Sunday, Sunday (131)

image credit: warner bros.

Things are looking up for the DC universe this week, with the release of Joker (which I’m finally seeing tomorrow), and the first good look at Birds Of Prey. Directed by Cathy Yan, Harley Quinn has broken up with the Joker and explores her newfound freedom with a rag-tag team of misfits. 

I’m not too familiar with these characters, but Quinn will be joined by Huntress (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) as they save young future superhero Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) from the Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). 

Along with demonstrating that Margot Robbie was born to play this role, the trailer provides a possible glimpse into DC’s future. Especially alongside the release of Joker and James Gunn’s upcoming remake/reboot of Suicide Squad. 

image credit: vanity fair

Joaquin Phoenix is rightfully everywhere at the moment, including the cover of Vanity Fair. The dude’s known to be a relatively quiet and private person, but he shines in this interview and opens up on a few personal experiences that I wasn’t expecting. Writer Joe Hagan speaks to the actor about Joker (obviously), and how he prepared for the role. This included studying the movements of Buster Keaton and Ray Bolger (who played Scarecrow in The Wizard Of Oz), and how Phoenix’s belief that “acting should be like a documentary” truly let his performance of Arthur Fleck and his transformation into Joker shine. 

But Phoenix also briefly opens up about his relationship to actor and fianceé Rooney Mara, and how the passing of his brother River in 1999 affected him when he returned to acting two years after. “Because I came about publicly at that time, I suddenly was confronted with having to talk about something that was very public, in the public sphere. Where you’re in a five-minute interview, every five minutes and everything, at a f**king junket.” 

“It felt like, ‘Well, I’m not sure this is the right place and it feels insecure to be talking about this and I can hear in your voice that you’re trying to sound like somebody who really cares and is interested, but let’s be f**king frank about what’s happening here’. It was just much easier to go, ‘F**k you,’ which is an easier thing for me for whatever reason, than to explain it.” 

I may have completely finished Untitled Goose Game, but seeing the amount of praise it continues to receive post-release brings me so much joy. Vulture recently interviewed two of the four developers at House House, and how they came about creating a game about a mischievous goose. “We made a game that we thought was funny, about a goose,” Jacob Strasser sums up pretty neatly. 

Strasser and Michael McMaster obviously go into more detail behind the beginnings of the game and how it became what it is today, but that’s necessarily it. Geese are funny, and even more entertaining when causing havoc and mischief to a small English village. 

credit: the pokémon company/nintendo

Over the weekend, the Pokémon Company (sort of) graced fans with a 24-hour stream in a mysterious wooded area, with the promise of unseen creatures to make an appearance. I say sort of, as there were only one or two new Pokémon that were actually revealed. 

However, these Pokémon did steal the show, as it seems that Sword and Shield have a Galarian version of Ponyta. “[W]hite in colour with a unicorn-like horn and a cotton candy mane,” as Polygon writes, a clear shot of towards the end of the stream revealed the Pokémon. Alongside that, it seems that Rapidash’s cry was heard as well at some point, with a potential glimpse of Ponyta’s evolution too. 

Nothing else has been revealed about the latest addition to this generation, not even a hint for its typing. My personal bet? Fairy/Psychic type.