The Superheroes Are Coming. After the Oscars.

Travel with me into spring 2016 - it will help you to appreciate the now of prestige season more! 2016 is arguably the year in which we see just how insatiable the public's appetite for spandex crime fighting is. Especially now that they can watch the same on TV regularly for free with Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Supergirl, Flash, Agent Carter, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham all on the air now or by the end of 2016. I'm not an expert on the topic but this feels like the most based-on-comics material that movies/tv have ever seen in one calendar year (There was almost even one more but Channing Tatum's Gambit movie is now looking at 2017 since it hasn't started filming.)

2016's Superhero Schedule
Feb 4th   Deadpool (Fox)
Mar 25th Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (WB)
May 6th  Captain America: Civil War (Marvel/Disney)
May 26th X-Men: Apocalypse (Fox)
Jun 3rd   Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (Paramount)
Aug 6th   Suicide Squad (WB)
Nov 6th   Doctor Strange (Marvel/Disney)

So far awards bodies like Emmy and Oscar haven't much cared about the genre at all. Apart from two things...

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News Bits & Bobs: Steve & Natasha, Jenn & Donald, Taika & Mjölnir

• Asking the important question: Is Captain America a virgin still? [Pajiba]
• Damnit. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have delayed the opening of their new museum. I'm so excited about this but we're talking 2018 now [Variety]
• Queen of Dystopia Jennifer Lawrence (who should thus know) has declared that if Donald Trump becomes President it will be "the end of the world". This may have been the most intelligent thing the verbally uninhibited actress has ever said [AV Club]
•  71's awesome debut director Yann Demange will director a true crime story about a teenage undercover informant - they're looking for a quick start in 2016. Yay! [Deadline] 

• John Waters might finally make another movie. But he won't talk about it yet! [Speakeasy]
• Black Widow is getting a new comic book in 2016. Why can't the movies understand that she deserves her own? [Comics Alliance]
• Harry Potter's voice actor in Brazil (Caio César Ignácio Cardoso de Melo), who also works as a cop, has been killed. Tragic. [The Guardian]
• 10 reveals from Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age of Ultron commentary including why he put them in marble in the end credits (I personally ♥ed that) [Coming Soon]
• What the hell is going on with Xander (Nicholas Brendan) from Buffy? Violence and arrests right after rehab? So sad. Hope he pulls out of this tailspin. [Variety]
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt will likely headline a new thriller In Sight from screenwriter Katie Lovejoy after a bidding war [Tracking Board]
• Handsome* New Zealander hired to lift Mjölnir. Taika Waititi of What We Do in the Shadows fame will direct Thor: Ragnarok [The Wrap]
• An interesting review of Janet Jackson's new album via Rich Juzwiak. I wish the talented Juzwiak didn't have to diss Madonna to complement her but dissing that icon is as natural to humans as breathing. (sigh) [Defamer] 
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tatiana Maslany, Olivia Cooke, and Gina Rodriguez are all in the mix for the two key female roles in Star Wars Episode VIII. That's a formidable shortlist of strong popular diverse and young actresses. Let's hope the two roles are good and not just window dressing. John Boyega will chemistry test with them. [/Film]

*What? I met him one time at a festival for his second directorial feature Boy and to my surprise was struck semi-incoherent. I am only human. 

Guardians Up, Captain Down at the Saturn Awards

The Saturn Awards, which began in the 1970s, get increasingly more confusing each decade. When they first began they were very sci-fi/fantasy niche and now they regularly seem to honor films that don't have anything at all to do with once geeky now mainstream genres like that. Consider that they have nine best picture type categories and they're expansive enough in their definitions that at least half of Oscar's Best Picture nominees were nominated for something and Whiplash and The Theory of Everything even get to be Best Film winners -- neither of which seem at all "genre" though I suppose The Theory of Everything is kinda cosmic in that it has a genre icon in Stephen Hawkings as its subject.

The big winners at the annual event were Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy. The big loser was Captain America: Winter Soldier which had the most nominations of all (11) and managed to lose them each one. Complete list of winners after the jump...

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Age of Ultron... And Marvel's Very Long "Connected" Movie

This article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Movies really ought to be seen (and reviewed for that matter) on their own terms. But what if their very terms are -- "it's all connected!?" I had the exhaustive if qualified pleasure this week of attending "The Ultimate Marvel Marathon," in which select theaters across the nation played back-to-back screenings of all 11 of Marvel Studio's films. Those take you from Iron Man (2008) through to the latest superheroic orgy of mayhem known as The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Between the screenings (20-30 minute breaks) were interstitials selling the television program "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" that frequently reminded us that it was 'all connected'. Does the latest film The Avengers: Age of Ultron satisfy all on its own? My early guess -- only time will tell -- is "not so much" but then, is it really intended to? 

Seeing the movies back-to-back threw their problems into sharp relief: the movies are ultimately formulaic, disinterested in women, and have weakly conceived villains (an oddity given that good villains are such a comic book staple). They also betray an unfortunate tendency to end with a battle in which large inanimate objects frequently collide or crumble, mistaking mass destruction as the highest form of entertainment when the figurative character beats as well as, yes, literal character beatings are nearly always the most pleasurable moments.

On the plus side, the marathon was a great reminder of why blockbuster culture has been stampeding all over more intimate cinematic triumphs for a long time now. [More...]

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Observations from the Ultimate Marvel Marathon

So, as those of you who read every post know, I attended the Ultimate Marvel Marathon from Wednesday to Thursday night. The AMC staff was very present and high energy and it was a fairly well run event. The best part was that once you were seated, you got to keep that seat for the duration so if you wanted a sleeping break, you could have it and when you came back your seat was still there for you! Magic.

The only super gross part? How filthy with popcorn and garbage the theater got by the end as their were no cleaning breaks. Here's my Age of Ultron review but if you're curious about the general marathon event. Read on.

Herewith a few casual observations from the Marathon as well as some impromptu lists

THE EVENT SCHEDULE 

6:00pm IRON MAN (2008)
Twas curious to see this again knowing what it spawned, and how confident it was that it would be spawning it since it ends with an Avengers tease (then still 4 years away). It's also alarmingly sexist which I had kind of forgotten with Leslie Bibb in an awful role as a Vanity Fair reporter.

8:25pm THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)
This was the film I had the vaguest memory of. Tim Roth makes a committed villain but once he's CGI he's no longer special. Edward Norton is like the opposite body type of Mark Ruffalo so that's an interesting casting switcheroo. It was also funny to notice that they used to paint abdominal muscles on the actors as opposed to making them workout for months prior to filming; things changed quickly as superheroes began to dominate pop culture. P.S. Liv Tyler's voice sure is breathy!

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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