Asa Butterfield Is Probably Your New Spider-Man

According to the fine folks at Latino Review, Sony and Marvel are currently negotiating with young Asa Butterfield to take up the web-slinging mantle as the next Spider-Man.  The webhead is set to appear in a limited fashion in Captain America: Civil War, which is filming in Atlanta as you're reading this, so I suspect that we'll get an official press release any day now.  Spidey won't be alone, as the film will also feature the entire team of New Avengers as seen at the end of Age Of Ultron, along with Hawkeye, Agent 13, Ant-Man, Black Panther and whoever the hell Martin Freeman is playing.

There was a short list of young actors circulating a few weeks back and aside from Liam James, star of The Way Way Back, Butterfield was pretty much my top choice.  While Ender's Game was at best a mediocre adaptation of the book, Butterfield's work is top notch.  He adeptly portrayed Ender's peculiar mix of strategic genius, ruthless efficiency and emotional pathos, all of which will come in handy for playing nerdy-boy-genius-turned-superhero Peter Parker.  Mostly I'm just excited to have a Peter Parker that doesn't look like a 30 year old pretending to be in high school.

I've been meaning to rewatch Martin Scorcese's Hugo for months now, but despite a few long flights I still haven't gotten around to it.  Maybe this news will finally get me off my ass.

Rejoice! JOHN WICK 2 Is Really Actually Happening!

Some days, the world is a glorious place.  Today is one of those days.

John Wick is easily one of the greatest pure action movies of the past decade, and while all the cool kids instantly agreed that this was something special, I kind of thought that it wasn't quite financially successful enough to spawn the franchise that it deserved.  But fear not!  The fine folks at Lionsgate have seen fit to get the band back together, re-signing Keanu Reeves, directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad for John Wick 2 which literally cannot get here fast enough.

My love of John Wick is real and true.  Not only am I overly fond of Keanu Reeves, but I appreciate any action movie that goes out of its way to stage impressive and exciting action sequences and purposefully shoots them in such a way as to distinguish the badassery of the stunt team.  That what happens when you hire stunt coordinators as directors and we're all the better for it.  I also maintain that the brutal puppy death that kicks off the film is one of the best parts, though I understand why people have some serious trouble with it.  There's no way they kill another dog in the sequel, so you really have no excuse not to get for this one.

If we're REALLY lucky, we'll also get that rumored Hotel Continental spin-off.  I'm ALL ABOUT the continuing adventures of Ian McShane's ascot and Lance Reddick's accent.

Say Hey To The SUICIDE SQUAD!

Well, there they are.  There's your Suicide Squad.

Director David Ayer has been tweeting like a mad man as his Suicide Squad movie gears up and now he's given us our first look at Task Force X, featuring Captain Boomerang's duct tape boots, Rick Flagg's big ass rifle, Deadshot's chrome dome, Killer Croc's acne issues and Harley Quinn's complete lack of pants.  My wife is gonna have some serious issues with that last one.

There are a few others in there as well!  One of those other ladies is Enchantress, though I'd be hard pressed to tell you which one or, for that matter, who the other female character is.  We've also got what appears to be a tattooed quarterback and personality vortex Adam Beach with cornrows.

Look, I'm on board with this one.  In fact, while Batman v. Superman should be the easier sell, I'm far more fascinated by Suicide Squad.  David Ayer makes movies that are ugly in the best possible way and I suspect this is going to act as a strong counterbalance to Zack Snyder's sweeping visuals and majestic canvases.  And we cannot undersell how big a deal it is that Will Smith is joining the DCU and he's not playing a) the lead role or b) the hero.  There was time not too long ago when such a thing would have been unfathomable.

Bring it on, Suicide Squad.

Steven Spielberg Will Direct READY PLAYER ONE

For the last two years I've been lucky enough to attend SXSW and both years I've started off the festival with panels led by author Ernie Cline, the guy who wrote the film Fanboys as well as the excellent novel Ready Player One.  The latter is a fantastic, lightweight sci-fi adventure set in a future world where humanity spends most of their time living in an immersive virtual reality which consists primarily of recreations of Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Firefly, Ghostbusters, Buckaroo Banzai, Dungeons and Dragons, Marvel, DC and every other nerd property of the past 30 some-odd years.  It's a story that is both ripe for cinematic adaptation and a potential nightmare of intellectual property litigation.  But Warner Bros is determined to shepherd this thing into theaters and now they've brought on perhaps the ideal director to make it happen.

According to Deadline, Steven Spielberg has signed on direct Ready Player One immediately following his adaptation of Roald Dahl's The BFG.  Now, with a busy director like Spielberg, these things always feel like they're in flux.  The guy builds a future slate six movies deep and often times they end up in the hands of other directors.  (see: Interstellar.)  But I really, really, REALLY hope this actually comes to pass.  Spielberg is an endlessly exciting and appropriate choice, if for no other reason than so many of his iconic films are specifically referenced in the book.  I also suspect he'll be able to lend a little more dramatic heft to the story and keep it from delving into subpar dystopian YA territory.  (See: Divergent.)

This is some exciting stuff though!  I've been waiting for this movie to inevitably disintegrate, but Spielberg's involvement is beyond promising.  The book is an easy read that I cannot recommend highly enough.  And if you're still on the fence, here's a picture of me with Ernie Cline's real life version of Wade Watts' DeLoreon, complete with Oscillation Overthruster, Proton Pack and Flux Capacitor.

It's okay to be jealous.

Is This Real Life? Digital Bruce Lee vs. Iron Mike Tyson In IP MAN 3

I'll admit that Donnie Yen's vaunted Ip Man films have somehow slipped under my radar despite having been available to stream on Netflix for months.  But I did get around to Wong Kar Wai's take on the same character in The Grandmaster and that was a fairly stunning affair.  Now The Hollywood Reporter has broken some news that will almost certainly inspire me to finally get around to watching Yen's depiction of the man who trained Bruce Lee.

Principal photography begins today on Ip Man 3.  That's surprising enough in itself, considering that Yen's series has been quiet for half a decade.  But now it seems the film will also star none other than Iron Mike Tyson as the film's villain, a real estate developer with a penchant for street fighting.  If that wasn't bizarre enough, it also turns out that the filmmakers have opted to forgo casting someone to play young Bruce Lee and will instead bring him to life using some form of CGI, likely something along the lines of some Social Network-style face swapping.

My impression was that the Ip Man films were classier than this sort of tomfoolery, but now I need to watch the first two entries to see what other oddities I may have been missing out on.  Either way, this is some peculiar and exciting stuff.  And lest you forget, Mike Tyson also has his Adult Swim series Mike Tyson Mysteries which he describes as "Scooby-Doo meets The A-Team."

How have I not yet watched that show?

This POLTERGEIST Trailer Wants You To Fear Your Flatscreen

I caught up with the original Poltergeist for the first time this past Halloween.  It played as part of an all day marathon in a huge old local theater and I totally flipped for it.  My only wish is that it had played as the last film instead of right before the midday break.  That movie fucking plays, with scares and humor and and awesome mix of practical and old school optical effects.  Seriously, you could put that movie in theaters every Halloween and I'm convinced it would simply never go out of style.

Instead, we're getting a remake with Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt and Irish Lane Pryce.  I mean, I guess.  Rockwell's great, but I doubt this movie will give him the chance to do any of the things that make me love him so.  Then again, the director is Gil Kenan and he's responsible for the seriously underrated Monster House.  So maybe there's hope!

What annoys me the most about this trailer is that, while it does look to stick pretty close to the original, it also looks fairly indistinguishable from a dozen other haunted house/ghost movies from the last few years.  It seems like they're compensating for a lack of originality with TONS MORE GHOSTS!  While that fucking clown doll is appropriately creepy, there's certainly nothing here as uniquely peculiar as the original's Zelda Rubenstein character.  I'll see it for sure, but the chances that it can hold a candle to Joe Dante's version seem pretty slim.

The FURIOUS 7 Super Bowl Spot Is Preposterously Awesome

It's been two days since the Super Bowl and I'm still having some trouble believing that the Football Gods actually allowed my Patriots to win that game.  Whether you believe in all that Deflategate nonsense or not, I think we can all agree that the ratio of game-based excitement to ad-based entertainment was incredibly lopsided this year.  I think the best ad I saw the whole game was for avocados.

But we also got a crop of mini-trailers for big upcoming features, including Terminator, Pitch Perfect 2, Tomorrowland and Jurassic World.  But the only one of these worth really talking about is the spot for Furious 7.

What unholy deal did Vin Diesel make with Beelzebub which allows each of these movies to be better than the last one?    How is this possible?  Was Paul Walker collateral damage?  Somebody get the Vatican on this, STAT.

I don't even know where to begin.  The importance of family has become the prevailing theme of these movies, so I love seeing that same theme play out on the villain's side as well.  The Toretto house explosion is pretty baller, and I would have expected this to be the kind of thing used to write Walker out of the series but it looks like it happens right up front and sets the rest of the movie in motion.  The Rock saying "Daddy's gotta go to work" makes me happier than decorum should permit.  But that car jumping from building to building though...holy fuck.  That absolutely silenced my Super Bowl party.

My only disappointment with this (and all) trailers is not enough Kurt Russell.  Here's hoping I don't walk out of the movie with the same complaint.

On a related note, Amazon currently has EVERY Fast & Furious movie available for $10 or less per Blu-ray.  You can also get the whole thing as a box set for $50.  Happy early birthday to me!

Somehow That COWBOY NINJA VIKING Movie Just Got More Awesome

Yesterday I mentioned that every studio wants newly minted movie star Chris Pratt to headline their potential franchise pictures.  One of the first such projects to snag Pratt is the magnificently titled Cowboy Ninja Viking.  It's the story of an assassin who utilizes his multiple personalities to kill folks in what I can only assume is a series of increasingly hilarious manners.  There is no word yet on whether the ninja personality is in fact named Johnny Karate.

I'm basically already in love with this movie, but I'm even more smitten now that Universal is negotiating with John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch to come on board the fledgling project.  Woo hoo!

I loved John Wick.  Like, really REALLY loved it.  It is, quite frankly, some of the best down and dirty fight choreography I've ever seen, plus it's easily the best character Reeves has been given since Constantine if not The Matrix.  And while my wife had some serious problems with the film's brutal depiction of puppy murder, I actually respect the film even more for treating Wick's dog the same way many inferior versions of this type of story have traditionally treated the hero's wife or child.  It's not only a novel approach, but it actually provokes a much richer emotional response from the audience.  Besides, it's hard not to love a movie with that many point blank headshots.

Stahelski and Leitch are former stunt men/coordinators and I cannot wait to see what kind of insanity they dream up for Cowboy Ninja Viking.  I'm imagining Pratt headbutting dudes with a Norse helmet and stabbing dudes in the face with his horns.

In the words of Veruca Salt, "I WANT IT NOW."

No Shit: Disney Likes Chris Pratt For INDIANA JONES

After the disastrous misfire of Crystal Skull*, we all collectively decided that Indiana Jones was probably better left alone.  Everyone except Disney that is, who bought up the franchise rights in a package deal with Star Wars back in 2013 and have been looking to reboot the series with a charismatic new star.  While Star Wars is on pace to dominate theaters this coming Christmas, things have been fairly quiet on the Dr. Jones front aside from some unsubstantiated rumors of Bradley Cooper's involvement.

Now we can add Chris Pratt's name to the list.  Deadline's story just says that Disney is pursuing Pratt, which feels like a no-brainer to the point that I question how real this might be.  After the success of Guardians Of The Galaxy and with Jurassic World on the way, there is no doubt that Pratt is at that top of every studio's casting wish list for at least one major franchise.  Short of also sending Andy Dwyer to a galaxy far, far away, Indy is probably the next biggest pre-sold property Disney is developing at the moment.  It would be stupid for them NOT to be pursing Pratt.

Sidenote: What if Pratt ends up cast in one of the Star Wars stand alone films?  If they're really looking at him for Indy, they MUST be considering him for young Han Solo.  Could Pratt pull off the Disney trifecta of Marvel, Star Wars and Indiana Jones?

Do we really need a new Indiana Jones?  Of course not.  We also don't need new Ghostbusters nor do we need a new Snake Plissken, but there's simply no stopping these things now.  Until they secure a writer and/or director, it remains to be seen whether or not we'd get a total reboot of the character or if we'd just get further adventures of Indiana Jones which maintained some continuity with the previous films.  Conventional wisdom would say a full on reboot, but I think Harrison Ford would totally show up as older Indy to bookend the film.

I'm not entirely sure that I'd buy Burt Macklin as an archaeology professor, but at the end of the day, we could do much worse than Pratt.  We could end up with Bradley Cooper.




*I finally rewatched this recently and I maintain that while the film just does not work, I still appreciate what Spielberg was going for.  There's no way to ignore Ford's age in that movie, so setting it in the 50's and telling a story filled with the iconography of that era - atomic bomb tests and flying saucers - is hardly the worst decision they could have made.  The worst decision they could have made was casting Shia LaBeouf.

The Cast Of GHOSTBUSTERS Fills Me With Trepidation

I am firmly on record in believing that the world does not need a new Ghostbuters.  That said, such a move was inevitable and when Paul Feig signed on to direct a reboot with an all female cast, I was cautiously optimistic.  Of all the different ideas I'd heard pitched around, this was probably the least awful.

Then yesterday, Feig announced the cast.  My optimism is dwindling.

In a move we all saw coming from a million miles away, Melissa McCarthy was the first to officially sign on.  I'd be okay with this if it weren't a virtual guarantee that we'll now get a scene where McCarthy either a) can't fit into her jumpsuit, b) breaks the fireman's pole, c) stumbles behind her partners, out of breath and complaining that the proton pack is too heavy, or d) all of the above.

Kristen Wiig is still negotiating.  I guess I'm okay with Wiig since, considering the rest of the cast, I expect she'll end up playing some kind of Ben Stiller-esque straight man role.  I don't know.  I've never been as in love with Wiig as the rest of the world.  Her recurring SNL characters were always an exercise in diminishing returns.  That said, I've never laughed at that show as hard as I did the first time I saw her baby arms character on The Lawrence Welk Show.

Finally we've got two current SNL cast members currently attached,  Leslie Jones and Kate "Crazy Eyes" McKinnon .  Seriously, her giant bug eyes freak me the fuck out.  It feels unfair to criticize McKinnon based on tenure at SNL considering that I've yet to see her attempt play a person who isn't at least partially deranged.  Jones is even more of a wild card, having just been promoted from a writer to a featured player just this season.  She's very funny while sexually harassing human mayonnaise sandwich Colin Jost on Weekend Update, but I think that's basically just Jones being Jones.  She's a bit rougher in her sketch work.  I haven't seen Chris Rock's Top Five yet, but I hear she does nice work in it.  I guess this will just depend on how far Feig asks Jones to stretch her talents.

Feig is apparently still chasing after Peter Dinklage to play the film's villain, and I'm always up for more of The Dink.  But there's also a rumor (first put forth by HitFix's Drew McWeeny and later redacted at the request of Sony) that there's a Walter Peck-ish character who debunks paranormal phenomenon and that they're hoping to lure Bill Murray for that role.  Good lord, what a terrible idea.  I'd be worried about it if I thought for one second that it might actually happen.

McWeeny also listed a sort of character breakdown (also redacted) which described two former friends: Not-Egon, a strict academic (this has Wiig written all over it) and Not-Venkman, a Ghost Hunters-type who 's now working with a new partner, Not-Ray.  They team up with Not-Winston, an MTA ticket booth worker who comes into contact with the main ghost (Dinklage?).  McWeeny has this character pegged for McCarthy, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her as the Not-Venkman role, particularly since she and Wiig have such great chemistry together.

These are all very funny comedians who have made me laugh many, many times.  But they've also made me roll my eyes.  A LOT.  I was also really hoping we'd get at least one proper actress with strong comedy chops (think Lizzy Caplan or Emma Stone) as opposed to four straight up comedians.  And while Bridesmaids and The Heat both did very well at the box office, I didn't actually enjoy either as much as I wanted to enjoy them.  At this point it feels like the foundation is there for a movie that is either hilarious or unbearable.  All we can do is hope for the former and brace for the latter.

The Gutless Wonders At Paramount Have Pulled TEAM AMERICA

WHAT.  THE.  FUCK.

This morning I told you about the Alamo Drafthouse's plans to screen Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America: World Police in protest over Sony's decision to pull The Interview.  The Drafthouse was not alone, as several other small theater chains around the country had also decided to air the decade-old movie best remembered for graphic puppet sex.

Not anymore.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, Paramount has denied these theaters permission to screen the film.  To be clear, no new threats have been issued and the old threats have still not been upgraded by U.S. intelligence or law enforcement officials to the status of "even remotely fucking possible."  This is simply a matter of Paramount being complete and utter chumps.

Sony at least had an excuse.  The theater chains blinked first and left the studio holding the bag, so you can't really blame them for folding.  Well, I can and do blame them but at least I understand where they're coming from.  After getting their teeth kicked in by the press for the last month, they simply we're geared up for this fight.  Paramount has no excuse at all.  They had dozens of theaters ready and willing to show Team America, which would have been great press for the studio and brought the under-appreciated satire back into culture relevance.  Instead the studio decided to boldly capitulate to...I don't even know what.  Fear, I guess.

This is inexcusably pathetic.  If you're in search of something to watch featuring North Korean villains, I've seen people online suggest the Red Dawn remake.  Unfortunately that movie isn't really all that good.  Instead I'd recommend Olympus Has Fallen, (also streaming on Netflix) which is way more entertaining and has 100% more head stabs.

And if you're headed to the movies this Christmas and want to send a message to Paramount that this is complete and utter bullshit, consider passing on Paramount's release of The Gambler.  Having seen it last night, I can assure you there are better ways to spend your money.

CREED Gets A Ladyfriend, Continues Its March Towards Being A Real Movie

My Rocky love runs deep.

Last year when I went to an advanced screening of Fruitvale Station, I spoke to director Ryan Coogler and asked him what his next project was.  When he replied, "A boxing movie," I thought little of it.  Cut to a few months later when it's announced that Coogler's boxing movie is actually Creed, a spinoff/sequel to the fucking Rocky franchise and I basically start frothing at the mouth with excitement.

Coogler's Fruitvale star and the future Human Torch Michael B. Jordan will play the grandson to Apollo Creed, who's become a talented boxer in his own right.  Of course he recruits the Italian Stallion to serve as his trainer, effectively turning Rocky into the new Mickey.  If we're really lucky, than IMDb is correct and Jordan's character name really is Adonis Creed.  Sometimes the world can be a marvelous place.

The project has been in development for a while and last month they even recruited some real life boxers to play Creed's opponents.  Now real life actress Tessa Thompson has joined the cast in an unspecified role that we can safely assume is Adonis's love interest.  I wasn't the biggest fan of Thompson back in her Veronica Mars days, but I hear lots of good things about her work in both Selma and Dear White People.

Mostly I'm just happy that we're getting closer to this movie actually existing.

Stand Up And #RememberTheInterview

I am completely dumbfounded by the events of the past 24 hours.

This is not going to be yet another think piece on the morally reprehensible position of capitulating to the childish whims of an insane foreign power, or a screed against sacrificing our most basic and essential American freedom, that of free speech and artistic expression, out of a position of fear.  And make no mistake, that is precisely what has occurred here.  But at this point, what's done is done.  Sony has completely scrapped thier plans for any and all release of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's The Interview, and while I would have put good money on a digital release after some time had passed and the excitement had died down, it's now looking more and more likely that the film will be shelved entirely.  You see, studios insure movies the same way that you insure your car.  By completely dropping the film, Sony can essentially declare the thing a "total loss" and get a bigger payout.  Granted that's tantamount to me telling Allstate that my car has been totaled because a 9 year old threatened to set it on fire, but still.

So where do we go from here?  Sony and the theater owners can bend over for Kim Jong Un (the fact that we are legitimizing this clown is maybe the most maddening aspect of this entire affair) but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to.  Yesterday I tweeted that regardless of your feelings about Franco or Rogen or even if The Interview was no damn good, it demanded to be seen on principle alone and you can bet your ass that I would have been first in line at the box office on Christmas Day to buy a ticket as the most effective statement possible that I'm not going to be pushed around by petty thugs.  Now that option has been taken away.  So what is a film fan and a patriot to do?

I've seen some people use the hashtag #RememberTheInterview, and I'm absolutely on board.  It evokes "Remember the Alamo," which is appropriate considering that this particular battle is already over and we lost.  So let The Interview be a rallying cry for those who refuse to stand by and let this sort of policy become standard operating procedure.  It's an incredibly dangerous precedent to set.  As Jordan Hoffman pointed out on Twitter, "What happens when the KKK threatens theaters showing SELMA?"  If you don't think that's a valid point, you're nuts.  The threatening of studios and theater chains simply for showing a film is nothing new, but never in the history of cinema have all parties completely caved like this.  IT'S NEVER HAPPENED.  We can not let it happen again.

My hat is off to those mad geniuses at the Alamo Drafthouse, who will be showing Team America: World Police on Christmas Day in place of The Interview.  It's an inspired move, as the villain of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's absurd marionette action movie is none other than Kim Jong Il.  I often lament the fact that there is no Alamo Drafthouse here in New England, but in this case I'm doubly pissed.  If you live near a Drafthouse, you should really get on this.

Drafthouse also has a film distribution arm and I saw them suggest on Twitter yesterday that they'd be willing to buy the film outright.  If Sony really is trying to turn the film into a complete insurance write-off, I'm pretty sure they can't actually sell the damn thing.  But here's a suggestion: simply turn the film back over to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg for no money and let them do whatever they want with it.  Fuck it, use Kickstarter to launch an independent release.  $10 bucks for a digital download, $20 for a Blu-ray?  Shit yeah, I would pay that.  If you thought the Veronica Mars thing was a big deal...

I'm also down with Devin Faraci's suggestion that the Acacdemy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should award Rogen and Goldberg with some kind of honorary Oscar this year.  I don't honestly believe such a thing will actually happen, (at least not this year) but wouldn't it be great if they spent a few minutes during the awards ceremony to praise these guys and maybe even show some footage or something?  If we're really never going to see this movie, then air Kim Jong Un's death scene.  Talk about a great "Fuck you."

But what about something more concrete and immediate?  President Obama has urged people to go to the movies and I think that's a fine idea.  Show Dear Leader and the Guardians Of Peace that you won't cater to their bullshit.  My wife's family usually makes a trip to the theater on Christmas Day and you can be damn sure we'll be heading there this year.  It doesn't really matter what you see, although I'd argue that if you want to make a statement with your ticket purchase, Selma is the Christmas release that's most appropriate.  It may not be as cheerful as Annie or Into The Woods, but it's now without a doubt my first choice.

In the meantime, I recommend picking up a copy of This Is The End on Blu-ray or DVD.  Aside from being one of the funniest movies of 2013, it's also a Sony movie from Rogen, Goldberg and much of the same creative team.  It's basically the closest you can get to buying a protest ticket to The Interview.  If you don't already own This Is The End, well, you really should.  It's not only breathlessly funny, but it's also got a really sweet and endearing core.  Now is the perfect time to fill that gap in your home movie library, and if there's someone on your holiday shopping list for whom you still don't have a gift, this is a great option.  It's currently only $10 on Amazon and if you order by tomorrow then Amazon swears it will get to you in time for Christmas, even if you don't have Prime.  I'm ordering mine right now.

This is not okay.  Sony may have thrown in the towel, but I refuse.  This is the closest I'll ever get to the front lines in the war on terror.  I can't shoot a gun, drive a tank or hack a foreign government.*  But I will scream myself hoarse in the name of artistic freedom.

#RememberTheInterview.






*Sidenote: If it's conclusively proven that the North Korean government did in fact order the hack on Sony, then I say such action absolutely merits U.S. retaliation.  This could start an era of legitimate American cyber-warfare.  Fucking crazy.

The Terorrists Win: Sony Cancels THE INTERVIEW

UPDATE: Sony has now officially canceled The Interview's release. There's no mention of any possible digital release, but the statement specifically uses the words "theatrical release," so I wouldn't rule anything out. I can't believe this is really happening. I can't believe we just legitimized Kim Jong Un. 

I'm supposed to go to an advanced screening of The Interview tomorrow night at my local AMC.  I've been looking forward to it all week long.  Now I'm wondering if that screening is still happening.

Sony just confirmed that the five major American theater chains, including AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment have dropped the film entirely in the wake of violent threats by Guardians Of Peace, the hacker group responsible for the now epic Sony data breach.  GOP has named the Seth Rogen/James Franco movie as the motivation for the attacks on the Culver City studio (and my one time employer) and while many suspect that the group has ties to the government of North Korea, those claims have yet to be substantiated.*

You know what else has yet to be substantiated?  Any evidence that the GOP has the ability to actually carry out any of their grammatically suspect threats of 9/11-style terror attacks.  Look, I'm all about safety first, but this feels patently ridiculous.  U.S. intelligence services and law enforcement agencies have found no credible threat against American theaters anywhere.  So why the fuck are we caving to these assholes?

I honestly have no idea.  I get that no one wants to be held responsible for another Aurora disaster and that the world is still reeling from the hostage situation in Sydney and the massacre in Peshawar, but at the end of the day we're talking about hackers, not suicide bombers.  Al-Qaeda these guys are not.  Besides, it seems unlikely that Sony would shelve the movie entirely.  Whether it gets a limited theatrical run or not, Sony will almost certainly still release it on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms.  Hell, I suspect that it could show up on iTunes and On Demand in the next few weeks if none of these theaters change their mind.  (Ironically, digital platforms seem like far more likely targets for GOP than brick and mortar theaters.)  So in the end, what's the real impact other than the unfortunate optics of Hollywood bowing to pressure from a bunch of demented fuckers who are likely halfway across the world?

More importantly, there's a reason that you don't give in or negotiate with terrorists.  Because once that happens, suddenly threats of violence become a legitimate tactic that any criminal can use to actually achieve their goals.  This kind of thing only brings the crazies out of the woodwork.  As my wife texted to me upon hearing the news, "I want to start just demanding stuff.  Send Daniel Radcliffe to my house or else!  Put Benedict Cumberbatch in all the movies or else something something!"  At this point her demands are just as valid. 





*ABC News is now making unconfirmed reports that the FBI may actually be connecting the dots between GOP and North Korea, but they have yet to make an official statement at this time.

This New MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Trailer Is Everything

The following is the newest trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road.  Watching it practically brought tears to my eyes.  I had one of those slow, inadvertent smiles a mile wide.  At one point, I literally had to remind myself to breathe.

Holyfuckingshit.

23 JUMP STREET Might Also Be MEN IN BLACK 4. No, Seriously.

Sony's having a rough time of it.  In the wake of their massive data breach (which may or may not have been a North Korean preemptive strike against The Interview) all of their dirty laundry is now being made a matter of public record.  Right now, as we speak, news agencies have teams of investigators (a.k.a. interns) pouring over all the leaked documents in search of juicy tidbits.  I don't really want to encourage this sort of thing, the fact that I am a former Sony employee notwithstanding.  That being said, in the last few days some stories have come to light that simply cannot be ignored.  Chief among them, the notion that there is currently a Jump Street/Men In Black crossover movie in development.

I'll give you a minute to process that.

The end credits gag in 22 Jump Street pretty effectively took the wind out of every possible alternate spin on the buddy cop genre, so why not turn Jenko and Schmidt into MIB agents?  The only real obstacle I can see here is a tonal one.  I can't believe I'm about to say this, but the Men In Black movies actually feel way more grounded in reality than Jump Street, which is constantly on the verge of breaking the fourth wall to comment on the cinematic tropes involved, be they in regards to action movies or sequels in general.  Would we lose all that in the world of MIB?  I would think so, and that thought makes me more than a bit sad.  The meta-ness of it all is what makes Jump Street so damn compelling.

For the record, there is currently no script and it's unlikely that Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones would be involved, although I wouldn't rule out a Depp-esque cameo at some point.  If they do pop up, I hope it's solely to get killed off in the opening scene.  That would make Jenko the new Agent J, yeah?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Is Not Committing Suicide In This Teaser For THE WALK

First and foremost, you should really see Man On Wire.  The documentary depicts Frenchman Philippe Petit's 1974 attempt to covertly rig a high wire between the two World Trade Center towers and then go for a little stroll in the sky.  I tackled the film early on in my movie-a-day project and quite liked it.  But the masses don't really go in for documentaries, even ones that are staged like a heist movie.  So of course that means we're getting a narrative version starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which now comes complete with a vertigo-inducing teaser.

Without any preface, you'd be forgiven for watching this trailer and thinking it's a movie about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Hairpiece struggling to decide whether or not to jump off that building.

Look, I like JGL and all, but this whole endeavor feels somewhat unnecessary.  Then again, I'm more than a little curious to see if Robert Zemeckis has got any gas left in the tank, if only from a technical standpoint.  I remember reading that he was really blown away with Gravity and that he saw The Walk as his chance to really push the boundaries of IMAX and 3D in the same sort of way.  I'm all for that, but I still suspect that "it's got cool visuals" will be a best case scenario here.

Man On Wire is currently streaming on Netflix.  For what it's worth, so is The Man With One Red Shoe.  Go nuts.

The KINGSMAN Trailer: You Had Me At Lisping Sam Jackson

I love (and own) each and every one of Matthew Vaughn's films.  The guy has a great eye for staging action sequences as well as a sharp ear for humor.  He usually maintains a great balance between "cool" and "fun", a feat that is far more difficult than it sounds.  I was therefore confused by the first few trailers for Kingsman: The Secret Service, which stars Colin Firth as a British superspy with all kinds of crazy gadgets.  It's hard not to feel like this is a movie which revels in all that which has been summarily discarded by Daniel Craig's incarnation of Bond.  That could be fun, but something about those early looks felt fairly by-the-numbers.  Maybe it was the whole tutoring-a-streetwise-young-protege storyline that just did nothing for me.  I'm not sure.

But then I saw this new trailer.

Samuel L. Jackson as a lisping supervillain?  I think I'm in love.  I'm also tickled by his henchwoman, who appears to be a literal blade runner.  According to IMDb, her character's name is Gazelle.  That's so incredibly dumb that I can't help but adore it.  I also spotted a rocket pack in there as well as a terrified and professorial Mark Hamill.  But who cares.  I could spend two hours just watching Nick Fury's speech impediment wax on about blood on his carpets.

I am now officially excited about this movie.

The STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Trailer Is Here!

The first teaser for Star Wars: The Force Awakens now officially exists!  It's currently located exclusively over here at the Apple Trailer site, which means I can't embed it here.  It also means you can't currently watch it in full screen, which kind of blows.  I remember back when Apple was the best place to watch trailers in high definition and all YouTube videos looked like garbage.  Oh how the times have changed.

UPDATE:  Well that didn't take long.  Here's a spiffy new embedded version.

Anyway, there's not a whole lot to see here, as it's just a first teaser.  Particularly, there are no classic Star Wars characters to see.  No Han, no Leia, no Luke.  That's a little disappointing, but not altogether surprising.  I imagine they're gonna draw that reveal out as long as possible.

How do we feel about that new school lightsaber?  I don't understand the need to re-invent the wheel with with one of the most iconic weapons in all of cinema, especially in a way that seems so impractical.  Seriously, a hand guard made out of lasers?  How has that guy not sliced off all his fingers already?  Also, the evil voiceover (which sounds SO MUCH like Benedict Cumberbatch's Smaug as to be distracting) is a little on the fucking nose and belongs in one of those montages of people awkwardly saying the title of the movie they're in.

But that little soccer ball droid is adorable.

Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs Movie Is Still Happening

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for the Steve Jobs biography, scripted by Aaron Sorkin and set to be directed by Danny Boyle.  First it looked like the project was all geared up and ready to go with Christian Bale in the lead and Seth Rogen circling the role of Steve Wozniak.  Then Bale abruptly backed out and a few weeks later, Sony dropped the project entirely after two years of development.

But Universal has now stepped up and grabbed the project, which The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood reports now has Michael Fassbender attached to play the Apple founder.  Good for Universal.  They've taken some hits over the years, producing some sneakily great films like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the Kick-Ass franchise and 2 Guns (which is secretly amazing) that somehow never managed to find their audience theatrically.  They could use a real prestige picture and I honestly find Fassbender a much more fascinating choice to play Jobs than Bale.

My prevailing interest in this movie remains Aaron Sorkin's script, which is based loosely on Walter Isaacson's dense and lengthy biography.  The whole script is structured as three scenes that take place on the eves of various product launches.  I'm a big fan of slice-of-life biographies, as opposed to these big, sprawling stories that try to run the gamut from birth to death.  I'll take My Week With Marilyn over Ray any day.

I've also heard that Jessica Chastain is attached in an unspecified role, which I assume to be Jobs wife but will probably turn out to be his daughter in the future, reading morse code messages from her father on her Apple Watch.