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Marvel Studios and Disney today released the first public trailer of Avengers: Age of Ultron,  next year's guaranteed superhero blockbuster. I won't bore you with my analysis, except, well, you just have to watch it. If it is at least half as good as Captain America: The Winter Soldier , then I will be happy bunny - and it sure looks like it may. More importantly, within all the shots of Ultron in its various incarnation, Iron Man's Hulkbuster and Hulk destroying half of Johannesburg and Hawkeye being Hawkeye, is a short blink it or miss it 1940s flashback sequence featuring Captain America with who I believe is Stark Senior or Bucky, and Peggy Carter. This was shot back in April at Brockley's very own art deco Rivoli Ballroom . April 2015 can't come soon enough. Hail Hydra.

Last Friday, Marvel Studios came down to film a scene at the Rivoli Ballroom in Crofton Park, Brockley in South East London. My partner and I were walking down Brockley Road when we stumbled upon a film crew filming "After Party". The Rivoli Ballroom is no stranger to film - it has featured in Doctor Who and the Muppets Most Wanted , but this one was big. We could tell by the twenty of so trucks that were lining up on Brockley Road and Marnock Road. Curiously a couple crew members had shirts with Guardians of the Galaxy printed on it. As the filming of the Guardians of the Galaxy has already wrapped up and is currently in post production, the only logical conclusion was that (OMG, this was when my jaws dropped when realisation hit me), they were a Marvel Studios film crew filming the next Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero movie - Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron ! With crews and visitors in t-shirts bearing Captain America 's logo and Converse's Chuck Taylor All-Sta...

Yesterday I attended an advance screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier , courtesy of Skype (thanks!). The screening was held at the Odeon Marble Arch and was shown in 3D, perhaps the only two negative things I can make about the evening (okay, three if you count the forgettable soundtrack). I visited that Odeon 14 years ago and it is still as bad as it was back then. As for 3D, well my hatred for the format is well documented. Moving on... After a day to think about it, I can safely say that  The Winter Soldier has elevated itself to perhaps my favourite movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a full rung above the Avengers . Which is pretty neat as the first Captain America movie was pretty meh. Coupled with the fact that the godawful Iron Man 3 and incredibly meh  Thor 2 has me worried on whether MCU is a sustainable franchise. Good thing they got it with Captain America 2 . While CGI heavy in places, The Winter Soldier feels like a much more realistic movi...

So yesterday I finally got to sit down and watch Peter Jackson's first party of The Hobbit . It kinda sucked. Loosely based on Tolkein's classic short children book, the film guts whatever was fun and charming about the book and churn out a fest of mediocre CGI action epic nonsense. Curiously, Bilbo Baggins forgets that he never wanted to be part of all this dwarvish racket, but instead sets out to prove he is action hero. After all, why be the reluctant thief he was supposed to be, when you can be the warrior, John McClaine style, instead. Almost three hours long, for what is basically 1/3rd of the book. Never mind that there is just not enough content for a nine hour 'epic', even Peter Jackson recognised that, dragging the first film with so much fillers and foreshadowing, you could churn out a new TV series "Dwarves and what they do in their fucking spare time whilst waiting to go on an adventure" and have enough for twelve episodes. In comparison, the Lord...

A belated Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. This past Christmas holiday we discovered Netflix. To be honest, I've never been a fan of streaming services, but for only £5.99 a month, we were able to escape the dreadful fodder put out by the terrestrial television services. The film catalogue isn't expansive, but it was still enough to get us through, but what we did find awesome was the number of TV series on it that we use to catch up. As someone who could never get past the second season of Lost, this allowed me to catch up. In fact I might just finally be able to get through the entire series after all. Newer series are missing, but big hitters like Dexter , 24 ,  Californication , Weeds and Firefly are all on it. Also, old classics like MacGyver and Knight Rider , which will surely win us old timers. Netflix for Windows Phone Rather surprisingly, despite the low price, there were a number of newer films on the service as well. The Woman in Black , Warrior...