any low-budget action movie you’ve ever seen, but it’s led by a strong female cast that’s scantily clad and always ready for a wardrobe change before unloading countless rounds from their machine guns.

Bullets, Bombs, And Babes

When Savage Beach first introduces us to its ballsy heroines, Donna Hamilton (Dona Speir) and Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton), they’re successfully carrying out a drug bust. They find a cache of cocaine hidden inside decoy pineapples, their guns pop off in a blaze of glory, and it’s immediately established that nobody should mess with them. Then they celebrate in a hot tub with their fellow special agents.

When Donna and Taryn are summoned to deliver vaccines and supplies to the Philippines, they jump at the opportunity, but not before loading up their survival pack with enough firearms to handle any sticky situation. Though Donna and Taryn are exceptional pilots, they’re no match for the brutal storm awaiting their aircraft, prompting them to crash land on a deserted island. Before they get the full lay of the land, they immediately decide to go skinny dipping on the beach.

As luck would have it, a group of mercenaries led by Captain Andres (John Aprea) arrives on the same island in search of buried treasure lost during World War II. Captain Andres knows where to look because he has access to the most sophisticated computer and floppy disk technology that 1989 had to offer. Outnumbered by dangerous men willing to kill anybody who gets in their way, it’s up to Donna and Taryn to take out the enemy, fix their plane, and resume their mission.

Shlock And Awe At Its Finest

As insultingly simple as the plot to Savage Beach may be, Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton steal every single scene they’re in. The mercenary sequences are necessary to establish some semblance of a story, but it’s really the survival scenes that make this thing work. When a rightfully paranoid Donna, sleeping with a machine gun in her lap, is abruptly woken up by a twig snapping in the distance, she opens fire and accidentally decimates a rooster. She shrugs it off and flippantly suggests they need to find a new alarm clock. In the very next scene, she and Taryn are roasting the bird over a fire and eating it like nothing happened, completely unfazed by the fact that they just pumped an innocent rooster full of lead.

Through a modern lens, Savage Beach can absolutely be seen as exploitative, and it’s easy to understand why. You could call this thing Cleavage: The Movie and nobody would argue that it should have a different title. But it’s also a subversion of its era’s action movie tropes because there isn’t a single damsel in distress to be found. Every woman in Savage Beach is a certified badass, independent to a fault, and ready to dive headfirst into danger because they know they can handle anything thrown at them.

With more one-liners than you could possibly count, Savage Beach is good, not-so-clean fun, and that’s entirely the point. It’s Charlie’s Angels with an R-rating, and it’s not trying to be anything else. If that sounds like your kind of trashy action movie night, you can stream it for free on Tubi as of this writing.

Netflix has just loaded up a Jack Nicholson classic. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

By Rick Gonzales
| Published 1 minute ago

Chinatown is often regarded as the peak of Hollywood’s film noir style and one of the greatest detective stories of all time. It stars Jack Nicholson at the peak of his powers, and it’s a must-see for anyone who likes, well, watching moving images of any type on a screen.

Jack Nicholson had already been around Hollywood for a number of years before he was offered Chinatown, a part that Towne wrote especially with him in mind. With an early career that consisted of appearances on many TV series, it wasn’t until the mid-‘60s that Nicholson began to see more time in feature films. One of his earliest successes came with the 1969 film Easy Rider. He then went on to Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, and The Last Detail before Chinatown came knocking.

Jake Gittes Investigates

Jack Nicholson plays Jake Gittes in Chinatown, a private investigator operating in pre-war Southern California. Hired by a mysterious woman to investigate her husband’s alleged infidelity, Gittes becomes entangled in a web of deception and corruption far beyond what he initially anticipates. As he delves deeper into the case, he uncovers a labyrinth of personal and political scandals that culminate in a shocking revelation. 

Chinatown weaves a tale of intrigue and betrayal against the backdrop of a morally ambiguous society. Directed by Roman Polanski and written by Robert Towne, the film has left an unforgettable mark on cinematic history with its gripping narrative and stellar performances.

The Best Way To Watch Chinatown

Chinatown is available to stream on some of the usual algorithm-controlled culprits. You should avoid them entirely.

There’s only one right way to watch Chinatown, and that’s on Blu-ray. In 2024, with the format fading and being abandoned by most movie studios, Paramount stepped up and released a50th anniversary Blu-ray and 4K edition of Chinatown.

This version of the movie includes three new featurettes, including A State of Mind, where author Sam Wasson digs into the movie’s long-term influence; Chinatown Memories with producer Hawk Koch reflecting on the production; and The Trilogy That Never Was, which explores the failed plans for a third Jake Gittes movie after The Two Jakes.

The set also carries over the excellent Robert Towne and David Fincher commentary track along with the older Water and Power documentary, which remains one of the best extras ever produced for the film because it explains the real Los Angeles history behind the story. Paramount also bundled in the sequel, The Two Jakes, on its own Blu-ray disc, making the release feel more substantial than the average anniversary edition.

Making Chinatown

Robert Towne’s script, which won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, is often considered, as well as the movie, as one of the greatest of all time. But the script wasn’t without its controversy. Initially, the script ran 180 pages, and Towne definitely had different ideas about how the movie would end.

Not wanting to give away the ending, we’ll just say that the two (Towne and Polanski) parted ways based on the fact that Polanski saw the ending differently. In fact, Polanski himself rewrote the ending a few days before he shot the final scene.

Chinatown Got A Sequel You Should Avoid

Chinatown was originally set to be a trilogy, following Jack Nicholson’s Gittes through his time as a private investigator. It took 16 years, but Towne and Nicholson did team up for the second part, The Two Jakes, though its lackluster box-office performance shut down the idea of a trilogy.