Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

This review originally appeared in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

The Marvel Universe movies could have not existed before Right Now. Yet, for all the technological advances and computer wizardry that have made The Avengers and the like possible, the magic still comes from the humanity of the actors. No amount of technical prowess can make you care about Iron Man if a great actor hasn’t sold you on the bravado and change of heart of the man inside the suit. Captain America’s shield and super strength are great but his adventures don’t work if Chris Evans’s star turn isn’t so perfectly pitched to invoke fantasies of the nobility of a bygone American era. Without the humanity it’s just Trans4rmers and nobody wants that. (Shut up. I’m in denial about those billions). With Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios has gone Cosmic opening up a whole new movie wing for their ever-expanding universe. As they leave Earth behind, have they found a way to retain the humanity?

Yes and no. But not in the way you might expect.

It helps of course, on a superficial level that the movie begins on Earth and shamelessly pushes collective 80s nostalgia buttons by making Peter Quill, our hero, relentlessly nostalgic about that era. We first meet him as a little boy in 1988 and his most cherished possession twenty some years later when the movie takes place isn’t any of his impressive weapons or starship but a walkman with a cassette tape called “Awesome Mix Tape Volume 1”. It also helps that Quill is played by the endearingly simple Andy from “Parks and Recreation” a.k.a. Chris Pratt. Pratt’s new body may be imposingly hard, with all its cuddly body weight chiseled off, but those years of familiarity have given him a phantom comfy-ness. 

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Links

Screencrush offers hilarious proof that every superhero movie is called the greatest superhero movie ever. People are easily excitable!
Sight and Sound picks the best documentaries ever by pollling filmmakers: Man With a Movie Camera, Shoah and more...
MBetancourt finishes his Instagram Buffy The Vampire Slayer project. It was awesome. Naturally "Tabula Rasa" was the most popular - but not because it's a great episode

PopBytes I normally dont link to super gossipy things but this Justin Bieber / Orlando Bloom fight is just so bizarre and the coverage keeps getting weirder. I guess...
Gawker ... Leonardo DiCaprio was also there, cheering Orlando on? I mean who wouldn't?
Vox I love Todd Vanderweff but I'm not sure I buy Lucy as a feminist movie, even one that's afraid of feminism as posited
Gawker "I am terrified of Reese Witherspoon and a little bit in love with her"
In Contention Rosewater by Jon Stewart starring Gael Garcia Bernal gets an awards friendly release date

Awards Daily another longer trailer for Birdman. I can't watch this one. I don't want to see one more frame before the actual movie
THR the top 25 film schools?
MNPP talks about that John Waters Isabelle Huppert event

RIP
As you've undoubtedly heard the influential makeup artist Dick Smith who made Linda Blair demonic in The Exorcist (currently discussing) and pushed Marlon Brando into hugely convincing Godfatheriness among other achievements has passed away at 92 years young. Some obits/tributes to read: LA Times, In Contention, EW, and multiple Oscar winner Rick Baker

Live(ish) from Comic Con: Marvel-ous Ant Man & Avengers 2

Anne Marie here, wrapping up coverage from San Diego Comic Con after 8 straight hours of studio announcements. Marvel had some major obstacles to overcome for its brief one hour panel. Edgar Wright's departure from Ant Man had generated negative press, and not everyone was thrilled with the studio's decision to put out release dates unattached to any actual films. WB had been gearing up for a fight, but overall so far Hall H's announcements had been more misses than hits. As the studio delayed 15 minutes into its start time and fans grew mad, the question hung in the air: could Marvel deliver?

Answer: Hell yes.

Ant Man
Marvel president Kevin Feige introduced a panel designed to assuage fan fears: Paul Rudd (new Ant Man), Michael Douglas (old Ant Man), Corey Stoll (confirmed as villain Yellow Jacket), Evangeline Lilly (Ant Man's love interest) and Peyton Reed, who stepped in to direct. Reed was quick to flash his geek cred: 20 straight years at Comic Con and a stint in a band named the Johnny Quests. But none of that really proves his credentials as Wright's replacement. Marvel even produced a minute long teaser, despite the fact that they don't start shooting for another two weeks. It's more than WB provided for Batman v Superman, but it's not enlightening. Here's the weirdest moment of the panel:

Paul Rudd: I'm popping my Comic Con cherry, and it's as advertised.

Chris Hardwicke: If you're going to do it, do it with 7,000 people.

Michael Douglas: I've popped enough cherries.

So, Michael Douglas is kind of creepy. This isn't news, but it bears repeating.

Avengers: Age of Ultron
The panel assembling half of the Avengers team was charming enough, but the real show began at approximately 6:40pm, when 7,000 geeks in Hall H collectively lost their minds over the trailer for the next Avengers movie. Set to a creepy version of "There Are No Strings On Me" (the advantage of being owned by Disney), it teased Iron Man's Hulk-Busting armor, an army of Ultrons (that look suspiciously like Iron Man drones), and twins Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (played by Elizabeth Olson and Aaron Taylor Johnson and totally unrelated to the Xmen versions) dealing some serious damage.

Elizabeth Olson almost slipped up and said the word "mutant." The crowd groaned a bit. #SDCC2014 #Marvel #copyright

— Anne Marie (@WeRecycleMovies) July 27, 2014

Age of Ultron promises to be much, much darker. Despite a lively banter-filled dinner party opening, the trailer ended with Iron Man holding Captain America's broken shield at the base of a mountain of superhero corpses. Chris Evans keeps saying he's out a after Captain America is over. Maybe it's over earlier than we expected.

We ended with two final announcements of the night: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 has been set for a 2017 release. Says a lot about Marvel's confidence, since Guardians 1 won't be released until Friday. But who cares, because more importantly Josh Brolin is Thanos! He walked out wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.

And that's the end of my Hall H coverage! This year was 15 hours of waiting in line and 8 hours of studio announcements. I'll be back to wrap things up Sunday night after I've showered, slept, and questioned my life choices for a bit.

Day 1 at SDCC: Batman, Cosplay, & Frozen oh my!

Anne Marie is reporting from Comic Con in between her weekly A Year With Kate postings. And all with sprained shoulder. What a trouper. - Nathaniel

Anne Marie, Her Sling, and A DragonGreetings from San Diego! Comic Con officially started yesterday morning, and despite absolutely massive crowds, I managed to squeeze myself (and my sling) through the convention center floor and into a few panels to pass the good news on to you. Pro tip for first time congoers with sprained shoulders: A sling does not work as a well as a handicap sign. I got jostled and outright pushed until (no joke) a man dressed as Superman yelled out, "Step aside, citizens! This woman is injured!" He really is a boyscout after all.

Here are a five things I learned at Comic Con today...

1. Marvel dominates the movies, but DC has its eye on TV 
DC has five different TV shows on network television this season: Arrow (3rd season on the CW), The Flash (CW), Constantine (NBC), a midseason replacement called iZombie (CW) that was pitched by DC's VP of Marketing as 'The Walking Dead meets Veronica Mars,' and Gotham, the much-buzzed-about police procedural/Batman prequel for Fox. Once again, DC is splitting its properties between different networks (as opposed to its competitor, which is keeping it all under one studio/network), which means that the only shows with a chance of creating a crossover universe are The Flash, Arrow, and iZombie on the CW. The Flash and Green Arrow fight zombies. That would be weird.

2. DC is riding Batman's cape-tails as long as possible...

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Live(ish) from San Diego Comic Con!

Anne Marie here, writing from the Big Daddy of all conventions, San Diego Comic Con! For the next four days, over 100,000 geeks and geekettes of all ages will take over downtown San Diego. Haters state that SDCC "sold out" and stopped being about comics long ago; I say that's a good thing. Studios, TV networks, video game companies, and publishers all vie for a place here.  Think of SDCC like an all-inclusionary media festival, if most of the media was made up of trailers, demos, behind-the-scenes panels, and free tchotchkes in the shape of Simpsons characters.

SDCC has been playing an increasingly large role in the pop culture landscape. As many as half of 2014's Top 10 Blockbusters had a presence at Comic Con last year. But it's not just about the lowbrow. The Academy Award-winning Gravity premiered its trailer at a panel last year where director Alfonso Cuaron discussed its now-famous technological challenges. The year before, Quentin Tarantino assembled the cast of Django Unchained to talk about his eventual-Oscar-winning film. But awards aside, SDCC is all about the fans.  

a detail from the first Ant-Man poster 

Each year, the studios vie for fans' attention (and social media connections), and two studios always loom large: Warner Bros and Marvel. This year, there are rumbles that WB will not only show off the new Batman/Superman film, but may give us a glimpse at the Justice League. Marvel, the crowned king of Comic Con, will not be overshadowed. They've been planting bread crumbs in the form of press releases leading up to SDCC, but will Saturday be when we finally learn what films are attached to that maddening set of release dates Marvel teased earlier this week? Will they redeem Ant Man after Edgar Wright's very public departure? A little panel can go a long way towards smoothing things over. 20th Century Fox and Legendary will also be making noise with everything from Batman '66 to a rumored Godzilla 2. And that's just what's happening in the movies!

For the next four days, I'll have my thumb on the pulse of pop culture, and I'll be sharing what I find with you. Follow me on Twitter for live updates, and stay tuned here for interviews, panel reviews, and more. Have something you want me to see? At Comic Con yourself? Tweet me or post in to comments below!