Podcast Episode 55: We Assemble For AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

We're passing what feels like the halfway mark of the Marvel's grand cinematic plan and I'm happy to report that the state of the MCU is strong.

I'm a big fan of the first Avengers. It's one of those movies that my wife and I can pretty much watch at the drop of a hat, whether it be for 20 minutes for the full running time. It's light and it's fun and it's full of of these incredible moments of unbridled joy. I would caution you not to expect quite the same experience from Age Of Ultron, which isn't to say it's not an expertly crafted summer blockbuster or that it somehow lacks in entertainment value. It's just a different kind of beast. In a way, Ultron is a collection of contradictions; compared to the first Avengers, the latest entry is both darker and more exhilarating, more epic in scope yet also far more intimate in dealing with its characters. 

All your favorite Avengers are back and in fine form, but we’ve also got a host of new additions to the cast.  Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are fine as “the twins” Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (the accents are pretty hit-or-miss) but the real standouts are Paul Bettany, who absolutely kills it with only a few scenes as The Vision, and James Spader as the titular Ultron.  Spader is such a natural fit for Whedon’s trademark quippy dialogue that I can’t believe the pairing never occurred to me earlier.  It seems so obvious in retrospect.  

I just wish that, while Ultron does actually threaten to cause a global extinction level event, the action wasn't quite so contained.  With a title like Age Of Ultron, I was expecting, well, an age.  Something that redefines civilization, the kind of singular event that is spoken about in hushed tones from generation to generation, not just a week of individual battles where it feels like the villain is largely operating in the shadows.  I wanted Ultron to truly fuck up the world for a while, crashing communications networks or global finance or something.  Ultron drones descending upon major cities all across the globe.  Chaos on an epic fucking scale.  Granted this movie is certainly very globe-trotting, with major set pieces in Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, New York and South Korea, but each incident is pretty isolated and somewhat small scale.  The new status quo at the end also feels a bit too easy.  Sure, Hulk has sent himself into mysterious exile, but Thor has just gone back to Asgard while Hawkeye has retired to his family farm and Tony Stark has very politely and amicably gone into semi-retirement.  It basically feels like, while most everyone has left the Avengers, they can all come back whenever they get bored.  If you're gonna break up the band and replace them with the B-team, I'd like there to be some real dramatic obstacles to bringing everyone together again.

Since we’re dealing with a team of superheroes, it seemed only appropriate that I assemble a team of my own for this week’s podcast.  Believe it or not, our conversation actually went much, MUCH longer but, at Jamie's suggestion, I'm trying to keep the podcasts shorter than the running time of the movies we're talking about.  We tackle Joss Whedon’s propensity for killing beloved characters, the film’s tricky onscreen romance and even answer some listener questions!

As always, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and/or on SoundCloud.

Next Week: We get classy and celebrate Orson Welles' 100th birthday with Citizen Kane!

You (Probably) Don't Need To Sit Through The Credits Of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

If nothing else, the Marvel films will be remembered for instilling in audiences a compulsive need to stay through all of the credits of most any blockbuster franchise film with the expectation that they'll be treated to a short post-credit stinger scene.  I actually kind of love this side effect, as the industry-saturated audiences of Los Angeles typically stick around as a sign of respect for the many crew members who work on any given film.  I can't help but wonder how long this phenomenon will persist, as more often than not the credits simply roll to black and whoever's still in the theater lets out a groan and feels like a sucker.

Director Joss Whedon seems to recognize the danger of disappointment, which is why he recently told Entertainment Weekly that there will be nothing at the end of the credits for Avengers: Age Of Ultron.  Kevin Feige pointed out that there will be the expected mid-credits tag, but according to Whedon, they just couldn't come up with anything that lived up to the legacy of the first Avengers's infamous schwarma scene.  And really, what could?  Tip of the hat for not attempting to bottle lightning twice.

Now it's worth noting that the schwarma scene wasn't actually filmed until after the LA premiere, so if you had asked Whedon about a post-credit stinger at this point before the first film, he would have told you the exact same thing.  I find it hard to believe that Whedon would specifically tell people not to stick around just to fuck with fans, but it doesn't preclude him (or the Russos for that matter) getting the band back together at the eleventh hour if inspiration strikes.  In other words, yeah I'll probably stick around but there probably won't be anything after all.

Also, feel free to start speculating as to what future Marvel film the mid-credit scene will set up.  Ant-Man is next on the docket but Captain America: Civil War will have already started filming.  Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if Black Panther or Captain Marvel made an appearance...

Podcast Episode 36: JOHN WICK And The Dubious Merits Of Puppy Murder

That puppy sure is cute, ain't he?

Don't get attached.

John Wick is not a movie for everybody.  Specifically, it is not a movie for lovers of dogs.  It is, however, a movie for lovers of well choreographed action scenes, pulpy crime stories and Keanu Reeves being Keanu Reeves.  I fucking loved this movie.  Bart was fairly unimpressed.  Jamie almost walked out of the theater in a rage.

We recorded this podcast last Sunday, but due to an overwhelmingly busy schedule I wasn't able to finish editing the thing until late Thursday night.  As a result, much of our attempt to parse the first trailer for Avengers: Age Of Ultron was rendered moot a few days after recording when Marvel announced their full Phase 3 slate and the upcoming Infinity War storyline.  I suppose this kind of thing comes with the territory.

That being said, it is gratifying that a number of our speculations were confirmed on stage at the El Capitan Theater, particularly the announcement of Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther.  Rest assured we cover a lot of this material in the next episode of the podcast, which we recorded last night.  With any luck, I'll have it published before Paramount abruptly shelves their Terminator remake, thus negating another major portion of our recording.

Next Week: We take to the skies with Michael Keaton in Birdman!

Podcast Episode 25: The GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Are Here To Save The Summer

To quote a certain blaster-toting raccoon, "Oh...YEAH."

This summer has been pretty fucking grim.  With the exception of 22 Jump Street, it's been a a steady stream of mediocre box office filler like Hercules or outright trainwrecks like Transformers: Age Of Extinction.  That's not to say that the summer's been a complete waste, but even the few bright spots like Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Snowpiercer and X-Men: Days Of Future Past have been largely dark and serious affairs - all three movies center around global apocalypse!  Where's the humor?  Where's the rollicking adventure?  WHERE'S THE GODDAMN FUN?

Turns out the fun lies with a sentient tree on the far side of the galaxy.

Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy, by far the company's biggest gamble to date, is an outright cinematic miracle.  On paper this, this movie simply should not exist.  Seriously, the very idea of a studio giving the Troma-raised James Gunn $170 million to make an outer space movie starring That Guy From Parks & Rec, a professional wrestler, a green-skinned assassin, a walking tree who only speaks three words and a smart-ass cyborg raccoon is absolutely preposterous.  The fact that it not only exists but has the same pound for pound entertainment value as The Avengers, a movie that needed five other films to set the stage before it could even happen, is mind boggling.

And yet, all these things are true.

Guardians Of The Galaxy finally sends the Marvel universe rocketing out into space and it's a fascinating place packed with oddball characters with whom you can't help but fall in love.  Sure, each character has their own particular set of quirks (Drax doesn't understand metaphors, Star-Lord is a font of 80's pop-culture references) that are essentially appealing on their own but it's the performances that truly elevate the material.  Chris Pratt cements himself as legit movie star (surely a relief to the Jurassic World producers) and Dave Bautista is an absolute joy on-screen, while Bradley Cooper brings a both acerbic wit and a wounded vulnerability to Rocket.  And for all the jokes about Vin Diesel playing a tree who only has one line, you'd be surprised just how much context and emotion can be conveyed solely in the phrase "I am Groot."  Special recognition should also be paid to Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan as Gamora and Nebula, the daughters of Thanos.  Both characters are a tad clunky on the page, constantly tasked with delivering necessary exposition and explanation.  Yet each of these actresses just ooze so much charm and personality on screen that they're almost able to trick the audience into walking away thinking their characters are more substantial.  Still, they're each total badasses, and while their characters feel a bit thin I expect both will be much better served in their second outing.

This wonderfully endearing collection of misfits is what sets Guardians apart not just from the rest of 2014's summer movies, but all other Marvel movies as well.  The Avengers is probably the closest analog here, but even they are just a bunch of folks who fight together out of a sense of duty and honor.  They feel more like a group of friendly coworkers who do a job and then go home to their respective lives.  By the time the end credits roll, the Guardians are already so much more than that.  They're not just friends, they're family.  That's a dynamic that we haven't really seen in Marvel's previous films and it's so simple and affecting that I didn't even realize it was something I had been missing.

And that music!  THAT MUSIC!  Holy hell.  I really dig the score by Tyler Bates, particularly his main theme, but I defy you to walk out of this movie without humming any of the ridiculously catchy tunes that create the rich musical tapestry which seems happily omnipresent throughout the film's running time.  My only gripe is that Guardians didn't come out in June.  If it had, Peter Quill's Awesome Mix Volume 1 (available for download, naturally) would have absolutely been everyone's soundtrack of the summer.

Episode 25 of the podcast, featuring the return of my brother Tim, sees us breaking the film down character by character, along with lots of speculation as to how the Guardians might fit into Marvel's bigger picture heading into Phase 3.  Jamie reveals her own master plan for how Captain/Ms. Marvel should be woven into the MCU and, in light of Simon West's stated desire to see a space-based Con-Air 2, we all list off movies that deserve a crazy sequel set in outer space.  Also, I'm an idiot for not only saying there are five Infinity Stones (there are six) but also for referring to Yondu as Yondo through the entire podcast.  What can I say?  It was late and I still had to pack for an early flight.

Next Week: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with special guests!

Behold ULTRON, The Avengers' Latest Nemesis!

Guardians Of The Galaxy hits theaters in just over two weeks, and after that it's a loooooooong wait until Marvel returns with Avengers: Age Of Ultron.  Today we get our first look at the eponymous villain courtesy of this upcoming Entertainment Weekly cover.  We can also see Ultron's army of drones, the latest incarnation of the Iron Man armor and Captain America's newly modified costume.  EW also managed the feed this image into their Obvious Pun Generator, giving us the weird Mr. Roboto joke shoved off into the corner.

If you click over to the article you'll also get some extremely mild spoilers as to Ultron's origins and character motivations, but it's all basic first act stuff.  (UPDATE: There are also 8 photos, including a look at Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver plus the Avengers partying after a hard day's work!  I should have noticed it earlier, but EW's layout is nonsensical at best.)  Ultron's character design sticks pretty close to the comics, so new real surprises there.  All we need now is to hear James Spader's dulcet tones emanating from his mechanical maw.  By my count, this leaves Paul Bettany's The Vision as the only major known character yet to be revealed.  Hopefully they stick with his super colorful getup which, in case you're unfamiliar, looks like this:

Expect Marvel to unleash the first footage of the film at next week's San Diego Comic Con.  If they're feeling  particularly magnanimous, the rest of us might get to see it too.

IRON MAN 3 Finally Gets It Right

"Well I panicked, but then I handled it."

Here's the dirty little secret about the Marvel Cinematic Universe:  Iron Man is by far the most popular character, but his movies are also unquestionably the weakest.

The first film is almost shockingly free of action and lacks a strong villain, but it coasts by on the quality of the suit effects and the charms of Robert Downey Jr.  It gets credit for proving not only that the character could work onscreen, but that "second-tier" heroes could carry their own films.  Favreau directs with a lot of energy and he smartly uses a lot of practical effects whenever possible, but looking back it's hard not to see the movie as fairly small scale and somewhat cheap.  Still, it was good enough to launch the most exciting thing happening in movies today.  Iron Man 2 is bordering on unwatchable, a clusterfuck of lackluster action and S.H.I.E.L.D. wankery masquerading as plot.  Whenever I see it now, I mostly just get angry at it for squandering both the insanity of Mickey Rourke and the snake-oil brilliance of Sam Rockwell as Tony Stark's unscrupulous mirror image.

The law of diminishing returns would imply an utter lack of hope for a third installment, and yet somehow Iron Man 3 manages to claim the crown as the undisputed best of the franchise.  First and foremost, with The Avengers out of the way, this entry is not burdened with the overwhelming need to set up future franchises and move chess pieces into place for other movies.  Marvel already made their gamble and it paid off HUGE, so here they're able to step back and take a breath, giving us a strong and streamlined Iron Man adventure, something audiences had yet to truly experience.  The story is still deeply connected to everything that's come before, leaning heavily on Tony's PTSD following his brush with inter-galactic death during the battle of New York, but it works as character backstory and nothing more.  And without the constant presence of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a million Marvel easter eggs, core characters like James Rhodes, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan finally get something more to do than stand around waiting for Tony to say something clever.

Downey Jr. also brings a whole new depth to Stark, no small feat in the character's fourth outing.  Sure, the PTSD stuff is all good, but we also see Tony grappling with his place in the larger universe.  He's someone who's always gotten by on his smarts and his bravado, yet now he's starting to realize that not only are there threats out there that he cannot comprehend, but also people in his life that he's willing to protect at any cost.  In a world complete with Hulks, super-soldiers and living Norse gods, the one suit simply won't cut it.  Stark goes deep down the rabbit hole, building a fleet of different armors to suit any need or crisis that might arise.  But like a recovery patient who becomes addicted to painkillers, Tony eventually gets lost in his own attempts to overcome his trauma.  It's not until he's forced to play dead and go it alone (along with the help of a smart and precocious moppet, of course) that Stark rediscovers the pleasure and therapeutic value of simply building stuff.  Of being a mechanic.  Probably my favorite sequence of the entire film (save the awesome "house party protocol" at the end) involves Tony going Full MacGuyver on the Mandarin's henchman, dispatching a collection of thugs with homemade tazers and explosives pieced together from stuff at Home Depot.  I've never had to deal with any kind of really serious personal trauma like that, so I can only speak from a limited perspective.  That said, on the few instances when someone close to me has died suddenly, I definitely prefer to keep myself busy with work or whatever, rather than dwell upon whatever's upsetting me.  I find that focusing my attention on other tasks is a good way to remind myself that while tragedy may happen, life still goes on and the most important thing is to keep moving forward.  I don't really wallow anymore.

But it's not all character drama; there's enough action in this film to put its predecessors to shame.  Holy smokes.  On the heels of The Avengers, it was clear that this movie had to take things up a notch.  Thankfully, Kevin Feige and the folks at Marvel understood this and brought out the big guns in the form of Shane Black.  I dig Favreau quite a bit, but it was clear that the franchise needed fresh blood, someone who could rein in Downey Jr. without stifling his natural energy.  Anyone who's seen Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which should be all of you) knows that Black was exactly the man for the job.  A writer/director who's certainly not afraid of action but also brings a strong focus on character, Black is able to escalate the scale and intensity of the big set pieces without sacrificing the emotional core that makes Tony Stark so compelling.  Black's entry contains no less than three action sequences that are exponentially more exciting and inventively staged than everything in the first two movies combined. The mid-air rescue sequence is a bit goofy and diversionary, but I still love the punch line. And that final battle with 40+ suits fighting on the barge?  Pure joy.  If anything, I wanted even more detail there. Each suit was clearly designed with a specific skill set in mind, so I wish I had the chance to see what made every suit so uniquely badass.  But at the end of the day, seeing Black play with the kind of budget and scale of a successful mega-franchise is enough to fill me with glee. That he's able to work within the confines of a pre-established, highly managed property without losing that essential Shane Black-ness (it's Christmas!) is all the more impressive.

It's also worth noting that the execution of the Mandarin is pretty much perfect, a great head-fake that's simultaneously entertaining and intelligent. In other words, it's the exact opposite of Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness.  Trevor Slattery, equal parts menace and hilarity, might be my favorite new character.  And let's not forget the incredible music by Brian Tyler, who looks to be Marvel's new go-to guy for scoring these films. It may have taken three films, but they finally managed to give Marvel's marquee character an iconic theme befitting his stature, right up there with Batman, Superman and Spider-Man.  Seriously, I defy you to watch this movie and not walk away humming that riff for the rest of the day.  Throw in the delightful 70's style closing credits...simply magic. 

I'll admit that upon my first viewing of Iron Man 3, the movie felt like a bit of a cruise control victory lap following the success of The Avengers.  I'd grown so used to these movies devoting significant energy to larger world-building that I was thrown to find none of it here.  But upon many, many repeated viewings I've found Iron Man 3 to be a refreshing change of pace from Marvel's near constant efforts to expand the scope of their universe.  Instead we're treated to two hours of strong action and charming character work, making for not just the best Iron Man movie, but one of the best Marvel movies to date.



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Title: Iron Man 3
Director: Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, Paul Bettany, William Sadler, Ty Simpkins
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - IMAX (Jordan's)