I don’t post movie news/rumors as much as I used to around here, and I’m glad, because all the rumors of who was in the lead for Star Lord/Peter Quill in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy turned out wrong. I’ve got a Character Guide coming very soon for Guardians and I’ve been familiarizing myself with the characters more lately, and I think Chris Pratt was a great choice.

From what I’ve heard, Guardians is going to be a more funny and unique Marvel movie, and Pratt can do funny and serious very well. I saw him in Moneyball before I even started watching Parks and Recreation and since then he’s been in a ton of stuff, including the awesome Zero Dark Thirty.

I think the rest of the casting news for this movie will be pretty interesting too. Not many people in the general movie-going world have heard of Guardians and they’re going to have to try a little harder to bring people in. Having Iron Man cameo would help, and I’m sure having Jim Carrey and/or Adam Sandler would help bring people in too.

This makes me want Aziz Ansari as the voice of Rocket Raccoon.

How much do you want to bet we’ll see Peter Quill pop up in a short post-credits teaser in one of the movies coming soon?

Via SlashFilm

After my post about the VHS tapes I picked up at Goodwill the other day, I thought I would start a new series on the site dedicated to VHS Nostalgia. Besides the box art, one of the things I remember most about VHS tapes was the stuff that you’d find inside.

I remember being almost as excited about the inserts, ads, and coupons as I would be about getting to watch the movie. In the days before the Internet, Twitter, and blogs, sometimes the inserts in VHS tapes were the way you’d find out about new movies or when one of your favorite movies was coming to home video for the first time. Disney tapes in particular always had a ton of inserts.

Well, today I was at Goodwill again and I found something pretty awesome. A sealed Jurassic Park tape for fifty cents. I immediately started wondering what treasures would be inside the cardboard box besides my favorite movie of all time on an old-school tape. When I got home I took the shrink-wrap off and scanned the pages of the booklet that fell out. Other than a few superfluous Jello pages, here it is intact.
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Ok, there’s no point in making this post sound like any kind of news story or announcement, because you’ve heard it already (not to mention I’m a day late). J.J. Abrams is directing the new Star Wars movie, which is the biggest news related to Episode VII we’ve had and just the tip of the iceberg of what we’ll be getting over the next couple years.

I’m going to save my in-depth opinion for something Tim and I will be unveiling soon, but I will say this: I think J.J. Abrams is a very talented dude, and I can trust him with a Star Wars movie. He’s practically been proteged by Steven Spielberg and although he has some gimmicks (insert lens flare joke here), he is a big enough Star Wars fan that I think he will treat this movie as the most important thing he’ll ever do, and try to do it right.
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I swear I didn’t plan this, but on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we’re kicking off our week of Marvel Phase 2 Character Guides with Falcon, mainstream comics’ first African-American superhero. For some reason I always thought that title belonged to Luke Cage, but I was wrong. I’ve had a passing understanding of Falcon as a member of the Avengers in various shows I watched as a kid, but I knew I wanted to brush up his history before he debuts on the big screen in Captain America 2: The Winter Solider.

As with the rest of the character guides this week, this should give you a brief overview of the character, show you how he’ll fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and then point you in a few different directions so you can learn more, like I’ll be doing.
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Even though I’ve been hooked on comics lately, I still only consider myself a casual comic book fan. When I was fifteen or so, I read a lot of graphic novels and religiously bought new issues of Wizard Magazine, but I didn’t make it to comic book shops often enough (or have the money) to keep up with ongoing stories. When you take into account the decades and decades of history most of the major superheroes have now, not to mention all the reboots and parallel timelines it can be overwhelming to get into a new character.

Being way more of a movie buff than a comic one, I am a huge fan of what Marvel has done with their Cinematic Universe. Iron Man was a big surprise, and although The Incredible Hulk was just alright and Iron Man 2 was a disappointment, the shared universe really picked up steam when Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers all came out within a year of each other.

With Phase 2 of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe kicking off in a few months with Iron Man 3, I’ve been wanting to prepare and learn about all the new characters that will be on screen. With Phase 1, I knew the backstories of all the characters but this time around things are getting a little more obscure.

Phase 2 Character Guides

So, I decided to do some research on the main new characters in Phase 2 and share it with you all, as well as open it up for discussion. I’m sure there are plenty of comic book nerds out there who can point us in the right direction as far as what we should read before seeing the new movies. These won’t be histories or biographies. Think of them more like bibliographies. A collection of stuff I’ve found that should help better understand the characters.

So, throughout the next few months we will be looking at different characters from the next batch of Marvel movies, which are:
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