The Avengers

Summer movie season is upon us!!!

First things first.

I saw three great trailers last night:
First, Spider man, Looks awesome, the new trailer shows some intriguing fight scenes and the 3D looks like it's going to be good. This is going to be a great year for super hero movies because... Second the new Batman trailer was shown! If you are looking for a happy conclusion to this trilogy it does not look good for you. The tone of these trailers is forecasting Dark Knight Rises to be the most brutal of the series. And third the Prometheus trailer. For those that don't know Prometheus is a prequel of sorts to the first Alien movie as it takes place in the same universe as the franchise but it is going to be it's own entity. And then maybe they will do a sequel to the kinda prequel that will become a real prequel to Alien. Kinda meta if you think about it.

Honorable mention preview goes to the Hatfield & McCoy miniseries that History channel is doing starring Bill Paxton and Kevin Costner. Bill Paxton is the man. That is all.

NOW THE AVENGERS REVIEW!!!!!!


How to best say that this movie was awesome?

The Avengers is one of the most fun superhero movies I have seen in a long time. If there is one thing you can count on the creator of Firefly to do well is take a bunch of misfits and clashing personalities and make them work as a team.There is a great blend of action and comedy here that is hard to beat. I guarantee this movie will have you laughing as well as any comedy that comes out this year.  And the cast does a really good job bringing all the franchises together. But why do the Avengers even assemble in the first place?

The movie sets up with Loki still sulking from his defeat at the hands of Thor creating a pact with some terrible alien race to give himself an army so that he could enslave the earth. His first step is to steal the energy cube that the Nazi's were trying to weaponize in the Captain America movie. Once this happens it is up to Nick Fury to begin 'The Avengers Initiative' which he created for the purpose of defending the earth when conventional weapons can't.The movie then goes about showing us where all the heroes currently are and what they are up to.

My favorite part of the movie is the way all the characters mesh together. When you get that many alpha personalities in the same room they are bound to clash, and clash they do. Every avenger has a fight scene with at least one of their own by the movie's end. And the movie does a great job showing the building camaraderie and respect they gain for each other.  Mark Ruffalo does a good job as the third incarnation of the Hulk. He plays the geeky, brooding scientist well. Once he and Tony Stark get together you see Tony get happy because he finally has someone on his level of intellect to converse with and they begin to play off each other nicely.Chris Evans does a great job of showing just how isolated and out of place Captain America feels while Chris Hemsworth plays an amusing Thor.
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OH YEAH! There are two other avengers! One of the most amusing things about all the press for this movie to me is that they pretty much ignored two members of the crew to focus on the big four of the team (Iron man, Cap, Thor and Hulk) But really didn't show much of anything of Black Widow, previously in Iron Man 2, and Hawkeye, Getting his first showing on the big screen. Both Scarlett Johansson  and Jeremy Renner did a great job on their characters; Even if for the first half of the movie everyone was laughing at Hawkeye because his power is... less that spectacular. For those with no background Hawkeye he has the ability to hit anything with an arrow. That's pretty much it. He has different arrow heads... some blow up...

Also, there are two stingers on this movie. One after some initial credits and then one final extra scene all the way after the credits so be sure to sit through them for the extra credit.


So if you are a fan of the superhero genre don't miss this one or you'll regret it.




******Minor Spoiler but personal observation.





If S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be such a top secret spy organization, why did their computer systems get hacked TWICE in this movie???  Just Saying...

Breathless

Man, I started this blog off on the wrong night. It does take some of the pressure off, but man, I would love to have talked about Beathless as my first commentary/review/whatever this is going to turn out to be. Jean-Luc Godard is one of my favorite directors and Breathless is one of his best films.

I love how it moves at a different pace compared to other movies of its time. The fast cuts throw you from one sentence to the next with little remorse as to if you are keeping up. It has an heir of 'fuck you' that only a Frenchman can compose. Even in the opening lines Michel Poiccard (Played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) basically says: 'If you don't like France then you can go to hell' blatantly looking into the camera and breaking the fourth wall for the first of many times. He then proceeds to blatantly objectify women, point a loaded gun at passing cars and fire the gun at the sun, then kill a cop. The whole time you watch the edit pace of the movie is at a rapid fire, essentially switching shots after every sentence. He flees to Paris to meet up with an American girl, Patricia (Played by Jean Seberg) apprenticing to be a journalist. I do not really feel like describing the whole movie to you so I am speeding up.

 A statement is made in the movie akin to “American women totally own men and French women have not quite figured out how to whip a man yet.” This is shown throughout the movie as Michel constantly dominates the women around him – yet he is completely wrapped around Patricia’s finger. I always get the feeling that Michel strongly believes he is in a movie but wrongly believes he is a hero. So he goes about his doing what he believes is what Bogart or Sinatra would do. But he is a pretty despicable when it comes down to it. But through his hijinks he is nonetheless endearing. He knows the police are after him yet he hangs around for a girl that only half-heartedly flirts with him. She does sleep with him – But this is France so there you go. Patricia does know exactly what she is doing the whole time as she reveals in the final lines of the film and stared intently into the audience. No, I meant to word it like that.

Like with any Godard film you get a great atmosphere. He plays with camera angles and always is mindful of the whole frame. The characters are stereotypical but fresh always mysterious, I believe that has something to do with the copious amount of cigarette smoke constantly being thrown into the air by Michele and Patricia. As I mentioned before the editing for this movie is rapid fire fast. While he throws jump cuts around like a pedophile throws candy at a park Godard also takes his time over various scenes and does entire scenes in one shot.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who loves film. And if you liked this movie and would like to know more about Godard I also will suggest “Band of Outsiders”.

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10/10