Don’t even ask me about “HERCULES.”

Also: Five *Entertainment* Reforms Millenials Should Be Fighting For

2013’s “STALINGRAD,” alternately known as “STALINGRAD 3D,” is Russia’s first natively-produced IMAX 3D action the highest-grossing Russian movie in history. Basic pitch: An ultra-stylized (think “300”) war epic set during the famous six month battle between Nazi and Soviet forces during WWII. In yet another sign of blockbuster filmmaking’s new era of globalism, the film is getting a U.S. release to IMAX screens in February.

Seriously. I don’t care what language or format it’s in (or even how good the rest of the movie is), I can’t forsee a scenario where that last bit (starting at 2:25) doesn’t end up being one of the best action beats ever. Wow.

The “big little story” in Hollywood at the moment is that “DHOOM 3” – a Bollywood action movie with a U.S. setting (Chicago, where it was also shot) that was made with a very specific eye on hitting with American audiences – actually pulled off it’s mission; becoming the first Indian film to crack the U.S. top ten (9th place!) and netting the highest U.S. gross ever for a Bollywood production. It’s also a massive hit in the rest of the world, yes, but it’s the American crossover that’s the big story…

This story went around a bit last week. I didn’t pay it much mind because it originated on BatmanOnFilm, which has basically zero substantial credibility on news items, but now it’s getting some attention from more reputable sources, so it deserves at least a look.

Anyway. BoF’s gossip is that Wonder Woman’s actual role in “MAN OF STEEL 2: SORRY ABOUT MAN OF STEEL 1 BUT HEY LOOK WE’RE GONNA DO JUSTICE LEAGUE WE PROMISE” will be more of an extended cameo akin to Black Widow in “IRON MAN 2.” That actually sounds plausible, and goes with what I’ve been hearing all along – that the original plan was for other Leaguers to turn up as wink-wink bit-players in their civilian identities, with “Oh, shit! That was actually Wonder Woman/Flash/Lantern/Whoever!” as a stinger or a post-credits sequel tease, but that WW and maybe others were being expanded to full onscreen cameos by producers who are anxious for anything that will help market this as something closer to the popular “AVENGERS” than the profitable-but-divisive “MAN OF STEEL” (real-talk: like it or not, the writing is on the wall: 2013 ended with MOS as a punchline/whipping-boy for gloomy, bloated, poorly-scripted genre movies – it’s this year’s “PROMETHEUS.”)

The next part of the “rumor,” though, doesn’t thus far seem to have any substance backing it up beyond “Yeah, I can believe this production team would screw up in this specific way.” According to BoF, the plan is to sidestep having to explain Wonder Woman’s more whimsical/mystical background… by making her another Kryptonian.

Yup, that sounds entirely believable. Maybe (hopefully!) not true, but 100% in-line with the reductive small-universe “streamlining” that too many people still think is needed/preferred for these movies.

The “full” pitch is that The Amazons are actually descendants of survivors from that crashed/abandoned Kryptonian outpost Superman found in “MAN OF STEEL,” with Krypton’s genetic-engineering angle explaining how they managed to create an ongoing all-female society. I imagine that there’d probably be some throwaway lines about wandering-Kryptonians being the basis of the Greek Pantheon (among others) itself dropped in as well. Magic? Mythology? NO! That’s too much, you can’t start doing magical stuff when it started as a scifi-franchise! “Too many audience buy-ins,” to use studio idiot-speak.

Setting aside the fact that this would rob the character of everything that makes her unique and interesting, reducing her to just Supergirl with a different name, it’s so bloody pointless. The main, all-important advantage that the “big three” JLA heroes have over everything else in the genre is that everyone already knows them. Maybe not the specifics, maybe not the whole history, but if Wonder Woman shows up midway through this movie and starts throttling bad guys NOBODY who was going to see this in the first place is going to be taken out of the movie in bewilderment: Everyone has heard of Wonder Woman, everyone knows throttling bad guys is what superheroes “just DO,” you can even get a laugh (remember those?) by setting the origin-story aside for later with a line or two:

“And you are…?” “Wonder Woman.” (or “Diana,” if we’re still doing the “heroes embarassed by their nicknames” bullshit) “Where did you…?” “It’s complicated. Shouldn’t you be punching Luthor/Doomsday/Parasite/whoever?” Ha ha. Audience giggles, action resumes, toss in a couple “Great Hera’s!” to nudge the fans, end on a “We should totally start a club, you guys!” and figure out how to explain “Magical Island of Immortal Hellenistic Lesbians” in the next one (or in WW’s solo featu… oh, right. “Girl movies don’t make money.” I forgot.)

Now I wonder if this has been part of the plan all along, hence the constant go-nowhere reminders of Krypton’s abandoned space program in the first movie: A handy way to explain any number of brand-name metahumans without having to get into the various magical/alien/interdimensional backgrounds that inform the DC multiverse. Hawkman/Hawkgirl? Kryptonians plus wings. Aquaman (and maybe all the Atlanteans)? Water Kryptonians. Darkseid? The New Gods? Ditto.

All conjecture, of course, but like I said… it’s all so depressingly possible.

UPDATE I: Bay has posted a brief response to the event on his personal site, in which he puts the blame on himself for stepping on the emcee’s lines and confusing the teleprompter by doing so. He also reaffirms that “TRANSFORMERS 4” footage will be being used to promote the new TV technology on tour.

ORIGINAL POST: So. Michael Bay was the celebrity speaker (which is odd in itself, since he’s not especially known for being a public speaker – for his own work or otherwise) for the reveal of Samsung’s new big-ass “curved screen” HDTVs at CES a few minutes ago. Something went wrong, and… well, watch the video:

So… what’s going on here? Anxiety? Panic-attack? I’m hardly an expert in that kind of thing, but this looks like something significantly more than just “the prompter broke so I’m out.” even if that’s what set it off. Did he take something? Forget to take something? Get some really terrible news moments before he had to go on? It’s definitely uncomfortable – whether you like this guy or not, what most people still call “stage fright” can be the manifestation of real, serious problems for a lot of people that are often invisible to those around them – until they aren’t.

This isn’t (or, at least, doesn’t appear to be) a case of karma catching up with a douchebag like fellow TRANSFORMERS alumn Shia LaBeouf’s recent meltdown; this looks like something is “going on.” Forget whatever I or anyone else thinks of his movies, I hope he’s okay.

Yes, it’s sad they all got killed. No, the movie isn’t very good.

ALSO: Looking ahead to 2014…

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET was the best movie of 2013. Everything about it just simply kills, from the acting to the directing to the script to the editing to the simple fact that it’s a film with the crackling, in-the-moment, balls-out energy you’d expect from a bold young voice fresh out of film school… made by a living-legend in his 70s.

Unfortunately, it’s also a movie getting dogged by some critics (and audiences) for what some see as an insufficiently clear-cut condemnation of it’s title character; by which they generally seem to mean that the film doesn’t go out of it’s way to make all of the fun stuff Jordan Belfort and company did with their ill-gotten millions look “not fun” in order to make a point. This, of course, displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the film, reality, how movies are made, etc. Simply put: A.) On a basic narrative level, if these guys’ “playtime” doesn’t look enjoyable to the audience, you’re undercutting the fundamental story/character question of “why did they DO this???,” and B.) Not to be crass about it, but neither Martin Scorsese nor anyone else needs to “make” cocaine-fueled orgies with top-dollar call girls “look like fun” – that stuff already looks like a ton of fun – that’s just the movie being honest.

This, on the other hand, is a little trickier to deal with…

That’s a promotional clip recorded by Leonardo DiCaprio for Keppler Speakers, a talent/booking agency for motivational speakers that has the actual Jordan Belfort as a client, in which the actor endorses his real-world counterpart’s skill at the motivation game.

It’s pretty meta, when you consider that Belfort effectively returns the favor by playing an emcee introducing DiCaprio as himself at one of these motivational gigs in the film, but I can’t imagine DiCaprio or the film’s producers are happy to see this clip (which has been around since August) going viral now. There’s nothing especially “bad” going on here (the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that this bastard was a hell of a salesman) but it certainly won’t help quiet the moral-wailers to be on tape talking glowingly about Belfort as an example of “the transformative power of ambition and hard work” playing opposite the more recent party-line of “he sucks and our movie clearly shows that he sucks.”

Me, I’m mostly amused by it because it’s effectively a real-world continuation of the film’s overall point: These guys get away with it. They do short stints in white-collar “prison,” they stay rich, they get played by handsome movie stars in big Hollywood movies (Belfort already had a foot in the film industry via executive producing Hulk Hogan’s Christmas movie – really), and it all happens because “we” are always and forever complicit in it. Of course this guy (who literally cheats death and all other karmic punishments multiple times in the film) gets the actor playing him (as a raving sociopath) in the movie to make a commercial for him. That’s just how it works – the perfect post-credits stinger; though one that could likely help cost DiCaprio his Best Actor statue.

There’ve been snaps from the SDCC trailer around for months, but this is the first official heroes-lineup still from James Gunn’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY – the last new Marvel Studios movie before AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON and the first test of whether the Marvel brand can extend it’s thus-far bulletproof box office credibility outside of the superhero genre; in this case, to a space-set scifi/action-comedy:

From left to right: Zoe Saldana as GAMORA, Chris Pratt as STARLORD, Bradley Cooper (voice) as ROCKET RACCOON, David Bautista as DRAX THE DESTROYER and Vin Diesel as GROOT.

In the SDCC footage, this scene (they’re in a police lineup) served for irreverent tone-setting: following a big dump of action/FX footage, there’s a hard-cut to this lineup, overseen by a pair of NOVA CORPS officers (including John C. Reilly!) who opine: “They call themselves ‘The Guardians of The Galaxy…” [beat] “…what a bunch of A-Holes.”