Paperless Posts Review - Your Go-to solution for all invitation needs

Are you planning a great event for your near and dear and need help with sending out beautifully designed invites. Check out Paperless Posts - they have an extensive range of elegant designs (both free and premium options are available).

Whether it is for professional events like Charity and Fundraisers or a simple Thank You/Greeting cards, Paperless Posts has lots to offer.

There are extensive options to customize these designs including the colors, words and the font size. Similar to conventional invites, even the envelope and postage can be customized. User can explore all of these options effortlessly thanks to the intuitive user interface that the Paperless Post offers.

Once the invites are sent out, tracking is available not only for the responses, but even the menu options chosen.

In today's fast moving world, people might often forget to prepare for life events well in advance. Paperless Posts comes to the rescue by enabling us to quickly customize and send out the invites in a relatively short span of time. Compared to the traditional posts, users also face less hassles as there are no postage or printing charges. Further, they are environment friendly and help reduce carbon footprint.

I would recommend Paperless Posts to readers who are looking for an easy and convenient way to design and send greeting cards/invites for any and all occasions.

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Disclosure: Paperless Posts provided free digital coins to sample their services for this review.

Shazam! (2019) Trailer - Review/Reaction

Warner Bros. has released the (supposedly) final trailer for the next superhero movie: Shazam!

To readers who are unfamiliar with the titular character, here is a quick intro: Billy Batson is a kid who assumes the adult alter ego of Captain Marvel/Shazam by saying the word - “Shazam”.

Check out the trailer:

Shazam was created in 1939 (a year after Superman) and gave the Man of Steel a run for his money in terms of popularity and sales figures. Powers wise too, he rivals Superman in terms of super strengh, speed and flight. Plus, he can manipulate electricity.

The casting seems to be perfect here. Kind of like Aquaman. Zachary Levi looks to be a great choice for the role. The same goes for Asher Angel as Billy Batson and Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman.

All three of them show excellent comedic timing in their respective scenes. Looks like David F. Sandberg has repeated the James Wan magic of casting actors who may or may not be great thespians, but can bring these comic book characters to life in the best way possible. And the movie looks to be having a stronger sense of humor than Wan's excellent take on the King of the Seven Seas. 

Speaking of Aquaman, a common link between these two movies is Djimon Hounsou who plays The Wizard who grants the superhuman powers to Billy and played King Ricou in James Wan's picture. More trivia: Djimon also portrayed Korath in Captain Marvel (yes the other one).

David seems to be a huge fan of DC Comics. In addition to the obvious Batman reference in the store, there were a couple of shout outs to Superman.

• Shazam catching the bus and placing it back on land safely is a reference to the famous Supes poster.
• The final scene in the trailer has the line - “Leap tall buildings in a single bound”, which is a famous Supes catch phrase. David smartly utilizes this to provide arguably the funniest scene in the trailer.

Of further interest is the fact that the movie includes two cast members from the cancelled Justice League Mortal movie (that would have been directed by George Miller): D.J. Cotrona and Adam Brody. These two actors were supposed to play Supes/Clark Kent and The Flash/Barry Allen respectively. I am curious to see what roles they play in this movie.



Shazam has an extended family known as “Marvel Family” and they are making their live action debut as well. Mary Marvel is being played by Grace Fulton.

Finally, we come to Dr Thaddeus Sivana, the antagonist. This is the second time Mark Strong has played a DC comics baddie. He also portrayed Sinistro in the ill fated Green Lantern. To the best of my knowledge, Dr Sivana is pure brains. I suspect that he is playing (temporary) host to Black Adam and is hence able to go toe to toe with the powerhouse known as Shazam. We will see if my theory holds true when the movie hits the screens in April 2019. But come what may, Mark looks better cast here and I believe he will deliver a fantastic performance and leave a much stronger impression compared to his previous DC outing.

After the billion dollar success of Aquaman, DC Films seems all set to continue the winning streak.

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Image Sources: Warner Bros., DC Entertainment, DC Comics, New Line Cinema

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - Review/Reaction

The long awaited movie has finally been released. There will be spoilers throughout and the readers who are yet to watch the episode are recommended to skip this post.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Watchmen), the movie stars Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

Supporting cast includes Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Diane Lane as Martha Kent and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.

The movie starts off with a funeral procession of Thomas Wayne (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Martha Wayne (Lauren Cohan). A traumatized Bruce Wayne (Brandon Spink) is seen running wildly and falls into a cave full of .... bats (what else can one expect?).

Flash forward to the climactic battle of Man of Steel. Bruce is rushing through the Metropolis streets to save his employees/friends working in the Wayne building. He manages to save an injured employee, Wallace Keefe (Scoot McNairy) and an unnamed girl from the rubble.

But instead of spending a few minutes with Bruce, we again jump to an underwater excavation under progress in the Indian Ocean. The object being retrieved is a considerable chunk of Kryptonite.

Senator Finch (Holly Hunter) wants Superman to be held accountable for his actions. She is being cleverly manipulated by Lex Luthor, who wants to get his hands on all things Kyrptonian, including the corpse of Zod (Michael Shannon).



But Finch is the not the only one, Lex is toying with. He is also setting up both the Man of Steel and Batman to a no-holds barred brawl.

In the midst of all these developments, Diana Prince is hanging around the same social gatherings as Clark Kent and specifically Bruce Wayne do. Bruce can sense that she is up to something.

The movie meanders around till it gets to the much-hyped battle of the superheroes. Like The Dark Knight Returns, the graphic novel on which the movie is partially based on, Batman ends up defeating Superman with the help of Kryptonite.

He is about to kill the Man of Steel, when Clark mentions a name: Martha. This triggers an emotional trip down the memory lane for Bruce. Lois stops by and informs Batman that Martha is the first name of Superman's mother.

Yes, that is how stupid Ben Affleck's Batman is. He does not even bother to check out these details of his enemy before he goes to fight him. For a character supposed to be the “World's Greatest Detective”, he is mindbogglingly dumb. That is probably good, as only Sherlock Holmes can rightfully claim that title.

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The movie finally comes to a conclusion with the DC's Trinity facing off against Doomsday, the monster created by Lex from Zod's corpse. This confrontation is pure CGI and is boring as hell. Except for Wonder Woman, neither of the other three combatants make no impression.

Superman and Doomday kill each other, again echoing the story-line of the 1992 series: The Death of Superman. The movie ends with yet another funeral scene, this time for Clark/Superman. In the comic book universe, no one stays dead for long and neither will Superman.

This was a major disappointment. The movie fails on almost all possible levels: acting, action, direction, music.... The saving grace is Gal Gadot's performance as Wonder Woman and her theme music. In the final fight, she is the only one who actually fights back against the villain. Batman is busy jumping around desperately trying to save himself. Superman gets pummeled around like a toy.

The only other enjoyable scene in the movie is at Luthor's party, which also features her. Diana and Bruce eye each other warily as they attempt to steal Lex's secrets.

This is a movie that is not about the DC Universe and characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. This is a movie about Warner Bros. and how the studio is desperate to create an inter-connected universe to rival the massively successful one owned by Walt Disney/Marvel Studios.

Superman is as bland as he was in Man of Steel. In this movie, he saves Lois Lane more than any other human being. It is as if he was sent from Krypton only to the guardian angel for Lois and not humanity itself.

As emotionless as Cavill is throughout the movie, the standout is his reaction after the explosion during the hearing that leaves everyone around him dead. Cavill just looks around as if nothing happened. At least that is the impression that I got from his “acting”. In the history of worst casting decisions in superhero movies, this has got to be near the top of the heap.

Ben Affleck is either angry or snobbish. Batman's action scenes are heavily inspired by The Arkham series of Batman games and it shows. The actions look quite cartoonish both in their content and the way they are executed. Both Kevin Tsujihara (current CEO of Warner Bros.) and Zack Snyder have a strong background in video games and this works against the movie's best interests.

Except for the Batman vs gang of thugs fight sequence, both the Batman v Superman and the climactic sequence are as generic as possible. There is no element of fun behind the way these scenes have been designed. A fight scene showcasing each character's unique skills/fighting styles would have been so much fun. But this is a studio mandated product that has no time for imagination or fun.

Hopefully Suicide Squad will be much more fun than this self-serious piece of nonsense that pretends to about some of the world's most iconic superheroes.

This movie solely exists for the reason of setting up the DC Extended Universe. The best proof of this would be the “cameos” for The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. These have to be the most shoehorned in scenes in the history of Hollywood or any other cinema for that fact.

I had hoped that at least with the critical drubbing this movie has received would make Warner Bros. reconsider their decision to retain Zack Snyder's directorial talents (?) for Justice League Part One and Two due in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Now that the movie has grossed 424 million USD worldwide, it looks increasingly possible that Snyder would continue to taint the DC Universe with his “vision”.

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Image Sources: DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Syncopy, Warner Bros.

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Final Trailer # 3 - Review/Reaction

The final trailer for the upcoming blockbuster has been released.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, 300), the movie stars Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman.

The ensemble cast includes Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Diane Lane as Martha Kent and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.

After a good Comic Con trailer and a disappointing second one, Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder do a decent job of selling the movie.

Check out the trailer:

The trailer starts off with Batman taking down a bunch of bad guys in a building. Based on online comments by others, the fighting style employed by the Dark Knight is supposed to be very similar to the Arkham series of video games. Having not played any of those games, I can only take their word for it.

The rest of the trailer features scenes we have already seen in the previous trailers. The remarkable thing is that Gal Gadot's Diana Prince speaks for the first time. We also get to see the sassy side of Jeremy Irons' Alfred Pennyworth.

The trailer ends with Batman blocking Superman's arm and we can see the surprise register on Supes' face.

The action sequence with Batman vs the gangsters looks good. But the special effects still look suspect. The coloring for the overall movie is another eyesore: Just because the last two Dark Knight movies made a billion dollars each does not mean, all DC comics based movies have to be dark. I guess the studio executives are averse to taking risks, if making a sunny and hopeful movie about the Man of Steel can be considered a risk in the first place.

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Acting wise, Ben Affleck comes off as arrogant and self-righteous. And considering the fact his Batman might well become the lynchpin of the expanding DC Extended Universe (DCEU), he is Warner Bros.' own version of a RDJ like prima donna.

Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman comes off more like Selina Kyle than the regal Princess of Themyscira/Paradise Island. Hope, I am wrong on this count.

My personal favorite scene in the trailer is the last one featuring Henry Cavill showing his surprise at being blocked by the Caped Crusader.

I am still not sure about this movie. Suicide Squad looks to be a winner. As for this one, we will know the answer on March 25.

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Image Sources: DC Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Syncopy, Warner Bros.

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Supergirl Season 1 Episode 3 "Fight or Flight" - Recap and Review

The episode starts with a quick recap of the previous two episodes, right from the Krypton's scene to Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) whisking away Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) away for an one-on-one conversation.

Supergirl's interview with Cat Grant has more than a passing resemblance to the one that Margot Kidder's Lois Lane had with the late Christopher Reeve's Supes. While Margot's Lois took notes, Cat Grant uses her smartphone to record the interview.

Over the course of the interview, Supergirl unintentionally reveals that she is Superman's cousin. Being the savvy businessperson that she is, Cat Grant makes sure that this piece of information becomes the talk of the town.

This attracts the attention of Reactron (Chris Browning), a super-villain with a long standing grudge against the Man of Steel. Since he is unable to kill Supes, he decides to try his luck with the Girl of Steel.

On the personal front, Kara Danvers faces yet another challenge from her boss. Not content with publicizing Supergirl's connection to the Man of Steel, Cat also wants to host a gala occasion to publish her self-authored critical piece about Supergirl.

Supergirl faces Reactron and manages to cause enough damage to his suit to make him flee the scene. To get back into a fighting condition, Reactron infiltrates Lord Technologies with the intention of abducting someone with the necessary skills and knowledge to repair his damaged suit. Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli) willingly offers to be the hostage.

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Supergirl takes Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan)'s help in zeroing in on Reactron's location. James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) is against Kara taking on the supervillain, who has proven to be a match even for Superman. James' fears come true when Reactron overpowers Supergirl and is about to finish her off, when the Man of Steel himself appears out of nowhere and forces Reactron to make yet another escape.

Kara is not happy with Jimmy summoning Superman to help her. James explains that he did so more out of old habit and a fear of losing her.

Reactron makes his re-appearance during Cat's aforementioned function. With help from Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) and Hank Henshaw (David Harewood), Supergirl finally defeats Reactron.

The third episode of Supergirl turns out to be the best one yet. The actors are getting into the skin of their characters very well.

At the top of the list are Melissa Benoist and Calista Flockhart. Melissa has been under the costume and the cape right from the beginning. But her act as Kara Danvers was a bit too Tina Fey for my taste. In the last episode and particularly in this one, she finally manages to leave her own stamp on the role.

Same is true of Calista. Her Cat Grant is growing as a character. She hints at childhood trauma as well as a romantic past with Lords. Calista is clearly having fun with her part.

David Harewood continues to glower effectively as Hank Henshaw. This episode gives even more evidence that he is Martian Manhunter (MM). Hank Henshaw uses his telepathic powers to detect Alex's presence. Fingers crossed that he turns out to be MM.

There is a newcomer in town and this is Lucy Lane (Jenna Dewan Tatum). Lucy is the younger sister of Lois Lane and the former flame of James Olsen.

The writers included a number of winks and nods to current pop culture events (James Bond, Millenium Falcon from Star Wars, Caitlyn Jenner Vanity Fair, Keeping up with Kardashians).

But the best parts were the references to Superman mythology . The watch used by James to summon Superman to his help is a staple of the Superman Canon. James also accidentally reveals Superman's secret identity to Winn Shott.

Even better was the brief appearance by Supes himself. Needless to say, that was the highlight of the episode for me.

Melissa Benoist gets to mouth some of the best lines:
1. Supergirl's reply to waitress: “I am an alien”.
2. Supergirl's description of Cat Grant: “She is a super interviewing villain”

I also liked this line: “Every Generation gets the Superhero it deserves.” A subtle nod to the Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, perhaps...

With great acting, fun action sequences and made by people who clearly love the DC Universe and especially Superman, this is becoming a must watch for fans of Superman/DC Comics.

Trivia
The song “Wish I Could Fly” by Roxette plays during the scene in which Kara Danvers is entering the venue of Cat Grant's event.

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Image Sources: Berlanti Productions, Warner Bros. Television, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), DC Comics Database, Wikipedia

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Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015) - Review

Spoilers ahead. Readers who wish to avoid spoilers are recommended to skip the post.

I was not impressed with the companion web series (Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles) that was released last month and was not sure about this movie.

This movie proved to be a pleasant surprise. Featuring alternate versions of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, the movie has an excellent script, screenplay, direction and astounding action choreography (as most DC Animated Movies do).

Superman is not the son of Zor-El, but of General Zod and is raised by Mexican immigrants.

Batman is Kirk Langstrom and not Bruce Wayne. In the Batman Canon, Kirk Langstrom is Man-Bat. In this universe, he becomes a pseudo-vampire in his attempts to cure his cancer. He feeds on the blood of the bad guys.

Wonder Woman is not the Princess Diana of Themyscira, but is Bekka. Bekka is a New God of New Genesis, the daughter of Himon and the wife of Orion.

A pre-credit sequence is set in Krypton. (DC fans can rest easy. The similarities with Man of Steel ends right here). Jor-El (Yuri Lowenthal) is about to imprint his DNA on his wife Lara Lor-Van's (Lauren Tom) using a machine to send their soon-to-be born son to Earth. General Zod (Bruce Thomas) intervenes and forcefully puts his own DNA instead.

The baby is adopted by migrant Mexican parents. Named Hernan Guerras, this version of Superman is a bit arrogant because of the difficulties he endures in his upbringing, 

Cut to the present. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are based at the Tower of Justice. Unlike the regular versions, these characters are ruthless when it comes to punishing bad guys.

The government, headed by President Amanda Waller (Penny Johnson Jerald) is not willing to take any steps to challenge the Justice Leaguers.

Trouble starts for our characters, when leading scientists are killed off one by one by unidentified assassins with the specific purpose of framing Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The victims include Dr Victor Fries (Mr Freeze), Ray Palmer (Atom) and Silas Stone.

The public's hatred of the Justice League increases, thanks to the media campaign run by reporter Lois Lane (Paget Brewster). President Waller is forced to execute “Project FairPlay”, which is a brainchild of Lex Luthor (Jason Isaacs). Lex has always been wary of Superman and has put plans in place to neutralize him and his colleagues, should they go rogue.

Are the heroes able to prove their innocence? Who is out to frame them? What happens when Waller initiates FairPlay?

I would recommend the readers to check out the movie for the answers.

The story is credited to Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett, both of whom have worked on some of the best DC Animated projects including Superman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Animated Series.

Like these classic shows, the movie also delves deep into the lead characters. Each of the DC Trinity characters get an extensive back story.

Considering that this is an animated superhero movie, the script manages to hold our attention for the most part, until the mystery is resolved. Kudos to Bruce and Alan for the excellent story and screenplay. 

The animation is done in Bruce Timm style which is refreshing after all the anime and other styles that have dominated animation in the recent past.

The action sequences are executed very well, especially the last one between Supes and the bad guys which is exceptional. The last 20 minutes has non-stop action and successfully combines great character moments and action beats.

This is classic DC Comics and a must watch for fans of Supes, Bats and Wonder Woman.

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Check out the trailer below:

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Image Sources: DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Premiere 

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