It sucks. But you knew that.

“Intermission” breaks down the “Avengers” trailer.

Below, the trailer for “This Means War;” in which two CIA agent pals (Tom Hardy and Chris Pine) learn they’re both dating Reese Witherspoon and… well, the title and such…

Oh yeah, let’s all get in line for that, huh?

Anyone remember why I’m supposed to be exicted to see Chris Pine in ANYTHING? He was terrible in “Star Trek,” and generally has all the charisma of the block of wood for which he is named (easy joke, I know, but still…)

For that matter, what happened to the new “Trek” reviving that franchise, again? Remember, that was supposed to happen? Movie made a bunch of money, reviews skewed pretty positive, and yet… Trek doesn’t seem to be “back” at all. It’s not hard to tell when a franchise is “hot” these days; and any objective read of Star Trek’s pop-culture presence can tell you it’s back to being as cold as when “Enterprise” went off the air. Where’s the excitement, in the fandom or otherwise? The web is full-to-bursting with casting-rumor and “conceptual” fanart of every minor figure who MIGHT possibly show up in an “Avengers” sequel, but NOBODY is talking about who or what turns up in JJ Abrams Trek sequels.

Yeah, I didn’t much care for the movie myself, but just looking at things objectively it seems to have COMPLETELY failed in it’s mission-statement to make “Star Trek” a vital part of the cultural discussion again, no?

Here’s a production-backstory that will make some people kinda queasy and others kinda thrilled:

“Act of Valor” supposedly began life as a bigger-budget-than-usual, up-to-date Navy SEAL recruitment film; but was reworked into a “traditional” feature film (one has to assume public-interest in the SEALs following the killing of bin Laden played a part, yes?) and is now being released in February by Relativity Media. The Navy still seems to have “signed off” on the project, though – so all the gear, tech and tactics are as authentic as possible and (most interestingly of all) the main hero-cast are played by actual SEAL members.

Before anyone asks: YES, I’m aware that James Rolfe – aka “The Angry Nintendo Nerd” did this one as part of HIS October Monster Movies series yesterday last year.

People should go watch James’ anyway, though – his work for Cinemassacre deserves to be at least as widely seen as his AVGN material.

I’m predisposed to be irrationally excited for “The Avengers” because of what it represents: The idea of comic-style shared-universe “continuity” – the type that blurs through arbitrary genre lines by suggesting that “real” characters and “fantasy” characters exist side-by-side – become part of “movie language” is one of the wish-dreams of the Geek Age. If this works, everything changes.

That the film actually looks really good – with actors who came to play and a sharp script already evident – is quite a relief, though…

First teaser is a little Iron Man heavy, but that’s not surprising since his main selling point – he’s “the funny one” – doesn’t require any finished FX. It’s hard to get a good read on the big picture of it; since it’s obviously unfinished footage (no color-correction, people shooting guns at empty space, cars being blown up by nothing) but so far I’m encouraged.

Reprinted below is a comment I was in the process of leaving on a talkback about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement on BAD as word was coming down (and continues to come down) that protesters at Occupy Boston are being beaten and overwhelmed by the Boston Police. Not a good night here, obviously…

From me:
These things are always tough for me, in the macro, because my commitment to clear reason (call it “cynicism” if you like) doesn’t permit me to dial-back my overall-negative assessment of humanity when it’s a swath of humanity I’m sympathetic too; as is the case here.


My cold-water-in-the-face “read” of this “Occupy” business is that it IS the “left” version of the Mark I “Tea Party” business: largely fueled by not-particularly-sharp folks with a simple-to-nonexistent grasp of politics getting smacked in the face all at once by the realization that The System is FUCKED and reacting by focusing the blame on whatever their vague political/personal prejudices already had them seeing as The Bad Guys – i.e. the Teabaggers reflexively blamed minorities, gays, non-christians and foriegners; the kids at Occupy reflexively blamed “Corporate America.” Yes, the INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT distinction is that “Occupy Wall Street’s” choice of bad guy actually IS The Bad Guy; but I’m unable to fully “get down” for the romanticism of it. I don’t “like” looking at it that way – as I’m typing this, the news is coming in that the Occupy Boston crowd is getting savaged by the cops and I’m pissed as HELL about it – but there you go.


THAT SAID…


Just as the Teabaggers hadn’t existed for long before they became (largely) unwitting-dupe mercenaries for the GOP; if these kids can hold out maybe, just maybe, some form of leadership can either emerge-from or “hook up” with them and they can be an instrument of ensuring the all-important goal of preventing “conservatives” from attaining one more shred of power or influence until the ability of their policies and beliefs to do lasting damage has been permanently (constitutionally?) shielded against.


I know whose side I’m on.

I stand by that, overall – being unromantic about something doesn’t mean you can’t be sympathetic toward it and vice-versa. Is “Occupy Wall Street” primarily just vauge, petulant anger at “the man?” Yes, I think it is. Is there any kind of important, cogent political/philosophical “point” to be had from it? Not really, no. BUT! Are they are at least aiming their anger in the right direction? YES. Should they be getting bludgeoned by cops? NO. Do they have my support, whatever little it’s worth? ABSOLUTELY.

One is given to understand that the Dr. Pepper people are “kidding” here. Regardless, this has to be one of the stupidest commercials in a long time…

Via Gawker (EDIT: and The Escapist, which just ran this as I was also typing it up and where someone just made the same Futurama joke)

I have moments of weakness wherein I start to feel “bad” about my own intellectual-elitism… or, at the very least, feel like maybe I shouldn’t be that quick to condemn the anti-intellectualism of present-day humanity. After all, “the people” cannot possibly be as dumb as I think they are, right?

Thankfully, something always comes along to remind me that it’s just not possible to set the bar too low: A woman in Michigan is suing the distributors of “Drive” for misleading advertisting – specifically, she feels that she was promised “The Fast & The Furious” (no, really – she name-checks F&F in the lawsuit!) by the trailers; and that the actual film failed to deliver. She also claims that the film is anti-semitic, presumably based on scenes where a Jewish character uses “the K word” to complain about anti-semites calling him “the K word.”

Ugh. I just… just… UGH…

Good for a laugh, obviously – especially when you start to wonder where this person found a lawyer when she apparently does not own a computer, phone, television, newspaper or any of the other hundreds of ways to look up what a movie is about before you see it; but frankly the idea that ANY lawyer considers this case actionable creeps the hell out of me.

The “misleading trailer” is one of the few weapons good movies have in a market where the audience is ready-and-willing to punish good movies for not living down to their expectations. Fair or not, boxoffice matters and “tricking” Michael Bay’s America into occasionally shelling out for something worthwhile is one of the main ways “worthwhile” can still turn a profit.

Movies are bland enough already because studios are afraid that even appearing  to offend or challenge the sensibilities of Joe & Jane McNormal will lead to a lowered boxoffice take – how much worse will it be if they’re afraid of being sued because what they’ve made didn’t bear enough resemblance to a fucking Vin Diesel vehicle?

I used to be a movie theater usher, and occasionally had to help “negotiate” infuriated customers in such situations until the manager came over to hand them their “shut up and go away” freebie-tickets. I recall one weekend in particular where much of my evenings were spent glibly asking people if they in fact realized that the movie they’d bought a ticket for was called “SIN City.”

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It’s actually really good. I’m as surprised as you are.

“Intermission” speaks on Mortal Kombat…