John Gholson
Movies.com
Austin, TX, United States
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Past articles by John:
Marvel Studios Countdown: Why Casting Cable Also Means Casting a Classic X-Men Villain
Marvel Studios Countdown: Why Casting Cable Also Means Casting a Classic X-Men Villain. Read this and other movie news, reviews, and more at Movies.com. → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: What If The 'Civil War' Teams Were Swapped?
There’s an old Marvel comic series called What If that allows for stories of speculative Marvel fiction - “What if Punisher became Venom?” and that sort of thing. It’s a place for writers and artists to either flip a concept on its head or pick a key moment in comic history and change the outcome. So, in the grand tradition of Marvel’s What If, let’s take a look at the players in the upcoming… → Read More
The New Documentary 'Beware the Slenderman' Finds Harsh Reality in the Urban Legend
In a Milwaukee suburb in 2014, two twelve year old girls took their friend to the woods and stabbed her multiple times to win the favor of internet boogeyman “Slenderman,” a lanky, faceless giant in a black suit and tie. They were hoping to kill their victim, then walk hundreds of miles to the national park where Slenderman’s mansion of devoted “proxies” could live protected for all eternity.… → Read More
SXSW Festival Buzz Easily Pegs 'Under the Shadow' as This Year's 'The Babadook'
Film fests are often the “ground zero” for breakout indie hits and last year saw two horror films that benefited from strong festival word-of-mouth. David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook were pushed alongside studio releases as horror films worth paying attention to. A teen enjoying The Babadook on their laptop might not know it was a festival favorite, but… → Read More
'Pee-wee's Big Holiday' Is Comfort Food for Old School Fans
I didn’t see Pee-wee’s Big Adventure theatrically, but, oh boy, did I ever want to. I knew him from his numerous appearances across talk shows and such, before the Saturday morning classic Pee-wee’s Playhouse but after the 1981 HBO special that was so randy that my Mom made me leave the room (so she could finish it herself and laugh a lot). Instead of a theatrical viewing, I had my older cousin… → Read More
Marvel Countdown: Fox Considers What's Next After 'Deadpool'
At the at the end of February, once Fox execs were able to climb atop their giant pile of Deadpool cash and look onward toward the horizon, they saw two dates that interested them. October 6, 2017 and January 12, 2018 have been staked for something Marvel-related from the studio who controls the film rights to X-Men, Fantastic Four, and all characters therein. Meanwhile, the solo Gambit film,… → Read More
See 'Deadpool' Reviewed in Comic Strip Form
The fans literally made this one happen. It looked for the longest time as if a movie about the Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool, was DOA after the character was neutered for a throwaway role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. One leaked viz-FX reel later (and one enthusiastic star looking for a Deadpool do-over) and here we are. The cult superhero has his followers primed to explode and the rest of the… → Read More
Marvel Countdown: Meet the Supporting Characters in Deadpool
Deadpool has attitude to spare, but what he doesn’t have is a lot of public familiarity with his supporting cast and villains. He’s been around for 25 years now, but considering many of his superhero peers are pushing 75, Deadpool (aka Wade Wilson) is often still considered a “new” character. The great thing about Deadpool, the movie, is that there’s not a lot of bothersome continuity getting in… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: Looking Back at 1978's Cheesy Doctor Strange Movie
“There is a barrier that separates the known from the unknown. Beyond this threshold lies a battleground, where forces of good and evil are in eternal conflict. The fate of mankind hangs in the balance and awaits the outcome. In every age and time, some of us are called upon to join the battle...Dr. Strange.” Thus begins the first Dr. Strange live-action movie, a noble-but-forgotten attempt to… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: The Marvel Comics Movies of 2016
2016 is here and with it an all-new slew of live-action superhero goodness for us to gorge on like Crab Rangoon at an $8.99 buffet. DC has Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad, but it’s Marvel (once again) putting their own huge footprint into the landscape of 2016’s releases. So, bookmark this and keep it handy, when you need to plan your next major life events. Agent Carter, Season 2… → Read More
See 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Reviewed In Comic Strip Form
There's a lot of people all over the world who are exhaling all at once this weekend after years of breath-holding in anticipation of Star Wars Episode: The Force Awakens. Not just a sequel but the fulfillment of every geeky kids' dream from 1983 until now, The Force Awakens, I can say without spoilers, gets the job done. Will it alter the course of your own life? Spoiler: Likely not. Will it… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: The Marvel Legacy of 'Star Wars'
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in a matter of days and the mania is back. Disney has got to be one happy company right now, as they’re making good use of their $4 billion purchases of both Marvel and Star Wars. They’ve officially married these two fantasy giants after a long romance that first started in 1976... Blame Conan the Barbarian? Picture this: it’s the mid 1970s and the comic… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: 'Jessica Jones' Brings Marvel Comic's B-Listers to the A-List
We are two shows in and it’s safe to say that the Marvel Netflix shows have been a boon to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, we’ve gotten a couple of Marvel’s best live-action villains out of the deal - Vincent D’Onofrio as the “Kingpin” Wilson Fisk and David Tennant as comics’ “Purple Man” aka Killgrave - but we’ve also really opened the doors to what a live-action Marvel adaptation can be.… → Read More
Here's a Breakdown of the 'Rocky' Story, In Comic Strip Form
Everybody's talking about Creed, and with good reason. It mines what we loved best about the Rocky series and freshens it up for a new era with a new direction. If you don't have time to watch all six Rocky films before you catch Creed (or you just saw Creed and you need a refresher), we have you covered! Here's a breakdown of the Rocky story, from the first bell to the fifteenth round. → Read More
Who Is Apollo Creed? A Brief History of Rocky's Greatest Rival (and Friend)
The story of Rocky is legend, and at this point, most of us can either rattle off Rocky’s boxing accomplishments across his six films or relate the story of how wannabe movie star Sylvester Stallone wrote a little boxing movie for himself and became an icon in the process. This is not that story. This is the story of Creed, the fighter from the first four Rocky films, who went on to quite… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: Who Is Valkyrie In 'Thor: Ragnarok'?
There’s a Thor: Ragnarok screenplay out there somewhere, and those who’ve gotten a peek at its pages (including Devin Faraci at Birth.Movies.Death.) have begun to dole out little pieces of information. One of those nuggets is that the film will introduce Valkyrie to movie audiences. To comic fans, she’s a prominent B-lister, but Valkyrie is especially welcome on screen where female superheroes… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: Who's Next for 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'?
Captain America: Civil War is in post-production, Doctor Strange is about to go before the cameras, and now Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is just beginning to ramp up for its distant May 5, 2017 release. Last week, Pom Klementieff joined the principal cast in a yet-to-be-confirmed role. The word is Klementieff is playing Mantis, the green-skinned anntenaed “Celestial Madonna” familiar to… → Read More
Marvel Studios Countdown: Diving Into the Norn Pool of 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' Special Features
There’s a concern amongst home video enthusiasts that special features ain’t what they used to be. We’ll still get a commentary track, but the best special features may have peaked with DVD’s golden age (hard to believe that was years ago). There are a few explanations for the decline, the biggest being that as people shifted to digital media, DVD sales couldn’t support the production costs of feature-length retrospective documentaries. → Read More
Examining 'Bone Tomahawk' and Its Place Among the Weirdest Westerns in Film History
We went blind into Bone Tomahawk, which is a pretty great way to see it. We knew it was a Western with Kurt Russell as the lead, but we didn’t know it would walk right up into “Weird Western” territory. If you’re sold on that alone, stop right now. I wouldn’t say what we’re about to get into is spoiler territory, exactly, seeing as how the marketing is putting the central conflict front and… → Read More
4 Reasons 'The Devil's Candy' Should Be on Every Horror Fan's Radar
While The Witch continues to be the most-lauded Satanic horror film-festival favorite, we were a little blindsided by The Devil’s Candy as a worthy demonic competitor, offering all of the rock and roll thrills that its high-brow peer does not. There’s no reason why they both can’t find an audience amongst starving horror fanatics, so we’re here to crank up the volume on one of the most fun and… → Read More