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Tag Archive: Jeremy Renner


Opening weekend review–Avengers: Endgame wraps up the first big Marvel chapter and nicely segues to the next

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
April 28, 2019

Review by C.J. Bunce

After 21 movies and a decade of superheroics, the end arrived this weekend with Marvel Studios′ Avengers: Endgame, already setting new box office records.  Nearly every seat at multiple screenings at my local theater was sold out this weekend, as was the case across the country.  Which means many have seen it, but even more haven’t. You can’t review a film without some details, so if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor: bookmark this and come back later.  The short version: If you’re a superhero fan and you’ve followed the previous entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you won’t want to miss it.  But re-watch both Avengers: Infinity War and Captain Marvel first.  I’ve no idea how anyone will follow the events in the film without first seeing at least these two films.  Endgame is a good wrap-up to the first major story arc in the franchise and a fine segue into the future of the films.  But it’s not perfect (what ever is?) and I’m going to walk through some goods and bads from the film.

That means “there be spoilers ahead” so consider yourself forewarned if you continue.

Note to email subscribers: Clicking on the link will take you into the full review.

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Marvel Studios releases next trailer for Avengers: Endgame, featuring characters new and old

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March 14, 2019

If you don’t want to see anything about Avengers: Endgame you might want to skip the latest trailer, which reveals some trickery by Marvel Studios in its earlier trailers–although with time travel bringing anyone back into the fold it’s not just possible but a likely scheme to mess with Thanos, and anything can happen.  Take a look at the new trailer below, along with a new poster including the key cast at least one version of what we’ll see in the film.

If you don’t see Captain Marvel first (reviewed here at borg), one thing is clear: you’re not going understand what’s going on in Avengers: Endgame.  As Marvel fans will see in one of the codas for the current film in theaters, everything is coming together, and in today’s trailer the Avengers Assemble–that also means new uniforms.

 

It’s good seeing most of the Avengers back again, even if there’s still no sign of the last recruit, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.  The only quirk: Danai Gurira’s Okoye is in the poster, but her name was the only actor not included in the first poster released today in the above-the-title list of actors (she is listed below the title, along with those not pictured: Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, and Gwyneth Paltrow)–contractual deals tend to be specific about what actors get the top of the marquee listing and who doesn’t, but this decision tends to stand out.  But Marvel updated that a few hours later (shown updated to the right above).  And in the realm of trickiness, note that the original poster included 19 names, many of which were omitted this time–reflecting the characters who vanished in Avengers: Infinity War, like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Take a look at the next trailer–if you dare–for Avengers: Endgame:

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All the movies you’ll want to see in 2019

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes — Leave a comment
December 25, 2018

Merry Christmas!

It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2019.  Are you going to see them all?  Heck no.  These are the genre films we think borg readers will want to know about to make their own checklists for the coming year–and they are only the films we know about so far.  We pulled 78 of the hundreds of films that have been finalized or are in varying stages of final production, slated for next year’s movie calendar.

What looks to top the list for most fanboys and fangirls?  The last of the nine films in the Star Wars saga.  Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.  Shazam! is DC’s contribution.  Quentin Tarentino returns to movies to direct Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Martin Scorcese is back with an all-star cast in The Irishman (on Netflix).  M. Night Shyamalan finishes his dark superhero trilogy with Glass.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton return in Terminator.  Jordan Peele is back with another horror film with Us.

Do you like sequels?  This is your year.  Another Men in Black, X-Men, Shaft, Happy Death Day, Lego Movie, Hellboy, John Wick, Kingsman, Jumanji, The Secret Life of Pets, How to Train Your Dragon, Fast and the Furious, Zombieland, Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels, Godzilla, Shaun the Sheep, Annabelle,and Stephen King’s It and Pet Sematary—Disney is trying to get you to move into your local theater with another Toy Story, Aladdin, Dumbo, Frozen, and Lion King–all in one year.  Yep, lots and lots of sequels are coming.

Some films don’t have locked-in release dates yet.  Amazon Prime and Netflix haven’t revealed dates for these 2019 releases:

  • Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, a film about Jimmy Hoffa starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale (Netflix)
  • The Kid, a Western biopic with Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan, and Vincent D’Onofrio (Netflix)
  • The Man Who Killed Hitler Then Bigfoot, starring Sam Elliott (Netflix)
  • 6 Underground, a Michael Bay film starring Ryan Reynolds, Ben Hardy, Dave Franco, and Mélanie Laurent (Netflix)
  • The Last Thing He Wanted, Dee Rees directs Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, and Toby Jones; journalist quits newspaper job to become an arms dealer for a covert government agency (Netflix)
  • The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh directs Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, James Cromwell, about the Pentagon Papers (Netflix)
  • Radioactive, Rosamund Pike plays Marie Curie, with Anya Taylor-Joy (Amazon)

Some of these films will have revised release dates, or get pushed to 2020.

So grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2019 (and many you might not):

January

Glass – Superhero, M. Night Shyamalan trilogy part 3, stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy; continues where Unbreakable and Split left off – January 18.

Serenity – Mystery/Thriller, stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong, Diane Lane; sorry, no relation to Firefly – January 25.

King of Thieves – Heist Comedy, stars Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, and Ray Winstone – January 25.

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Hawkeye and Ant-Man return in title reveal trailer for final Avengers movie

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December 7, 2018

Audiences don’t know what exactly Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye was up to during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, but the first trailer for the next installment in the Marvel Studios saga shows that he–not surprisingly–is making his return.  The big news is Marvel taking a reference from one of the last lines of Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange for the title of the April 2019 release, revealing Avengers: Endgame as the title of the final chapter of Phase III of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  And despite the loss of Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang aka Ant-Man at the post-credits scene in Ant-Man and The Wasp, somehow he’s back, too, as revealed in the trailer.

Marvel isn’t showing much–a good thing–about the next film, but they begin by teasing the death of Iron Man.  The big question for fans of the franchise will be “who lives and who dies?” at the end of Avengers: Endgame, since the studio already released information about future film releases with the cast of Spider-Man back next summer in Spider-Man: Far From Home and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 planned for 2020.

This comes on the heels of the television version of the Marvel universe closing its doors at Netflix, as Disney/Marvel announced it is pulling the plug on fan-favorite series Luke Cage and Daredevil, plus Iron Fist and more expected to be announced after the release of final seasons of Jessica Jones and The Punisher, which were already in production when the announcements started to roll out.

Check out this first trailer for Avengers: Endgame:

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New book celebrates the first 10 years of Marvel Studios films

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Movies, Superheroes — Leave a comment
November 12, 2018

 

Review by C.J. Bunce

This month Marvel is celebrating the first ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a look back at the first three phases of the films in a new hardcover book, Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years.  With the March 2019 release of Captain Marvel the official fourth phase of the MCU will begin.  With that shift to a new era quickly approaching, as well as an uncertain future thanks to the imminent completion of the acquisition of the X-Men characters, and the 10-year benchmark, it’s a good time to assess all Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was able to pull together beginning way back when we first saw Robert Downey, Jr. don the Iron Man armor for the first time.  This nostalgic trip back over the past decade will be published by Titan in conjunction with Marvel.

Readers will find interviews with Feige, co-president Louis D’Esposito, Stan Lee, Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh, Anthony and Joe Russo, James Gunn, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Chadwick Boseman, Evangeline Lilly, Karen Gillan, Don Cheadle, Sebastian Stan, Gwyneth Paltrow, William Hurt, and Josh Brolin.  Multi-page sections focus on each of the 22 films in the series.  High-quality color photographs accompany the discussion of each film in chronological order, most with behind-the-scenes images, like a great image of all the parts to Ant-Man’s helmet laid out on a table.

Fascinating discussion points include D’Esposito pointing out how the produces intentionally made each new film a different genre, not just a superhero movie.  He also indicates that casting Robert Downey, Jr. was the most important casting decision of the franchise.  Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn talks about using the soundtracks on set for everyone to get the feel of the two Guardians movies.  The book even provides some preview information for next year’s Captain Marvel movie.  And there are several Easter eggs that most fans will have never read about anywhere else, often 10 or more for each film (the Collector and the Grandmaster are brothers?).  Here are a few pages from Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years:

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Marvel Studios releases new trailer and poster for Avengers: Infinity War

Filed under: Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Superheroes — 1 Comment
March 17, 2018

Ten years in the planning.  Eighteen movies.  All of it the brainchild of master Marvel universe coordinator Kevin Feige.  Yet it’s still only halfway through the third act or Phase III of the grand Marvel Cinematic Universe saga.  Marvel Studios has promised to tie everything together, including every magical talisman holding the six Infinity Stones–in directors Anthony and Joe Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War, the first of a two-part story, originally divided into simply parts 1 and 2.  The studio released a new trailer this weekend explaining more about the plot, plus a new poster for the movie that somehow crams in every key hero that will be packed into the movie.  Call it a St. Patrick’s Day present for Marvel fans.

And that’s a roll call that includes headliners Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Spider-man (Tom Holland), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Vision (Paul Bettany), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Falcon (Anthony Mackey), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Okoye (Danai Gurira), Wong (Benedict Wong), Shuri (Letitia Wright), Drax (Dave Bautista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket (Sean Gunn) and Groot (Terry Notary), Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt).

Presumably the poster and trailer don’t tell all, so we’ll be looking for most of the support team to have an appearance, too, including Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), The Collector (Benicio del Toro) and Heimdall (Idris Elba)–both listed on the poster in fine print, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Aunt Mae (Marisa Tomei), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and Happy (Jon Favreau).  And they will all face off against Thanos (Josh Brolin) and Black Order members/Thanos’s children: Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary) and two characters expected to be voiced by familiar, but as yet unnamed, actors: Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight.  And a new name: Peter Dinklage is listed at the bottom of the poster.  Who will he portray?

So check out this trailer where the Marvel Cinematic Universe–The Avengers, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and the Guardians of the Galaxy–come together in one film: Avengers: Infinity War: Continue reading →

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Now streaming–Adams and Renner attempt to communicate with aliens in “Arrival”

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April 24, 2017

Review by C.J. Bunce

A diehard science fiction moviegoer will probably find nothing new in last year’s nominee for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Arrival.  Nearly every minute of the film can be seen in countless episodes of science fiction television.  But it is the next drama cloaked in science fiction dress, trying to one-up Interstellar, Gravity, and Contact.  Following the Michael Crichton stylebook, Arrival gives us a problem (terrifying, giant squid-like, alien monsters referred to as heptapods we cannot yet understand) and brings in a team of experts to work to solve that problem.  The experts are linguist Dr. Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, and physicist Dr. Ian Donnelly, played by Jeremy Renner.  And that’s all–no other brilliant scientists play any role.  From a storytelling angle this allows more of a focus on the two characters, primarily Banks, but it also defies belief that one of twelve Earth-visiting space monolith ships is in the U.S. and only a M*A*S*H unit full of people are there to find the solution.  Those that are present are canned, stupid government wonks, including an intermediary military officer played by Forest Whitaker and others who shout a lot and want to bomb the aliens.  It all makes you want to cheer for the aliens.

To its credit Arrival deals head on with what is surprisingly one of the least pursued tropes in science fiction: communication with the aliens.

Every major sci-fi franchise tells us these aliens will be humanoid, but what if they aren’t?  Actually communicating with other beings once we have that first alien encounter has been seen from time to time, the best in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Darmok.  And who can forget those musical notes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind?  Most of Star Trek, and other sci-fi, circumvents the communication issue with the story device of a universal translator or the equivalent, so the conflict of Arrival is refreshing.  Unfortunately the pursuit of the problem in Arrival could have been more interesting and compelling.  Instead the filmmakers made the choice to break away frequently, delving back and forth into an emotional character study.

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First look–Matt Damon returns in fourth stint as Jason Bourne

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April 22, 2016

Jason Bourne

Universal Pictures has released a full-length trailer for Jason Bourne following up on the short teaser released Super Bowl weekend.  Unlike 2012’s last film in the franchise, The Bourne Legacy starring Jeremy Renner, Matt Damon is back for his fourth appearance as Bourne following 2002’s original The Bourne Identity, 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, and 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum. 

It will be a bit of a deja vu, as Julia Stiles is back in her third stint in the franchise.  The Bourne movies, based on Robert Ludlum’s books, are a lot like Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies–after a while they all seem to run together.  We were fans of the first film, especially co-star Franka Potente (Copper, The Bridge, Dark Matter).

This time out, newly-minted Oscar winner Alicia Vikander joins the ranks of Bourne chasers, along with Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones, and multiple Oscar nominee Albert Finney makes an appearance in the trailer.

jason bourne poster

So here it is, the trailer for the fifth film in the series, Jason Bourne:

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Mission: Impossible returns this weekend–Why do the stunts look real?

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July 28, 2015

Mission impossible scene

This weekend in theaters across the country you could see some exciting previews of coming movies, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Everest (as well as some that look like duds, which shall go unnamed).  One of the best was this behind the scenes look at Mission: Impossible–Rogue Nation, which hits theaters this weekend.

The marketing folks for this fifth entry in the modern Mission: Impossible reboot series have been parading this poster of Tom Cruise hanging from the side of an airplane for months.  For any other movie we’d yawn and note it as another action sequence in what has really been a solid action series.  Each film has Cruise doing some physical maneuvers.  Who can forget Cruise in the 1996 original film, hanging by two cables as he hacks a CIA computer after lowering himself from a ventilation duct into a secure facility room from after bypassing a laser grid.

mission impossible 5 poster

But this movie has something different.

Check out this preview and behind the scenes look at Cruise’s airplane stunt.  (Trust us, it looks pretty incredible on the big screen):

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Tickets on sale now for Marvel 11-movie mega-marathon, plus new Avengers 2 trailer

Filed under: Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes — Leave a comment
March 5, 2015

Bettany Vision

We’ve talked about and sat through many a movie marathon in the past four years here at borg.com, with The Lord of the Rings Marathon, The Dark Knight Marathon, the first Avengers Movie Marathon, the Cornetto Marathon, and The Hobbit Movie Marathon.  But those won’t quite compare to what’s coming your way, spanning two days, April 29-30, 2015.  For those willing to spend more than 27 hours in the theater, you can soak up the entire Avengers series of movies in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” plus Guardians of the Galaxy as a bonus– eleven movies in total–at the Ultimate Marvel Movie Marathon.  It all leads up to the premiere of Avengers 2: Age of Ultron in advance of its May 1 national release.

You can buy advance tickets now here, but don’t wait too long as shows in many cities will sell out.  Major chains are all participating, including AMC Theaters, Cinemark, Megaplex, and Regal Entertainment Group, among others.  Check out this insane schedule:

April 29

6:00 p.m. IRON MAN

8:25 p.m. THE INCREDIBLE HULK

10:35 p.m. IRON MAN 2

April 30

1:00 a.m. THOR

3:10 a.m. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

5:30 a.m. THE AVENGERS

8:48 a.m. IRON MAN 3

11:15 a.m. THOR: THE DARK WORLD

1:45 p.m. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

4:20 p.m. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

7:00 p.m. AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (in RealD® 3D)

avengers-marathon

Some theaters are planning a double feature with 2012’s The Avengers plus Avengers 2.  Check local listings for showings as the premiere date gets closer.

And after the break, check out the third full trailer for Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, with a peek at Paul Bettany’s new villain, The Vision.

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