Michael Shannon – who may just be the most unironically-intense working actor in Hollywood – has been cast as a (the?) villain in “The Man of Steel;” the Zack Snyder directed Superman movie that Warner Bros. is ram-rodding into theaters to beat-out the “we have to pay Seigel & Schuster’s heirs now” train to the station. Surprising absolutely no one, he’s NOT playing Toyman, Parasite, Bizarro Brainiac, Metallo or anyone else from Superman’s unfortunately-named, oddly-sparse enemy pool; nor is he playing Darkseid – a “New Gods” character that everyone thinks is a Superman villain because DC has been using him as an all-purpose Big Bad for about 30 years now.

Nope, he’s General Zod.

For the life of me, I don’t know why the prospect of Zod infuriates fans so much. Well… okay, actually I do – it’s because Zod isn’t important in the comic lore but to “the masses” who only know the Donner movies he’s the most well known (okay, ONLY known) Superman antagonist who isn’t Lex Luthor, and they resent that. Okay, I get that.

Yeah, I’d like to see one of the more obscure-yet-“important” enemies, but this makes sense from a filmmaking perspective: It gives you the ONE thing people have been demanding of a modern Superman movie – Superhuman fight scenes – without having to have character who is a kinda-generic monster (Parasite) probably too complicated for a one-off or first installment (Brainiac, Bizarro) or possesed of a silly-sounding name (all of them.) I liked the rumors about Metallo, but I also get that having him essentially fight The Terminator brings up that whole “wait, I thought this guy could punch-out The Moon?” problem. In addition, Zod makes thematic sense – the new script (from David Goyer and Nolan brothers) is apparently heavy on a “would the modern world REALLY react to a Superman so positively?” vibe; and having a second all-powerful alien whose evil fits that pretty well.

So… yeah, like everything else in this production it’s kinda anticlimactic and not crazy-exciting… but I don’t see where all the rage is coming from.

THR today broke the news that Josh Pence – the actor who’s face was digitally-replaced with Armie Hammer’s for the “twinning” shots in “The Social Network” – has a role in “The Dark Knight Rises” as the younger version (for flashbacks) of an existing character. Said character’s identity is confirmed in the story, and nudges VERY headily in the direction of confirming a lot of people’s assumptions about what the new film’s story might entail.

It’s not technically a spoiler, since everyone has run the story and the name, but in case you’d rather not read anything about it I’ll do the rest after the jump…

So, Pence is playing Young Ra’s Al Ghul, in flashbacks apparently set 30 years in the past.

No other information is given, but any renewed presence for Ra’s Al Ghul would seem to indicate what many people have been assuming/hoping/predicting for awhile now: that the League of Shadows – the anarchist-terrorist ninjas from “Batman Begins” – are coming back in some capacity. Right off the bat (no pun intended) I’m digging that idea because it suggests a turn back into “Begins’s” more comic-esque level of unreality (ninjas, doomsday weapon, fear-toxin, etc) after“Knight” took the franchise as far into realism as you can get while still making a Batman movie.

It also lends credence to the rumor that, if true, represents the worst-kept secret since the “bonus ending” of “Iron Man” – that Marion Cotillard’s as-yet-unidentified “key role” is some variation of Talia Al Ghul, Ra’s daughter and likely successor as leader of the League. Let me toss in some more specualtion on that end – the LoS’s previously-established “thing” for masks, long-term scheming and arcane chemistry would be a really handy way to explain Bane.

Here’s what I want to know: What exactly does being a younger Ra’s Al Ghul actually MEAN in this context? In the comics, Ra’s is a literal thousand-years-old immortal; but Liam Neeson’s dialogue in “Begins” – along with Christopher Nolan’s consistent veto of the more “out there” aspects of Bat-mythology – indicated that in this universe it’s more of a smoke-and-mirrors creating the illusion of immortality thing in this universe. But it was never made precisely clear how the ruse was actually set up, i.e. was Neeson the “real” Ra’s and Ken Watanabe was a decoy, or is the idea that there’s NO “real” guy and “Ra’s Al Ghul” is just a title passed from leader-to-leader “Dread Pirate Roberts”-style?

The reason I wonder this? We still don’t know who Joseph Gordon Levitt is playing, and if the idea is that “Ra’s Al Ghul” IS just a title, well… do the math. I’ll just say this: If the big third act “boo!” of this is a fully-alive Liam Neeson stepping out from the shadows, I’ll be the happiest widdle boy in the whole wide world…

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“Intermission” has James Gunn talking about his movie, “Super.”

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Below, the trailer for “Anonymous” – Roland Emmerich’s first non-action-blockbuster movie since… well, ever. It’s a (mostly) period mystery, based on some of the (many) conspiracy theories claiming that Shakespeare didn’t actually author the works attributed to him. So… “The DaVinci Code” for English Lit professors. Looks pretty good – and I’m fascinated by the idea of Emmerich (who has a much stranger, devious sense of things than usually makes it into his movies) doing something so different – but what’s making me post it here today is the trailer’s final tagline, which is a thing of terrible beauty. Take a look…

“We’ve All Been Played.”

Fucking. Brilliant.

Glenn Beck and Fox News will “transition” his nightly TV show off the air later this year; a move that is expected to leave a gaping hole in the evening viewing schedules of the ignorant, the hyperreligious, the clinically-paranoid and Rachel Maddow’s research staff. (Seriously – MSNBC is going to be like Patton without a Rommell now…)

To my Conservative readers: Don’t be scared. I know being on your own can be scary at first, but Glenn helped you to grow up big and strong. No, it won’t be exactly the same without him; but even though Glenn is gone Obama’s intimidating complexion and suspiciously foriegn-sounding name will be as scaaaary as ever – just wait and see! It’s the natural order of things that, when you’re ready, it’s time to leave the nest, spread your wings and fly free… in time, if you learned your lessons well, you’ll settle down and develop irrational, paranoid delusions of your very own.

To my Liberal readers: Congratulations, guys! Now get on down to the Whole Foods and stock up on exotic cheese and fair-trade olives for your last-episode-watching party! I’ll bring the Moscato if you bring the sprouts…

To my incidentally-political College-attending readers: Today’s the day, bro! Go call up that hot activist chick from your Sociology class so you can “celebrate” you guys doing YOUR part to bring this about – like all those links to his radio show you sent to Media Matters, which totally must’ve helped put this over the edge 😉

This week, a look back at the FIRST live-action “Street Fighter” movie – no, not the one you’re thinking of.

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It’s monday. Nothing’s happening. A snarky reply I was dropping on a “Gawker” thread about tomorrow’s expected reveal of a GOP proposal to, yes, privatize Medicare (i.e. why would conservatives want to piss off, of all people, senior citizens?) turned into a mini-essay, so I figure what the hell – might as well repost it here. Also, I like the irony of it running in-tandem with the ads for the awful-looking “Atlus Shrugged” movie Google keeps putting on the site… 😉

Actual text after the jump, those not wanting to hear/read political stuff advised not to bother:

“Sadly, it’s quite the opposite – this is the GOP’s version of (irony!) long-term political insurance.

The ONLY play they have to remain politically relevant into the next decade is this VERY narrow window of space in-between Generation X/Y’ers earning grownup-sized paychecks and not yet having older-grownup-sized health costs; when “WHY SHOULD I BE PAYING FOR SOME OLD PEOPLE’S MEDS!!??” actually sounds like a sensible political position. This is also why you’re seeing the old “welfare queen” stereotypes conflating race/gender with entitlement programs rearing their head once again – it’s ALL about rebranding The Party to appeal to white suburban douchebags with MBA’s burning a hole in their pocket who probably don’t give a shit about gay marriage or abortion but are FLABBERGASTED as to why they have to get “SCREWED out of a job by Affirmative Action!!!” when “everyone knows” racism is totally over because they “never owned a slave or nothing!” 😉

(NOTE: this is a straight-ahead shout-out, NOT an advertisement – no one has “asked” me to reccomend this site, no compensation has changed hands, etc.)

Most people on the indie/amateur movie circuit probably already know about Detonation Films, but in case you’re in that group and you don’t know them you really need to: Basically a whole site of professional-grade stock footage for explosions, fire, debris, bullet-hits, flares, etc. shot against key-ready greenscreen, bluescreen or oldschool black; most of sold for VERY reasonable prices and a TON of good stuff that’s straight-up FREE for download.

Pretty much all the fire/explosion FX you’ve seen in the recent “OverThinker” videos came from their freebie stock, as it happens, so I figured I owed them a shout-out: Keep an eye on this site, it’s a GREAT resource.

If American audiences know Hyung Rae-Shim at all, it’s as the guy behind the wonderfully-awful “Dragon Wars;” but he has a HUGE following in his native Korea for his prior career as a popular comic actor – he’d done dozens of films, almost always as a variation on a slapstick character named “Yonguu” (spelling varies.) Now, he’s brought the Yonguu person to English-language features; this time as the hitherto-unknown Korean son of a New York mafia don (Harvey Keitel!) in “The Last Godfather.”

Yes, they’re really selling it on the pitch of “The Director of Dragon Wars.” Awesome.