Escape to The Movies: "True Grit"

"Intermission" sez Happy New Year!

Plugged

"Extra Credits" tossed me a plug. Thanks, guys.

It's a good episode, too:

Big Picture: "A Guy Named Joe"

Have Marvel *AND* Warner/DC's movie plans been revealed and/or challenged... in Albuquerque?

Hey there! Now that we've all survive The Holiday, here's a new one from the "Probably-Nothing-But-Maybe-Everything" file...

AICN has confirmed that a local newspaper, The Albuquerque Journal, ran a story Christmas Eve about some New Mexico area filmming going on for "The Avengers." The print-only version of the story offhandedly - as though the writer believed it to already be common-knowledge - described the film's plot... and if what they printed is true (unsourced and as-yet unconfirmed) it's not only a HUGE reveal for "Avengers" but could also be an impending preview of the all-time biggest, longest-running "feud" between comics' biggest companies spilling over into Hollywood.

Article and possible-spoilage HERE, details after the jump:


Okay. The article describes the movie thusly: "'The Avengers" script will blend 'Iron Man', 'Thor', and 'Captain America: The First Avenger' story lines as the Avengers battle with two alien races, the Skrulls and the Kree."

For those unfamiliar: The Skrulls and The Kree are aliens in the vein of Original Star Trek (think Klingons and Vulcans, roughly) who both started out in Fantastic Four but quickly became "everybody's problem" universe-wide. Skrulls are oldschool pulp-style Little Green Men (though sometimes not so little) who can shape-shift to disguise themselves as people or animals; Kree are super-advanced and look mostly human, save that the "important" ones come in blue. The two races are in a state of perpetual intergalactic war, which infrequently spills-over onto Earth. Such a spill-over was the subject of the first major multi-issue Avengers epic, "The Kree-Skrull War." (Which you can find in trade for not much cash here and there, and is a great "intro to superhero epics" book, incidentally.)

The Skrulls being in the movie wouldn't be a huge surprise. They're THE big alien-invader threat in Marvel continuity, and a (significantly-less-interesting) version of them were the "big bads" of the first volumes of "The Ultimates" - the grim n' gritty Avengers reworking that's purportedly been serving as a rough outline (though thankfully not in terms of design or characterization) for Avengers movie-setup. They also typically figure in the backstory of That POSSIBLE SPOILER from "Captain America" that was shown to Comic-Con audiences. FWIW, I'm very much "with" the school of thought that says a huge threat in the vein of an alien invasion would be the best concievable basis for the world's first cross-continuity superhero movie-epic; so I'd love to see The Skrulls.

But this is the first I've heard anyone ever mention The Kree being in any movie. There's a reason for that: They haven't been particularly "important" for years. So why drag them into what's already a filled-to-bursting project? Other than to get free-press by giving people like me nerdgasms, I mean.

Well, I can think of at least TWO. You may want to get comfy...

The Kree's main connection to the Marvel Universe is through the character of Captain Marvel - actually a Kree warrior named Mar-Vell (yes, really.) Captain Marvel is unique among longrunning Marvel characters in that his books have remained in publication consistently despite the fact that he's never been very popular - the Jim Starlin's work on the character in the 70s and 80s was excellent and attained a cult following, but that's about it. So why does he still exist at all? Trademark protection.

Short Version: In the 40s, Fawcett Comics published books built around an incredibly popular character also called Captain Marvel. How popular was he? At the time, he was MUCH more popular than his predecessor, Superman (fun fact: Captain Marvel, aka The Big Red Cheese, could actually fly, instead of merely jumping high, before Superman could.) In fact, it's been argued (rather persuasively) that the character would've remained bigger than Superman right up to today... except that DC Comics sued Fawcett (and many others) arguing that various superheroes were ripoffs of Superman. Fawcett lost, stopped published Captain Marvel books and ultimately went out of business. In the 60s, Marvel Comics noted that the now-defunct Fawcett's trademark on the (still-recognizable) name "Captain Marvel" had run out; and they quickly created the Mar-Vell character in order to snap it up.

Okay, Maybe Not-So-Short Version: In the 70s, DC bought the publication rights to Fawcett's characters and added them to their universe, creating a copyright-law boondoggle: While DC owns the copyright on the Marvel Family characters, Marvel owns the Captain Marvel name (for legal reasons I don't fully grasp, DC can call them Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel etc. in dialogue inside the books, but can't use the word "marvel" on the covers or ANY advertising or merchandise) - meaning that for almost 30 years DC has owned one of the most potentially-profitable superhero characters ever created (seriously, read up on his mythos. Captain Marvel is a family-blockbuster waiting to happen) but are effectively banned from promoting or advertising him. Instead, the "franchise" is marketed under the much less marketing-friendly name "Shazam!," reffering both to a wizard who gives Captain Marvel his powers and a magic-word that activates them, while Marvel Comics must continually publish some form of a "Captain Marvel" character in their own universe in order to prevent the trademark from lapsing back to DC.

Anyway, over the last few years Warners/DC has been getting more aggressive about promoting their Captain Marvel outside of the comics, most-notably in a truly awesome Justice League episode and a recent DVD Movie. And they've been trying to get a movie off the ground for years. If they did, this long-standing "fight" over the name "Captain Marvel" goes Hollywood: Even if the posters have to call it "Something Something of Shazam!" or whatever, a big hit movie could re-establish The Big Red Cheese as the One True Captain Marvel at least as the buying public is concerned - making Mar-Vell even more irrelevant than he already was.

BUT! If The Kree were to actually turn up in "Avengers" - or any Marvel Films project, really - that could potentially mean they're looking to get their Captain Marvel into theaters first. Is this an indicator of that? Could Marvel Studios be looking to cock-block Warners/DC by slipping Mar-Vell into "Avengers?" It'd certainly be an amusing turn of events.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

Mar-Vell also had a distaff counterpart (aka "girl version"), Ms. Marvel, who turned out to be more popular than him and has become an Avengers-family fixture over the last decade and change thanks to a revival by fans-turned-writers. Quick primer: Mar-Vell's human ladyfriend Carol Danvers gets Mar-Vell style superpowers from a Kree-related accident and becomes what amounts to a Marvel-version of Wonder Woman. For the longest time she was mostly remembered for a truly asinine story in Avengers #200 where she was kidnapped, raped and impregnated with a clone of her supervillain rapist - which then speed-aged into an adult that she fell in love with (really); and for being the character whom power-absorbing X-Men villainess-turned-hero Rogue took her flight and strength powers from.

Marvel has been promoting the hell out of a restored-to-proper-stature (they've been trying to walk back from Avengers #200 for decades now) Ms. Marvel by making her a mainstay of the newer Avengers teams; and it seems to have paid off for them in terms of a saleable character. At this point the "Avengers" movie lineup is pretty-much a sausagefest save for Black Widow; so maybe The Kree are a way for famously female-friendly writer/director Joss Whedon to get another Marvel Lady into the franchise? That actually sounds more likely...

Of course, there's also the THIRD option: That the person writing the story for the Alburquerque Journal googled a bunch of Avengers-related stuff for the article and the Kree/Skrull stuff got mixed in by accident, have nothing actually to do with the movie, and I've just wasted a shitload of your and my time.

Happy post-holidays!

Escape to the Movies: "The Fighter"

Intermission is Xmas movies.

The Big Picture: "Continanity"

Worst. Idea. Ever.

hat-tip: BAD

EA Entertainment, one of the most-powerful (and most-despised) entities in the video-game world is getting into the movie business - setting up a feature film based around one of their popular game series.

"But Bob... EA mostly makes licensed sports titles at this point - how can they make a movie out of any of those!?"

Answer: "The Madden Curse." No, really.

For those of you lucky enough not to be dialed-in to the annual spectacle of EA's yearly raking-in of full-priced profit off what amounts to a roster update, every year a new NFL player is selected to grace the cover of "Madden NFL." As one would expect from this unholy mashup of hardcore-gaming and hardcore-sports-fanaticism, a whole mythology has sprung up around what the cover appearance does to a player's "luck" - specifically, people think Madden cover-spots are "cursed" and that career-diminishing disaster will strike those unlucky enough to be chosen.

According to The Wrap, that's where the movie comes in: A "former Madden video-game champion" (so... a gamer as opposed to an actual player?) comes out of retirement because somehow HIS image has wound up somewhere on the box, and "the curse" is now coming for him. Apparently, it's a comedy.

Joy.

Is THIS the story of the Spidereboot?

Comicbookmovie has what most are calling a not-terribly-reliable post up supposedly outlining the Spider-Man Reboot. Hopefully phony, because it's pretty terrible - reading like nothing so much as John Byrne's "Spider-Man: Chapter One" debacle.

Details (potential spoilers - if they can be called that) after the jump...

The important stuff, briefly:

- No described "origin" scene, but it's a reboot anyway: high-school setting, new status-quo, loads of flashbacks adding to the backstory, but he's already Spider-Man as it opens.

- One "named" baddie, Lizard, but references and teases about others. Nels Van Adder and Norman Osborn are onhand but not "powered" as yet.

- New "mission statement" for Spider-Man involving solving cold-cases.

- Flashback-driven "B-Story" involving, as reported previously, Peter Parkers dead parents. The piece is vauge, but they seem to be either spies, cops or some sort of activists.

- Flashbacks and sequel-tease finale set up Osborn as already being the "man behind the curtain" of all the badness, much like he's been over the past decade of comic continuity.

- Y'know that stupid, ill-advised "twist" they always end up adding to hero/villain relationships like in Burton's Batman, Daredevil, Spider-Man 3 etc that NEVER works? Yeah, it pulls a version of that.

All or most of this is almost-certainly fake... but whaddaya want, it's a slow news week.

Don't Ask Don't Tell Repealed

It's a Christmas miracle! Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats actually did something!

The bill still needs to be signed by the President, after which there will be a (likely lengthy) process of the administration's military leadership "certifying" that servicepeople will not be unduly effected by it (read: if you're in the army/navy/etc you'll be taking a tedious "sensitivity training" course and checking off some paperwork sometime next year) and after THAT 60 day waiting period - but eventually it will be, for the first time in American history, possible for gay and lesbian citizens to serve openly in the armed forces...

...you know, like they do almost everywhere ELSE in the civilized world. Hey, America? Remember when we used to do this stuff early!?

Three things stick out about this to me:

1. John McCain, you're cool-points are hereby taken away. You don't get the be the one decent Republican anymore.

2. Joe Lieberman... it seriously kills me to have to say this, given how long I've had to count you as very close to a literal enemy... but you did good here. You may take a small portion of the cool-points formerly belonging to your friend Senator McCain - subject to immediate revocation the second you open your mouth about video games again, of course.

3. It looks like maybe Scott Brown isn't going to run for president in 2012, after all. Brown is the Republican senator from Massachusetts who made big news by sweeping into Ted Kennedy's former seat. He did so partly by feigning in the direction of the make-believe "libertarians" in the Tea Party, then promptly having absolutely nothing to do with them the minute he won. It's been widely assumed he's planning a presidential run in the future, and that he may opt to do it sooner than later if Victoria Kennedy (Ted's widow) challenges him for the seat next election.

What's significant about that is that any smart political operator (and Brown, an ambitious guy, has plenty of those working for him) knows that A.) any gay-rights victory is going to fuel MASSIVE outrage in the Republicans' religious-nutcase base and B.) any Republican candidate who wants to make it out of the primaries needs said religious-nutcases to like him. So either Brown (who's made no secret of his social-liberalism) is hopelessly optimistic about the likely relative-intelligence of voters two years from now OR he's gonna bide his time and let his good buddy Mitt Romney be the "RINO" that Palin and Huckabee team up to curb-stomp in the 2012 primary, thus ensuring a teabagger-approved candidate and a 2nd term for Obama.

Jessica Jones to TV?

Sez Variety, Marvel/ABC are turning Brian Bendis' seminal new-millenium mature-audiences Marvel series "Alias" into a TV series. For obvious reasons, it's been retitled "AKA Jessica Jones."

This is actually really interesting... but a betting man would have to lay money against it actually working out.


Okay, here's the thing: The keyword when talking about Marvel or DC characters, even "sideline" ones like Jessica Jones, is insularity. Continuity-driven "universe" comics are insular to the point that certain characters can only exist within them.

Quick example: Batman works on his own. You can yank his origin, m.o. and "look" out of connection to anything else in his or anyone else's books and "Batman: The Concept" is still unique and holds up. On the other hand, The Punisher - demonstrably - doesn't. Taken on his own - devoid of connection to anything else in the Marvel Universe - Punisher is just Mack Bolan in a funny shirt, another one of a thousand wronged-urban-vigilantes clogging up the cineplex and Popular Fiction shelf. What makes Punisher interesting as a concept is putting someone like that in the Superhero realm; having a no-nonsense gun-toting vigilante suddenly show up in a world where crimefighting otherwise takes the form of guys in colorful spandex bonking crooks on the head and dropping them off at Police HQ. He's a genre-commentary character. Metafiction.

So is Jessica Jones.

For the uninitiated, the hook of "Alias" has Jones as a minor/mostly-forgotten (re: retconned into existance) Silver Age superheroine who quit the biz after a particularly horrific encounter with a supervillain (kidnapping, imprisonment, sexual-assault and mind-rape - "Alias" was a mature-audiences-but-still-in-continuity book) who presently works as a private eye. It was a damn good book, and she's remained a pretty solid character over the last decade in a broad story-arc of her "re-integrating" into the costumed-heroine life.

In other words, she's another genre-immigrant a'la Punisher: "What's it like for a standard-issue (if gender-inverted) Spillane-style bitter/jaded/self-hating/scarred gumshoe character to operate in the same world as Spider-Man etc?" That's pretty much the whole appeal of the book: Having this more "real" character type as a fresh perspective on the usual superhero stuff, and alternately seeing various superpowered types filling the roles of "old buddy," "best galpal," "last-minute booty-call," etc. Take all the Marvel Universe trappings away and, however well written, and there's not much to differentiate her from, say, Olivia Benson or Kate Beckett, just off the top of my head?

So the question becomes: Exactly how far do they carry this? Would a network "go-ahead" with a prime-time series built around a hard-bitten, all-business female lead... who's prone to bumping into (and on semi-regular speaking-terms with) caped-crusaders, aliens and all manner of costumed oddities? ABC/Disney and Marvel are under the same roof now, so they could do it and even use (some) of the "real ones" if they did... but would they? "I'm looking into an assault case. Suspects include an unemployed construction worker, a car salesman and a 7'10 Russian hitman dressed like a rhinocerous." I'd watch it, but would it ever get to air? Or will it just be a Marvel-branded "lady detective" show?

Escape to the Movies: "Tron: Legacy"

"Intermission" cover the Thor trailer.

Water For Elephants

"I'm-sure-it's-profound-in-context title?" Check. "Old-man-recalls-golden-age-of-bygone-cultural-relic" plot structure? Check. Young man of promise fleeing for "real world" in quirky/semi-seedy profession? Check. Love triangle with broken-blossom and possessive husband? Check. Best actor in ensemble playing the bad guy? Check. "Based on the acclaimed novel?" Check. This is what people mean when they say Oscar Bait is it's own genre.


Question for people who read the book: Is the lead guy mute and/or non-speaking? Or are they avoiding Pattinson's (up to this point, anyway) famously-wooden delivery by simply not showing him talking hardly AT ALL in the movie he STARS IN.

Y'know what's kind-of funny? If Waltz wasn't in the trailer, it would totally look like the hero was fighting over the girl with the horse.

Introducing: "The Game AntiThinker"

Just FYI, trying something a little different over at the other show:

Berlin man CURED of HIV

hat-tip: Gizmodo

You may wish to take note of your immediate surroundings, as this may end up being one of those "where were you when _____?" dates. Doctors in Germany have, evidently, cured a man of HIV.

The technique? In brief, they obliterated his entire immune system with chemotherapy, they replaced it with a new one using stem cells from a donor who had been born with nigh-total immunity to HIV. It's a radical procedure, which most patients don't survive, but this guy did.

I was in my house, editing a video, incidentally.

Tree of Life trailer

A NEW Terrence Mallick movie?? But it hasn't even been a decade yet! Man, he's really pickin' up the pace...



Story supposedly concerns dual narratives; one spanning the life of a typical American family, the other spanning the life of Earth - as in, the planet. Yeah. So, "The Fountain" but grounded in early-60s Suburbia. He's supposed to have ordered up a bunch of FX sequences involving Dinosaurs... wonder why they aren't in the trailer? Don't tease me, Mallick...

Favreau off "Iron Man 3"

Yeah, I know I'm late. Busy time of year.

Anyway, as everyone already knows by now, Jon Favreau has bowed-out of directing "Iron Man 3."

Certainly not great news, but hardly surprising - both sides were very upfront about not getting along during the production of the sequel (re: Marvel Films insisting on the plot being reworked in order to stress Avengers/Thor/Cap continuity connections) - and probably the best thing for most involved: Favreau already has two big actioners on his plate with "Cowboys & Aliens" and Disney's big tentpole "The Magic Kingdom" (think "Night at The Museum," but in DisneyLand); while Marvel will hardly find itself short of less-expensive action directors looking to take a swing at it.

What it DOES highlight is the now-apparent fact that Marvel has decided to run their movie studio more-or-less the same way you run a comic book company; i.e. the policy seems to be: "These are OUR characters. You (directors, writers, actors, etc) can play around with them to an extent - but at the end of the day we have an editorial plan about continuity and where they need to end up."

On the one hand, you can see how that'd be stifling to some filmmakers. On the other hand... maybe it's the best way to handle project(s) like this, especially given the "fandom first" approach Marvel keeps taking on these things. They seem more interested in getting movie versions of the comics onscreen, as opposed to having their material serving as "outlines" for filmmakers to make new entities out of, basically. I mean... imagine if someone from, say, Hasbro had been able to veto Michael Bay in the planning stages for "Transformers?"

The Big Picture: "Feeding Edge"

Another science episode. Enjoy!

Arrr!

Below, trailer for "Pirates of The Carribean: On Stranger Tides;" the film that will answer the burning question: Can the franchise survive without that last sliver of pretense that it's anything other than a semi-annual showcase for Depp's Jack Sparrow schtick?

THOR. Trailer. Watch.

It's mostly the footage from Comic-Con with the more spoilery stuff taken out and VASTLY improved FX and color-correction, but I'm definitely feelin' it:

The absolute best thing of it, as far as I'm concerned, is that Mjolnir (the hammer) comes off both very plausible and very badass as a weapon - it can't be easy to make what's basically a "boomerang hammer" work in live-action, but Brannagh etc seem to be pulling it off. I'm psyched to see how it plays to a theater.

Well played, Marvel. Now bring on Cap!

Escape to the Movies: "Chronicles of Narnia - Voyage of The Dawn Treader"

FUN FACT: Most real lions are not secretly Jesus.

"Intermission" corresponds.

It's Hammer Time (sorry...)

The expectation is that the first trailer for "Thor" will be in front of "Tron: Legacy" next week, but Marvel has already let the first teaser poster out of the bag.

The big question hovering over "Thor" has been how, exactly, they plan on selling the most bizzarely-premised superhero yet put to film (in brief: The Viking God of Thunder comes to Earth, takes up crimefighting, makes friends with Iron Man and Captain America) to a mainstream audience that generally hasn't heard of him. Whereas Hulk and Captain America are already familiar (or recognizable, at least) and Iron Man is fairly self-explanatory ("Oh, he's got armor. I get it."), Thor is Lee/Kirby nerd-weirdness personified: "Wouldn't it be awesome if creatures from Norse Mythology showed up here and now and started busting stuff up?" is an instant-win pitch... to the audience that's already going to see this. How do you get everyone else excited? The answer appears to be: gradually.

The start black background says "whatever this is, it's serious." The high-contrast black and white says "hey, weren't Sin City and 300 awesome!?" The eye-line direction from the head (beard, Jesus-hair) and armored-arm says "LOTR, Braveheart, Gladiator, 300 again" ending in the hammer that says "wait... he has a HAMMER? That's... new." And then the color-popped red cape says "Superman? Oh! It's a superhero... with armor and a hammer? So... Super-Gladiator?" The hope, one assumes, is for people to be mildly intrigued enough to go "Ooooh, that's what that was!" when they see the trailer not long afterwards.

untransformative

Below, the teaser for "Transformers 3: Dark of The Moon." (seriously?)

So... I'm confused. Why is the music telling me that Apollo 11 finding Transformers on The Moon is some kind of big surprise? I'm not going to go back and watch it to check, but didn't they establish that The Decepticons' spaceship had been crashed up there for some time in the 2nd one? And wasn't the Transformers already being "among us" for a few thousand years the "big idea" of the first one?



So why the big "BUM BUM BUMMMMM!!!!" on the unconscious robot? None of the movie Transformers look anything like themselves, so it's not like it can be a fanservice character-reveal thing ("he" seems to have old-man features, so fans are already speculating on Alpha Trion or Unicron, of course.)

"Justice" Is Coming (UPDATED)

hat-tip: io9 and Bleeding Cool

How utterly, perversely, delightfully, horrifyingly-wonderfully appropriate is it that - a mere day after it was re-affirmed that "Green Lantern" would be holding fast to Warner Bros. resolute continuity-phobia by deleting a planned Superman cameo - we now have visual evidence of... this?

Yes, "Justice League: A Hardcore Parody." Not a hoax. Not a dream. Not an imaginary story. Possibly NSFW pics and further observations after the jump...

Two things - okay, two other things - jump out at me immediately about this:

Firstly, the obvious: Because WB/DC simply doesn't have the balls (sorry) and/or vision for it, this will now go down (sorry) as by-default the BEST live-action movie version of "Justice League" ever. Seriously, mark it: The first time we'll have ever seen Superman, Batman, Robin, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman chilling in the Hall of Justice (Watchtower?) in live-action is in a porno spoof. Hell, also by default: "Wonder Woman's" outfit (anybody recognize the performer?) is now the best live-action version of itself, too.

Second: The most surprising thing, for me, is that it's being billed as a "Justice League" spoof rather than a "SuperFriends" spoof. Is that officially the way the "mainstream" knows this arrangement of characters now. Again, memo to WB/DC: This franchise is well-known enough that they're making major-market porn of it - pull the damn trigger already.

Third... yeah, I've gotta say it: The lack of at least one more female character here is kind of a letdown, no? (see update) Obviously, there'll be more "too" this than what appears to be this one bit (it looks like a relatively expensive production, and those are usually longish - sorry) but still; "straight" porn without any girl/girl is like pizza without crust. Hell, this is probably the ONLY genre where it wouldn't be difficult to cast Power Girl...

UPDATE!

Earlier report, also from Bleeding Cool, has the cast list. I won't post the whole thing, but suffice it to say it's something of an "all-star cast" if you follow the industry - or, rather, have a familiarity with the myriad entries in the "cheeky sex industry documentary" subgenre of HBO etc. productions. That's Evan Stone (late of the "accidental football broadcast" scandal) in the Batman getup, for example.

Also onhand but not (yet) pictured: Jenna Presley as Lois Lane, Amber Rayne as Harley Quinn (not the live-action debut of the character, thanks to the "Birds of Prey" show), Tommy Gunn as "The General" and, yes, RON JEREMY (!) as THE PENGUIN (!!!) Catwoman and Zatanna round out the female cast.

This may end up being hysterical. The weak-ass title needs to go, though - or maybe it needs a subtitle... "Crisis on Intimate Earths?" "DP One Million?" "52... +17?" "Kingdom Come?" Anyone else got any?

The Big Picture: "A Nerd By Any Other Name"

innevitable

The moment Summit decided it was going to bite the bullet and release Jodie Foster's "The Beaver" - aka "The Mel Gibson Unlikely Comeback Vehicle," it was all but innevitable that folks would do THIS to it's trailer...



...which doesn't make it any less hysterical. Well done.

(Watch the real trailer HERE for comparison.)

Why Political Movie Journalism Sucks: Example #1,349,227

Here's the tempest-in-a-teapot quote attributed to Liam Neeson by the Daily Mail, pertaining to how - if at all - he (Neeson) "squares" the Christian background underlying the "Narnia" movies - in which he voices Aslan, essentially Christ in the form of a talking lion - with his own outlook:

"Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries." (emphasis mine.)

Pretty cut-and-dry, right? And note the specific use of the qualifier "for me" (twice in the actual article) to specify that he's speaking of his own interpretation of the character as opposed to projecting onto the books or their author.

So... how was this "reported" by Andrew Breitbart's right-wing "Big Hollywood" site?

"LIAM NEESON: C.S. LEWIS WAS WRONG, NARNIA BOOKS ALSO ABOUT MOHAMMAD"

Lesson over.

Will There Be Multiple Villains in The SpideReboot?

I'll say one thing for Sony Pictures' ill-advised, deeply-unnecessary "Spider-Man" reboot: It's actually been fun for everyone to get to play detective again. Feels like old times.

Some of you may be too young to recall this (or you're old enough but didn't care, either one works) but prior to - well... prior to "Lord of The Rings," pretty much - movie studios didn't go kissing movie-blogger ass when it came to "geek" projects. In fact, they hid them from view as much as possible, generally regarding fandom as a collective blight whose concerns had to be dodged and "dealt with" in order to get a finished product to The Masses. There were no "accidental leaks" to geek sites, no info-dumps at Comic-Con, no nuthin'. The reporting on upcoming films was more like crowd-sourced crimesolving - fans and "spies" on sites like AICN or Corona pouring over blurry set-photos and scraps of casting-call sheets to try and determine what was going on.

Well, given that Sony seems to know they've got a guilty-until-proven-innocent item on their hands, it makes sense they've been old-school tight-lipped about it. Hence, everyone's been dusting off the magnifying glasses for old-fashioned gumshoe work - with a Google-age twist, of course....


Take, for example, this Hollywood Reporter story about the casting of Peter Parker's parents. A blurb item to anyone else, but to seasoned film-geek detectives its... well... still a blurb item, yeah - but a blurb item that MIGHT shed light on what form the film may take.

See... it doesn't really come up much inside or outside of the comics, but in addition to all his other issues Peter Parker IS technically an orphan - his birth parents died when he was a baby, leaving him in the care of (Uncle) Ben Parker and his wife May. The obvious question: WHY bother casting established actors to play two characters who depart the story entirely while the title character is still in diapers? It's not like they have a bunch of extra money on this thing  (it's an $85 million "quickie" at last count) to blow on fancy cameos... so is this an indication of some sort of radical reworking of the origin story?

FWIW, in the original continuity i.e. when they were first introduced, Peter's parents turned out to have been (I shit you not) high-level top-secret international super-spies framed for treason and killed in the field. I honestly have no recollection as to whether or not that's been retconned away yet, but if THAT'S in this new movie I am prepared to change my entire anticipatory stance right-here, right-now.

Slightly more-likely scenario: The (very) early claims that most of the reboot's story was being pulled from "Ultimate Spider-Man" still hold true. "Ultimate" Peter Parker's dead-dad was a famous scientist whose miracle cancer-cure ultimately becomes - sigh... Ultimate Venom.

Brief sidebar: This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine - when someone is adapting some long-running franchise and decides to "streamline" things by cramming everyone's backstories together into a ginormous coincidence-ball. See: Joker killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, Dr. Doom was up in space with The Fantastic Four, Kingpin killed Jack Murdock, despite history being altered James T. Kirk randomly "bumps into" every single important buddy he's suppsoed to have, etc. This happens all the damn time, and it's ALWAYS fucking annoying as hell.

Incidentally, Ultimate The Lizard is also tied-in to Ultimate Eddie Brock's transformation into Ultimate Venom. Because everything ties-in to Venom. Because the primary goal when making any translation of "Spider-Man" into another medium or continuity is always, for some reason, to move more merch surrounding a middling 90s/"Dark Age" evil-doppleganger character who hasn't been interesting since his first arc ended. Egh.

But the REAL "zuh?" in the article turned out to be the casual dropping of a secondary villain name: Irrfan Kahn as "Van Atter." Who? Well, quick-digging by responders at Chud, BadassDigest and others turned up the likely answer in record time: Nels Van Adder, aka "The Proto-Goblin." A forgotten one-and-done baddie from a "flashback" story, the idea is he was the gineau-pig for the serum that later turned Norman Osborn into The Green Goblin. It made him look like Carnage with a blonde wig, because this was the 90s and every "creature" character wound up looking "like Venom/Carnage but with a ______." Coincidence? Someone's idea of a cutesy fanboy reference?

Assuming for a moment that the most-likely scenario (cute, ultimately-meaningless in-joke) doesn't pan out, this would be my... nerdy "theorizing," I guess:

1.) Peter's dad, Curt Connors, Van Atter will scientists/employees/whatever whose work and/or backstories are connected to the various experiments/accidents that ultimately create Lizard and Spider-Man. I wouldn't be surprised to see some version of Eddie Brock in there, too (Ultimate Eddie Brock's dad, Ultimate Edward Brock Sr., worked with Ultimate Peter's Dad on creating Ultimate Venom, so there's that.)

2.) Norman Osborn will either be a character in the film or frequently mentioned, and whatever stuff Connors/Van Atter/whoever are doing that turns him/them/whoever into Lizard/whatever will be heavily implied to set-up Green Goblin as the heavy of the sequel, a'la "that new guy with a flair for the theatrical" from the end of "Batman Begins."

3.) Whatever else may or may not happen, Venom WILL be teased, referenced, alluded-to and all-but assured to be "coming if you let us have a sequel or two!" That one isn't even a guess, it's a damn innevitability.

Eh... anyway, we'll know more once they start shooting the bloody thing.

Escape to the Movies: "Black Swan"

She kicks high.

New INTERMISSION as well.

a political cartoon

Why? Because there's no smug, hacky, creatively-bankrupt art form I won't try my hand at, that's why.

Pass around as you see fit.

Oh, and for the smarties: I quite aware that the "Gadsden Flag" dates prior to 1776, and that it wasn't flown at the Boston Tea Party, and that said original Tea Party was in 1773.

Creationists to build $150 Million monument to stupidity in Kentucky

Because, apparently, a 30-story billboard reading "WE ARE TOO DUMB TO LIVE" would be too ostenstatious...

Incidentally, YES this is getting built via tax breaks, to the tune of over $37 Million. The outcry from Tea Party conservatives about this massive waste of taxpayer money has been... um... oh, wait. There hasn't been any.

Huh.

BREAKING: "Uncharted" movie to infuriate "Uncharted" fans! Rest of world to remain indifferent!

One step forward, two steps back.

As I may have mentioned, the prospects for David O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg's "Uncharted" movie are chiefly hampered by the issue of an "Uncharted" movie being a very bad - to say nothing of breathtakingly-redundant - idea. But it seems they've found a way around it: DON'T base the movie around the "Indiana-Jones-if-he-was-a-total-douche" premise of the games. Well, that's kinda-sorta-maybe good news...
Now for the bad news. The premise they'll be replacing it with: "What-if-the-guy-from-National-Treasure-was-a-total-douche."  Nathan Drake will apparently be reimagined as one of an extended family of well-connected treasure-protectors, with Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci reportedly being sought to sign on as Drake's rascally dad and uncle.

Sez Russell about the film's setup:
"This idea really turns me on that there's a family that's a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities ... [a family] that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice," he said."

 Well, that ought to go over well...

Culture War 2.0? Gee, who could've seen THAT coming...

From now on, when people ask me "Bob, how come a guy like you who calls himself something close to a libertarian is so dismayed by the rise of the Tea Party and the not-unrelated return of Republicans to power in the U.S.Senate?"; THIS is my answer.

I anxiously await the explanation of how getting rid a video-piece from 1987 that's been hanging without incident in the National Gallery since October became a vital component of improving the economy, or stimulating jobs, or whatever it's being called this time...

Incidentally, I'm sure someone is champing at the bit to dress me down about how this is "about" wasteful government funding of the arts, NEA, NPR, etc. Please save your breath. Whether or not The State should be funding creative works is a cute little freshman year poly-sci debate topic, but here in the real world we know there will ALWAYS be some level of state-funded art/media. It's always existed, it always WILL exist, pretending otherwise is right up there with privatized-sidewalks in the realm of psuedo-Objectivist fantasies that will never come true. Deal with it.

This isn't about art-funding, it's about the mask dropping sooner than expected on the "New" American Right. For over a year now people have been proclaiming that the "new" conservative-uprising was about taxes, spending, government-size, etc. It's NOT about religious-idiocy this time. It's NOT about God Guns n' Gays this time. It's NOT about fetuses and family-values this time. It's NOT just the Angry White Men again. It's NOT just the same backward-looking superstitious anachronistic flat-earther creationist anti-intellectualists as before sneaking back in with a fresh coat of paint.

Yes it is.

Welcome back to the Bad Old Days. Can't wait to see what The Faithful will get up to next...

The Big Picture: "The Devil & Mr. Parker"

"Turn Off The Dark" reveals itself... kinda.

The first write-ups from preview-showings of "Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark;" aka the 2nd most-likely-to-suck impending Spider-Man project - 3rd being "Death of (Ulimate) Spider-Man" and 1st being you-know-what - are starting to come in. A growing consensus: Not-awful, so long as you assume a certain level of self-parody.... though it sounds like they haven't come close to solving their infamous technical problems. Certain details sound garaunteed to give serious comic fans heart-attacks, but I'll say it right upfront... other details make it sound like something that might actually be pretty interesting as bloated spectacle goes. Not the same thing as "good," mind you, but it's worth remembering that while they are indeed perfect living-caricatures of pretentious twits, Julie Taymor, Bono and Edge are really good at what they do.

IO9's writeup handily sums up a lot of what I'm hearing about it (note: details may or may not qualify as SPOILERS to whatever degree you care.) AICN has more in-depth stuff, too. Discussion of said details after the jump:

So... yeah. These are the (supposed) elements that made me stand up and say "well, they certainly aren't phoning it in, at least;" in no particular order:

It's a meta-narrative... about Fan-Fiction.
That seems to be the biggest "huh?" of the overall production coming out of these previews: The story is structured around what may be called a "Geek Chorus" (oh, lord...) of fanboys brainstorming a Spider-Man story. That's actually kind of ingenious, though you've got to be a bit wary that they'll be some sort of obnoxious strawman caricatures - a "pre-emptive strike" against the people most likely to dislike the production on principle.

Swiss Miss = Red Herring?
Apparently, universally-derided new-for-the-show villainess "Swiss Miss" is an intentional bit of self-satire on the "Geek Chorus" attempt at inventing a character for the show.

Swarm is in it.
If true, this would be enough to get me in there all on it's own. For the unfamiliar, Swarm is a Marvel villain. He is made of bees. Yes, made-of. He doesn't dress like a bee, he's not a giant bee, he doesn't control bees, he's made of BEES. He is also a Nazi.

It's mythological.
Greek mythological figure Arachne, from whom spiders derive their scientific name, apparently turns up as a celestial guide (she may or may not literally BE "the spider" from whom Peter Parker recieves his powers) and mid-air romantic "hookup" for Spidey. This is the sort of thing you'd put in a PARODY of what a Julie Taymor "Spider-Man" production might look like.

Alright, sign me up. Assuming they make all the tech actually WORK, this is still supposed to open in about six weeks.

no words... should've sent a poet...

Hat-tip: Kotaku

Jenni Kallberg, aka Pixelninja, is half-Swedish, half-Japanese, and recreationally cosplays with alarming attention to detail as various video game heroines. That's not even a "triple-threat"... she's like the Turduken of hotness. Pictured at the right: Samus Aran. Yes, she also does the Varia Zero Suit.

...and here she is as Peach.

See her full gallery HERE.

Now, pardon me, I need a moment alone...

weird...

Didn't see that coming.

James Franco and Anne Hathaway, both expected to be Academy Award nominees themselves this year, have been selected to host the show.

Surface-wise, it has to be primarily seen as "youth re-branding" by The Academy - scooping up two actors more in the age, persona and career-phase one associates with the MTV Movie awards (Hathaway is a Disney-escapee branching out bigtime, Franco is basically the art-school-student-ironically-pretending-to-be-a-homeless-street-musician-to-stay-"in-the-real" of movie stars at this point) to headline what's increasingly seen as an older-audiences event.

What makes it more than a little unusual - and will come more to the forefront once the nominations solidify - is that both of them are very heavily-favored as serious contenders for awards themselves this year, he for "127 Hours" and she for "Love & Other Drugs." Sure, it "shouldn't" matter if the person hosting the show also wins if they gave the "best" performance... but everyone knows it will because "it'll look weird."

Honestly, I think that may be what The Academy is banking on, at least in-part: Deliberately going after a pair of likely nominees in order to generate interest via an "oh noes!! what's gonna happen!!??" drama to draw a bigger audience: "What if one of them wins!?" "GASP! What if they LOSE!? Will there be all kinds of bitterness to the jokes after that!" "GASP! What if only ONE of them wins!? Will the banter go all edgy!?"

Meh, it's an interesting choice either way. I don't think either of them are likely to actually win - "127 Hours" is pretty far outside The Academy's comfort-zone (plus Colin Firth is "due" and will be the frontrunner for his performance in "Dignified WWII-Era Upper-Class English Historical Drama #5,981") and Best Actress is looking like Natalie Portman's to lose at this point - but the "drama" probably will rope the People Magazine/"Dancing With The Stars" audience. On the brighter side, they're both fun - Franco is a real wild-card unafraid of playing chicken with his dignity, and I can certainly think of worse things to look at for four hours than Anne Hathaway...

RIP Irving Kershner

Irving Kershner, best known as the director of "The Empire Strikes Back," has died at age 87.

RIP Leslie Nielsen

Well, this sucks.

Leslie Nielsen had one of the most unconventional career paths of any actor. Born in 1926, the majority of his career was spent as a journeyman TV mainstay and character actor; with only the cult-classic "Forbidden Planet" in 1957 and "Tammy & The Bachelor" (which was very popular in it's day) in 1956 standing out; plus a turn as The Captain in the original "Poseidon Adventure."

All that changed in 1980, when the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker team cast him in "Airplane!" With the senatorial gravitas that made him a mainstay playing iron-jawed authority figures repurposed for comedic-deapan, he became the unlikliest comedy megastar of the 80s and 90s in the "Naked Gun" films; becoming synonymous with both the movie-parody genre and the Z.A.Z. films in-particular. He kept busy well into the New Millenium, and still had (at least) three films yet to be released when he passed away in his sleep this weekend. He was 84.

MST3K. Gamera. Collection.

Hat tip: Devin

I remain convinced that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" would have a MUCH larger present-day fanbase if it wasn't nearly impossible to see it without already being in search of it. The episodes were 2 hours long (with commercials) making it incredibly hard - but not impossible - to syndicate; but as the producers didn't actually own/license the films they riffed on (relying on the licensed-film catalogues of the cable channels the show aired on) a HUGE number of episodes can't even be released on DVD because the rights are spread out among so many different companies. Thusly, it's still a far-off dream of frustrated MiSTies everywhere to one day see Season Sets, or even a complete collection.

But as of yesterday, the wait will be a little bit easier; as five of the most sought-after episodes in the series' history finally return: MST3K: THE GAMERA COLLECTION.


YAAAAAYYYYY!!!

Not wholly unexpected - DVD outfit Shout! Factory (who've become to the Autumn Age of DVD what Anchor Bay was to the initial DVD Boom,) who own the DVD rights to MST3K, itself picked up the original "Gamera" movies and did a BIG release last year - prompting more than a few fandom-born campaigns to get them to do the MST3K episodes as well.

No word yet on release date or price, but still...

YAAAAAYYYYY!!!

Escape to The Movies: "Love & Other Drugs"

"Intermission" is about Green Lantern's trailer.

Wahlberg & Russell to waste year of lives, millions of dollars, on "Uncharted" movie

To the surprise of few and the joy of... someone, I'm assuming... Mark Wahlberg will rejoin his "Fighter" director, David O. Russell, in the incredibly unnecessary feature film adaptation of the "Uncharted" video games. For the uninitiated, "Uncharted" is a studiously "cinematic" (hence the "incredibly unnecessary" part) "Indiana Jones" knockoff. Wahlberg will take the lead role of Nathan Drake, the least-likable video game hero outside of Leisure-Suit Larry.

For those keeping track, this will mark Wahlberg's 3rd attempt at getting into the action-franchise rackett; following "Shooter" and "Max Payne."


I've already said my piece about the relative pointlessness of filmming "Uncharted," and I stand by my deep and bitter resentment at Nathan FUCKING Drake getting a proper movie before the nigh-endless line of more-deserving gaming icons, but at least it's interesting casting. Drake's monumental douchebaggery as a character comes from a "cool" obnoxiousness that's almost the total opposite of Wahlberg's usual near-comical earnestness - so maybe this is the first step toward making the character less hateful on the big screen.

Still not necessary, mind you, but less hateful. That's at least a start.

The Big Picture: "Once Upon A Time In The Future"

"Buffy" to join the reboot ranks

We're now approximately a little over a year and a half away from me being proven right about the wisdom behind "Spiderlight" (though it'll be an additional 2 to 5 years before many/most are willing to admit it...) and the "reboot" mini-trend is still ramping up. Next on the docket: Warner Bros. today announces that they're going ahead with a new "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie.

Without Joss Whedon involved. At all.



For those not "up" on how this all works behind the scenes, Whedon doesn't actually "own" Buffy. He wrote the original screenplay that was turned into a sort-of-okay movie back in 1992, but wasn't a fan of how it ended up. When given the opportunity to expand his concept into a TV series, he went for it and the rest is recent-history.Warners has been talking about doing another movie seperate from the show for years now, but apparently a "reimagining" pitch by a completely-unknown screenwriter named Whit Anderson, who thus far has offered up little solid information about the project other than the profession of being a "big fan" of the show and the now-mandatory namedropping of "Batman Begins" as a kind of preemptive defense of the reboot concept.

All in all, some really, really depressing news.

The story behind the story, of course, is that Warner Bros. is clearly still looking for a new stable cash-cow franchise. They've been able to rely on "Harry Potter" for a yearly garaunteed mega-hit for almost a decade now, and with that ship about to sail they've been scrambling for replacements. Hence, the sudden rush to get a Marvel Studios-style "machine" in place for the DC properties and now this.

Escape to the Movies: "Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1"

"Intermission" finishes off the discussion from last week.

This I can get behind

Conventional wisdom is beginning to coalesce that "The A-'Meh'-Zing Spider-Man" has, if nothing else, a better cast than it's predecessors. Conventional wisdom, obviously, does not know the difference between "better" and "more interesting;" but whatever. This was around the same point in the buildup that people started to think "Transformers" could concievably be good, too... but we'll all find out in 2012.

In any case, finally a piece of casting I can 100% say is pretty damn awesome. It says precisely jack about the rest of the production, but I think it's cool in and of itself - which, of course, can only mean that this will be the one that everyone else HATES: Denis Leary is Captain George Stacy, aka "Gwen's Dad."

I like it. Here's why:


Well, first off: I'm from Boston, so I'm sort of obligated to at least give Denis the benefit of the doubt on everything he does. But mainly, it's the first casting decision that actually seems to indicate an interesting character direction.

See, while Martin Sheen (Uncle Ben) and Sally Field (Aunt May) are both fine actors, their casting here simply REEKS of lazy, unimaginative thinking because we've seen them do these parts (Famous Quotation Reader and World's Greatest Mom, respectively) hundreds of times before. Contrast that with last time, where casting the same roles with veterans who were known but not "household names" (Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris) was an early clue that they were looking for performances.

Denis Leary, on the other hand, doesn't exactly take every role that comes along, isn't at the top of any agency's list and is far removed from the traditional image of Captain Stacy; which is an indicator that they have something interesting in mind for the character. Color me interested, in any case.

P.S. Let's not get into the Bill Hicks thing, huh?

Cowboys & Aliens

Yeah, that'll do.

Green Machine

Ladies and Gentleman, the (sort-of) live-action debut of the world's most-beloved color-oriented superhero NOT possessing a vagina... The Green Lantern:

Video after the jump (Blogger? Please fix this embed-code issue.) I like what I'm seeing. A lot:



I mean... could it be? A Warners/DC superhero movie that's not trying to pretend it's anything but a superhero movie? Bright and colorful, all the cosmic stuff and aliens and puffy-brained bad guys right up front, no tacit apology being made for how weird everything looks? It's about fucking time.

Yes, the CGI is obviously unfinished and they're trying to have it both ways with the tone (it wants to be a "funny" trailer and an "epic" trailer at the same time) but this is EXACTLY what they needed to turn the buzz around, i.e. a metric ton of "first looks" - The Ring, The Costume, Oa, Tomar Re, Kilowog, Abin-Sur, Sinestro, Hector Hammond ALL accounted for. Mission accomplished, fandom (probably) placated. NOW they need a "story trailer."

I maintain that part of the reason for the first "Iron Man's" surprise mega-success was that it had the best trailer EVER for a character most people had never heard of: It gave non-fans the ENTIRE first act and origin-story in condensed form: Awesome fun guy captured by Terrorists, makes a Robot-Suit to fight Terrorists, then makes BETTER Robot-Suit to fight MORE Terrorists. Boom. Ticket sold.

This, while solid, probably isn't gonna do that for people who don't already know who Green Lantern is. They need (and will probably "do" later) a trailer to give "regular" audiences a solid idea of what the Green Lantern Corps is, how the ring works, etc. Right now, if you're not already a fan, the takeaway from this trailer is: "likable actor can fly and shoot green stuff at aliens." Not bad... but it's not the "pre-awareness" that blockbusters are made of.

Big Picture: Who's Afraid of Captain America?

Max Bialystock has done it again!

Before you ask: Yes, that's supposed to be The Green Goblin. When people act incredulous at how protective comic-book fans get about costumes... THIS IS WHY.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the existance of the forthcoming "Spider-Man Musical" - directed by Julie Taymor with music by Bono and The Edge, no really - really does seem like something that can ONLY exist as a front for something else... or an outright CON, like in "The Producers."

But WHAT would the con be? Is someone at Sony funneling money into this to make "Spiderlight" look better by comparison (it's working...)? Is Marvel Studios trying to kill their own character's brand so they can buy his movie rights back cheaper? Does Julie Taymor, or maybe Bono, hate superhero movies and this is all an elaborate gamble to kill the genre off a'la "Batman & Robin?"

Vogue has an Annie Leibovtiz fashion shoot up based around the shows costumes, and they look... wow. Now, firstly, the whole premise of this shoot is stupid: Broadway stage-show costumes like these aren't meant to be viewed either this close up or static. But even taking that into account... Holy Crap.

In any case, here's a picture of thoroughly-useless, inexplicably-popular villain Carnage as he appears in the show...

If nothing else, will anyone who still hasn't come to term with The 90s sucking please just take a moment and drink that trainwreck in, at long last?

"Heh HEH! Alright!"

Dig this damn-near flawless "Unstoppable" spoof from SNL, built mostly on newbie Jay Pharoah's previously-lauded note-perfect, almost uncanny Denzel Washington impression:

Cat beats up two Alligators

CAPTION A: "World's Bravest Cat Defends World's Dumbest Humans from Alligator Attack."



CAPTION B: "Cat Selfishly Deprives Alligators of Meal, Humans of Darwin Award Victory."

So... who comes off WORST here? The two Alligators backing down from a fight with Garfield, Captain FlipFlops, the dumbshits letting their kid run over to the giant wild carnivores, or the guy filmming this spectacle?

Zombie Odyssey

#1 question/critique offered every film critic: "Why don't you make your own damn movie?"

My general response: Does PARTICIPATING in one count?



This was made back in 2004, directed by my friend Tim and co-starring myself and multiple other friends and aquaintances. My brother and I produced, edited and did the optical effects (no CGI) Kristen Juliano did the really, really impressive makeup. The basic idea is "The Odyssey" reworked as a Romero-style Zombie Apocalypse saga.

That's me with the axe, and Tim as the lead zombie. This is the first time a "full uncut" version of this has been online, thanks to YouTube's time extension of recent.

WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!!??

Wait... Disney is doing a new "Winnie The Pooh?" In traditional hand-drawn 2D? As a proper follow-up to - and in the same style as - "Many Adventures?"



How am I only learning this NOW!? Um... I mean, that is to say... "Oh. Interesting. I have vauge memories of having enjoyed that, as a lad..."

That's Peter Cullen returning as Eeyore, BTW, and Craig Ferguson as the new Owl. Tom Kenny (not heard) is the new Rabbit. Apparently, Disney is so confident in this they're opening it against the 2nd part of "Deathly Hallows" this coming Summer.

EDIT: I am informed that that's not Cullen as Eeyore, but rather Pixar animator/voice-actor Bud Luckey, a legendary figure to animation buffs for his 1970s "Sesame Street" shorts and the movie adaptation of Russell Hoban's "The Mouse & His Child."

"Green Lantern" looking... better

"Entertainment Tonight" has your first look at Ryan Reynolds in motion as Hal Jordan.

We'll all get a better look when a REAL trailer is almost-surely in front of "Harry Potter," but I took some screencaps for a (somewhat) closer inspection:



(See the clip and more after the jump)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RrBwKMxhtXQ

Pretty sure that's Kilowog at 00:26. Awesome.

First thing a lot of people are noticing: Either "Entertainment Weekly" got a really bad shot of him for the infamously poorly recieved "cover debut," or there's been some significant redesign since then because the CGI-suit costume looks A LOT better than it did previously: You can distinctly see the black (darker green?) arms and legs seperate from the green upper-torso, closer to the source material and more "superhero"-looking, and the "energy vein" thing doesn't seem to be constant.

Otherwise... look, trailers are trailers and trailers are usually misleading in one way or another, but with that in mind I'm not loving the "tone" here - they're obviously going for "Iron Man" re: featherweight macho flippancy, but this character and "world" - what with the galaxy-spanning scope, space-opera backstory, etc - would seem to call for something more in the vein of "Avatar"... y'know, something conveying a "you will be amazed" sense of cosmic-AWE. The brief glimpses we see of space, Oa, etc. would seem to suggest that, so hopefully that's closer to what we get.

Worth noting: This is actually supposed to come out a month AFTER "Thor," which means that the two most "out-there" superhero movies in a long time will be out within weeks of eachother, with "Captain America" a month later. This means that, at a certain point in the summer of 2011, I will be able to walk into a movie theater and choose from any one of THREE superheroes I never, ever would've expected anyone to make a movie out of.

Escape to the Movies: "Unstoppable"

It's about trains.

Intermission asks: "Where are all the toy/game/comic blockbusters for women?"

Supermen Seeking Women

More estrogen for the next "Batman" movie, and you can (maybe) soon add another good actor to your list of arguments as to why I should be pretending the "Spider-Man" reboot is a good idea. Details after the jump...



First-up,: Actress, singer and living trope Zooey Deschanel is apparently playing Betty Brant (J. Jonah Jameson's secretary, played by Elizabeth Banks in the previous 3) in "Spiderlight" -  at least so-sez not-terribly-reliable gossip site "Showbiz Spy." Deschanel had the title role in director Marc Webb's prior film, "500 Days of Summer." File the casting under plausible but not terribly likely; but if any of this is true to fact that Betty Brant is A.) in the film at all and B.) has an important role with "big plans" is the real story. In the comics, Brant was the first (short-lived) love-interest for Peter Parker, so if this pans out maybe now we know who's "Jacob" now that Mary-Jane is off the table. Also, her eventual boyfriend turned out to be Hobgoblin, which would be an elegant (if predictable) way for them to do the Green Goblin again without actually doing it again.

Analysis is... egh, why am I bothering at this point? Yes, she's a good actress, yes it'd be good casting. Y'know who else was good casting? Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy... and then the movie came out. At this point, yeah, it's clear that they're assembling a cast of good actors for this thing - albeit in not terribly surprising/interesting ways (Sally Field as an advice-giving matriarch? Gee, that's outside the box...) - but that really does very little to dispell how moronic the notion of the reboot is in the first place, how bad the "new" angle is (Spider-Man: The Degrassi Years) and how unlikely it is that a cheap quickie rights-holding production is ever going to be any good. Yes, it could work out. Yes, it'll get a fair shake. Am I holding my breath? No. Sometimes you really can, in fact, see a disaster coming a mile away - I didn't need to see or hear a single thing about "Transformers" other than the godawful mecha-designs and Michael Bay to be pretty damn sure that it was going to be just as bad as it turned out to be.

Meanwhile, back at Stately Wayne Manor...

Deadline sez that Christopher Nolan is casting TWO major female roles for "The Dark Rises" - one a love-interest, the other a nemesis. Whether or not they're being "cute" and the roles are actually one and the same is left unsaid. Shockingly "the list" of candidates looks an awful lot like the "the list" of candidates for every other major female role in existance right now: Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Blake Lively, Natalie Portman, Anne Hathaway and Keira Knightley.

So... female bad guy and a new romantic interest. Obviously, everyone's first thought is "Catwoman" and... fine, whatever. It make sense, it's kind of a "must do," they'd all be varying degrees of hot in The Outfit and everyone but Lively is a good actress. If not.. who knows? Harley Quinn? Probably not. Poison Ivy? Maybe, but unlikely to be very interesting in Nolan's fantasy-free Gotham. Entirely new character? Wouldn't that be something...

There's also the dark horse candidate: Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ras al Ghul - the Big Bad from "Batman Begins." That'd be the one I'd most like to see, from a story perspective: TDK was great, but it's also about as far into "regular crime drama guest-starring Batman" as I'd prefer to go for awhile, and I'd enthusiastically support the series veering back into Batman Vs. Quasi-Magical Ninjas territory. On the other hand, it'd be FASCINATING to see how the Nolan Bros. handle Catwoman, a character based 100% on sexuality - the subject that thus far gets the least attention in their ouvre (nevermind the fact that having a multitude of stronge female characters would be new territory for them in general - let's face it, thus far The Nolanverse is a serious sausagefest.)

Dino De Laurentiis: 1919 - 2010

We have lost one of the most important movie producers of all time.

To film geeks of my generation, Dino's name was basically an opening-credits signal that you were about to see something unique, strange, not necessarily "good" but hard to forget: Danger: Diabolik!, Barbarella, Mandingo, Death Wish, King Kong/King Kong Lives!, Orca, Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, Dead Zone, Dune, Cat's Eye, Manhunter, Army of Darkness... his career from the late-60s to the early-2000s speaks for itself; but he'd lived a lifetime before that.


He was a true independent - at once a profit-minded businessman and a bizzarely-visionary risk-taker with a love for garrish, overblown spectacle; an Italian renegade with the energy and style of a Golden Age Hollywood mogul. Along with his more infamous features, he also produced "art-films," war movies, historical epics and romances. He put big budgets and studio support behind a diverse selection of filmmakers from Ingmar Bergman to Frederico Fellini to Sam Raimi to John Milius to David Lynch. He backed John Wayne's last film, and produced the Wachowski Brother's first screenplay (AND their debut feature.) He brought us "Nights of Cabiria," "La Strada" and "Transformers: The Movie."

If pressed, I don't think anyone could name a modern equivalent to him in the current film world - that volatile mix of ruthless mogul businessman and art-lover of "questionable" artistic taste isn't much seen these days. In his ever-expanding producer role, Guillermo del Toro MAYBE comes close in terms of vision... but in terms of actual triumph it's likely we'll never see another like him.

De Laurentiis was 91, and lived a life the way one ought to be lived: Fully. He is survived by a small army of children and grandchildren, including Hollywood producer Raefella and Food Network personality Giada.

"A mythic flight of the imagination!"

Had an absolute BALL of a "bad movie night" with friends a few hours ago, watching the 1983 Lou Ferrigno version of "Hercules." Exactly why this film, which was regarded as a fairly-notorious "what the hell happened here!?" trainwreck in at the time, hasn't become an ironic cult-classic like "Troll 2" I don't know, but it ought to be. Check it out:




Yes, that is a Rainbow Flaming Sword the bad guy is using at 1:14.

The trailer doesn't even do justice to how GONZO this thing is, a bizzare hybrid of "classic" Italian swords & sandals muscleman epic juiced-up with some weak "Chariots of The Gods" scifi reimagining to justify the awkward inclusion of "Star Wars"-style space scenes and giant robots. A lot of the visual logic appears cribbed from Kirby/Ditko-style Marvel Comics renderings of the esoteric, i.e. every "magical" place appears as a floating chunk of expressionist art hovering somewhere in an unidentified starfield - regardless of where it's "supposed" to be.

It's also garaunteed to drive anyone with even a cursory familiarity with classical Greek Mythology into a psychotic episode. Just as a sample: Hercules' chief enemy is King Minos (!), who rules the futuristic city of Atlantis (!!) and commands robot monsters built by his minion Daedalus (!!!) - appearing as a beautiful female space-being in "Barbarella"-style costuming (!!!!) Oh, and you get an endless prologue in which the Universe is formed from the exploding fragments of Pandora's Jar.

For whatever reason, you can actually see this on Netflix Instant - I very much reccomend that you do, preferably with as many unsuspecting fellow viewers onhand as possible.