joss whedon | the m0vie blog

Meme of the Moment: Honest Trailer for The Avengers

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Darren

Readers will know that I’m a big fan of geeky stuff. So I thought I’d pass this on. It’s Screen Junkies’ surprisingly reflective commentary on The Avengers, which opened up 2012’s blockbuster season with a bang. While I enjoyed it, I wasn’t as much of a fan of it as most, and a lot of the reasons are covered in the trailer. (In particular, the fact it completely invalidates the ending to Thor, the fact that Loki has no motivation for what he’s doing, and the contrivance of his plan to bring together the only people who could beat him.) It doesn’t quite cover the somewhat thematic and structural problems raised by Nick Fury, which the film alludes to, but never addresses – but it’s all in good fun. And well worth a look.

Although, to be honest, gentle tongue-in-cheek ribbing aside, I think I’m still in the minority in not quite loving The Avengers as much as everybody else. Again, not hating or disliking, but just not liking as much.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Avenger, IronMan, joss whedon, loki, nick fury, Television, thor | 2 Comments »

Man vs. Superman: Chronicle’s Climax & The Scale of Superhuman Violence…

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Darren

I had the chance to watch Chronicle again over the weekend, and I still found it a boldly fascinating (albeit flawed) film. The construction of the movie as a collection of “found footage” still strains more suspension of disbelief than any of the antics involving the lead three characters, but it remains a thoughtful deconstruction and exploration of the superhero tropes and genre that audiences have begun to take for granted. In particular, the movie’s climax – though filmed on a shoestring – still does a better job evoking a sense of scale than Joss Whedon’s admitted stylish last half-hour of The Avengers.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: art, AudioVisual, avengers, business, Business Services, captain america, Chronicle, Content, dark knight, DarkKnight Rises, film, Found footage, iphone, iron man, iron man 2, joss whedon, man of steel, marvel universe, Movie, nolan, robert downey, spider man, Superhero film, superman, wonder woman | 11 Comments »

Ultimate Marvel Team-Up (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Darren

Ultimate Marvel Team-Up occupies a strange place in Marvel canon. Written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by a rake of top-tier talent, it was essentially a series designed to showcase these impressive artists while adding a bit of depth and breadth to the then-fledgeling Ultimate Marvel Universe. Essentially a continuity that had been launched from scratch, with the goal of attracting new fans put off by decades of back story in the regular shared universe, Brian Michael Bendis had pioneered the line with his superb Ultimate Spider-Man, a book that he is still writing today (albeit in a slightly different form). Due to its nature, Ultimate Marvel Team-Up is a somewhat disjointed effort, where quality varies almost from issue-to-issue, but it’s still worth a look for anybody with any interest in Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man work.

Who says there aren’t crocodiles in the sewer?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: avengers: disassembled, bendis, brian michael bendis, captain america, Frank, Garth Ennis, iron man, joss whedon, mark millar, marvel, Marvel Comic, MarvelUniverse, nick fury, punisher, Saint Patrick's Day, spider man, The Punisher: Frank Castle, ultimate comics spider-man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, ultimate marvel, ultimate spider man | 4 Comments »

Batman: Vampire Trilogy – Red Rain, Bloodstorm & Crimson Mist (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

I’m going to be entirely honest. I’m not completely sure what to make of Doug Moench and Kelley Jones’ Batman: Vampire trilogy. A collection of three Elseworlds stories, all following a Batman who confronted Dracula early in his career, they initially seem like grim and dark comics from the nihilistic nineties. There’s a lot of violence, a lot of cynicism, and a lot of gore. As with a lot of Batman written around that time (and arguably beyond), The Dark Knight Returns seems like a major influence, presenting a progressively darker and unhinged Dark Knight and an increasingly brutal war on Gotham’s crime. However, there were times, reading the trilogy, that I couldn’t help but read it as a sort of an implicit criticism of these sorts of excessively dark and edgy comics.

Streets run red…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, batman, batman vs dracula, batman vs. dracula: red rain, batman: bloodstorm, batman: crimson mist, batman: red rain, batman: vampire, Blood, Bob Haney, bruce wayne, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rises, Doug Moench, elseworld, elseworlds, frank miller, Human, I…Vampire, Jones, joss whedon, Justice League Dark, Kelley Jones, murder, tim burton, vampire, Wayne Manor | Leave a comment »

Do We See Too Much of Film Before It’s Released These Days?

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Darren

It’s a week before The Dark Knight Rises is released, but I haven’t watched any new footage since the last time I posted a trailer for the film. And boy, has that been more difficult than I make it sound. It seems like every other day there’s a new TV spot or a clip being released. Last December, like The Dark Knight before it, the prologue to the film aired in certain Imax cinemas. Warner Brothers even taking the somewhat unexpected step of releasing the production notes to the public. While Warners and Nolan have actually managed to do a great job keeping the movie under wraps, this level of awareness is hardly uncommon these days. Do we get to see too much of a movie before it’s released these days?

Is too much information the Bane of modern movie-goers?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Amazing Spider-Man, bane, batman, christian bale, Christopher Nolan, Dark Knight Rises, imax, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, joss whedon, nolan, Rian Johnson, sam raimi, spider man, Television advertisement, Warner Bros | 8 Comments »

Captain America: The New Deal (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Darren

Oh, God — How could this happen here?

– Steve Rogers, Captain America #1

It seemed inevitable that Captain America would have to respond to September 11th. After all, the terrorist atrocities were an attack on the American way of life, and the iconic superhero was perhaps the hero best equipped to explore the scars left by the still-recent attacks upon the American psyche, much as his Secret Empire plot allowed him to respond to the Watergate Scandal. Unfortunately, John Ney Rieber’s work on the character is – while well-intentioned – clumsy, awkward, groan-inducing and cliché-ridden. Even the fantastic artwork of John Cassaday cannot salvage the run from its own tired and trite pseudo-philosophical ramblings.

Subtle.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, brian michael bendis, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, Dresden, ed brubaker, frank miller, god, john cassaday, john nay rieber, john ney rieber, joss whedon, MarvelUniverse, New York City, Osama bin Laden, Secret Empire, september, Steve Roger, steve rogers, terrorism, United States, Watergate Scandal | 2 Comments »

The Avengers: The Crossing Omnibus (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Darren

“One of the nineties’ most notorious narratives!”

– well, the back cover wasn’t lying

The Crossing has become a watch-word for nineties excesses. Essentially a gigantic crossover between The Avengers and the various Iron Man books (including War Machine and Force Works), it is renowned for its clumsy editorial mandate: the event was designed to replaced Tony Stark with a younger version of himself. Fans have come to reflect on The Crossing as one of the most awful comic book storylines ever concocted, an example of the mess that Marvel had made of their line of books during a decade not exactly renowned for its taste.

I know it’s fashionable to trash The Crossing, and I know that it is every bit as ridiculously nineties and forced as its editorial mandate would suggest, but I can’t help but think there are some nice ideas to be found here, if one wades in deep enough into the crap. Don’t get me wrong, there’s not nearly enough to justify the tangled bloated mess of a plot, and I’m not going to argue the consensus is wrong, but I do think the massive catastrophic failure of The Crossing was one of execution, rather than one of ideas.

Shockingly bad?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Acts of Vengeance, Avenger, avengers, Avengers Mansion, Bob Harras, captain america, chris claremont, Edwin Jarvis, hawkeye, iron man, Jim Rhodes, joss whedon, kang, MarvelUniverse, Tony, tony stark, war machine | 12 Comments »

Avengers Disassembled: Iron Man – The Singularity (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Darren

And so I’ve finished my trek through the tie-ins to Avengers Disassembled. And it was surprisingly painful. Sure, Robert Kirkman’s Captain America at least made sense if you looked at it from the right angle, and Mike Oeming’s Thor was one of the best stories to feature the character, but the Invincible Iron Man and Captain America & Falcon tie-ins serve to illustrate just how lost some of Marvel’s top books were at the time. The Invincible Iron Man actually had two arcs tying into the big event, from two very different creative teams, perhaps illustrating that Marvel was aware of this fundamental dysfunction. Unfortunately, neither is especially impressive, and both feel like they are simply treading water, waiting for Avengers Disassembled to put the book out of its misery.

Things look Stark…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers: disassembled, captain america, Invincible Iron Man, iron man, joss whedon, MarvelUniverse, robert kirkman, thor, Tony, tony harris, warren ellis | 2 Comments »

Non-Review: Alien Resurrection (Theatrical Cut)

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Prometheus this week, we’ll be taking a look at the other movies in the Alien franchise.

I always feel a little hint of trepidation when I return to a movie that I know I didn’t like the first time. Part of me is reluctant to watch it again, even for the purposes of examining what exactly went awry during production, while some small part of me holds out hope that the film might be redeemed – that I might somehow magically get it the second time around. So, completing a marathon rewatch of Ridley Scott’s Alien and the sequels it spawned, I left Alien: Resurrection until last.

Unfortunately, it was just as flawed and messy as I remember it.

Reflecting on his behaviour…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alien, Alien Resurrection, Brad Dourif, business, Ellen Ripley, film, Franchising, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, james cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, joss whedon, Movie, non-review review, Opportunities, Prometheus, review, ridley scott, Ripley, sigourney weaver, Weyland-Yutani | 2 Comments »

Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Darren

With our month looking at Avengers comics officially over, we thought it might be fun to dig into that other iconic Marvel property, the X-Men. Join us for a month of X-Men related reviews and discussion.

Chris Claremont didn’t invent Wolverine, but he defined him. Long before Wolverine was appearing in multiple team books and multiple solo series, the short and hairy Canadian was developed within Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men. When the time came to develop the character beyond that, it was Claremont that handled the four-issue Wolverine series, and it was Claremont who handled this six-issue Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries. The market had yet to reach Wolverine saturation. However, Kitty Pryde & Wolverine is remarkable as a spiritual extension of Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men run. Without the influence of Frank Miller, this six-issue collection feels more distinctly like a microcosm of Claremont’s extended work on the franchise, bringing into focus his strong character work, his pulpy sense of storytelling and, occasionally, his excessively purple prose.