AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! ... in May 2012 *sigh*

CHECK IT OUT! (at Apple trailers, or the following YouTube upload, for as long as it lasts =)



We've got Loki lording it up over the humans in voice over - "You were *made* to be ruled." Is seems to continue on with - "In the end it will be every man for himself?..." But that doesn't sound very Loki to me, unless he's seeking to coerce someone to join forces, persuading him that his friends/teammates will turn on him. I'll hafta give it another listen. Maybe it's Doc Skarsgard?

Man, they should've just used his actual name for his character. =)

We've got some decent metropolitan destruction: a major downtown avenue devastated by subterranean fireballs (gas mains?) and some death from above in the form of blue-violet energy bolts. The way it's cut, Loki's the one doing the zapping, but I'm not sure. Blasts could be some kind of science-ness, could be mystical.

We've got clashing Avengers personalities - happily looking forward to Whedon writing everyone's faces off. =)

We've got clashing Avengers - Thor takes his hammer to Cap's shield in some forest or perhaps the incinerated remnants of a town, fortress, or factory (?).

Gotta say, I'm not in love w Stark's apparent coining/explanation of the team name. It gives us good perspective and scale as far as the menace being Earth-shattering (true to the original creation of the Avengers), but the team was already named by SHIELD in the first Iron Man movie: The Avengers Initiative. Maybe Stark's just getting around to owning the name in an oath, tho. Still kinda weak, but I can live with that.

The movies so far have been planting some very specific seeds, I think, and did a great ret-con job of intertwining Cap's (his)story with Thor's via turning the Cosmic Cube into a repository of some kind of primordial Asgardian mojo, no? I'm not remembering the mojo being considered reality-altering/controlling, but maybe that's an untapped aspect? Anyhow, like I said before, I'm seeing a Loki + Red Skull team-up. Loki's walking around in Doc Skarsgard's bod, now with access to the Cube, courtesy of SHIELD itself. And hey, remember, the Skull was the last one to hold the thing, right? I still like the Cube as an unplanned (or maybe planned - it is the Red Skull, after all) escape pod for the Skull's psyche. It's a stretch, but maybe there are or will be two Big Bads riding shotgun in Skarsgard's noggin, eh (and Skarsgard didn't actually survive the events of Thor's film?)? Would be an interesting way for Loki to encounter and negotiate w the Skull - sorta-astrally.

Not sure if there's room for Zola to return, but a disembodied brainiac with access to the internet? It wouldn't be hard to work him in. Also, he could bring a near-instant potentially-cube-powered army. I wonder if he might rise as a rival to Stark Industries (or is it International? or something else in the filmes?) ?

And once his body is recovered/reconstituted from the limbo between Asgard and Midgard, Loki could jump back into his body, leaving Skarsgard to become the 21st century Skull!

And man, even tho it would be kinda hard (but then again, kinda not) to shoehorn it in given the events of Cap's film, I would love it if that Thor vs. Cap thing was something from the 40s where Thor was called down by Skull's nordic magick tinkering... Or maybe he brashly rainbows into Europe mistakenly believing he was protecting his nordic worshippers from an invader (Invaders! =). Of course, Cap would be ready to talk after trading/taking a few hits, letting his guard down and surprising Thor, at which point Skull or Zemo or some other Nazi stooge would take an unsporting shot at the Captain, riling Thor's sense of honorable combat and cluing him in as who the Good Guys truly are...

Thor's movie had something about how the Norse gods decided to leave the Earth to humankind way back when, tho, so he *shouldn't* have been messing around in WW2...

But then, he *is* Thor...

And hey! How F-in A is this little snapshot?


Keep on geekin on~

BTIES: Tarantino vs. Coen Brothers

Thanks to Roger Ebert for passing this on, and L. Copperfield for the choice creative editing.

Totally has me itching to re-watch all these films. =)

Keep on keepin on~

GRIFF THE INVISIBLE

trailer | website

A sweet, somewhat predictable story about beautiful delusions, relationships, superheroics, and superscience. So, of course I enjoyed it! =)

The predictable factor (at least that's how it was for a nerdy type like myself) is countered by the performances of Ryan "Jason Stackhouse" Kwanten as the mild-mannered Griff and superpowered vigilante, and the lovely Maeve Dermody as the potential romantic sidekick, Melody.

Okay, maybe I crushed on her and her character instantly, and hard, as soon as she banged her head for the first time. =)

It's great seeing Kwanten do something other than Jason. I've always thought that he deserved some serious recognition for his role on TRUE BLOOD. I mean, he is just SO good at making the improbable Jason real and naively consistent. Not that Griff is a particularly challenging part, but it's a nice change.

Especially the change of accent. Crizazy. Made me snicker when another character in GRIFF talks to him about how an accent can change a person's identity.

Synopsis. Griff leads two lives. One life, as Griff the customer service rep, working the phone in a cubicle. The other life, as Griff The Invisible, a defender of justice and powerful protector of the innocent, dispatching villainous thugs with a costumed fist to the face and boot to the bum. Or does he? His brother Tim moved back to town to help him out once his "episodes" got out of hand. Griff, you see, BELIEVES he's The Invisible, but what everyone else knows is that he is running around in a superhero costume prompting complaints to the police of a weird stalker in the neighborhood. The question is: is that so wrong? When Melody, Tim's new girlfriend and self-styled Experimentalist researcher meets him, her answer turns out to be: nope.

*** SPOILERS *** follow... Reflections on moments that I dig and such...

I love the Oscar Wilde quote that begins the film...

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

It was not familiar to me, and I couldn't remember ever reading or hearing it in the context of comic book superheroes, but surely it must have been, right? It's just so perfect.

I love how Melody almost instantly knowingly buys into Griff's superheroics, plugging her experimentalist science into his superpowered reality. She immediately recognizes that he's trying to create an invisibility suit and then applies her own science to improve upon it.

There's some sadness in the idea that Melody's differentness is somehow "above" Griff's, that she can see and understand his reality from her reality, AND know how to tweak her behavior to fit into his reality, playing along, in other words, when from Griff's point of view, he is not playing, but living.

Griff challenges her motivation once he's snapped out of it (when he overhears Melody's conversation w his brother Tim about how she could never invite him to dinner with her parents because he's just as much of a freak as she is) - something like "Was I just a monkey to you?" That IS how it looks from the outside. But Melody's delivery of her situation as living in a bubble that only he could get thru FELT enough like an answer that Griff ultimately has to forgive her. Or is it return to her?

Actually, he rejects her after that explanation, but only after he witnesses Melody's own unbelievable gift do they both realize that they belong together.

In the end, I'm not sure what they're existence is really like except that they are together and they are happy. It's sweet to see Tim being a willing enabler/helper, but I think that lends weight to the notion that Melody and Griff are sharing a life in the "normal" real world, and visiting Griff The Invisible's alternate reality strictly for fun, in an almost cosplay sort of scenario. Which is the proper happy ending, I guess.

The other path leads to the end of MAZES AND MONSTERS. A totally valid option, but tonight, I'm glad that it went happy.

It's a simple, and absolutely required bit of dis/continuity in telling a story like this, but I appreciate the proper flipping of props, costumes, and sets between Griff's reality and the everyday. The effects for the super-reality were pretty damn good, too. Not POW! BIFF! BLAM!, but just cool enough and cool.

A lot of the supporting cast have some great moments...

When Griff's boss Gary speaks to him about how he could make life easier for himself if he learned to be invisible, it's a very thoughtful take on living day-to-day life, surviving it. And it seems like, for a minute, it might sink in with Griff. Of course, he goes another way entirely. =)

Melody's parents each get a sweet moment. Almost John Hughesian. When dad walks in on Melody busy at work, which yields some pointilist art inspired by the space in between atomic particles, he nods at her explanations and theories, and she smiles, knowing that he's nodding, and he tells her that he and her mother just want her to be happy. It's sweet.

When mom walks in to call her down to dinner and ultimately meet the new, de-powered, Griff, Melody hits her with a big Question: something like... Do you think that life exists by chance, or by design...? Oh, and leave religion out of it. Mom comes back with, "I think it's like gymnastics... You look up at the stars and you see infinity. You look down in a microscope and you see infinity again. And here, in the middle, this is life. And it's like being on the balance beam, perfectly balanced, in the middle... This is life." Something like that, at least. And it was quite lovely.

Yeah, I'm a sucker. Wanna fight about it?

The music was fun, and in particular this one theme that starts out with this, like, I dunno, Casio keyboard, one-key-at-a-time melody, and then builds up in layers. I'd like to learn to make some music like that some day. It seems simple, but builds up to something really fun.

The first time it sort of speaks up, the first time I pay attention to it, is when Melody first appears. I didn't quite recognize it as such, but maybe it's her theme? It's the music that leads up to her first *bonk* of the film, and, comic book nerd that I am, I instantly wish-know why it is she knocks herself into the wall. She is testing herself for a superpower - phasing.

There's a cut to her scribbling in her notebook right after that, apparently recording the result of her test, maybe suggesting a modification for her next test, but alas, I couldn't make out enough of the handwriting to know for sure.

Still, in my fanboy heart, I knew. I guess the movie probably won me right there.

I wish I could've seen this for the first time with a date who would get what was going on.

Eh, who am I kidding? I wish I could've seen this for the first time with Melody. =)

Keep on keepin on~

BTIES: Shallow Gravy's "Jacket!" =)

See the Venture Family as you've never seen them before: in an 11 minute documentary-style animated uncensored special. Follow the meteoric rise, the equally meteoric fall, and the decidedly un-meteor-like second coming of the most important band Hank Venture, Dermott Fictel and H.E.L.P.eR. robot have ever been in--Shallow Gravy. If you're hungry for rock, then open wide--because here comes a ladle of heavy metal fire and metaphoric meat drippings!

Download the music video via iTunes now! =)

Keep on beepin on~

BTIES: "You literally bust a nut..."

Love it when Colbert lets his genuine schoolboy/fanboy self show. Especially, of course, when I'm right there with him. =)

STS-135 crew: Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Rex Walheim & Sandy Magnus

www.colbertnation.com

Keep on keepin on~

#Earthquake

Dateline: Tuesday afternoon, post-earthquake Somerville.

Felt it at the office. It was like the bridge of the Excelsior at the start of STAR TREK 6: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. Joe noticed it first. I thought it was a heavy truck rolling by on the street, but then I saw how the iced coffee in my DnD cup was swaying, and the water in Joe's glass and my water bottle. Once I stood up, I could really feel it, too. Pretty cool. Kinda nuts.

Where could we look for confirmation or explanation? Where else? The tweets, which out-informed official news sources for several minutes by my click-reckoning. Is this AMAZING? Ask me again when someone's name trends and it's because everytwit thinks he's dead, and he's not. Just another day in the future.

Still, despite the lopsided ratio of coverage to actual event, it's kinda nifty to see happen.

It being an east coast earthquake, a lot of the twits and fakebook updates do sorely tempt the "that's what she said" reflex.

"Did you feel that?"

"I felt it."

"The room shook!"

"We felt it in the ball room..."

... and such. =)

How many observers do we need at the macro scale to actually change the outcome of an event? Is that possible? Y'know, besides on FUTURAMA, "reality" shows, and documentaries?

Did you know that Colorado got quaked last night? And today, Virginia! Is it Lex Luthor making another attempt at creating new oceanfront real estate?

Or maybe it's a new supervillain making his or her debut? Or could it be a result of fracking? Or maybe those are both actually the same question, eh? Hrmmmm...

Or wait, if you factor in the hurricane action, well, if we receive reports of hot hail from anywhere, I'd hafta say Ming the Merciliess is back. There *is* a question mark at the end of that movie, y'know.

Keep on keepin on~