The Human-Sized ANT-MAN Trailer Has Arrived

I host pub trivia on Tuesday nights, which means I usually don't catch up with Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. until Wednesdays.  Normally this does not present a huge problem, but now that the show has been temporarily supplanted by Agent Carter, well, I'm just itching to get home and catch up with my DVR.  Last night's two hour premiere also featured our first look at the teaser for Ant-Man, Marvel's first post-Ultron movie, (which is technically going to be the last film of Phase 2).

I like it!  It's a bit more serious than I was expecting, but I don't expect that's super-representative of the final film's overall tone.  Perhaps Disney's marketing department feels they really need to sell us on the concept of Paul Rudd: Hunky Super Hero?  I dunno.  But the suit looks good and the few shots of him riding insects are kind of great.  Not too silly but not grotesque either.  I'm glad the ants don't look like monsters.

What I really love is the suggestion that Hank Pym has become an old man puttering around in a private, underground lab while his company is seemingly run by his daughter and an unsavory successor.  It feels like a nice spin on the Tony Stark model, like what Howard Stark might have become had he not been killed by the Winter Soldier.  I also like the emotional subtext here: a possibly disgraced Pym trying to win back the respect of his adult daughter and while Scott Lang does the same with his younger one.  Sounds meaty and dramatic to me.

Do I miss the presence of Edgar Wright?  Sure.  But I have a lot of faith in Peyton Reed and from what I can see here, he's made the best of a very bad situation.  Still, isn't this supposed to be a funny heist movie?  Why so serious?

Podcast Episode 43: Newsbusters Spinoff Pilot

I mentioned in last week's podcast (at the suggestion of my much wiser counterpart Jamie) that it might be time to shake up the format of the podcast a bit.  I recognize that a 90+ minute podcast might be a bit much for some people, so we're trying something different this week.  A bit more digestible.

So Episode 43 is just shy of 50 minutes and deals only with the movie news of the previous week.  Bart and I discuss the new Mad Max trailer, the fallout of the Sony leak, Ghostbusters casting rumors, Star Trek director departures, Star Wars character names and Godzilla's return to Japan.  We also dig into Marvel's Agents Of Shield, which Bart just recently finished binge watching.

I'm hoping to also lay down a movie-only podcast with Jamie in the next few days covering The Imitation Game, although scheduling may get in the way.  We're still working on a name for this new podcast spinoff show, tentatively titled Newsbusters.  I'm open to suggestions.

Marvel Says "Fuck It," Releases AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Trailer A Week Early

This is why I love Marvel.

On Tuesday they announced that the first trailer for Avengers: Age Of Ultron would premiere during next week's episode of Agents Of SHIELD.  Then on Wednesday, a low res copy leaked on Vimeo and started getting passed around the internet by assholes with no sense of propriety or patience.  Most studios would have started throwing down cease and desist orders in an attempt to get every copy of the trailer pulled offline, but Marvel is smart enough to know when the genie is out of the bottle.  So, after a cheeky tweet blaming Hydra for the leak, they leaned into the skid and simply released an HD version of the trailer themselves, thus undercutting the shithead leakers and once again commandeering the superhero movie conversation everywhere.  What's that DC?  You finally figured out a game plan?  That's adorable.

Check this shit out:

DAMN.

The first film fairly reveled in the pure joy of seeing all the heroes finally come together for the first time, and while I'm sure there will still be plenty of humor and fun in this second outing (it is Joss Whedon after all) it's also clear that Earth's Mightiest Heroes are going to end up in some pretty dark places.  That Hulkbuster armor has me virtually vibrating with excitement and James Spader sounds appropriately menacing as the big bad.  

Plus there's still nary a sign of The Vision!  He's the character I'm easily most excited to see, as I'm incredibly curious to see exactly how his creation and his relationship with Stark and Ultron will play out.  I also appreciate the small tastes we're getting of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, particularly the sort of vapor-trail approach to the latter which easily differentiates him from Fox's iteration of the same character in Singer's X-Men films.

And that creepy-as-fuck Pinocchio song?  As my wife said upon watching it for the first time (and then once again immediately afterwards), that's just so Joss it hurts.

These next six months are going to be unbearable.