Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

This post was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. Nathaniel is on vacation but it is reprinted here with their permission

"On the left" Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) warns a stranger as he jogs past him at The Mall in Washington D.C. Moments later, "On the left" again. "On the left" And a wave of quiet laughter starts rolling in the theater as it dawns on the crowd - the super soldier, better known as Captain America, is lapping this man repeatedly. It's the perfect soft joke to open Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It's not hilarious, really, but it's warm and good natured... neighborly even. Which could also describe this fish-out-of-water superhero. Steve Rogers isn't of our time. He's 90 years old, actually, but he still looks like Chris Evans because being frozen in a block of ice for 60+ years is apparently it's own kind of fountain of youth. [More...]

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Posterized: Marvel Cinematic Universe

This weekend sees the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the third film in Marvel's Phase 2 of movies seemingly designed to introduced an expanding roster of comic book figures into a multi-film universe for the rest of human history. Confirming this latter point, Marvel film impresaro Kevin Feige mentioned (jokingly? seriously?) in an interview published this week that his brain trust has a line-up of films planned, potentially, up to 2028. Now, whether anybody genuinely things that having that kind of long game planned out is remotely practical, if Marvel is just thinking out loud, or if they're genuinely just that hubristic, nobody can say at this point. And cannot say for 14 years. But the fact that Feige can even joke about it says that Marvel plans to be in it for the long haul.

So it's undoubtedly premature, but with CA: TWS coming in as the ninth film in the overall series, it gives us the exact right number of titles so far to run the series through the Film Experience's patented Posterized system.

How many have you seen?

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The Boy From Hell Turns Ten

Amir here, to celebrate the tenth birthday of Guillermo Del Toro’s red devil child, Hellboy.

Writing a piece for the anniversary of a superhero film is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the rate at which we get new entries to the pantheon of the genre seems ever increasing to the point of complete satiation – this year alone, we have Captain America, Spider-man and X-Men films awaiting release. These films have become narrower in variety than films of any other genre, perhaps as a result of the culture and industry that cultivates them. Each film gets multiple sequels and reboots, with streamlined, thematically “universal” narratives that maximize profitability across the globe and minimize cinematic character. Hence, a mere ten-year distance from the release date doesn’t appear to warrant any sense of nostalgia.

On the other hand, the frequency of these superhero treats means that their place in the cultural landscape has dramatically changed since 2004. The range of filmmakers and actors who have tackled the superhero universe has expanded, so novelties like the involvement of a lesser known Del Toro and Ron Perlman, Hollywood’s unlikeliest superhero are rarities. [More...] 

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Link of All Media

big screen
Towleroad James Franco to plan an ex-gay activist in a new Gus Van Sant film
Guardian Russell Crowe meets with the Archbishop of Canterbury for Noah. The things people will do for movie promotion, I tell you
Empire Cake, a Jennifer Aniston movie about a pain support group, lines up a huge cast of acclaimed actors including Anna Kendrick (highly in demand lately... so many new projects)
AV Club talks to former child star Haley Joel Osment who is apparently in the next Kevin Smith picture

In Contention very minor new details emerge on Meryl Streep's Ricki & the Flash (which we were just discussing)
Empire Brad Pitt is doing yet another World War II movie after that upcoming tank drama. This will be his third in a handful of years.
THR reports on casting for Monster Truck, which is described as having a "Transformers meets Gremlins vibe". Yikes. One of those is pleasurable at least
Coming Soon Toby Kebbell wins the Doctor Doom role in the upcoming Fantastic Four
/bent rumors flying that producers of the upcoming Belushi biopic are panicking about Ellen Page's coming out. Dumb. Seriously people do not care about this. They don't. They only care in a think piece on the internet kind of way which is to say it's not going to affect anyone's ticket purchase.
Pajiba and Film School Rejects both have cute articles about body-swapping yesterday (I musta missed the memo that this was a thing connected to April Fools Day?) via Face/Off and Freaky Friday and more. Sadly there's no gif for Tom Hanks in Big but I do still remember his reaction to waking up in an adult body
Forbes on why Warner Bros/DC doesn't need to do like Disney/Marvel does with its superhero universe. This article is 4 times as long as it needs to be since you get literally all of its points in the first few hundred words (but it's good to fight against common wisdom) but maybe it's actually a satire about the repetitiveness of padded franchise culture?

no screen
Slate I don't know music theory (though, as previously noted, I can play the piano) but I thought this article about Lady Gaga's enduring "Bad Romance" was interesting. 
NME Courtney Love thinks a Kurt Cobain Broadway musical is very likely to happen
/Film Yes Wicked still wants to be a movie. Spring Awakening, too. An update.

⇐ Towleroad and can I say I'm thrilled that Harvey Milk finally got a stamp. "Forever" is right, US Postal Service! The gay rights pioneer and awesome subject of not one but two Oscar-winning films (The Times of Harvey Milk and Milk from 1984 and 2008, respectively, was super deserving thanks for asking)

small screen
i09 first commercial for Extant, Halle Berry's new TV project
Variety Peabody Award winners include Scandal, Orphan Black, and House of Cards
Sorta That Guy and The Wire and The Wrap and seemingly EVERYONE else online on the series finale of How I Met Your Mother. A lot more people in the universe seemed interested in that I could have ever imagined. I've seen only 6 or 7 episodes over the years from varying seasons and thought none were anywhere better than "okay"

Today's Must Love
This one took me a split second to get but it gave me such lol'ing joy. Hat tip to Rufus Mayhem and Hayden Wright... 

Beauty vs. Beast - Black Widow vs. The Hulk

I can't tell you how proud I am to be hosting JA's weekly series "Beauty vs. Beast". I feel like a giddy reader each Monday just wondering which amusing sophie's choice he'll pose. But he's in Italy this week so I'm your substitute pollster.

I wanted a poll where I wouldn't know who would win. I caught up with Thor: The Dark World recently (for reasonszzz) and I'm about to leave for a screening of Captain America: Winter Soldier so Loki & Black Widow are both on the brain. Remember that great tense scene in The Avengers where the Hulk is after The Black Widow? Remember how they both stole that whole movie via outsmarting or smashing Loki? It's a literal Beauty vs. Beast this week

poll by twiigs.com

Voting Continues!
Both this poll and the Talented Mr Ripley "Tom vs. Dickie" poll are open until Sunday when JA returns from Italy.