Gaze Upon The Second STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Trailer!

Star Wars: Celebration is happening right now in Anaheim.  I am in my cubicle in Boston.  This makes me sad.  You know what doesn't make me sad?

THIS FUCKING TRAILER.

HO.  LEE.  SHIT.

I literally love everything about this.  Standouts include:

Derelict Star Destroyer.
Luke Skywalker's familiar voiceover.
BB-8 peeking around a corner.
Vader's melted helmet
Every shot of John Boyega.
Robot hand!
That chrome stormtrooper.
Old school lightsaber being handed down
Cool masked villain.
And of course, THAT FINAL SHOT!

Seriously, that final shot put the biggest, stupidest grin on my face and made me instantly pump my fist in the air, perfectly in time with the music sting I might add.

Suffice it to say, my excitement over this movie just became legit.


PS - J.J. Abrams announced on stage today that the desert planet we've been seeing is not, in fact, Tattoine, but a new world named Jakku, which hilariously set off a 20 minute Twitter firestorm among bloggers about how to properly spell it.

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.

Oscar Isaac Is Your New Apocalypse

Right around this time last year, Oscar Isaac was totally blowing my mind as the titular character of the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis.  I'd enjoyed his work in movies like Drive and the sweet but under-seen 10 Years, but it was his turn as the talented yet mopey folk musician that truly won me over and convinced me that this guy is destined to be a perennial Oscar contender for at least the next decade.

In the meantime, Isaac has been a hot commodity for every major film franchise under the sun.  He recently finished shooting a leading and possibly roguish, Han Solo-esque role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and he's been on Marvel's short list to play Doctor Strange for ages now.  But instead Isaac has planted his flag over at Fox, signing on to play Apocalypse in Bryan Singer's next X-Men film.  Solely from a logistical standpoint, this makes a lot of sense: the guy's gonna be pretty busy in a galaxy far, far away for the next few years, so taking the lead role in another major franchise would likely burn Isaac out and prevent him from shooting the kind of adult, artistic films that he truly loves.*  By playing a one-time villain in a very isolated series, Isaac gets to collect a comic book paycheck and still keep the door open to appear in either the Marvel or DC cinematic universes somewhere down the road.

I will say I was expecting Singer to go with someone with a more imposing physical presence (Tom Hardy's name was bandied about quite a bit) but, based on the picture above, I expect that the character will eventually be realized with the aid of quite a bit of motion capture.  I'm also curious to see just how far they go with Apocalypse's giant purple cheek-lips, as it's one of the few facial features that distinguishes him from Darkseid and Thanos, both of whom will also be getting some serious screen time in the next couple of years, inevitably leading to some poor kid getting the wrong action figure for a future Christmas.


*I talked to Isaac for a few minutes following a Llewyn Davis screening and he was both polite and gracious as I asked him to recommend some titles for my movie-a-day project.  He offered up some rather obscure Russian art films that I eventually tracked down but did not get a chance to watch before my year was up.

Podcast Episode 38: INTERSTELLAR Is Mostly Alright, Alright Alright.

I wanted to love Christopher Nolan's Interstellar so, so much.  A great cast, a talented technical filmmaker at the top of his game, hard science-fiction, space travel, and an exploration of the human condition...this is hitting all my pleasure points.  So it's hard not to feel the crushing weight of disappointment when I say that I only mostly enjoyed the film.  I think it's a beautiful film, expertly shot, featuring largely serviceable performances yet hampered by a script that's too often thematically blunt, emotionally overwrought and narratively adrift.  There's certainly plenty to like and, on the relative scale of Hollywood blockbusters, Nolan's latest is still far better than most.  Complaining about Interstellar seems like an outright luxury in a year in which Transformers 4 will almost certainly remain the highest grossing film in the world.  And yet, Interstellar is simply not the home run I was hoping for.  It's probably more like a double that's been stretched into a triple thanks to fielding error.

Bart, Jamie and I all walked away from Interstellar with very different feelings about the film, making for a pretty good podcast discussion if I do say so myself.  We also talk about the newly minted title for Star Wars Episode VII, Jared Leto's potential run as the Joker, Toy Story 4, The 6 Billion Dollar Man, and the interesting strategy for Hans Zimmer's upcoming score for Dawn Of Justice.

We also discover and immediately dispel the premature rumors of Macaulay Culkin's demise, which quickly devolves into an examination of the gender politics of the Talkboy. 

Next Week: Big Hero 6