In the upcoming film “Venom,” Tom Hardy stars as a reporter who is inhabited by a dark symbiotic being.
Right off the bat, the new “Venom” trailer helps explain a lot about the cinematic version of this scary Marvel character. The photo I snapped above features one of the first comics I collected back in 1984–that’s actual issue from my collection. I’ll have to go through older issues in storage, but I seem to remember the new suit appearing a bit earlier that year. Still this image has been seared into my memory. Venom was utterly creepy but gave my beloved Spidey a host of new abilities.
I never read any stand-alone versions of Venom. And sadly, Sam Raimi missed the mark with his handling of the creature in 2007’s bloated “Spider-Man 3.” The new trailer for “Venom” is below. We can expect this dark film, somewhat reminiscent visually of 1997’s innovative and arguably ground-breaking “Spawn,” in theaters on October 5, 2018.
On the other end of the spectrum we get a much lighter DVD and Blu-Ray offering out today in the sequel to the excellent live action/animated family film “Paddington.” That film was a big hit in 2014-15 attracting family and adult viewers alike. The sequel was incredibly well-reviewed, but US audiences didn’t embrace it in the same way they did its predecessor. The trailer for “Paddington 2” is below, but when a film scores a 100 percent on RT’s Tomatometer, it has to be worth checking out, right?
On the streaming front, I have to heartily recommend Netflix’ “Lost in Space.” This gripping and completely bingeable re-imagining of the 1960s television series is edgy but still family friendly as the space family Robinson escapes a dying Earth only to become marooned on a dangerous planet. Yes, the iconic line “Danger Will Robinson!” is preserved and used in key moments.
