What is Movie News After Dark? This week it’s a series of second stringer fill-ins trying not to run things into the ground while regular columnist Neil Miller disappears for a while due to reasons both glamorous and mysterious (in true Lohan fashion, he’s cited both “exhaustion” and “being dehydrated”). And today it’s a laundry list of Internet people still crushing on Joss Whedon’s superhero extravaganza, The Avengers, because Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows shit the bed this weekend and we haven’t had anything shiny to come along to steal away our fickle attentions yet. Let’s get to it.
The above image comes from an artist named Hannah, who has proven that her finger is firmly on the pulse of the Internet by paying tribute both to the death of beloved children’s author Maurice Sendak as well as the work of beloved nerd-God Joss Whedon by mashing up Sendak’s artistic style with the cast of The Avengers. Is cute, no?
Next up we’ve got some big news involving one of Earth’s mightiest. Vulture is reporting that Jay Roach is trying to put together an Iron Man and Ethan Hunt team up by going after Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise for his upcoming comedy El Presidente. If the director has his way, they’ll be playing an overzealous secret service agent and a sleazy ex-president thrown together with hopefully hilarious results. I’ll let you do your own math when it comes to figuring out which actor will be overzealous and which will be the sleaze. I don’t want to step on any toes.
In addition to The Avengers, the Internet also likes lists; so The A.V. Club has given us one inspired by the other. Their list of ’22 Main Characters Casually Dismissed in Sequels’ was compiled in tribute to the way Whedon dismissed Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster character with one throwaway line in his Avengers script. The best part is when they speak passionately about the pain we all felt upon learning that Elizabeth Shue smashed up Daniel’s car and left him for a jock at the beginning of The Karate Kid Part II. I still haven’t let that grudge go.
Pajiba also has their mind on Thor, as they’ve compiled a list of 20 Things they learned from listening to Kenneth Branagh’s director’s commentary on the Thor DVD. It’s a compelling list, clearly meant to pay tribute to Jeremy Kirk and all of the work he puts in doing Commentary Commentary. Did you guys know Idris Elba was black?!
In non-Avengers news, Deadline Corleone reports that a deal has been struck over the recently published ‘Godfather’ prequel ‘The Family Corleone.’ The recently released book’s profits will be held in escrow until a court can decide whether they should go to Paramount or to Mario Puzo’s estate. That’s just the book’s profits though. If anyone ever decides to make a movie out of this thing, there’s bound to me even more, fish-wrapped-up-in-newspaper hijinx between the warring parties. Let’s all agree to not encourage such nonsense by just not reading this crap. Deal?
It turns out famed news anchor Ron Burgundy has started tweeting. He recently made waves on the social news service by tweeting a very flattering picture of himself and breaking the news that the Anchorman 2 teaser trailer would be seeing its worldwide debut in front of The Dictator. His tweet read, “Dont get Twirter. Anchorman2 teaser w Dictator tom night. Dont know what a teaser is. World is crazy?” Hey, give him a break, he was having a scotch.
For our mid-column image break we’ll turn back to The Avengers. i09 recently posted a link to the tumblr of an artist named Noelle Stevenson. She’s recently been on a roll doodling adorable little comics of various Avengers characters acting like spoiled children and riding on each other’s backs. Prepare to have your heart melted.
Movies.com has posted an interview with Alamo Drafthouse mogul Tim League, whose tribute to the films of the summer of 1982 recently kicked off with a showing of Conan the Barbarian. He talks about why the genre films that came out that year were such an important part of the foundation of most of our film fandoms, as well as why it’s important for theaters to keep doing awesome things in order to get customers to come out. The next entry in the Summer of 82 series is a showing of The Road Warrior on May 18 that’s being co-hosted by FSR. Read all about it!
In further 1982 news, The Playlist has also realized that it’s been 30 years since the release of Conan the Barbarian, so they’ve marked the occasion by publishing a list of 5 things you might not know about the film. Did you know the movie almost gave us a big fight between Charles Bronson and Sean Connery? Me either. But now I want to see that movie bad.
THR has a report that Alan Rickman has been tapped to star in a biopic about CBGB’s founder Hilly Kristal. Why is a movie about a guy who started a punk club newsworthy? Because any time Hans Gruber does anything it’s newsworthy; he’s the greatest actor ever. ”And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
Inspired by Dark Shadows coming out this weekend and impressing neither critically (okay, so Robert Levin kind of liked it) nor commercially, Moviefone asks the question that’s been on my mind for a long time, “Was Tim Burton ever a good director?” It’s long been my opinion that Burton is a mediocre talent with a couple of go-to visual tricks that only shine when they happen to be paired with a good script. Moviefone is a little more diplomatic and present his career as a case of a guy having it and then losing it. Where do you stand on this extremely important issue?
Finally, we turn back to The Avengers for our heart-stopping video finale. Junaid Chundrigar has taken the Internet by storm with his cartoon Disassembled, which takes a humorous look at some of the pitfalls of being a Marvel super hero. I think the saddest part is when Venom drops his ice cream. There’s nothing funny about wasting ice cream.