"Burn Em All!"

So, since it's Halloween... lets talk about this red band trailer for "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,"  which looks about as agood as these "stupid on purpose" genre riffs get. Specifically... is it at all "weird" that I find this in somewhat bad taste?



What I mean is... I totally "get" that they're just riffing on the familiar fairytale (LOVE the gag with the milk bottles) and that 0.00000% of this is meant to be taken seriously, but... they MUST be aware that "Witch" isn't strictly a fictional, made-up thing like vampires or zombies or whatnot, right? That there's an actual, recognized religion (several of them, in fact) in the 21st Century world that calls it's practice "Witchcraft" and it's adherents "Witches," right? I mean, this cannot be NEWS to anyone making a big-budget American fantasy/horror movie, yes?

I know it's kind of a weird area, since Wicca etc. names itself AFTER the historical/mythic version of Witches/Witchcraft and not the other way around, but still... the whole jokey "the only good witch is a dead witch" thing kinda rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I'm oversensitive to this, having known and been friends with more than a few real Witches in my time, but it seems kind of weird to not be qualifying them as "evil witches" here, fairytale or not.

I dunno, maybe I'm nuts... but this feels, to me, just a little bit like having "The Wandering Jew" show up as a monster in something and saying it's okay because it was an actual 13th Century legend. I don't know that it's a huge deal (any Wiccans and/or Witchcraft-identifying neo-pagans want to chime in?) but it feels odd in the 21st Century - regardless of context, can you see someone making a movie called "Christian Hunter" or "Muslim Hunter?"

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Leia Organa Now Officially a Disney Princess

And then everything changed.

It's being reported that Disney has purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to all of it's properties from George Lucas, placing the entirety of the "Star Wars" universe under the Walt Disney umbrella. Evidently, this must have been in the works (how the HELL did they keep everyone quiet!?) for awhile, because they've simultaneously announced that they're moving ahead on "Star Wars: Episode VII" for 2015.

SO many conflicting emotions about this...

On the one hand, this is symbolically kind of sad. The whole original point of Lucasfilm in the first place was to be a wholly-independent entity, seperate from the corporate studios... and there's NEVER been an outfit that embodied the concept of a corporation-as-studio more than Disney. Granted, "the system" today is not the system that Lucas rebeled against in the 70s and 80s, but still - Goliath Wins, basically.

On the other hand... Disney has been bringing some incredible talent and material under their umbrella lately. People forget this, but the whole reason they bought Marvel was because their attempts to build in-house "boy brands" (their words, not mine) were coming up short and they figured it was easier/cheaper to just BUY a whole bunch. Now they've bought another bunch: Mickey Mouse is now in the business of making movies about The Incredible Hulk and Darth Vader - the future of YOUR popular culture is MY toybox circa 1985.

While I'll always respect Lucas' go-it-alone zeal in claiming/owning his creations (and I can't not worry that there might be something "gone wrong" on his end that's driving this)... the fact is, he just hasn't been the best steward of them for a long time. If his final act as owner of "Star Wars" is to leave it, effectively, in John Lasseter et al's hands? I'm more than okay with that. Especially since this means it's now in the hands of people with no Earthly reason to NOT release the uncut original trilogy.

Okay. I'm onboard. Let's see where this is going.

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Big Picture: "Equinox"

Schlocktober 2012 comes to a close.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Shlocktober 2012- Equinox

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American Bob: A Message To Young Liberals

You asked for it, you got it. Thoughts and prayers to my fellow hurricane-weatherers.

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Nintendohemian Rhapsody

Brentalfloss and Pat The NES Punk, raising the fucking bar:

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Escape to The Movies: "Cloud Atlas"

See it. Love it or hate it, it's going to be one of the most important movies of the year.

Intermission: "Let's Watch 'The Iron Man 3' Trailer"

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Cloud Atlas

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What Is Best In Life?

BREAKING: Arnold Schwarzenegger will play "Conan The Barbarian" one more time.

Honestly? If he can get into the best possible shape and they play it as "old Conan" either way, this makes a lot more sense than another "Terminator." I just hope they don't make the mistake of assuming that forgoing a PG-13 was what "went wrong" with last year's awful attempt at a reboot...

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Are the wheels ALREADY coming off the re-energized "X-Men" series?

Bryan Singer's original two "X-Men" movies (you know, the ones that still technically happened) are both very solid examples of their genre... for their time. The costumes are almost universally awful, the aesthetic is inappropriately drab and sterile, everyone looks a little too much like models up on the catwalk at a superhero-themed fashion show, but there's some great performances and both films have good screenplays that "get" the material and most of the characters. Made before Raimi's "Spider-Man," "Batman Begins" and especially "The Avengers;" they were imperfect but as good as you could hope for at the time.

"X-Men: First Class" was a better movie on every concievable level - the best version of X-Men outside of the comics and, to be frank, probably better than most of the comics at this point. It finally seemed like Fox had figured out how to handle these properties. Now word is coming down that Matthew Vaughn has opted not to direct the already in-development sequel, "X-Men: Days of Future Past," and that original helmer Bryan Singer might be stepping in to replace him.

Uh-oh...

I'm not necessarily anti-Singer, and he's going to need a big hit if "Jack The Giant Slayer" is as disasterous as it's been reputed to be, but this sounds like trouble. And no, not only because I don't trust him not to regress the series' aesthetically back to the dour, dreariness he took it to in the first place. "Past" was reputed to be a time-travel story set up to iron-out the continuity issues between the orignals and "Class," possibly establishing a new present-day status-quo rooted more in "Class's" sensibilities.

Meanwhile, the second attempt at a solo "Wolverine" movie is now being described as taking place after the events of "X-Men 3" and not totally junking "Origins" like everyone thought it was. That's unsettling, since "Origins" was pretty solidly deleted by "First Class" as well.

All of this comes on the heels of Fox hiring comic scribe Mark Millar (whose comics occasionally make good movies once someone else completely rewrites them) to "manage" their mini-universe of Marvel properties, another development that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

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"Evil Dead" Remake Red Band

Below, the Red Band trailer for "Evil Dead," which looks about like you'd expect: New kids, new cabin, same basic "Deadites" (though they were called that in the original and I don't expect they'll be called that here) and a modern-looking horror aesthetic...



Thus far, I like it. It's continuing to look like a smart decision to not necessarily make someone "The Ash" in the direct sense - remember, Ash in the first movie wasn't really "Ash" as we've come to remember him.

Honestly, my biggest worry about this and any other "serious" kids-in-the-woods horror film is that "Cabin in The Woods" may have permanently put the genre to bed - I just don't know that I'll be able to take ANY of this remotely seriously without thinking back to how perfectly it was parodied (and then used for greater purposes) there. We'll see.

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What Is That Thing on The Mandarin's Neck?

On the right, a high-res still from yesterday's "Iron Man 3" trailer; depicting what seems to be The Mandarin taking off his hood. Glimpsed for a split second is a tattoo on the back of his neck, the design of which appears to be Captain America's shield with an "Anarchist A" replacing the star:

So what does it mean? It's obviously there to be seen and get fans talking, and it seems unlikely that Marvel would let something that looks this much like a continuity-reference slip in by accident. So what's going on here? I have some theories...

It's almost-certainly symbolic of something. We now know that the world at large has always known about Captain America - at least, they know that a superhuman in a costume fought in WWII and re-appeared in 2012 - and we saw people getting shield tats at the end of "Avengers." Swapping out the star for anything would mean the equivalent of doing the same to the American flag: Making a statement.

But what's it doing on The Mandarin? Or what looks like The Mandarin? Three ideas, top of my head:

1.) That's not The Mandarin. That's someone else doing the impersonate-the-bad-guy thing, and the tattoo is a giveaway. So who is it? You can kind-of see what might be the rim of glasses, but otherwise who's to say? Crazy-unlikely out-of-left-field guess: It's The Winter Soldier, making an introductory cameo prior to "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." Also fun possibilities: Ant-Man, Bruce Banner or the ACTUAL Captain America.

2.) The Mandarin is an Anarchist, and this is his symbol. The terrorists in "Iron Man" called their group "The Ten Rings," a Mandarin reference, and the trailer includes a shot of The Mandarin wearing the actual Ten Rings just like in the comics - so it can be assumed he was pulling their strings. What we don't know, yet, is if he's still exclusively running Brand-X Al-Qaeda's or if he's branched out into manipulating other "movements" to his owns ends. Fronting an American Anarchist group would be a topical twist, though also uncomfortably close to Bane's gambit in "Dark Knight Rises."

3.) The Mandarin is a Super Soldier. In "classic" Marvel lore, a whole slew of good guys and bad guys got their abilities from unsuccessful attempts to replicate the experiment that created Captain America. In the Marvel Movieverse, that's part of the backstory of both The Hulk and The Abomination. Why make this leap for The Mandarin? Well...

Firstly, I'm expecting he won't have his "I found alien technology" origin here. Be interesting if he did (there's certainly a shitload of it all over the place after the finale of "Avengers") but since "Avengers" made it clear that Thor's arrival on Earth was modern Earth's "first contact" I doubt thats how it's going to work here. So he's probably going to need a new backstory, right? Well, think about his "place" in the Marvel movies:

People forget this because the surprise-ending drowned out everything else, but before "Iron Man" opened the "big deal" was that it was going to be THE post-9/11 superhero movie - the trailers were all selling "Tony Stark blasts the FUCK out of The Terrorists" as the main thrust of the narrative. Well, if the Ten Rings are Al-Qaeda, that'd make The Mandarin Osama bin Laden. Remember bin Laden's origin story? He was recruited/trained by U.S. agencies to work agains the Soviets in Afghanistan, then went rogue.

Well, what if they keep that paralell going and THAT'S his "thing" here? An Asian/Mid-East attempt at making a Super Soldier ("tagged" with this tattoo for designation) who turned on his masters? It'd certainly give him an excuse to bust out some extra-human abilities to make him a threat to the guy essentially wearing a tank, and it would tie back in with this specific franchise's "unintended consequences of weapon-making" theme.

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Are "Aquaman" and "Submariner" now redundant?

Had totally forgotten that this was supposed to exist until this trailer popped up today on Dark Horizons.

"Empires of The Deep" is being referred to as the biggest U.S./Chinese co-production ever at a $100 Million budget, but supposedly the "Chinese" side of that is almost-entirely from a single China-based Real Estate billionaire. I like how nobody even bats an eye anymore at the idea of a supposedly-"communist" country having billionaires, incidentally...

The pitch? It's "Avatar" meets "The Little Mermaid," with a human hero traveling to an underwater kingdom and getting swept up into an epic war between rival fish-person nations. Naturally, it's in 3D (something you need to understand about the 3D "thing" right now: Chinese audiences are madly in love with 3D - thats one of the biggest reasons they keep doing it.) The early buzz is that it's a "Dragon Wars"-level fiasco in every way except the effects (scale wise, at least), design and action stuff:




So... probably a camp classic waiting to happen. Still, I can't look at the "bigger" parts of this and wonder why I seem to be the only person who can totally see how "Aquaman" could actually work...

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Big Picture: "Attack of The Super Monsters"

DESTROY!!!

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Schlocktober 2012: Attack of the Super Monsters

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"IRON MAN 3" FULL TRAILER

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

"Iron Man 3's" first trailer is, without a doubt, the most immediately excellent "debut" trailer a Marvel movie has ever had - dramatic, big, good sense of story and a sense that they fully "get" that this thing has to live-up to "Avengers," not just trump the first two. Get watching, kids:



I'll probably write more in depth about this later, but for now the main things jumping out at me are that The Mandarin DOES seem to be wearing the Ten Rings of Power and that I'll be curious to see what mainstream audiences make of the "Iron Patriot" armor (which apparently appears here as the new publicity-friendly paint job for War Machine - which I kinda dig.)

But, mainly... holy shit, THE MANDARIN in a live-action movie. Never thought I'd actually see that.

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Politics, Clarified

I get asked to do the "what do you think about _______?" regarding my personal politics from time to time, more so now because it's an election year, but I also get a lot of feedback that I keep such things off the mainpage. I don't really see why - everything has a political dimension, so the idea of having some expectation of an apolitical presentation simply because a site is "about" movies instead of a live feed from congress or whatnot seems silly to me - but let it never be said I'm not accomodating: If you don't want the discussion of anything important to interupt your day, feel free to stop reading after this paragraph and go watch a funny cat video. (not my joke, acknowledged) Or whatever...

So... pretty much every time I have anything to say vis-a-vi politics people either try to "figure out" where I stand or assume they know, and the whole back and forth can get a little tiresome. So, hopefully just this once, I'm going to explain as best as I'm able "where I'm coming from." Bookmark it for later if you wish - especially if you're going to nitpick everything I've said for a decad-plus of web presence looking for "hypocrisy," that never gets old.

I'll do this in the form of an arbitrarily numbered list - if it's good enough for the "winner" of a presidential debate, it's good enough for me:

1.) I do not have an "ideology." Political ideology doesn't make sense to me. Actually, moral/philosophical "codes" don't make sense to me, period. I organize my life around situational, practical reason - something is "good" for as long as it achieves the optimal result sought (for me, "optimal" generally includes "causes no direct unwarranted harm to others," just so we're clear), when it ceases to do so it becomes neutral, when it becomes harmful and/or counterproductive it becomes "bad." Ideology means doing counterproductive things because you've subscribed to some kind of "value system" that says this is the right thing to do even when it doesn't work; and while I understand why that sort of psychological masochism works for some minds ("my suffering will be rewarded in heaven!") it doesn't work for mine.

2.) Example for #1: I am an environmentalist. I am NOT an environmentalist because it makes me feel good, or because I believe myself a steward of the Earth, or because I believe Mother Gaia has been wounded by industry, or because I'm awash in concern for the fate of My Fellow Man. I am an environmentalist because I breathe air, I drink water, and I am likely to live longer and healthier if those things are uncontaminated. Simple as that. This is why the supposed "gray area" of "You can't regulate the ______ industry out of existance! Think of the JOBS!!!!" doesn't really move me all that much overall - I sympathize, to a degree I'd rather not get too deep into, with people who finds themselves suddenly unemployed; but given the choice in bad outcomes between "me dying early of mercury poisoning" and "someone else's hopefully-brief unemployment"... sorry, I'm taking the option clearly less likely to shorten my life - and I take no "moral" exception with people who support the opposite option based on the same calculation. Law of the jungle and all that.

3.) Lack of ideology DOES NOT mean I lack empathy or am "selfish." Case in point: Another part of the reason that I do not see "jobs will be lost" as a reason not to pursue an aggressive environmental policy is the demonstrable knowledge that the "liberal" politicians I am likely to support for their environmental policies are of the same party/persuasion that consistently vote to extend and increase benefits and The Safety Net to said unemployed people. The notion that reason is a poor substitute for "morality" is a falsehood far more often than it is a truth; as almost all great historical evils supposedly conducted in the name of "logic" were in fact conducted in the name of ideology in the guise of logic or, simply, based on bad logic. That's the one drawback to reason on the macro level: to use it properly, you have to be reasonably intelligent yourself - which cuts a lot of humanity out of the user-base. Bringing us to...

4.) We are NOT "all in this together." My votes as far as politicians go swing pretty reliably toward Democrats and/or liberals, but please don't mistake that for an embrace of "one big happy human family" liberal piety. The fact is, everyone has not always needed everyone else, and as the world becomes more technologically-centered and more mechanized it becomes less true by the day. There are varying degrees for this, of course, and varying types of measurement i.e. worth in the societal-machinery sense versus worth as assigned by relations (friends, family, loved-ones, etc) but it doesn't change the basic and (admittedly, unpleasant) truth we do not all "matter" equally or at all... at least in the strict physical-world sense - obviously, if you believe in God or some other transcendant assigner of worth then there's another dimension for you. To put it another way: If I'm hanging off a cliff, and the guy with the cure for cancer is hanging off a cliff, save the cancer guy - he's more important. However...

5.) #4 is NOT nihilism or cynicism. In fact, I consider it a great motivator: Because I don't accept that I am "entitled" to worth simply by virtue of drawing breath, I am driven to make sure that I make myself worth something. HOWEVER...

6.) Acknowledging #4 and #5 is NOT a license to ignore the plight of others. Accepting that we are not "all in this together" is not (and can never be) an excuse or justification for cruelty, malice or any other denial of humanity to others. One can debate the "worth" of this or that life as an intellectual exercise, but even the lowest of us have a right to our lives and to fight for them; and no matter how much more "worthy" you may think yourself (or may well be) you are not in charge of who lives and who dies. I'm not certain that the universe has or needs a metaphysical god, but it definitely doesn't need a tangible one here among us. This isn't based on emotion or philosophy, but once again on LOGIC: It makes more sense to help others, within reason, than to not help others.

7.) Example for #6: The so-called "Safety Net." Having explained why I don't subscribe to "liberal" ideology, let me now explain why I reject "conservative" ideology as well. While I'm accepting of Natural Selection and a chaotic universe, I'm also accepting of reality. And in reality, the baseline right-wing approach to society of removing "Safety Net" social programs in order to let Survival of The Fittest do it's thing just doesn't work out. Even if you were cold and inhuman enough to cut the disadvantaged, undereducated, homeless, mentally-unwell, etc loose from help to fend for themselves... it's not going to "work." These people will not simply "die off" or "disappear," the species is too resilient for that. They will survive, they will "organize" in one form or another, and they'll likely exact a certain amount of payback upon those who decided to cut them loose... which they will deserve. Hence, this is another illustration of why I tend to vote for liberals even though I find "liberalism" fairly foolish: Since a "third option" does not exist, I would rather pay the comparitively SMALL price in taxes it costs to provide the chronically-disadvantaged with basic needs and even methods of mobility out of their disadvantage than pay the much HIGHER cost (in multiple sense of the word) of containing or "putting down" (with all the nightmarish and amoral conotations that word conjures) a 21st Century version of the French Revolution.

8 -I.) As you will be unsurprised to learn, I am generally disillusioned with democracy. I fully agree with Winston Churchill's famous quote about democracy being the worst system except for every other system... except that Churchill meant it as a clever turn of phrase and I mean it as a sobering reminder that we seem to have stopped trying to find something better. The basic tenet of democracy - citizens choosing their leaders - is sound, but in the modern world it has a fatal (and ironic) flaw: It's become much too easy for "the people" to actually effect lawmaking directly, while at the same time "the people" seem to be getting progressively less capable of making those decisions intelligently. The days when voting and political engagement in general required a greater investment of time, intellect and effort may having been taxing in their own way, but at least it helped keep those too dumb and/or unengaged to bother being involved from getting involved and mucking things up. Today, thanks to the internet and cable news, the uninformed are now JUST informed enough to show up and vote the way Sean Hannity tells them to. I'm NOT saying I wish to be "ruled" by some kind of dictator, I'm saying that right now I am living under laws made in part by polticians elected by pandering to (and doing the bidding of) the nation's thriving population of idiots - and that just doesn't seem right or reasonable to me: For example, I should not be denied access to life-saving medicines or life-improving technologies/activities because I'm outnumbered by a population of fools with some kind of "moral" superstition that considers them (or the research into them) "taboo." Speaking of population, see #9...

8-II.) Case in point: Not everything should be up for a vote. The most obvious example here is the current fascination with putting gay marriage and other equality issues up for a popular vote, but I can only assume that anyone who's read this far "gets" how asinine and awful that is. I'm thinking more about things like science, technology or environmental policy: Things that simply aren't a matter of opinion - science either works or it doesn't - shouldn't be decided by opinion and definitely shouldn't be decided by people who don't actually "get" what they are voting on. Why do we put politicians in charge of these things when we know they are susceptible to their constituencies over the facts and that they cannot be trusted to fully grasp the often complicated things they

9.) Overpopulation is a REAL and serious problem, and saying so does NOT make one a Nazi, a eugenicist or "anti-human." Y'know why the jobless rate isn't getting better faster? Because the collapse of the labor market isn't an accident - it's a reality check. The fact is, American society has been becoming mechanizing at a faster and faster rate. Manufacturing, construction and even war-fighting are increasingly replacing men with machines, while the developing world is undercutting the ones that remain by doing what developing regions do: Having major manufacturing booms. This has been going on at a steady pace for a long time, and would not necessarily be as big a problem had the U.S. not continued to reproduce at rates that are only sustainable if you need a massive and ever-increasing physical labor force and physical boots-on-the-ground military... and we don't really NEED either of those things to anywhere near the degree we used to. Things change. Unfortunately, because the U.S. has remained committed "traditional values" about family-planning and other related topics ("traditional values" that were invented in order to encourage population-expansion in the eras when it WAS needed) the arithmetic of the whole mess is adding up in a bad way. It's actually even worse than it seems, because we spend massive amounts of money subsidizing the agriculture industry - not because that farming can't be done cheaper and more efficiently via export or by further mechanization but because without artificially-prioritized farming jobs to keep citizens employed whole communities and even whole regions of the country could be decimated by mass unemployment (see #7.)

10.) However, overpopulation does NOT require any kind of draconian or force-of-law "solution," and to suggest that is does IS both anti-human and lazy. Our overpopulation muck is going to be a problem for a long time, but it's not a crippling one, it can be mitigated and maybe even reversed. The first step goes back to #7 again: Once you accept that we simply have more people than we have jobs to fill them, the only rational answer is once again the so-called "liberal" answer: YES, we've got to spend some money on taking care of folks who ultimately can't find work or can't create a livelihood. Crappy situation, but better than the alternative. And hey, y'know what else "liberal" policies ultimate support? Expanded and well-funded family-planning (YES, including abortion) services, funded and more widely-disseminated birth control, science-based (as opposed to "values"-based) sex education and in general the emergence of a secular society wherein individuals are not told that monogamy, early-as-possible marriage and "traditional" family dynamics (those things are fine if you choose them, of course) are the only proper course of action - and what do ALL of those things have in common? They all at once increase individual freedom while having a strong potential for (gradually, over time) stabilizing (following an initial period of "slowing") the overall birthrate in a given society. Of course, to do most of that you have to take care of the elephant in the room...

11-I.)  Roe vs. Wade is the most important Supreme Court decision still considered to be "up for discussion," and if it is reversed America is OVER as a nation of greatness. I'm what you could call "emphatically" pro-abortion rights - not only because I support equal rights but because I support the basic idea that individual, sentient humans ought to have final, absolute control over their own bodies and the importance of de-mythologizing the life-sciences to human improvement: Laws governing science (and medicine) should be made based only on science - not on emotion, not on superstition, not on ancient taboos. Science. Knowledge. FACTS. Apart from it's immediate effect of being the ultimate equalizer of gender in American society (now neither sex needs to be "locked-in" to an unwanted pregnancy), Roe is a massively important symbolic victory of science and progress over superstition and "tradition." The statement of Roe as a peice of U.S. law is: "This country's laws are made based on the universal truths of reason and logic, not on the subjective spiritual or emotional "truths" only held by some." That's vitally important. That's what makes us a modern, relevant nation capable of surviving into a future that is only going to get more secular, scientific and mechanized. The superstitions (and I'm not necessarily talking about "all religions" or even "religion" itself here so Atheists please zip your pants back up) that animate, say, the pro-life movement or the anti-gay movement are not long for this world as taken-seriously institutions, and if American law (and culture) regress back into them now we will be swept off the table with them later...

11-II.) ...As such, so long as the Republican Party is reliably the party of inserting religion, superstition and "tradition" into lawmaking I cannot consider any Republican electable to any office. There are a lot of things I agree with Republicans and/or the political "Right" about. On balance, probably moreso than Democrats. But they are all of lesser importance, to me, than the solidifying of a secular, science-focused, reason-based America for the future. An America that is still wringing it's hands over whether a petri dish has a "soul" a generation from now is an American that doesn't matter a generation from now. So long as "the religious right" exists and so long as they can exercise a SLIVER of power over the GOP, I have to oppose at all levels on all fronts (politically.) On the day that religious fundamentalists in America have equal or lesser "political clout" than, say, Trekkies or some other devotional subculture; the Republican Party might be worth giving a second look to. Until then, they're in the way. I don't like things being like that - one party having a monopoly on reason-based lawmaking isn't a good thing - but thats how things are. And before anyone asks...

11-III.) "Libertarianism" doesn't work for me, either. Libertarians are good people, by and large. I pretty-much like all the flavors, from the committed "realist Right" to the "we just want legal weed" College dudes to the "we want a lable but Dems and Reps are just too mainstream" poli-hipsters. But apart from their useful function in siphoning away votes from Republicans and ensuring Democrat victories in certain races... I don't think it's that practical of an ideology. "Small government" is a nice ideal, but in the practical reality of the real world right now a strong, central and activist government is the only way I can see to implement and solidify the long overdue transformations that this country needs in a timeframe that will keep it strong and competitive into the future. Also, it lends itself too handily to weak-minded conspiracy-fetishists; if you really think that the U.N. is out to get you, that The Rothschild Family has been controlling the world from behind the scenes like S.P.E.C.T.R.E. or that we'd actually be doing better as fifty autonomous mini-countries, I've got a bridge to sell you... and no, I will not take payment in gold.

12.) The most important reasons to vote for president are defensive. American Presidents, by design, have less power than we think they do and less ability to direct that power than people tend to want them to (when it's "their guy," at least.) Unlike congress, their role is often reactive - whatever they may WANT to do as President will be shaped, subsumed and even pushed aside by what they HAVE to deal with. We really can't say whether George W. Bush would have been such a disaster without a 9/11 response to screw the pooch on, and I don't think anyone really expected anti-war Democrat Barack Obama to be a cold executioner of terrorists or the political father of America's unprecedented leap into robotic warfare. As such, I consider the most reliable reasons to vote for a president is the basis of what they WON'T do or what they'll PREVENT congress etc. from doing. I'm counting on Obama, for example, to stop congressional Republicans from doing... pretty much anything they want to do, and I know he won't put pro-life judges on the courts.

13.) A Romney victory in 2012 would be a major disaster, long term. I am not a Barack Obama "fan." His clear dislike for political bloodletting annoys me, and as I'm a supporter of a Space Program I don't like that he seems to genuinely buy into the "why are we spending money on moonrocks when people are going hungry!!!???" bleeding-heart mentality. But, by and large, he can be relied upon for the judicial appointments and vetos I need to see made, so he's "the guy" for now. And, of course, I appreciate the symbolic importance of his victory four years ago... which is why I appreciate the very real disaster of his possible loss this year: A Romney victory will be, fair or not, the most racially-divisive event in American culture since the O.J. Trial; in that it will be seen as a "repudiation" of the so-called "browning of America" and the re-installation of the "rightful" white/hetero/male power structure - as surely as Reagan's victory was seen as a "repudiation" of the social-progress made from the 60s onward and a "mandate" to turn back to the clock to "the good old days." The fact is, everything from demographic trends to the sweep of history indicates that the New America represented "symbolically" by Obama (less monolithically white, less religious, less partriarchal, etc) is something of an innevitability - but "pausing" that overwhelmingly positive transformation now so that Mitt Romney can cosplay as Ronald Reagan (while "traditional family values America" plays we're-still-the-center-of-the-universe make-believe) for four years until Hillary sweeps him out will be a vacation from reality we can't afford to take. The better, more enlightened America will get here soon enough regardless... but if it gets here sooner it can be a more prosperous America as well.

Okay, there you go. That's what I think about... pretty much everything - with the caveat that if a plausibly-electable presidential candidate of either party were to lead with "we're canceling every single known program and jacking up taxes so we can pump every dollar into space travel so that Bob can see something resembling Starfleet in his lifetime"... I'd volunteer pro-bono to run that campaign myself. Because a man has to be honest about his priorities, in the end.

Election is November 6th. Get out there and vote - and whoever you're thinking of pulling for, ask yourself "am I doing the right thing?" before you do.

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Is This Your First Look At The Mandarin in "Iron Man 3?"

Marvel has been running a Facebook "like us!" campaign for the last week or so, promising to debut an early look at "Iron Man 3." At this point you kind of HAVE to know it was just going to be one of those "trailer for the trailer" things, but whatever - it worked, and now the 18 second "pre-preview" is here. Highlights include Tony Stark dealing with reporters, Pepper Potts in trouble, the new gold armor in motion and Iron Man facing down what looks like a half-dozen armored enemies.

Oh, and also very possibly THE MANDARIN.

Hit the jump to see the teaser and a still:



Okay, short preview is short. I'm hoping that the long one features that "Iron Patriot"-inspired suit that's been seen in the early stills - I have a feeling that U.S. audiences who've never seen it before (in comics or otherwise) are going to flip for it. But the "HEY FANBOYS! WAKE UP AND GIVE US FREE HYPE!" money-shot comes at 00:08 - a quick glimpse at the back of... some guy's head:

Iron Man's ultimate enemy in the comics has generally been The Mandarin, a technology-as-magic "sorceror" generally depicted as an ancient-looking Asian man with long hair and gold robes with elaborate gold trimmings. That would certainly seem to be who we're looking at here. AWESOME. He's been referenced in the series before (though Middle East based, the terrorists in IM1 had Mandarin-style fixations on Genghis Khan and were named for his alien weapon from the comics, "The Ten Rings of Power) but it had been reportedly felt that he was a little too strange and a little too borderline-racist to show up in a modern movie - but when you're the immediate follow-up to the biggest superhero movie ever you don't have to worry about those things anymore.

FWIW, I think he'll probably still end up revised into a non-specifically Eastern man with an ancient China fixation a'la the terrorists in Part 1. SDCC audiences supposedly saw a full shot of known main-villain Ben Kinglsey (who is partially of Indian descent, something everyone manages to forget whenever he plays a non-caucasian character) looking unmistakably like The Mandarin from the front - hopefully the rest of us will see the same in the "full" trailer.

I think this is a good idea - while the "Iron Man" movies ARE going to have to go back to being their own thing post-"Avengers," they really do need to get him up against bigger (in terms of personality and power) antagonists now that everyone has seen him battle a God and an Alien Army. Mandarin should accomplish that nicely.

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This Is A Real Thing That Is Happening

Remember "Left Behind?" It's a series of Christian-fundamentlist scifi novels involving The Rapture; a supposedly pre-apocalyptic event (short version: Christians in good-standing are whisked off to Heaven in advance of the rest of us sinners having to suffer through the wars and tyranny launched by The AntiChrist prior to the big Final Battle of Armageddon) that has zero basis in any kind of legitimate Biblical scholarship (it seems to have been invented whole-cloth by fringe preachers around the 1800s) but is fervently believed in by people you will be lucky if you never have to meet.

The books (I think they were up to about 20 volumes at one point) are mainly about a multinational team of resistance fighters called The Tribulation Force (really) battling evil in a post-Rapture world. As you might expect, the damn things get exponentially more bizarre and also more hateful and anti-everything-non-Jesus as they go. Kirk Cameron (of course) backed and starred in a set of low-budget adaptations back when these things were the New Hotness in fundie circles, but now it's apparently being relaunched as a more mainstream-friendly (how?) Red State cash-grab (they're only spending $15 million but are apparently garaunteeing a theatrical run of some kind) by Goldwyn Films. Businesswise it's potentially genius - if Obama is re-elected, the same people who'll go to see this shit anyway will be more primed than ever for a "fight the false prophet!!!" epic.

Oh, and they've also got a can't-miss plan for netting the "let's watch a shitty Christian propaganda movie for ironic lulz!" crowd - they've landed NICHOLAS CAGE to star. No, really. Nicholas Cage - who covered some of this same ground without the "convert or BURN!!!!" hate-mongering in the underrated "Knowing" - will headline the "Left Behind" reboot. There are no words.

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Escape to The Movies: "Alex Cross"

Do you need to ask?

Intermission: "Let's Remake 'Star Wars'"

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Alex Cross

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Warner Bros. sets "JUSTICE LEAGUE" for 2015

Two days ago, Warner Bros. won the most-recent (and most precarious) case brought against them by the heirs of "Superman's" creators seeking 50% control of certain aspects of the character's mythology said to have been created "apart" from what he was when their (crummy) original deal was struck (it's complicated.) Meaning that WB can now proceed to greenlight and start pre-production on any further "Superman"-related movie projects they choose. And they've wasted no time in making it official that they plan to have the "Justice League" movie out for a 2015 release date. That's one year after "Avengers 2," for those keeping track.


It makes sense for them to have been waiting for this case to shake out to make it official - I maintain that the people running these projects for Warners have very little idea of why these characters can and should work in movies, but they're at least correct that Batman and Superman are both needed to make the thing work (Wonder Woman, too, but they're in no danger of losing her rights and they still haven't launched a successful modern franchise off of her.)

One imagines that this means we can expect some sort of worldbuilding to be going on or teased at in "Man of Steel," but beyond that their plan is apparently to debut their new shared-universe versions of the other characters in "Justice League" and then spin them off from their (based on audience response and merchandise numbers, most likely.) If true, that move surprises me because it's a really, really, really good idea: Unlike The Avengers, nobody needs to be introduced to Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as characters or the basic "ideas" behind them; while most of the other likely prospects are self-explanatory - The Flash runs fast, Aquaman is a "boy mermaid," Hawkman has wings, Martian Manhunter is a more overtly-alien Superman, Green Lantern is toxic as a live-action brand and probably won't be in the movie, etc.

The biggest immediate change of this announcement, of course, is that - with apologies to Marvel - the three biggest questions in superhero movie speculation are now as follows (in order):

Who replaces Christian Bale as Batman? 
He's said he's done, and even if they could net him he's proven much too volatile an actor for the long-term planning this is going to require (see: Norton, Edward.)

Who plays Wonder Woman?
She'll have to be in there, since the Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman "trinity" is integral to the iconography as far as the mainstream culture (read: people who'll wonder why this isn't called "SuperFriends") and because she's the only female DC hero whose not the distaff-counterpart of a male hero that most people have heard of, and the pressure will be on this production to do better than "Avengers" did in terms of team diversity.

Who else is on the team?
As mentioned, diversity will be (and ought to be) a concern for this production. So while I'd lay money that, say, classic-Leaguers like The Flash are virtual "locks" (and I'm not kidding about Green Lantern - I'll be surprised if they bother with him) expect to see a push for minority characters like Static, Black Lightning or Cyborg (who was part of the "New 52" JLA recently) to get in there as well.

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"Ghostbusters 3" is Happening, Because Nobody Learns Anything

Dank Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman have been trying to get "Ghostbusters 3" happening for so long that Generation X has already gone through the anticipation, denial, acceptance and "over it" stages of the "let's sequelize everything we always wanted another of in the 80s!" mini-mania during the entirety of its "planning."

But, whatever - it looks like it's finally really happening. For years, the hold-up was trying to convince the original cast (well, okay, trying to convince Bill Murray) to star again; but now that it doesn't look like that's happening it seems they'll be going with the pitch everyone kind of assumed they'd be starting from when they first started talking about this is in the late-90s: A new crop of young comic-actors being handed the mantle, with the originals in support roles (so, a live-action "Extreme Ghostbusters," basically.)

I'd honestly be surprised if they didn't find a way to get Murray back in at least some form - he's not exactly known for consistent behavior, and he's put the uniform back on at least twice recently for jokey cameo appearances; so if they could find a way to fit him in that only required a few hours of work and could be shot on his schedule (read: whenever he feels like doing it, wherever he feels like doing it, if he feels like doing it) I'd call it plausible. FWIW, certain early drafts of the screenplay supposedly featured Peter Venkeman returning only in a brief cameo... as a ghost.

But, yeah... apparently we've got to deal with this now. Fine.

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UPDATED: Sam Raimi (Maybe Doesn't) Directs "Poltergeist" Remake

UPDATE: Reports are now coming that Raimi is NOT directing the film yet, but is still onboard to produce. This is my sad face.

ORIGINAL POST: ...okay, this just feels weird to type. I'm used to thinking of remakes as generational things - "new" talents doing an update of movies made by the father's and grandfather's era of filmmakers. Raimi is a few years younger than Tobe Hooper, but they were both coming up and into their own as "name" horror directors in roughly the same decade. I mean... it's like if James Cameron said he was going to remake "E.T."

Annoyed as I am with classic horror remakes... this actually excites me. Part of what made the original "Poltergeist" such a big deal at the time was taking the haunted house genre out of the "spooky old manor," placing it in the contemporary setting of suburban sprawl (the entire premise hinges on the audience's understanding that these bloated insta-neighborhoods really were springing-up rapidly and without much oversight) and the contemporary anxiety of suburban suffocation (for an interesting take on that, go HERE.) And it's not like either of those things haven't gotten more topical - "Poltergeist" in the aftermath of the Real Estate Bubble? Okay, sign me up.

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Cruise Kneels Before Zog

Everything about "Jack Reacher" looks good... except Tom Cruise. He's not a bad actor, he's not an actor I dislike... it's just that his whole "aura" - scrappy, intense, perpetually-youthful - seems like bad casting for a character they're essentially selling as John Rambo: Consulting Detective.

Still, this new trailer makes the film a must-see by revealing Werner FUCKING Herzog as the villain(?) For a guy who's spent so long being a movie maverick, it's fun to see how enthusiastically Herzog has embraced present-day Hollywood's overdue fascination with him:

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Dinostalgia

Take ten minutes and watch this video clip of "Prehistoric Beast," a 1984 homemade stop-motion short film from FX dynamo Phil Tippet and one of my favorite dinosaur-related things EVER. As you watch it, keep in mind that '84 means this was done the old-fashioned way - frame-by-frame with NO computer effects... even those "hand-held camera" shots are artificially executed bit by bit.

I first encountered the short as incorporated into "Dinosaur!", a 1985 "everything you wanted to know" documentary hosted by Christopher Reeve that I probably watched multiple times a WEEK as a child. I was obsessed with this thing, and as a science doc it still holds up today:

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The Moment

Busy night. May or may not post a longer debate-related thing, but in brief: Obama won but Romney still standing, Fox News will now spend a years trying to ruin Candy Crowley, Obama saying that low-skill jobs that've gone to China "aren't coming back" and that high-end, high-skill tech and science careers are the future of the American economy is the first time a politician with something to lose has told the HARD TRUTH about jobs since John McCain said it four years ago.

However... for me, there was only one moment that stood out, and unlike a lot of people (so far) it's not Mitt getting "live fact-checked" by the moderator about Libya.

No, "The Moment" was when Mitt Romney - GOP nominee for the President of the United States in the 21st Century - answered a question about gun violence by saying (in part) that "...women should think about getting married before they have babies" (paraphrased, since the damn thing only just ended) - in other words: "gun violence is committed by hoodlums raised by single mothers."

That he said such a thing isn't the story - the anachronistic myth that ONLY a strong patriarch can managed a family (or anything else) properly is one of THE key animating beliefs of the present day Republican Party.

No, the story is that he said this thing - without a hint of irony! - while standing on the same debate stage mere feet away from a man who was the child of a single mother AND GREW UP TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

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Big Picture: "Orca"

I've been waiting to do this one since LAST Schlocktober...

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Schlocktober 2012: Orca

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Not Unlikely

Primarily made as a half-in-the-bag Twitter thingee, but still... I've heard LESS plausible reboots...

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S'Carrie

This is one of those "remake of a classic" first-trailers whose first, last and only mission is to A.) "surprise" audiences with the reveal of what it is (even people who haven't seen "Carrie" have "seen 'Carrie" and B.) let lovers of the original know that this one is bigger but that they know their iconography (re: "don't worry, we're still going to dump blood on her and start a fire.")

Fair or not, I think they're kind of wasting their time if they think classic-horror fans are coming at this one with anything other than knives drawn, regardless of how good it looks or is. The original is known not just for being a good movie but for the "DePalma-isms" that a remake is either going to catch shit for ignoring or catch shit for imitating poorly...



For me, the big draw here is Chloe Moretz - or, rather, the innate interest in seeing one of the all-time high school horror movies executed with actors who actually look like high schoolers (the original, for all it's merits, DOES still have that "obvious 30 year-olds playing children" problem.)

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"Ant-Man" is happening

Sandwiched amid the expected announcements today that "Iron Man 3" and "Thor: The Dark World" will be in 3D comes official confirmation that Marvel/Disney are making it official for Edgar Wright's long-gestating "Ant-Man" movie... and that it's now dated to come out in November of 2015 - after "Avengers 2;" meaning that they're already setting "Phase III" in motion before "Phase II" even officially gets underway.

What's fun about this is that by announcing "You'll see Ant-Man in 2015," they're making it feel VERY likely that we'll in fact see him before 2015, too...

Here's the thing: Wright and Marvel had a "test reel" of Ant-Man FX footage at Comic-Con which apparently felt an awful lot like something that would be the post-credits teaser of another Marvel movie - and while they haven't cast the "official" Ant-Man yet, in the footage he was wearing a full-head face-obscuring helmet so it's probably still extremely useable and I'd be very surprised for a penny-pinching studio like Marvel to not repurpose it at some point.

Also, they've been shooting (and then deleting) minor references to the character (who, for the record, can communicate with ants and also shrink down to tiny-size while retaining his full strength) for awhile now - there's a clear references to "the guy who gets small" in the "Avengers" deleted-scenes, and the scientist Dr. Selvig emails in "Thor" was supposed to be revealed as (in an email handle) Dr. Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man.

That's another reason he could be turning up before his own movie... or even before he's been (fully) cast: Wright's script is said to feature both original Ant-Man Pym and later mantel-carrier Scott Lang as characters, supposedly with Lang as the "main" protagonist. That's interesting in and of itself (Pym's character went to some pretty dark places in the comics and modern retellings tend to cast him as an antihero at best) but it also leaves the door open for Pym (and the Ant-Man abilities) to appear in "Avengers 2" (or "Iron Man 3," or "Thor 2," or "Captain America 2," or "Guardians of The Galaxy") and then for Scott Lang to become Ant-Man in the series-proper. FWIW, the Comic-Con footage depicted Ant-Man either breaking into or out of what looked a lot like a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility.

An interesting footnote to this is the question of whether or not - Pym or no Pym - perennial Ant-Man sidekick/love-interest The Wasp (same powers, but with wings) turns up for "Avengers 2" as well; given that she's a fan-favorite character and given that the team is overall hurting for a more diverse lineup.

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Bill Nye Needs Your Help

Just about the only thing I can sort-of agree with the current Republican party about is that they consider the Space Program to be one of those government programs that, like the military, "doesn't count" for some reason in their no-government-programs rhetoric.

I don't buy for a second that they're actually "committed" to it, of course - there's no way the party of Creationism and Climate Change-Denial is really devoted to the idea of expanding human knowledge of space, and with private space-travel companies coming into their own I'm sure the GOP's make-believe affection for NASA will dry up at roughly the same pace.

Either way, for now the question of whether or not to restore federal funding for space exploration is up to whoever is President in 2013. And Bill Nye wants your help in convincing them to do just that:



The thing is, public-pressure is really the ONLY way this is going to get done. I'm sure a President Romney ::shiver!:: would make a nice show of being pro-NASA, but don't kid yourself - he and his party are whole-hog on the side of the guys who want First Contact to be made by some corporate-sponsored junker covered in Doritos sinage (and before anyone brings it up, YES, I do in fact think that Felix Baumgartner's big space-jump yesterday is rendered significantly less awesome than it otherwise might have been by the fucking Red Bull logos all over his spacesuit.)

Obama, meanwhile... I dunno. Democrats, obviously, are better friends to science on-average because they actually acknowledge that it exists, but I don't detect any special affection for space travel in Obama and frankly he seems very much like he'd be a "Why are we paying to collect rocks in space when PEOPLE HERE are STARVING you guys!!??" bleeding-heart about it.

But WHOEVER wins is going to come out of the election looking bloody, dirty and in need of some easy pandering... and if they can be convinced that re-funding the space program can BE that easy pandering, then I'd call that a win.

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Coulson Lives

NOTE: No, the headline is not spoiling a surprise... which in and of itself is surprising, since this sounds like something that could've made for a killer reveal.

For me, what continues to be the most interesting part of the Marvel Films experiment is that they keep making decisions that feel like conscious, deliberate challenges to every "that won't work in a movie" part of their material. Prior to this, every superhero movie was approached from a perspective of "what has to be done to this comic for it to work as a movie?"... but they've been doing the exact opposite: More and more, the "grand scheme" of the whole enterprise seems to be transforming "the movies" into comics so that their Universe can be carried over as unmolested as possible...

Already we've seen once thought "unfilmmable" aspects of superhero comics like genre-mixing and shared-universe continuity brought successfully to the screen, and the results have made Marvel so confident that they feel comfortable going even deeper into comic-spawned weirdness... like, say, greenlighting a space-opera co-starring a Tree Man and a Space Raccoon as "Phase II's" new Big Shiny Thing. And now, we may possibly be looking forward to comics' infamously loose rules of mortality coming over as well: Yesterday at NYCC, Joss Whedon, Kevin Feige and Clark Gregg confirmed that Gregg's Agent Coulson character - famously killed off in "The Avengers" - is coming back for the pilot of the "S.H.I.E.L.D." TV series.

At this point, no one knows in what form his appearance will be (he could just be there for flashbacks, for example) but Gregg was already joking about LMDs (Life Model Decoys, human-duplicate robots typically used to fake deaths in the comics and referenced in "Avengers" by Tony Stark) at the announcement. I seriously doubt that he'll be popping back into full-human existance (remember, Gregg is also a filmmaker in his own right so I'd be surprised if he committed to a TV series) but having a Coulson-based LMD - or maybe some kind of "digitized memories" hologram or computer-presence - onhand as part of the team would be a clever way of keeping him around while also keeping him dead "for real." It would also leave the door open for the popular fan theory of Coulson becoming the Movie-verse version of The Vision (short version: He's a Terminator who dresses like a superhero and has the digitzed memories and personality of a dead good guy.)

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Kid Rock and Sean Penn Have a Message For You

Below, "Americans," a PSA short-film pleading for political cooperation courtesy the two most unlikable celebrity spokespersons imaginable... and also, possibly, one of the most embarassing things ever committed to film by humans to date:

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Let This Be Fake

The image on the right (no pun intended) comes courtesy Getty Images via Buzzfeed and is alleged to have been snapped at a Romney/Ryan event earlier today. Speaking for the campaign, a spokesperson was quoted as calling it "reprehensible;" which I imagine would be the sincere opinion of both men running. Whatever else I can say about either Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, I don't think it's likely that outright racism is a motivation factor for either of them (I cannot say the same thing, of course, about their party...)

This is probably real, but I really do hope that it isn't. As damaging as it'd be, short-term, to "my side," I want to believe that this guy doesn't really exist - that this is "false flag" subterfuge a'la the Republican supporter who cut a "B" into her own face back in '08. But... it's probably real, meaning that someone printed these up and there are probably a lot more than one. Depressing, I would imagine, regardless of what your actualy politics are.
I have my own reasons for supporting Obama, but if an extra one was needed the idea that people like this would be emboldened would certainly do it: Like it or not, a Romney win would be a "victory" both for guys like this and the less-blatant gradiations of him that just want to "preserve traditional America" or whatever the euphamism for societal-stagnation is this week. If this election is about anything, macro, it's whether we want to continue regressing into worship of an "old world" that never fully existed OR if we want to continue dismantling the superstition of the "old world" to build not just a new world but a superior world.

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Escape to The Movies: "Argo"

Go see it.

"Intermission" is another Test Your Might.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Argo

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"Zero Dark Thirty" Trailer #2

"Zero Dark Thirty" has a new trailer, which isn't quite as intriguing as the first but does establish that this is a "regular" movie as opposed to a documentary or political piece (which apparently a lot of audiences thought was the case with the first trailer.)

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V.P. Debate

Since apparently visitors can't not get on about this in other posts...

1.) Biden won, plain and simple. Not a "knockout" or a "curbstomp," but he wins on points and wins on "TV-friendliness." Down side is that the laughing/grinning/"can-you-BELIEVE-this-kid??" schtick that the base is currently loving and pop-culture will almost-certainly process as "lovable curmudgeon" will be presented as "unbecoming" by FoxNews, Talk Radio, etc which'll keep their base suitably angry and engaged. Also, he didn't make enough of a fool of Ryan to cripple him from future political ambitions, which is what I'd have called a "knockout."

2.) Bigger "winner" than Biden was the moderator, Martha Radatz: much better than Leher. Granted, the "sit down and talk, interuption allowed at moderator's discretion" format is just BETTER for the way public-discourse is expected to be now (everyone speaks in predictable talking points, so interuptions to a certain extent is almost a given) but she held them both in place and made it work.

3.) Amusingly, the "narrative" is basically the same as the previous debate: Younger, slicker, super-smart guy who's mostly about theory (having more-or-less jumped directly from higher education to career-politics) versus older, less "slick" guy who comes in fighting and wins on experience chops. Obama gets at least two more chances to come back prepared for that, Ryan doesn't. I'm not actually nuts about that dynamic still being so effective - I think "intellectual-side" pols are preferable as leadership in our increasingly-mechanized age - but if this is what it takes to keep Republicans' hands off the Supreme Court for another four years, I'll take it.

4.) Does this "mean" anything? Not really, no. All it does is "solidify" where things have been for most of the race so far - Biden did here a micro version of the entire reason he has the V.P. slot in the first place: He makes the Obama ticket "palatable" to white/blue-collar/midwestern "swing" voters (mostly but not overwhelmingly men) who're receptive to Democrats via reliable support for union labor but are "iffy" about the young, foriegn-seeming, possibly "radical" guy at the top of the ticket. He played the role of "tuff grampa" tonight, forcing Ryan into the role of "smug punk new-hire MBA hotshot from the office who thinks he's better than you," and that's mana to that bloc.

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"Django Unchained" Trailer #2

Here's the new trailer for Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," which was infamous as a screenplay and now notorious as a supposedly out-of-control production (not necessarily "troubled," though, since the studio has thus far been enthusiastic about the results coming back) has a new trailer that shows off more of it's scope and incendiary approach to its own "slavery revenge" narrative. Getting more screentime in this new look is Samuel L. Jackson as co-villain "Stephen," a character who's "unique" viewpoint on his own enslavement is supposedly one of the darker parts of the movie:



Yeah... VERY good feeling about this. Film comes out for the Holidays, and it's going to be really interesting to watch how an EXPLICITLY black-vs-white revenge movie is recieved in the aftermath of what is already a racially-divisive election (whatever the outcome.)

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"Hitchcock"

I get the sense that there's going to be a lot of unease and divisiveness with "Hitchcock" (the breezy-looking "making of 'Psycho'" Alfred Hitchcock movie that now has an official trailer) and "The Girl" (the dark "Hitch stalked, tormented and probably sabotaged the career of Tippi Hedren" Alfred Hitchcock movie from HBO) coming out around the same time. Hitchcock is God to three and counting generations of film buffs, and "cinephile culture" has always had a hard time reconciling "Hitch the lovable oddball genius" with "Hitch the petty, domineering creeper."

The thing is, from the trailers I'm feeling like "Hitchcock" looks like the better movie overall (they both look pretty good, really) ...and I'm kind of bracing at that observation, unable to help wondering whether it really looks better or if it's - at least partially - my own Inner Film Student automatically preferring the movie hawking Hitch The Mythic (the mega-famous Hollywood director still conducting himself like an indie/outsider rascal within "the system") to the one looking to tear the myth down a bit.

What I wonder is, if "Hitchcock" IS the better movie  (Hopkins is certainly doing a better Hitch than Toby Jones IMO - though they both come off like themselves "doing" Hitchcock, who was too much of a self-caricature for any actor to really "embody" at this point), will there be a "pushback" among critics for actually saying so for fear of being seen as wanting to continue "whitewashing" it's subject? Dunno, we'll see.

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Big Picture: "King Kong Lives"

Luv Munky.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Schlocktober 2012: King Kong Lives

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Ode To Joy

Bruce Willis generally puts out at least one big, servicable action movie wherein he plays Bruce Willis: Unflappable Actio Hero of a Certain Age amid whatever pyrotechnic scenario the filmmakers have opted to place him in. Sometimes, they decide to call his character John McClane so it can qualify as a "Die Hard" sequel (both "Hostage" and "Tears of The Sun" were at one point supposed to be "Die Hards," for example.) Here's another one:



Eh, look okay. The thing you can't deny is that Willis is just GOOD at this schtick: Stunt/weary "seriously?" face/quip. It works. The "007" line is cute, but apparently it's in reference to McClane's grownup son who's some kind of spy/soldier/agent in this, likely setting up a "cute" modern gov-trained operator versus oldschool cop dynamic.

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Will MS. MARVEL Join "The Avengers?"

Probably, yeah. Though not necessarily because of THIS or any other rumors about to be referenced - it's just kind of an easy call. If and when Carol Danvers eventually turns up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it'll be the least surprising "surprise" for fans since Captain America turning up in the present day.

Marvel, on the comics side, has had a decade-long obsession (coupled with very successful execution) with turning Danvers, aka "Ms. Marvel," into one of it's A-list heroes ever since someone figured out that she could easily be their answer to Wonder Woman (re: highly-marketed Strong Female Hero) sans all that problematic "Love-Powered Animated Clay-Doll From The Island of Immortal Lesbian Warriors" baggage.

She's been a big part of most recent Avengers iterations, features in most crossovers and was most-recently promoted to "Captain Marvel" (short version: She started out as the surprisingly more-popular distaff-counterpart to the original MALE Captain Marvel. Long version HERE and then HERE) Also, the Avengers DO kind of have a diversity problem and, let's face it, action-heroine, Joss Whedon movie, etc. So yeah... when/if she turns up in the movies the only thing less shocking will be the chorus of dissapointed sighs when/if Marvel decides her costume needs to be another teardown/rebuild job a'la Hawkeye.

That said, I'm not necessarily inclined to fully dismiss this particular rumor because it makes sense given a lot of what's already known about the now-unfolding buildup to "Avengers 2."

Here's the thing: Ms. Marvel's setup is a touch on the complicated side (given how Marvel Films has operated up to this point, one has to assume keeping her backstory and "arc" close to the basic source is a priority.) There've been some retcons as to how "important" she is pre-powers, but the general idea is always that she starts out as a military and/or government agent who gets powers similar to Captain Marvel after being caught in an explosion during one of his battles.

Going by the way Marvel Films has operated up to this point, it's a safe bet that she'd probably get introduced "normal" in one of the next pre-"Avengers 2" movies... Or maybe more than one: it'd make perfect sense to make her a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and they are in need of a new movie-to-movie connector character i.e. Coulson. If "Agent Carol Danvers" were to turn up for an introduction in one movie, then get zapped full of cosmic space-powers in a subsequent movie (like, oh... "Guardians of The Galaxy," the cosmic space-power focused movie already positioned as the direct lead-in to "Avengers 2," perhaps?) she'd be all primed and ready to turn up in "Avengers 2" as the "newcomer team-dynamic shakeup character."

Here's the other thing: The story that started the rumor said they were looking specifically at British actresses, one of whom is Emily Blunt (originally cast as Black Widow before she had to bail and Johansson got the job, so theres history with the producers) who was also mentioned as being in the running for another Marvel role - the as-yet unnamed female lead in "Captain America 2." Most people have been assuming that role would be Sharon Carter, daughter (granddaughter?) of Peggy from the first movie, but it could just as easily be Carol Danvers.

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Escape to The Movies: "Taken 2"

Not so good.

"Intermission" has Frankenweenie.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Taken 2

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Zombie Rising

Below, the trailer for Rob Zombie's long-promised 70s-style Satanic Cult movie "Lord of Salem," which for some reason did NOT get picked up for release by this Halloween (it's due next year.)

I'll defend Zombie to the end. He's a remarkably gifted filmmaker, if not necessarily as gifted a storyteller yet, and even his "bad" movies are more interesting than many people's good ones.

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More Like It

Cleanse your palette from the experience of watching Obama refuse to give Mitt Romney the pummeling he needed to with this new "Lincoln" trailer, which looks MUCH better than the first one:

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On The Debate

Very briefly, because I have work to do:

1.) Neither guy got knocked out, which means Romney did "better" by default because as the challenger he's the one who only needed to prove stamina. This will move the needle - not enough to "save" Romney outright, but it moves it.

2.) Jim Leher should have been given the power to cut mics - dude got run over all the time by both guys, and it's bullshit. The debate moderator is the guy who holds the participants accountable to the audience which in this case is the voters. He should've put them in their respective places - re: two guys vying for a job from us - and he didn't.

3.) Obama's team obviously expected Romeny to put his foot in his mouth. He didn't. Romney's team obviously expected Obama to hang back and not show aggression. He did.

4.) As of now, Obama is probably still "winning," but he had the opportunity to settle the election tonight and he didn't take it.

5.) In the end, this has always been the problem with Obama: He's just NOT a fighter. He doesn't like to get dirty, he doesn't naturally view ideological opponents as mortal-enemies, he doesn't like to take the killshot. These are admirable qualities in a person, but weaknesses in a modern politician and major flaws in a guy I'm ultimately counting on to continue the Good Work of saving this country by dismantling the "traditional values" patriarchy (which Romney both embodies and supports) through judicial appointments and policy-pushing.This is why the best modern Democrat is still and will always be Bill Clinton: Clinton relished the fight. Clinton enjoyed hurting his opponents. He had a liberal brain but he had a conservative's bloodlust - oh, to have him back.

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Expedia Does The Right Thing

Here's a surprisingly pleasant example of a major corporation coming out explicitly for equality, in this case travel-booking outfit Expedia.

Good on them.



And now, before you start having too nice of a day, here's Breitbart stooge and repellant excuse for a human being (check the DATE he published that headline) Ben Shapiro taking issue with the ad for featuring attractive gay women, which he seems to consider suspect.

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"Uh-oh, Silver!"

Hoo-boy.

Armie Hammer stopped by the Jay Leno show tonight and brought with him the trailer for Disney's new "Lone Ranger" movie, in which he plays the title role opposite "real star" Johnny Depp as Tonto. You might recall that the script and budget for this were considered such a disaster-in-waiting that the whole thing was scrapped for awhile, but they decided it was too big to fail and threw more money at it.

E! has the online version of it (there's no embedable version yet) in case you want to see what America's 50-and-over sports bar patrons will be sputtering with outrage about tomorrow afternoon. (Seriously, the only interesting thing about this will be the innevitable spectacle of older dudes who would never be considered "geeks" of any kind freaking the fuck out about Depp's Tonto costume, the lack of the William Tell Overture in the trailer, etc.)

The movie, though? Wow... does this look horrible; and Depp being the clear focus of the trailer means they've already decided to pre-Jack Sparrow the production which is probably a mistake. I'm getting the sense, perhaps too optimistically, that this could wind up being a major dud for Disney (it's being positioned as their big 2013 July 4th movie) as the tidal wave of "we're sick of this shit now!" that should've hit the fourth POTC movie finally catches up with the Depp/Verbinski cash machine - when it hits, it'll be competing with both "Man of Steel" and "Iron Man 3" having already opened.

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Big Picture: "King Kong" (1976)

Schlocktober Returns!

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Schlocktober 2012: King Kong

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"Aw man, this is worse than that time I hosted the Academy Awards..."

Seth MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy" and newly-minted theatrical heavy hitter in the wake of "Ted," has been chosen to host this year's Oscars. Everybody take a moment to get some snotty digs at "Manatee Jokes" out of your system...

...done? Good, because the more I think on it the more he sounds like a great choice.

The problem The Academy has had for years in terms of hosting (and, to be frank, audiences) is the unending generational gap. Old comics playing it safe is one thing (a "prestige" show generally won't have cutting-edge material) but the fact is The Oscars are grounded, conceptually, in a quintessentially Old Hollywood vibe - that unique fusion of soaring pomp and schticky vaudevillian deflation that defined "big celebrity party time" in the era when the show came into it's own. In it's heyday, The Oscars looked and sounded like a bigger, more elaborate version of what every other big live presentation was expected to look and sound like - who was "Mr. Oscars" before Billy Crystal? Bob Hope. Exactly.

Problem is, the rest of entertainment culture moved on in dramatic fashion over the decades... but Oscar didn't. It couldn't, because the Golden Age Hollywood paean is built into the production's very DNA. The reason Crystal was so electric for so long at this gig was that his natural stage persona was an inspired modernization of that classical "feel," making his routines a sly mix of gently ribbing and sincerely celebrating the legacy of the show. Unfortunately, it's now been long enough that Crystal's brand of "goofing on the oldsters" now feels a little old itself; and the "send up of the Golden Age" formula he turned into Oscar's modern default-setting has ill-served present day hosts (see: Hathaway and Franco) for whom it feels just as ancient and unfamiliar as the Golden Age itself.

This is where MacFarlane's selection starts to look inspired. Just on the basics he makes a surprising amount of sense: A naturally gifted comedian, a terrific Stage Voice, occasionally brilliant comic-writer and (this is The Oscars, after all) a legitimately great singer. But what I think could make him an inspired choice (providing he's given a long leash and use of his own material and/or writing staff) is that he so demonstrably "gets" the rhythm and the appeal of the oldschool theatrical sensibilities that simply "are" Oscar.

Think about how much of "Family Guy's" more elaborate jokes have been grounded in classical "lets put on a show" musicals and upgraded takes on ancient comic routines - this is, after all, series that splurges on yearly tributes to the Crosby & Hope road movies; something that most present-day audiences don't know or care about... but Oscar certainly does.

This could, of course, still get fucked up on the producer side, but as host? This is a great pick, and must be a hell of an honor for a guy who (like his shows or not) has paid a lot of dues to get here.

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