The Avengers (2012)

All bow before the mighty mightiness that is Joss Whedon!
How long have I been waiting to watch this film? 10? 15 years? When did the first X-Men film come out? I've been waiting since then. I think I've secretly been wanting one since I saw that 80s-something Captain America movie and the David Hasslehoff film (made for television film maybe?) where he plays Nick Fury. I say secretly because both of those movies totally sucked, though I will admit here to the world that I've seen the Captain America movie twice. I didn't want an Avengers movie that sucked. So, we get that X-Men movie and it was pretty good, and I really liked the first Spiderman, so then I was all like, ya, now we can have an Avengers film.
Of course, I would have cast the Avengers differently - I don't mean the actors whom I am pretty much okay with - well let's say on balance I'm okay with them. I guess I really mean the line-up. Where's Dr. Pym? Where's his lady love, Janet VanDyne? It seems kind of weird to have an Avengers without Antman/Giantman/Goliath and the Wasp. At least they got Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, all of whom are essential. I'm okay with Hawkeye and Black Widow. I guess. Hulk? Not so much. I understand this venture is as much about a movie franchise as about anything else, so I understand why they want to tie their lines together. And I'm a big fan of the Iron Man movies - and I liked both Captain America and Thor. Heck, I even liked the Hulk movie. Both of them. The Hulk is not a franchise I'm terribly interested in, especially hearing that the next Hulk film will reboot him once again. But, you know what would really rock? A movie about Vision and the Scarlet Witch. You could bring Pym in through that, and that's how you beef up the ranks of the Avengers without the Hulk.
You know what I really liked about the Avengers comic books? You're really bring together already established heroes, so when they're together they have a whole bunch of baddies that allow for match-ups you would never see in the individual books. Plus, back in the day, it was not uncommon for the Avengers to cross paths with both the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. Throw Spiderman into the mix and you've got all the big names of the Marvel Universe. I know this leaves the Hulk out, but every once in a while you can use him as a foil for The Thing or for Thor. And lest you think I forgot about Daredevil, he can guest star in one of the Spiderman movies, and maybe even get a spin-off, but only after we've spun off several mutant teams.
Which reminds me, why the hell is there even one Ghost Rider movie? Now two of them! That is a crime against nature. There are so many worthwhile comics that can be made into film...like instead of giving me these crap Ghost Rider and Blade movies, give me something Alpha Flight flavored, please. Notice, I'm not hating on the Punisher movies. The Dolph Lundgren outing aside, they're actually pretty good, I just don't happen to really like the Punisher.
Okay time to actually get to the casting of the Avengers. Scarlett Johansson - really? She didn't suck as Black Widow, but the casting was a move not unlike casting Jennifer Garner as Elektra. They're both decent enough actresses, but so not the best choice for those roles. Or you know what while I'm on this subject, Halle Berry as Storm. Berry is competent and cute and everything, but so not Storm. Everyone knows that Angela Bassett should have been cast as Storm. She would have kicked ass! I guess now I've got to supply answers to the obvious questions of who I would have cast as Black Widow and Elektra. Elektra is easy - I would have cast Angelina Jolie. She's a little old now, but when Daredevil and Elektra came out, she would have been perfect. Then maybe Ben Afleck would have gotten together with her and Brad Pitt would have stayed with Jennifer Aniston. Oh the world would be a different place. For Black Widow, I wanted someone sulkier and silkier - I mean she is the ultimate femme fatale, not the dangerous school girl. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't even have used Black Widow, I would have stayed more true to the Hawkeye angle and use Mockingbird. I'm not trying to sneak out of answering this - I would have gone with Kate Beckinsale as BW.
The other actor I'm not fully on board with is Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Don't get me wrong, I like Ruffalo and he does a good enough job, but he just doesn't look like Dr. Bruce Banner. You know who would have been an inspired choice? Joseph Gordon Levitt. I'm not just saying that for my librarian, I really think he would be good.
I really liked this film. Except for the bit about Phil. Phil! What will we do now?

The Avengers at IMDb

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Goddammit! I always knew that stoners and virgins would be the end of us all.

Wouldn't have been funny if that was all I wrote? And if I did it without the title of the movie? Just like a note in cyberspace saying, "hello! crazy guy here!" Normally I wouldn't go with two exclamation points, but I made the exemption this time because I think it deserved it.
I loves me some Bradley Whitford. The West Wing. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I know millions saw the first one and just like twelve of us the second one, and two of us were in the same household. I know that Aaron Sorkin had a lot to do with both of these, but I think I only watched like one or two years of the West Wing with Sorkin as the show runner, so I'm going to give a lot of credit to Whitford. Man, I'm still tripping that he's married to the mom from Malcolm in the Middle, and also a bit embarrassed that I can't remember her name - is it Jane Kaczmarek? I think I may have just made up that last name. (Thanks to a very devoted reader, I know that this is correct - because I had the wrong name initially. Sadly, Wikipedia is telling me they are divorced now. Shows what I know.)
Of all the ways that the world ends, I think I like Joss Whedon's version best. My least favorite way is by a rogue asteroid or a super solar flare. Unless we get lots of warning and personal melodrama, or at the very least televised melodrama. If it were say a 8 month long debate about whether or not the asteroid was actually going to hit, or narrowly going to miss the earth as it passes between us and the moon, and as we get closer the calculations get more accurate, but they interpretted more widely so that we end up with two camps, the we're-all-gonna-die-in-a-horrible-impact-that-leads-to-nuclear-night-style-death-but-don't-think-we'll-sneak-through-this-one-because-the-atmosphere-will-be-knocked-away or the other camp, the a-lot-of-people-are-going-to-die-through-natural-disasters-caused-by-the-near-miss-but-all-the-main-characters-will-survive-because-that's-a-given folk. The first camp would be really popular if the holocaust were covered on HBO, because you could have lots of naked people and each week it would be like, "I can't believe she fucked *him*" and then they'd  be all, "well, we are all going to die in a couple of months." and then the first person would be all like, "oh my god! you fucked him too, didn't you?" And there would be that sorry schmoe that everyone felt sorry for because even though the world was definitely ending, probably, he still would get any and he would just spend all of his blogging about it just in case someone survived yet forgot what happened and somehow had electricity to read his stupid blog. But I swear if Bruce Willis or Ben Afleck tries to save the earth, I will personally take them out, because the death of billions is preferable to seeing them trying to save us. Seriously. Can you guess who I am in this apocalyptic scenario?
Part of my brain is telling me this is a novel idea, I should see what Sorkin or maybe Kevin Smith are up to and pitch it to them. But another part of me is whispering, "you're going to feel so guilty if you wake up tomorrow and NPR has announced super killer solar flares coming in late May." And I totally would. And then I would start blogging about and all the crazy shit and how I still...oh too much personal information here.
My only critical comment about this whole movie is that the very last scene - the arm shouldn't have looked so human, it should have been more amphibian. Also, and this is not a critical comment, more of a, "hmm" kind of thing, when did Sigourney Weaver pass from the bad-ass heroine to be the director of the evil angency? Aliens 4 and even Avatar, she was bad-ass. Then, in Paul and now The Cabin in the Woods, she's the director of the evil agency. I guess it works for her though.

The Cabin in the Woods at IMDb