Yes, No, Maybe So: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"

In my superhero clogged mind, Spider-Man 3 has remained the gold standard of a dubious honor: by the time it had arrived you could justifiably feel like you'd seen the whole movie what with the multiple trailers, numerous clips and stills and two previous features with the exact same cast. X-Men: Days of Future Past has been teasing its teases and characters and counting down to its trailer for what feels like forever but it retains at least some mystery. I hope this is our last taste before the movie opens on May 23rd. It's not likely but I can dream. 

Because I am a glutton for punishment and The X-Men were a huge part of my developmental process as a human being (you don't even want to know how obsessed I was from the ages of, like, 8-18) will do like what we did with Maleficent. A Yes, No, Maybe So™ reaction to (almost) every last piece of the trailer.

Deep breath before the plunge. Okay let's go...

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New Pixar sequels announced, one more incredible than the other

Disney announced today that Pixar has more sequels in the pipeline after Finding Dory in 2016. For our sins, one of them is Cars 3, because as long as the company can make the GDP of several small nations by selling Lightning McQueen lunchboxes, there's no compelling reason to stop making Cars films, apparently. The good news is that Cars 2 probably sets the bar low enough that the next film in the franchise ought to be able to blast right over it without much trouble.

By far the better news, though, is that the studio is also gearing up for The Incredibles 2, a sequel to the one Pixar film that seems rich with possibilites to have its plot expanded upon. And Brad Bird is on hand to write the screenplay, at least, which is pretty much the only thing they had to say to keep me, for one, more than a little optimistic.

No dates are announced, but the studio has a full slate through Thanksgiving, 2016, so we likely have a solid three years of alternating hopefulness with troubling stories about last-minute director replacements or more.

Anyone besides me genuinely excited for The Incredibles 2? Can anyone muster up something even a little nice to say about Cars 3?

The Desolation of Smaug: Accentuate the Positive

Michael back again. Nathaniel recently asked us if any of us had seen The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Peter Jackson's latest Middle Earth chapter is entering its sixth weekend with $800+ million in the worldwide bank and three more Oscar nominations and it's gone completely unremarked upon at TFE.  But I could feel the life draining out of me as I attempted to review it. Surely the world did not need one more dissection of Peter Jackson’s chronic inability to rein in his material. What’s left to say, save that Desolation has exactly the problems you would expect it to have? Hell, one could get the same from any archived review of The Lovely Bones or King Kong. All the criticisms still apply.

So I junked that review and decided it would be good for the soul to write something positive instead. After all, Jackson is a maddening filmmaker not because he’s some worthless hack but because he frequently buries moments of brilliance in all the sprawling self-indulgence. So with that in mind here is a list of five things I loved or liked about The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug:

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Little Miss Cat Lady, Avatar Land, and Other Links

Coming Soon Quentin Tarantino is doing another western (The Hateful Eight) with Christoph Waltz. Sad face. Was hoping he'd try new genres with new stars. 
Film Doctor Her and the intimacy machine
The Guardian a questionnaire for A:OC's Abigail Breslin. Turns out that Little Miss Sunshine herself is a crazy cat lady. Yay! 

Carpetbagger Suzanne Vega is the latest musician to come out with having issues about the portrayal of the music scene in Inside Llewyn Davis
MNPP another fan of Scarlett Johansson's sensational work in Don Jon -- I tell you people... it's so embarrassing that this performance didn't get any Oscar traction!
Just Jared check out Evan Rachel Wood's singing pipes. Wowza. There's another actress to cast in movie musicals

Predictable Sequel News of the Moment
Cinema Blend Terminator Genesis which is already on two strikes (first you don't reboot a series based on time travel which already allows do-overs without pretending originals didn't happen / second they already practiced exceptionally uninteresting casting by getting TV girl badass to play movie girl badass) is now looking for the male lead. I hated the latest Die Hard but Jai Courtney is super nice to look at so can I root for him?
/Film Avatar Land  begins construction in Florida. James Cameron is helping design it because, you know, anything to slow down his filmmaking. I am only interested in going to a land like this if they really amp up virtual technology and you get to be actually inside the body of a huge blue alien with great abs and have hot virtual sex with hair braids

I feel like you could charge a lot of money for that. The park plans an opening to coincide with the Avatar sequels in 2016/2017... or if I know James Cameron, 2019/2020.

Unpredictable Sequel News of the Moment
Did you hear they're making a sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? The whole cast (except Tom Wilkinson *sniffle*) will return and Richard Gere and David Strathairn will join them.

Today's Watch
If you haven't yet seen Todrick Hall's Mean Girls parody, Mean Boyz. It's tres gay

My favorite bit is the "small pizza" punchline. Yours?

Podcast: Philomena Catching Fire

This week Nick, Nathaniel, Katey, and Joe discuss the blockbuster Philomena and that little arthouse indie The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Spoilers you might want to avoid for Philomena are here (32:00-32:20 / 35:00-35:30).

Some questions that need your answers in the comments:  Is Jennifer Lawrence better as Katniss than in her Oscar roles? Would The Hunger Games be better as a TV series? What is going on in the Hemsworth family gene pool? Is Philomena at 98 minutes too padded or too short or, paradoxically, both? And how many nominations can it hope for having conquered the auntie demographic?

You can listen here or download the conversation on iTunes. 

Philomena: Catching Fire