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.

Daley Screening Podcast Episode 2: Under The Mask Of KICK-ASS 2

"All that homophobic shit makes you sound super gay."

I'm really enjoying this whole podcast thing.

As the end of my cinematic year quickly approaches, I'm starting to explore different ways to let this project evolve and grow into the future.  Perhaps I'll continue to maintain my daily viewing schedule and just limit the writing portion to only the movies that really provoke me.  I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm really happy with the two episodes we've recorded thus far.  I'm seriously contemplating doing it on a weekly basis while expanding the scope of the discussions to include movie news, trailer releases and other fun and interesting topics, as well as bringing in some more guests.  Does that sound like fun to you?  Because I'm totally falling in love with the idea.

I'm hoping to record a few more episodes in my last three months that will allow me to play around with the format a bit, but if the podcast does become a regular occurrence then I promise to be more on the ball from a scheduling perspective.  For example, this episode was recorded in October for a movie that came out in August.  It's now almost Thanksgiving.  Hardly what you'd call timely.  In truth, I had originally intended to write a regular piece on Kick-Ass 2, but Bart and I had seen it together and had a lot of fun with it, so when we finally got together to record another episode this felt like a good fit.  Our Pacific Rim episode was edited to a tight 25 minutes (down from the original 45), but I decided to let this one run longer and be a bit more free-wheeling in nature.  I only personally listen to two other podcasts and each one tends to run in the neighborhood of 90 minutes.  I'm not really sure if that's atypically long or not, but I actually like it - each episode lasts me a couple of trips back and forth from work.

So enjoy as Bart and I examine the flawed but ultimately entertaining Kick-Ass 2, (spoilers abound) including the merits of CG excrement and the franchise's strange Quicksilver connection before falling into the inevitable rabbit hole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Bart even partially predicts the now imminent arrival of Iron Fist!  Kick-Ass 2 hits Blu-ray in about a month's time and I'll probably end up buying it.  Eventually.

Stream it or download it for your iThing below via SoundCloud.

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Title: Kick-Ass 2
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey, Clark Duke, Donald Faison, John Leguizamo
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - AMC Boston Common