With Chris Pratt all set to play Star-Lord opposite a tree man and a talking raccoon (this movie sounds like a stoner’s dream), all Marvel has left to cast in Guardians of the Galaxy are the voices (Adam Sandler was rumored at one point), and Drax the Destroyer. Well now, according to El Mayimbe at Latino Review, (*takes huge drag on inhaler*) Marvel has offered the part to Jason Momoa, aka Conan, aka Khal Drogo. Wait, are all these characters dudes? Sounds more like Guardians of the Guy-laxy if you ask me.

Momoa flew out to London to screen test on Wednesday. It was reported earlier that Isiah Mustafa [Old Spice commercial guy], Dave Bautista [Wrestler], and Brian Patrick [guy with two first names] also tested the role of Drax.

According to sources, Momoa’s screen test went so good [sic] that Marvel offered him the part and his reps have now countered, so the negotiations are ongoing. [LatinoReview]

I’m not that familiar with Drax the Destroyer (is he a ship?), so I melvined this nerd I know named Wikipedia and made him tell me everything. Don’t laugh, if there’s one area where Wikipedia is meticulously accurate, it’s in comic book characters.

Arthur Douglas was a human whose family was attacked and killed by the supervillain Thanos. Needing a champion to combat Thanos, the being known as Kronos took Arthur’s spirit and placed it in a powerful new body, and Drax the Destroyer was born. Drax’s powers included enhanced strength and resilience, flight, and the ability to project energy blasts from his hands. The character often battled Thanos, and on occasion the superheroes Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock. He was also a member of the group known as the Infinity Watch. [Wiki]

So, basically a buff dude with rocket hands. My dream. And it seems do-able for Momoa, who has become Hollywood’s go-to guy whenever they need a big buff dude and The Rock is busy. Momoa definitely brings a certain… Hawaiianness to all his roles. I guess the jury’s still out. He seems reasonably charismatic, but it’s hard to tell what he can do when all he’s been in are a horrific nü metal remake of Conan and played Hate-F*ck McGee on Game of Thrones.

I guess we’ll see. But at the very least, we’ll always have this drunk-off-his-ass UFC interview:

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Just look at this fratboy rapist

Ugh. I really didn’t want to write about this, but I guess I have to. So James Gunn, known to a cult handful as a kitschy-clever Troma-trained director of films like Super and Slither, back in 2011 wrote a kitschy-campy, tongue-in-cheek blog post called “The 50 Superheroes You Most Want to Have Sex With.” A post which, for some reason the “guide to geek girl culture” site The Mary Sue only picked up on this week, calling it a “slut-shaming, misogynist, homophobic post” (thanks to the internet, I can now spell “misogynist” without a dictionary!). From which followed the requisite online petition to get James Gunn removed from his job directing the much higher-profile Guardians of the Galaxy, which Marvel hired him to do back in August. The petition garnered a relatively paltry 3,100 signatures.

Naturally, James Gunn had to monkey dance for the self-appointed morality police in an apology posted by GLAAD:

“A couple of years ago I wrote a blog that was meant to be satirical and funny. In rereading it over the past day I don’t think it’s funny. The attempted humor in the blog does not represent my actual feelings. However, I can see where statements were poorly worded and offensive to many. I’m sorry and regret making them at all,” Gunn writes.

“People who are familiar with me as evidenced by my Facebook page and other mediums know that I’m an outspoken proponent for the rights of the gay and lesbian community, women and anyone who feels disenfranchised, and it kills me that some other outsider like myself, despite his or her gender or sexuality, might feel hurt or attacked by something I said. We’re all in the same camp, and I want to do my best to make this world a better place for all of us. I’m learning all the time.” [THR]

If you knew anything about James Gunn or had ever seen a Troma film, you’d know the “offending” post was par for course – kitschy, gleefully vulgar, and written in tongue-in-cheek vernacular. The worst you could say about it was that it was un-PC, and duh, that’s Troma’s entire mission statement. That stuff wouldn’t even exist without  humorless, content-deaf outrage merchants to clutch their pearls over it. As far as I can tell, this was the language Susana Polo of the Mary Sue had such a problem with:

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Comedy usually works better in short bursts (brevity, soul of wit, etc.), and it’s incredibly hard to maintain the funny over the course of a standard, 90-minute plus, single-narrative movie format. Which raises the question, why do we keep trying to make it fit? The Kentucky Fried Movie-style Movie 43, produced by Peter Farrelly, takes the opposite approach, weaving a pastiche of comedy vignettes starring a broad ensemble of famous actors swearing liberally and playing against type, directed by a whole flock (murder? herd?) of directors, including:

Peter Farrelly, Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Patrik Forsberg, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk and Brett Ratner.

Oh right, I’m supposed to believe “Rusty Cundieff” is a real person? Is that Chad Farthouse’s handyman? Harry Beefcurtain’s publicist? Anyway, check out the red-band trailer below if you want to hear Angela Lansbury repeatedly use the N-word.
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Now that Marvel has kicked us in the nuts by announcing that we’ll have to wait until 2015 for the Avengers sequel, we have no choice but to hunker down and get by on the excitement of the sequels to the individual character films like Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Thor: Dark World, as well as whatever is happening with The Incredible Hulk. Of course we also have the mysterious Guardians of the Galaxy film now, which lost a little more mystery over the weekend with the announcement that James Gunn will direct.

Gunn, who is not the really annoying fashion guy as I first thought, previously wrote and directed Super, which starred Rainn Wilson as the Crimson Bolt, and because of his “geeky sensibilities” Marvel is convinced he can tell this story well.

Guardians of the Galaxy will be Marvel’s greatest challenge, though, at least throughout these first two phases. It’s primarily a space-set adventure featuring various creatures, including a badass gun-toting racoon. The latest plot synopsis claims the film will be “about a U.S. pilot who ends up in space in the middle of a universal conflict and goes on the run with futuristic ex-cons who have something everyone wants.” It’s a tough sell, but Gunn is an inspired choice and one we applaud. (Via Movies.com)

As we’ve previously discussed, this is a really ballsy film in general. With this latest news, it just got about 100-times ballsier. I like the story idea – a lost Earth pilot ends up in the middle of a galactic battle – a lot, because it vaguely reminds me of The Last Starfighter, which in turn reminds me of Star Crunch, which is the greatest snack cake ever made.

However, as has been our concern since this film was announced – and despite how people choose to read this – we’re still talking about a movie about a team of alien vigilantes, including a tree man and a talking raccoon. I don’t have a prediction as to how Gunn will do, but no matter how anyone spins this idea to me, I still can’t stop thinking about this…

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Super: Dark Humor and Inappropriate Boners

Super is like the Troma version of Kick-Ass, and I mean that as both a compliment and an insult.  It takes all the dark impulses beneath the childish dorkdom of superhero fascination that Kick-Ass hinted at and amplifies them to the point where they’re no longer just hints, sometimes blunt to the point of boneheadedness.  It’s also much lower-budget and amateurish, which either gives it a DIY charm or makes it harder to sit through, depending on your perspective (I say a little of both).  But I use the Troma-does-Kick-Ass shorthand for myself, as a way to help me understand it, not as a way to describe the original pitch (HURRR, PETER PAN BY WAY OF THE DARK KNIGHT). That alone is enough to put it above most movies.  It’s refreshing when a film actually needs simplification.

Also, Ellen Page gave me an inappropriate erection.

Rainn Wilson stars as Frank D’Arbo, a schlubby (of course), uninteresting short order cook whose only joys in life are his too-hot-for-him wife played by Liv Tyler and the memory of the time he helped cops catch a purse snatcher, both events chronicled in child-like crayon drawings taped to the wall of his crappy apartment.  Beyond that, his schlubby life has been one of schlubbiness, disappointment, and shame, as illustrated by a childhood flashback in which bullies humiliate him and pee on his face, and by that I mean they literally urinate on his face (Troma vets like James Gunn tend to take the direct approach).  I read a review of Kick-Ass a while back that questioned why we were supposed to buy handsome teenager Aaron Johnson as the outcast* (“uh, because he has curly hair, and… too many layers of shirts?”).  To its credit, Super‘s protagonist is a true outcast, a doughy, over-the-hill, piss-faced loser who looks like he could use a little escapism.

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