#David F. Sandberg

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[james-stark-the-writer]

alright. now seated for David F. Sandberg's Shazam! (2019). i am definitely excited to go into this having now seen Lights Out (good movie, if a little standard, his letterboxd review for it makes me laugh) and his Annabelle movie (it sucked, i'm sorry, David, but that wasn't really you, the script was just godawful) and some of his shorts on YouTube (i do love how accessible filmmaking is now btw, genuinely fucking cool that a filmmaker making horror shorts on YouTube could end up making one feature film and go on to make a movie in one of the biggest horror franchises and then a superhero movie for one of the biggest superhero franchises, like i'm genuinely so proud of David), excited to see what he does with it. i remember really enjoying this movie when i saw it in theaters, and thinking it was the best thing in the DC would ever make (until i saw Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) so, i'm excited to see how it holds up! especially now that i've seen every movie preceding it.

also, does make me laugh that this is now the second movie in a row where DC has hired a horror filmmaker (James Wan's Aquaman was fucking amazing, genuinely incredible himbo cinema) to make a superhero movie and both of these movies are like some of the best shit DC has funded.

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[cronengirly]

Annabelle: Creation having a post credits scene teasing The Nun is so funny. Because the nun fucking died in The Conjuring 2.

[moviesandfood]

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

[filmbook21]

[cemyafilmarsiv]

Lights Out directed by David F. Sandberg

[cinematitlecards]

"Shazam!" (2019) Directed by David F. Sandberg (Action/Comedy/Fantasy/Comic Book) . . "Shazam! Fury Of The Gods" (2023) Directed by David F. Sandberg (Action/Comedy/Fantasy/Comic Book)

[ruleof3bobby]

SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS (2023) Grade: C-

Drop off from the first movie. Went away from the main character. Bad guys were weak, uncreative and boring. Not many kids think it's funny that it's Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu on the screen.

[james-stark-the-writer]

alright, let's keep moving with that DCEU watch bc i have the time today. time for David F. Sandberg's Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023). here's to hoping this has retained the spirit and heart of the original and improved the superhero aspects because they were the worst part of Shazam! (2019).

i've been trying to get a more accurate video player setup working for like 2 hours, i was using basically stock MPC-BE for the most part but some of the images looked a little soft to me even compared to something basic like a VLC (which i only really keep for its subtitle downloading feature bc it's the easiest to use, and tbh it could've been using sharpening filters, i didn't really check) and Potplayer (which is the only way i can get two subtitles to display simultaneously for media with multiple subs like fansubs or different translations or something, and also it's got like pretty good video output). i tried to look into MPV and the amount of work and scripts everyone was recommending kind of broke me, so i'm just using like the base form of mpv.net bc it's got a GUI, with like GPU decoding turned on which was the one common thing everyone recommended from my research.

hopefully this is better image quality then like standard VLC stuff and my previous MPC-BE setup though i obviously haven't sat through entire movies to compare frame by frame, so beware that if i say anything about the visuals it might not be the most accurate. MPV is supposed to be the most accurate and flexible option around but i don't know how much futzing around people do with it and there's a lot of like upscaling and downscaling scripts for no fucking reason, which is kind of antithetical to the entire point of accuracy to me, but it's fine. i'm just sticking to the base options and hoping it's good and better than what i had. the image does look just a tad sharper to me than in VLC and MPC so i don't know if they have sharpening filters on or something, but this is like the most base form with nothing changed (except the subtitle font) so i cannot imagine they are messing with the video signal with too much filtering. i tried to look into madVR and MPC-HC and got them installed and almost lost my mind trying to get it set up bc there's no real guides anywhere so don't fucking tell me to go look up madVR bc i will kill you. maybe some other day when i have 15 hours to dedicate to going through forums to try to find something that works for me and get enough knowledge to understand what the fuck everybody's talking about, maybe i'll check it out. i cannot believe there's not like some fucking guide for some anime noob because you know those anime people are on the cutting edge of video tech and playback for accuracy, that there's not some fucking guide for people that don't know what they're doing. i mean it's not that i don't know what i'm doing, it's that there's so much fucking shit to sort through that it would be nice if somebody narrowed it down for me. there's nothing even on YouTube or like some shitty github page or an old reddit comment or something, trust me i've like checked fucking everywhere i could think of but if i missed something, please feel free to link it somewhere in the comments or something, i don't know.

anyway, that is entirely an aside, that's just a forewarning that if i do say something about the visuals and you think it's not accurate to what the movie looks like or is not properly representative of the movie, feel free to take it with a grain of salt. i'm trying out something new.

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods

“Shazam! Fury Of The Gods” is a generic and sad entry in a pointless continuity.

Billy Batson is about to turn 18 and grappling with the idea that he might lose his new family. Everyone seems to be moving on with their lives and Billy’s fear of abandonment resurfaces. While he’s desperately trying to force his family together, two daughters of the titan, Atlas, steal the wizard Shazam’s broken staff from a museum. They want to reclaim the world that was stolen from them and believe that Billy doesn’t deserve his powers.

If you read my review for 2019′s “Shazam!”, you’ll know that I wasn’t as positive about that movie as other people. While everyone else was praising that movie for shaking up the then bleak tone of the DCEU, I still felt like the movie lacked substance. A lot of that criticism carries over to this film for me. To be honest, I think this movie is slightly worse than the last. For starters, Zachary Levi loses all of the charm he had from the first movie. While in the first movie, he comes off as a kid experiencing the novelty of having powers for the first time, he comes off as an idiot in this film. Asher Angel is barely in this movie, so we’re stuck with this dumbed-down version of Billy for the majority of the film. Also, it feels like Zachary Levi and Asher Angel are playing two completely different characters. Asher Angel feels more grown up, which seems like the right play since Billy should be more mature in this movie. He should still be a kid at heart, but he’s grappling with more mature situations in this movie. When Billy switches from Asher Angel to Zachary Levi, it feels like the character just gets stupid for no reason. Zachary Levi plays Billy like he hasn’t aged at all since the last movie. The superhero siblings were extremely forgettable to me. The movie barely makes an attempt at connecting the kids to their adult counterparts and so they come off as separate characters most of the time as well. Only this time, neither counterparts get any character development. Jack Dylan Grazer was fun in the last movie, but in this movie, he’s gratingly one-note. The romance between him and Rachel Zegler’s character came off as extremely forced, which sucks since that’s an important part of the story. Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu feel like wasted potential in this movie because they’re so bland as villains. Now, this movie heavily focuses on comedy, but I thought it was weak with this film as well. There were only one or two jokes that actually got a laugh out of me, but everything else was pathetically predictable. It hurts to have to be so critical of this movie because I feel like there was genuinely good intention behind the making of this movie. The problem is that the problems in this movie are too apparent to not notice. I wanted a good time, but ended up getting a mess of a movie.

★★

Watched on March 16th, 2023

[spotlight-report]

'Shazam! Fury of the Gods' Movie Review

"An okay mix of silliness and action" Check our #'Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review @shazammovie #ShazamFuryOfTheGods #JustSayTheWord!

2019’s Shazam! was a breath of fresh air in the tediously grim DC cinematic universe, and was a light, kid-friendly comedy that anyone could enjoy. In Shazam! Fury of the Gods, David F. Sandberg brings back Billy Batson and family for more superhero adventures, but decidedly fewer shenanigans. This time, Batson (Asher Angel) and his alter ego (Zachary Levi) and the rest of the shazamming crew are…

[fromthestacks]

Shazam!: Fury of the Gods

[lonesomedreamereccentriclover]

Happy Birthday David F. Sandberg!