"Ain't No Thing Like Me Except Me!" Guardians of the Galaxy Assemble in Latest Trailer

After my wedding and all that lovey dovey stuff, the greatest moment of my life was hearing the voice of Rocket Raccoon.  I've watched this new trailer a half dozen times already.  I gotta monitor my expectations now, but I'm all verklempt over here.  Seeing Rocket strapped with some heavy artillery, totally jazzed at the firepower...seeing Rocket handcuffed, "Ain't No Thing Like Me Except Me" - gosh.  I'm not quite sure its up there with the "I'm Always Angry" moment of The Avengers, but dang it, those two tiny moments get right to the heart of the character.  And the quizzicle "I Am Groot" from Vin Diesel?  The film had me already, but now I'm ready to cross state lines and give Polygamy a try with this trailer.  The Wife seems cool with it.  Plus, we get our first look at Lee Pace's Ronan The Accuser and Glenn Close as Nova Prime.  This is happening folks.  Miracles exist.

-- Brad

Just Another Guardians of the Galaxy Poster?

There is nothing really special about this new Guardians of the Galaxy poster other than the fact that it's a GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY POSTER!!!!  Yeah, I'm still not over the excitement of seeing Rocket Raccoon on the big screen.  I'm just floored by the notion.  Last night, Matt, myself, and a bunch of other friends saw the new Godzilla film (Holy Cow! That Movie Was Good), and as we were chatting about the possibilities of the rest of the summer movies, we were debating Guardians's chances with mainstream audiences.  That seems to be the big question.  Will the muggles show up?  Personally, I think Marvel's brand is at such a point that it practically guarantees a number one on opening weekend?  But will it do Winter Soldier numbers?  Doubtful.  But it doesn't need to too.  I just don't want a flop; I want America to embrace the weirder realms of comics.  This morning I finished Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers 18 in which Black Panther addresses a pantheon of ancestral ghosts.  It's a beautiful moment, and a truly strange sequence that I am just dying to see adapted.  As I've said a dozen times before on this blog, a smashing success from Guardians of the Galaxy will equal a delightfully varied selection from future Marvel Studios films.  Please, give this one a chance on opening weekend.

--Brad

Rocket Raccoon & Groot Steal The Galaxy (and the Internet)! Marvel Goes Prose Again

Marvel is making a big push to force the world (ie the internet) into full blown Guardians of the Galaxy mania.  I sure hope it works.  We've proven the worth of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor to the public, but it's going to be a little tricky convincing them that Rocket is one badass genetic experiment and not just a cute little furball.  Not to mention the walking trees, the reality bending gauntlets, and various other cosmic oddities.  Last week the trailer hit, and the fanboys out there seemed properly teased.



Ooga Chakka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chakka!  Ice Pirates is alive and well and living in director James Gunn's heart.  Sure, that's pretty much 90% of what we saw at Comic Con last year with a few extra glimpses of Benicio Del Toro's Collector & Kieron Gillen's Nebula.  Still no Lee Pace Ronan, Rocket Raccoon Cooper voice, Vin Diesel Grooting, or real any real sense of the plot.  Just enough to get giddy.  And I am giddy.  Looks like I'm not alone.  Went to the comic shop two days after the trailer blasted the net, and they were all out of Guardians comics (with the exception of the recent Brian Michael Bendis trades, but let's be honest - they are lame).  What I'm really interested in are the two Annihilation maxi-series that Dan Abnett concocted a few years ago.  Cosmic Marvel never really interested me much as a kid, but thanks to Jonathan Hickman's recent work on Infinity, I'm quickly turning into a Thanos junkie.

Well you might have to shell out a Ben Franklin or two for the Annihilation Hardbacks (for now), but in July you'll get a chance to read that author's brand new Guardians of the Galaxy prose novel, Rocket Raccoon & Groot Steal The Galaxy.  In an interview with Newsarama, Abnett describes the book as "John Woo's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I think he's attempting a tone of kickassery plus goofy space adventure - you know, Rocket Raccoon folks, big guns to match those big doe eyes.  I'm down.  Marvel has been cranking out the Mega Event novel adaptations like Civil War and Breakout for a while, but it's nice to see them attempting something original with their licenses.  And hopefully this Guardians of the Galaxy media onslaught will result in a hit film.  I want the movie to be good, but I want even more for it to be successful.  If Guardians makes a buck we won't have to settle for Thor 3, Cap 4, Iron Man 5, Avengers 14, over and over and over again.  Let's see some of our favorite Wannabes - bring on Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Silver Surfer, Namor, The Peanut Butter Barbarian.  Let's get weird.  Let's show the world that Geek truly is the new Jock.  Let's vote for Rocket Raccoon in 2014.  If Marvel doesn't expand beyond spandex then the bubble will surly burst, and this golden age will crumble back into a sea of sports talk.  No one wants that, right?

--Brad

Star Trek Into Darkness - The Spoiler Filled Review!

"You should have let me sleep."  Damn right.  The writers should have listened to their own dialog.  There are a lot of stops along the road to failure, but Star Trek Into Darkness was doomed from the moment that 1979's Star Trek - The Motion Picture was deemed a box office disappointment (despite being the highest grossing film in the franchise till 2009's relaunch - way to go Paramount finance) and director Nick Meyer was brought on board to retool a slash & burned Wrath of Khan.  As is with most Trekkies, Star Trek II is my absolute favorite voyage for the USS Enterprise.  But it's a film that has infected every sequel since its success - it took the cowboy franchise of intergalactic westward expansion and transformed it into a versus punch 'em up actioner.  Almost every Trek film attempts, with varying degrees of success, to pit its Captain against a Khan substitute.  Part III has Christopher Lloyd's Klingon Krug.  Part V has the hippy dippy half brother Sybock.  VI has Kirk's mirror racist General Chang.  Generations has the ribbon runner Dr. Sauron.  First Contact has The Borg.  Insurrection has the stretchmark disaster Ru'afo.  Nemesis has Tom Hardy's heinous Picard clone, Shinzon.  And the 2009 prequel/sequel has the mad time warped Romulan, Nero.  Khan, Khan, Khan, Khan, Khan.  Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!  So, no surprises here, Into Darkness is about Khan.  No matter how hard or loud the Abrams camp sidestepped the villain question, I don't think there was a Trekkie out there who didn't think this new film was going to address Star Trek's most iconic big bad.  As much as I hoped for a new direction, or a start to that 5 Year Mission, Abrams & his writing team just couldn't resist a crack at the superman.

But let's put that disappointment to the side.  Dismiss it as Trekkie wishful thinking.  We've been fed Khan for thirty years why should we expect a new flavor?  Let's even shake off JJ Abrams' despotic grip on his mystery box & how the John Harrison subterfuge was totally for not and probably robbed the film from any real tension.  We'll also kick aside the fact that the Khan seen Into Darkness is absolutely not the Khan seen in the Original Series episode "Space Seed" or Star Trek II.  We haven't progressed at all since the 1960s, so let's enjoy the continued whitewashing of characters and accept Khan Noonien Singh as the name a growly, pale brit.  Nitpicks, right?  Sure.  Whatever.

Why don't we just erase the Trek canon and look at Into Darkness as the sequel to 2009's Star Trek.  Wait - we can't!  JJ Abrams is attempting to eat his cake and have it too.  And for a moment there I thought he could make it work.  The brilliance of the 09 film is that it neatly acts as a sequel to the other films while also revamping the series for a new generation.  Nero's attack on the USS Kelvin sets into motion a new series of adventures for Kirk & company; there is a familiarity to the events, but the characters are now free to live new stories.  Vulcan is gone.  Bam.  That was a helluva statement.  Chris Pine's snot-nosed, Starfleet brat learns the challenges of command & how to balance his gut with the Captain's seat.  Star Trek was dead in the land of both TV & Cinema, and JJ brought the great beast back to life.  I am thankful for that.

But it's obvious from Into Darkness that JJ Abrams, who has made a career out of revitalizing the cold corpses of much beloved product, cares very little or at least has no understanding for his subject.  He starts his sequel with a Raiders of the Lost Ark temple footchase that sees Kirk shatter the Prime Directive in an attempt to save a race of primitives as well as Spock's life.  It's an opportunity to showcase Kirk's individuality as well as a means to shoehorn in Star Trek II's "The Needs of the Many" morality.  A return to San Francisco sees Admiral Pike strip Kirk of his command, and reclaim the Enterprise.  Another possibly interesting departure for this crew....it last about five minutes.  Khan Godfather III's a Starfleet boardroom, killing the potential of Pike, and thrusting Kirk on his revenge fueled plot.

Four years ago we spent an entire film maneuvering Captain Kirk into the chair.  Chris Pine's interpretation of the character was a snot-nosed drifter; a genius with no place in the world until Pike pulled him off the barroom floor and dropped him into the Academy.  When Pike was kidnapped by Nero, Kirk had to learn to play with others if he was going to live up to the legend that was his father.  And now, in Into Darkness, we get to do it all over again.  The punk is still not worthy of the chair and halfway through the film he even tells Spock that he has no idea what he's doing, and the pointy eared bastard should take the seat instead  Of course, this is setting up the reversal climax, The Death of Kirk.

A nearly beat for beat remake of Wrath of Khan's conclusion.  Why?  The script is constantly relying on the films of yesteryear.  We're supposed to understand that Kirk & Spock are BFFs despite the fact that in this timeline they've only known each other for a little over a year, and are constantly battling over procedure.  In the last film, Leonard Nimoy's Spock tells Quinto's Spock that they need each, but I don't think Quinto's Spock has seen the light yet, and Pine's Kirk certainly can't stand the green blooded hobgoblin.  And you think that when I hear the line "Ship...out of danger" I'm gonna get all teary eyed?  And after Kirk's last breath escapes we get Spock's ridiculous theft of "KHAAAAAAN!" and I'll be moved to heart pumping angry action?  No.  It pulled me right out of the film.  Those are the cheats of the lamest of remakes, Into Darkness coasts on your memories of these characters even when the scipt butchers their personalities.

Throughout this film Captain Kirk is scared, clueless, and sorry.  Abrams is in love with the idea of a reckless adventurer, but Captain Kirk is not Indiana Jones.  Where is the brilliant strategist?  Where are those coded moments in which Kirk & Spock pull the wool over Khan's eyes, trading blow for blow in submarine combat?  Here we just get one rushed action set piece leading into the other - Kirk barreling down the hallways, aching to bloody his fists on superman's chin.  

Then you've got the Nimoy cameo.  The very notion that Young Spock must speed dial Old Spock for a history lesson is absurd.  The film already takes two seconds to tell you that Khan is 300 years old and a war criminal, but Young Spock still needs to be told by Old Spock that Khan was the Enterprise's greatest enemy?  Uh, no he wasn't?  Iconic as all hell, sure.  But that phallic whale Probe from The Voyage Home was a larger threat.  Khan was an old angry guy we dumped on a planet decades ago - a man who stole a ship from the Federation and sucker punched the Enterprise.  The reason Wrath of Khan is badass is because it's a personal attack birthed from Kirk's knowitall god complex.

But why does Khan even need to be the bad guy for Into Darkness?  We've already got Admiral George W Bush - I mean, Admiral Marcus marching to war with the Klingons.  When the film briefly teams up with Khan as a means to take down the Section 31 conspiracy, I thought we might be venturing into some new territory.  One of the great bits about the original "Space Seed" episode is that Khan has a point.  Maybe in this new timeline Khan can also find a place?  But no, we gotta manufacture some Khan rage cuz Khan was angry before and he's always gotta be angry.  Just dumb.

If I'm digging a movie I can forgive a lot of plot holes.  I can get pumped by The Avengers or depressed by The Dark Knight Rises, and ignore all the holes to drive my mac truck through.  Every big time Hollywood movie (including all Trek) is going to have some serious head scratchers.  But Into Darkness is nothing but confused, half assed screenwriting.  And worst of all is that it preys on my love for the films that came before and it doesn't do any of the heavy lifting on its own.  It drops Carol Marcus into the action, giving her no reason to be there other than to show off her rack.  A brilliant scientist reduced to a pair of panties.  The conversation of "Space Seed" is whittled down into high jumps and a few fist fights.  We get Klingons cuz Trek has Klingons.  Kirk is killed cuz someone's gotta die.  And Kirk is revived cuz we can't not have Kirk..........I mean, you don't even have the balls to wait one movie to resurrect your champion!?!?  And why do you need Khan blood when you have the blood of 72 other supermen in your cargo bay???  What the hell?  DAMMMMIT!

Obviously, I love Star Trek.  And I don't want to come off as another troll hating on the Internet.  And if I squint really hard I can find a couple of things that I liked about Into Darkness - Bruce Greenwood's sideburns,  Karl Urban's neverending metaphors, those Klingon helmets.  But I was just deeply pained by the sequel we got here.  It's a dolt.  But the franchise has survived terrible movies before and it will survive this bland monster.  And hopefully it will make a crap ton of cash cuz I want another movie.

Star Trek Into Darkness ends with The Enterprise finally launching it's Five Year Mission (where this film should have started).  And now that JJ Abrams is off to play in the Lucasfilm sandbox, maybe he can take his trilogy of screenwriters with him and hand Star Trek to a real fan...or at least someone who understands the excitement of exploration.  I'll let you throw in another Khan if you want to, but give us some Alien worlds, some ideas, some actual Trek amongst the Stars.

--Brad

London Burns as Earth Falls - New Star Trek Into Darkness Poster

Look.  I'm super stoked for Star Trek Into Darkness.  And I certainly don't want to bitch & moan in relation to my all time favorite tv/film franchise.  But I'm not really digging all the Earth bound destruction focus of the ad campaign or Benedict Cumberbatch's scowl face.  I get it.  Earth is usually in peril every other Star Trek film, but I want this series to celebrate space and exploration.   Another Khan punch em up story following the Nero punch em up story is disconcerting.  I'm starting to sound like Matt here, and that's no good either.  I'm just saying - stars, ships, space, Trekking.  We'll wait and see what Into Darkness actually offers (JJ Abrams' mystery box offers little clues), and if this new rebooted universe is only action-bang-bang-whiz than it's pretty good action-bang-bang-whiz and I guess I could be perfectly happy with that.  But I want a little more thought from Star Trek.

--Brad

Set Photos: Star Trek 2!

Below you'll find the first set photos from next year's most anticipated film, Star Trek 2 from director JJ Abrams.  MTV broke the photos but I found them via Trek Movie who offers some interesting speculation.  The good news is that the Benedict Cumberbatch pictured below definitlely doesn't look like Khan, so hopefully we can put that bad idea to bed.  Personally, I'm putting my money on Gary Mitchell as the villain and I am totally cool with that idea.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (1/5/12-1/11/12)

    A good week.  With some solid nerd stuff, some recaptured youth, and a good dose of culture, it was one to beat.  My weeks keep getting bookended by black and white.


I Walked With a Zombie:  Extremely moody, this Voodoo movie is less sensationalistic and crass than your usual film of this type and era.  The soundstage work is top notch, creating that fascinating unreality that seems cheesy in the wrong hands, but oh, so cool in the right hands.  The characters are, as in other Val Lewton produced films, more complex and interesting than they appear and you might expect.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Body Snatcher:  The cast is in this is awesome, the dark Noir-type mood impressive.  Boris Karloff is an absolute monster, able to be grandfatherly and charming in one breath and devilishly evil in the next.  Really good stuff.

Red: Werewolf Hunter:  Felicia Day is cute as a button, but this movie is pooptastic.  All the usual cliché bits that feature in these sorts of movies are on parade.  And, as always, the CGI creatures don’t help.  They just look like crap.  Honestly, I’d MUCH rather see someone in hairy face make-up than some crappy CG cartoon.  The whole endeavor is hopelessly uninspired.  It almost made me long for the bird flipping werewolf in Cursed.  Almost.  Skip this turd, even if you’re a Felicia Day fan.  Maybe especially if you are.

Road House:  I’m sure that not having seen this when I was 13 makes a lot of difference, but I just don’t see what all the fuss is about.  Sam Elliot is clearly the best part of the movie, and he’s hardly in it.  There’s a lot of great 80s stupid, and plenty of dialog that must have taken some skill to say without laughing.  And boy, a lot of stuff blows up/burns down.  But, in spite of the amazing cast of ugly people, it’s just not quite silly enough to be as entertaining as I’d hoped.  I’m sure it’s a matter of too much hype for the film to live up to.  Alas.

Colombiana:  Holy nuts.  This movie is a giant steaming crap.  The script is more awkward than an 80s nerd at a hot chick convention (They have those…Shut up!).  The only thing less appealing than the acting is the actors, who all looks like rejects from a 90s fashion shoot (read: skinny, dirty, and ugly).  Zoe Saldana is a very striking woman, but seems to be in desperate need of a good meal (and a shower), and is surely in desperate need of an acting coach.  Boring.  Cliché.  Stupid.  The greatest sin is, of course, Boring.

There's a hole in this script.

Guns:  This fifth in the epic Andy Sidaris series gets off to a slow start, with nearly 20 minutes going by before the first nudity (?!).  It’s goofy as all get-out, with all the expected awful dialog and dreadful acting.  Several cast members are once again recycled.  I didn’t find this one as dubiously charming as previous entries in the series, but it still has its moments.  Running beach high five!

Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs:  OK, first off, yes.  The dinosaur effects in this story arc are awful.  Even for Doctor Who standards, they look bad.  They make Land of the Lost look like Jurassic Park.  And yes, like a lot of Pertwee era stories, this one is overlong by at least an episode.  All that aside, the story is very cool, with lots of interesting twists and ideas.  Betrayal by friends, utopian zealots, and plenty of action.  Even the debut of the Doctor’s weird sci-fi looking car.  I also loved a lot of the deserted London stuff.  Reminded me of Day of the Triffids and other similar films.  If you can get past the crappy looking dinosaurs, this is a very cool one and well worth checking out.

Wall Street:  Greed is good.  The mid 80s Wall Street madness is skewered in this indictment of rampant, unscrupulous capitalism.  Everyone is slick and confident, pushy and ultimately shallow.  I’ve always found the world of the stock market mysterious.  I don’t mean technically.  I actually know the math and practices for the most part.  But when it comes to the culture, the meaning, the taboos, I’m lost.  The whole time I was watching this, I was thinking about what Patrick Bateman might be doing at the time.  Now I feel like watching American Psycho again.

    I also started watching Breaking Bad, which is quite good so far.  I like that the names of the second and third episodes, “The Cat’s in the Bag” and “The Bag’s I the River” are references to the great Sweet Smell of Success.

    I also watched the first few episodes of season 4 or Primeval.  I like the show.  It’s got a lot of cool ideas and a lot of potential.  But somehow, it always feels a bit off.  I wish somehow it could be boiled down to its basics, and rebuilt from the ground up.  With a better handle and direction, I think the show could have really been something.  As it is, it’s fun, but not great.

    And last, but most assuredly not least, I made the greatest financial decision of my life when I paid $7.50 for the first season of the original Charlie’s Angels.  Holy smokes, I’ve enjoyed the heck out of that show.  It brings back memories.  And just in general captures that giddy, stupid fun of TV from the era.  Though a bit earlier, it reminds me of the fun I had recently watching some T.J. Hooker.

    On Friday night, co-Dork Brad, his folks and myself all headed up to Kensington Maryland to see Brad’s wife in a presentation of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday In the Park with George.  It was my first time seeing the play, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I liked the story, and the production was well done.  I found the second act less engaging.  But upon reflection, I like how it takes the theme of the first act, that of Surratt’s uncompromising devotion to his vision, and turns it on its head; with Surratt’s possible descendant being lost in everyone else’s expectations and desires.   Ryan Burke, with his theater beard, made for a great, driven artist.  And Farrell Parker had just the right amount of spunk, in addition to a perfect mix of innocence and worldliness to be an artist’s muse and lover.  Eric Jones as the Soldier made me laugh out loud more than once, his almost Adam West like goody-goody attitude and crackerjack comic timing was a riot.  And our seats were perfect for seeing Lisa, who had several of her best bits not five feet from us, including the unsavory appetites of a philandering old man.  If you’re anything close to local, get out on see the play while it lasts.  There’s something special about live performances.

-Matt