It was already in-the-wind that some version or another of “Guardians of The Galaxy” was going to be the Marvel/Disney 2014 movie that would hit after “Captain America 2” (now officially subtitled “The Winter Soldier”) and serve as a lead-in to “Avengers 2.” Now it’s been confirmed at SDCC, and we have official concept-art revealing the team lineup:

Who the hell are you looking at? Hit the jump…

It looks like they’re going with the more recent version, where the Guardians are an all-star (figuratively-speaking) team of cosmic/space-oriented Marvel characters. From left to right, the movie lineup seems to include:

DRAX THE DESTROYER – a Jim Starlin creation whose origin coincided with the first appearance of Thanos, who is the person Drax is supposed to be destroying.

GROOT – He’s a talking tree; originating as one of Jack Kirby’s many, many Earth-invading space-monsters from Marvel’s pre-superhero days, later ressurected as a Hulk foe and more recently as part of Marvel’s “cosmic” roster.

STAR-LORD – Human astronaut born under cosmically-influenced circumstances, eventually becomes a spacefaring paramilitary-type who has a Master Chief/Cortana kinda thing going on with his sentient, psychically-linked spaceship “Ship.”

ROCKET RACCOON – He’s exactly what he looks like. That’s right, while certain other studios are wringing their hands about whether things as “weird” as Wonder Woman or “silly” as Robin can work on film, Marvel/Disney is headling a multimillion dollar space-epic with a talking, gun-toting raccoon.

GAMORA – Thanos adopted daughter, later turned “good.” Usually wears significantly less clothing than pictured here.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this is recieved. It’ll be the first Marvel Studios film that’s decidedly not a superhero movie (they’ve been touting it as something more in the vein of Star Wars) and it’s easily the most obscure property they’ll have adapted to the screen to date. One assumes that, with two Thanos-related guys on the team and Thanos’ all-but-given stature as “Avengers 2’s” heavy, they’ll be counting on the “this sets up Avengers 2” factor to draw in the die-hards; but are mainstream audiences really going to line-up for what will look like “The Adventures of Tree-Person and Cartoon Animal?”

At some point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to have to learn how to accomodate “niche” movies alongside four-quadrant blockbusters like they’ve been making so far. Edgar Wright’s “Ant-Man,” for example, is probably not destined to do “Thor’s” numbers, but if produced responsibly with realistic goals it doesn’t need to. “Guardians,” on the other hand, is going to cost quite a bit to make and will have to do sizable business to be worth it, financially.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the individual members (or traces of them) turning up in the more familiar characters’ sequels to try and get people more invested in them as things go on.

Lot’s of big news coming out of Comic-Con… none of which I got to see/learn firsthand because I don’t get to go. Harumph.

Anyway, first up: “Iron Man 3” had a panel… immediately preceded by a suprise visit from Edgar Wright, who revealed that his long in-development “Ant Man” movie is moving forward, has a logo and showed off test-footage of the size-changing effects. Good news.

The “IM3” footage, allegedly, contains the “big reveal” that Ben Kinglsey’s previously-unnamed villain whom everyone assumed was The Mandarin is, in fact, The Mandarin – or, at least, he has The Mandarin’s beard, Ten Rings and “oriental” trappings. Publicity-snaps via Comicbookmovie.com also revealed what seems to be Iron Man’s new armor for this one, which is mostly yellow:

I feel like a lot of people aren’t going to like this look, but I dig it. If nothing else, a guy running around in a suit of bright yellow armor versus another guy with “patriotic” armor and a bad guy with “magic” rings helps confirm that the Marvel Movies seem to be aiming at getting even bigger and more “comic-book” after “Avengers;” rather than regressing.

Plot-wise, one assumes the new look has something to do with the Extremis story being used in the movie.

Incidentally, the other sequels have revealed their subtitles: “Thor: The Dark World” (no idea) and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (holy shit.)

“Guardians of The Galaxy” was also confirmed with concept-art and team-lineup revealed, more on that in a bit…

There’s no real point in complaining about people trolling every single post/review/article I put up that even alludes to the movie that happens to be THE big entertainment news story of the moment (seriously, people; I am “obsessed” with “The Amazing Spider-Man” in the same way that The Weather Channel was “obsessed” with Hurricane Katrina – it’s kind of the only thing going on at the moment, especially since there’s been no “tsunami” out of SDCC yet) since this is my job… but at this point I’ve had enough. Especially since The Internet ran out of new conspiracy-theories and sinister-motivations to ascribe to my not liking a movie as much as you did within the first few hours.

So I’m just gonna take one more pass through the most common bullet-points on this nonsense and then that’s it from me until something newsworthy (re: sequel, casting/re-casting, who’s-replacing-Mark-Webb, etc) happens…

1. If there’s one thing that I just cannot stand about internet movie discussion it’s that people seem incapable of grasping that not everything can be expressed as a hard-equation. Opinion and criticism aren’t 1 + 1 = 2 constants. To wit: It is not “hypocrisy” or a “double-standard” to like “X-Men: First Class” but dislike some other reboot, because reboot doesn’t ALWAYS equal “bad.” BAD equals bad. See also: Elements that work perfectly well in one movie CAN sometimes be a mistake in another movie – which is why there is no point in excavating old reviews of this or that critic to “a-ha!” them about saying ______ was fun in THIS movie when they’d said the same ______ was bad in a previous one.

2. No, I didn’t mark the movie “down” because of the business stuff behind the reboot decision. I made note of it because, from my perspective, said decisions/processes were very plausible explanations for many of the bigger problems with the film. Remember a few years back when there was a huge writer’s strike and you had all these blockbusters coming out with under-cooked scripts as a result? Same basic thing.

3. I “get” that there’s a younger generation of movie-people for whom Sam Raimi has only ever been “the guy who made “Spider-Man” and also some horror movies before that;” (which is tragic, btw) so I “get” that that’s where some of the split on these two series is coming from – at the time, Raimi’s “Spider-Man” was the biggest thing that had ever happened to film geekdom: Hiring a guy who was perennially on the “movie nerd wish-list” for every genre property but would NEVER actually land one was a neutron-bomb for us; which is pretty-much why people might as well be speaking Klingon when they tell me the original films were “bad” because of the slapstick, the crazy-zooms, the “campy-evil” Goblin, the retro-horror tone-shifts, various cameos by actors and cars, Maguire playing (personality-wise) a straight-up lift of 60s Peter Parker… I mean, that’s the stuff we showed up hoping for at the time! And before anyone asks, yes, if Mark Webb HAD a singular/auteurist style of his own (he doesn’t appear to, which is not necessarily a negative) I’d have liked to see him bring it.

4. Believe it or not, I choose the stuff I review mainly based on whatever is most relevant/newsworthy at the time; and form my opinions based on… well, my opinions; as opposed to carrying out some kind of grand, five-steps-ahead supervillain conspiracy to affect production decisions and manipulate the results of theoretical future movies. To be more specific; no, I am not under the illusions of carrying out a Machiavellian plot to “make” this movie fail so Spider-Man can possibly turn up in “Avengers 3” ten years from now.

5. I have no opinion about the Fantastic Four reboot right now because all anyone knows is that the director of “Chronicle” is doing it, which is a good start. Unlike Spider-Man, this reboot makes a certain amount of sense (first two movies were terrible and the second one was a huge flop) apart from the rights-issues stuff, and it doesn’t involve an irritating web of studio manhandling and backstabbing; so right now it’s kind of a neutral prospect as far as I’m concerned.

Kinda hard to care.

“Intermission” talks lazy continuity.

It’s 6am on this coast, I’ve been repairing old video games and recording audio all night, time to crash, etc., but I wanted to have something about this up since a lot of you are probably waking up to the news:

During an interview with Anne Hathaway on The Late Show last night, David Letterman may or may not have blurted out a major, MAJOR, MAJOR spoiler for the “The Dark Knight Rises.”

I’m not going to post the clip, a link to the clip or information on where/how you can get it. I will say that, for what it’s worth, Letterman immediately started walking it back as a “joke;” but Hathaway’s reaction/expression went from “I have momentarily left my physical body” to “someone offstage has just dropped their pants” to “oh my god Christopher Nolan is going to have me WACKED on the way back to my limo.”

Make of that what you will. People HAVE seen the movie so the spoilers ARE now in the wind; supposedly, Christopher Nolan threw some kind of fit at a press event when one of the questioneers asked a spoiler-y question while everything was rolling.

What I like most about this trailer for Sam Raimi’s “Oz: The Great & Powerful” (a prequel/origin-story with James Franco as the Kansas con-artist/magician who ultimately becomes That Man Behind The Curtain) – apart from the indications that they’re going to use a color/aspect-ratio metamorphosis for the Earth/Oz transitions a’la the MGM film’s black-and-white to color transition – is the way that, despite the obvious visual connections being made to the Judy Garland version and the Disney live-action-fantasy “house style” vibe; the direction, composition, tone and especially the design of some of the creatures all immediately identify that we are indeed still getting a Sam Raimi movie…

I especially LOVE that last “stinger” shot. Apart from being another instant “from the director of Evil Dead” moment, it’s a PERFECT use of shared pop-cultural iconography: Everyone in the audience who understands that this is a “Wizard of Oz” prequel instantly understands that what we’re seeing is the pre-reveal (maybe even the “birth?”) of one of cinema’s greatest villains… The Wicked Witch of The West. In this version, all three(?) of the Oz Witches apparently start out good/beautiful, so one assumes at some point the Western one will be going green n’ mean – maybe at the finale? Or as a sequel-tease?

Wanna get really psyched? Think back to The Wicked Witch in that original movie, THEN think back on how Raimi traditionally handles/depicts witch/crone creatures in his films. Awesomeness potential: HIGH.

As part of moving into the new place, I’ve been looting my parents’ house for old stuff I can still use. One discovery turned out to be my original NES and collection of games; which tonight underwent a thorough disassembling, cleaning with rubbing-alcohol (system and carts) and reassembling.

I still haven’t fully furnished the place – money is kinda tight right now, to be honest – but I’ll be springing for some kind of plug-extender so I can properly get the oldschool big-ass AC adaptor into my surge-protector (the NES was plugged into another, not-always-convenient outlet for this test run.

After that? Let the word go out to every sold, pawned, yard-sale’d, lost and forgotten NES cartridge on the North Shore: I am coming for you, and you WILL live again!

Darren Aronofsky has tweeted the first set pic of construction for his upcoming film “Noah,” he of Ark-building fame. If completed on schedule, it’s on-track to be the first of a potential wave of Biblical epics – elsewhere, Steven Spielberg is circling an update of “The Ten Commandments.”

I’m kind of psyched about the prospects of this.

From a strictly literary perspective, Bible Stories are among those rare cases were visually/narratively bizzare material also happens to be material that a plurality of the mainstream audience is not only familiar with but takes as… well, gospel, for lack of a better word. It’s the only genre where you can pack the screen with devils, demons, flaming swords and guys splitting oceans with magic staffs and still sell tickets to people who’d never turn out for, say, “Lord of The Rings.” But Aronofsky’s plans for “Noah” look to push that to acceptance to the breaking point…

The version of Noah’s Ark that most present-day religious people (it’s my understanding that despite being part of the “Old” Testament, Noah’s Ark is more “popular” in a retelling sense among Christians than Jews, though Jewish readers are enthusiastically welcome to correct me on that) are familiar with is highly sanitized, coming from (comparitively, given that the events described are – literally – pre-historic) recent translations that specifically worked to tone-down the more “mythological-sounding” elements from Genesis (giants, monsters, dragons, etc) and other pre-Exodus Biblical texts. The meat of the story is always the same – the world has become hopelessly corrupt, God aims to wipe out said corruption with an apocalyptic flood, Noah is warned by God and tasked with building a massive ship that will whether the storm – allowing Noah, his family and a cargo of mated-pairs of every known animal to survive and repopulate the planet. Because strikingly-similar “flood stories” occur in hundreds of other disparate religions, the story is a fixture of pantheist/monomyth theories as well.

In most modern tellings, the “corruption” the invites the flood is just the traditional post-Exodus understanding of sin; but as Noah’s adventures pre-date Exodus by millenia, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that the pre-cleanup versions (there’s never just one with stuff this ancient) were a little more… “complicated:” Mankind’s corruption (“mankind,” incidentally, being a race of long-lived superhuman’s having descended directly from Adam and Eve in some variations) was incited by a sect of Angels called Watchers (yes, “the guys from Dogma”) who migrated to Earth in order to seduce human women. The children of these unions were giants (or sometimes just really, really bad guys) called Nephilim, and it was the havoc they caused (and other sundry violations caused by forbidden knowledge given to man by the meddling Angels) that despoiled the Earth and necessitated the flood. Depending on which version you consult, figures like Enoch, Gog and even Lucifer turn up.

It’s this more mythic, creature-featuring and (with no offense meant to my religious readers) “high fantasy”-flavored version that allegedly informs Aronofsky’s take on the material. While much of it is being kept under wraps for now, it is known that The Watchers are onhand, and that the depiction of them and other Angels is described in-line with their “original” conception; i.e. less “guys with wings” and more “bio-mechanical horrors with multiple eyes, wings, limbs, etc.”

How will religiously-devout moviegoers respond to a Bible Movie that’s less Cecil B. DeMille and more Guillermo Del Toro? We’ll see…

Via ShockTillYouDrop

“Killer Baby” movies are a popular monster/horror subgenre for an obvious reason: It’s the ultimate extreme of both the “deceptively-harmless-looking-killer” conceit and the “evil-perversion-of-goodness” conceit. We’re biologically/evolutionarily hardwired to respond viscerally to babies – that jolting chill up your spine when a baby cries somewhere? That’s your ancient, ancient instinct telling you “YOUNG ONES IN PERIL! PROTECT THE FUTURE OF THE PACK!” – and Killer Baby movies exploit that.

The best one is still Larry Cohen’s seminal “It’s Alive” (the original, Cohen’s own well-meaning remake kinda sucks) but there’ve been plenty since. To my recollection, though, Tara Robinson’s upcoming “After Birth” is either the first or the first in a long time to come from a female filmmaker. In this variation, a homeless woman is impregnated by an evil force and must confront the killer creature she gives birth to. If nothing else, it has TWO of the best ad-copy lines I expect to see this year…

“Every Child Is A Gift From God… EXCEPT ONE!”

“For One Girl… Pro-Life… Is A DEATH SENTENCE!”

THAT, friends, is how you sell me a Killer Baby Movie. Keeping an eye on this one.

“Batman Forever” this week.