Black Panther

I'm very interested to see how this movie turns out. Black Panther never really clicked for me as a character until Civil War. Wakanda especially has always been kind of silly since writers could never seem to decide if it was a country of extreme wealth and super-advanced science or the most stereotypical kind of African tribesmen. Hopefully they can find a way to make it all make sense.

I'm not feeling the slight redesign of the costume.

"Thanks for nothing Russo..."

Just stumbled across a little secret Avengers rehearsal by the @therussobrothers

A post shared by Chris Hemsworth (@chrishemsworth) on Jun 5, 2017 at 9:25am PDT

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

The best thing about Heroquest...

Ran across this the other day. This one is pretty much just for Adam, so consider yourselves warned.

Marvel Movie Rankings Vol. 2

1a.Captain America: Civil War
1b. Guardians of the Galaxy
1c. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
1d. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
5. Avengers
6. Iron Man
7. Doctor Strange
8. Iron Man 3
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
10. Thor
11. Captain America: The First Avenger
12. Ant-Man
13. Iron Man 2
14. Thor: The Dark World
15. The Incredible Hulk

This feels like a bit of a cop-out but at the moment I'm having a hard time breaking up those top four and I'm not even sure Avengers should be behind them.

Thoughts On Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

A few thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:

-This movie delivers on everything you're hoping for from a GotG sequel. In fact, it's only real weakness to me is that it may try a bit too hard to deliver those things, at least in the first 30 minutes or so.

-The director, James Gunn, promised this movie would be more emotional and he delivered. A surprising amount of this comes from Yondu and Nebula, the latter which I was surprised to find somewhat sympathetic.

-Rocket also has a major arc in the movie and "acts" it very well. It's amazing that you can completely forget a CGI anthropomorphic raccoon isn't a real actor on stage with the rest of the cast. He's also developed a fondness for Quill's music, which is kind of funny.

-Speaking of music, it's right there with the last album, if possibly slightly weaker. After listening for a few days it's a close call.

-Groot steals every scene he's in.

 -Mantis also manages to steal quite a few scenes.

-The ending packs a surprising emotional punch. Even if I had known exactly what was coming I would have been surprised at how hard it hits. Maybe I'm going soft in my old age.

-This is the first movie I've seen that does not eventually go to a black screen with letters for the end credits. It's like a continually-scrolling back cover of an old record album with small animations scattered throughout. That and the five post-credit scenes help keep you interested until the very end.

-Two of the scenes potentially set up future movies (not Infinity War) and are probably completely impenetrable to fans who don't know comics. The other scenes are funny.

The Defenders

Game On

Fantasy football is live. Yahoo changed things up a bit so I think everyone may actually be signed up.

-100

It seems I've mostly been posting about ESPN lately but it's hard not to when they offer up so much material. Today, a big one: ESPN fired 100 people today and some of them are names you'd recognize. Some of the more familiar names: Ed Werder, Roger Cossack, Jay Crawford, Trent Dilfer (one of the best NFL analysts out there), Jayson Stark, and the one that hits me the hardest, Danny Kanell. Russillo and Kanell is just about the only thing on ESPN worth watching (or listening to) so losing half the team hurts. Russillo is reportedly still going to be on the radio but will be cut back on the TV side but it still leaves me concerned. Maybe I'll get to dump the ESPN app the same way I dumped ESPN.

"He's a friend from work!"

Political

ESPN has released new guidelines for discussing politics on the network, though you won't find them on the front page and they waited until just after a NCAA Championship game to do it. As near as I can tell they're giving commentators the green light to discuss politics as long as it's related to sports in some fashion. They're supposed to offer "balance" to opposing views but note that idea is subjective, so you can read probably assume they won't feel the need to talk about conservative views unless they're mocking them. I find this especially interesting given the last story I posted. ESPN again seems determined to double-down on the things people are complaining about. I'm going to enjoy laughing at them when they can't pay their bills any longer.

Falling Off a Cliff

Bloomberg Business Week has an interesting article on ESPN and cord cutting, something I've posted about before. It includes a graph that shows the subscriber numbers falling off a cliff. ESPN though appears to be doubling-down on protecting the cable bundle. Their main problem? Cost. According to that article Game of Thrones costs HBO about $100 million for a season. ESPN pays that just for one MNF game. It's hard to believe that's going to go well for ESPN in the end. They probably can't afford to give people a lower-cost option for consuming ESPN content, but ESPN is a pretty awful deal compared to... well, pretty much everything.

Spider-Man: Homecoming Trailer

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Justice League

 I post this not because I'm excited but rather because I think it's interesting. Batman v Superman was awful. This... doesn't look a whole lot better. Those costumes? Ugh.  It'll make a lot of money though.

No Good Deed

Inappropriate, some bad language, but still pretty funny:

Two-Time Galaxy Savers

Boom!

I love this poster.

Avengers + Spider-Man + GotG = Infinity War

Iron Fist