Kate McKinnon Tapped for Magic School Bus Remake

SNL superstar Kate McKinnon has been tapped by Netflix to voice Ms. Frizzle in a revival of beloved children’s educational program The Magic School Bus. The remake, called The Magic School Bus Rides again, will focus on grade school teacher and possible Time Lord Ms. Frizzle as she takes her students on entertaining knowledge-building field trips with the help of a magical transforming school bus. Instead of 2D animation, the new show would feature 3D animation techniques. Ladies and Gentlemen, human language has failed me, as I cannot find words or terminology that can adequately explain my excitement for this show. Even before adding McKinnon, who is easily one of if not the funniest cast member on SNL, the original Magic School Bus was a huge part of my childhood. When I tell you that pretty much everything I know about science comes from this early-90s public television cartoon, I’m only half-joking. Carlos and those corny one-liners, Dorothy Ann and her research, and Arnold with his legitimate fears and rational reactions to the outrageous situations this woman put them in - they were instrumental in my early science education and made learning fun. There’s no word on a release date just yet, but I’m ready to see what McKinnon and Netflix have in store.

Stranger Things Season 2 Teaser Debuts During Super Bowl L1

This past weekend was the Super Bowl, which meant a lot of things to a lot of people. For Atlanta fans, it was a day that will live in infamy until the heat death of the universe. For Lady Gaga fans, it was the closest many of them will ever get to being able to afford seeing her perform live. For the rest of us, it was a prime opportunity to see some of the biggest commercials and movie trailers of the year. Chief among those was a roughly 30-second spot for Season 2 of Netflix’s runaway hit original series, Stranger Things. The show’s retro 80s aesthetic was on full display as footage from a vintage Eggo ad glitches and morphs into a shot of the main characters - Mike, Lucas, and Dustin - dressed up as Ghost Busters. We also get a few snatches of the boys riding around on their bikes, Sheriff Hopper doing some dirty work, and what appears to be more Department of Energy personnel before dropping a very appropriate release date.

Hint: It's the only time of year this is appropriate school dress.

If anything’s clear from the bits and pieces I’ve seen so far, it’s that Eleven is still nowhere to be found, the rift to the Upside Down is still open, and things are still coming through. One of the final shots of the teaser shows a many-legged creature, several stories tall, towering over the suburbs of Hawkins. Whatever it is, it makes the Demogorgon from Season 1 look like an action figure by comparison.

We're gonna need a bigger slingshot...

Some more plot details about the second season also came out in Entertainment Weekly later in the week. Some choice tidbits: as hinted at the end of Season 1, Will Byers is still seeing visions of the Upside Down. Whether this is real or all in his head remains to be seen, but my money’s on the former. His mother Joyce, to cope with the events of the last year and give her sons some sense of normalcy, is dating an old high school classmate, Bob, played by Sean Astin of Goonies and Lord of the Rings fame. Sheriff Hopper is also struggling to adjust, tasking himself with trying to cover up all the weird things that happened. But the characters carrying the most baggage from the first season are going to be Mike and Nancy Wheeler, who both lost someone to the Upside Down. There will also be some new additions to the cast. Brother-sister duo Billy and Max move into town, and while Max is immediately friendly with the group - possibly sparking a love triangle between her, Lucas, and Dustin - her brother is decidedly more antagonistic. A non-human addition is in the mix as well, with Dustin forming a bond with some presumably cute extra-dimensional critter. This still leaves plenty of questions. What’s up with the new guy running the lab? What is the spindly-legged creature? Where the heck is Eleven? All those answers, and probably some new questions, will arrive when Season 2 hits Netflix on Halloween.

Aquaman Casts Its Black Manta

Work is getting underway on Aquaman’s solo film. The movie about nobody’s favorite Justice League member has just cast its villain. The Get Down’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen is set to play Black Manta, Aquaman’s archnemesis.

Leaked footage of the climactic dance battle for Atlantis.

The casting comes only a month or two after news that Patrick Wilson had been cast as Orm, Aquaman’s half-brother who takes up the mantle Ocean Master and fights him for control of Atlantis. Having two adversaries could make for an overstuffed debut film, but I think I know I know how Warner Bros is going to play this. Much like a certain Asgardian and his brother in the Marvel universe, I think Aquaman and Orm will start out as allies fighting against Abdul-Mateen’s Black Manta before turning against each other. No story details on the James Wan-directed project have leaked yet, so this is pure speculation, but it would make for a compelling twist. Aquaman is slated to hit theaters on Oct 5, 2018.

Movie Review: iBoy

This week I’ll be reviewing a Netflix Original movie about a boy who finds himself gaining special abilities after an accident. Based on the novel by Kevin Brooks, iBoy follows the exploits of Tom, a mild-mannered high schooler who gains control over electronics after a bullet lodges fragments of a cell phone in his brain. The movie embraces its identity as a lighter science fiction and runs with it, finding flashy (if not a tad bit unbelievable) ways to show off Tom using his powers. iBoy is somewhere between a serviceable superhero origin story and a gritty British crime thriller, mixing elements of both genres with varying success. The story follows a fairly predictable course, but the creative visuals and slick presentation should keep audiences from getting bored during its 90-minute runtime.

The film opens by introducing us to Tom Harvey, a teenager living in the projects of East London. Tom’s life is simple. He lives with his grandmother who writes bargain bin romance novels, hangs out with his morally flexible friend, a dropout-turned-street hustler named Danny, and pines after his classmate and neighbor, Lucy. Tom’s simple life comes to an end, however, when he stops by Lucy’s flat for a study date and walks in on a home invasion. The masked intruders pursue Tom out the door, shooting him in the head as he frantically calls for help on his cell phone.

Instead of dying, Tom wakes up in hospital 10 days later. The doctor informs him that he is fine, save for a few fragments of the phone that are still buried in his cranium. It’s not long before Tom notices his world is a lot noisier than before. He can hear people’s phone calls when he’s standing nowhere near them, surf the internet without a computer, even overload electronics, causing them to short out and shower their surroundings in sparks. After getting a grip on his newfound powers, Tom sets out to identify Lucy’s attackers and seek revenge. He adopts the pseudonym iBoy and gets to work ridding his neighborhood of crime. However, Tom’s crusade to run off the local thugs begins to attract the attention of bigger fish.

"Must...not...fap..."

Up-and-comer Bill Milner does a solid job as Tom, playing the wonder at his new powers and the righteous anger at criminals with a contained energy. Even more impressive is how he keeps up playing opposite heavy hitters like Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams as Lucy and Rory Kinnear. Likewise, relative newcomer director Adam Randall makes the most of what must have been a modest budget to showcase Tom using his powers to hunt down ne’er-do-wells. With such talented people in the mix, it’s a shame that the story itself doesn’t do more. Writer Joe Barton’s script would be a straight line if you mapped it out. Boy gains powers, boy hunts down criminals, criminals farther up the pecking order take notice, rinse and repeat. And the final confrontation between Tom and Rory Kinnear’s crime boss is downright baffling. I’m not sure which character makes the sillier choice, but neither of them ends the confrontation as quickly or efficiently as they could have. iBoy certainly won’t break any new ground, but if you can’t get enough of light sci-fi and have an afternoon to kill, it makes for an entertaining enough watch. Just be sure to turn off your phones beforehand.