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dx23 wrote:Which animated show?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Spider-Man_(TV_series" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

From what I hear, it's not based too much on the Ultimate comic series, but then again I've never seen it myself so I can't be too certain.

jindianajonz wrote:

dx23 wrote:Which animated show?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Spider-Man_(TV_series" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

From what I hear, it's not based too much on the Ultimate comic series, but then again I've never seen it myself so I can't be too certain.

He hasn't appeared in that one yet, so that is why I ask. The Spectacular Spider-Man one was more like the Ultimate universe character but every other TV incarnation has been just a faithful adaptation of this:

dx23 wrote:Which animated show?

The '90s Spiderman where he was Russian and had a different costume amongst other things.

knives wrote:

dx23 wrote:Which animated show?

The '90s Spiderman where he was Russian and had a different costume amongst other things.

That one was an interesting but complicated take on Electro as he was a German impersonating a Russian and was also the son of the Red Skull. I doubt the producers of this film will go in that route.

I didn't mean it would be that version, but that like that version they could have it be the character in name only.

knives wrote:I didn't mean it would be that version, but that like that version they could have it be the character in name only.

I understood what you meant. I think we will see a new version of the character that just has the same powers and name of the comic book counterpart but probably a completely new origin.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:This bit from an interview with David Cronenberg and Robert Pattinson talking about Cosmopolis has been getting some attention. I respect Cronenberg, and he has a fair point at the end, which I think is directed at the uber-fanboys but I don't think he's seeing the forest from the trees on this subject.

David, you've done drama and horror. Some fairly formidable directors have branched out into superhero movies pretty beautifully —is that something you would consider doing?

DC: I don't think they are making them an elevated art form. I think it's still Batman running around in a stupid cape. I just don't think it's elevated. Christopher Nolan's best movie is "Memento," and that is an interesting movie. I don't think his Batman movies are half as interesting though they're 20 million times the expense. What he is doing is some very interesting technical stuff, which, you know, he's shooting IMAX and in 3-D. That's really tricky and difficult to do. I read about it in "American Cinematography Magazine," and technically, that's all very interesting. The movie, to me, they're mostly boring.

Do you think the subject matter prohibits the elevated art form?

DC: Absolutely. Anybody who works in the studio system has got 20 studio people sitting on his head at every moment, and they have no respect, and there's no…it doesn't matter how successful you've been. And obviously Nolan has been very successful. He's got a lot of power, relatively speaking. But he doesn't really have power.

So that's a no.

DC: I would say that's a no, you know. And the problem is you gotta… as I say, you can do some interesting, maybe unexpected things. And certainly, I've made the horror films and people say, "Can you make a horror film also an art film?" And I would say, "Yeah, I think you can."

But a superhero movie, by definition, you know, it's comic book. It's for kids. It's adolescent in its core. That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying, you know, "Dark Knight Rises" is, you know, supreme cinema art," I don't think they know what the f**k they're talking about.

David clarifies his comments.

Paul Giamatti is in talks to play Rhino in Amazing Spider-Man 2.

According to Deadline, Chris Pratt is going to be playing the lead part of Star-Lord in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Today's rumor is that WB has given Christopher Nolan the production reigns for the DC Comics movies and that he will bring Christian Bale to the much promised Justice League movie.

Ugh, the last thing I want to see is Nolan eating up his time producing a giant Zack Snyder movie.

matrixschmatrix wrote:Ugh, the last thing I want to see is Nolan eating up his time producing a giant Zack Snyder movie.

Too late.

Saw the Amazing Spider-Man 2 last night and oh boy, what a piece of crap. The movie is almost completely disconnected to the source material, suffers from the too many characters thing, the score is horrible and many of the plots go nowhere. Even worse, every scene with Electro (Foxx) looks like it was taken out of one of the Schumacher Batman films. Those scenes have a horrible mix of music without any purpose. Also, it was completely horrible the way an emo Harry Osborn was horned into this film without any development of backstory.

My only hope is that this movie fall under Sony expectations and either the rights revert to Marvel or Marvel agrees to purchase the rights back.

dx23 wrote:My only hope is that this movie fall under Sony expectations and either the rights revert to Marvel or Marvel agrees to purchase the rights back.

I don't think they'll let it go that easy....

Especially now that it's broken box office records just in it's first night. Ugh.

I watched Iron Man Three last night. Much better than I'd expected.

Anyone have any thoughts about the Captain America film? I was surprised at how much acclaim it got (I saw "the definitive Super Hero movie!" bandied about) although in retrospect, this seems to happen with every big budget superhero movie. In addition to the typical super hero movie problems (fast cut action scenes shoehorned in, a plot that touches on "big issues" in the world without actually saying anything about them for fear of politically alienating certain members of the audience) I thought this movie, more than any other, was completely divorced from it's namesake. Other than the personal connection to Winter Soldier, any other Super Hero could have been slotted into the title role and the plot wouldn't have changed a bit. I guess this is a problem with Steve Rogers in general- Iron Man 3 is dependent on machines to do what he does, Thor has mythology to draw on, Batman has... Batman. But Captain America doesn't really have anything interesting to build on. The most interesting aspect of the character in comics I've read (mostly the Ultimates series) was the culture shock of a man being brought 50 years into the future, but I guess it's tough to build an action movie around that premise. The first one worked as a period piece, but now that Captain America is in the present, I don't think there's much for him to do.

Amusingly, I watched The Amazing Spider-Man last week. I quite enjoyed it despite some flaws. However, what made it watchable for me were the performances by the likes of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone (Denis Leary included) along with the characterization of Peter Parker. I felt it fixed the problems of the Sam Raimi films in that department.

jindianajonz wrote:Anyone have any thoughts about the Captain America film? I was surprised at how much acclaim it got (I saw "the definitive Super Hero movie!" bandied about) although in retrospect, this seems to happen with every big budget superhero movie. In addition to the typical super hero movie problems (fast cut action scenes shoehorned in, a plot that touches on "big issues" in the world without actually saying anything about them for fear of politically alienating certain members of the audience) I thought this movie, more than any other, was completely divorced from it's namesake. Other than the personal connection to Winter Soldier, any other Super Hero could have been slotted into the title role and the plot wouldn't have changed a bit. I guess this is a problem with Steve Rogers in general- Iron Man 3 is dependent on machines to do what he does, Thor has mythology to draw on, Batman has... Batman. But Captain America doesn't really have anything interesting to build on. The most interesting aspect of the character in comics I've read (mostly the Ultimates series) was the culture shock of a man being brought 50 years into the future, but I guess it's tough to build an action movie around that premise. The first one worked as a period piece, but now that Captain America is in the present, I don't think there's much for him to do.

There's still the Winter Soldier though. After Avengers 2, the Cap will no doubt search for him.

Movie-Brat wrote:There's still the Winter Soldier though. After Avengers 2, the Cap will no doubt search for him.

Yes, but this still just feels tacked on in the movie universe- a Winter Soldier-like character could be added to any movie fairly easily. It still has nothing to do with who Captain America is. I guess the big problem with Captain America is that the obvious paths for the character to take- using him as a stand in for America itself, and seeing how the gung-ho exceptionalism that took the fight to Hitler has changed after Vietnam, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11- is too politically charged to feature prominantly in a mainstream movie. So instead we have Steve Rogers representing an America that is vaguely altruistic on a surface level but is afraid to delve deeper lest somebody gets offended. And I think that's how the movies have portrayed him- likeable, idealistic, and ostensibly inspiring- but in the end he suffers a bit from Superman syndrome, in that characters who are too perfect end up being kind of boring. The film plays lip service to the fact that he's a fish out of water in this time period, but once the punches start flying this is all quickly forgotten.

I also forgot to mention my biggest pet peeve with this movie and other recent blockbusters- the mistaking convolution for complexity. It's not nearly as bad as the second Star Trek film, but this movie features all sorts of plot twists that make earlier events and motivations seem nonsensical. For instance,

Spoiler

why was the data even on the boat to begin with?

I think we have Dark Knight to thank for starting this trend, but at least in that film the ride was enjoyable enough that I didn't think of the holes until after, whereas this movie had me questioning them while I was watching.

Caught Marc Webb's THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 3D (2014) over the weekend. Why are Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci allowed to fuck-up movies and TV shows left and right (besides being protected by the clout of being J.J. Abrams' boys)? Answer: Marvel/Disney lets them because, like "Iron Man 2" did for Marvel, "TAS2" is all about checking lists that need to be taken care of to set-up future sequels (Peter's parents backstory: check; cameos by Doc Ock and Vulture costumes: check; taking care of Gwen Stacy's backstory from the comics: check; plug every Sony brand/gadget ever made: check; etc.) rather than tell a cohesive story. Kurtzman and Orci excel at the former, which leads to their usual shortcut-to-exposition-dump moments that culminate here with a third act so mixed-up and convoluted (heartbreaking and moving one scene, "Batman and Robin"-caliber ridiculous the next) it would need to be seen to be believed if the TV commercials and trailers weren't already giving it away for free.

There are moments though, precious few moments, when "TAS2" is the greatest Spider-man movie ever because it embraces aspects of the character (primarily Spidey's so-bad-it's-hilarious jokey attitude from the comics and his athletic moves/poses) that are just fun to watch and weren't fully exploited in the Sam Raimi-helmed trilogy. And God bless Andrew Garfield for acting his heart out and selling us on Peter Parker's self-doubt and young man anxiety (his chemistry with Emma Stone makes their scenes together the highlight of the movie when Spidey isn't swinging), but the man's already way too old for the role. Dane DeHaan is enjoyably hammy as Osborn Jr. (loved the big-name actor cameo for Harry's dad) but holy crap, Jamie Foxx embarrasses himself badly by trying and not coming anywhere near reprising the same schtick Jim Carrey pulled off in "Batman Forever." I'd say see this if you're a diehard Spider-Man fan for the highlights, just don't expect 1/4th the perfection that was Raimi's 2nd "Spider-Man" flick (still the benchmark for superhero movies today).

jindianajonz wrote:I guess the big problem with Captain America is that the obvious paths for the character to take- using him as a stand in for America itself, and seeing how the gung-ho exceptionalism that took the fight to Hitler has changed after Vietnam, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11- is too politically charged to feature prominantly in a mainstream movie.

But isn't this pretty much exactly what the new Captain America film does? I was actually surprised at how political the film was, albeit in a rather obvious sense. The narrative begins with the opposition between SHIELD's NSA/Homeland Security style vacuuming of personal data and Captain America's opposition to this project. The point of the film is that the "America" Captain America represents is completely unrecognizable post-9/11. So the twist of the film-

Spoiler

That the fascist HYDRA has been imbedded within SHIELD and has been slowly making fascism come to pass legally through people's consensual surrender of freedom

reveals that the very thing Captain America fought in the past has become constitutive of contemporary American ideology- as we can see with NSA, increasingly militaristic police, and Drones murdering innocent people, all of which is allegorically referred to in the film. So it's not that American "exceptionalism" has changed; the film is rather making the more interesting point that American exceptionalism itself has always tended in the direction of 'fascism' (if it is understood in a broad sense, not in reference to the very specific political parties of the 20th century). Remember the key moment where

Spoiler

the HYDRA leader tells Fury that "our enemies are your enemies- war, disorder. It [fascism] is the next step, Nick."

Directly comparing U.S. domestic and foreign policy to fascism is pretty radical for a junky summer blockbuster.

The problems with the film are obvious, of course- this isn't a particularly novel critique, it is contained by the end of the narrative, it is embedded within a two and a half hour explosion movie, ect. But still, The Avengers films continue to the most interesting superhero films being produced. At the very least the film is light years ahead of right-wing junk like Nolan's Batman trilogy in terms of politics.

Satori wrote:I was actually surprised at how political the film was

I would attribute this to the fact that we live in an interesting political climate, where Obama succeeded Bush but kept a large number of his policies intact. This makes criticisms of an overbearing government "safe" because the left will see it as a criticism of the beast that Bush foisted on the country, while the right will see it as Obama perverting the benevolent institutions that Bush started. Marvel has created a movie where the good guys and bad guys are vague enough that the audience can hang whatever political ideology they want on either side, and the rest of the movie will probably follow that reading. It's almost like a Choose Your Own Adven- er, Political Allegory.

But I still think this criticism of the government is seperate from what Captain America represents. The movie would have worked out exactly the same if it had been Black Widow, the Hulk, Hawkeye, or any other character with government ties as the central character- in fact, Black Widow would have been the perfect character to explore the shady world of covert government operations, so it's good that she featured prominantly in this. But while Captain America the movie focuses on the domestic, Captain America the character is a shining example of America's foreign policy at it's best, from a time before Vietnam and the War On Terror made us realize we can't solve every problem by throwing money, ordnance, a helluvalot of determination at it. There are interesting places that you can go with that, but these films don't go there. Not that I'd expect them to, since going there means we need to see Cap's pluck and determination ultimately result in failure, which wouldn't fly with mainstream audiences. But as it stands, the Captain America in this film vindicates the outlook that if we will it enough, we can do anything- and the fact that it's use righteous military force instead of diplomacy that solves the problem gives this film a decidedly rightward slant in my eyes. Or to put it another way, the film seems to be arguing that our black-and-white WW2 attitude can still be used to solve the deeply grey problems of the world today, now that we've rescued our beacon of American Exceptionalism from the ice.

jindianajonz wrote:This makes criticisms of an overbearing government "safe" because the left will see it as a criticism of the beast that Bush foisted on the country, while the right will see it as Obama perverting the benevolent institutions that Bush started. Marvel has created a movie where the good guys and bad guys are vague enough that the audience can hang whatever political ideology they want on either side, and the rest of the movie will probably follow that reading. It's almost like a Choose Your Own Adven- er, Political Allegory.

Indeed, this is a very good point, although I think we can cut through a bit of this by acknowledging that Bush versus Obama is a false opposition insofar as their spying policies, warfare, ect (the elements the film directly mentions) are fundamentally identical. I think the more radical point to be made by the film's political multivalence is precisely this identity: the fact that the right and the liberals can both read the film as allegorizing their own position signals not a failure of the film, but rather the film's reflection of the failure of contemporary hegemonic "politics."

But I still think this criticism of the government is seperate from what Captain America represents. The movie would have worked out exactly the same if it had been Black Widow, the Hulk, Hawkeye, or any other character with government ties as the central character- in fact, Black Widow would have been the perfect character to explore the shady world of covert government operations, so it's good that she featured prominantly in this

Yes, absolutely. Black Widow's position as the Snowden allegorical figure (since she is the one who leaks the documents and is threatened with jail time, ect) is especially intriguing. Her role was the most important to be sure, and the film would have worked just as well if not better if it was her film.

But as it stands, the Captain America in this film vindicates the outlook that if we will it enough, we can do anything- and the fact that it's use righteous military force instead of diplomacy that solves the problem gives this film a decidedly rightward slant in my eyes. Or to put it another way, the film seems to be arguing that our black-and-white WW2 attitude can still be used to solve the deeply grey problems of the world today, now that we've rescued our beacon of American Exceptionalism from the ice.

To be sure, but I think this sort of ideological containment is required in such a film- it inherently has to end with Captain America saving the day, reestablishing American hegemony, ect. All Hollywood superhero blockbusters are rightwing if we look at their endings because normalcy must be restored. I think the key is to look at the slippages and the places where the film wasn't quite able to paper the ideological cracks. Here I would suggest that its linkages of U.S. policy and fascism are never quite resolved successfully.

Spoiler

Think about how absurd the montage the end of the film is where Maria Hill goes to work for Tony Stark and Steve Rogers' neighbor (the SHIELD agent that protected him) goes to work for the CIA after SHIELD is disbanded. The film is trying to contain its critique by assuring the audience that after the bad criminal organization is destroyed, the good ones like the CIA (!) and multinational corporations still exist. The reassurance feels hollow because in our real world, it is precisely organizations like the CIA and corporations responsible for everything the film attributes to SHIELD and HYRDA!

On a more fundamental level, though, you are of course completely right- it is somewhat absurd to look for left political allegories in a Hollywood blockbuster. But our purpose in reading such films can't be to seek "the answer" to political problems (such an answer would be the highest form of ideology) or, god help us, the "perfect leftwing film" that will prove that we are correct once and for all. All we can do is catalog the ways these sorts of films put these ideological positions into motion against each other and hope they suggest something interesting about our cultural moment.

Satori wrote:On a more fundamental level, though, you are of course completely right- it is somewhat absurd to look for left political allegories in a Hollywood blockbuster.

I dunno, I thought the first Iron Man did a pretty good job of it- The Military Industrial Complex realizes that its weapons and business practices are unethical and dedicates itself to the good of humanity.

You are right that we shouldn't expect films to answer our political problems (especially something as inane as a modern blockbuster franchise), and though I perhaps delved a bit too deep into the politics of the film, that was never my point. I was just trying to illustrate that the Captain America character isn't (and probably will never be) as intertwined in the plots and themes of his film as other superheroes are.

ianungstad wrote:Besides Robert Downey Jr. nobody seems to be making big bucks from these films. Marvel are notoriously cheap; locking in actors and talent into multi film deals with subpar pay (relative to performance). Also seems to be a creatively stifling environment with Marvel micro-managing everything.

That's not true. Most of the actors have a great pay and have renegotiated their deals to make even more money. Marvel was cheap at the beginning but the actors are certainly getting their money now that Disney is backing them up. Also, Robert Downey Jr is different because he renegotiated his deal to get one similar to what Nicholson had in Batman, where they get a percentage of the films' profit. That was his reward for taking the plunge with Iron Man.

As far as micro-managing, the thing is that for Marvel, this is a multi-year project. They want their properties to have a cohesive storyline and continuity so it can last up until 2028. If they didn't have this control, then they would be having more X-Men: Last Stand, and Spider-Man debacles like Sony and Fox have or they could even be worse and do what DC/WB has done, which is give the reigns of their properties to people who loathe the source material.

If you enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy, consider buying a rocket raccoon T-shirt to help Bill Mantlo, the creator of the furry character, with his ongoing medical care (putting aside that maybe some of the film's profits should be set aside for the guy). edit: spelled the guy's name wrong.

Steven H wrote:If you enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy, consider buying a rocket raccoon T-shirt to help Bill Lanto, the creator of the furry character, with his ongoing medical care (putting aside that maybe some of the film's profits should be set aside for the guy).

Well there's some great PR- "This campaign is no longer available due to a trademark claim"