Time Travel: Extended Guardians of The Galaxy Interview With James Gunn, Chris Pratt and Kevin Feige

Boy, I sure love it when we switch to Daylight Savings Time here in the United States! It sure is awesome to go to bed drunk on a Saturday night and then wake up on a Sunday morning with absolutely no concept about what time it really is! I mean, here it is after 8 p.m., and every sip of beer feels like I’m drinking with my Cheerios! And the Crisis On Infinite Midlives mascot, Parker the Kitten is really enjoying not knowing whether he should nap, eat dinner, or just continue clawing at my ankles like they’re two animal control guys with fists full of ketamine and eyes full of loneliness!

Long story short: it is a terrible kind of day to attempt anything remotely resembling complicated analysis or in-depth reflection. It is, however, a good day for a long-ish video with an interview with some jokes, some entertaining lines, and a few new details about a much-anticipated genre property.

Say no more: yesterday, Marvel Studios President of production Kevin Feige, director James Gunn and actor Chris Pratt sat down for a half-hour interview with AMC Theaters about Guardians of The Galaxy. And there’s not a ton of new information about the flick in the interview – everyone was sitting there with Kevin Feige after all, and I think we all know that the Disney board of directors has given him the authority to respond to the release of spoilers with extreme sanction – but there are a few tidbits. Such as the fact that Gunn still coming up with ideas for a possible post-credits scene (c’mon, Nova…), and based on a couple of sidelong glances, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an appearance by Cosmo somewhere in the flick.

And I know we post a lot of videos on this site, but seriously: this was one we threw up on the big screen to watch all the way through. The interviewer is, for a change for this kind of thing, at least generally familiar with the comics behind the movie, and Pratt and Gunn are just a lot of fun to watch. Check this one out, after the jump.

Meet Black Widow – Captain America Movie Sequel Featurette

Hey, kids! Did you really dig Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, in her various appearances in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers? Did you wish you could see more of her?

No, not that way, you perverts.

Well, it looks like she’s going to have a very central role in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie. And, she’s got her own stand alone movie in the works, although it’s just in the beginning stages of getting past being a twinkle in Marvel’s pants eye. Take a look at this new featurette focusing on the lady herself!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens in US theaters April 4, 2014.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Seven Feet Plus of Muscle And Mayhem: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For Trailer Released

Making a movie adaptation of a comic book is tricky business, because there’s always the question as to how slavish a remake you should go with. You go too far off the reservation, you wind up with a Muppet threatening to “chuck the duck” to Marty McFly’s mom, and you set back the cause of comics-based movies about a half a decade. You hew too close to the source material, and you might find yourself publicly arguing that you saved the original comics property from being ruined in adaptation… not six months after defending yourself from charges that you ruined another original comics property in adaptation.

But the one thing most people agree on is that there needs to be at least some modifications to bring a comic book to the screen. Most people, that is, except for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, whose Sin City movie in 2005 mirrored the original The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard series so closely that I was able to literally sit down in front of a bootleg DVD of the flick and follow along with the trade paperbacks, like I was listening to the world’s most expensive Power Record.

And yet somehow, it worked for that movie, which I liked enough to have owned in bootleg DVD, original release DVD, special edition DVD and Blu-Ray formats. And we are coming up fast on the release of the sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which not only looks to follow the same the-comic-is-the-storyboard format of the original flick, but features the return of Bruce Willis as Hartigan, Jessica Alba as Nancy, and Mickey Rourke as Violent Marv. And it also has Lady Gaga for some reason!

The movie drops on August 22nd, and with only five months to go, it means the first trailer should drop any time. By which I mean it has just come out. And you can check it out after the jump.

The One Who Knocks: Godzilla Trailer Released

I honestly haven’t given too much of a damn about the upcoming Godzilla reboot coming out this summer, despite a misspent youth spending Saturday afternoons watching Creature Double Feature on Boston’s channel 56. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against giant monsters, but as a child of the 80s who saw The Day After, I knew full well that nuclear radiation wasn’t gonna create a giant lizard, unless you counted the throbbing tumor growing off its neck.

My enthusiasm didn’t grow for Godzilla even as I grew older. By the time I was a teenager, if I wanted to see Tokyo take it in the shitter, I had my VHS dub of Akira. And by the time I hit my 20s in the early 90s, well, the less said about Godzilla in the 90s, the better off we’re all gonna be.

So even when I saw the big off-site Godzilla exhibit with roars coming out of it that you could hear on 4th Avenue outside last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I didn’t have enough interest to stand in line to see what the fuss was about. So yeah: long story short, I’ve paid so little attention to this movie that I didn’t even know who was in it. Until I saw the trailer that Warner Bros. released today to hype the movie.

And saw that Bryan Cranston is in the movie.

You can check the trailer out after the jump.

New Amazing Spider-Man 2 Trailer – More Previously Unseen Footage

This new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is called “The Rise Of Electro”. It clocks in at just over three minutes long and seems to contain some previously unseen footage. Almost certainly it contains more shots of Jamie Foxx’s Electro in action. However, there are also some great dialogue teasers between Peter and Aunt May about what secrets the family may be keeping regarding the death of his parents. The new incarnation of Harry Osborn comes off as suitably emo and creepy, very much Peter’s opposite. My only concern with this movie is that they’re trying to shoehorn in three villains: Electro, The Rhino, and The Green Goblin. Split focus was a major downfall of Sam Raimi’s final Spider-Man effort, Spider-Man 3. Part of what made the reboot work so well was allowing the story to focus on the battle with one enemy, while the characters were given room in the story to flesh themselves out. I hope this new movie doesn’t give the characters short shrift by trying to stuff too many of them in for the sake of spectacle.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in US theaters on May 2, 2014.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Fantastic Four Movie Cast Confirmed; Internet Fanboys Predictably Freak Out Unfavorably

According to Variety, the main cast of the Fantastic Four reboot have been confirmed. Miles Teller has accepted an offer to play Reed Richards. Kate Mara will be Sue Storm. Michael B. Jordan is Johnny Storm. Finally, Jamie Bell is expected to be picking up the role of Ben Grimm. The reboot will be based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four run, which means we can expect that Reed won’t necessarily be the team leader, a role that initially fell to Sue and Johnny’s father in the Ultimate series, who is a professor at a project housed in the Baxter Building for gifted students. If that is the route this story will take, that role has not been cast yet. It would also mean that Reed’s digestive system would be replaced by a bacterial stack that allows him the ability to get nourishment without eating. Just throwing that out there.

Predictably, rabid fan boys have taken to social media to decry the casting of Jordan as Johnny Storm. Johnny is a blond haired white boy in the comics and Jordan is an African American. Jordan previously worked with new FF director, Josh Trank, on the superhero pic, Chronicle.

Further stirring the pot is this little nugget, dropped by the Hollywood Reporter a couple weeks back:

Dr. Doom is said to be the villain of the reboot (the character appeared in Fox’s two previous movies and was played by Julian McMahon). The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision is hearing that the studio is likely to go for a big name and isn’t ruling out switching genders for the role.

So, fan boys are freaking out. I think it’s much ado about nothing. I think the larger gain here is a script that will draw on some of the better comics writing work from Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, and Warren Ellis. Not sure why fan boys aren’t focusing on that instead of whinging because some of the casting doesn’t meet their imagined platonic ideals. Oh wait, yes I do. Because that’s what fan boys do. Get it out of your systems now, kids. You know you’re just going to go see it anyway when it hits the theaters. And you’ll buy and play whatever video game comes out for consoles to accompany it. Just own it and move on with your lives.

The Fantastic Four hits theaters June 19, 2015.

And, Here’s The Full Length GOTG Trailer

As promised yesterday, here is the full length Guardians Of The Galaxy trailer:

Initial impressions? I really enjoyed it. It’s got a camp feel that reminds me of Galaxy Quest and teases just enough of Rocket Racoon that you come away curious rather than worried you’re going to see some kind of Space Jam animation overlay. Well played, Marvel!

Guardians Of The Galaxy opens in United States theaters on August 1, 2014.

Update – James Gunn takes viewers through the trailer and discusses some of its highlights over on Total Film:

There is no doubt that the cinematic pinnacle of my career is our cameras circling around a maniacal raccoon shooting a machine gun on the back of a living tree.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Teaser Trailer Now Live, Full Length To Follow

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the full length trailer for Guardians Of The Galaxy is going to debut tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live, to help lure viewers away from the other Jimmy. Jimmy Fallon will be in the second night of his new gig helming The Tonight Show from its new home in New York City. After assorted celebrity cameos last night from Rudy Giuliani, to Tina Fey, to Joan Rivers, and music from U2, Fallon offers a guest line up tonight that includes Jerry Seinfeld, Kristen Wiig and Lady Gaga. So, I guess the question is would you rather see Lady Gaga or a talking racoon? Or does network television continue to not remember that most of the civilized world has DVRs that can record multiple channels and access to YouTube?

Anyway, in case you are one of those unfortunate souls, to hold you over until then, here is the 15 second teaser trailer for Guardians Of The Galaxy. Enjoy!

Jimmy Kimmel Live starts at 11:35 p.m. EST on ABC if you want to watch the debut of the full length trailer like it’s 2004 and YouTube was a glimmer in a developer’s eye.

Dry Wit: Jodorowsky’s Dune Trailer Released

These days, my primary love is comic books – well, it always has been, but in the life of an adult, one chooses one or two passions and then lets others slide to make sure there’s enough time to go to the day job to pay for those passions, and then sleep and maybe refine the revenge list.

But when I was younger, I was a rabid reader of science fiction. And not the normal young adult pabulum that passes for the science fiction kids read these days – I didn’t read Ender’s Game until I was 34, and when I was finished, I put it on the shelf and said, “Yeah, I saw it when it was called The Last Starfighter,” – but the big stuff. I was a huge Issac Asimov fan, snapped up William Gibson and John Steakley, and read Frank Herbert’s The White Plague back when Y: The Last Man was just a twinkle in Brian K. Vaughan’s eye.

But I found Herbert the way everyone else did: through Dune. Dune was one of my first science fiction obsessions, to the point where I am the proud owner of a first edition copy of The Dune Encyclopedia. Not because of years of hunting down a copy, but because I saved my allowance and bought a copy off the shelf when I was 14 years old. About a decade ago, I took part in a Boston geek-themed comedy show called The Grand High Council of All Things True, and one of the concluding questions was, “Who controls the spice?” I am told on went on a long a detailed rant about Paul Atreides, sandworms, the Kwisatz Haderach and the effect of water on the Little Makers that ended with me shrieking, “Eat shit and die!” at an audience of about 100 people. I say, “I am told this,” because I remember nothing about the evening, as I was ripped to the tits on melange. Or perhaps Sam Adams. There’s very little difference between the two in Boston. But I digress.

The point is that I love Dune but I hate the Dune movie. Why? Well, I’d start with the phrase “nipple plugs,” but no one needs me to go off on another rant.

The reality is that, back in 1974, Alejandro Jodorowsky, the guy who directed fucked-up midnight movie western El Topo, signed on to do an adaptation of Dune. These were the days of Logan’s Run and Silent Running, which means that the state of the art of special effects at the time could be surpassed by a child with a Google Chromebook and a Go Pro camera today.

The thing is, nobody told Jodorowsky that. The guy hired H. R. Giger to consult on designs (this was well before Alien came around to make Giger a geek design icon), he made a deal with Salvadore Dali to play the Emperor (provided Dali could show the Emperor taking a dump on camera), and basically designed a movie that was so huge in scope it probably couldn’t be filmed even today, since even the highest-end Makerbot can’t 3D-print mescaline.

It would have been a glorious thing to see, if he had somehow managed to put the thing together, even though it would have borne as much of a resemblance to Herbert’s original novel as the Denver Broncos bear to an actual football team. Alas, not a single frame was ever filmed, I’m guessing because investors weren’t convinced about the merchandise rights to make toys of Salvador Dali dropping a drug-fueled deuce into a toilet that looked like a dolphin.

However, all is not lost of the film. Director Frank Pavich has produced a documentary about the aborted flick (That might be a pun, as it’s entirely possible that Jodorowsky planned an abortion in the middle of the movie. If you’re gonna commission a golden dolphin toilet, you’re not gonna just use it in one scene, am I right?). Jodorowsky’s Dune is getting a theatrical release on March 21st, and the first trailer has been released. And if you’re a Dune fan, or just someone curious about how a science fiction film featuring “whore-ships driven By the sperm of passionate ejaculations In an engine of flesh,” might look, you can check it out after the jump.

Human / Cyborg Relations: Paul Bettany Cast As Vision In Avengers: Age of Ultron

Not gonna lie to you, we have a busy day today: I need to run a few errands before heading to the day job, and this evening will be spent preparing and drilling for our multi-pronged assault on the Internet to navigate the San Diego Comic-Con preregistration process tomorrow morning – there are multiple locations, redundant IP addresses, and multi-faceted communications involved, because we don’t like to screw around – so I don’t have a lot of time today, but I did see this one little tidbit that I wanted to share.

Apparently Paul Bettany, who is the dude who does the voice of JARVIS in the Avengers and Iron Man movies, has been cast as an actual walking, talking, physical presence in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Notice I didn’t say he was cast as a person. Because he hasn’t. He’s been cast as The Vision.

Actually, wait – I didn’t mean to imply that an android can’t be a person. I don’t want to be offensive to robosexuals. If “robosexuals” is, in fact, what you want to be called; this isn’t addressed in the Associated Press Style Guide. I’m sure your love for the RealDoll is as pure and innocent as the driven snow. Or as filthy and kinky as between any two perverted humans. I don’t want to offend anybody. I’m just trying to talk about Paul Bettany as The Vision.

So yeah, let me do that.