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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.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Awesome: Harrison Ford joins Anchorman 2

Harrison Ford

[The Hollywood Reporter](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/harrison-ford-signs-anchorman-2-425885):

> Before dusting off the Millennium Falcon for a Star Wars sequel, Harrison Ford will sharpen his comedic chops for a role in Paramount’s Anchorman 2.
OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS

> Ford will play a legendary newscaster a la Tom Brokaw in the Adam McKay-helmed comedy, which begins shooting this month in Atlanta

I’m still on the fence about Anchorman 2, but there’s no way this is anything other good news. If they play it right Ford could steal the entire movie.

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Awesome: Halle Berry to Return as Storm in “X-Men: Days of Future Past”

Storm

[Deadline reporting](http://www.deadline.com/2013/03/halle-berry-to-return-as-storm-in-bryan-singers-x-men/):

> Deadline has confirmed the actress will reprise her role as Storm in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

Granted, they don’t have any other details, but I personally hope they have as many of the actors back as possible so they can merge all the timelines and maybe set out on continuity and go from there.

What, it could happen.

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Trailer: Trance Red Band Trailer

Trance

If I’d known about Trance at the beginning of the year there’s a pretty good chance it would have been on my [most anticipated list][ma]. This is a red band trailer so it’s not exactly safe for work, but it’s a very good trailer.

I love Danny Boyle. He’s incredibly adept at pulling off completely freaky imagery. Based on this trailer I seriously can’t wait to see this movie.

[ma]: https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/01/matts-most-anticipated-of-2013/ “Matt’s Most Anticipated of 2013”

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Trailer: Oblivion Trailer #3

Oblivion

I’ve been on the fence about Oblivion for a while now. If Tron: Legacy was any evidence, Joseph Kosinski is good at making films look good but not at making them actually compelling, and that’s the sort of feeling I’ve been getting from the existing two trailers.

Then they released this one:

I still don’t know if this is going to be a great movie but this trailer certainly goes a lot further in convincing me it’ll be a good one. What do you guys think?

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Review: Jack the Giant Slayer

Jack the Giant Slayer

It’s been less than two hours since I walked out of Jack the Giant Slayer and I can barely remember what happened. That’s not exactly a good thing, is it?

Here’s the basic set up: Nicholas Hoult plays Jack who goes to the market and sells his horse for some beans that grow a giant bean stalk into the sky via which giants attack. Pretty straightforward, really.

The problem is that despite all it’s intentions, the movies just kinda boring. There’s some pretty cool set pieces but even though it kills off some characters –including ones I understood going in were major characters– it just never felt like there was any real peril, and the movie spends so much time going back and forth between the giants being farting, nose picking bumbling fools and menacing, angry, “let’s bite the head off this human” monsters that a tone isn’t ever really effectively set.

Similarly, Jack is chastised by his uncle for being a lazy and easily distracted fool but as soon as the bean stalk grows he immediately proves himself neither lazy, easily distracted or foolish. No development there, just a switch that gets flipped to serve the plot.

The plot itself is pretty thin and it’s not really compelling at all. In fact, it’s almost like they came up with a bunch of ideas for things they wanted to see happen first and then wrote just enough of a story to string those things together and nothing else. It’s frustrating even, since there are just a few changes they could have made which yes, would have made the story a bit more cliche but which would have given Jack a better personal, relatable arc. I get the feeling they might have been avoiding the heroes journey on purpose but the end result is uninteresting.

If you’ve seen [the trailer](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/02/trailer-jack-the-giant-slayer/) you might go in thinking that it’s going to be an effects extravaganza but it’s not. There are effects everywhere to be sure, but the giants don’t look good enough for me to have suspended disbelief enough for me not to notice that all the CGI is good but nowhere near being great.

In fact at the start of the film the back story is provided by Jacks father reading the legend of the giants which is played out on screen in what’s meant to be stylized animation but instead just looks like terrible video game cut scenes. You can see that they were going for something similar to the [backstory sequence in Hellboy II](http://www.anyclip.com/movies/hellboy-ii-the-golden-army/story-of-the-golden-army/) but they missed the mark utterly.

It’s annoying too that the despite a pretty stellar cast I couldn’t really bring myself to care about many of the characters. Nicholas Hoult is fine as Jack and Eleanor Tomlinson is fine as the princess (yes of course there’s a princess) but Stanley Tucci is basically just being Slimeball Stanley Tucci here. It’s not terrible to watch but it would have been nice to see some experimentation. Bill Nighy is the same as the leader of the Giants. It’s a voice role to be sure, but it’s just Bill Nighy’s angry voice and nothing more. (side note: despite voicing over the trailer, Sir Ian McKellan isn’t in this at all that I could see/hear. Weird.)

The standout for me is Ewan McGregor who basically dials up the swagger to 11 and runs with it. He steals most every scene he’s in, and every time he’s not on screen I found myself wondering when he’d be back.

In my mind I like Bryan Singer. He’s made some amazing movies, two of which I count among my all time favourites, but everything he has done since X-Men 2 has fallen pretty flat. He doesn’t nail down a tone, his pacing is all over the map, and character development is at a minimum.

That’s not to say that there aren’t bright spots. Again, there are a couple of good set pieces, there are a few funny moments and there are some nice character moments, but all in all the film is just mediocre fluff. Not outright bad, just boring.

My question is this: how many more of these “let’s take an old story and go all M. Night Shyamalan ‘what a twist!’ on it’s ass” movies are we going to have to go through? Can we be done now? Please?

Meantime, if you want to see Nicholas Hoult act well then go see if [Warm Bodies](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/02/review-warm-bodies/) is still playing.

***Rating: 5/10
[rating=5]***

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Review: Black Mirror, Series Two Episode Three, “The Waldo Moment”

Black Mirror

Charlie Brooker is back again folks. Three more extreme but within-the-realm-of-possible stories to get us thinking about ourselves.

I’m going to warn you right now that this will contain spoilers. I am going to do my best to keep them to a minimum however I can’t talk about everything I want to talk about without including a few so I highly recommend that if you haven’t seen this episode yet you’d best bookmark this, go watch, and come back. There will also be some spoilers for series one of Black Mirror. Normally I’d consider a previous series fair game, but spoiling some of this stuff would be like spoiling who Kaiser Soze is, so seriously: go watch and then come back. You’ve been warned.

The last episode of this series concerns a down on his luck, already self loathing failed comedian Jamie and his creation Waldo.

Jamie hasn’t had any success, although it’s implied his friends all have, on his own but he has created a computer animated character called Waldo. Waldo is controlled and voiced by Jamie so that when they spring him on unsuspecting guests on the television program he’s a part of he reacts in real time and generally just takes the piss out of whoever he is talking to, and in particular a new conservative politician played by Tobias Menzies (late of Rome) called Liam Monroe.

There is also Gwendolyn. She’s running for the labour party in the same by election, but she has no qualms about what’s happening. It’s a safe seat for the conservatives and she’s just trying to raise her profile.

Things get a bit crazy when, after he’s had a surge in popularity, Jamies producer starts talking Waldo spin off and having Waldo stand in the by election that Monroe is running in.

They set about having Waldo follow Monroe around and in doing so steadily gains popularity. At the same time Jamie meets Gwendolyn and they hit it off and have a splendid night together but then she blows him off so she can focus on the campaign. Jamie does not take this well.

At the all candidates debate Waldo is doing his schtick when Monroe attacks Jamie directly and he has a moment that, to be honest, I think a lot of people would. He tells of Monroe for being a phoney, claiming to represent the regular folk of his constituency but actually holding himself above them and toeing party lines and when Gwendolyn chimes in she barely gets a word in edgewise before he outs her and just trying to get a bit of face time.

And that’s when things go off the rails for Jamie and for us.

As Waldo gains popularity Jamie slowly goes a bit mad as while he’s controlling Waldo, everyone else is controlling him, particularly his smarmy producer Jack (played by Jason Flemyng) who threatens to take Waldo out of his hands since Jamie created Waldo but doesn’t own the rights.

They both recognize the potential for Waldo to be influential but where Jack revels in it, Jamie is repulsed by the things they are proposing he do. They even are approached by “the agency” to take Waldo worldwide as a mouthpiece to control the masses.

When Jamie finally snaps and start telling people not to vote for him, he’s ousted and Jack takes over and immediately incites a crowd to attack him. When Waldo takes second place in the election, Jack incites the crowd to riot.

This episode isn’t subtle. The black mirror shows us not only how tired people are of the system, but how easily they can be manipulated just by something that’s new and different, not just spouting the same old bullshit. It makes a mockery not so much of the system itself but how the people in it operate.

Further, when Jack takes over and Waldo takes a turn for the darker, how easily all that good will and attention gained by that moment of pure and honest outrage can be used to manipulate people into kind of terrible things.

Monroe has one great line as well when asked about Waldo he says “If that thing is the main opposition then the whole system looks absurd –which it may well be– but it built these roads” That is to say, we may not like them or the system, but it’s what we’ve got to work with.

Basically the black mirror here shows us how, in our apathy, we can be controlled pretty much because we let ourselves be.

THis episode wasn’t as good as the rest because it’s bit, well, obvious. There aren’t as many big ideas as there are in [White Bear][wb] and the ideas aren’t as affecting as those explored in [Be Right Back][brb], Some of the ideas were also explored better in last years episode “15 Million Merits” in which a man is ripped out of complacency in his life in a dystopian future.

It’s still a solid outing, but because of all that I think it might be my least favourite to date even if the ideas it explores might be the most relevant to us today.

[wb]: https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/02/review-black-mirror-series-two-episode-two-white-bear/ “Review: Black Mirror, Series Two, Episode Two, ‘White Bear'”

[brb]: https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/02/review-black-mirror-series-two-episode-one-be-right-back/ “Review: Black Mirror, Series Two, Episode One, ‘Be Right Back'”