Kingsman: The Secret Service: A Secret Surprise

Mark Millar movies and comics can be highly concerning and dangerous entities. There is an odd status where Millar chooses for his work to appeal to the hate in the audience while simultaneously judging them for liking it. Kickass for example was unrelentingly aggressive towards the people watching the movie and reading the comic. The nerd protagonist was a horrible person with almost no redeeming qualities beyond a skewed view of justice coupled with a penchant for violence. While some of his choices can be seen as Millar sticking to the pulpy roots of comics, there is a point where that adherence to old styles of violence, sexism and racism feels infuriatingly backwards. That is why it came as a surprise that Kingsman: The Secret Service (based on The Secret Service by Millar and Dave Gibbons) is a spy movie that does a fantastic job at avoiding the hatefulness of the genre that Millar’s work commonly holds. Instead we are reintroduced to that original Millar who grew up at the feet of Grant Morrison with a love for comics. This is the Millar that could write decent characters, craft a fun plot and still have some good over the top action. Kingsman: The Secret Service has the better Millar at the heart, or at least some very strong adaption work thanks to writer and director Matthew Vaughn (X-men: First Class, Kickass and Stardust).

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Horrible Bosses 2: The Horrible Bosses Gaze Into You

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Horrible Bosses 2 is the kind of sequel that takes characters people generally liked the first time out, hands them to a new creative team, and then fails to make anything worthwhile narratively, neglecting to tell actual jokes or to make the characters endearing. Gone are the bumbling and mostly innocent knuckleheads from Horrible Bosses, replaced with stunted, pale imitations. The gang Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) proceed to bumble around committing actual offenses, played off as jokes, while struggling to commit an actual crime for the right reasons.

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Let’s Be Cops


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I was a bit disappointed that the early screening of Let’s Be Cops didn’t have the same type of social marketing hashtag that The Purge: Anarchy had. For The Purge, they wanted viewers of the early movie screening to tweet what they’d do #IfThePurgeWasReal. Let’s Be Cops wasn’t afforded the same benefit. There was no “#WhatIfWeLetsBeCops, possibly out of fear, because most of those ideas that would be tweeted out might be better than the actual ideas within Let’s Be Cops. Where Pixar very often describes throwing away complete story idea to try and attain some real and original, Let’s Be Cops feels more like it was scraping at the bottom of the barrel wasting an excellent premise and cast.

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Pitch Week: Aquaman Movie!

I really don’t care too much, nor do I know that much about Aquaman. He’s not one of my favorite heroes. He lives in a state of almost universal derision, except by his strange cult like following. I’m in the middle ground – Aquaman seems like a pretty cool guy. I wish I could have his powers to be honest. But the thing is where do you approach his story for an Aquaman movie. What is important?

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Channing Tatum To Bring G.I. JOE To The Stage

Having scored three hits with The Vow, 21 Jump Street, and Magic Mike, Channing Tatum is riding an unforeseeable wave of success. His recent box office draw is the reason G.I Joe: Retaliation was pushed back a year so new scenes of Tatum could be added to the film. Tatum took the initiative to renegotiate for an extra stipulation to be added to his contract. The 32 year old has been given the opportunity to write and choreograph G.I. Joe: A Sexy American Hero, the first Broadway male exotic dancer revue based on a cartoon series based on a toy line.

Loosely based on the “Arise, Serpentor, Arise!” five-part episode of the 80’s G.I. Joe cartoon series, the most high profile male dancers will perform as either Joes or members of Cobra. Their dance routines will evoke the conflicts to prevent Cobra from acquiring the DNA necessary to create a superior warlord, Serpentor, who will be played by Tatum. He will also be playing the historical figures used to create Serpentor in the prologue of the revue.

Incidentally, Tatum had the idea for a G.I. Joe themed dance routine long before he was cast in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. “I’ve been working on this since before I started modeling. When the music [of the cartoon] would start up, and the red and blue lasers would start flying across the screen, I immediately thought, “I can twerk to this.””

Club favorite DJ Girl Talk is in talks to create the music for revue. “I wanted someone who could blend the rousing patriotism of the series with the hip shaking, heart thumping of the club. Girl Talk was the first to come to mind, but we may go with Idris Elba, since he’ll be playing Roadblock in the revue.”

A tentative date of June 12, 2013 has been set for opening night. Ten gallons of baby oil have been pre-ordered.

Better Comic Movies – Demons and Spectres

I am really tired of most superhero movies – do we need each hero to have an origin film? Why not show that we can use these characters to tell different stories? To build a universe that goes beyond being every other film? So every week I’ll post a pitch for a different kind of hero film.

Demons And Spectres

Jason Blood and Jim Corrigan are detectives hundreds of years of history together. They fight for justice but even that term has many sides and as the Demon and the Spectre, they can only keep so much of a peace. When something big enough to tip the scales of good and evil enters Civic City, Heaven and Hell’s detectives are going to throw all of Civic City and even the world … into Limbo.

Set the film in the 1920’s but give it heavy shadows and a dark setting. While these two detectives are have a history, they’ve muddied each other. They aren’t white and black – they’re shades of gray and most of the time they’d rather just pay their rent.
Also Method Man voices a CGI Etrigan.

Ron Perlman to Star In Creature Make-Up Free Film

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Ron Perlman as seen without his face

HELLBOY star and SONS OF ANARCHY leading man is returning to the big screen, but this time, he won’t be playing some sort of monster. He’ll be playing a librarian. British kitchen sink drama helmer Mike Leigh’s new film, LOANER, follows a quiet, mild mannered clerk at a library in Ireland. The story is about him coming to grips with people abandoning the dewey decimal system.

Perlman, infamous for donning the complicated, cumbersome prosthetics that turn him into a striking creature since television’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST series, has been genuinely confused on set.

Leigh has a particularly odd creative process. He will rehearse with his cast and improvise for months before locking down a shooting script and actually start filming, something that puts off less than dedicated actors. That, however, is not Perlman’s issue, who has been seen walking off set, endlessly searching for Rick Baker or someone from KNB FX. He literally doesn’t understand what to do without having his face molded for masks.

“On SONS OF ANARCHY, at least I get to wear a lot of cool leather jackets. I’m out of my element,” Perlman said.

Rumors persist that Leigh had originally wanted singer Tom Waits and that his casting director has since been replaced. He could not be reached for comment.

Alan Moore To Star In New Swamp Thing Movie

While priorly secret production of a new Swamp Thing film was taking place, Alan Moore was discovered to star as the elusive Swamp Thing in the new pulp mockumentary film.
“Sure it looks like he is just a hairy dude in clothes but we can CG him after,” said the still anonymous director. “I mean we’ve got enough action scenes – he set himself fire and ran into the water, he fights some demons he summoned to worship him and he even piloted a boat while shooting a mounted gun. He is living with Swamp Thing swagger.”
Moore has seemingly been unaware of the film due to his current vacation in the Florida Everglades.
It is currently unknown what other actors will be staring in the adaptation of the film but due to the talk of Moore summoning demons he might actually play Swamp Thing and mystic enemy Anton Arcane.
More as it develops.