I was a big fan of the first "Piranha 3D;" which I thought struck the appropriate balance between being sincerely-bad and self-consciously bad. The sequel (which apparently can't decide whether or not to actually open in theaters) seems to be leaning more on the "self-conscious" side; with David Koechner as sleazebag entreprenuer who turns what I'm assuming was supposed to have been a family water park into Hooters-style operation with strippers as lifeguards and David Hasslehoff (as himself) paid to lounge around in his "Baywatch" getup, only to see the place invaded by the prehistoric piranha from the first film.
Christopher Lloyd and Ving Rhames are back, the later presumed dead at the end of the first film but evidently back and sporting bionic legs outfitted with anti-piranha weaponry. I'll say this, I admire their lack of shame...
The new (final?) "Avengers" trailer has more action, more character-interaction and more "holy crap!" money shots, still playing hide-and-seek with the villains... though the post-credits beat has a pretty "WTF?" reveal.
Argue about what "that thing" is after the jump:
Well, that must be "The Leviathan" from those script-pages everyone was flipping out over a few months back. Question is, is that "something?" Fin-Fang-Foom? Giganto?
Deadline reports that Universal is setting up a feature-film adaptation of the 2009 Image comic"Cowboy Ninja Viking," (which I bet get's retitled as just "C.N.V.") a riff on the Bourne setup of highly-trained, mentally-reconditioned assassins with a high(er)-concept twist: The brainwash-ees are mental-patients with Multiple Personality Disorder, the supposed benefit being that each individual personality is trained in a different discipline; hence the title character alternately has the "powers" of a Cowboy, a Ninja and a Viking (there is, apparently, also a Pirate Gladiator Ocenaographer.)
Y'know, because both "Snakes on a Plane" and "Cowboys & Aliens" were both massive, runaway boxoffice hits and all...
Hollywood? As someone who is pretty-much THE target audience for the "Ha-Ha-That-Sounds-Like-A-Fake-Thing-But-It's-A-Real-Thing-So-I-Guess-Maybe-It's-Awesome" genre you haven't figured out isn't working for you yet, lemme help you out here:
MOST OF THE AUDIENCE THAT FINDS "MEME"-STYLE HUMOR LIKE THIS TITLE FUNNY ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE *NEVER* GOING TO PAY FOR IT OR ANY OTHER MOVIE YOU MAKE. YOU MAY AS WELL JUST CALL IT "PIRATE TORRENT DOWNLOAD."
Marvel has been hyping a new "Avengers" trailer set to debut Wednesday all week/weekend (the screening prints of "John Carter" are starting to ship this week, so one imagines the trailer will be attached to that) and to go along with it here's a new, not-terribly-good poster.
Yeah... not very good - it's like they looked at every tired post-2000 poster cliche (for superhero movies or otherwise) and decided to use them all: Over-glossy Michael Bay "sheen?" (which doesn't match the crisp natural-daylight cinematographer we've seen so far) Check. Cap and Iron Man sans masks? Check. Dirt and embers flying around everywhere? Check. Obvious photoshop-collage with zero attempt to match light-sourcing? Check. Nobody seems to be looking-at or reacting to the same events (Cap and Widow are completely chill, something on the right is VERY disconcerting to Thor, Hulk and Hawkeye MIGHT be looking in the same general direction, none of them are noticing the giant explosion)
Check. I'm kinda wondering what's with the (by now) familiar-looking blue light-beam coming out of what I assume is Stark Tower, but otherwise? Bleh. If not for the five pretty-good feature-length trailers that preceded it, you'd have to say this movie has a pretty underwhelming ad-campaign (though at least it's not the disaster that Disney's fumbling of "John Carter's" promotion is shaping up to be...)
What some people don't know can fill a warehouse. What MovieBob doesn't know can fill about five minutes.
EDIT: I would be remiss not to re-mention that this week's show comes with a shout-out to Linkara and his impressively-mounted "History of Power Rangers" project.
Quick head's-up for those who don't always follow The Other Blog, but the NEW "Game OverThinker" is out (for ALL audiences) and I have to say I'm especially proud of this one and the overwhelmingly positive reaction it's been getting so far - especially considering this started out as a "replacement episode" to make sure I kept on schedule despite my brief illness throwing a wrench into production:
The lone bright-spot of the otherwise excerable 2012 Oscars was when Brad Pitt momentarily broke up the gooey solemnity of the evening's weirdly-unfocused "Stuff You Like About Movies I Guess I Dunno Look We Had Like A Month To Throw This Shit Together After Ratner & Murphy Imploded Hey Look Popcorn Girls" theme by waxing straight-faced nostalgiac about an obscure giant monster movie in one of the interstitials. The movie? "War of The Gargantuas" - but, then, "Big Picture" fans already knew that:
We're about five to six hours away from the bi-annual spectacle of Hollywood lavishing an embarassing amount of praise onto a Harvey Weinstein pickup that nobody will care about within a month. I'm thinking I'll live-tweet the Oscars this year (unless circumstances don't permit it) so if you're not already following my Twitter @the_moviebob now would probably be a good time... I think what annoys me so much about the impending coronation of "The Artist" isn't the film itself - as I've said elsewhere, it's just an inoffensive little ball of feel-good nothing - but that it's not even the best of the nominees at the things it does do: It's not the best paean to Silents, that's "Hugo" (flawed but ambitious beats well-executed mediocrity.) It's not the best harmlessly-silly romantic comedy about The Good Old Days, that's "Midnight in Paris" (which unlike "Artist" also manages to be ABOUT SOMETHING.)
"Moneyball" and "Descendants" are better "Older Gentleman Evaluating Life Choices" movies, "Tree of Life" wrings waaaaay more out of recreating the mid-50s than "Artist" gets out of the 20s... hell, I'd go so far as to say that "War Horse" does a better job channeling John Ford and Walt Disney than "Artist" does channeling it's grab-bag of Silent influences (it also has a more likable Silent Protagonist than Benigni Dujardin, though to be fair that horse wouldn't have been as funny in the OSS movies...) Honestly, the only nominees I can say it's definitively superior to are "The Help" and "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close;" and at least both of those had a touch more ambition to them, conceptually.
Lawrence O'Donnell doesn't rate among my favorite MSNBC personalities - he's kind of sanctimonious and a scold, and doesn't really "fit" super-well with the "Poly-Sci Debate Club Running The Asylum" vibe the network has been building for itself ever since Rachel Maddow replaced Olberman as the star attraction. Not as bad as Sharpton, though. (And now you know what Bob's editing-background-noise is.)
But, credit where it's due, O'Donnell's Thursday night piece-by-piece dismantling of Internet obsession Ron Paul's bogus "libertarian" credentials was delightfully necessary:
Aaaaaaand there's an "American Bob" I no longer need to write. Good show.
Of course, since it's coming from MSNBC - clearly a tool of the Illuminati/Trilateral-Commission/Bilderberg/Bohemian-Grove/Zionist/Reptilian Globalist-Conspiracy if ever there was one! - Paul's followers will merely pack on another layer of foil and disregard it out of hand. Well said, though.
I liked how my off-the-cuff comment to this Jeff Wells' thread about a potential Rick Santorum presidential candidacy being a sign that the GOP is essentially conceding the 2012 election to Obama (re: let the "true believer" with no real shot run and lose, regroup for the likely-open spot in 2016, tell the religious-right to please stand-down and zip-it for a change because "their guy" so clearly failed last time) so I'm reposting here. Slow news day: "The thing is, The GOP isn't REALLY as "split" on this stuff as it sometimes seems. Social-conservatism doesn't fit with The Right's professed ideal of anti-nanny-state "rugged individualism;" but the actual percentage of the "movement" - especially at the power-brokering level - that buys into it is tiny, and most of THEM are younger people and loner types.
By and large, it's a movement chiefly of old white moneyed men (and those whose fortunes are tied in with the same) who prize economic liberty (re: "The Free Market") above all else because it's best for their business interests; and whether or not they "believe" in social-con ideals they SUPPORT them as policy because it's also good for business: enforcing "live clean, marry young, move to burbs, pump out brats" as the ONE "good" standard of living is tailor-made to produce a booming population of prefab consumers; while social-liberalism doesn't, at least not quite as effectively.
It's also the case that even the ones who DO subscribe to some malformed version of Objectivism/Libertarianism only really see it in their own terms: The "Cowboy" ideal - emphasis on BOY: They're all about the INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM!!! of adult white men to drive whatever car they want, build whatever size house they want, shoot whatever animal they want, etc... but that same freedom can't POSSIBLY be extended to, say, WOMEN. Absurd! If women had the same level of Individual Freedom they did, who would stay at home and keep up the house so they'll have TIME to go live the Cowboy Ideal!? If women were as free to not have children as men are, who will pump out the kids needed to replenish my menial-labor staff and consumer base!?"
Had it slipped into my mind at the time, I might've added my own emerging calculation that the entirety of humanity would improve immeasurably if we were all having a lot more sex (or whatever fires your engine, really) but a lot fewer children.
I didn't like "American Pie" when I was of the exact age it was supposed to be relevent to me - but then, high-school movies aren't actually for High Schoolers but for grade-schoolers who fantasize about being High Schoolers so... whatever. I'm 31, I'm sure there are 20-and-under folks with really fond, life-changing memories of these movies. At least, that's what this "American Reunion" trailer is banking on...
Y'know, my problem with this isn't that the original was only 13 years ago. My problem is that the THIRD movie - which was also about them all being adults wistful about their high-school days - was barely NINE years ago.
Also, I've got to ask... these movies are largely being made by people much older than the characters themselves; but am I the only one who notices how incongruous the whole "mid-30s adulthood grind" thing mus feel compared to what seems to be the REAL situations of the generation that graduated when these kids are supposed to have? I mean, did no one writing this look at the current economy, demographic studies, the THOUSANDS of books written about "Boomerang Kids" etc and pick up that Generation Y is by-and-large NOT at the "world wear rat-race" point that they (the writers/producers) may have been? I mean, Jim is married, has kids and a house of his own in his mid-30s!? Dear lord, what's he got to be weary about - compared to the rest of his generation his fucking SUPERMAN!!!"
In the spirit of NJ Governor Chris Christie playing election-year politics with people's lives vetoing the legalization of gay-marriage passed by the elected representatives of the NJ State Senate because, to quote the Governor, "an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide;” here is a quote from someone present-day Conservatives pretend to have read books by respect on the subject of putting civil-rights issues up for popular vote:
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)" -- Ayn Rand.
Deadline reports that "tracking" (re: "do audiences care?") numbers for Disney's impending "John Carter" are looking pretty poor, despite good early reviews starting to slip out. Blame is being laid at the feet of bad marketing and the Mouse House's seeming indifference to the project (which was begun under a different regime than currently runs the show there.)
Below, a comment of mine from Jeff Wells' reporting on the same story: The advance word is actually pretty positive, but the marketing has been ATROCIOUS. Starting with the awfu re-titling and continuing through the nonexistant print campaign and trailers that keep showing the same basic scenes and locations (the shorter promo clips show there's WAAAAAY more to this than the Arizona-with-aliens stuff) and deliberately making the fairly outlandish plot and events sound as generic as possible ("our world is dying..." etc) ...a lethal combination of chickenshit marketing goons ("don't say Mars! Don't say Mars!") and Stanton etc. leaning way too hard on saving the "good stuff" for theaters.
Hell, they haven't even TRIED for the "prestige boost" - i.e. like LOTR reminding audiences at every turn that they didn't just pull this out of their ass, that it was "THE" movie of this massive decades-long cultural phenomenon. For fuck's sake, every schlock airport novel that gets adapted has "BASED ON THE #1 BESTSELLER!!!!" screaming at the top of it's trailer for the VERY reason that it makes the public go "wait.. am I not in on something? maybe I need to see this, I don't wanna be left out." But Disney somehow decides it's NOT pertinent to tell people that this is based on one of the most important and influential works in the entirety of genre fiction? That it's endured for a CENTURY? That it's the source of Flash Gordon, Star Wars, LOTR, Avatar and damn near every other fantasy/scifi blockbuster thats ever been produced?
Disney does not give, and has not given, a fuck about this movie for a long time; that much is obvious. Like "Tron: Legacy," (and the stalled 20,000 Leagues remake) it's production is a leftover from the Dick Cook regime, when the big push was to build a "Disney Boy Brand" to compliment the princess brand and they were greenlighting every action/scifi tentpole that came across the desk... then it became easier/safer to just BUY a pre-built "Boy Brand" aka Marvel - why "waste" time on a question-mark like John Carter when you've got all-but-garaunteed blockbusters coming via Avengers and it's sequels PLUS at least two more Captain America, Thor and Iron Man sequels AND whatever else Marvel wants to run up the flagpole? -- ME.
It's wholly plausible that the film is good, even great - but if so, it's looking like this could be 2012's "the good guys lose" moment a'la "Scott Pilgrim." Pic opens March 9th.
Brian Taylor, the "Taylor" half of the Neveldine/Taylor team that did the two "Crank" movies, is getting 7 figures from Sony to write and direct a "Twisted Metal" movie; presumably spurred by the impending (hopeful) success of the newest game.
I guess the question now is which of the many, many characters who could be played by Jason Statham (including some of the women) will actually end up being played by Jason Statham... or which "big guy" actor will be the fancasting favorite for Sweet Tooth - Tyler Mane? Derek Mears? Kane Hodder?
Neveldine/Taylor have "Ghost Rider 2" in theaters this weekend. It's not screening for critics, but the word from those who have seen it (it played Butt-Numb-A-Thon and a few other places, apparently) is beyond bad. N/T have a good industry reputation and are well-regarded, but to be frank basically nothing they've done besides "Crank" has been close to successful, so... I guess Sony knows something I don't.
Bad 80s-nerdstalgia news from yesterday: Michael Bay will continue fucking up "Transformers" at least one more time. Good 80s-nerdstalgia news from today: Michael Bay will NOT be fucking up "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" as it looked like he might be for awhile there. Instead, directing duties will fall to Johnathan Liebesman; currently of "Wrath of The Titans." The same basic production/studio setup that shepherded that CGI-animated psuedo-sequel to the original trilogy a few years back are handling this one, but it's set to be the beginning of a new series as opposed to a further continuation.
Liebesman has demonstrated mostly-solid action chops in the past, but overall his filmography is pretty bleak: nobody remembers or much cared about "Darkness Falls" or "The Killing Room," and while he made bank with "Battle: Los Angeles" the movie was pretty damn terrible. On the other hand... he's NOT Michael Bay.
So, right now this is good news as far as I'm concerned, and will remain so until the words "dark and gritty reimagining" escape the lips of someone on the production (innevitably "fanboy-proofed" by references to "the spirit of the original Mirage comics, naturally.)
"American Bob" RETURNS with my (belated) take on "It Gets Better." Summary? I'm a fan and supporter; but I hope it's seen as the beginning of a movement - not the end. There's a long road ahead for equal rights, even still.
I'm glad to be bringing this show back - feels good to be doing the political thing "on it's own," especially given how crazy this election year is already getting.
I've spoken before of my admiration for the folks at "That Guy With The Glasses;" who I think are putting out not only some of the best stuff in the "pop-culture critique video" genre but are also bringing a much needed injection of diversity (intellectual and otherwise) the medium.
Among the best examples of said strength-in-diversity is critic/filmmaker Lindsay Ellis, aka "The Nostalgia Chick;" whose taken what could easily have been a token gig ("the girl version" of the site's nominal leader) and turned it into vital part of the geek-culture conversation - often working in concert with a cadre of fellow TGWTG-affiliated female reviewers to not only review "nostalgiac girl stuff" but also to provide the often-overlooked female perspective on the general Nerd Ephemera. Her latest offering, viewable HERE, (and embedded after the jump,) in which she provides a non-sarcastically gender-flipped answer to the "hottest animated chicks" meme, is as good an example as any of why that's so welcome and necessary...
Gotta admit, I'm as thrown by #10 as she is; but that's why I like having this perspective presented in the first place. Sooooo much of the discussion of "Women in Geek Culture" is dominated by men talking about 'the female psyche' like this elusive, seldom-observed mythical creature (how many PAGES have been written by men half-jokingly trying to "figure out" the Team Edward/Jacob thing?); it's refreshing as hell to see actual women speak for themselves about it.
Even Michael Bay seems to realize that Michael Bay has a Michael Bay problem: His work on the excerable "Transformers" films - which even HE doesn't seem to like - has made him a wealthy man (and has banked him considerable boxoffice clout) but it's also shifted his public image from being the crown prince of willfully-overblown "guy movie" excess to being just one more journeyman action-specialist working the branded-franchise assembly line; while upstarts like Zack Snyder, Timur Bekmambetov, Joe Carnahan and others have pushed into his territory. For the last several years, Bay has been trying to get (his version of) a small, personal passion-project off the ground - a $25 Million (chicken feed for guys working at Bay's level) dark comedy called "Pain & Gain," based on a true story (recounted in the Miami New Times in 1999) of steroid-abusing bodybuilders who got wrapped up in a kidnapping/extortion/drugs clusterfuck. Bay returning to the bad-taste Miami-flavored sleaze of the Bad Boys movies for what sounds like "schlubs in over their heads" crime flick starring juiced-up gym rats? PERFECT combination. But he's had difficult securing a studio for the project thus far, even with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Mark Whalberg - two actors practically factory-designed for Michael Bay movies - attached to star.
But now Paramount has apparently stepped up to do the deed, with the contingency being that Bay has to take one more slog through the world of Autobots and Decepticons. When not even Michael Bay and two of the only consistently-bankable male action leads (both of whom are taking salary cuts to help keep the budget down!) can't get a $25 Million flick made without agreeing to also do a summer-tentpole/toy-commercial; it's clear that license-mania has grown out of control.
This all got announced waaaay earlier than Paramount wanted, when infamous producer Lorenzo Di Bonnaventura got in front of an MTV mic at ToyFair and said Bay was coming back for a Transformers "reboot" - by which he (apparently) means that the robot characters will be segueing into a new storyline featuring new human characters, as none of the original (non-CGI) cast has signed on to return. That's probably why twisting Bay's arm to keep him on was so important to them - his continued presence as director will be the only thing keeping this from looking like a "B-Team" sequel.
It feels almost surreal that we'll actually be enduring another of these things, after all the build-up of #3 being the big finale. But I do really want to see "Pain & Gain."
Okay, so... I don't want to be "that guy," but... didn't we learn from "Snakes on a Plane" that the whole "OMG LOL THATLOOKSLIKEAFAKEMOVIEBUTITSAREALMOVIE LMAO!!!" thing drives up your online traffic but doesn't actually get people into theaters?
This got greenlit a few years ago, back when "actual books that look like parody book-titles from a Simpsons background-gag" like this were a big bookstore fad. The progenitor of the trend, "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies," has gone through about a dozen failed starts so far.
I hate to be a spoilsport, because I like most of what I'm seeing - Bekmembatov, Burton etc. clearly understand that the central joke of Lincoln-as-Blade is funnier if the movie keeps a straight face and doesn't acknowledge that it knows it's funny; and that last shot is just about perfect - but that's the problem: is "Hah! This exists!" amusing enough to sustain a whole movie... and will people show up to find out?
I haven't read the original book yet (guess now I should...) but I'm given to understand that the "key" (and the reason it initially "broke-out" from the parody-book pack) is a certain degree of political-subtext drawing paralells between Vampirism and The Confederacy - in this version, vampire-hunting is Abe's "true calling;" and he becomes President and wages Civil War because The South is actually controlled by vampires who use the slave-trade as an easy food supply. That's clever, and if it makes it to the movie intact one imagines the outcry from the "stop picking on us!!!!" Lost Cause Revisionism crowd will be entertaining as hell in and of itself...
I've had unkind words for the recently-released "Amazing Spider-Man" trailer; particularly it's dissapointing-looking version of "The Lizard." Well, Disguise.com has a look at the officially-licensed costumes from the movie, and if you click on over you'll see that a lot of folk's fears seem to be confirmed regarding the creature's head: He looks like a scaly-faced human, as opposed to the "giant bipedal reptile" look many (myself included were hoping would carry over from the comics.) This is the lazy "Star Trek" school of creature-design, which assumes that a character can't be related to unless it has a mostly-human face - y'know, since nobody was able to identify with the Prawns in "District 9" or anything...
BUT! The costume material does appear to show a design detail that I actually dig the hell out of, and wouldn't mind seeing become "standard" for the character in other media: His hands. (pix after jump)
See what they did there?
Look again: The hand that grows-in "fresh" is more like an actual lizard's (four digits, bigger claws) while the other one is more of a mutated-human's hand.
That's really cool - kinda wondering why no one has done it before (or have they?)
I really wish the "Spider-Man" trailer could've broken a day earlier, so it could've gone in here for a further example of the brand-fixation sickness...
Well, on the plus side, now we no longer need to wonder what the aborted early-90s Canon Films version of "Spider-Man" would've looked like - save that, in the early 90s, this CGI would only look one or two years out of date...
I'm sure I'll have more to say about this in some other capacity soon enough, but for now let me hit the stuff jumping out at me right off the bat:
#1: I really like that one bit of Spidey fighting the cops - the Raimi movies had a paucity of hand-to-hand group fights since the villains didn't generally have henchmen and it's nice to see it here.
#2: Really kinda hoping SOME of this takes place in daylight. I know this is the darker/edgier/grittier/hardcore Spider-Man; but like I keep saying: NOT EVERY SUPERHERO NEEDS TO BE BATMAN.
#3: Dennis Leary appears well cast. I like the idea of Captain Stacy as a middle-aged working-dad type instead of the wizened elder-statesman from the comics.
#4: Well, there ya go, kids - snarky/jokey Spider-Man leaps into live-action... aaaaand in live-action it comes off as "douchey" instead of charming - like Dane Cook in a Power Rangers outfit. Who could've possibly predicted that??
#5: The dark eyepieces make him look like a villain. Sorry, they do. If I saw this version as a kid, my first assumption would be that this is an "evil" duplicate and that "good" white-eyes Spidey was going to fight him.
#6: The Lizard, as currently glimpsed here, would not pass muster in one of the "Resident Evil" movies - bad CGI rendering of a poorly-designed creature, a real shame. #7: Well, there we have it: Peter's missing/dead biological father was a super-scientist partner of Curt Conners at (Gasp! No way! NEVER saw it coming!) OsCorp, and they were working on whatever mad-science stuff turns Peter into Spider-Man and Conners into The Lizard. Ah, "Ultimate Marvel" - the gift that keeps on giving... even though you beg it not to.
#8 Y'know what? I'm not done with #7 yet. That's awful. That's what you'd put into a pitch making fun of unnecessary, convoluted, bullshit Hollywood revisionism to origin-stories. I've tried my best to find the good in this utterly pointless cash-grab of an endeavor, but then this trailer comes along and tells me with ONE SHOT pretty-much all I need to know. At the 1:53 mark - directly following the asinine "The Untold Story" title-card - we get another black-and-white flashback of Young Peter staring at...
...A spider under glass, also black-and-white and thus implied to be either directly or indirectly part of the same flashback. In other words: It's NOT totally an accident anymore. It's - symbolically, anyway - pre-ordained: The Spider (or, at least, the manner by which it'll give him powers) and at least TWO of his major enemies (one in the film, one obviously being set-up) are all part of a path that's been awaiting him... the laziest possible screenwriting crutch: DESTINY. Instead of being a story about Great Power being thrust onto someone accidentally, Spider-Man becomes yet another ersatz-Skywalker "Chosen One."
Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" evolved out of a parody trailer, and now the same thing is set to happen with the first film's "pre-made sequels" joke (teasing "Machete Kills" and "Machete Kills Again," respectively) at the ending: Deadline reports that Rodriguez has closed a deal to make "Machete Kills" for real, with Danny Trejo expected to reprise the title role.
The script by Kyle Ward ("developed" by Rodriguez) apparently finds Machete tasked by the U.S. Government to bring down a Mexican drug-cartel that is somehow tied into a billionaire arms-dealer's scheme to start a world war with a superweapon in outer space. FWIW, Rodriguez has also "joked" in the past that "Machete Kills Again" would have Machete traveling to space, "Moonraker"-style.
MetLife famously drafted Snoopy and the Peanuts Gang as ad mascots in a nostalgiac to appeal to newly-aging Boomers back in the days when that sort of thing was novel. Now, they've dropped a new spot that not only adds Looney Tunes to the mix but also Hanna Barberra's 70s TV pantheon, Fat Albert and, yes... early-80s staples He-Man and Voltron
Yup. Mark the date, Generation X - "The Market" has officially decided that you are now old enough to be a target-demographic... for life-insurance.
It wouldn't be an election-year Super Bowl without at least one eye-poppingly awful political spot.
This year's winner is Michigan Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra, who rechristens his Democrat opponent Debbie Stabenow as "Debbie Spenditnow" via a young Asian woman who parks her bike in a rice paddy (really) to thank "Spenditnow" for selling America out to China in overly-accented "me so horny"-style broken english: "Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs!"
Yeah, but there's no racism in the Republican Party. Zip. Zero. None at all. All made up by the Liberal Media. Yup.
Here's the long version of "The Avengers" Super Bowl spot, featuring - among other delights - our first look at the team (Hulk included!) together in broad daylight.
HOLY. SHIT. This is a real thing.
(UPDATED AFTER THE JUMP!)
UPDATE! Here's a screencap - enlarged, cropped and color-enhanced - of the brief shot of what may be the first glimpse of the (thus far) top-secret creatures who're supposedly serving as Loki's soldiers. Still can't tell what they are, but a look is a look.
Most people have been calling them "Skrulls" generically, but apparently they can't be because Fox owns screen-rights to them via the "Fantastic Four" license. Others are guessing it's just the Frost Giants again, but from the image it doesn't look much like them - they're wearing some sort of shiny gray/green armor (the lower guy also seems to have a blue lens-flare light coming from his) for one thing, and even if that's skin the Giants were blue.
The main distinguishing features I can make out are that they're feet, hands and forearms are bigger in proportion to their body, three-toed feet and are wearing some sort of helmets with an extended "crown" peice. So... Thanos-related, maybe? Eternals? Celestials? Deviants? The Phalanx? Kree?
I will say that I remain vaugely concerned about the "scale" of the thing - nearly all the action beats we've seen seem to be the same NYC location and there's a paucity (so far) of mass-extras or broad scope. Maybe that means they're holding back, maybe it means it's a "one giant extended battle sequence" thing, but it's an issue given that the sole knock against Whedon is that he's a TV guy without much big-scale moviemaking experience (no, the theatrically-released TV movie that was "Serentity" - which I liked - doesn't count.)
On the other hand, scale isn't everything (see: Bay, Michael.) If the screenplay is as densely-packed with well-utilized Marvel mythos as the lead-up films and the dialogue crackles like that final exchange between Loki and Stark; a less-than "Transformers" scale mini-epic is more than a fair trade.
Here's the SuperBowl commercial that got Ford so pissed they actually petitioned NBC to ban it; in which Chevy implies that their rival's trucks will not protect you from The Mayan Apocalypse. Yes, really:
In "Osombie" - currently seeking kickstarter funds for post-production - a NATO Special Forces outfit is out to stop Zombie Osama Bin Laden from re-conquering Afghanistan with an army of Undead Terrorists ("The Axis of Evil Dead".)
Naturally, this being an indie horror movie, they seemingly opt to do so with katanas. Sold.
UPDATE! After the massive public outcry and deluge of high-profile donors pulling out, Komen has reversed it's decision to defund Planned Parenthood. Good news, but their official statements are packed with caveats and CYA language that leaves things open for them to try and pull the same shit in another form later on. Frankly, I don't think I'll be giving them any more money myself until they purge the pro-life nutters from their leadership ranks. But that's just me.
ORIGINAL POST: For a variety of reasons I'm a bit more cautious about approaching politics and/or muckraking related to cancer research - breast cancer research in particular - than I am about similar goings-on with other issues. Also, believe it or not I do try to consider that any attraction to allegations of malefeasance by supposed charitable organizations might need to be second-guessed; since it plays waaaay too well into my natural trust-nobody/fuck-the-world cynicism.
WARNING! POLITICAL STUFF AFTER THE JUMP:
This is partially why I haven't done any posting about the buzz-gathering documentary"Pink Ribbons Inc;"which bills itself as an expose of unflattering practices by the ubiquitous Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity - chiefly alleging that the organization has become more concerned with it's role as a corporate-synergized "brand" than actively seeking a cure. I'll confess, I've often felt that seeing the yearly deluge of Komen-branded "pink products" to be a bit on the tacky side however well-intentioned... but I wasn't totally as comfortable with this particular "go get `em!" as I was with, say, a whack or five at PeTA.
But given recent events, it feels like I have to agree that this organization - at the very least, it's LEADERSHIP - needs some major scrutiny. So here's the trailer:
The film has, of course, jumped back into buzz-territory as of yesterday; when SGK stunned and outraged many of it's longtime supporters by announcing they would cease all funding of breast cancer screenings performed at Planned Parenthood facilities - one of the top resources for such screenings for low-income women in the U.S. Unsurprisingly, this comes not long after the foundation raised eyebrows by appointing virulent anti-abortion zealot (and failed gubernatorial candidate) Karen Handel to Vice President of Public Policy. So... yeah, the whole thing stinks to high heaven so far as I can see.
I'm sure there's already no shortage of petitions and protest sites associated with this, but given how new the happenings are I'm not looking to post them just yet - again, cautious about these things... but speaking only for myself I feel placed in an ideologically-awkward position. I'm pro-choice for the exact same reasons I want to find a cure for breast cancer: I care about women's health, and I can't really fathom how one could be decoupled from the other.
So... yeah. That's the trailer, them's the facts, make of it what you will.
I maintain that Stephen Sommers' original "G.I. Joe" movie was overall pretty good, mostly because it managed to nail the proper 'tone' for a movie based on a children's cartoon based on a line of scifi-inflected army toys; but I'll be the first to admit that it might've been better if they hadn't tried to "streamline" to gonzo-eclecticism of the source material's design aesthetics - if G.I. Joe and Cobra's nonexistant dress-codes really bother you, you're probably watching the wrong movie to begin with.
As such, the fact that the John Chu-directed sequel thus far looks like the same basic "fuck you, reality!" tone re-skinned with a megaton of ripped-from-the-toybox fanservice continues to inspire a surprising level of confidence. Check out the film's Super Bowl ad below - featuring a much better look at Cobra Commander's "classic" mirrored-helmet, Ray Stevenson as Firefly, a Rattler jet(!) and Ninjas in a shurikens vs. minigun shootout:
