May 2012 - Izmovies - Watch Full New Movies movies Youtube

Will Tony Stark Battle a SPIDER-MAN Villain in "Iron Man 3!?" (UPDATED)

There are pix, it's been more-or-less confirmed and doesn't seem like a HUGE story-spoiler, but just in case now's your chance to look away...

ANSWER: ...kinda, but not exactly. Made you look ;)

The buzz on "Iron Man 3" is that it's going to be a bigger film, thematically and scale-wise, than the other two; but that the story is staying mainly in the realm of super-science/spy/espionage stuff all pertaining to high-tech weapons and especially other guys wearing weaponized exo-suits - with Guy Pierce playing the main villain (loosely culled from Warren Ellis' "Extremis" story-arc) and Sir Ben Kingsley playing a master-schemer background heavy who may or may not end up being some version of The Mandarin.

Thus far there've been a handful of armor-clad hench-baddies announced, none of whom are big names, and the follow-up word was that - like Whiplash/Crimson-Dynamo in the last movie - there would be some character combination/overhaul going on. In any case, thanks to some "spy" pix snapped by The Superficial and confirmed by Latino Review (who're apparently sitting on a MOUNTAIN of Marvel spoilers they just aren't releasing yet) we now know at least one of the armored characters who'll be popping up in some (presumably villainous) form:

LAST CHANCE NOT TO LOOK, KIDS...

4...

3...

2...

1...

SOURCE: The Superficial

Ladies and gentlemen... THE IRON PATRIOT.

Holy shit.

So what's with the headline? Okay, short version: As part of the fallout from three successive Marvel Comics "event" miniseries - "Civil War," "World War Hulk" and "Secret Invasion" - The Avengers wound up disbanded, exiled or turned to fugitives. Needing someone to run the government-backed version of The Avengers that had been established by Iron Man's "side" at the end of "Civil War," the Pentagon had the brilliant idea of placing things in the hands of a wealthy businessman who was also "reformed" supervillain who'd recently lucked into an act of press-friendly heroism during "Secret Invasion"... NORMAN OSBORN, aka THE GREEN GOBLIN.

Osborn (who'd already been managing a team of "rehabbed" villains as director The Thunderbolts) installed a group of fellow antagonists as the "real" Avengers using the now government-owned names and costumes of the originals, but figured that they also required the symbolism of Captain America and Iron Man for the public to trust them - his solution was to reconfigure one of Tony Stark's spare suits with Cap's colors and christen himself a new hero; "The Iron Patriot."

Obviously, Osborn (who hasn't even "officially" become part of the new Spider-Man movies yet) is not going to be in the suit in "Iron Man 3." The spy pix confirm James Badge Dale, already announced as one of the heavies, is wearing it for these shots; so it seems he's still a bad guy... but his purpose is unclear.

Here's what intrigues me about this: The visual of a villain wearing what amounts to an even more ostentatious version of Captain America's uniform (it's probably too much to hope that Cap himself will show up as part of this) is "edgier" than we've come to expect from Marvel to begin with, and the specter of a stars-and-stripes clad villain in a movie set-in and partially-financed-by China raises a certain amount of "hmm..." potential. Iron Patriot's original function was as a one-man (literal) "false flag" operation, and writer/director Shane Black has repeatedly invoked "Tom Clancy" as the angle the film's story is working from - are we seeing the beginnings of the film's plot? Maybe an attempt to start/avert a U.S./China war via a bad guy claiming to represent America?

I like this. I like it a lot.

UPDATED: Latino Review now thinks it might alternate be a similar-looking but less confusingly-backstoried character called "Detroit Steel." If so, let me be the first to call possible-foul on using anyone named "Detroit" as a villain in these times - that place has suffered enough.

Solidarity

My night-time working background noise is generally The Daily Show and Colbert, followed by the overnight replays of MSNBC's opinion-show block, followed by a mad scramble to find something - anything - to watch other than Ed Schultz. Before anyone asks, yes - I get my "equal time" fill of right-wing talkers in daylight hours while I'm driving.

NOTE: Remainder of post involves politics. Don't want to read it? Then don't ;)

I don't watch/read/listen to "the news" for information, I do it because I like hearing things argued out by smart people and because the only way to remain aware of media manipulation of info is to stay engaged with it - block it out for too long, and you forget the two key facts of living an informed life: 1.) That there are such things as objective truths - just very, very few of them; and 2.) that everyone is aiming to "sell you" on something, even the folks who truly believe in their heart of hearts that they are not.

Tonight, though, I'll be paying closer attention than usual to see what - if anything - MSNBC's top guns (Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Matthews) have to say about the public-pillorying of their fellow host Chris Hayes.

For those who don't follow this stuff, over the weekend Hayes brought up for discussion his (personal) discomfort with the way terms like "hero" and "valor" are blanketly-applied to military service in and of itself in the context of the Memorial Day holiday; his overall point being that however duly respectful we are toward military service, the very reflexiveness of that respect makes it difficult to approach questions when/why to use military force with the kind of thoughtful skepticism such grave matters deserve.

The timing is, of course, of questionable tact; but the actual commentary is about as bend-over-backwards and qualifier-laden as a "controversial" statement can be and still be a statement at all - he even concludes with "But maybe I'm wrong about that." This, of course, did not prevent the right-wing media from pouncing on him. They can hardly be blamed for the obvious glee they took in doing so - Hayes' approach and overall demeanor is practically a caricature of what Michael Bay's America thinks of when it sneers about "liberal elitism;" and The Right did it's usual classy job of "taking him down" by inferring that he was effeminate (because, after all, there is no greater sin than to a dumb ol' GIRL!) and chortling about his use of the phrase "rhetorically proximate," the kind of big fancy book-learnin' words that "normal people" would never use.

Hayes has, of course, offered an apology/clarification; which reads as sincere and reasoned but also utterly unnecessary. He didn't say "soldiers aren't heroes," he didn't even issue a statement of anything other than to offer his own personal view - which he admits is difficult for him to grapple with and may well be incorrect! - for discussion. The only thing he did "wrong" was to do this in the context of the present-day American media culture; where nuance and thoughtfulness are four-letter words.

The problem Hayes faces is that we live in a culture that vilifies any approach to the word that does not exist in terms of simple, basic wisdom. We prefer definitive statements of right and wrong or good and evil to nuance and intellectual inquiry. Something is either an absolute good or an eternal wrong; and to suggest that there may be layers or issues of context is to be uncertain and thus somehow weak. It's a strain of anti-intellectualism that taints and corrupts just about every facet of our existence; viewed most-glaringly in the way our allegedly modern culture heaps far greater import on religious "truths" - which are by-design simple, easy-to-digest and require very little mental effort beyond blind acceptance - over scientific facts which are often more-difficult to comprehend.

But it also subtly (yet profoundly) colors they way we approach the rest of the world, and the way the rest of the world approaches us: Far, far too much stock is placed "common sense" and "folk wisdom." We perpetuate the pleasant yet disastrous LIE that "simple truths" that any random dolt can easily understand are innately superior to academic, scientific or merely "complex" solutions that require effort and study to arrive at: The hard, unpleasant fact of the matter is that most of the time the "average joe" and his simple, common-sense answer - however likable and approachable both may be - are going to be wrong; while the "cold" or "detached" intellectual is usually going to be right. Because the world is not simple and grows less so every day.

Folks, when I spout-off about "Thinkers vs. Believers" (and I'm well aware that many take reasonable exception to the terminology which is, ironically, perhaps a bit too simplified for it's own good) this is what I'm talking about. It's this horrible, destructive notion of acknowledging the world as a complex place requiring thoughtful, nuanced solutions that - yes! - are indeed better suited to those of an intellectual persuasion is somehow tantamount to weakness. The idea that simplistic, "right or wrong, black or white" decision making - a fundamentally ignorant approach ill-suited to modern life that too many mistake as some kind of anachronistic masculine virtue - carries some kind of moral righteousness.

One is free to agree or disagree with Chris Hayes or anyone else - for my part, I understand and agree with his overall point while understanding the need for sentiment and symbolism in such matters - but the idea that asking the question or having a viewpoint that isn't 100% binary about such an important issue is everything that is broken and bleeding about American culture handily summarized. Complexity and nuance are not personal failings, they are virtues. "Simple solutions" should be mistrusted and vetted, not deified. Ignorance ought to be a mark of shame, while intelligence and ability to take an intellectual approach should be a mark of great character.

Chris Hayes may or may not have been "wrong," but his willingness to think about it in the first place makes him the innate superior of every "average"-pandering political hack who spent the weekend throttling him. And I hope that other thoughtful people in the media or otherwise on either "side" don't give in to the temptation to throw him under the bus for the crime of being a thinking person in a time and place where that is unwelcome.

Big Picture: "Rock of Ages"

Another show about The Flintstones.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Rock of Ages

Back to Melmac

Go ahead and snicker, but we both know that if "Alf" creator/pupeteer/voice-actor Paul Fusco gets his way and a new movie gets off the ground a lot of us are going to go see it.

I don't know that "Alf" (it means "Alien Life Form") has the kind of longevity that other properties have had - i.e. I don't know that anyone born after it went off the air knows/cares that it ever existed; but the basic pitch was "What if E.T. stuck around, and was a sarcastic pain-in-the-ass?"

Part of the running joke of the series was that we only ever heard about Alf's (real name: Gordon Schumway) destroyed homeworld of Melmac through his own second-hand accounts, and the descriptions vacillated between the entire civilization being as boorish/silly as he was and the occasional bit of unexpected depth or pathos - at one point we learn that Alf/Gordon was some sort of soldier; an "orbital guard" who was spared because he was offworld when Melmac exploded. (I recall that actual cause of the destruction is alluded to have been either a nuclear accident or conflict; though at least once Alf's answer was "we all plugged in our hairdryers at the same time.) Presumably, a feature film would expand on that sort of material in some way.

If it happens, this would be the second "Alf" movie. The original series was canceled after ending on a cliffhanger where Alf is finally captured by government alien-hunters, and wasn't "resolved" until a terrible TV movie called "Project: Alf" many years later.

Believer

To me, the worst part about this clip is that this alleged human being has almost-certainly already reproduced...

Escape to the Movies: "Men In Black 3"

Don't bother.

"Intermission" has more Avengers.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Men in Black 3

Why We Fight

Another day, another thump from the constant drumbeat by the morally and (more importantly) intellectually bankrupt American right-wing in their increasingly-successful attempts to invent a nonexistant controversy over Katherine Bigelow's in-production "Killing of Bin Laden" movie.

John Nolte, "Big Hollywood's" once very talented but now hopelessly-corrupt bossman, has dropped all pretense that the faux-outrage is about anything but dutifully doing his part to stop a movie that might make Obama slightly more popular, writing in his latest screed against the project:

"This bin Laden film needs to scrapped. It is now tainted in every imaginable way -- artistically and as it relates to our national security. And if it's not scrapped, we can only hope that the blowback forever taints those involved."

At least they're honest, I suppose...

What truly drives me mad about this nonsense isn't so much the manufactured "campaign" itself - American "conservatives" behaving poorly stopped being shocking a long time ago. What infuriates me is how little coverage or even FACT-CHECKING this is getting from the rest of the entertainment press.

Somehow, "digging up" the real reason for Paramount bumping G.I. Joe 2 ahead nine months is more pressing/interesting than a cabal of political hacks actively trying to destroy a movie because it's presence might be beneficial to their political rivals. How is this not news? Why am I not seeing people other than ME calling the Breitbart Gang out on this sleazy, disingenous, nakedly-agenda-driven hackery?

The advantage that the right-wing "new media" has is that no one in the legitimate press takes them seriously until it's too late. These are the people who framed Shirley Sherrod, turned "health care" into a four-letter word and are busily working to "de-habilitate" the late Trayvon Martin's image into that of a "thug" who deserved his murder; and they keep getting away with it because the "real" media won't pay them any mind until the damage is already done... refusing to understand that right-wing activism's ability to weaponize the paranoia and stupidity of the masses has become a potent tool in the age of social-media.

This not (only) about politics, this is about decency and duty: People in the Film Press are, fundamentally, supposed to be here because we love and support films and filmmakers. Katherine Bigelow is a hell of a filmmaker who waited far too long for recognition; and these shameless savages are looking to destroy her unfinished, unseen-by-them-or-anyone-else movie NOT because it's "bad," NOT because it's "wrong," but because destroying it might help their prefered presidential candidate.

This is something that anyone who claims to hold films and the art of filmmaking in any kind of regard should not simply be "against;" but madly, passionately and VOCALLY against. If we can sign petitions and pimp kickstarters to save old theaters, restore fading prints, promote struggling productions, etc., then surely it's not only right but righteous that we stand up and say that this disingenuous smear-campaign is wrong and cannot be allowed to rage on unchallenged... that we use our voices to throw a spotlight onto this nonsense. The movie may be good, bad, or average; but it deserves to get made and be judged on it's own merits - not killed in the crib for the short-term goals of Teabagger political hacks.

This is me issuing a call to all film lovers who read this; particularly those of you with columns, blogs or other movie-related platforms of your own: Don't ignore this. Don't let this slide. Speak up. Tell people that this is going on. Support this film and it's makers. Speak out AGAINST the politically-motivated attempts to preemptively "taint" or damage it. Make sure that people know about it, and make sure that they know the campaign to kill it is bullshit being propagated by activist hacks.

Speak up. Speak out. Don't let the bastards win this one.

Thank you.

REVIEWERS ASSEMBLE!

Big news, friends.

A diverse group of Boston-area professional film journalists, writers, reporters, critics, commenters, etc. have officially united to form The Boston Online Film Critics Association; and they've graciously included me as a member.

There's a lot of great people in this group - a solid mix of seasoned industry professionals and fresh faces. I reccomend you meet the crew, and keep an eye on what they have to offer.

Here's a press release laying out the mission-statement. We're looking to do big things with this, so stay tuned!

Bull. Shit.

Right-wing movie-bloggers - along with politicians of questionable-priorities - spent all eight years of the Bush-era "War on Terror" excoriating "liberal Hollywood" for not churning out the kind of citizen-rallying, Pentagon-collaborative war-themed projects that folks like Capra and Ford produced during WWII. Now they're so eager to prevent the killing of Osama Bin Laden by SEAL Team 6 from aiding President Obama's election any further than it already has that they're desperately trying to damage Katherine Bigelow's film on the subject (which was in-production BEFORE reality wrote a surprise happy ending for it) by pretending that there's some kind of "controversy" over Bigelow's production team having access to the real-life participants in the mission. Never mind the fact that these same bloggers were more than happy to slobber all over "Act of Valor" (which I liked, for the record) which was made with much more filmmaker/SEAL interaction that Bigelow's people ever had.
I get why they're pissed off, don't get me wrong. Republicans have spent DECADES propping up the ideal of stern, square-jawed, conservative caucasian men, preferably with an air of rural machismo - the Cowboy Ideal... reborn!!! - as the only human beings capable of protecting the world from evil via bold political/military leadership; so it's just killing them that no matter what history will record that it was a black liberal "intellectual" from Chicago who got to give the "take him out" order on Osama Bin Laden. So yeah, I understand. Poor things.

But guys... y'really have to let this one go. Some stuff you just can't work around - Osama ate it on Obama's watch, he got to make the call, he got to give the speech, there's nothing you can do to make this NOT reflect well on him, and trying only makes you look foolish and diverts precious resources desperately needed over in your "Make Mitt Romney Seem Less Like Pod-Person" division. Focus!

The fact is, the movie was already in-production for over a year before the operation took place; so the idea that this was hastily put together as an "election movie" is asinine - unless, of course, people who are deluded enough to believe that Bin Laden's killing was "stage managed" and the film is part of the conspiracy... but to buy that, you'd have to be dumb enough to believe that the President was born in Kenya, that there are socialist sleeper-agents in the U.S. government in 2012, that Soviet-style communism is still ANY kind of real threat, that Global Warming doesn't exist, that evolution doesn't exist, that... oh, right. Nevermind.

3D Saves Another One?

The big shocker of "Transformers: Dark of The Moon" was that Michael Bay's sense of visual composition and scene-geography, which had regressed into being almost pure ADHD nonsense, had suddenly been restored to something resembling actual filmmaking... and the cause seemed pretty obvious: He'd been made to shoot the movie in 3D, which (presently) requires longer takes and deliberate compositions in order for the effect to work and massively-cumbersome rigs to be created - the process had, seemingly, cured him of his worst habits by effectively strapping a cinder-block to his camera.

Now, it appears 3D might have worked the same magic on another hodgepodge auteur; the badly-in-need-of-a-hit Baz Luhrman. Below, the trailer for his big XMas Oscar Bait release, "The Great Gatsby 3D."

It's just a trailer, but if it's an accurate representation of the final product this is easily the best looking thing Luhrman has ever turned out; all his strengths (opulence, enthusiasm, earnest bravado) with his weaknesses (see: everything after "Romeo + Juliet") seemingly mitigated by the technology.

What's left is the truth of the matter: Love him or hate him, Luhrman is perfect for this material; and I'm feeling like it's going to be a real treat to see a version of "Gatsby" go all-in on the era-appropriate exuberance and ribaldry that previous attempts haven't quite captured. The "Roaring" 20s is a fascinating period, but it's seldom been done justice onscreen - partially because so much of what made the period interesting in terms of art, culture, fashion and social behavior went back to being taboo after The Depression/WWII... in fact, in many respects we're only just now getting back to where we already were then.

Big Picture: "Stone Soup"

Part 1 of 2.

ALSO: Anonymous comments are back on. The slightly lowered workload isn't worth the downtick in traffic/visitors. We'll see how that goes.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Stone Soup

"Skyfall" Teaser

My problem with the rebooted James Bond movies isn't that they purposefully yanked out the "signature" Bond stuff that defined the series for decades, but that they still haven't found a new signature to replace it with. That worked out alright for the origin story in "Casino Royale;" but "Quantum of Solace" was a thuddingly-generic actioner distinguished only by Craig calling himself "James Bond."

The new one, at least, makes the interesting move of putting things in the hands of Sam Mendes; which should at least make for a unique looking/feeling film. We'll see.

He Has Risen

The makers of ANCHORMAN 2 know how excited you are for ANCHORMAN 2 - so much so that they've cut a teaser for ANCHORMAN 2 even though ANCHORMAN 2 is still being written.

ANCHORMAN 2.

Exclusive Anchorman 2 Teaser from Will Ferrell

My only nagging concern about this is that we still haven't seen any indication that Christina Applegate is back. To my mind, she was pretty key to how well the first one worked; and it'd be a mistake (not to mention darkly ironic given the story of the first one) for the original's lone female lead not to return.

Hail The Terrible Wings Of Star-Lord Xenu!

Below, the cryptic but entrancing teaser trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's "THE MASTER;" a long-gestating project ~~which is based-on~~ that is absolutely not at all in any way, shape or form honest really no-fooling a fictionalized account of L. Ron Hubbard and the rise of Scientology. Philip Seymour Hoffman has the Hubbard part - the titular Master - but doesn't appear in the trailer; which seems to show Joaquin Pheonix as a sailor undergoing some sort of pyschiatric-interrogation.

This will probably end up being one of the big ones this year; but the real interest will be in seeing how the ~~notoriously-litigious, cartoonishly thin-skinned~~ extremely reasonable and clearheaded Church of Scientology reacts to it.

Regrettable

Until further notice, anonymous commenting is no longer available on this blog. I don't like it, but there's been too much bad behavior as of recent and this is the only way to curb it while still allowing the majority of readers to still post. Google and/or OpenID registrations are free, and while I understand and sympathize with those who don't want to register in some way to post online there really is no other way.

Some Memories Should Stay Buried

Someday, someone is going to write an AMAZING book about just how hillariously, disasterously stupid the "pop-culture tie-ins" side of the Reagan/Bush era "War on Drugs" push was.

For now, here's the finale of "The Flintstone Kids: Just Say No!;" with Michael JackSTONE belting out a re-worded anti-drug cover of "Beat-It" for toddler-versions of Fred Flintstone and friends - yes, complete with animated crotch-grab at 0:58. You're welcome.

Silly Season

Below, a trailer for "2016: Obama's America," a political-propaganda documentary that alledges to explain the "real motivation" behind all the sinister things ~~paranoid dumbfuck white people~~ conservatives were sure that Barack Obama was going to do but didn't do so now they're sure he's just waiting to do in his hypothetical second term. The bulk of this particular theory is coming from one Dinesh D'Souza, whose supposed "eureka!" concerning Obama is that he's not a socialist but rather an Africa-centric anti-colonialist who wants to dismantle American/Western power to the benefit of nations/peoples who previously suffered under Western colonialism - the "between the lines" on that, of course, is "White people, look out! Obama is going to take your stuff and give it to brown people!"

D'Souza, incidentally, is the author of "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and It's Responsibility For 9/11;" which argued that secular American cultural exports like feminism, abortion-rights, atheism, gay-equality etc. are to blame for making Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists decide to attack the United States. So... yeah, charming guy.

Does the Republican Party power-structure (who, let's be clear, would CRUSH this thing if they didn't think it would help) buy D'Souza's batshit psychoanalysis? Probably not - but that's not the point. The point is it offers a faux-reasonable excuse to juxtapose images of the President with footage of black people rioting violently. Y'know, because this is ALL about the economy and has absolutely NOTHING to do with race.

Incidentally, observe the (seemingly) out-of-context, near-subliminal shot of a black family squabbling flailingly over a game of Monopoly starting at around 0:51. You stay classy, GOP.

Escape To The Movies: "Battleship"

How'd did you think it would turn out?
"Intermission" has some other movies based-on/around branded products where the connection was tenuous at best.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Battleship

REVIEW: "The Dictator"

Sacha Baron Cohen is a great comic talent and a good actor with a lot of potential, so it's encouraging to see him trying to move beyond the "ambush-interviews-as-a-wacky-character" genre that initially made him a sensation. Let's just hope that the next "something new" he tries sticks better than "The Dictator" does.

The main problem at work is that while Cohen has wisely abandoned the "interview real people" routine, he's really only made a lateral progression - once again inhabiting a broad, purposefully-offensive cartoon caricature like Borat, Bruno and Ali-G but this time dropping said caricature into the leading-man spot of a formula fish-out-of-water comedy.

The persona in question is Admiral General Aladeen, dictator-for-life of the fictional North African Republic of Wadiya. He's basically a pastiche of every "crazy leader" Western audiences have become recently familiar with - a little Saddam, a little Kim-Jong Il, a little Ghadaffi, a little Ahmadinejad, etc; - plus a smattering of broader riffs on Middle Eastern cultural-stereotypes (he's a sexist, an anti-semite, you get the idea.) This is actually the funniest stuff in the movie - it's a riot watching Aladeen go about his psycho-supervillain routine; and you start to get the sense that a "Spinal Tap" style mocumentary JUST on the running of Wadiya might be funnier than the rest of the movie.

Along with brutalizing his people while spending absurd amounts of national wealth on his personal fetishes and fixations, Aladeen has also begun seeking nuclear weapons which has pushed him to the brink of international military intervention; which he has been given one last chance to avert by addressing the United Nations in New York. While there, he is betrayed by his uncle (Ben Kingsley) and left for dead - the betrayers planning to replace him with a double and initiate a "transfer to democracy" which will actually involve Wadiya and it's oil fields being taken over by a cabal of corporate power-players. There's a lot of potential for smart pitch-black satire in this premise; the idea of a corporate-"democracy" being equal to or even worse than a murderous dictatorship, but other than a well-intentioned but leaden speech at the very end it doesn't go anywhere. Instead, we follow the (not dead, as it turns out) Aladeen through a bad guy version of "Coming to America," as he schemes to get himself back into power while hiding in the guise of a Wadiyan refugee and falling for Anna Farris as the boss of a hippie Brooklyn food co-op.

A lot of this is pretty funny; I liked an extended bit where Aladeen visits a restaurant catering to Wadiyan refugees, and you can see a better movie struggling to escape in a subplot where The Dictator turns Farris' struggling food store around by applying his governing "expertise" to small-business. But it just can't rise above the level of barely-connected comedy sketches that can't even bother to maintain some consistency of character: Sometimes Aladeen is a wily schemer, then he's an idiot manchild, then he's a derranged butcher (a bizzare laugh-free dialogue exchange is dedicated to him having raped the members of Menudo.) That kind of "whatever's funniest right now" approach worked in "Borat" and the rest, where the whole point was that the interviewees were only meeting him for that bite-sized moment and the audience is in on the gag; but when it's a full-fiction movie and Aladeen is playing off other made-up comedy players it's just tiresome and disjointed.

It was probably innevitable that Cohen was going to stumble in a "transitional" movie in between his original schtick and whatever he grows into, but "The Dictator" is still pretty disapointing. Granted, I laughed hard and I laughed often - but then I forgot that I'd laughed at all.

The Premise Is 90% Of The Work

The premise of "Bait?" A group of random strangers are in an Australian supermarket when a robbery breaks out. Then a freak tsunami hits, trapping them inside the now half-flooded building... with a Great White Shark who rode in on the wave.

That'll do.

Raimi's Ghosthouse Offers Jewish Exorcism Flick

It's a cultural curiousity that, despite the much-ballyhooed presence of Jewish voices in American cinema; you don't actually see many mainstream movies mining the religious arcana of Judaism the way Catholicism or even Paganism are used by, for example, supernatural films. In fact, most non-Jewish U.S. audience probably couldn't tell you much about the actual faith beyond kosher diets and a lack of Jesus.
You can probably chalk most of this up to history - many Jewish-American families descend from immigrants who escaped persecution in Europe and elsewhere, and "blending in" to a mainstream culture by downplaying the more pronounced differences between their own culture and Christianity was likely an old survival-habit that died hard.

In any case, what this means is that even though there are traditions of dealing with supernatural forces and even exorcism that are unique to Judaism; they're rarely used as movie-fodder like the by-now humdrum Christian variety is. "The Possession" (formerly "The Dybbuk Box",) is a pickup by Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse production label that aims to change this with the story of a young girl whose parents seek out a Rabbinical exorcist to rid her of a possessing demon called a Dybbuk:

Big Picture: "Last Starr"

Strength of the bear!!!

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Last Starr

Generation Y is beginning to graduate from College and head out into the big scary adult world, which in the marketing biz means it's time to start re-selling them comforting reminders of their suddenly-evaporating youth.

I was (or, rather, considered myself to be) just a bit too old when the "Power Rangers" first happened to get big into it - though, obviously, the "tokusatsu" series that the franchise grew out of have been and remain a pretty big influence on me - in fact I remember being a perhaps-too-vocal "hater" of it when I was in Junior High and my then-kid sister was a MASSIVE never-miss-an-episode fan of it. I will say, however, that thanks to Linkara's hugely-watchable efforts I'm more or less becoming sort of a "retroactive fan."

In any case, I'm sure that while the image to the right is more of a "huh, cool" to me it's a MASSIVE "about fucking time!!!" to many others. What I CAN say is that Shout! Factory and Saban Inc's recently-announced plan for releasing the series on DVD is a master-class in how to "do" nostalgia-selling right...

Here's the score: The DVDs are coming out in Season/Volume sets (it started out as a daily series, so "Season One" is incredibly long as kid-shows go) with multi-month release gaps because... hey, they've gotta make money and cheaper piecemeal dole-outs let you make it big time off of impulse buys in the "OMIGOD GOTTA HAVE IT NOW!!!" mold, the "Hey, so-and-so loved this as a kid - let's get it for `em!" mold and especially the younger fans of the current (yet incredibly STILL in some kind of continuity!*) incarnations hungry for more material (seriously, TEN HOURS of episodes for under 20 bucks is a hell of a deal as digital-babysitting goes.)

...BUT! In a welcome acknowledgement that a big part of the consumer base for this will be now-adult collectors with the ability and inclination to buy it in a bigger but more efficient way, they are also set to make a huge box set encompassing every single episode of the first Seven Seasons (for fans: that means the entirety of the "Zordon Era" and the semi-connected seventh "Lost Galaxy" season) available right off the bat through Time Life - similar to the way the "Real Ghostbusters" DVDs initially came out (no price has been set yet.)

THIS, nostalgia-propert license-holders, is how you handle this stuff.

I'm sincerely curious to see how "90s Nostalgia" plays out as a market force. My own biases are obvious in this case; ("...don't you mean EVERY case, Bob derp de-derp derp derp!?") but I maintain that one of the reason that "kitsch nostalgia" of the 80s (and the 50s before it) "works" so well as a re-saleable commodity is the unironic earnestness of the era(s). Yeah, there was calculating cynicism behind all that earnestness - what better way to get kids to dump their parents money into the battle between Autobot and Decepticon than to get them sincerely emotionally invested? - but it was there, and I think it's part of why the stuff endures.

The 90s... had a different "vibe" happening - not necessarily better or worse, but different. The 90s - snuggled too-securely between the end of Cold War fears and the beginning of Terror War fears - was all about affecting a too-cool-for-school "end of history" jadedness, the "whatever" era. Pop-culture of the time reflected that, to a large degree, with lots of cartoons, comics, TV etc. making self-awareness of their own disposability part of their "act;" and I wonder if that's had an effect on how well it's managed to lodge in onetime fans' psyches?

Just for one immediate example: "Power Rangers" itself probably has the most potent "nostalgia cache" of 90s-spawned kiddie properties... and if you go back and watch stuff from the first wave of it what sticks out is that it's an incredibly "retro"-feeling show even excluding the recycled Japanese FX footage. The upbeat gee-whiz teenage superhero formula it cribs from plays out in precisely the manner of an early-60s Disney show or DC comic, and it's wide-eyed earnest almost to the point of self-parody. Correlation? You tell me...

*Incidentally, has anyone made the argument yet that "Power Rangers" is on it's way to being America's equivalent to "Doctor Who;" i.e. a low-budget kids show that goes on forever as a generational, continuing "thing?" I mean, let's be realistic - at some point someone is going to float "do a version in prime-time aimed at older fans" to Saban, and if they pull the trigger it's almost-certainly a moneymaker...

Is It Amazing Yet?

So, two weekends ago Sony found out definitively that "The Amazing Spider-Man" is now all-but-destined to be the third-place finisher of Summer 2012's superhero blockbusters. "The money people" are already whispering that "Dark Knight Rises" probably won't beat "Avengers" boxoffice, and there's no way this is opening ahead of that, so... yeah.

Hence yesterday evening's huge multi-channel "special presentation" of a 4-minute preview of the film... about 2 1/2 minutes of which were all the scenes you've already seen in the trailers. The first minute and a half, however, are "new" and appear to be a major action scene that's been awkwardly re-edited/scored into trailer-beats - unless this is actually how they're cutting and scoring this thing, in which case... yikes...

Every problem I've had with every piece of advertising on this thing is still present, so let's just cut to the discussion: 1.) If you're Sony, is it really the best idea to tease what looks unavoidably like a less-interesting version of the big climactic action scene from the first movie as a BIG SETPIECE of your all-new-all-different reboot?

2.) Does anyone think (or maybe "has anyone observed?") the shell game the trailers keep playing about "The Untold Story" - i.e. trying to make this look more like a sequel with a big plot twist rather than a remake to audiences who might not follow this stuff as closely - is actually working? Or that it actually matters?

Game OverThinker on Ollie North & "Call of Duty"

I don't typically cross-post new Game OverThinker episode stuff to this blog, but this new one that is now up for all audiences at ScrewAttack has a lot of bigger political and general-culture ramifications so I think it's appropriate enough.

The subject in question is the new "Call of Duty" ad campaign, which trots out Iran-Contra creep turned Fox News creep Oliver North to do some reactionry fear-mongering as a game advertisement and (maybe?) make "Call of Duty's" status as right-wing military-propaganda "official."

I'm pretty happy with this episode, though naturally I'd prefer the events in question never happened and thus that I wouldn't have had reason to make it. If this is your first exposure to "The Other Show," feel free to catch up in the archives on ScrewAttack and see some of the older ones on YouTube.

Escape to the Movies: "Dark Shadows"

It's alright.

"Intermission" has Bobcat Goldthwait talking "God Bless America"

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Dark Shadows

Post-Movie Podcast: Avengers

I was back on the Post-Movie Podcast with Steve Head and John Black this week, talking about "The Avengers." Here's the link to the iTunes page where you can download this and other episodes; embed is below the jump:

The Good Guys Win - For Now

The President of The United States has come out in favor of Marriage Equality.

This is the big one - second only to the killing of Bin Laden in terms of "things Obama will be remembered for." It's been widely assumed that he supported equality all along, but was holding back on outright support in order to not anger certain voting-blocs (churchgoing African-Americans/Latinos and Catholic-descended blue-collar Union laborers mainly) known to be reflexively-Democrat voters but socially conservative. Whether this was planned via Biden's "trial-balloon" admission of support or whether that really was a "gaffe" that forced the President's hand is for the pundits to decide.

I am a supporter of same-sex marriage and the President overall, so this is pretty elating... but I won't lie and say I'm not a little bit worried. I was with everyone else in assuming Obama was trying to feign the middle-ground until after the election, and I was always fine with it - politics for grownups are about results, not idealism - because I'd rather have him fake-right, win and give me four more years of progressive judicial nominations (the most important thing ANY president can do long-term) than be "true" and lose, saddling me with 4 to 8 years of backwards-looking right-wing governance. So yeah, I'm happy... but I hope he knows what he's doing.

If nothing else, this is the clearest signal yet that the Democrats "get" what the GOP has "gotten" for a year now, that with neither party having the kind of record you can really "run" on, this is going to be a base-versus-base election - re: "swing voters" are being written off in favor of "who can fire up turnout among the already-decided base." This is the gauntlet being thrown and the notion of "changing minds" being back-burnered - it's Culture War time: Thinkers versus Believers, Red versus Blue, Past versus Future, Backwards versus Forwards, Regression versus Evolution, Reason versus "It's In The Magic Book."

I'm excited. I enjoy the relative-clarity of times like these; and it'll be a rare pleasure to actually vote for a candidate instead of just for his likely-politicies (or "against" the other guy.) I just hope there actually are enough Good Guys to win...

Moderation

As a rule, I try to let the comments section of these blogs run wild - people can post anonymously if they want, and the only things I tend to delete are abusive comments directed at other users. Unfortunately, owing to the continued bad behavior of some repeat-offenders I'm going to have to start getting more strict. I don't like it, but there it is.

From now on, the comments sections will be moderated by me on the following criteria: No abuse of others, no soliciting, no intentional derailing and try to stay on-topic to whatever degree possible. In other words, attempting to hijack any given conversation or spamming the recurrent "gotcha" lines into every damn post is a good way to get yourself consistently removed. Several recent posts will have their comment-sections culled in this manner once this message is posted.

I don't like it, but that's the way it has to be. Hopefully this will not overly impact the vast majority of commenters who don't make trouble.

Affleck's Fake Movie

Based on a true story, "Argo" is about a covert mission to rescue American's trapped in Iran following that country's 1970s revolution. The mission's premise: Stage the production of a fake big-budget Hollywood scifi movie that wished to film in Iran's "exotic" desert locales, and while there smuggle the would-be hostages out as part of the "production crew." Ben Affleck directs and stars.

Of special note for geek audiences: The non-film used designs from comics legend Jack Kirby as it's concept-art - Kirby will appear in the film, played by Michael Parks.

Amusingly, I've already been effectively called a racist once today in-part for not coming out against this movie because Affleck's character was Latino in real life. So... yeah, now I've mentioned that: Affleck's character was Latino in real life. I'm not sure what else I'm expected to say about that other than to note that I don't like Hollywood' insistence that white leads are needed to a open a movie

RIP Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak, legendary author best known for "Where The Wild Things Are," has died at the age of 89. A major, major loss for literature and for culture.

Below, a reposting of my (positive) 2009 review of the "Wild Things" movie; directed by Spike Jonze with Sendak's blessing and endorsement:

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Where the Wild Things Are

Big Picture: "Wrongs & Rights"

One more "Avengers"-related show? Why not...

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Wrongs & Rights

Escape To The Movies: "The Avengers"

Apologies for not putting this link up sooner - busy day of podcast recording.

In any case, the movie is as good as you've heard. Proceed to theater immediately.

If you HAVE seen it, and you stayed through the credits, and you want to know why half the theater was so excited, read this (spoiler-warning, obviously.)

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Avengers

New Spidey Trailer Has New Lizard Look, Same Issues

The new "Amazing Spider-Man" trailer, which is supposed to be in front of most "Avengers" prints, is now online; confirming that The Lizard (the CGI on the whole still looks shockingly bad) will be wearing his labcoat for at least a little while and that the standup-comedy Spidey and missing-parents stuff aren't looking any better with more polish, and that omniously-stupid "do you know what you really are?" business crops up again:

For all the "Avengers vs. Batman" talk that will surely dominate the summer movie coverage, this honestly strikes me as the genre movie that could be negatively impacted the most by "Avengers" sucking all the air out of the room: Nolan's Batman is very much it's own thing, but ASM looks to be playing the same game as "Avengers" (scifi-heavy superheroics in New York) but not nearly as well.

Who's the guy asking Connors if he said anything about The Parkers at one point? Has the trailer revealed it's previously-unannounced Norman Osborn?

UPDATE: Devin Faraci claims to have some inside sources on the project, and says that they've confirmed what the trailers (this one moreso than the others) have hinted at about the reboot making a major, fundamental change to Spider-Man's origin. If true, it's sort-of a spoiler (though the trailers are pretty-much saying it right out at this point) so read it only if you wish to HERE.

Believers

I have a slightly askew relationship with the "organized atheism" movement, not so much ideologically but tactically - I think some facets of the movement can be a little petty and mean-spirited sometimes (re: the "you know it's a myth" billboards that amount to a neener-neener against various faiths during their holidays); and I'm unable to subscribe to the tenet that "All religions are bad." Sorry, I can't go there - they're all a little silly, conceptually, sure... but not only are most self-identified persons of faith either decent or at least harmless; the vast majority of the world's hundreds of thousands of organized-religions are fairly benign.

That having been said, I'm fairly comfortable in my infrequent calculation that while not ALL religions are bad... between three and four of them (the religions) ARE bad - or, at the very least are a net-negative influence on the modern world as a whole to a degree that is not offset by whatever good is done by individual adherents. And this kind of shit is WHY...

That's Pastor Sean Harris, rather explicitly suggesting that parents should - upon witnessing their children behaving in homosexual and/or gender-non-normative ways - essentially beat the behavior out of them. Charming.

He has, of course, offered a toothless apology on his blog.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers. This fellow, and the cheering/clapping ignoramouses hanging on his every word, are Believers; and that designation has NOTHING to do with their being religious and EVERYTHING to do with the words coming out of his mouth.

Oh, and have you heard? Activision has hired right-wing folk hero Col. Oliver North - convicted (later overturned on appeal) in the Iran-Contra Affair - to do commercials shilling next "Call of Duty" video-game.

Yeah, things are goin' swell...

I Just Don't Know Anymore

Universal has inked a major production deal with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writers of the "Transformers" movies and the "Star Trek" reboot, that will include among other things a remake of "Van Helsing" with Tom Cruise tapped to star. Yes, really - a do-over of a failed decade-old Hugh Jackman vehicle starring Tom Cruise. I don't even know where to start a joke about that...

K&O have had a good year as deals go - despite "Cowboys & Aliens" tanking, they've already lined up this new set of projects plus an agreement to take over the writing duties on Sony's pre-planned "Amazing Spider-Man" sequel (the gossip is that Sony is VERY unhappy with how "ASM" has turned out, and are effectively looking to reboot the reboot in terms of a new creative team if the film does well enough to get a sequel.)

The Big Picture: "One Day In November"

Is "Halo 4" releasing on Election Day fishy?

The Escapist : The Big Picture : One Day in November

Toys

I know, I know... commercialism, first-world opulence, more-plastic-for-the-landfill, etc... but I just LOVE this commercial Target has been running for "Avengers" merch:

What I like about this is that it really does nail - intentionally or not - exactly why the project works so well: The beats and energy of the kids "playing Avengers" is nearly indistinguishable from the actual Avengers in movie, which understands (especially in regards to it's best-ever version of The Hulk) like almost no other superhero movie before it that the foundational versions of these characters tended to act like the energetic children their stories were aimed at (seriously, pretty-much every "WTF?" thing about weird old comics is answerable with "because that's what a seven year-old would think/do.")

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