Yup. Marvel has released a preview of their “Avengers” Super Bowl ad, which gives us a brief glimpse of (maybe?) bad guy flying-machines (the main one is still Loki on some kind of jet-bike, though) and The Hulk:

From Devin at BAD I learn that said BAD’s partner/overlord, Drafthouse Films, has picked up distribution rights to the SXSW-buzzed oddity “The FP;” which I’d previously heard spoken of as “the next ‘Six String Samurai.’” The basic pitch is a send-up the “such-and-such-familiar-game-BUT-AS-A-GLADATORIAL-BLOODSPORT!!!” genre and the late-80s/early-90s punk-rock-post-nuke aesthetic that often accompanied it, the comic hook being that the rival clans of The FP settle their issues in winner-take-all deathmatches of… “Dance Dance Revolution” (Here called “Beat Beat Revolution.”)

Yup. Drafthouse has announced a limited theatrical-release on March 16th of this year. This is real. Here’s a (NSFW) trailer.

You will be unsurprised to learn that the emerging “modernized fairytale” trend has inspired someone to reboot the Linda Hamilton/Ron Perleman “Beauty & The Beast” series as what sounds an awful lot like “Castle-but-with-a-sorta-wolfman”; but Moviehole’s report on the pilot script adds an “are you kidding me!?” detail: the “new” Beast is a guy who got transformed into (more or less) a half-animal version of Captain America… by 9-11.

Yeah, I know. Ten years, Bin Laden is dead, but still… yikes.

Hat-tip BAD

Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait has only directed a handful of films, but they’re all pretty damn great – pitch-black yet somehow not “gratuitous” stuff that cuts straight to the bone in ways few other comedies would dare. Example: “Sleeping Dogs Lie” starts out as a movie (partially) about bestiality and winds up as possibly the most honest romantic-comedy ever concieved (it’s moral: Want a healthy relationship? LIE.)

The word on his newest feature, “God Bless America,” has been that it’s dark stuff “even for Bobcat;” a bastard lovechild of “Super” and “Idiocracy” by way of “Falling Down” for the Fox News era. The premise? A suicidal everyman has an epiphany: Why kill himself when it’s everyone else – particularly reality TV stars, cell-phone addicts, religious nuts and “American Idol” – who’re the problem? What follows is either a trailer for the most incendiary movie anyone has attempted in years… or a direct-feed from the inside of MY mind at any given moment:

http://www.hulu.com/embed/srVGpTVdB74W60YwSyZf6g

Holy. Shit.

Yeah. CANNOT WAIT for this one.

Go see it. Now.

“Intermission” finishes the convention-rundown.

Yes, what is apparently just a Super Bowl commercial is considered important enough to warrant a teaser trailer. Unless, of course, they really ARE making a sequel (probably not.)

I have what you’d call a “complicated” relationship with “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” On the one hand, it’s hard to ignore that it’s a movie that essentially treats a narcissistic semi-sociopath – who “get’s over” on anyone trying to keep him from doing whatever he wants even though he’s a priviliged upper-middle-class white suburban kid who could easily do all the things he’s conning his way into WITHOUT the conning part – as a kind of aspirational role-model. On the other hand… maybe it’s because I TOO was a mostly-comfortable middle-class suburban smartass when I saw it and really did identify with him. Either way, it’s still a fun movie.

Also, something just occured to me: If you took the original film and did some digital-trickery to all of Ferris’ fourth-wall-breaking moments so that it looked like he was talking into his webcam/smartphone… it would essentially play out like an ULTRA up-to-date movie about teenagers in the youtube/facebook oversharing age. That’s how cool Ferris was – he was VLOGGING HIS LIFE two whole decades before “Vlogging” was invented.

This is going up a little late, but worth a listen none the less. I sat in for John Black on The Post-Movie Podcast with Steve Head, the subject being year-end top-ten lists. This is part 1 of 2. ENJOY!

Click HERE to download (free!) from iTunes.

http://player.wizzard.tv/player/o/i/x/132761651779/config/k-48276aa9ffcfb432/uuid/null/episode/k-b9986500832f0c36

For the past two decades, Steven Spielberg has – quite openly – been structuring a lot of his directing schedule around the “one for me, one for them” model: frequently Interspeding his high-end “prestige” projects with projects more likely to be tentpole blockbusters (though it’s not always a one-to-one ration.)

The next “for them” project (next year’s Abe Lincoln biopic being the “for me”) is supposed to be “Robopocalypse” – a machine-uprising-against-humanity movie based on Daniel H. Wilson’s book – slated for the July 4th weekend of 2013. Now, Deadline reports that he may already be circling another major prestige-entry after that for Warner Bros: “Gods and Kings;” A big-budget  biopic of Moses. Yes, that Moses. Basket in the reeds, Egypt, burning bush, ten plauges, “let my people go!,” parting-seas, Ten Commandments, golden calf, the whole nine yards.

The buzzword on this one is “Braveheart-like,” which means it’s aiming to be a big, straight-faced, action-oriented version of the story; though there’s no indication if it’ll be a “realistic/historical version” or feature the explicitly-supernatural driving forces as in the original scripture. Either way, I really, REALLY hope he does this…

Obviously, the most famous version of this story in movie terms in the DeMille movie from 1956. It’s fashionable to snark at this movie, and not without reason – it’s garish, overblown and corny as hell – but those are precisely the reasons why it’s one of my favorite “classic” movies: DeMille, for all his myriad issues, was the perfect guy to make what was essentially trying to be a “living” version of the way Exodus was depicted in Rennaissance religious-art. It’s the swords-n-sandals “high fantasy” (and I mean no disrespect in either direction by “fantasy”) version of The Old Testament; rippling muscles, heaving bosoms, stern declarations of honor and rage, wailing high-pitched emotional breakdowns, thundering orchestral score and God’s Wrath visualized through what were then cutting-edge FX.

DeMille’s movie – especially the showpiece FX scenes – are SO iconic it would probably be a fool’s errand for any present-day filmmaker to try and top them (I would bet on this being a mostly-historical with “subtle” mystical elements for the most part) but if anyone can pull it off it’s Spielberg. The real question is: Who plays Moses – or, rather, who wants to stand up to the innevitable comparisons to Charlton Heston giving one of the most culturally-entrenched performances of his (or anyone else’s) career?

Oh, and please allow me to weigh in on the obvious Movie Geek question: YES, I absolutely think that when they build the Ark of The Covenant it should totally end up looking just like the version from “Raiders” (bonus points for “Map Room”/”Miracle of The Ark” getting repurposed as “God’s Theme”) thus making this an Indian Jones prequel. That would be awesome.

Eh. You were expecting something else?

If it wasn’t partially my JOB to cover this sort of thing, I’d prefer to declare that the entire shindig this year is rendered irrelevant by the failure to nominate Albert Brooks in “Drive” for Best Supporting Actor. The most “interesting” thing about this year is that there are NINE Best Picture nominees – they changed the rules again so that the list could be “between 5 and 10” based on total number of votes per individual film, meaning that there’s some poor unfortunate movie out there that would have been the tenth nominee under last year’s rules.

“The Help” simply does not belong on a Best Picture list in any year, but certainly not in a year that also included the shut-out “Drive.” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is kind of a mess, but it was a given that the first big-star “let’s all have a cry about 9/11 memories” movie was going to be nominated. “The Artist” is probably going to win, and will quickly join “A Beautiful Mind,” “English Patient” and “Dances With Wolves” on the future “REALLY!?” lists – though I suppose they deserve big propers for acknowledging “Tree of Life.”

Full list (and comments) after the jump:

Best Picture
War Horse
The Artist
Moneyball
The Descendants
Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
The Help
Hugo
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

BOB COMMENT: Obviously, I’d prefer to see “Tree of Life” win, but y’know what would be an even better spoiler in some ways? “Midnight in Paris” – ‘Classic Woody’ making a big comeback is a big deal.

Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

BOB COMMENT: This should be Oldman’s to lose, but the role is likely too restrained for Oscar. Dujardin probably takes this, will be the most popular “funny foriegn guy” in American movies for about six months and then promptly be banished back home a’la Roberto Benigni.

Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help

BOB COMMENT: Respect where it’s due, Melissa McCarthy is a delightful surprise here. “The Help” is obviously the more ‘popular’ movie, but I really doubt Chastain would’ve been noticed in this if she didn’t have “Tree of Life” the same year.

Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

BOB COMMENT: No Albert Brooks, no sale.

Best Director
Michele Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

BOB COMMENT: Y’know what? I like Hazanavicius. The “OSS” movies are hilarious, and he seems like a cool cat. But the “one of these things is NOT like the others” on this roster is staggering, and the idea that he’d be a frontrunner for something as inconsequential as “The Artist” on a list where the great Alexander Payne is the LEAST accomplished filmmaker otherwise is completely ridiculous.

Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Annie Mumolo Kristin Wiig, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

BOB COMMENT: Will probably be Woody, and he deserves it, but it’d be great to see Wiig win.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, Ides of March
Steven Zallian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughan, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Foreign Film
Bullhead
Footnote
In Darkness
Monseiur Lazar
A Separation

BOB COMMENT: I’m assuming “The Artist” isn’t on this list because it’s technically “Foriegn LANGUAGE Film” and the only spoken dialogue in the film is in English.

Best Animated Feature
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

BOB COMMENT: My overseas readers are probably wondering how “Tintin” didn’t make this list. Likely answer? A lot of “Tintin” was accomplished via motion-capture, and there’s a vocal and powerful contingent of the American animation industry that sees mocap either as a threat to their livelihoods or a “low” form of the medium; and they’ve circled the wagons.

Best Animated Short
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

Best Live Action Short
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic

Best Art Direction
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
War Horse

Best Cinematography
The Artist
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Best Costumes
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.

BOB COMMENT: The lack of ANY ‘genre’ films outside of “Harry Potter” in the tech/art categories is baffling, until you remember that the prospects would include Captain America, Thor, XMen, etc. Bias against scifi/fantasy? Lessening. Bias against supehero-subgenre? Alive and kicking.

Best Documentary Feature
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Libration Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

Best Documentary Short
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Best Film Editing
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball

Best Makeup
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Iron Lady

BOB COMMENT: Really? Red Skull get’s nothing?

Best Original Score
The Adventures of TinTin
The Artist
Hugo
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
War Horse

BOB COMMENT: WHAT!? Okay, not to channel poor Kim Novak here or anything… but “The Artist” get’s Best ORIGINAL Score?? Forget that the original part of it’s score is deeply generic even as “tribute” scores go, big chunks of it are sampled from other scores. Two years ago, “The Will Be Blood” got shafted on a score nod because the composer sampled ONE riff from his OWN catalogue – how does this get a pass? Even the fucking Weinstein’s shouldn’t be this powerful…

Best Original Song
“Man or Muppet”, The Muppets
“Real in Rio”, Rio

Best Sound Editing
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Best Visual Effects
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

BOB COMMENT: Oh, look, some non-Potter genre movies finally make the cut in the usual place. This should go to “Apes,” as consolation prize for the rank cowardice in not giving Andy Serkis an acting nod.