If it was good enough for The Avengers...

I'm a fan of Marvel, and have a great deal of love for what Disney, Marvel Studios and everyone involved has done in creating MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).  I'm also a fan of Joss Whedon.  I'd be lying if I said Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn't a part of my teenage years, and I love Firefly.  So imagine my excitement at the knowledge that these 2 loves were being brought together for Avengers Assemble.  Picture a kid at Christmas, then times it by a very large number.  As well as being an annoyance for Family, Friends and Colleagues, I kept a close eye on how much longer I would have to wait to see Avengers Assemble by using a countdown app on my phone.

So after watching the latest Iron Man 3 trailer (below, for any who haven't seen it yet),

I decided to fire up the old countdown app:

Because where would we be without Iron Man?  Undoubtedly the catalyst for the MCU as we know it today.  Marvel had had big screen outings in the past, as far back as Howard the Duck in 1986.  But even the more notable and recent entries, Spiderman, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, were insular at best, and only just palatable at worst.  The arrival of Iron Man in 2008 changed the landscape for Marvel completely.  Understandably there were things going on behind the scenes to help things along.  The creation of Marvel Studios new base of operations, the appointment of Kevin Feige, and the systematic recuperation of the rights to all it's now stable characters, among others.

For me, the fan, Iron Man was the signal of a new beginning.  A beginning that has now lead us to this, Iron Man 3 and the start of MCU Phase 2.  Let the count down begin.

p.s. since starting to write this post, the countdown is down to:

6 weeks, 5 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes, 15 seconds

Ant-Man just keeps getting better...

A lovely post appeared on my Twitter feed recently from @SciFiNow.  They'd found an article on IFC.com about Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

http://www.ifc.com/fix/2013/02/spirit-awards-mary-elizabeth-winstead-edgar-wright

Having worked together with Edgar Wright on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (as Ramona Flowers, pictured above), Mary Elizabeth Winstead expressed her desire to work with him again at a recent awards ceremony.  In particular when asked about his upcoming work on Ant-Man.

Now that Ant-Man is slated for a 2015 release as part of Marvel's 'Phase 3' and post Avengers 2, we're still a long way off getting anything like concrete casting at this point.  But with Marvel being hot property at the moment, they'll be no shortage of interest in the lead roles.  Knowing Winstead's name could be in the mix makes it all the more interesting.

I could see Mary Elizabeth Winstead as The Wasp, couldn't you?

Next on my wish list is Ultron....

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

This is certainly the motto employed by the writers and director of Broken City starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe.

Wahlberg plays the part of Billy Taggart, ex Police Detective turned Private Eye, with Russell Crowe as Mayor Hostetler.

At the beginning of the movie we see Taggart up in court on a murder charge, having been involved in a shooting whilst trying to make an arrest.  Taggart has killed someone suspected of raping and murdering a 16 year old girl.  A technicality sees the suspect cleared of the charges, whilst everyone knows he was actually guilty.  The implication being that Taggart deliberately shot the man to see justice done.  Taggart himself is cleared of his charges, before being hauled into an office to meet with the Mayor and the Police Chief.  Here he is told that new evidence has come to light that will surely convict him.  The evidence can be made to disappear, but he has to resign.

After Taggart leaves the office we flash forward 7 years where he is now a Private Eye.  Struggling to make ends meet due to his good nature, he gets a call from the Mayor and is offered a large amount of money to follow the Mayor's Wife (played by Catherine Zeta Jones), as the Mayor suspects her of cheating.  As you can imagine, this is just a ploy for a far more sinister scheme that is being orchestrated by the Mayor against the backdrop of his re-election campaign.  The Mayor's Wife turns out not to be cheating, but trying to bring the Mayor down, with Taggart used as a pawn by the Mayor to prevent this from happening.

What ensues is some nice drama, suspense, with gunplay and scuffles.  In the end it boils down to a duel between Mark Wahlberg's and Russell Crowe's characters.  Both have hidden secrets and dirty hands, and when Crowe's Mayor tries using Taggart's skeleton in the closet against him, Taggart finds his shot at redemption by calling his bluff, sticking to his guns and taking the Mayor and himself down in the process.

It's pretty standard stuff as far as plot goes, complete with slow motion exit by a redeemed and triumphant Wahlberg at the end.  Good performances by the leads, and a good supporting turn by Zeta Jones make it above average and good entertainment.  If you're at a loss for what to go and see this week before the big blockbusters start to drop down, you won't go far wrong here.

Silver Lining and the Oscars...

With The Oscars done for 2013, I looked back on the winners and found no surprises, other than that of Best Actress. This year it went to Jennifer Lawrence, and up to that point my main knowledge of her came from The Hunger Games.  When initially offered the part of Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence said she needed several days to think about it. Even though she was a fan of The Hunger Games novels, the scope of the part and the project could potentially go on to effect her future career.  As we know, she took the part, and I must say that it definitely seemed a part that didn't quite sit comfortably with her on screen. It will be interesting to see if that changes in the next instalment, now having one under her belt.  As a result of that performance, I couldn't imagine her sinking her teeth into a role that went on to land her the Best Actress Academy Award.

I missed the initial run of The Silver Linings Playbook at the cinema.  It was a time when I was still suffering the effects of an awkward and unintentional 'man date' situation.  Myself and a friend went to see Ruby Sparks together, not really knowing what it was all about.  As the credits began to roll, we looked across at each other knowing exactly what the other was thinking. What we had seen could only be described as a date movie.  Because of this, and an inkling that Playbook could be another potential 'man date' situation in the offing, Playbook passed me by.

Luckily, due to it's Oscar success, it was brought back for a select few showings.  So off I went, making sure I didn't miss another opportunity.  I had to get over my initial frustration at my local cinema not putting any trailers in before hand (something I've only experienced once before), which lead to me missing Bradley Cooper's opening monologue.  Once I had done this, I knew from the start I was watching something that I wouldn't find entirely comfortable.  In part due to the brilliant performances by Lawrence (Tiffany) and Cooper (Pat), and in part because they are so well supported by the likes of Robert De Niro (Pat Snr.), Chris Tucker (Danny) and Jacki Weaver (Dolores).

Pat and Tiffany are both Bi Polar sufferers.  Pat begins that film in a mental institution, where he has admitted himself to avoid jail time for beating his wife's lover to within an inch of his life.  Tiffany has lost her husband, and subsequently started sleeping with everybody she can.  The mental problems suffered by the main characters are so well executed, and between them Cooper, De Niro and Weaver create a home that is so exquisitely dysfunctional that you can see where Bradley Cooper's Pat has come to suffer from his own demons in the way that he does.  Pat's then dogged refusal to believe that his relationship with his wife is over, and his and Tiffany's using of each other to get what they want, is played out well enough to make you wonder why this would ever be considered a romance of any kind.  So that in the end, I was so convinced that their happy ending wasn't going to happen that I found myself fighting the urge to shout at the screen in frustration.

I enjoyed the film that much that it left me wondering not whether Jennifer Lawrence was good enough for her Oscar, but whether her own amazing performance was verging on being swallowed up by the strength of the supporting cast.  If you haven't seen this film already, get in there while you can for this limited post Oscar run.  You won't regret it.