Relax, it’s fun.

From Simon Pegg’s official Twitter, presented without commentary:

Fun at Marvel #3 pic.twitter.com/2hcVhG7695
— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) August 15, 2013

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John Turturro has written, directed and starred in a movie wherein Woody Allen is his best friend who shows up at his workplace to announce that he’s arranged for him to earn a quick $2,000 for having a threesome with Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara. Huh.

You get where we’re going with this.

Anyone who cares probably already knew this, but today (August 10th, 2013) is K-DAY – the date, in “Pacific Rim’s” timeline, when the first Kaiju (Trespasser) appears in San Francisco. I can think of at least one way to mark the occasion (technically, the “event” runs through 8/15 since it takes five days to kill the thing) – though it’s kind of sad that there aren’t more screens left to go see it on…

Get out there and support this one, guys. It’s a winner.

Intermission: “Let’s Watch The New Thor Trailer.”

ALSO: Since the cat is now out the bag, yes – I’ll be doing an appearance to sell and sign copies of “Brick By Brick”  at the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire on Saturday, Sept 14 from noon to 3pm. ACAM is located on the third floor of Funspot, 579 Endicott St North (Rt 3) in Laconia, NH 03246. Hope to see some of you there.

I run hot or cold on Paul Greengrass, particularly when he’s in psuedo-blockbuster mode, but I’m really glad he’s the guy who wound up making “Captain Phillips.” True story or not, the setup of America’s Most Beloved Human Tom Hanks at the mercy of ruthless Somali pirates could’ve made for some profoundly uncomfortable (in a bad way) “optics” in the hands of a more sensationally-inclined filmmaker; but Greengrass’ judgement-free, fly-on-the-wall psuedo-verite style makes that pretty unlikely. Either way, the film’s new domestic trailer looks intense.

Been waiting on “Monuments Men” for awhile, and it looks good. George Clooney directs and stars alongside Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett and Bob Balaban in the true story of a U.S. special division that enlisted architects, professors and art-history experts for the purpose of minimizing damage to Europe’s artistic and cultural treasures from the fighting and, eventually, tracking and reclaiming priceless art stolen by the Nazis themselves.

This looks really, really good. I’d been a little worried that they were going to impose some kind of unnecessarily more “humanistic” story-arc on this, i.e. the unit rolls up on some blighted village that gets all sad when they find out the soldiers are to save “some paintings” instead of the people and a choice has to be made and everyone learns about what really matters and blah blah blah.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case – this trailer, at least, is selling a straightforward guys-on-a-mission movie where the “gimmick” is that much of the unit is comprised of decidedly un-soldier-like academics who have to learn the ropes on the fly to go do their job. To me, that’s a compelling enough story on it’s own – plus, I like the idea of an A-list, big-star “prestige picture” being built around the message that art, culture and knowledge are worth fighting for.

Let’s get this out of the way: The trailer for “CBGB” – about NYC’s legendary punk rock club – looks like just about the “least punk” thing you can picture, even moreso than the decidedly un-punk initial notion of doing a glossy Hollywood “triumph over adversity” version of this particular story. But it doesn’t look precisely “bad.” The downside of the punk movement’s own gleeful embrace of mainstream music journalism’s refusal to pay it’s artists any mind was that the era didn’t really get the shot to inject it’s own mythology into the popular culture the way 60s rockers, disco composers or even the 80s metal scene guys have; so maybe stuff like this is at least something.

We’re probably heading into a looooooong stretch of every other fantasy movie trying to look as much like “Game of Thrones” as possible. “THOR: THE DARK WORLD,” at least, has the excuse of being directed by actual GoT-veteran Alan Taylor.

Either way; DAMN, but this looks good. I still enjoyed Kenneth Brannagh’s cheeky “Golan-Globus with money” take in the first one, but this one looks appropriately bigger and grander as befits the first Marvel movie that’s really going to feel constant pressure to “live-up” to “The Avengers” thanks to it featuring the return of Loki.

The God of Mischief is, of course, all over the new trailer – dig that moment with him and Jane Foster. I like that we’re still running firmly on comics-logic, wherein a villain can nearly destroy an entire city, likely killing thousands, and because it’s good-guy/bad-guy team-up time the “blowback” can be limited to dirty looks and maybe a slap from the supporting cast. Yeah, sure, this guy is technically the greatest force of evil in this history of this universe’s Earth… but we’ll deal with that later – there’s a quest to be had! Still preferable to not acknowledging it at all, though…

Pre-release has been marred by talk of an intensely troubled production; reports of Natalie Portman being furious at her preferred director being removed from the film (I will be very surprised if Jane Foster is alive at the end of this) and rumors of Taylor clashing with the producers to the extent that large portions of the film have actually been (discreetly) handled by other directors. All that could be true, apart from Whedon’s relative free-reign on “Avengers” the Marvel movies are the most openly and overwhelmingly producer-driven blockbusters in awhile, but the if the movie turns out good that’s really beside the point.

UPDATE: 2:20. That’s a KRONAN. Awesome.