Comic-Con Goings-On

The annual nerds fest in San Diego, California, is in full-tilt gear.  Things to sort of care about:

• The Avengers 2 gets a subtitle: "Age of Ultron"
• How I Met Your Mother jokes on it's now nine-year high concept.
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire gets a new trailer:

• Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones is slated to direct Warcraft based on the obscenely popular and nerdy World of Warcraft game.
• Tom Cruise made his first ever appearance to promote the sci-fi Groundhog Day film All You Need is Kill Edge of Tomorrow.
• Veronica Mars: The Movie, the game changing Kickstarter production based on the Kristen Bell television series gets a first look featurette.

Oh, and the sequel to Man of Steel will feature Batman, but whatever.

Man of Steel

There's a sweaty, pulsating sense of pressure that permeates through every frame of Man of Steel, Zack Synder's exhausting reboot of the long in distress Superman movie franchise.  So strenuous and aggressive is the entire enterprise, the only summation that can truthfully be felt is an urgent sense of nerves.  That sounds about right, especially in the light of the difficulties that the powers that be at Warner Bros. and D.C. Comics have had in building and re-building their distinctive canon of characters to the screen, what with all the false starts, misguided behind the scenes decisions, and the general nerviness of an undertaking something so big, noisy and expensive.  After all, the superhero cinematic landscape has undergone a drastic coming of age since the 1978 Richard Donner Superman first took flight, ushering in an era of comic book extravaganzas.  The movies have gotten bigger, grander and grittier, distilling real world terrors with their iconography.  There's a quivering notion walking into Man of Steel on whether there's still a place for Superman in this landscape after all, is he, the beloved grandfather of them all still relevant in a post- 9/11 superhero climate?

Man of Steel hasn't quite successfully answered that question, but for a movie that's as utterly watchable as it frustrating, one that for every satisfying moment or performance or tiny nook to cling to fails to satisfy as a whole, it does try in earnest to alter the cinematic impression of it's iconic character, now celebrating his seventy-fifth year of preserving truth, justice and the American way.  With Christopher Nolan serving as maestro after his unqualified success at rebuilding Batman from the flamboyant throes of self-parody, and with a screenplay by David S. Goyer, the intention is that Man of Steel will, of course, rear Superman out of the dusty cob-webs of his past and flesh out the character and the broader universe that contains him-- you know, and show up all those Marvel guys and their billion dollar success stories.

The result is frantic, over-bloated and sadly, under-nourished.  That pressure culminates in a lot of movie, one of excess and such over-the-top massive-ness, that the ingredient that's forgotten is the fun, the thrilling lure and unabashed glee of popcorn entertainment exciting the senses and taking flight.  Instead it's more of a connect-the-dots action film where point A leads to nothing more than grandly executed bits of explosive point B nonsense.  It's all a bit of a shame, for the smaller moments (what few there are to begin with) of Man of Steel are capably performed that given just a bit more time to properly jell or the tiniest hint of subtlety, this Superman may have been given a chance to soar emotionally just as does through the air so adroitly.  Instead the film is distinctly mechanical, a bit cold, and ironically, while trying to distill more of a sense of a real world to surround the man and superman reverts itself into something all the more shallow and cartoonish by forgetting the most valuable thing any film needs: a beating heart.

Man of Steel and the Billion Dollar Dream

Back in the Jurassic Era of blockbuster filmmaking, the benchmark for success was when a film hit the $100 million mark at the box office.  It feels like a million years ago, but truly, it really wasn't that long ago.  An even stranger occurrence in the not-too-distant past was the word of mouth quotient to a films playability, one of which, if deemed by the masses, could extend months and months in theaters, as opposed to the new (but not completely improved) idea of a three month window between opening night and its DVD/Blu-Ray release.  Of course, those days are gone-- now in the age where social media works as a defacto say so on public opinion and bad omens portend to films that fail to break records opening night, much less opening weekend-- welcome to 21st Century Hollywood. 

Now the benchmark for success is (imagined said with Dr. Evil-like impishness) ONE BILLION DOLLARS!  Worse yet, the biggest, most tentpoliest offerings from major studios almost need to make a billion dollars to become profitable.  Next weeks hopeful addition to the fray of only sixteen feature films that have crossed this international barrier is Warner Bros.' hotly anticipated Man of Steel.  Consider, however-- the film, a reboot of the Superman mythology, produced with careful care under the mighty eyes of Christopher Nolan (and the stand alone trilogy might of Batman behind him), directed by Zack Synder (Watchmen, 300, Sucker Punch) has a production budget north of $200 million.  This, not including promotional costs (which may well be another $100 million when all is said and done), back-end deals (sure to be considerable for talent, crew, executives, etc.), exhibitor costs (theater chains themselves earn a piece of the box office, usually considered half what a film earns, but perhaps negotiable slightly more in the favor of the studios for a film like Man of Steel) and, wow, yes, it will nearly need to earn a billion dollars in the international box office for it to truly be a hit.  Craziness...

Of course, Man of Steel is an important film to be successful for Warner Bros. and the future of the DC Comics cinema scope.  After all the botched attempts at trying to trigger a Justice League franchise (Nolan's Dark Knights didn't quite help out there) by way of terrible films (The Green Lantern?) and unwise backstage decisions (like tossing aside Joss Whedon's take on Wonder Woman?!@#$), Man of Steel is the first step in trying to build a DC universe to rival the oh-so-successful and billion dollar-able Marvel films-- point of reference, the last film to cross the billion dollar mark was Iron Man 3, thusly the only member of the 2013 class of films to do so as of now.  On this end, it's a sensible idea to go for the start from scratch approach, completely doing over the Richard Donner original and the Bryan Singer 2006 film Superman Returns, which read like a strangely built rebooted homage.  It's still risky and startling when it comes to the business model of current big budget films.  And a bit nonsensical considering only sixteen films have netted over a billion dollars in box office sales...ever.

Musings and Stuff's Snarky Summer Movie Part 2

Because the movies are nothing without franchises.

JUNE

June 7th, 2013

The first weekend of June will be a relatively quiet one because of the quick scheduling move on the part of Sony's After Earth moving a week earlier.  Again this might be a great weekend to catch up on (hopeful) art house pleasures like Before Midnight, Frances Ha and Stories We Tell, all of whom will likely be playing on 2,000+ screens the first weekend in May due to endless demand queries-- it could happen!  Otherwise the big attraction will come squarely from Fox's Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson buddy-dumb-dumb comedy The Internship about two loser salesmen who try to conquer the digital world of now by becoming interns at Google.  Shawn Levy, the director of the Night at the Museum franchise, helms what will surely be a compelling tale of middle aged men in competition with nerdy geniuses for future employment.  Rose Byrne, John Goodman and B.J. Novak co-star.  Trailer here.

If you want to be the cool kid in your selected city, the obvious movie-going choice for this weekend will be Joss Whedon's black and white, modern re-staging of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.  Whedon shot this during a break from shooting of The Avengers and it features a collective whos-who of past Whedon players including Amy Acker (Dollhouse), Alexis Denisof (aka Mr. Willow-- Alyson Hannigan's real-life husband and Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel alum), Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods) and Nathan Fillion (nearly everything.)  All which prompts a fun game of Whedon musical chairs to the tune of Shakespeare-- certainly a drinking game can arise from this somehow.  The film premiered to nice notices at last years Toronto Film Festival and this springs SXSW.  Strangely, given the popular cinematic art form of gutting the work of Shakespeare endlessly, Much Ado About Nothing has only been made into a theatrical film once before in 1993's Kenneth Branagh's version which starred Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Denzel Washington, and, ahem, Keanu Reeves; that version is actually a beaut and worthy of checking out as well.

Also opening: Provocative documentary Dirty Wars which follows investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, while Evocatuer: The Morton Downey, Jr. Movie is another documentary which explores the divisive, chain-smoking shock jock.

"Man of Steel" teaser (x2)

For those you braved The Dark Knight Rises this weekend, you were treated to the teaser of next summers big time superhero reboot-- that being Zack Synder's Man of Steel.  However, which version did you see.

Visually identical, the same pretentious, almost seemingly Tree of Life-like pacing- but with different voiceovers that provide an altogether different mood.