Movie Trailer: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Michael Bay’s Transformers films ushered in a wave of nostalgia for 80’s toy properties.  Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables tried to accomplish the same for 80’s action heroes.  The former was much more successful than the latter, as The Expendables required the action heroes of yesteryear to collectivize in order to achieve a respectable level of bankability in the current marketplace.  By comparison, The Transformers were able to achieve much more without having to do a crossover with other toylines.  Would it be possible for one form of nostalgia to aid the resurrection of another?  The makers of G.I. Joe: Retaliation seem to think so, as they have cast Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a lead role.  While not actually an 80’s action hero, The Rock unmistakably comes from that exact same mold.  Such iconography will now be used to aid the Joes in their second cinematic outing.

Matthias Stork Answers Detractors in the Third Installment of ‘Chaos Cinema’

The first two parts of Matthias Stork’s video essay Chaos Cinema drew the ire of many, inspiring a number of responses and rebuttals.  Stork obviously took some of them into consideration when crafting the third installment of his controversial series, which debuted this past Friday on Press Play.  Stork doesn’t concede defeat, though he admits that he initially painted with broad brushstrokes.  He apologizes for that oversight, while answering his critics.