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Salem's Lot 1979 and Salem's Lot 2024
Happy Halloween everybody! Julie's working late and the boy doesn't have school tomorrow so he's heading to one of those crazy f...
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(2007) * First of all let me say that as far as I could tell there are absolutely no dead teenagers in this entire film. Every year just ...
14 comments:
1) The movie was (as the kid in The Incredibles exclaims) "totally wicked!"
2) I'll just be making comments in no particular order; there's so much to say. First of all, has any movie just totally gone to town on Manhattan the way this one does? I don't think so. Not Godzilla, not Armageddon, not nothing. And yet The Avengers is like the anti-Cloverfield because despite the unbelievable destruction, everybody remains in a good mood and nobody really seems to get hurt. Captain America can just vaguely tell the cops, "There's a bunch of civilians over there, in that bank...go 'secure' it." Why? Because it's a comic book, which means that all this gloriously nutty stuff can happen with no real consequences (Superman always catches that one big falling beam that's about to hit the mom with the stroller, etc.).
3) I spent 45 minutes last night reading this article about the special effects, and my head was reeling by the end. I know just enough about the technology involved to basically follow the discussion of how it was all done. It's amazing how comics and movies are different, insofar as exactly the same events can be conveyed in comics for about ten dollars' worth of india ink, blue pencils and a stat camera, and it requires millions of dollars' worth of technology to do the same thing on screen. But, joyously, it is the same thing (as the article explains), down to the mist pushed away from the windows of the helicarrier and the lightning flowing across the surface of Iron Man's armor.
4) I put a picture of Cobie Smulders because she was totally awesome, and (as with everything in the movie) made a totally unreal and ridiculous concept (SHIELD agents) believable and real. I mean, how could there ever be people like that, who are so competent that when you fire a gun at them they're already dropping, rolling, drawing on you and shooting back, and yet they look like fashion models in incredibly stylish neoprene jumpsuits and mascara? Throughout the movie, it all seemed believable; there was never the slightest whiff of "camp" or "suspension" or whatever passes for the super-hard work of actually making it seem real, no matter how insane it all is.
5) Joss Whedon's Pepper Potts/Tony Stark banter wasn't quite as good as the original Jon Favreau flavor. (But I liked how their relationship and the whole Iron Man ethos seemed to have stabilized nicely. According to an interview I read, Downey was instrumental in getting Paltrow involved and persuading her to do it, since he felt that Stark really needed her in the movie to anchor his portion of the story.)
6) I could have guessed Coulson's death, since 1) somebody had to die and 2) there was no way they were going to kill an Avenger. It was well done. The whole story/characterization arc was really impressive. No character got short shrift.
7) The Hulk was great, for all the reasons that have been discussed elsewhere (motion capture, Ruffalo, Lou Ferrigno's voice etc.) I didn't see the other two movies but I love that they just kept trying until they got it right. The part where he gratuitously hit Thor was so great.
8) More to come. What a great movie! Wow.
9) The basic story idea -- that "the council" wanted SHIELD to use the cube to make WMDs, but that Fury was pushing for a "riskier" alternate plan to assemble the Avengers instead -- is just great. It takes the (totally gratuitous) main thrust of the story -- assembling the team -- and gives it a completely plausible foundation that you can ideologically and emotionally get behind.
add to 7) the thing Hulk does to Loki at the very end of their confrontation. so gratifying.
Yeah, how awesome was that?
And, it came straight out of the Droopy playbook! ("You know what? That makes me mad...")
Cobie Smulders basically achieved everything that Denise Crosby was constantly trying (and utterly failing) to do throughout her entire performance as Tasha Yar.
10) I read an interview with Whedon where he talked about his (uncredited) script polish on X-Men. They asked him which of his lines (of the ones that made it into the movie) turned out the best and he mentioned the business about "I'm the real Wolverine!" "Prove it." "You're a dick!" which (as Whedon points out) always got a laugh.
So he's good at that. And there are so many of those in The Avengers! A lot of them go to Downey, Jr., but not all of them. Captain America delighted that he caught the "Wizard of Oz" reference was great. Stark obviously gets off some great ones, like "Shakespeare in the Park?"
11) So obviously I was very taken with Agent Hill. Did anyone else catch the matching, contrasting closeups she got, as Steve Rogers first walks onto the bridge (and she gives him a very appreciative lingering look) and when Tony Stark arrives (and she gives him an equally long withering, skeptical look)?
12) The helicarrier is like the essence of what they accomplished for this movie, because it's so completely ridiculous and yet I believed every frame of it. (Why would you have one of those? What's the point? Is there enough fuel on the entire planet to keep it airborne for ten minutes? How come it can fly with not one but two engines out?)
13) The integration of the various story frameworks -- which, obviously, was just a no-brainer money move for Marvel Comics back in the 'sixties (since it didn't cost anything to tell Jack Kirby, "Okay, now draw Thor standing next to him") turns out to be the best thing ever, doesn't it? Crossover nerdgasms! (And all the "Enterprise vs. Imperial Stardestroyer" stuff over time.) My favorite example of how this works was when Hulk tries to pick up Thor's hammer and can't -- his feet just grind into the floor.
14) Speaking of Hulk, maybe it's Ruffalo's skill, but I love Hulk's fighting style. The others are so disciplined and precise (even Iron Man, who's basically self-taught) but Hulk just goes, "God damn it!" and starts thrashing and beating indiscriminately. He doesn't have to fight in any kind of coherent way.
15) I love how Loki gets visibly irritated any time anyone even mentions Thor. He just can't stand him.
16) Why was Loki wearing that muzzle at the end?
LOL: ‘The Avengers’ Leads To Increased Sales in Shawarma
From slashfilm, Yes, because of The Avengers restaurants from coast to coast are experiencing increased sales in the Middle-Eastern food known as shawarma.
In The Avengers, Tony Stark mentions twice that after the climactic battle, he wants to get shawarma, a Middle-Eastern meat staple. Then, if you stay after the credits, well, click here if you don’t know what happens.
Now, major cities who have restaurants serving shawarma are experiencing sellouts directly related to being mentioned in the almost billion dollar hit movie.
TMZ reports Los Angeles restaurants saw an 80% increase in sales. St. Louis. Boston. You google it and, odds are, that city has written an article. GAS even says the Google Analytics show a huge pop in searching.
Box office update: 'Avengers' easily holds off 'Dark Shadows', scores gigantic $29.1 million Friday
From ew, Sorry, Captain Jack, but Captain America isn’t ready to give up the top spot at the box office yet!
In its second weekend in theaters, The Avengers is still breaking records — this time, it’s headed for the best second weekend in box office history. The superhero ensemble film took in a gargantuan $29.1 million on Friday, which should lead to a weekend in the $95-105 million range — far more than current record holder Avatar, which earned $75.6 million in its second frame.
Tonight, on its ninth day of release, The Avengers will cross the $300 million mark (it’s made $299.1 million so far), and on Sunday it will soar past $350 million. No film has ever reached those milestones faster.
Way back in second was Warner Brothers’ new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration Dark Shadows, which earned a lackluster $9.7 million on Friday. The adaptation of the ’70s vampire soap, which earned an unenthusiastic “B-” CinemaScore grade, will be lucky to break $30 million over the Friday-to-Sunday period. Bad news considering the film’s $125 million budget.
Who is the person that, when out to the movies, says, "I don't want to see The Avengers. Let's go see Dark Shadows instead."
The thing is, I can actually imagine such a person -- and I never, ever want to be anywhere near them.
1) Yes it freaking was. As can happen with anything that nobody can stop praising, I did experience a little impatience towards the beginning, sort of like "Come on, dazzle me already! Blow me away right now!" But of course I was both dazzled and blown away well before the end.
Julie pointed out that Joss Whedon's main strength is more of a TV strength: great character dynamics between a cast of 6 to 10 people. As such, he was ideal for this, but it takes some work on the front end or it won't happen.
But so, so satisfying. That battle at the end just went on and on...
2) I was totally on board for the oddly non-lethal alien assault, although you can't really not notice it. The main targets of the purple rays were cars and office bulletin boards. Meanwhile the evil space whales were knocking into buildings all over town, and we saw plenty of people watching from upper-story windows, so there must have been deaths but... no, I don't care. On TV they showed the walls of snapshots in the wake of the damage, that was good enough.
Similarly, the fight was contained in a strangely small area (basically Grand Central Station and Tony Stark's house), but unlike most cinematic New Yorks that make no sense spatially, they worked it right into the script. "Form a perimeter above 39th street!" Awesome.
Despite that last point, I concur that no movie has smashed Manhattan like this one.
3 and 4) The balance between realism and the fantastic was struck so perfectly in this movie they made it look easy, which it really, really isn't. The helicarrier with all its scratched metal and these meetings taking place on rocks floating in space -- I bought it all.
5) I would've been pleased with the playboy Tony Stark but I found myself pleasantly surprised to see Pepper Potts (somehow I knew beforehand that Natalie Portman wasn't in this, but I didn't know about Gwyneth). It was the right choice. I didn't really miss Favreau's vibe, but I'm not his biggest fan.
6) I was so bummed that Coulson died! The running thread through all the set-up movies! Dead!
I shouldn't have been surprised, however. Not because someone had to die but because Joss Whedon does not pull punches when it comes to offing a likeable character. Bastard.
7) Oh god yes. I keep thinking about the way Loki leaves the frame (feet first) after his indignant "you can't punch me, I'm a god!" speech. Ruffalo's Banner was perfect, too: subdued, but nobody's fool. "That's my secret, I'm always angry." Aces.
8) Yeah.
9) And Jenny Agutter was on the Council! Joss Whedon is such a geek!
10) I like to chalk that up to Whedon's deep understanding of what makes each character tick and subsequent ability to bring the best thing out of them.
A non-Avengers example occurs to me. When Joss Whedon was writing an X-Men comic, he had Kitty Pryde return to the team after a long absence and walk around the mansion reminiscing (with visual aids for us readers) about things that had happened in much older comics. The first one? She sees herself in the front doorway saying "Professor Xavier is a JERK!" All that continuity to pull from and he picks a truly hilarious moment that everyone remembers. Heh.
11) I didn't notice the closeups you mention, but I love how much the ladies in the movies drool over Cap. My wife, sitting next to me, was doing it too.
However, my favorite Avenger groupie thing I've heard yet was about Thor: "I just want to live in his hair!"
And yes, Agent Hill was great. I thought she actually wore the spandex better than Scarlett, and that's saying something.
12) "Why would you even have one of those?" cracked me up.
13) The hammer thing was truly great. (Now that's a magic "nobody can lift it but him" thing and not a "Thor's stronger than the Hulk" thing, right? If it were too heavy for the Hulk to lift it would probably drop right through the deck like face-hugger blood.)
My favorite bit of crossover was the gun SHIELD somehow reverse-engineered from the freaking Asgardian Destroyer. Holy shit!
14) On that note, I recalled our friend Sam (more of a Marvel devotee than myself) explaining to me that Hulk just gets stronger when he gets angrier, so that every fight the FF's Thing got into with Hulk eventually resulted in the Thing's defeat. Alan Moore once remarked that the only Marvel character he was ever interested in was the Hulk, because he was a perfect metaphor for nuclear power.
15) Yeah, I liked that too. Loki was truly awful but unable to hide his base vulnerability (as most of the other characters spotted).
16) I'm going to guess because he's the god of lies. Just letting him talk to someone is dangerous, like Hannibal Lechter. My question is where was Thor keeping it? His utility belt?
Yay for shawarma! I love the idea of the Avengers going into any restaurant together, going to the tiny place near Tony's house was added awesome. I wonder how much raw footage they shot.
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