A new trailer reveals that the new story “Call of Duty” fans will be skipping entirely on their way to engage in online deathmatches with Ritalin-addled 12 year-olds involves a world-wide conflict.
As the previous game involved full-scale military operations underway in North America, the Middle East and Europe I’m not 100% clear why this is a “new” development; but whatever.
Now this is a puzzle. Why would Jason Segel and Amy Adams – two stars with rapidly-rising bigtime cache – step up for what looks like just another relentlessly-formulaic romantic comedy? And for that matter, why would a relentlessly-formulaic romanctic comedy need it’s own special YouTube page?
Heh. Very, VERY clever “gotcha” debut for “The Muppets” trailer; which reportedly caught a lot of folks off guard at this weekend’s “Pirates” showings. Lucky them – though, on the down side, they DID have to watch “Pirates” afterwards…
Zoe Saldana as Girl Jason Statham:
I’m back on the Post-Movie Podcast this week, for “Pirates” and other goodies:
Drew McWeeny, pound-for-pound the best overall film-journalist to emerge from the “movie-geek boom” of the late-1990s (as AICN’s “Moriarty”), has the web’s first semi-detailed (and basically spoiler-free) impressions of “X-Men: First Class” up on HitFix… and he sounds happy with it. Go give it a read.
Money quote from Drew:
“This is ground zero, and I think Fox just got it right, really right, in a way I can’t say it feels like they have on any of their Marvel films so far. With the right support, and with this film’s key creative team onboard, a sequel to this could well be the “X-Men” epic we’ve been waiting for since day one.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how this is recieved. It’s flown largely under the radar as the “and the rest” of the “Summer of Superheroes;” mostly because it’s not part of the two BIG film-press narratives i.e. “build-up to The Avengers” (Thor, Captain America) and “Warner Bros. setting up the DC Universe characters to supplant the Potter cash-cow” (Green Lantern.) But the marketing has been strong, the cast is a who’s-who of stars-in-training and Matthew Vaughn has major fanboy-cred after “Kick-Ass.”
On the other hand, the decision to hedge bets by keeping vague continuity with the previous three films (this is still technically a prequel, not a “re-boot”) means a dearth of ultra-recognizable characters; and after the twin disasters of “X3” and “Wolverine” audiences could certainly be forgiven for approaching another X-Men movie with trepidation. Also… there’s a weirdly-resentful undercurrent in a lot of the fandom for any further Marvel movies being made outside of the Marvel Studios “shared universe” umbrella – as though fans are actively hoping for them to fail on the assumption that Marvel will then scoop the rights back up and make “Wolverine vs. Avengers” or whatnot.
We’ll find out in about two weeks, one way or another.
“Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” is over 2 hours long. Despite that, by the time it’s over a HUGE number of seemingly important things remain unexplained. What follows is a breakdown of the stuff that’s STILL bugging me – how about you?
SPOILERS, obviously, follow…
What happened to the Priest? Seriously. She pulls him down under water and…? Did I nod off? I mean, this isn’t my first rodeo so I get what the vauge implication is, but still – is he a mer-man now? Is he dead but it’s okay because he got some half-fish nookie first? Hell, for that matter he’s technically a drowned sailor; oughtn’t Will Turner – Captain of the Flying Dutchman charged with overseeing who lives and dies at sea – have something to say on that matter?
For that matter, oughtn’t The Dutchman be popping up to collect whoever’s left from that ship Barbossa let’s the Mermaids sink?
If BlackBeard’s magic sword lets him remote-control every facet of the Queen Ann’s Revenge from the sails down to the riggings, why does he require ANY crew – let alone one comprised of zombies and kidnappees?
For THAT matter, given the same circumstances (magic sword, total-control of giant floating Death Star) why is BlackBeard having his men awkwardly corrall Mermaids like runaway seals when just driving them up onto land would work just as well?
Hell, if “man-made-light” is needed to draw out the Mermaids, why do they need to use a lighthouse when The QAR has a ginormous flame-thrower already built into it?
Also, if BlackBeard has the (unexplained) magic power to shrink whole boats (and crew, and localized weather conditions) down into bottles, why do they need to lug the Mermaid around in a full-sized glass casket?
Also, if Mermaids have been captured for harvesting their tears multiple times before, why doesn’t ANYONE – including the Mermaid herself! – already know that letting one “dry off” for less than 10 seconds makes them sprout legs? And if they DID know – why the casket, again?
Why is Jack Sparrow suddenly vaugely concerned about getting into Heaven and/or the afterlife in general? He’s been undead, dead-dead and back-from-the-dead, keeps regular company with mystics and a literal Sea Goddess, plus he’s besties with the current Captain of The Flying Dutchman – aka the guy who makes the live/die call for those who die in the environment Sparrow is 98% certain to meet his end in the first place?
…and wait a tic – HOW is Christianity or Monotheism in general taken as hugely important by Sparrow or ANY pirate when said literal Pagan Sea Goddess, Calypso, was a regular aquaintance/prison/comrade/whatever of hundreds of thousands of pirates for decades in the very recent past? And even before we knew about her; Jack, Barbossa and the rest all hand firsthand experience with a very real curse handed down by “the heathen gods?”
Speaking of Calypso; if The Spainards are on a crusade to exterminate sources of Pagan supernatural power; why are they sailing ACROSS an entire ocean controlled by a source Pagan supernatural power without incident?
How is a magic map previously shown to exist outside the laws of basic material physics vulnerable to an oil fire?
BlackBeard is “the pirate all pirates fear”… so why haven’t we seen or heard ANYTHING of him until right now? Like, say, at the big “every pirate in the world meet n’ greet” in the 3rd movie?
If BlackBeard, Angelica and Jack needed the Chalices and the Magic Words to enter the Fountain, how did everyone else – including two small armies – just walk there?
Why does Angelica need to be in Jack Sparrow Drag to recruit for BlackBeard? Sparrow’s reputation is for surviving when almost everyone else around him dies – why is that MORE attractive to anyone than working for a preposterously hot Latin chick whose apparently got the cash to throw around? “They don’t trust a woman to lead them” doesn’t wash – we’ve seen female Pirate Captains in the series already… in fact, the ENTIRE “Pirate Nation” only a couple years ago fought and won the biggest and most-decisive battle in their history under a female Pirate KING, Elizabeth Swan.
Why didn’t The Spainards takes Barbossa’s wooden leg when they captured him? Seems like kind of an obvious oversight.
For that matter, master-schemer Barbossa thinks to conceal a compartment of rum in his peg-leg… but not a gun? A knife? A weapon of some kind?
If the water in the pools where the Mermaid-tear harvesting was done is connected directly to the water pooling around the fountain; why do you NEED to get the healing-water directly from the fountain “tap?” Does immortality get added to “regular” spring-water through some mechanism in that sculpture-thingee? If so, why not just take that thing – which can be easily broken-apart – back home to wherever and brew up a fresh pot of live-forever-juice whenever you need it?
If not, and the Immortality Water DOES come directly out of the spring itself, why is it “the end” when The Spainards knock over the already-crumbling temple? Fresh water springs come up from DEEP in the Earth; with a little digging that whole setup will be good as new.
Why does the Priest randomly decide that the Mermaid needed to have a proper name; and where did he get “Syrena?”
And, hell, if “Syrena” is hyper-perceptive enough tell that the Priest is “different… a protector” (?) seconds after encountering him for the first time in the middle of an organized mass-assault on her people by his, why is she not bothered by his first two instincts on meeting her to be, in order: A.) “Treat her like an exotic pet” and B.) “Want to fuck her?”
…doesn’t raise hopes that they’ve fixed the problem:
Good gravy, how AWESOME is the first leg of this trailer? Sombre, epic, powerful… a million times better than anyone could’ve reasonably hoped a “Green Lantern” movie might look. Cosmic, epic in scope, the stuff of fanboy wish-dream made real… until 1:25, when Ryan Reynolds turns up and the whole ‘groove’ just completely disintegrates.
How did this happen? He’s a good actor. It seemed like good casting. But ALL of the scenes here featuring the TITLE CHARACTER just look and sound so awkward. Even setting aside that the outfit still looks ridiculous on him (it looks good on all the others) and that the CGI-skinsuit concept doesn’t fit and his mostly live-action head floating around makes the otherwise excellent CG look bad – the performance just doesn’t seem to be there.
Granted, it could just be that every trailer has “messed up” his performance in exactly the same way… but it’s looking more and more like a miscast (misdirected?) lead actor could end up torpedoing what would otherwise look like a truly remarkable feature.
Pro-wrestling legend Randy Savage (born Randall Mario Poffo) is dead. He suffered a heart-attack while driving, lost control of his car, and ultimately died from injuries sustained in the subsequent crash. His wife, traveling with him, survived with only minor injuries.
He was “only” 58 years old, which is comparatively young for most people but, tragically, not so for men in his particular profession; who routinely put their bodies through incredible amounts of punishment in their “prime.” If I remembered offhand what his “greatest” match was, I’d try to find a clip and post it – anybody recall?
UPDATED: By popular consensus, Macho Man vs. Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3:
Summer 2011 has it’s first official dud.
The embed isn’t working for some reason, here’s a link to the site itself again until it does: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/3272-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-On-Stranger-Tides
“Intermission” offers some stuff you can do INSTEAD of watching the shitty Pirate movie. You’re welcome.
…in as much as he’s very big, and has black mask.
The obligatory “Dark Knight Rises” viral campaign begins today, with this first teasing look at how Christopher Nolan and Company will try to transform BANE from one of the most singularly boring “Dark Age” villains into someone worth watching a movie about.
That’s Tom hardy under the mask, BTW, so I expect the DEAFENING roars of protest that a prominent Latino/South-American character is being played by a white actor from all the “racially conscious” white people who were OUTRAGED at making Heimdall black to begin any minute now…
…right?
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 