Avengers: Age of Ultron

Review by Ric Nimrod

The first thing to cross my mind when I left the theater after watching Marvels AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON was ‘I cannot wait to watch this again’, but then again, I am that kind of nerd. I then looked at my 6-year-old son who had accompanied me and asked him how he liked it, and he replied with a smile and the word ‘awesome’. But after a moment of consideration he finished with ‘but it is not better than GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvels last big screen adventure). Out of the mouths of babes, the kid is right… but not by much.

Much Ado About Nothing

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Your familiarity with Joss Whedon depends on your level of interest in creations like TOY STORY, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, THE AVENGERS, Angel, Firefly and other comics-based superhero and supernatural vehicles. Whedon, who calls himself a third-generation TV writer (his grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show, his father for The Golden Girls), is something of a renaissance man: screenwriter, director, producer, actor and composer. Lest you think his talents are confined to comic books and sci-fi, Whedon wants it known that he is also a devotee of Shakespeare. He regularly hosts Shakespeare soirées at his house, at which the young actors who populate his movies and TV shows gather for readings of the Bard's plays.

Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (July 6th and 7th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[COMIC-CON EPISODE IV: A FAN'S HOPE screens Friday July 6th at 9:50 pm and Saturday July 7th at 7:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

COMIC-CON EPISODE IV: A FAN'S HOPE finds director Morgan Spurlock taking a break from his usual contrived socio-political manifestoes starring himself (e.g. SUPERSIZE ME) to shoot an actual documentary about the 2009 San Diego Comic Con. From its humble beginnings as a small comic book convention in 1970, the San Diego Comic-Con has grown to be arguably the most influential event in the world of pop culture. Comic books are now just one small aspect of the con, with TV and film having come to the forefront as producers realize that this is how best to reach their target audience of fanboys with disposable cash.

Spurlock focuses primarily on five individuals in the film. Eric and Skip are artists hoping to break into the comic book industry, and we see them present their work to established artists and publishers for (often harsh) criticism. Holly is a costume designer who has created professional quality costumes of characters from the Mass Effect video game in hopes of winning the Comic Con costume contest. Chuck is a comic book dealer who has been at the Comic Con since its inception and now laments how the event is no longer the cash cow for him it once was. Finally, James is a fanboy looking for a chance to propose to his fangirl at the con.

Marvel's The Avengers

Review by Bob Ignizio

Ever since 2008's IRON MAN, Samuel L. Jackson has been popping up in the Marvel Studios films as Nick Fury, leader of the government security agency S.H.I.E.L.D., to talk about his plans of putting together a group of superheroes. He finally gets around to it in MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, bringing together Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to, as Fury puts it, “fight the foes no single superhero could withstand.”

The foes in question are led by Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the same guy who caused trouble in THOR. Still smarting from his defeat in that film, Loki returns using his powers of deception and manipulation to get his hands on something called the Tesseract. This glowing McGuffin has seemingly limitless power, but its main purpose here is to open a gateway to another dimension so that an army of CGI space aliens can come through and attack the Earth. After the obligatory fighting amongst themselves, partly caused by Loki's manipulations but mostly due to their own arrogance, the aforementioned heroes come together to face this threat as a team, tearing up large portions of downtown Cleveland (standing in for New York City) in the process.