Here's Another ROBOCOP Trailer

Well, this still looks like shit. Nice to know some things are constant.



At least we've now got some kind of new-ish story to work with: In this version, OCP makes it's money selling drones to every country but the United States; which apparently has either a law or at least a big cultural apprehension toward the use of robotic security within its borders ("Robophobia" waka waka waka fuck you.) and Robocop is a way around that: Ostensibly an augmented-human with bonus "second lease on life for a cripple" sob-story that's actually little more than a corpse being remote-controlled by OCP and tricked into thinking it's making its own decisions. But then he remembers to be human in time to get in elaborate (and PG-13 friendly!) CGI battles with other robots - i.e. exactly the sort of stuff the original movie devoted two entire sequences to making fun of.

Amusingly, the idea that near-future America is still considered a really important consumer market to "crack" immediately makes this a more optimistic movie than Verhoeven's film. This will be out next year, so everybody remember to get just as psyched as you did for "The Thing" and "Total Recall," both of which I'm sure we all have on fondly-displayed Blu-Ray and watch at minimum once or twice a week.

MARVEL'S DEFENDERS To Netflix

Where are all the black people, differently-abled and (other) women in the Marvel Universe? Netflix, as it turns out. Today's big news: The ubiquitous streaming service will follow-up it's year of turning the TV drama game upside-down with the breakout mega-success of "House of Cards" and "Orange is The New Black" by getting into the superhero game with Marvel/Disney.

The plan is produce four seperate series (each with a 13-episode initial run) based on Luke Cage (black guy, really strong) Iron Fist (white guy, does kung-fu) Jessica Jones (former superhero, now a private detective) and Daredevil (blind, also a defense attorney); and a team-up "miniseries event" that will bring the four together as THE DEFENDERS (the name is borrowed from a hodgepodge 70s/80s Marvel group that randomly tossed together Doctor Strange, The Hulk, Ghost Rider and Silver Surfer for no particularly sensible reason.) The rational for all this is almost certainly to be that these are all regular/"street-level" heroes who

So, basically it's "The B-List Avengers" as a streaming content-dump. But it's also a canny move that makes the Marvel brand immediately part of the huge story that is the rise of the Netflix model as a viable platform for serial television - they're now the streaming action-show brand. The characters are all well chosen, since none of them generally have the kind of adventures (on their own) that would befit a singular big blockbuster but might work better handling 13 smaller-scale scenarios an hour at a time.

Presumably they'll rope one or two of The Avengers into a walk-on for the publicity at some point (Devin at BAD thinks it's plausible that Jones might debut as her superhero self "Jewel" on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" first, which makes a lot of sense) but I wonder if this might start to work like a franchise farm-system; where if (for example) Luke Cage is the breakout hit we'll see him called up to the majors for "Avengers 2" (or 3)?

Sounds interesting, at least. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to light a candle for whatever unfortunate mid-level guy at Warner Bros/DC is currently dodging office equipment thrown by a boss bellowing "WHY DIDN'T YOU THINK OF THIS???"

The Big Picture: BAGGAGE

Let's talk about criticism.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Baggage

Tyler Perry Has Made a Christmas Movie With Larry The Cable Guy

"And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon upon him, his name was Death, and Hell followed with him." -- Revelations 6:8

Post by Tyler Perry.

In all seriousness, though - this is sort of interesting in the way that some of Perry's projects are once you stop regarding them as films and start regarding them as "found art;" or some kind of anthropological discovery. Drafting Larry The Cable Guy into this (the story: Madea tags along with a friend to surprise-visit her daughter at Christmas, where they're surprised to find said daughter has a white boyfriend with wacky redneck relatives) sound ridiculous for approximately 30 seconds, then it makes perfect sense.

Also, this (teaming with Dan Whitney aka Larry) seems to be the first time I've seen Perry acknowledge or actively court the unexpected crossover-appeal his movies have had with some more conservative white/rural audiences that typically wouldn't have "black films" on their radar. And his presence will be (literal) Christmas Present to white hipster movie-geeks who're "ironic fans" of Tyler Perry movies but might sometimes worry that they might unwittingly slip from "clever urbanite snarking at bad movies" to "clueless white person who doesn't get some idiom of black culture OMG I'M TURNING INTO MY PARENTS AND I MOVED ALL THE WAY TO WILLIAMSBURG TO PREVENT THAT NOOOOOO!"

This will be out December 13th, with another round of "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!??" reports on it's "unexpectedly" large boxoffice take from industry news sites who still haven't grasped that there are indeed large economically-significant audiences outside their immediate readership to follow on Monday the 16th.

Escape to The Movies: ENDER'S GAME

Not so good.

Also, Let's Watch The WINTER SOLDIER Trailer.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Ender's Game