Thoughts on a couple Comic Con announcements I heard were made over the past weekend

       COMIC CON NEWS:WALKING DEAD S4 TRAILER
                  and AVENGERS 2 announcement..thoughts

                                                 

                         
    Well folks over the weekend it was that time of year again. The San Diego Comic Con took place this weekend and like every year I wish I could have been there. The one thing I like about Comic Con is all the entertainment news and announcements of upcoming tv shows and comic book films or films that would get a lot of fanboy appeal. One the two announcements that caught my attention was this right here...

This looks FUCKING AWESOME!! I cannot wait for the forth season of THE WALKING DEAD. This is my favorite show. Top show actually(now that The Office is over). It looks like so much happens in these first few episodes. I assume it's the first few episodes based on how much they show in this Comic Con trailer. It looks like Rick steps down as leader after his mental meltdowns from the past season and it looks like Darryl takes over and looks like he is giving the people of Woodbury the art of Walker killing from inside of a generic Big Lots. We even get a glimpse at a new character who may be the villain in at least the first part of this season and it looks like it's the guy who as a child played in the movie Cop and a Half with Burt Reynolds. Remember that movie..

...and it sounds like he calls Tyrese, Dad. So like I said Rick looks like he is focusing more on being a Dad to his little baby girl, Little Ass Kicker. I can't think of what her name is. Can only think of the nickname. Also so many questions come about like what is The Governor and his two cronies up to, because you know he will be back? What did Tyrese see that sets him off? Is his daughter(or at least I assume the girl that is with him is his daughter) one of the first characters to go. Personally I hope not and did I see Hershel's youngest daughter nestled up to Darryl? The main question I have is about Tyrese and if he will survive that Zombie onslaught you see him attempt to fight his way out of? Who knows and that is why I love this show, because every episode all bets are off. Just when you get used to someone, they end up getting killed and just when you think someone is gonna go, they end up staying. Hershel is the perfect example of that. I thought season 3 was it for him but I was wrong. Folks, October can't come soon enough and one thing is for sure just like the t-shirt says..

..I also like that there was a glimpse of Atlanta's own home brewed Sweetwater Beer shown in this
trailer. Makes since because they film that here in and around Atlanta. I should try to be an extra for that show.

The other announcement that was made was news of an upcoming film and no it is not Batman being in Man of Steel 2 as awesome as that is there is something that was announced that I thought was a lot cooler and don't get me wrong I have been a Batman fan since I could walk. The Dark Knight is one of my all time favorite movies and I thought Man of Steel was one of te best movies I've seen all summer and I will root for the DC film Universe, but I gotta be honest I'm a Marvel Guy. They got their shit together when it comes to films. DC has a lot to catch up on and as a Marvel Guy I flipped when I heard this announced...

YES YES YES!! Not to quote Daniel Bryan but this is awesome. I think Joss Whedon flipped the script on everybody who thought they were gonna go with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet based on that post credits scene in that first Avenger film. I mean Thanos is confirmed to pop up in Guardians of the Galaxy so we haven't seen the last of him. He may even be more  likely to be the villain in Avengers 3. Ultron though I am down with. It does make me wonder how the rest of Phase 2(Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy, and maybe even I guess Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) is gonna lead into a Ultron story line. I mean Iron Man 3 gave us only a funny scene with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, which thinking about it makes since that they did it that way after hearing this announcement, because, well it gives you something you don't expect and keeps us wondering how it's gonna lead up to A2.

Now going on to Ultron one would think that Ant-Man would make an appearance in this movie since Hank Pym is the guy that created Ultron and that would lead into the Ant-Man movie that comes out in November of 2015, but according to Joss Whedon it's not gonna go down like that as said in this interview here..

So it looks like we won't see Ant-Man or Wasp until the Ant-Man movie. That's kind of a bummer that they won't be in A2 but I'm not that let down by it because it would be too much going on with everyone form the first Avenger movie and to add in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and possibly The Falcon since he is in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there would be no room for Ant-Man and Wasp. So I take it Tony Stark will be responsible for Ultron..I guess. I trust in Joss Whedon so I'm not worried. Can't wait to see what they do with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and who will play them. I can't wait to be surprised on who they cast and how they work Quicksilver since this character  will be in X-Men: Days of Future Past because he is Magneto's kid. Magneto and X-Men is licensed under Fox not Marvel Studios/Disney and there has been a lot of shit go down because both studios are using this character. Scarlet Witch(also Magneto's kid) I think is just gonna be used in A2 so no legal trouble there. Since they're using the Scarlet Witch character and Ultron it almost makes me think about the rumor of Vin Diesel possibly playing Vision. Don't like it but hey in the comic Scarlet Witch is Vision's love interest and Vision was made by Ulrton. Hopefully the Vision/Vin rumor is just that. He is gonna be in a film from Marvel Studios so hopefully he will be the voice of the talking tree Groot in Guardians because he will only have to say one thing,"I am Groot" looped over and over. I just don't see him as Vision. Now that I think about it he could be the voice of Ultron. I don't have a problem with that. Either way A2 is gonna make it's money no matter what and I will be there opening night on the first weekend of May 2015. I hope it's as awesome as the first which I'm sure it will be.

So there you go folks the two biggest announcements of Comic Con for me at least. I can't wait for The Walking Dead s4 and Avengers 2: Age of Ultron. I hope you are as looking forward to these as I am and hey Thank You for reading. There will be more reviews and thoughts about stuff coming soon. I hope you enjoyed.

Until next time Folks
-JP

WORLD WAR Z thoughts/review

                              WORLD WAR Z..a review

                                                       

                                                         

  

                 Hey there folks better late than ever I guess for my thoughts on the new sci-fi thriller WORLD WAR Z starring Brad Pitt and directed by Marc Forster based on a novel by Max Brooks, the son of comedy God; Mel Brooks. The movie WWZ focuses on Brad Pitt's character who plays a former United Nations employee who like everybody else finds him and his family unexpectedly caught in the beginning or middle or however you want to look at it in the Zombie Apocalypse. Luckily for he and his family he is still on the UN emergency contact list. Pitt and the family, his wife(played by Mireille Enos), two daughters, and a kid they picked up along the way in all the chaos get rescued and taken to an aircraft carrier, which is a survivor fall out shelter. It's there that Pitt's character is faced with the ultimatum( because apparently he is the best at what he did when working for the UN) that he either help the government and military pinpoint how all this virus started and help find a cure or he and his family can leave the ship. So from there we follow the reluctant Pitt globe trot in search for answers and a cure while blood thirsty zombies are around every corner ready to literally pounce and bite at every turn.

Now when I first heard they were making this into a movie I was a little intrigued. Then it was announced that Brad Pitt was to star in the movie and I was a little taken back by that. Nothing against Brad Pitt, it's just that when when I think Zombie Apocalypse, Brad Pitt doesn't come to mind. Look there were a lot of things going against this movie for me the more I kept hearing about it from production problems, re-writes and release date holds and push backs. Then the trailer came out around November at it looked interesting with just some concern about the CGI Zombies and then to hear it was PG-13. It became a movie that I would eventually see but no big rush. Then the opening weekend came and I got a text, facebook comment and a phone call from my family telling me how good the movie was. So I guess I had no choice but to just go with the hype. So what did I think about a PG-13 Zombie film with Brad Pitt?..Well they fucking pulled it off. To where I dare say that THIS IS THE MOVIE OF THE SUMMER. I said that with Man of Steel and nothing against Superman, but WWZ is just a little bit better. Of course this movie is awesome. But it just catches you by surprise just by how good is to where you have to stop and think about what it was you just saw and how well it was pulled off. It's a zombie film, but not a horror film, because this movie has not really any gore really at all that you would get in any other film in the genre of Zombie films, but yet the sheer terror of a Zombie film is definitely there. You get an eerie vibe right from the jump with the opening credits with the news reports with the films score (which was brilliantly done by or with collaboration by MUSE) and then within minuets Pitt and the family are sitting in traffic and then BAM!! The shit hits the fan and all hell breaks loose and it doesn't let up at all. There doesn't seem to be a dull moment in this movie. It has you at the edge of your seat at all times and just doesn't let up at all having you wonder what's going to happen next.

Marc Forster, who previously gave us films such as Monster's Ball and Quantum of Solace(probably the worst Bond movie, but it did introduce us to Olga Kurylenko so I guess that's not a bad thing is it?), did an amazing job with the direction of this movie and his version of Max Brooks' version of the Zombie Apocalypse. To be honest I haven't read the book. Not sure if I will. I've heard it's different but what you see on screen works on every level. The action scenes were fucking awesome. Like the first attack scene and in the stuff in Jerusalem and that's just to name a couple. I don't want to give it all away. As for the Zombies some was live action and some was CGI and there were heavy CGI scenes but really that's the only way it would work and it did work. I mean you can't do a zombie anthill without CGI. These were the fast Zombies too like the ones from 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder's 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake(which is one of my favorite horror movies and if not one of the best remakes ever dare I say). There were some different things about these Zombies though. Sometimes they seemed almost feral and would pounce on their prey and even do Jeff Hardy swanton dives to catch people and it seemed that some of the noises they made reminded me of the sounds the Velociraptors made in Jurassic Park. You got to see the Zombie transformation as well. They had a twitch to them. One scene the people were watching a Zombie from a surveillance camera and I swear the Zombie looked like it was about to poplock or breakdance by the way it was twitching. Afrika Bambatta's "Searching for the Perfect Beat" would have been a great song to have in the background. Oh and the one thing that was cool was that they actually acknowledged the Zombies as Zombies. You don't really get that in most Zombie films or television shows. Maybe they did in Return of the Living Dead. Not sure.

Brad Pitt does a pretty damn good job in this movie. It's pretty much him throughout most of this. There are others he meets along the way in his travels including a military security guard played by Daniella Kertesz and a notable performance by David Morse as an American turncoat in a military prison. A lot of it is him making contact with his wife and I did like the dynamic between Pitt and Mireille Enos. They seemed like a convincing couple along with the two kids. Nice family dynamic. I mean when one of the daughters drops a stuffed animal on the street during a Zombie Apocalypse Brad Pitt is there as a devoted Dad and goes back and gets it, but pay attention that scene is pretty important. Other than his wife he also has contact with his UN buddy played by Fana Mokoena. Like I said Pitt does a great job carrying this movie. I heard Leonardo DiCaprio was up for this part and nothing against Leo, he's an amazing actor, but I don't think he could have pulled this off.

There supposedly was an alternate ending to this, but I like the direction they went with. The only bad thing I can really say about this isn't really bad. It's just there is a montage and epilogue that almost feels out of place. Almost. It doesn't kill the movie at all. Just an honest nitpick. Like I said WORLD WAR Z is an awesome movie and definitely worth seeing in the theater. Definitely well worth a full price BUT in 2D. Save you some money on 2D. There's no need to see this in 3D. So there you go folks my thoughts on WORLD WAR Z. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the movie as much as I did and I will leave on something a dear friend Andy Hewitt once told me,"Zombie movies are like pizza. No matter how bad it is you are almost always satisfied" Except for Warm Bodies. That movie sucked. 

Until next time folks

-JP