It's A Marvel World After All

I'm sensing a disturbance in the force, readers. After watching Thor: The Dark World last night, I am left with a nagging feeling. Where do we, as movie goers and film executives go from here?

The movie itself rates an A-/B+ in my grading scale purely based on the entertainment factor. In this installment in the franchise, Thor, aka Chris Hemsworth, knows who he is supposed to be and wants nothing more than to be that for his realm and his father. Of course there is one problem: his true love Jane, Natalie Portman,  is a human and he hasn't seen her (minus some creepy/uber-romantic, depending on your point of view, watching over her by using the Guardian to keep an eye out) in two years since he first saved Earth. Some shady plot devices get thrown in and he can return to Jane and bring her back to his home of Asgard. Tragedy strikes and Thor must go to the one person we all love and know will be his doom, Loki. Here is where the movie really shines: during the scenes shared between Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston is the chemistry that is reminiscent of The Avengers;  not that the movie is bland in the human world. No, thankfully Darby, portrayed once again by Kat Dennings, is back and speaking from the minds of the viewers exactly what we would be saying were we in this position. Ladies interested in seeing Hemsworth with his shirt off will have to make do with one teasing scene in the beginning because while the movie doesn't drop the humor it does do away with gratuitous scenes like that. With twists that I could see coming, the movie was more than entertaining but lacked significant movement in the Marvel universe, at least in my opinion. Side Note: Stay for two closing credits scenes. One in the middle and one at the very end. It's not until the closing credit scene (that Marvel has perfected to an art) that we really get a sense of why this whole battle was important in the grand scheme of things.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

The closing credit scene takes two of Thor's mates to "The Collector" (played by an almost unrecognizable Benecio Del Toro) to hold the Aether which nearly destroyed the Nine Realms in the movie. This is the first time movie goers are getting a glimpse into the next big phase of Marvel's (World Domination) Plan: Guardians of the Galaxy (8/14) which is currently slated to come out after this spring's Captain America: The Winter Soldier( 4/14).  The final movie in Phase 2 of this plan will end with the next Avengers collab, Age of Ultron in 2015.

Phew. I'm exhausted just writing that. And herein lies the problem: in a world where superhero movies are so popular and already have a built in fan base, why stop? Phase 3 is already in pre-production with Ant-Man coming out two months after Age of Ultron in July of 2015. The next logical movie would be another Iron Man/Thor/Captain America stand alone but... Robert Downey Jr. is only signed on to play Tony Stark for the next two Avengers movies. Chris Hemsworth is locked in as well as Chris Evans but you have to wonder, how long do they want to be playing these characters? They aren't as old as RDJ; Hemsworth is 30 and Evans is 32 to RDJ's 48. Clearly these have at least another 10 years of screen time as they characters.

But what about superhero fatigue? Will it ever happen to the main movie going audience? You never really know. Marvel, along with Disney, is threatening to have one of the biggest movie monopolies I've ever even heard of and they are showing no signs of slowing down. But what happens when they want to reboot a series? DC Comics is known for doing that (see Batman and Superman) to mixed success. With the news of Ben Affleck taking over the Cowled Cape from Christian Bale (arguably people's defining Batman) there was outrage and the scales tipped a little bit in DC's favor. Once the dominant superhero blockbuster, they have been forced to make bold moves to stay in the public's awareness. Marvel is everywhere you look these day: your TV has a struggling in the ratings but still steady enough to warrant a full season pick up show focused on the day to day missions of it's erstwhile S.H.I.E.L.D. and soon to be coming to a Netflix near you will be 4 13 episode mini-season of smaller characters from the Marvel universe.

I'm not saying that Marvel should stop everything immediately and only produce one movie every 3 years. I just wonder how these movies will hold up against the test of time. Will they be redone in 15, 20 years? I for one will not be OK with that. Just as Hugh Jackman will always be Wolverine, these other men will always be The Avengers. I can't imagine any other hot, phenomenal actors taking over the roles.

But why stop there with the remakes, it's  all Hollywood can do these days it seems. Star Wars isn't getting a remake necessarily but it's certainly a reboot much like the great Star Trek franchise just received, and I'm not saying that that movie doesn't add something to our pop culture but besides that one movie, when was the last time a decent remake was done? I'm sure I could come up with one, but why must Hollywood take gems from it's crown and grind it down into paper currency to make it's money? Why make new movies when adaptations and remakes already have a built-in fan base of people who will pay to ridicule the movie? That means that perhaps the most influential series in recent pop culture history, Harry Potter, could one day be in the line of fire. I can't imagine anyone else in the world filling those shoes and I would never want it to be done. The only way I can even conceive of it being "redone" would be to make the books into a mini-series so that more content from the books that got left out in the movies could get to be seen. And that's a big if.

For now all we can do is wait and see how this grand (world domination) plan plays out. Will Marvel end up on top? At the end of the first two movies in Phase 2, the only string that holds our Avengers together is that they are alive and essentially giving up their "super" life to lead normal lives with the women they love. We will see if this holds true when Cap gets his due in what is sure to be much better than his first solo movie outing. If it is, then we can all piece together what Joss Whedon has in mind to get our favorite band of super hero misfits back together...

Date night with shawarma of course.

The Case of the Single Girl

When things don't work out in your life, you always look back and start examining where it could have gone wrong. So when I had to deal with a break up this past week, my crazy brain went into overdrive, (over) analyzing what I could have done differently. I feel that I am qualified to be the lead investigator in this matter because it's my life but more importantly because I've been watching a lot of "Sherlock Holmes" themed television/movies lately. Clearly the erstwhile detective and I could crack The Case of the Single Girl. ( I know, super clever.)

I have always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes and his many variations. I read the books as a child, fell in love with Robert Downey Jr. in the recent revival, and watch Elementary on CBS which had the neat idea to twist Holmes' relationship with his companion Dr. Watson by making the character a female foil. Until recently I had not given in to the British retelling, Sherlock, but one day I found myself interested enough and was hooked shortly after. This influx of Holmesian thinking makes me more than qualified to solve the aforementioned mystery.

My imaginary Holmes' and I must start the investigation at the beginning. Single Girl is a mid-twenties, fairly attractive female who has not been in a serious relationship. Her story begins when she decides on her birthday to join an online dating site on a whim purely based on a "oh why the hell not" attitude. From sources, we have gathered that she was not a quiet girl, rather multiple reports detail her being social, outgoing, and quite popular. The first month of activity on the site proved fruitless and in an effort to be more proactive about her situation, she set about to find the "one".

After a series of awful dates (one suitor had rotted teeth reports confirm), Single Girl met a nice gentleman. Based on her past experiences, Single Girl kept the man and the news quiet for fear of getting too excited. Things were good but hard, their work schedules were not conducive to a regular dating relationship. Not one to bite a gift horse in the mouth, Single Girl made her peace with that and decided it was worth it. Alas, the gentleman couldn't maintain those same feelings and ended the relationship after a couple months.

Single Girl was understandably a bit down in the dumps but after a couple days of being sad, she decided to hire our crack team of investigators to see if we can solve her case of singledom. Let's dig deeper, shall we readers???

Potential Flaws:

-She likes too many movies. After several meetings with Single Girl, one will notice that she often drops movie and TV quotes into normal conversation and not realize what she is doing. This could be a deterrent for potential mates.

- Her beauty is too girl next door. She isn't drop dead gorgeous, nor does she have that natural beauty that some people are gifted with. She works at her good looks. Although she has been known to make a few jaws drop when she wants to. There is photographic evidence.

- She is loud. She has a loud voice. And a loud laugh.

- Her love of sports could intimidate men. She is not afraid of voicing her opinions at the TV screen in public or at an actual game.

- An avid eater, she could one day get fat. It happens to the best of people.

After examining the evidence... we are stumped. Her "flaws" are more like quirks and could be seen as quite endearing to the right person. She is clearly popular as she has many friends and is beloved by all, or so we assume. There must be something else a foot. A villain that she and we are not aware of...