Super Friends – James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender

Posted July 24, 2014

TRUTH, LIES, AND PRESS JUNKETS Fassbender sips from his pint of Sussex Bitter Ale as his close friend and costar James McAvoy takes over the job of explaining the appeal of X-Men: Days of Future Past — both for audiences and for these two accomplished actors. It’s early still at the Lord Stanley in North London, but in true pub-sermonizing fashion, McAvoy becomes instantly animated. James McAvoy: People have been asking me a lot, “Why have superhero movies become so popular recently?” And they go, “Is it because they’ve become really serious and blah, blah?” I’m like, “No, it’s not.” […]

X-Men Days of Future Past

X-Men Days of Future Past

Posted June 16, 2014

I did not expect to love Days of Future Past the way I did. The concept was complicated and convoluted. There were stories from the set about the script changing or this or that going wrong. I didn’t love any of the earlier films in the franchise, even though X-Men was always my favorite cast of comic characters growing up. I actually feel like a lot of the franchise was really mishandled prior to this film. But that’s the cool thing about Days of Future Past – it’s this remarkable reset button. And it’s actually an X-Men movie done well. […]

the choices that make or break fandom

the choices that make or break fandom

Posted May 25, 2014

Bryan Singer had this article in SciFiNow discussing the comparisons between Avengers and X-Men. And it surprised me how wrong he is about so many things. First of all, Singer deserves a certain amount of credit for essentially creating the modern comic book film. That’s a post I’ve been meaning to write for ages and totally will. one day. soon. Anyway, he obviously has some understanding of the franchise he basically built and its relevance in the comic book world; some sense of how to treat the properties and take the material seriously. It’s dwarfed by Kevin Feige, but it’s […]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Posted April 4, 2014

There were a lot of things in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that were a lot of fun. Not the least of which is Captain America himself. Even so, it wasn’t quite what I expected. It was much more real world than prior Marvel movies, I think even more so than the Iron Man films. Because Tony Stark as a billionaire playboy doesn’t resemble much of real life even when he’s not in the suit. It almost didn’t even quite feel like a super hero movie. Which I liked. It took this very fantastic universe and grounded it in a […]

Divergent

Divergent

Posted March 26, 2014

My star rating would make Divergent seem like a nice, average, run of the mill kind of movie. But if you keep reading you’ll see it’s actually a slightly impressive adaption. Because apparently YA books are hard to adapt. But what Hollywood is finally figuring out (how many adaptations later?) is that the thing you need to do is let the movie deviate from the book; let it breathe and stretch and be a movie instead of a visual enactment of the book. Kel and I have been saying this for ages – you have to just make a good […]

Chris Evans Says He’s Ready to Leave Acting Behind

Chris Evans Says He’s Ready to Leave Acting Behind

Posted March 24, 2014

There’s no escaping Captain America — especially for the actor behind the blue mask. That’s not just a career assessment. It’s a physical reality. To gear up as the iconic Marvel superhero, Chris Evans’ trademark patriotic suit requires the actor to wear a snug latex undergarment that keeps the uniform from clinging to his sculpted muscles. Given the confines of the zip-from-the-back costume, Evans jokes that there’s one thing audiences won’t see Captain America do. “Not to get too graphic,” he says, “but you’d better hope you’re on a nice schedule in that thing. There are all these zippers and […]

Angelina Jolie| Maleficent Q&A

Posted March 24, 2014

Beware the unloved. If there is a lesson to be learned about the cruelest among us, it might be that one. Most villains, when you find them in real life, are born from pain, and pour it back on the world to keep from drowning in it. A few are heartless sociopaths who derive their power from persecution, and care about nothing else in the world but their own force of will. And some are just mad they didn’t get a party invitation. Consider Disney’s Maleficent in this latter category. Unhinged, and irrational. Or at least, she was. For all […]

best tv of 2013

best tv of 2013

Posted January 6, 2014

A friend asked me this year what my New Years tv marathon would be. I hadn’t really found a good one yet, because I feel like I’ve already seen everything I like. Quite a few times. I’d just finished s5 of Merlin which has been my favorite holiday indulgence for a while so there wasn’t anything left but to put them all on a list and move into the new year. Which is when she suggested Arn: The Knight Templar. It is officially the honorary mention this year. In part because it’s only 6 episodes so it is more of […]

Luke Evans swaps the valleys for the Shire

Posted December 24, 2013

At the age of 30, this Welsh actor became an overnight success. Now he’s playing dragon-slayers and Draculas in big-budget movies “They were the first victim of my career,” sighs Luke Evans ruefully. He was very attached to his tropical fish; at the end of each day he’d melt into a beanbag and gaze at them endlessly. But as the movies got bigger, stealing him from his London home for months at a time, they had to go. “These discus were beautiful. The fish man came into my house and scooped them out into bags, gave me £20 for them. […]

100 hot guys – 2013

100 hot guys – 2013

Posted December 21, 2013

The blog has been nothing but movie reviews for ages so it’s time to mix things up. And what better way than my annual adaptation of Buddy TV’s annual list of TV’s 100 Sexiest Men. I felt like narrowing the list even further this year than I normally do – no courtesy inclusion for popular shows or well liked guys. Just the top 20 of the top 100. Ranking legend:Numbers on the left are their placement this year – #1Numbers on the right in parenthesis are their rank last year – (5) #47 Steven R McQueen, The Vampire Diaries – […]