Tag: Captain America

The Radio Dan Show: April 14th, 2014

Download: http://goo.gl/RGfmXJ

Bears Attack in Florida, Dan engages in a long conversation with a caller about Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fincher out of Jobs, Transformers to Never End, Box Office.

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Movies I’m Looking Forward To in 2014 (Jan-Apr)

By Dan Delgado

It’s a long headline, but it gets the job done.  Here are the movies that I am looking forward to most in these opening months of 2014.  I have no doubt I will regret some of these choices.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (Jan. 17) 

We’ve had four Jack Ryan movies so far and three actors playing him.  So now we’re again going to attempt to make a franchise out of author Tom Clancy’s most famous character.  Here it’s Chris Pine playing a young Ryan, a CIA analyst who uncovers a devious Russian plan to ruin the US economy, which I thought was already ruined.

Shadow Recruit was supposed to come out in December but back out due to all the competition.  January is a lousy month for movies so hopefully this bucks that trends.  Kevin Costner is playing Ryan’s mentor and Kenneth Branagh does double duty as director and bad guy.

The Monuments Men (Feb. 7)

Another holiday holdover.  Here we have George Clooney starring (and directing) in a World War II adventure.  He is leading an expedition of old and retired guys on a mission to steal (or liberate I guess) art and culture type things from the Nazis.

This looks like a fun time and the cast is hard to not like.  Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Bob Balaban and Jean Dujardin are all along for the ride. Finally someone cares about the art, dammit!

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Mar. 7)

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Wes Anderson and cynical jerks.  His latest offering stars Ralph Fiennes as a hotel concierge and newcomer Zero Moustafa as his trusted lobby boy who get into some kind of adventure after one of Fiennes many old lady friends dies and a painting bequeathed to him goes missing.  Or something like that.

The usual gang of Anderson favorites are showing up as well like Jason Schwartzman, Billy Murray, Owen Wilson as well as Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, and Willem Dafoe.  Looks like quirky fun.  Which is pretty much every Wes Anderson movie, I think.

Bad Words (Mar. 14)

Jason Bateman directs and stars in this comedy about a guy who find a loophole and is able to compete in spelling bees against children.  This seems like a great role for Bateman, a foul mouthed jerk.  Really the guy is great as a jerk.  Go jerk it up, Bateman!

Veronica Mars (Mar. 14)

Here we go, Kickstarter the movie!  Last year the Veronica Mars kickstarter campaign seemed to come out of nowhere and rack up an impressive $5.7 million in donations to get this movie made.  That alone makes this one interesting.

Also the whole idea of taking an old tv show and making a movie out of it with most of the original cast is very cool too.  And let’s not forget I’m a sucker for detective stories.  Here former teenage detective Veronica (Kristen Bell) is heading to her 10 year high school reunion and shockingly finds her services are in need.

Stretch (Mar. 21)

Patrick Wilson stars as a limo driver who gets into some crazy nonsense when he drives around billionaire crazy Chris Pine.  Ed Helms, Ray Liotta, Jessica Alba and yes David Hasselhoff are also in this one as well.

I’m always intrigued by what director Joe Carnahan is doing.  The list of movies he almost made (Mission: Impossible III, White Jazz, Death Wish, Bunny Lake is Missing) is about as long as the list of ones he has made (Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team, The Grey).  He’s a straight shootin’, straight talkin’ kinda guy who’s never boring.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4)

Do you really need an explanation? It’s Captain freakin’ America people!

Cap is my favorite superhero and the one I really get geeked up about.  I’ve read all over how this is the best superhero script Marvel has had so far and we are working with a very cool comic book storyline, The Winter Soldier.  Chris Evans is fairly ideal as Steve Rogers/Captain America.  Add in a solid supporting cast of returning Marvel movie favorites like Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) and Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark) plus the first time we are seeing the Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Crossbones (Frank Grillo) and are you kidding me Batroc the Leaper (MMA guy George St. Pierre.  And oh by the way Robert Redford’s in it too.

Basically it adds up to me not going to work on April 4th.

Alan Partridge: The Movie (April 4)

British actor/comedian Steve Coogan is great at playing jerks and delusional people.  These are my favorite kinds of people to watch coincidentally.  Here he takes his iconic (it is right?) character of Alan Partridge and blows him up for a big screen adventure.  Partridge is a narcissistic, egomaniac former TV personality who now does local radio and finds himself in a hostage crisis when the station he works for is taken over.

Coogan is a funny guy and after 24 Hour Party People became someone I look for in movies.  Currently he can be seen in the critically acclaimed (and rightfully so) Philomena.

Dom Hemingway (April 4)

I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one.  Jude Law stars as a safe cracker who’s been released from prison after doing some hard time and keeping his mouth shut.  Now he’s out and wants what’s his.  I’m not really sure what is his, but I’m guessing it’s money.  It’s looks like a jolly good fun time of foul language and violence.

This is writer-director Richard Shepard’s first film since his underrated The Hunting Party (2007).

 

There you have it.  That’s what I’m most anticipating in 2014 for the first part of the year.  Yeah sure, their are other things that other people are excited about like Transcendence, which looks reminds me too much of The Lawnmower Man.  So if you are wondering about this movie or that one, maybe I’m interested but not THAT interested.

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Agent Coulson, Please Stay Dead

By now most of you have already seen The Avengers.  Fours weeks and over $500 millions of domestic box office tells some of you have probably seen it more than once. Really, that’s a great thing.  I really njoyed the movie and yes, I have seen it multiple times.  However there is a major issue that needs to be discussed for those of us who have seen the film: Agent Coulson needs to stay dead.

RIP Agent Coulson

It’s pretty remarkable how much mileage actor Clark Gregg got out of playing SHIELD agent Phil Coulson.  He went from being a bit player in Iron Man to full fledged supporting character by the time Thor came around last year.  They did a couple of short films with Coulson that served as DVD extras on Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.  Now, with The Avengers the guy even got his own character poster!  Hell, he’s now even made his way into the comic books, where he did not originate.

It’s all very cool.

Now, don’t get me wrong here.  I like Agent Coulson.  I liked him in Iron Man and when he returned in the sequel I was happy he was back.  He had a little more to do and got the end of credits scene with Thor’s hammer.  All great stuff.

On to The Avengers, the world wide, blockbuster phenomenon.  The movie is really fun and shows you just how big and bright a comic book movie can be.  If there’s one issue with it though, it’s the bad guys are a bunch of nameless aliens.  Oh sure, you got Loki in there leading them all but it’s not the same really.  Watching the Hulk smash a bunch of anonymous aliens isn’t the same as if he were, say smashing Thanos, a Marvel villain who makes a brief cameo at the end of The Avengers.

In fact the one thing that gives the movie some real weight and emotion to it is the fact that they killed off our beloved Agent Phil Coulson.  I did not see his death coming and each time I’ve seen it the audience reacted like they didn’t see it coming either.  In the movie, it serves as the catalyst for heroes to come together and work as a team.

After he is mortally wounded by Loki, Coulson says as much with his dying words.  “It’s OK, it’s better this way. If this was going to work, they needed something to…” is what he says just before dying.  Yeah, he was probably going to say avenge.  And yeah, it’s amusing to think that Coulson would rate himself so highly.  “Yes, me they will avenge.  Not those other nameless SHIELD agents who were killed.”

Getting past that point is the greater point I’m trying to make here.  The guy died.  He was killed.  Stabbed in the back and through the chest.  He’s dead.  We felt it.  Sure, I’d prefer he didn’t die, but he did.  Except maybe he didn’t.

I keep reading on the internet in different places, “Hey maybe Coulson’s not dead!”  He was never pronounced as DEAD.  No, instead head of SHIELD Nick Fury says that “he’s down.”  Down isn’t dead right?  Yeah, we see him talking and then do that death thing where he stops mid-sentence, eyes still open, looking awfully dead.

He better not be living!

But we’re talking the comic world!  No one’s REALLY dead there right?  Which is exactly the problem.  When I read a comic book and Hawkeye gets killed or something like that happens, I never believe it.  You know what? Because a year later that guy is coming back.  Does it matter that Hawkeye is just a regular dude with NO POWERS?  Nah, he’s really good with that bow and arrow so he comes back.  Somehow.  And that really sucks.  There’s no weight to the deaths in comic books anymore.

This is why Coulson needs to stay dead.  Sure, I can deal with everyone dying and coming back to life, like in Dead Heat, when it comes to comic books.  But that’s where we need to draw the line.  You die in a movie, you need to stay dead.  If Coulson is back in Iron Man 3 and you find out that he never died but Fury just told everyone he did to rally the troops, that will just cheapen the whole thing.  Not to mention then we’d have to deal with Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk being pissed off for being duped.

So to Marvel, Joss Whedon, and anyone out there who is listening, please do me a favor.  Hell, do us ALL a favor, and let Agent Coulson rest in peace.

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