The first trailer for The Avengers is here and you know it’s a big deal because iTunes finally offered an embeddable video player (seriously, we’ve been waiting for this for like four years). Marvel’s great experiment in turning over their biggest project to Joss Whedon, a guy known mainly for cult shows that get cancelled before the mainstream ever sees them, stars Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and Mark “Ruffalo Bill” Ruffalo. I’ve never actually seen a Joss Whedon show, so this is particularly exciting for me.

First impressions: It looks like Loki from Thor is the villain, which is… odd. And the lighting looks really bright and even in every scene, like they’re shooting a superhero sitcom.

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Samuel L. Jackson is widely (and deservedly) respected as an Oscar-nominated, multiple award-winning actor who can deliver the word “motherf*cker” better than anyone in the world. And yet, for all the fame and fortune and credibility he’s accumulated, he probably couldn’t name all the movies he made last month. He’s the only man in the world who could go to a strip club and make it rain paychecks. Proving that he’ll agree to star in literally anything, he stars in this latest trailer for Arena, alongside underwear spokesperson Kellan Lutz, a Twilight castmember so blandly repulsive the AP once confused him with Cam Gigandet. Normally you’d have to find a dog, shave its ass, and kick it backward into an open sewer for that.

David Lord finds himself forced into the savage world of a modern gladiatorial arena, where men fight to the death for the entertainment of the online masses.

A protagonist forced to take part in gladiatorial combat in a dystopian future? Possibly the least original action-movie premise outside of someone kidnapping a retired super-soldier’s wife/daughter. Of course, this only makes me like Samuel L. Jackson that much more. I get the feeling that for ten bucks, he’d come to my apartment and sing “Buttercup” until I fell asleep.

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UPDATE: Yep, fun ruined by Paramount’s lawyers.

Here’s the Iron Man 2 footage screened at Comic Con the other week, shot on glorious buttcam. If you can actually understand the dialog you have better headphones than I, but from what I can tell, it starts with Robert Downey asking if he can join Nick Fury-Samuel Jackson’s team.  Then it transitions to a court sequence in which Senator Gary Shandling wants the government to take away Tony Stark’s suit, because obviously it’s a national security threat, just like the X-Men. Duh, dude, just relax. Let Tony Stark handle whatever comes up, it’s his vision.  Don’t you read Ayn Rand?

Then after the hearing, it switches to random shots of stuff, like Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, all set to music.  It gets me super pumped to see the movie, but in a way it’s sort of cheating.  You could edit Love Actually to “Shoot to Thrill” and I’d probably be in the back headbanging, screaming “YEEEEAH, LET’S SEE THIS BITCH FALL IN LOVE!” That doesn’t necessarily make it a good movie.

Also, and this is neither here nor there, but if Mickey Rourke could rock out to AC/DC while feeding his pet cockatoo crackers from his mouth it would be the cutest thing ever.