TOJammers working into the night on Day One. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

If you missed it, you can find day one of my TOJam development diary here. Here we go with Day Two.

Saturday, May 12 – Day Two

7:45 am: My alarm goes off. I do a quick Google search for Notepad++ only to discover that it’s not compatible with my Mac, so I restart my laptop in Windows (it’s partitioned) so that I can at least download the software. However, the only other program on the Windows half of my laptop is Magic: The Gathering Tactics, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to find an alternative to Notepad.

I do encounter some minor trouble with the Word document that has my entire game script. For whatever reason, it simply doesn’t want to close. Fortunately, I’ve been saving my work at regular intervals – I emailed it to myself before leaving TOJam last night, so I’m not dwelling on the problem.

9:55 am: I arrive at Day Two of TOJam. Several individuals have brought sleeping bags and pillows and are sprawled out on the floor in corners and between tables. Nobody regards this as unusual.

10:03 am: I open up the Apocalypse Later script and discover that the document only has 950 words – or about half of what I had written yesterday. The file I emailed to myself is similarly lacking in content. Word has apparently been half frozen since around 5:00 pm yesterday and never had the decency to tell me.

Thankfully, the auto-recover function on my computer is amazing. The most recent version of the document – as in, the one that has the full script – pops up alongside the corrupted document when I open Word, so the issue resolves itself before I can even get stressed about it. Which is good, because otherwise there’s a chance that the shards of my laptop would still be embedded in the carpet.

10:15 am: We’re told that team photos are being taken on the sixth floor. They’re on a tight schedule, so this is a one-time only opportunity. Mladen (Stambolija, our team artist) is yet to make an appearance today, leaving David and I to represent for Team Apocalypse Later.

David is rocking the bathrobe that he’s had on for much of the weekend. Since he’s one of the many people sleeping at the venue, he figures that he might as well be comfortable while he codes and I can’t argue with the philosophy.

It looks like an extremely comfortable bathrobe.

10:27 am: There’s finally coffee in the kitchen. While I’m grateful for any form of sugar-free caffeine, the coffee is yet more proof that living in an incomplete school building is somewhat less than ideal. We have only two ordinary 12-cup coffee pots to service our entire gathering and the measuring scoop is a Styrofoam cup with a squiggly line drawn around the outside. Given the inaccurate utensils and the high volume of conscripted baristas, there’s an extreme degree of variance in the quality of the coffee. In most cases it’s too thin for my tastes, but thin coffee is better than no coffee so I readily gulp down several pints of java.

Bagels from St. Lawrence Market provided much-needed chewy sustenance. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

11:02 am: [TOJam volunteer] Alex Bethke announces that bagels have arrived, prompting yet another stampede to the elevators. The rational half of my brain tells me that I should wait a few minutes until the line has withered, but the other half says that I really want a fucking bagel. I end up waiting for 20 minutes, but this morning’s offerings from St. Lawrence Market do not disappoint.

11:30 am: More script writing. Apocalypse Later now has seven key puzzles and Mladen is furiously pixelating everything that my deranged mind can come up with. We’re almost ready to start putting this game together.

12:20 pm: The Apocalypse Later script is complete! I’ll make edits right up until 8:00 pm on Sunday, but I’m nevertheless satisfied with what I have in place.

Writing a game script is unlike anything I’ve tried in my other creative pursuits. That’s primarily a function of choice. In an effort to make our largely linear game as interactive as possible, I’ve constructed lengthy dialogue trees that branch in multiple directions. I’m only creating the illusion of choice – most of the options loop back to the same conclusion – but players expect every button click to lead to something different. The illusion won’t work unless I take the time to write five punch lines to every joke and every path has to be just as engaging as all the others.

Needless to say, that’s proven to be a bit of a struggle. In a play, each line can assume that you’ve seen the one before it and a scene has an internal logic that allows the next line to contextualize your understanding of the previous one. With Apocalypse Later, one line can lead to several different outcomes and all of those options still have to make sense. I think I’ve managed to do that without sacrificing humor, but I won’t have any accurate sense of pace until the game is up and running.

12:31 pm: Our Notepad++ issue rears its head. David wants to convert the entire script into an .xml document and he doesn’t have time to write the code himself. That means that he’s going to have to teach me how to code.

Within half an hour I’ve learned how to create a conversation bubble, move from one sentence to the next, and construct a choice bracket before David severs my lifeline and leaves me to fend for myself in the digital wilderness.

12:57 pm: More coffee.

1:01 pm: Another bagel. They’re out of onion, so I have to settle for sesame.

1:18 pm: I spend the next four hours writing code and – much to my surprise – I’m actually enjoying myself. The task is mechanical, but it’s forced me to confront writing challenges that I never knew existed. For instance, line breaks gain added importance when dialogue must be read in sequence. I’m keeping everything pithy in the hopes that Apocalypse Later will at least have some narrative momentum.

I’m slowly realizing that the toughest task will be infusing our protagonist Gary with enough life to make him recognizable as a character. Traditional media like theatre and film tell stories with live actors who can reproduce human emotion because they are, in fact, human, and can consequently tap into a lifetime of experience.

Games, on the other hand, attempt to recreate those same sensations in an inherently lifeless format, insofar as the computer has absolutely no regard for emotional fidelity. Nothing happens unless I tell Apocalypse Later exactly what to do, and while it’s a bit of a power trip, it makes it frustrating to produce a believably human piece of entertainment.

Eric and Will interview TOJam mastermind Jim McGinley. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

2:40 pm: Yet more coffee.

2:46 pm: One more bagel. My stomach is not grateful.

5:07 pm: The TOJam volunteers wheel across the lobby with several large moving dollies. When they return, the dollies are piled high with Chinese food, catering dishes traversing the building like roving mountains of tin foil and chow mein.

5:25 pm: Once again, Alex Bethke returns to tell us that we may now eat the Chinese food. Against my better judgment, I get a little bit of everything and walk away with a buffet plate piled high with noodles, rice, vegetables, and MSG.

I tell myself that I’ll eat half of it now and save the rest for later, but that proves wishful thinking. I devour the entire plate and send my stomach into paroxysms of agony, although I do manage to grab another cup of coffee before heading back downstairs.

7:51 pm: Dork Shelf boss Will Perkins turns up with a digital recorder. I’ve coded about 75% of the script, so I’m ready for a break.

8:14 pm: Jim McGinley is yet to partake of the Chinese food so our interview gets delayed until 9:15.

8:33 pm: I’ve got some time to kill and I’m in the area so I grab a second helping of coffee and noodles. I wish I could tell you why I thought this was a good idea. My intestinal track is in complete and utter disarray and the constant injections of caffeine and MSG are proving to be equally deleterious to my cognition. I ask Will to sit in on my interview with Jim, partly because I think it will be fun and partly because I no longer trust my brain to form coherent thoughts.

9:15 pm: We track down Jim McGinley and commandeer a small office for our interview. I don’t want to step on my own toes here – we’ll be running the interview in its entirety here on Dork Shelf – but I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun during an interview because Jim is essentially a real-life Emmett Brown. I’ve never met someone who is nicer or more genuinely enthusiastic about everything, so Jim, Will and I happily spend an hour talking about TOJam.

10:03 pm: Jim, Will and I discuss the merits of using Jam games as educational tools to teach the public about the power sets of the various Avengers. Yeah, it was one of those kinds of interviews.

Then again, our conversation is probably indicative of average discussion you can expect to have at TOJam. You’re spending the weekend with hundreds of intelligent and creative people who like to talk about interesting and creative things, and the outlandish chats are one of the more underrated aspects of the event.

10:45 pm: Hackers. Seriously, they’re showing Hackers. I spend the first five minutes quoting dialogue in real time until someone asks me to stop, but I’ve got my own dialogue to code so yield without much protest.

The other viewers are not quite so accommodating. Hackers is basically Rocky Horror for computer nerds (not to be confused with Rocky Horror for Rocky Horror nerds) and the showcase rapidly devolves as thirty people point out all of the ridiculous things that happen in this movie. The running commentary is hilariously brutal, although the consensus seems to be that – despite its flaws – Hackers is phreakin’ entertaining.

10:50 pm: I am writing code while watching Hackers. This is, without question, the coolest meta-moment of my life. My bucket list is one item shorter thanks to my new-found kinship with the proletarian hero Zero Cool.*

A photographer turns the lunch break into a one-man dance break. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

12:45 am: Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap. Hackers is over, as is the illusion. The lesson: I am totally not elite. I’ve been coding for close to ten hours and David just pointed out that I haven’t closed a single dialogue node since I started. My script won’t work in game as currently structured, so I hunker down for a long night of bug fixing.

Did I mention that I’ve never written code before?

12:47 am: Whew. I still feel like an idiot, but at least I’m consistent with my mistakes. Since I haven’t been closing any nodes, I realize that I can just paste </node> below every dialogue box in Text Edit. I scroll through the entire script and the problem is fixed within 15 minutes.

I’m learning that there’s a unique logic to code. Errors are easy to address as long as you know where they are, and my gaffe proves to be less costly than expected because every instance requires the same solution. I’m not trying to figure out how to make something work, nor am I trying to find an errant backslash in a haystack. I’m just cleaning up some text, which isn’t particularly scary once I know what I’m doing. I once again catch the last subway home and I’m in bed around 2:30 am.

One more day to go. We have a script, all of our artwork, and a hell of a lot of code that I managed to write myself. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to feel like a legitimate game developer.

Stay tuned for an action-paced Day Three of TOJam.

*All Hackers references in Apocalypse Later were written prior to Saturday’s viewing of the film. Just for the record.

“I’m reminded of a recent, very popular movie. And in the spirit of Rambo, let me tell you: we’re gonna win this time.” The year was 1985, the speaker was President Ronald Reagan, the war “we [were] gonna win this time” was the invasion of Cambodia, and the movie was Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). In 1985, Sylvester Stallone was not simply the biggest movie star in America, (boasting the #2 and #3 box office champions of the year), nor was he simply a symbol of America (as discussed exhaustively here). Long before cinematic catchphrases like “Mission Accomplished!” and “We’re gonna smoke ‘im out of his hole!” were expected – nay, encouraged – from Commanders in Chief, Sylvester Stallone was a small component of American foreign policy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

To interviewers, Stallone often has rued Reagan’s comment for “politicizing” Rambo, professing shock – shock! – that his movie about a war-scarred Vietnam vet who heads back to ‘Nam to retrieve forgotten POW’s would be perceived as political. Rambo: First Blood Part II as a polemic? Bah! You’d needta be some sorta liberal socialist to see politics in such lines as “Sir, do we get to win this time?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, why is Rambo so right-wing?’” said Stallone to Sean Hannity in 2008. “First of all, Rambo is kind of politically agnostic […] Rambo lives in a very neutral environment, but the one thing that he does believe in – and I dunno how you believe in this – at this point in his life he believes that war is natural, peace is an accident. You can start a war in literally five seconds; to make peace takes hundreds of years.” Later in the interview, he went on to explain how he hoped that Rambo (2008) would shed light on the Burmese Civil War, and inspire the international community to intervene. So, in other words, Rambo is apolitical, except when he’s political.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In 2010, during the release of The Expendables, Stallone took an even more disingenuous stance on The O’Reilly Factor. This time, the charges against him were a little more abstract: L.A. Times critic Steven Zeitchik derided the film’s “apple-pie-patriotism” as being symptomatic of a toxic political climate (the helpful caption: “Too Patriotic?”). With tongue firmly in cheek, Bill O’Reilly asked, “Correct me if I’m wrong… this is an action movie, correct? Guys, macho guys like you, killing bad guys. That’s pretty much what it is.” In his best “aw shucks” tone, Stallone agreed. The general tone of the interview skewed heavily towards “There’s no political dimension to The Expendables because there isn’t!” with a side order of “Pauline Kael said Dirty Harry was fascist but it made a lot of money anyway so nyah!” (And, with typical class, O’Reilly felt the need to specify that Kael was “a woman critic”).

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s during interviews like these when I find myself liking Stallone the least. If you agree with his politics, then Rambo is a symbol for America’s warrior spirit, and a beacon for our underappreciated servicemen. If you disagree, chill the fuck out, man! It’s just a fun movie where things go boom. Yes, Stallone makes action movies, but he also makes political movies, and it’s time for him to man up and start taking responsibility.

Also out in 1985: Rocky IV, which you’ve already seen a million times on TBS so I don’t really need to summarize. For the sake of form: when Soviet superfighter Ivan Drago (America’s sweetheart, Dolph Lundgren) emerges as the world’s most fearsome boxer, Rocky’s ex-opponent/current-trainer Apollo Creed (the immortal Carl Weathers) decides it’s time to punch his Aryan ass back to Russia. Things go about as you’d expect for a long-retired boxer who couldn’t even beat an unknown Philly longshot: Apollo gets beaten to death in the second round.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, having already validated his existence in the first two films before reclaiming his caged, vaguely tiger-like fury in the third, the only thing left for Rocky to do is 1) avenge Apollo Creed, and 2) end the Cold War, roughly in that order. So Rocky agrees to fight Drago, but victory won’t come easily. While Rocky retreats to a cabin in the Russian wilderness and trains the old-fashioned way, Drago trains in a laboratory, pumped with electricity and performance-enhancing drugs, more machine than man.  Outrage of outrages, Drago has even been taking steroids. Our man Rocky would never stoop to such tactics. He’s an honest fighter. He’d never… oh, I dunno… be arrested at an airport for smuggling 48 vials of banned human growth hormones into Australia, or anything of that nature.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rocky IV is obviously a hilarious piece of Cold War ridiculousness, but for all its right-wing excess, I would argue that it has a tiny bit of political nuance. When Apollo challenges Drago to a fight, he barely bothers to train, assuming the Russian will be easily defeated by his inherently superior American fighting technique. When the match rolls around, Apollo enters the ring in full Uncle Sam uniform, joined this time by a lavish production number featuring James Brown singing “Living in America.” That Apollo’s cockiness leads to his bloody death teaches Rocky/America a valuable lesson: there is no such thing as manifest destiny. If Rocky/America is to stand up to the challenge of Drago/Communism (or for that matter, fascism, terrorism, and any other theoretically un-American concept), he/it will to shed itself of his/its American entitlement. He/it will need to work hard – so hard that even the underhanded tactics of Drago/(insert enemy here) will crumble under his/its weight.

Although the movie does end with an entire stadium full of Russkies chanting “Rocky! Rocky!” before our hero literally drapes himself in the American flag. So, y’know, Stallone isn’t Gore Vidal or anything.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now in its second year, Kapow! Comic Convention converged on London UK this past weekend. While a bit of a comic novice, I’ve been seeing more films of late either based on comic books, or inspired by the format. So I spent an afternoon at the convention, wandering the aisles, attending panels, and getting a sneak preview of an upcoming film.

According to Gillian at the UK blog Comics Anonymous, the UK is only now just coming out of the comics closet. She told me this when I expressed surprise that Kapow wasn’t much larger. I don’t want to say that as a negative; the few times I’ve been to Fan Expo, for example, I’ve found it far too big to handle. On the plus side, Kapow is big enough to see a wide range of work, yet small enough to be incredibly friendly. Everyone I talked to, from artists to writers to shop owners, was happy to answer my (I’m sure very amateur) questions. There were large and small vendors, and an artists’ alley for aspiring comics creators. There was also a wrestling ring, where various versions of Kick-Ass and Spider-Man duked it out.

Rufus Sewell was on hand to introduce the red band trailer and a few choice clips from his upcoming film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Based on the novel of the same name, the film is, well, pretty self-explanatory from the title. Before he became president, Honest Abe discovered the existence of vampires, their desire to take over America for themselves, and his destiny to wipe them out. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Day Watch, Night Watch), what I had seen so far was pretty impressive, both in art direction and action. Unfortunately, the clips were shown in 3D with some pretty fancy new glasses that have computer chips to supposedly enhance the experience but didn’t work (not just mine; most of the audience’s.) It was preferable to watch a slightly fizzy picture rather something sometimes green, sometimes red, and still fuzzy. The clips were of Lincoln’s first kill, confession to his future wife, and an attack on a vampire nest. Like the trailer, they all look amazing. Benjamin Walker is a solid Lincoln and Sewell is in his element as the head vampire baddy. Not having read the book, I hope there is some attempt to use the vampires as a metaphor for the situation in the US at that point in history, rather than an easy cash grab of name recognition.

One of the biggest (if not the biggest) UK comic names these days is Mark Millar. Two of his series, Wanted and Kick-Ass, have already been made into films, and a third, Supercrooks, is in preproduction. A panel featuring Millar, artists Frank Quitely and Dave Gibbons, and Supercrooks director Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes) was extremely popular; Millar unveiled a few pages from upcoming comics Jupiter’s Children and Hit Girl. Millar is a great writer, and the various artists he works with all find a unique style for each different comic. I picked up the first two issues of Secret Service, which are great fun. Millar, Quitely and Gibbons were all very funny and friendly, giving interesting advice to aspiring comic writers and artists about the joys and realities of the career path. Millar and Vigalondo also talked about the film of Supercrooks, including revealing their dream cast, which apparently includes Bradley Cooper and Jon Hamm. Someone call these guys now.

Vigalondo also participated in a director’s panel with Gareth Edwards, who is directing the upcoming reboot of Godzilla, and Jeff Wadlow, who is helming Kick-Ass 2. They each had insights on the task of adapting comics to the screen (as opposed to novels or original scripts), the joys and difficulties of creating moving images when there is already a visual reference, and their own paths, inspirations and advice.

There were several panels that I wasn’t able to attend. Actor Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) apparently gave a very funny interview about his work; Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun of the Dead, Running Wilde) launched a new comic project; footage was shown from the new Amazing Spider-Man movie; and Warren Ellis drew a huge crowd. As a newcomer to the comic world, this was a great place for an introduction, and it piqued my interest to the point where I now know the best comic shops in the city. Next year I plan top attend the whole weekend.

I had originally intended to write one development diary chronicling my experiences as a first-time game developer at TOJam, but one article simply couldn’t contain everything that happened throughout the weekend. What follows is consequently the first in a three-part series telling the story of Apocalypse Later, a new adventure game about an ineffectual child hellbent on global domination. You can play Apocalypse Later here, or you can continue reading to learn more about the people (and the process) behind the game.

All times are approximate. All memories and sentiments are true. Let’s begin.

Friday, May 11 – Day one of TOJam

8:15am: Wake up time. TOJam doesn’t start until 10. I toy with the idea of a morning work out but laziness and TOJam curiosity win out.

10:05am: Twitter informs me that my teammate @DavidSGallant (aka David Gallant) has already arrived at #TOJam. Twitter will be a constant companion throughout the weekend. In fact, I’m not even certain that #TOJam exists without a hash tag. I think I spent three days there, but it might have been a Twitpic hallucination.

10:35am: I finally make it to TOJam, where there’s a short lineup for registration. Thankfully, the process is relatively painless. I sign a waiver allowing the organizers to use my likeness in future TOJam material before being handed a nametag and a lanyard that officially makes me a part of TOJam 2012.

10:36am: TOJam veteran and 2012 super volunteer Alex Bethke pulls me aside to confirm that we’re still on for an interview with TOJam co-founder Jim McGinley for Saturday at 8:30. I’m pleased to say that we are.

10:40am: While the primary host of TOJam is bunking up on the fifth and sixth floors of the George Brown College School of Design, Apocalypse Later is situated on the ground floor in a small lounge with far too many windows that will become known as the fishbowl.

10:41am: I find David and #ApocalypseLater is officially underway. David is a programmer who works primarily in Flash and he plans to build our game using Actionscript 3 and Flixel. I don’t really know what that means, but David does and that’s good enough for me. David and I formed Team Apocalypse Later back in April and had a brief brainstorming session prior to the Jam, so we’re more or less on the same page heading into the weekend. I’ll be providing the general design concept and writing the entire script, while David will be taking care of all of the other stuff that makes Apocalypse Later a game.

To keep things manageable, we’ve opted to build a top-down point-and-click adventure game about a boy trying – and failing – to bring about the Apocalypse. The structure will place an emphasis on dialogue and story – I have no programming experience so I’m not good for much else – and we’re planning to limit the scope to one or two rooms so we can pack those rooms with as much gameplay content as possible.

Apocalypse Later draws heavily on the 2012 TOJam theme, “The World’s NOT Ending.” A true Apocalypse consequently isn’t in the cards, but I won’t know how the game plays out until I write it so I crack open my laptop and create a new document in Word.

10:53am: In a spurt of severe randomness, I decree that our main character’s name shall be Gary.

11:01am: A team of volunteers is frantically trying to set up an Internet connection for the fishbowl after the George Brown network proves to be finicky and unresponsive. The whole kerfuffle is illustrative of the unique limitations of an art jam that relies on digital technology, and there is much grumbling and general consternation until a wireless router is placed on top of the recycling bins.

11:55am: David and I collectively decide that lunch and coffee should be the first items on our to-do list. Subway and Starbucks facilitate our procrastination.

12:31pm: After a few aborted attempts at humour, I’ve settled into a writing groove that carries me through the day. Given the demands on our time, the process is inevitably scattershot and I’m raining down references with all the focus and precision of an epileptic monkey dancing on a keyboard. The dance culminates in a script that includes references to Evil Dead, The Walking Dead, and 16 and Pregnant, as well as an entire sequence that doesn’t make sense until the fifteenth viewing of Hackers. Other highlights include a brief-but-heartfelt shout-out to Mother’s Day, a tribute to MCA, and numerous tips of the cap to the occasionally inane logic of adventure games.

The whole experience feels a bit like improv since there’s not enough time to craft the sort of multi-tiered narrative associated with more polished entertainment. Most of the punch lines are either pop culture references or TOJam in-jokes and I’m desperately trying not to take myself too seriously. I want Apocalypse Later to be fun, so I’ll be happy as long as I can communicate a certain level of manic energy and general madcap silliness within the game.

12:46pm: I was expecting chaos but thus far TOJam is almost disarmingly tame. It turns out that many of this year’s Jammers have what are colloquially referred to as “real jobs,” so the bulk of the TOJam populace won’t be appearing until business hours have concluded.

1:04pm: Dissatisfied with lunch, David and I make a supermarket run to stock up on energy for Friday. It is the first of many astonishingly poor food decisions. I devour half a bag of almonds despite already being full of ham sandwich and my stomach now feels mildly distended.

2:05pm: Our artist, Mladen Stambolija of Blinker Studios joins Team Apocalypse Later. Mladen had originally registered as ‘floater,’ a free agent offering freelance artwork to other TOJam teams. This year, over-registration forced the organizers to cut back on the number of floaters so Mladen was added to Apocalypse Later to help manage the overflow.

This is our first meeting with Mladen and he proves to be an invaluable addition to the team. He’s willing to roll with the concept that David and I have in place and – more importantly – he’s able to create a visual representation of a world that currently exists solely in our heads. Mladen provides consistently awesome 2D pixel art that infuses Apocalypse Later with a distinct old-school aesthetic, although I won’t get to see much of his work until much later in the day.

Mladen does tell us that a friend of his is a sound designer, so we file the information away for use later in the weekend.

3:43pm: One of the TOJam attendees has decided to provide Eggs Benedict for everyone at TOJam. I don’t know the identity of this mystery chef, nor do I know how this monumental feat of culinary engineering was accomplished in a George Brown hallway. All I know is that the eggs – topped with hash browns, smoked salmon, and hollandaise sauce – are delicious. I return to my computer and immediately write new dialogue to incorporate Eggs Benedict into Apocalypse Later.

4:47pm: The population of the registration lobby grows to a crescendo as the gainfully employed participants begin drifting into the venue.

6:15pm: Team Apocalypse Later is in full swing. I’m still plugging away at the script, Mladen is bringing Gary’s house to life, and David is building a dialogue system and writing code that allows our protagonist to move.

The early artwork and gameplay treatments look amazing, but I’ll admit that I get a little nervous monitoring the progress of other teams. Apocalypse Later has an extreme demarcation of labor, so while some people already have nearly finished games we’re just going to have to pray that our disparate elements come together as intended.

7:14pm: It’s time for the opening ceremonies. The volunteers drag us to a parking lot behind the Toronto Sun building while Jim McGinley stands above us with a megaphone and reads the list of official TOJam sponsors. Jim isn’t sure if we’re allowed to gather in this parking lot so we all breathe a communal sigh of relief when the helicopter passes overhead. We’re harmless, but I can imagine how a horde of 400-plus people and a megaphone might be misconstrued.

We’d all like to get back to making games, but the impromptu ceremony is otherwise a memorable way to kick off the weekend. TOJam now feels like an event, while I feel like one of many in an exclusive crowd of game developers. Considering that I’m normally a journalist, it’s an unexpectedly invigorating sensation.

8:30pm: The organizers have promised us free coffee but numerous elevator trips to the sixth floor kitchen have yet to yield any caffeine. There is a candy stand set up in the octagonal room on the fifth floor, so I stock up on popcorn and Rice Krispies Treats that I don’t particularly need or desire.

I do, however, manage to ignore the free cans of Red Bull. I prefer my caffeine without sugar and I’m sick enough with the Rice Krispies Treats and popcorn, so I shudder as I ponder the potential effects of Red Bull on my stomach lining.

10:22pm: It’s around this time that I head to the washroom and conclude I won’t be using the bathroom stalls at TOJam. During every trip to the urinal there’s invariably some anonymous stranger unleashing a diarrheic cacophony in the stall next to me and the smells sliding underneath the frame are enough to convince me that I don’t want to be the guy on the other side of the door. My apartment is blessedly a short subway ride away, so I resolve to delay more pressing concerns until I’m safely ensconced in the privacy of my own home.

This, as you might suspect, is the unsavoury part of TOJam that they don’t tell you about in the brochures. Strip away the creative atmosphere and TOJam is essentially a high-tech commune with 400 people under one roof and the three proper toilets simply aren’t adequate for the demands of the collected population. As a mild germ-o-phobe, I’m willing to travel for an alternate solution and some privacy.

11:04pm: I’ve now run consecutive Google searches for “Crystal Meth” and “whiskey still designs,” both of which generate information that will eventually appear in Apocalypse Later. I’ve been given free reign to write whatever the hell I want and I plan on abusing the privilege.

11:45pm: A late night falafel run is the closest I get to dinner. The falafel, unfortunately, is dry and disappointing.

12:31am: I call it quits at 1,950 words. I’ve written six of our seven adventure puzzles, but I’d like to get some sleep tonight so I grab the last subway home and make plans to return at 10am. David tells me to look into a program called Notepad++ so I budget some extra time to download software in the morning.

All in all, it’s an eventful and satisfying day one of TOJam.

About thirty Middle Easterners wave flags and chant “Aladeen! Aladeen!” as Sacha Baron Cohen enters the Waldorf Astoria ballroom. It’s the New York press junket for The Dictator, his new comedy about a fascist dictator in America, and as with Borat (2006) and Bruno (2009), Cohen will be doing all of his press in character. Wearing a transparently phony beard and surrounded by buxom “virgin guards,” Cohen takes to the podium, surrounded by three portraits of himself and a logo for the “International Alliance of Constitutional Dictatorships.” Today, we’ll be pretending that Cohen is General Aladeen, dictator of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya.

“Welcome journalists of zah Zionist media, and death to zah West!” says Cohen. “Today, I wish to highlight dah innocent victims of a global human tragedy: dictators! Zese brave leaders are suffering daily victimization and brutality from zah suppose-ed crime of embezzalling money, oppressing zeir people, and doing a tiny little bit of genocide! In a-reeecent years, tyrants all ovah dah world have fallen one by one: Saddaaahm… Keem Jong-Eeel… Gadaffheee… and Oprah!

“Dere are steel some supporters of dictatorsheeps! On buh-half of my dear friend and doubles tennis partner President Assad of Syria, I want to thank thah United Nations for deir brave inaction over Syria! Thirteen months and steel no Security Council resolution! You guys are amazing! You have done next to nothing for thah Syrian people, but remember, you can always do less! Now please, let’s get some questions, anyone from zah North Korean press?”

We’ve been asked to submit our questions ahead of time, and we’ll be called to the microphone if ours is selected. This would normally be a breach of journalistic etiquette, but to be fair to Paramount, it’s probably what General Aladeen would have wanted.

“So general,” says a reporter, “is it true or just a rumour that you have been banned from British TV?”

“Yes, thees ees true, thah BBC has introduced sanctions against me!” says Cohen/Aladeen. “Dey have banned me from all dah BBC channels, and also dah BBC radio, ees true! Look, nobody is a bigger fan of state-sponsored-spensor—spensor—“ He trips on his accent. “Sorry, I have somezing in my mouth… Don’t worry, eet’s not vhat you’re thinking…”

He continues. “Nobody ees a bigger fan of zah state-sponsored-censorship than me, but zee BBC took it too far. All I wanted to do on dah BBC was use their airwaves to promote my anti-West, anti-Zionist platform, and quell zose nasty rumours about dah Holocaust! I guess no good deed goes unpunished!”

Dead silence. Cohen smiles a little. “I guess zat joke does not go down well in New York!”

As usual with Cohen, much of the humour comes from his character’s cheerfully grotesque anti-Semitism. When a reporter blurts out, “And yes, I’m a Jew,” there is some laughter as Cohen takes a moment to mug. He looks down at the podium, and blinks his eyes, and shakes his head, as if panting from taking a long run. “You are putting me in a very deefeecult position.” He smiles. “I suppose I should not be surprised. We are in New York wis za media. I will answer your question, I do not have a problem with Jews. It’s just descendants of zah tribe of Moses.”

“General, what Hollywood celebrity do you have the most in common with?” This reporter has a difficult-to-place accent.

“Are you a-from Australia?

“No, South Africa.”

“Ah! Okay, dey have a good history as well… Ah, it has to be Mel Geeebson! In fact, recently in Wadiya, we made heem our Public Relations Expert! Aldough he has said some pretty offensive things recently, like saying he would work with Jews, we half made heem the head recently of our Museum of Eeentolerance!”

When Cohen was pretending to be Borat and Bruno, those characters were promoting faux-documentaries. If there’s a conceptual problem with today’s junket, it’s that since General Aladeen is a character in a fictional movie, it’s hard to tell if we be asking him about a movie he should theoretically have no knowledge of, or if we should we continue asking him questions about important political issues. Most of the reporters settle somewhere in-between by asking about show business.

“What did you think of The Hunger Games, and are you thinking of instituting such an event in Wadiya?”

“What ees dah point? North Korea has done it literally! Now, King Keeem Jong-Ooon eez doing hiz verjion of Dah Biggest Loser; seven million people are competing to see who can lose zee most weight. Are zere any more Jews here? I want to know, yes, put your hands up?” Several hands go up. Cohen points to them one by one, and whispers animatedly to his “Virgin Guards.” “Do vee have enough sacks?” he stage-whispers. “No problem! Zank you!”

Cohen puts on an entertaining show: the way he inhabits characters while still keeping tongue firmly in cheek is impressive and downright paradoxical. He’s quick on his feet, always able to steer things on track whenever foolish reporters try to ad-lib with him. I’d pay good money to see a Sacha Baron Cohen do this as a one-man show. And yet… I’m not sure how much I appreciate seeing it for free at a press conference at the Waldorf.

Like Peter Sellers, Cohen has eluded a public persona, making a career of disappearing into other people. He has submitted to very few long interviews out of character, and indeed, very few short ones. Maybe he worries that explaining his process would ruin his mystique, but because his improvisational comedies are so unique and audacious, and because his material is so troubling (dealing as it does with sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and the tricky line between xenophobia and meta-xenophobia), few comedians warrant serious analysis as much as him.

I keep thinking about the questions I’d like to ask Sacha Baron Cohen, not General Aladeen. How different is making a scripted comedy like The Dictator from an improvised comedy like Borat? Is the process of creating, shaping, and refining characters any different? How long does it take to rehearse these characters? What is it like to spend months at a time as Borat, and how easy is it to shake that character once you get home? Is it fair to call Borat and Bruno “documentaries”? When you’re making those films, do you ever fear for your safety? The last time you wrote and starred in a scripted comedy was Ali G Indahouse; how did that experience inform The Dictator?  How has your working relationship with director Larry Charles evolved over the years, and is it markedly different on a scripted film? What’s the difference between working on your own projects and working with Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese?

Your characters are ignorant and bigoted; how much do you worry about making them too likable, or not likable enough? As a practicing Jew, what draws you to humour about anti-Semitism? Do you worry that these jokes will be misinterpreted by some audience members, and is it the artist’s responsibility to worry about what the audience thinks? How about jokes about groups to which you don’t belong: gay people, black people, women, and Middle Easterners? Are there any topics you wouldn’t joke about, and are there any times you think you’ve gone too far?

What do you say to the accusation that you exploited the poor people of Moroeini, Romania (where the Kazakhstan scenes from Borat were shot)? The frat boys in Borat – they were certainly jerks, but did they really deserve to have their lives ruined? Is Bruno a homophobic creation, or an absurdist depiction of a homophobe’s perception of homosexuality, or both, or neither? Let’s say a guy like Bruno shows up on your hunting trip and comes into your tent with a dildo – would you feel a little peeved? What do you make of the hostility that greeted Bruno in some quarters?

I’m certain that Cohen would have smart and articulate answers to these questions. Soon I hope to hear them.

Alright you sissies, you pansies, you sushi-eating, latte-swigging libtards, listen up: from this point on, it’s no girls allowed in this Sylvester Stallone column ‘cause we’re entering the Golden (Stallolden?) Era. You may think you’re a man because you’ve seen Rocky a buncha times or can make a jokey reference to “that Stallone porno,” but with Rocky III (1982) and First Blood (1982) we’ve arrived at the period that’ll put fire in your belly and hair on your chest (margin of error: Rhinestone). These are the years that defined the persona we think of when we think about “Sylvester Stallone.” The mid-80s may not have been our man’s best or riskiest era, but it was undoubtedly his Stalloniest.

Say goodbye to Rocky Balboa for the foreseeable future. Oh sure, Rocky III features a character named “Rocky” who happens to be a boxer, but forget it. The affable lug you knew from parts I and II – the one with the leather jacket and the felt hat who fawned over Adrian and loved his dog – is gone, replaced to a snarling brick of a man with gelled hair, tailored suits, and, evidently, no dog (seriously Sly, what happened to the dog? Is he okay?). Where Rocky and Rocky II were quiet and leisurely, as much about romance and working-class Philly as boxing, Rocky III is a lean, mean kitsch machine. At 99 minutes, it’s the shortest Rocky so far, boiling the series down to an essential formula as rigid and dependable as the James Bond series. It takes the basic template of the earlier films, eliminating most of the human qualities and magnifying the ridiculousness. Just to clarify: Rocky III is a movie where Rocky fights Hulk Hogan, and that’s just a throwaway scene near the beginning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rocky III opens after Balboa’s victory against Apollo Creed, a three-year period in which he shows up on magazine covers, telethons, ads, The Muppet Show, and, that ultimate signifier of extraordinary fame, his own pinball machine. Much has changed since the days of Rocky II when he could barely wander his way through a TV commercial. Now, when he arrives to bail Resident Bumbler® Paulie (Burt Young) out of jail, it’s clear they’re in opposite socioeconomic brackets. And, since the rematch with Apollo, Rocky’s been coasting, fighting a string of run-of-the-mill fighters while Clubber Lang (Mr. T), a tough young fighter, gains momentum. For these years, Rocky’s trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith) has been purposefully avoiding the up-and-comer, seeing him as a real threat to Rocky’s stardom. “It was my job ta keep ya safe and keep ya winnin’,” he grunts. Yes, in these past three years, Rocky has lost his edge. He has nothing left to fight for, no longer just a man and his will to survive. So many times, it happened too fast: he traded his passion for glory. He lost his grip on the dreams of the past, and now must fight just to keep them alive.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But Mr. T also shines a light on the most unsettling facet of the Rocky series: its exclusively white-working-class perception of “the underdog story.” To James Lipton, Stallone spoke of being inspired by the journeyman boxer Chuck Wepner, who surprised everyone by knocking Muhammad Ali down. Stallone described Ali as “the perfect fighter,” in contrast to Wepner, “a real American working-class stiff who takes it on the chin.” For the third movie in a row, Rocky has been pitted against an arrogant, tough-talking black man, and for the third time Rocky’s humility and determination lead to victory (although to be fair to Stallone, we do see Clubber training hard in a few montages).

Rocky III tries to cover its ass by bringing back Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), retired and humbled, as Rocky’s new manager (Clubber Lang pushed the beloved Mickey, triggering a heart attack – boo! hiss!). As with Rocky, Apollo is barely the same character anymore – wise, noble, more Morgan Freeman than Muhammad Ali. When Apollo takes Rocky to the gym he used to train in, and a swarm of African Americans greets our hero, it comes across as a little condescending. These scenes are redeemed, just barely, by the magnetism of Carl Weathers, who somehow makes Apollo’s inexplicable transformation believable.

What I find troubling is that Clubber and Apollo, two brash trash-talkers, are both such thinly veiled Ali caricatures. I don’t think Stallone was motivated by a racist agenda, but the first three Rockys can be read as white working-class wish-fulfillment fantasies to reclaim boxing from a certain kind of uppity black. When Rocky tells Clubber, “You know you got a big mouth,” I cringe a little. Don’t you think it would have felt different if a white actor had shown up in the ring dressed as Uncle Sam instead of Carl Weathers? And don’t you think it would have carried less of a charge if a white actor, instead of Mr. T, told Adrian, “Hey woman, since your man ain’t got no heart, maybe you’d like to see a real man”?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Incidentally, I’d also like to address these ongoing accusations that Rocky III is somehow “homoerotic.” Frankly, I find these accusations absurd. There is nothing in any way homoerotic about anything in this movie.

***

It’s easy to lament the relative dearth of artistic ambition in large swaths of Stallone’s career, but in his defense, he pulled off the impressive feat of creating two durable, iconic characters. What’s interesting is that Rocky Balboa and John Rambo should be such opposites. After serving in ‘Nam, numbing himself with slaughter, watching his entire battalion get their guts torn out, and turning himself into the perfect killing machine*, Rambo returns home to find himself vilified by protestors, ignored by politicians, and bypassed by Americans at large, who just want to move on.  “To me, Rambo is a modern Frankenstein,” Stallone told James Lipton. “You took this normal body and converted it basically into a machine to go out and do the dirty work. Then, he was basically punished, thrown out, castigated, for doing the job he was trained to do. Nobody ever said, ‘Come back and meet the family’.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

If Rocky is the American dream personified – a “bum from the neighborhood” who rose to the top thanks to hard work and good luck – then the alienated, war-scarred Rambo is someone the American dream excludes. Still, they share a few characteristics: 1) rugged individualism (probably the defining trait of a Stallonian Protagonist), and 2) their raw energy is channeled into something powerful by a strong-willed trainer. For Rocky, it’s Mickey; for Rambo, it’s Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), the man who turned him into a killing machine/the man who warns everyone about what a badass this dude is (“I didn’t come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him”). Oh, also 3) they have great big muscles. Can’t forget those.

Until the final scenes, Rambo is opaque: an expressionless hulk who speaks only rarely, in monosyllables. When arrested by a small-town sheriff who thinks he’s some sorta longhaired hippie scum, Rambo has Vietnam flashbacks, and makes short work of every goddamn person in the police station. In the midst of a full-on mental breakdown, Rambo flees to the wildnerness, and as the police hunt him down, he calls on all his military training to fight his own personal Vietnam. Come to think of it, since the police are the ones mired in the unwinnable conflict, maybe they’re the ones fighting their own Vietnam. Some food for thought, folks

As with the first Rocky, the dirty, gritty First Blood is so tonally different than its sequels it hardly feels like the same franchise, and as with Rocky, it’s easy to forget how good it is. Just as Rocky III focuses single-mindedly on the boxing, First Blood forgoes the usual romance and comedy-relief subplots, and has as little music and dialogue as possible. The action is intense, but compared to the explosions of future installments, it’s mostly human-scaled and brutal. Most surprising is how powerful and, yes, understated its political edge is. Astonishingly, when Stallone saw the first cut, he reportedly insisted on big cuts to his own part, eliminating most of the speeches about Vietnam to let audiences infer Rambo’s desperation.

A dirty secret: before starting this marathon, I had never actually seen First Blood. I know, I know, and I call myself a Professional Stallone Historian. Having only ever seen the jingoistic sequels, what surprised me about First Blood is how objectively it treats its protagonist. The film is sympathetic to Rambo’s plight, but it’s also smart enough to regard him as something of a madman. Rambo: First Blood Part II, the much more popular sequel, is the movie Rambo might have made about himself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

TOJam organizers address the troops at the 2011 Jam

TCAF may have been crazy, but it’s nothing compared to the encore. TOJam 2012 is currently underway and I’m getting a crash course in game design in one of the most intense creative environments imaginable.

What is TOJam, you ask? TOJam is an annual video game jam organized by Jim and Em McGinley, the co-founders of Big Pants Games and all-around awesome people. The weekend-long event kicks off Friday at 10 AM and lasts until Sunday night at 8 PM, during which time a few dozen teams of varying shapes and sizes are tasked to develop a full video game in accordance with a pre-selected theme.

Since 2012 marks the seventh year of jamming – the event has been ominously dubbed The Sevening – our theme is ironically non-apocalyptic. Specifically, we’ve been told that “The World is NOT Ending,” although I might need to remind myself of that at several points throughout the weekend. I’m a charter member of Team Apocalypse Later, so despite a complete lack of game design or programming experience, I’ll be bunkering down with approximately 400 other individuals for a three-day binge that will (hopefully) culminate with something resembling a video game.

I’m more of a writer than a developer, so I’ll also be chronicling the experience with a development diary to provide my take on the jam from the perspective of a participant rather than a journalist. I make no promises about daily updates – it’s likely that my brain will have turned into silly putty by the middle of the day on Saturday – but I will be tweeting on behalf of Team Apocalypse later so follow me @harry_houdini if you want to play along at home.

Us jammers, meanwhile, will be holed up on the top two floors of the George Brown College School of Design. I wouldn’t recommend making an appearance at ground zero – 400 people can get pretty ripe after three consecutive days of programming – but you will absolutely want to check out a few of the games that emerge during The Sevening. Game jams are founts for crazy games and even crazier ideas – last year’s event brought us the inimitable Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure – so there’s no telling how inspiration will strike during a weekend on which the world most certainly isn’t coming to an end.

As for me, my full development diary will run on Dork Shelf sometime next week, as will my interview with co-founders Jim and Em McGinley. TOJam has officially begun so stay tuned for more updates from The Sevening.

Be sure to check out some of Dork Shelf’s previous TOJam coverage, including this video feature we produced way back in 2010.

Free Comic Book Day unites lit and art lovers, creative types, and penny-pinchers looking for some free swag. I have no interest in owning a Smurfs comic book, but slap a free sticker on that bad boy and within seconds I’ll don a white cap, paint my face blue, and move into a mushroom hut. Free merchandise is a foolproof way of broadening your audience and once again FCBD pulled out all the stops this year.

On my street car ride down Queen West I passed by the Silver Snail and saw lineups that nearly curled around the corner. There were rumours that TCAF was turning people away due to the Reference Library being over capacity and the idea of having to wait in line made my stomach churn. So headed up to Paradise Comics instead, and to my surprise it was delightfully low key, but still had the same buzz as the downtown scene.

Entering the store for the first time, I was amazed at how they’d utilized such a small space – despite wall to wall product you are still able to navigate around without fear of bumping into someone or something. The shop was attractive, clean, organized; its Yonge and Lawrence location boasted modest customer traffic that never became overwhelming. With such a low head count my meandering around the store wasn’t a big inconvenience. Best of all was the quaintness that inspired a feeling of being apart of something unique and special, a quality that many bigger stores have lost.

This being my first time in Paradise and new to the dork crew, I wanted to introduce myself to the staff. Unsure of where to turn, I set my sights on the first person to come out from behind the counter, who actually turned out to be Paradise regular and self-proclaimed volunteer for the day, Jason Federman. “If I’m going to be hanging around here for 3 hours, they might as well put me to work,” he said, “I came in here on a whim one day to buy a graphic novel for something to read at work, and I never left.”

I asked him if he prefers coming to a smaller store. “Definitely,” he replied, “I love this neighborhood and so does Peter (the owner), it has lots of families with children and the traffic today is not unlike any other Saturday, and the vibe is a lot different up here.”

I was then pointed in the direction of owner and fellow comic book enthusiast Peter Dixon, who quickly greeted me with a handshake and a warm welcome. Without skipping a beat, he rushed downstairs to show me something. When he emerges he tells me, “It’s great to have a day where we can give away comics for free, while also buying comics for 2,700 bucks,” and presents me with the comic seen to the right.

“This is the fourth appearance of The Flash,” he told me. A rarity not every comic book store has on its shelves. Peter has a real passion for the old school, it shows in his enthusiasm and his collection, but it is also refreshing to see he does not discriminate against the new school – he embraces it.

Marvin Law was also doing prints by request on this holiest of comic book days, for free no less. Marvin, who is usually situated at the Silver Snail for FCBD, says he likes the change of pace of a lower traffic store because it gives him time to be a little bit more social with the customers.

Marvin is currently working with New Myth Comics out of Oklahoma, who discovered him through his deviantArt page and wanted to collaborate. He is now the head artist on the book Salt and Ignite. Law is also working another book called Hot Heads, that is geared for a younger audience. Not something he usually does, but is really enjoying doing it.

My visit with Marvin was short and sweet. I made my way to the front of the store, picked up a few of the usuals, said my goodbyes, and was on my way. Success.

In an over-saturated and over-stimulated market where “bigger is better” and only the strong survive, it’s a breath of fresh air loitering in such a fabulous store that is independently doing its own thing. A place where everyone is welcome and elitism is left at the door. Stay dorky my friends.

Prometheus (June 8^th) – In 2004, when Alien vs. Predator was the next instalment of anything remotely related to the Alien franchise, I became one of the many Alien fans who thought that they would die before ever seeing another truly Ridley Scott/H.R. Giger influenced Alien film. But when talk and teasers of the decade long ‘in the works’ Alien prequel Prometheus began to hit the web about a year ago, I was absolutely astounded.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Prometheus is about a research team that travels to the farthest corner of the universe to uncover the dark secrets of our origins. That is really all I can say for certain is happening in the film, as the other snippets of alien spacecrafts (a simultaneously dazzling and haunting nod to Alien and Aliens) and sweaty men and women screaming are all part of the fascinating enigma that is Prometheus. With an all star cast that boasts names like Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, and Idris Elba, it seems like Scott isn’t taking any chances with a cast of unknowns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To really grasp the awesomeness that Prometheus promises, let’s go back to 1979 when Scott directed Alien which would become one the most integral and innovative space travel films since Stanley Kubrick’s symphonic sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The mould Kubrick set in place envisioned a bright and polished future where space travel happens on neat commercial spacecrafts with super intelligent sentient A.I. Scott’s Alien ripped this crystalline vision in two as Ellen Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) commercial mining spacecraft the Nostromo is depicted as a grey, industrial monstrosity where every command is painstakingly manually inputted into clunky and beaten up computers. Scott created the first remarkably unique hybridized film that has sci-fi proclivities but operates with all of a slasher’s intentions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In what some diehard fans are calling a gutsy move, Scott has said that although Prometheus’ events precede Alien, Prometheus will not be directly connected to any original characters; there will be no alien creature, and no Weaver cameo. Instead, Prometheus’s mysterious nature suggests long awaited answers to the questions burning in the minds of fans since 1979: what are the origins of this mysterious Xenomorph species, where did they come from, and what does their existence have to tell us about ourselves? (Brandon Bastaldo)

Moonrise Kingdom (June 1^st, limited) – Ahh, summer camp. The time where little boys and girls become young adults, fall in love, and get into wacky misadventures. Granted, I was never a scout like the youngsters in Moonrise Kingdom, but I did go on enough camping trips to know what the woods are like. I’ve also seen enough films about summer camp to know just how wacky and whimsical the whole thing could be.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Speaking of wacky and whimsical, this latest charmer from Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums director Wes Anderson looks to fall nicely in line with his previous canon of films about misfits and outcasts searching for their place in the world. The blurb for this film pretty much writes itself. An all-star cast – including Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, and Anderson staple Bill Murray, just to name a few – stars in this tale of two twelve year olds in a coastal New England town who fall deeply in puppy love with each other and decide to run away together while the adults begin the frantic and comedic search for them before a big storm hits.

Anderson might be a “love him or hate him” name amongst filmgoers, since his portraits of affluence and whimsy might rub people the wrong way, but with a summer release date and some new blood in his cast of usual actors, Moonrise Kingdom might be the first film to garner Anderson some widespread box office acclaim. Then again, I thought the same thing about the delightfully underrated Fantastic Mr. Fox, but at least Anderson has something this year to appeal to the art house crowd looking to have their heartstrings tugged at with a few laughs along the way. (Andrew Parker)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22^nd) – There hasn’t been a more surprising trailer this season than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Its mix of early American gothic mixes perfectly with a vampire tone, young Lincoln spins a silver-edged axe like a badass ninja, and the whole thing avoids any irony whatsoever. This is unexpected if you, like me, haven’t read the book and assumed the title indicated that this was a pretty funny joke. It’s not. Time to man up.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hunter tells the secret story of America’s 16^th President. The plot follows Lincoln’s real life moments, like his struggle to become president and the Emancipation Proclamation (which freed the slaves), but the twist here is that Lincoln spent his early years hunting vampires and only became involved in politics to stave off a massive vampire rebellion.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the role of Lincoln is Benjamin Walker who, amazingly, already has some experience playing reinvented cross-genre presidents. Walker received accolades for the off-Broadway musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson where he plays the emo-rock President Jackson struggling to form the Democratic Party. Director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) obviously saw value in a man who understood such a challenge. But this is no musical, Bekmambetov is aiming his movie directly at hardcore action fans. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the popcorn movie of the year. (Brian Crosby)

Brave (June 22^nd) – As long as the word “cars” isn’t in the title, the release of any Pixar movie is cause for celebration. With the freedom only a string of over $600 million hits can provide, they are a studio driven entirely by creative impulses. Granted, they still have to cater to a family friendly demographic, but they seem driven to tell the best possible story within those G-rated parameters while hitting on universal themes and jokes that will connect just as well with an ADD-addled toddler as an elderly malcontent or a stoned college freshman. This year Pixar will dip their toes into the fairytale pool for the first time in what looks to be a gorgeous eyeball-tickling spectacle.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Initially announced in 2008 as The Bear and the Bow, the film will be something of a Scottish fable. It’s about a defiant princess and skilled archer who is determined to find her own path in life. After showing up all the guys competing for her hand in marriage in an archery competition, she somehow unleashes chaos and fury and has to use all her skills to save the kingdom. Or something like that. Pixar is pretty good about playing their cards close to the chest, so we won’t really know the full extent of the story until it’s released. In a world where countless websites reveal as much information as possible about every film before trailers are even premiered, that’s a good thing. It’s also nice to know that Pixar have earnestly embraced their fairytale format and this won’t be yet another one of those pop-culture fueled “fractured fairytales” that have packed theaters with children and disinterested parents since Shrek.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As a displaced Scot in love with the motherland, I also can’t pretend I’m not excited about a voice cast packed with the likes of Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Kevin McKidd, and Robbie Coltrane unleashing their accents at full force. With it being a Pixar joint, we can guarantee they’ll all have characters worthy of their talents as well. On a technical level, everything that has been seen from the movie looks set to stunningly fill a big screen, both true to the Pixar house style and featuring a painterly attention to the details of the lush landscapes. With the studio’s multi-Oscar-winning stalwarts Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton having left the fold to pursue live action endeavors, this will also be the debut of one of the first projects from the new generation of Pixar directors allowed to play in their digital playground, so it should be interesting to see how that works out. All-in-all, there’s plenty about Brave to get your inner-child all riled up. Oh and did I mention that Larry The Cable Guy will absolutely not be involved? That’s important, too. (Phil Brown)

Piranha 3DD (June 1^st) – The first promise of Piranha 3DD is that it has more boob in it. Seriously, the extra dimension is not for Smell-O-Vision (probably best for a fish movie) but for bust size; the way you read the title is ‘Piranha 3 Double-D’. But if you’re already a fan of the Spring Break horror send-up Piranha 3D, then simply ‘more boob’ is a hard sell.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the last movie, the monstrous paleo-piranhas were released from their aquatic ‘Land Before Time’ by an earthquake. They ravaged a lake-side town during party week and were clearly not destroyed as believed. This time, the piranhas have returned in force and are winding their way through the town’s plumbing and into the bathtubs of beautiful naked women.

One of the great draws of this series is the cast. The first movie starred Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames and Christopher Lloyd who was basically playing Doc Brown. This time Rhames and Lloyd are back along with waterpark owner David Koechner and David Hasselhoff playing an asshole version of himself (so, himself).

If you’re still on the fence about this, worried that Piranha 3DD is a lame, tame Spring Break monster movie, there is one shot in the trailer that will probably decide it for you. The trailer implies that that beautiful bathtub woman doesn’t get eaten by the piranha but instead it enters her vagina without her knowledge (or consent) and later the fish bites off a man’s penis during coitus.

Now, call me disturbed, but that’s a movie I want to see. (Brian Crosby)

Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1^st) – To get a good idea of how very epic Snow White and the Huntsman will be you need only compare its promotional poster to Mirror Mirror, a recent film of the same source material,. Clutching a ruby red apple with a quaint smile, Julia Roberts’ rendition of the Evil Queen (one of the most sinister and enduring villains from well known fairy tale Snow White) was a sugar coated version of the witch to top all witches.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I mean seriously, before the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, the Evil Queen played host to the worst nightmares of kids across the globe, and this is why first time director Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman looks so damn good. Starring the glamorously pale Kristen Stuart as Snow White, Aussie hulk-hunk Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman, and the beautifully ardent Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen Ravenna, it’s quite clear that Snow White and the Huntsman has a bedazzled roster. Putting a twist on this classic tale, we see the Evil Queen conquer several kingdoms only to find out that Snow White, prophesied as being the future ruler and ‘fairest of them all’, is the only obstacle standing between Ravenna and complete domination. The Evil Queen sends the Huntsman into the woods to kill Snow White, but he soon finds out that Snow White is the key to the salvation of the oppressed masses now living under Queen Ravenna’s tyrannical reign.

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Sander’s envisioning of the Dark Ages looks like a mash up of Middle Earth and scenery from any Harry Potter film, and I really couldn’t be happier about this. Finally, someone has decided to hack away the thick layers of candy gloss that the 1937 Walt Disney adaption of this generally bizarre and macabre source material has been coated in for the last 70 years. I mean, the Brothers Grimm have the Evil Queen wanting to eat Snow White’s heart and after seeing Theron’s authentic transformation into serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, I think that we’re in for one hell of a ride. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Rock of Ages (June 15^th) – Adapted for the screen, Rock Of Ages is a jukebox musical that uses 80s hair metal to piece a story together. You’ll find the plot familiar: the mayor introduces his town to clean living after deciding there is too much sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. The free-living teens have a different opinion which they express in several reprises of ‘We’re Not Going To Take It’.

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The film version has a lot going for it. It was written by Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder) and directed by Adam Shankman. Shankman is a choreographer turned director who started with Rom-coms like The Wedding Planner. He has hit his mark recently with projects like Hairspray, Prop 8: The Musical, and episodes of Glee.

The cast is outstanding. Bryan Cranston plays the rock-n-roll hating mayor, Alec Baldwin plays the forever young club owner, and Tom Cruise does that funny/asshole thing he does as Stacie Jaxx, the biggest rock star on the planet (Can he save Rock-N-Roll?!?!).  Ages also includes Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julianne Hough, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, and Will Forte. Christ! It shouldn’t even matter what this movie is about. If all those names don’t make you want to see it, you hate fun. (Brian Crosby)

Also out in June in limited release (meaning possibly not in all or any Canadian markets right away):

Battlefield America (June 1^st)

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Lola Versus (June 8^th)

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To Rome with Love (June 22^nd)

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Madea’s Witness Protection (June 29^th)

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Beasts of the Southern Wild (June 29^th)

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People Like Us (June 29^th)

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Take This Waltz (June 29^th)

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Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (June 8^th) – Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Africa… well, you would be right, since the critters from the last two animated Madagascar films are attempting flight from Africa to make it back home to their beloved New York City. En route they crash land in Europe and are forced to join a travelling circus to help them gain enough notoriety to make it back to the States.

With the entire principal voice cast from the previous two films returning and directed by three guys who also provide voices for the franchise’s beloved penguins and monkeys working from a screenplay co-written by no less than Noah Baumbach, Madagascar 3 looks to be one of the safest box office bets of the summer.

There’s something really endearing about these characters, especially the interplay between best friends Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller) and Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock) that made the first two films undeniably charming. This time around the cast gets new blood in the form of Bryan Cranston as a chronically surly Russian tiger, Martin Short as a high strung seal, Jessica Chastain as a sympathetic jaguar, and Frances McDormand as a hardnosed animal control officer who operates in a fashion similar to the Terminator.

I should say up front that I was lucky enough to catch about 15 minutes of rough footage from this one earlier in the year, and aside from the clips showing an abundant bubblegum pop soundtrack, the film seems to be following in the footsteps of its predecessors. And since I liked those movies just fine, I guess if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. (Andrew Parker)

Safety Not Guaranteed (Limited, June 15^th) – How often do we get to see a feature length film based on a hilarious internet meme? Almost never. And while we fear that Hollywood raiding 4Chan and Reddit for movie ideas may become an unfortunate trend going forward, Safety Not Guaranteed gets a free pass from this meme-loving asshole for being the first. The film’s wonderfully “out there” concept combined with an excellent comedic cast will likely make this one worth checking out.

Based on the popular YTMND meme of the same name, Safety Not Guaranteed follows three journalists  investigating a man who placed a classified ad seeking “someone to go back in time” with him. The ad warns any prospective time travellers that they must bring their own weapons and that their safety is not guaranteed. We’re glad that director Colin Trevorrow and his writing partner Derek Connolly saw this ridiculous meme and decided that this was a story that needed to be told. As long as Paul Engemann’s epic “Push It to the Limit” makes it into the film somewhere (preferably during a training montage of some kind), we will consider the film a success.

Led by a trio of TV stars – Parks and Recreation‘s Aubrey Plaza, The League‘s Mark Duplass, and New Girl‘s Jake Johnson – the indie time-travel comedy made a big splash at Sundance earlier this year. The film won rave reviews from numerous critics and was picked up by fast growing distributor FilmDistrict. Not bad for a first time director. We just hope that the always charming Duplass and ever cranky Plaza can convincingly play a paranoid weirdo and kind-hearted reporter, respectively. (Will Perkins)

That’s My Boy (June 15^th) – Last year after the one-two punch of the Adam Sandler co-written Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star and Jack and Jill, I admit that I wrote the former Billy Madison star off for good. Then I saw the first red-band trailer for That’s My Boy and I thought it looked kind of like the classic Adam Sandler films I used to be able to get behind when I was younger. This tale of a deadbeat (Sandler) trying to reconnect with his now wealthy estranged son (Andy Samberg) looked a lot like the potty mouthed rogue that I found unusually charismatic and funny.

I became even more intrigued when I looked at the writing and directing credits. Instead of going with his old guard cast of buddies and cronies (Dennis Dugan, Frank Coraci, Peter Segal), Sandler’s working with some fresh new blood. Director Sean Anders previously only directed the gleefully foul-mouthed and un-PC Sex Drive, and writer David Capse previously collaborated with Anders on the equally silly Hot Tub Time Machine. The cast of largely new faces to the Sandler universe also lends an air of renewal, headed by Samberg in what might be a bit of torch passing to the probably soon to be leaving SNL actor.

Add to that a reported uncredited re-write from David Wain and Ken Marino, and you can colour me a few different shades on intrigued to see how this all shakes out. Maybe I spoke too soon. Then again, even if this buys him some good will, it doesn’t change the fact that the next film on his docket is Grown Ups 2. (Andrew Parker)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (June 22^nd) – Finally a comedic remake of Don McKellar’s Can-classic Last Night! No, not really, but we can dream. Zombieland demonstrated that no matter how bleak the outlook apocalyptic comedies can work really well, and as anyone will tell you, nothing breaks up impending doom quite like the comedy stylings of Steve Carell, Patton Oswalt, Rob Corddry, and Gillian Jacobs.

Carell plays Dodge, a man whose wife leaves him on the eve of a world-ending asteroid collision. With nothing to lose Dodge sets out to find his high school sweetheart before time runs out, dragging his rightfully depressed neighbour, Penny (Keira Knightley) along for the ride. It’s not very hard to imagine what happens next. The pair will predictably fall for one another on their road trip and share a kiss just as the asteroid hits home. We know it’s the end of the world, but even then it’s pretty hard to buy Carell as Knightley’s love interest (he’s 23 years her senior). Still, what’s a little May-December romance when you won’t see another May or December?

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World represents the directorial debut of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist scribe Lorene Scafaria. Depending on how you feel about Nick and Norah’s, this is either a very good thing for Seeking a Friend or reason to avoid it all together. As cliché as the film sounds on paper, consider us intrigued. Given Scarfaria’s previous work, we fear that the apoc-rom-com (that’s a genre now) could become a dreary and maudlin affair, but the comedy chops at play might just be enough to win us over. (Will Perkins)

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 29^th) – While not a fan of the first outing for the Joes, I’m unabashedly looking forward to this second entry in the toy themed franchise, which finds the Real American Heroes betrayed by their own country and nearly wiped out as Cobra plots the next step in their plans for total global domination.

Starring the go-to guy for sequel resurrection, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bruce Willis as the original Joe, and a returning Channing Tatum for at least five minutes (shame they couldn’t have brought back Joseph Gordon Levitt as Cobra Commander, though), Retaliation looks to trump the original in the starpower department, but also heartening is the arrival of director Jon M. Chu, whose previous credits include the last two Step Up films and Justin Bieber’s concert documentary.

Why do I think that’s a good thing, you might ask? Because those films cut out all the unnecessary fat that bogs down those types of films. Chu knows that if you are seeing a dance film, you are there for the dancing. If he applies that same principal to the G.I. Joe franchise, we’ll be all set. The film also boasts a script from the people who brought us Zombieland, which also knew how to include all the fun with absolutely minimum drag. (Andrew Parker)

Magic Mike (June 29^th) – My giddy level of excitement for the other movie with Channing Tatum opening on the 29^th borders on almost being so unreasonable that no film could ever hope to match it.

But honestly, this is a film starring Channing Tatum based loosely on his own experiences as a male stripper and it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh. That one sentence alone sold me on the film, but it will be interesting to see if general audiences want to watch Tatum in a movie that hinges on so much sexual tension. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m sure they will and Tatum’s stock will probably only grow higher in an already stellar year for him. Haywire (his previous 2012 collaboration with Soderbergh, who should be approaching his self-imposed retirement clause any day now) brought him critical respect, The Vow (inexplicably one of the highest grossing films of the year thus far) brought him in touch with his female fanbase, and 21 Jump Street (understandably one of the highest grossing films of the year) showcased his ability for light comedy. Magic Mike looks to blend all three into a potent summertime confection.

Also, if I could give an award to the single best trailer for a film this year, Magic Mike wins hands down. If I’m in a rotten mood, I will just watch that trailer repeatedly. Yeah, I know, trailers can be misleading, but this looks like the visual equivalent of slamming tequila shots on a beach at four in the afternoon and then passing out before waking up ay 8 PM to go to the best job ever. If the film doesn’t turn out to meet my high expectations or the trailer has nothing to do with the film, the worst that could happen is that we get a Steven Soderbergh film, and those are always worth talking about no matter the quality. (Andrew Parker)

If you’ll indulge me, I find myself in a reflective mood on an unusually nerdy Monday afternoon following three unusually crazy days. It was a very good weekend to be a nerd, and I’m not just talking about The Avengers. In fact, I didn’t even get a chance to see it. I only made it to a fraction of the festivities on a weekend that also included Free Comic Book Day, Star Wars Day, and the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) and there are only so many spare hours in a day now that nerd is the new normal.

Take a step back, however, and that last sentence seems patently insane. I can now state without any hint of sarcasm or irony that Joss Whedon is responsible for the biggest box office smash in history ($600M and counting), a suggestion that would have been beyond impossible around the time that Fox was cancelling Firefly. I’m not complaining, but I can’t be the only one who thinks this is all a little absurd.

I’m not going to try figure out how we got here, but I’m thrilled that I’m able to ask the question. After a weekend that brought about such an incredible confluence of general geekery I feel that a brief retrospective is in order.

You see, I spent the majority of my weekend TCAF, which is odd because I’m not particularly invested in the indie comics scene. That’s mostly due to a lack of funds rather than a lack of interest, but I like conventions so I nonetheless found myself at the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor for a good chunk of Saturday and Sunday. I saw some stunning prints and picked up a few things for my collection, but I had even more fun catching up with old friends and making new acquaintances. Somewhere along the way, I realized that – more than anything else – I simply enjoy being a part of a crowd that frequents events like TCAF as eagerly as I do.

If you can stomach the occasionally cloying miasma of body odor (some stereotypes are unfortunately true), it’s truly amazing to be able to gather in a public place to share an appreciation for properties that exist outside of the cultural mainstream. TCAF is a showcase for art that wouldn’t otherwise get a lot of attention, but it’s also a place of acceptance, and that may be the weekend’s more enduring legacy.

From the cosplayers gathered outside the Silver Snail for Free Comic Book Day to the of the Comics vs. Games exhibit at the Magic Pony and TCAF, there was entertainment to be had regardless of your preferred flavor of nerd. We shouldn’t take that for granted. In high school I considered myself lucky to be able to play Magic: The Gathering without fear of being bullied, and there are still places in North America where people are ostracized for daring to like things other than football.

Knowing that, it’s doubly important to take a moment to appreciate what we have here in Toronto. Somewhere between play sessions of The Yawhg, my interview with Home creator Benjamin Rivers (coming soon to Dork Shelf), and my questionable attempt to sing “Under the Sea” in front of a room full of witnesses, I began to appreciate how much I love the community that I’ve found in this city. Being a nerd is awesome, but – contrary to the stereotypes of socially awkward loners – it’s even more awesome when we get to share the experience with other nerds.

So maybe I never did get a chance to see The Avengers. That’s a problem that I’m more than happy to address. The movie is still playing, and when a weekend is that crazy sometimes you just have to roll with it and see where life takes you. For me, that was a post-TCAF crowd at a Korean karaoke club on Bloor Street at 3 A.M. on Saturday morning, but the fact that such a day is even possible – that I have to sit down and figure out how to prioritize my nerd hours for any given weekend – is, to my mind, a cultural wealth of riches worth celebrating.

I only hope that I’ll be able to recover in time for another weekend of insanity. TOJam kicks off on Friday, and I can’t wait to sit down with a laptop to keep the party going.

Dark Shadows (Friday) – Burton and Depp’s latest honeymoon has been prematurely met with trepidation by those who two outings ago were already saying “Burton’s throwing some make-up on Depp? Aren’t we done with this yet?”  I was not one of those people and actually thought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride made 2005 a standout year for the director. Even the lackluster Sweeney Todd still had a lot going for it and did not prepare me for the slap in the face that the insultingly bad Alice in Wonderland would be. But I’ve given it a lot of thought and have decided to forgive them for taking their Disney-sized paycheques and running with that one and to share my optimism for Dark Shadows.

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What I hope sets this one apart from the previous film is a passion shared by the director and star for the source material. I’ve never watched the Dark Shadows series but by all accounts it’s ripe with camp and humour, two things Burton has excelled at in the past. As the trailers have made clear, they’re going for a lot of laughs with this one, and assuming they haven’t given away the best jokes, they’ll get plenty. Even though it has a PG-13 rating, I don’t get the sense that it’s trying to hit the largest possible demographic the way Alice was, so hopefully we’ll get more of the kind of quirkiness that made films like Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! work so well.

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On top of the laughs we’ll also be treated to visuals far more designed than you would normally see in a comedy. After a ten year hiatus from working with long time collaborator Rick Heinrichs, Dark Shadows marks a reunion with the talented production designer who I believe had a lot to do with establishing Burton’s style early in his career. Bringing a Gothic 18^th century vampire into the tacky 70’s seems perfectly suited to their shared design sensibilities. This is actually the first time Burton has taken on fanged nightwalkers (the one in The Nightmare Before Christmas doesn’t count), nor has Depp played a vampire before, which is pretty surprising when you think about it, though I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that vampires are ‘so hot right now’. So never mind the naysayers, Dark Shadows looks like a good humoured romp with lots to please the eye and should be a fun one to kick off the summer with. (Noah Taylor)

Battleship (May 18^th) – Although greeted with the typical big box office and middling reviews from an early overseas release that most summer blockbusters get anyway, director Peter Berg’s Battleship could end up being one of those summer movies that oddly endures if it just ends up being a big budgeted action extravaganza designed for audiences that only want to watch things go boom.

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There’s also a lot more riding on Battleship’s success than one might think, especially for budding star Taylor Kitsch who probably still hasn’t gotten over the sting of John Carter’s failure, and who also has to worry about overexposure with a high profile role in Oliver Stone’s Savages later this summer. Kitsch isn’t the only one who needs to worry. This is director Peter Berg’s first big screen outing since Hancock several years ago. Liam Neeson has a supporting role here in a genre even he admits he’s getting too old for, and for singer Rihanna, it could mark the beginning of a potentially lucrative big screen career.

Also with a lot riding on this is the owner to Battleship’s branding rights, Hasbro Toys. Based on a board game bearing little resemblance to the film, this sci-fi epic about an alien entity engaging with ships at sea for control of the Earth could spin off a whole new line of toys and a Transformers-styled franchise to add to Michael Bay’s feather in the toymakers crown.

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Judging from the film’s numerous divisive trailers, it would be hard to say if audiences are willing to go along with 131 minutes of rampant explosions and PG-13 styled high seas carnage, but there actually aren’t any other brainless options for that particular brand of audience this summer. A May release seems more of a risk for this film, because by June or July, Battleship could be just what audiences needed. (Andrew Parker)

The Dictator (May 16^th) – After audiences almost collectively rolled their eyes at prankmeister general Sacha Baron Cohen’s previous outing Bruno, The Dictator seems like a welcome retreat to fictionalized comedy instead of outward embarrassment to a bunch of unsuspecting rubes.

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Even more of a mockumentary than his previous outings thanks to the use of an actual cast of heavy hitting comedic actors (including John C. Reilly and Anna Faris), Cohen looks to throw himself into the role of General General Aladeen, a despotic dictator from the fictional Republic of Wadiya who has been called upon to defend his rule to an increasingly flummoxed United Nations.

Despite moving away from punking random celebrities and notables, Cohen stays close to the Borat and Bruno wheelhouse by once again teaming with director Larry Charles for a star studded affair of people who seem to be in on the joke. The biggest battle the film faces, is ultimately Cohen himself, who’s become a divisive figure among the press and general public. Following his numerous in-character appearances as Aladeen, the reaction seemed more lightly amused and slightly bored than outraged or curious.

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Still, there’s a lot to be admired in Cohen’s go-for-broke style of performance art that probably makes Andy Kaufman smile with glee from the great beyond. So few people have gotten this far from continually trying to piss people off, and there are few comedians as physically and mentally conditioned as well as Cohen. And if this fails, at least he has a Madagascar sequel to fall back on later this summer. (Andrew Parker)

Men in Black III (May 25th) – Even though an entire wall-crawling franchise has come, gone, and been re-booted since the last Men in Black movie was in theatres, 2002 still doesn’t feel that long ago to me. Since this late entry may seem somewhat obscure to younger audiences, I’m banking on MIBIII aiming over the heads of those who don’t remember when Will Smith was the king of July 4^th openings or don’t know most of the lyrics to the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ theme song by heart. While I’m not anticipating a maturation of Toy Story proportions, they must have at least taken into consideration the fact that those who fell in love with the original film did so 15 years ago… let’s just hope the concept has aged as well at the two leads.

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The element added to mix this one up a little is time travel, a totally plausible addition to the reality of the MIB universe. Josh Brolin looks perfectly cast as the young Agent K, I expect his Tommy Lee Jones impression to the steal the show and am curious to see which of the two gets more screen time. We can also look forward to laughs from supporting cast members such as Jemaine Clement and the hilarious Bill Hader as Andy Warhol; a part I sincerely hope extends beyond the scene shown in the trailer. According to IMDB, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Tim Burton all appear in it as well, but I’m guessing their images will just be used in that old gag where we see all the famous people who are really aliens.

It’s easy to be skeptical about this sequel given the strength of the last one, but here are some more names that give me faith in it: music by Danny Elfman, screenplay by David Koepp (Jurassic Park) and Etan Coen (Tropic Thunder), shot by Bill Pope (The Matrix), production design by Bo Welch (Edward Scissorhands) and produced by Steven Spielberg (Eagle Eye). The sci-fi comedy genre is always fun one that doubles its chances of success: if you don’t like the jokes, hopefully you’ll get a kick out of the action and special effects, if you don’t like those, then maybe you’ll get a laugh from J and K’s odd couple dynamic or the absurdity of the much used ‘neuralizer’. The very least we can hope for is something a little more inspired than the film’s theme song, Back In Time (Huey Lewis’ lawyers are looking into it). (Noah Taylor)

Also out in May:

An all-star cast (including Cameron Diaz, Chris Rock, Dennis Quaid, Anna Kendrick, Jennifer Lopez, and Matthew Morrison) head up what can only be an intensely loose adaptation of Heidi Murkoff’s how-to series of What to Expect When You’re Expecting books, which looks to hold the same kind of can’t miss appeal as the loose Steve Harvey adaptation Think Like a Man tapped into. Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee, Waking Ned Devine) directs. (May 18th)

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Paranomal Activity mastermind Oren Peli, lends his name as a writer and producer to special effects supervisor Bradley Parker’s directorial debut Chernobyl Diaries, a not-entirely-found-footage styled film about a group of “extreme tourists” who get more than they bargained for on a trip to the famed nuclear disaster site. Look for this one to clean up if horror and suspense starved audiences aren’t wary of the microbudget feel. (May 25th)

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