NOTE: No, the headline is not spoiling a surprise… which in and of itself is surprising, since this sounds like something that could’ve made for a killer reveal.

For me, what continues to be the most interesting part of the Marvel Films experiment is that they keep making decisions that feel like conscious, deliberate challenges to every “that won’t work in a movie” part of their material. Prior to this, every superhero movie was approached from a perspective of “what has to be done to this comic for it to work as a movie?”… but they’ve been doing the exact opposite: More and more, the “grand scheme” of the whole enterprise seems to be transforming “the movies” into comics so that their Universe can be carried over as unmolested as possible…

Already we’ve seen once thought “unfilmmable” aspects of superhero comics like genre-mixing and shared-universe continuity brought successfully to the screen, and the results have made Marvel so confident that they feel comfortable going even deeper into comic-spawned weirdness… like, say, greenlighting a space-opera co-starring a Tree Man and a Space Raccoon as “Phase II’s” new Big Shiny Thing. And now, we may possibly be looking forward to comics’ infamously loose rules of mortality coming over as well: Yesterday at NYCC, Joss Whedon, Kevin Feige and Clark Gregg confirmed that Gregg’s Agent Coulson character – famously killed off in “The Avengers” – is coming back for the pilot of the “S.H.I.E.L.D.” TV series.

At this point, no one knows in what form his appearance will be (he could just be there for flashbacks, for example) but Gregg was already joking about LMDs (Life Model Decoys, human-duplicate robots typically used to fake deaths in the comics and referenced in “Avengers” by Tony Stark) at the announcement. I seriously doubt that he’ll be popping back into full-human existance (remember, Gregg is also a filmmaker in his own right so I’d be surprised if he committed to a TV series) but having a Coulson-based LMD – or maybe some kind of “digitized memories” hologram or computer-presence – onhand as part of the team would be a clever way of keeping him around while also keeping him dead “for real.” It would also leave the door open for the popular fan theory of Coulson becoming the Movie-verse version of The Vision (short version: He’s a Terminator who dresses like a superhero and has the digitzed memories and personality of a dead good guy.)

Below, “Americans,” a PSA short-film pleading for political cooperation courtesy the two most unlikable celebrity spokespersons imaginable… and also, possibly, one of the most embarassing things ever committed to film by humans to date:

The image on the right (no pun intended) comes courtesy Getty Images via Buzzfeed and is alleged to have been snapped at a Romney/Ryan event earlier today. Speaking for the campaign, a spokesperson was quoted as calling it “reprehensible;” which I imagine would be the sincere opinion of both men running. Whatever else I can say about either Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, I don’t think it’s likely that outright racism is a motivation factor for either of them (I cannot say the same thing, of course, about their party…)

This is probably real, but I really do hope that it isn’t. As damaging as it’d be, short-term, to “my side,” I want to believe that this guy doesn’t really exist – that this is “false flag” subterfuge a’la the Republican supporter who cut a “B” into her own face back in ’08. But… it’s probably real, meaning that someone printed these up and there are probably a lot more than one. Depressing, I would imagine, regardless of what your actualy politics are.
I have my own reasons for supporting Obama, but if an extra one was needed the idea that people like this would be emboldened would certainly do it: Like it or not, a Romney win would be a “victory” both for guys like this and the less-blatant gradiations of him that just want to “preserve traditional America” or whatever the euphamism for societal-stagnation is this week. If this election is about anything, macro, it’s whether we want to continue regressing into worship of an “old world” that never fully existed OR if we want to continue dismantling the superstition of the “old world” to build not just a new world but a superior world.

Go see it.

“Intermission” is another Test Your Might.

“Zero Dark Thirty” has a new trailer, which isn’t quite as intriguing as the first but does establish that this is a “regular” movie as opposed to a documentary or political piece (which apparently a lot of audiences thought was the case with the first trailer.)

Since apparently visitors can’t not get on about this in other posts…

1.) Biden won, plain and simple. Not a “knockout” or a “curbstomp,” but he wins on points and wins on “TV-friendliness.” Down side is that the laughing/grinning/“can-you-BELIEVE-this-kid??” schtick that the base is currently loving and pop-culture will almost-certainly process as “lovable curmudgeon” will be presented as “unbecoming” by FoxNews, Talk Radio, etc which’ll keep their base suitably angry and engaged. Also, he didn’t make enough of a fool of Ryan to cripple him from future political ambitions, which is what I’d have called a “knockout.”

2.) Bigger “winner” than Biden was the moderator, Martha Radatz: much better than Leher. Granted, the “sit down and talk, interuption allowed at moderator’s discretion” format is just BETTER for the way public-discourse is expected to be now (everyone speaks in predictable talking points, so interuptions to a certain extent is almost a given) but she held them both in place and made it work.

3.) Amusingly, the “narrative” is basically the same as the previous debate: Younger, slicker, super-smart guy who’s mostly about theory (having more-or-less jumped directly from higher education to career-politics) versus older, less “slick” guy who comes in fighting and wins on experience chops. Obama gets at least two more chances to come back prepared for that, Ryan doesn’t. I’m not actually nuts about that dynamic still being so effective – I think “intellectual-side” pols are preferable as leadership in our increasingly-mechanized age – but if this is what it takes to keep Republicans’ hands off the Supreme Court for another four years, I’ll take it.

4.) Does this “mean” anything? Not really, no. All it does is “solidify” where things have been for most of the race so far – Biden did here a micro version of the entire reason he has the V.P. slot in the first place: He makes the Obama ticket “palatable” to white/blue-collar/midwestern “swing” voters (mostly but not overwhelmingly men) who’re receptive to Democrats via reliable support for union labor but are “iffy” about the young, foriegn-seeming, possibly “radical” guy at the top of the ticket. He played the role of “tuff grampa” tonight, forcing Ryan into the role of “smug punk new-hire MBA hotshot from the office who thinks he’s better than you,” and that’s mana to that bloc.

Here’s the new trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” which was infamous as a screenplay and now notorious as a supposedly out-of-control production (not necessarily “troubled,” though, since the studio has thus far been enthusiastic about the results coming back) has a new trailer that shows off more of it’s scope and incendiary approach to its own “slavery revenge” narrative. Getting more screentime in this new look is Samuel L. Jackson as co-villain “Stephen,” a character who’s “unique” viewpoint on his own enslavement is supposedly one of the darker parts of the movie:

Yeah… VERY good feeling about this. Film comes out for the Holidays, and it’s going to be really interesting to watch how an EXPLICITLY black-vs-white revenge movie is recieved in the aftermath of what is already a racially-divisive election (whatever the outcome.)

I get the sense that there’s going to be a lot of unease and divisiveness with “Hitchcock” (the breezy-looking “making of ‘Psycho’” Alfred Hitchcock movie that now has an official trailer) and “The Girl” (the dark “Hitch stalked, tormented and probably sabotaged the career of Tippi Hedren” Alfred Hitchcock movie from HBO) coming out around the same time. Hitchcock is God to three and counting generations of film buffs, and “cinephile culture” has always had a hard time reconciling “Hitch the lovable oddball genius” with “Hitch the petty, domineering creeper.”

The thing is, from the trailers I’m feeling like “Hitchcock” looks like the better movie overall (they both look pretty good, really) …and I’m kind of bracing at that observation, unable to help wondering whether it really looks better or if it’s – at least partially – my own Inner Film Student automatically preferring the movie hawking Hitch The Mythic (the mega-famous Hollywood director still conducting himself like an indie/outsider rascal within “the system”) to the one looking to tear the myth down a bit.

What I wonder is, if “Hitchcock” IS the better movie  (Hopkins is certainly doing a better Hitch than Toby Jones IMO – though they both come off like themselves “doing” Hitchcock, who was too much of a self-caricature for any actor to really “embody” at this point), will there be a “pushback” among critics for actually saying so for fear of being seen as wanting to continue “whitewashing” it’s subject? Dunno, we’ll see.

Luv Munky.

Bruce Willis generally puts out at least one big, servicable action movie wherein he plays Bruce Willis: Unflappable Actio Hero of a Certain Age amid whatever pyrotechnic scenario the filmmakers have opted to place him in. Sometimes, they decide to call his character John McClane so it can qualify as a “Die Hard” sequel (both “Hostage” and “Tears of The Sun” were at one point supposed to be “Die Hards,” for example.) Here’s another one:

Eh, look okay. The thing you can’t deny is that Willis is just GOOD at this schtick: Stunt/weary “seriously?” face/quip. It works. The “007” line is cute, but apparently it’s in reference to McClane’s grownup son who’s some kind of spy/soldier/agent in this, likely setting up a “cute” modern gov-trained operator versus oldschool cop dynamic.