Trailer: Deadpool

Deadpool

If you’re not familiar with Marvel’s anti-hero Deadpool, maybe you should go and make yourself familiar because his game looks like it might be balls out fun.

I love it. The things that make Deadpool great, that is that he’s clearly insane and breaks the fourth wall, appear to be here in spades and also the game just looks like it might have some pretty insane combat.

Let’s not make an mistakes, this will probably be the most juvenile game to come out this year, but it looks like it might be a lot of fun too.

Trailer: Gears of War: Judgement

Gears of War: Judgment

Ok, so apparently there is a new Gears of War game coming. My reaction? Meh. Then I watched the trailer and you know what my reaction was? Meh.

No, serious, I don’t understand what people see in this game. The characters are terrible, the story is bare bones and the gameplay mechanics, though once pioneering in the “cover based shooter” have since been done better by lots of other games.

If there’s a hope here it’s that People Can Fly are involved, and they managed to make a good Gears of War game a few years back called Bulletstorm. I’m not exaggerating when I saw that Bulletstorm was a Gears game, the look and feel were basically lifted from Gears 2 and 3, however it managed to have a little _je ne said quois_ that elevated it above it’s cousins.

So there’s a hope this might be good, or at least a different Gears game, faint though it might be.

Trailer: Star Trek Into Darkness Teaser #2

Star Trek Into Darkness

Were you worried that the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness would be light on action? Then check this out:

First off, yes, I know I’m a few days late posting this. Second off, this looks like it’s going to continue in the same action packed vein as 2009s Star Trek, which I am looking forward to.

There’s an argument to be made that it’s not “real Star Trek” but you know what? 2009’s Star Trek was fun. End of story. Also, this one has Benedict Cumberbatch being a total bad ass and it looks like this one is the “Captain’s Character Development” episode.

If I have a worry it’s that –whether or not Cumberbatch is Khan or not– this one will basically be Wrath of Khan all over again. That can really work (see: First Contact) but it can also really not work when there’s no existing context (see: Nemesis).

Either way, I just have one more question:

IS IT 17TH MAY YET?

Trailer: The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring

You know what? I didn’t recognize Emma Watson the first time I watched this.

This trailer doesn’t so much, but it does show enough. The Bling Ring was a real thing. A group of young people tracked celebrities whereabouts online and then robbed their houses. Over the course of nearly a year they snatched nearly 3$ million worth.

Kind of a smart plan really, and make you never want to check in on Facebook or Yelp or FourSquare ever again. But then again, the cops caught up with them.

This trailer mostly shows the crew living to excess off their ill gotten gains (side note, I don’t care what anyone says about ‘booty’ or ‘swag’, ill gotten gains is still by far the coolest way to say “stolen goods”) set to awesome party music with only real hints of the police being on their tail. Also, this films looks very much like a Sofia Coppola film. She does have a style, doesn’t she?

Not Awesome: Disney Has No Plans for Traditional Animation

Disney

[Ben Child Writing for The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/mar/07/disney-hand-drawn-animation)

> Speaking at an annual shareholder’s meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday, chief executive Bob Iger revealed that none of the studio’s animation companies was working on 2D, hand-drawn material for the big screen. While Iger did not rule out returning in the future to the style which made the company famous, the long gestation period for Hollywood animated productions means a gap of several years before any new film might emerge.

> “To my knowledge we’re not developing a 2D or hand-drawn feature animated film right now,” said Iger. “There is a fair amount of activity going on in hand-drawn animation but it’s largely for television at this point. We’re not necessarily ruling out the possibility [of] a feature but there isn’t any in development at the company at the moment.”

> The news will upset fans of traditional hand-drawn animation, who had been cheered by the revival of the form under John Lasseter, the Pixar boss who also became Disney Animation’s chief creative officer in 2006. Lasseter told a London audience for a 2009 screening of Bolt (a CGI animation) that he had re-hired many of the animators who were ditched by the previous regime because of the emergence of computer-generated technology in the 1990s.

The sad fact is that their last couple of hand drawn animated films haven’t found audiences. The Frog Princess made nearly 300$ Million to be sure, however it’s the exception. Remember that Winnie the Pooh movie they put out a couple years back? Yeah, neither do I. Most of the rest of 3D animated films have pulled in 300$ as a minimum.

However, [Paperman](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/02/watch-disney-animated-short-paperman/) was produced by people drawing with computers, so while pencil may not hit paper again any time soon let’s hope at least that stylii hit screens (because that movie was gorgeous).

Trailer: Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado

Oh. Hells. Yes.

Just so we’re clear, one of my favourite directors got all his friends together for 12 days and shot a modern adaptation of Shakespeare in his own house in black and white as a “palate cleanser” after doing a huge studio block buster. How is this anything other than win?

There’s a reason this is one of my [most anticipated films of the year](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/01/matts-most-anticipated-of-2013/), and the trailer makes it look every bit as fun, witty, awesome, and damn cool as I was hoping.

Not Awesome: Knights of Badassdom being Held Hostage?

Knights of Badassdom

Knights of Badassdom has had a hell of a go. I first heard about it a couple years back and then nothing. Then a trailer dropped, and then nothing again. Now it seems that one of the production companies CEO has hijacked the project, and that as a result it might not even make it to theatres the way that the director/writer/etc intended. WTF.

The site created by one of the original investors in protest appears to be down but yu can get all the pertinent details from [Badass Digest](http://badassdigest.com/2013/03/04/the-not-so-badass-state-of-the-knights-of-badassdom):

> Two years ago the trailer for Knights of Badassdom, a LARPing comedy directed by Wrong Turn 2 helmer Joe Lynch, killed at Comic Con. The premise is delightful: a group of nerdy LARPers (including Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage, Community’s Danny Pudi and Serenity’s Summer Glau) come upon a real Lovecraftian horror that threatens the world, and they must defeat it. The trailer was simply great.

> And then… nothing.

> Knights of Badassdom just sort of sat around for years. The story behind its delay is ugly and kind of stupid – the production company behind the film, IndieVest, seems to have been run into the ground through terrible and possibly fraudulent business practices, and the owner of that company has stolen the film from Lynch and made his own 70 minute cut.

Disconcerting to say the least. I’m really hoping this all gets resolved because this movie looks kind of amazing. Check the red band trailer here:

Trailer: Disconnect

Disconnect

What’s that you say? A movie about how are interconnectedness is anctually disconnecting us from people?

Oh wait, maybe not so much. This looks promising to me, but it also looks like a film that will spend the first two acts or so convincing you it will have something big to say and then in the third act everything will come to a head but we won’t actually learn anything.

Trailer: Dead Man Down (Red Band)

Dead Man Down

This one has been off my radar so I didn’t actually realize it comes out tomorrow.

I’ve been kind of cold on this dilm to date because the trailers previous to this one have all kind of… sucked. This one does a better job of making it seem like I might like this movie, which is good because it’s full of people I like.

Trailer: What Maisie Knew

What Maisie Knew

Have you had your heartstrings tuggeed recently? No? Well watch this trailer then.

I haven’t read _What Maisie Knew_ but I am aware of the plot. Updating it from it’s 1890s context to now is makes a lot of sense. At the time of it’s writing the book was a reflection on society in which the story was somewhat scandalous whereas now it’s story is the new normal for a lot of people. It’ll be interesting to see how much of the original criticism comes through.

Awesome: Jon Stewart to Direct Feature This Summer

Jon Stewart

[Mike Fleming Jr. Writing for Deadline](http://www.deadline.com/2013/03/jon-stewart-daily-show-hiatus-john-oliver-hosting-rosewater/):

> EXCLUSIVE: Jon Stewart will take a 12-week summer hiatus from hosting Comedy Central‘s The Daily Show to make his feature directing debut. Stewart has written the script for and will direct Rosewater, an adaptation of the book Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love, Captivity And Survival. Published in 2011 by Random House, the book is Maziar Bahari’s harrowing ordeal of leaving London in June 2009 to cover Iran’s presidential elections. With a pregnant fiance left behind, the BBC journalist expected to be away for a week. Instead, he spent the next 118 days in Iran’s most notorious prison being brutally interrogated by a man he knew only by one thing: he smelled of Rosewater.

I, along with everyone else in the world, normally associate Stewart with comedy. I can see this film having funny moments, but this is not a comedy. However, given his intelligence, wit and timing, I sincerely hope this turns out really well.

Awesome Classics: Top Gun

Top Gun

Yeah, that’s right. Top Gun is a classic.

The problem with talking stunt something that everyone has seen is that everyone has seen it and everyone already has an opinion, and Top Gun is certainly a polarizing film among my circle of friends. In case you hadn’t already guessed though: I love it.

In case you haven’t seen it Top Gun follows Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a US Navy fighter pilot as he competes to be the best of the best at what he does at Top Gun, the navy’s elite fighter wining school. He shows up cocky, gets beaten, endures some loss, falls in love, and in the end is the hero. When you lay it out on paper it’s a fairly straightforward formula action movie. It’s that way on screen as well.

That is to say that the movie is pretty shallow, especially by today’s standards, but it does make a cursory effort to be more than the shallow testosterone fest it seems to be. Two thirds of the way into the film when a beloved supporting character dies it shows the main character reeling and vulnerable from survivors guilt and regret. If it breaks from the mold at all it’s that in the age of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone churning out movies like Predator, First Blood, and Commando it dared to actually show it’s hero mourning instead of just shedding a single tear before throwing his head back and screaming at the heavens, invoking super human power to overcome the ridiculous odds he’s about to face.

Yes, I’m saying that the hero of Top Gun is in fact human whereas most 80s heroes were not.

Tom Cruise was 24 in 1986, he’s hardly at best form here, but he’s better than the movie needs him to be, especially when it comes to the switching back and forth between the ultra cocky public persona that Maverick cultivates and the unsure private persona you see when it’s just him and Goose, his best friend.

But then there is the rest of the movie. A movie with awesome exciting dog fighting, with dude-bro alpha male rivalry, with 24 year old Tom Cruise falling in love with 29 year old and taller than him Kelly McGillis, with a zillion catch phrases and and awesome high five/low five when the main characters score a point in volleyball. And yes, the volleyball features men oiled up and playing in the sand.

There’s a lot of people in this world that will tell you Top Gun is shallow. That it’s thinly veiled homoeroticism. That it’s stupid. They aren’t wrong (well, they are wrong about the homoeroticism, the intended audience for that was the girl friends of all the dude-bros that went to see it), but none of that matters. At the end of the day it’s well executed and fun.

Recently I had the chance to see it in 3D IMAX in the lead up to its Blu-Ray re-release and it holds up pretty well. There’s something to be said for the shared movie experience, when everyone in the theatre is there and completely into the movie. Only a few times have I truly experienced this, but it’s amazing. The 3D, well, I could write a whole other article on 3D but it was OK, but blown up to IMAX proportions the film was amazing.

And all this is fueled by Kenny Loggins 80s pop rock anthems.

So is the whole thing cheesy? Yes. Shallow? Absolutely. Fun? Beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen Top Gun, or more likely someone who hasn’t seen it in years, now is the time. Grab the Blu-Ray (or go to a screening if they are still happening near you), have a few beers, crank the sound and take highway to the danger zone.

Yeah, I went there.

Trailer: Iron Man 3 Theatrical Trailer

Iron Man 3

So this dropped this morning at 9am. I’m a little behind, but thats because I’ve been watching it. Without further ado:

As you’re probably aware we’re pretty excited here at Awesome Friday HQ for Iron Man 3. The story they are adapting, Extremis, is one of the best of recent years plus the infusion of Shane Black’s style and humour could potentially make this the best of the Iron Man series, maybe even the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date.

I just realized that I may have slightly betrayed how high my hopes actually are. Either way, you know my butt will be in a seat come May 3rd.