Tag Archives: Chris Evans

C2E2 2023 Photos, Part 2 of 4: Actors!

April 2, 2023 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
us with Chris Evans, all doing jazz hands, and he is smiling SO brilliantly.

Chris Evans! Yes, Chris Evans! Yes, THAT Chris Evans! Yes, really!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. After its 2010 inception, we attended every year from 2011 to 2019, then took a break due partly to the pandemic and partly due to guest lists outside our circles of interest. This year’s strong lineup lured us back in, much to our delight…

…though we took our sweet time deliberating whether or not to take the plunge again. We committed a mere three weeks before showtime, and we’re glad we did. We needed some time away from home and cheerfully added three more guests to our jazz-hands photo gallery, including the esteemed gentleman pictured above.

Continue reading →

Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Lightyear” End Credits

July 3, 2022 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Lightyear!

To finity and no farther!

“In 1995 Andy got a new toy for his birthday. It was from his favorite movie. This is that movie.”

That’s paraphrasing (i.e., possibly misquoting from fading memory) the first lines from Lightyear — its high-concept, low-bar mission statement and its disclaimer to deflect any viewers who might’ve refused to relax without some form of canonical context, no matter how tenuous or superfluous. Critics’ memories of the exact verbiage differed from one site to the next. The erstwhile animation trailblazers at Pixar were hoping those same fuzzy memories might forgive/forget the shamelessly unnecessary Toy Story 4 and embrace this, their latest merchandise revival to be contrived from the greatest animated film trilogy ever.

Continue reading →

“Knives Out”: Benoit Blanc and the Secrets of the Spoiled Socialites

December 15, 2019 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Knives Out!

Three professionals want to know who killed Christopher Plummer and whether Kevin Spacey had an alibi.

Fans of writer/director Rian Johnson previously saw him dabble in the mystery genre with 2005’s Brick, a hard-boiled high school noir in which murder was afoot and everyone was guilty of something. After dabbling in preexisting universes with key episodes of Breaking Bad and that one time he turned Star Wars fandom into one big West Side Story gang war, Johnson returns to creating his own characters with Knives Out, a stellar whodunit that flips genre expectations, venerates a few old tropes, and, best of all, lets Daniel Craig have a rollicking vacation away from those glum Bond films and their even glummer press junkets.

Continue reading →

“Avengers: Endgame”: It. Is. FINISHED.

April 28, 2019 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Rocket Raccoon!

Thanos made this cute, fuzzy antihero cry. Now he must PAY.

One of the most exhilarating parts of seeing highly anticipated event films ASAP is the firm pivot point you pass between “before” and “after”. Once you’ve seen it, spoilers can no longer damage your viewer experience. Months and years of news sites hazarding half-baked guesses to the film’s content see all their handiwork either rendered obsolete and worthless or proven right but ultimately irrelevant once the thing becomes a reality rather than a theoretical construct in quantum-superpositional flux. Once the film “is”, the number of possibilities of how it “might be” dwindles ever downward toward one (1).

That’s not to say everyone has seen it yet, though Entertainment Weekly and other ill-mannered organizations live or die on the operating principle that every popular thing is instantly consumed now-now-NOW by the smartest, coolest readerships who are the only humans in the universe that matter. For folks who know how to use the word “courtesy” in a sentence, it means being careful with blaring spoilers in the faces of everyone who might glance in our direction. (When it comes to movies, at least. As someone who live-tweets the occasional CW super-hero show, I’ll own up to some hypocrisy here.)

It’s in that spirit of keeping up the spoiler-free environment for what’s left of this weekend that our obligatory Avengers: Endgame write-up was composed to the best of my ability. Fair warning: if you were so hardcore about no-spoiler purity that you’ve even avoided all the trailers and TV spots, I’m not sure I can help you at quite that level of dedication.

Continue reading →

Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Captain America: Civil War” End Credits

May 10, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Civil War!

Chadwick Boseman leads an all-star cast in Black Panther: Civil War, quite to my delight.

The worldwide phenomenon about two unique individuals from very different worlds — one with his armor and his billions, the other with his enviable muscles and his onetime fervor for The American Way — will rank high among other films in the $300-million U.S. box office club at year’s end. Once again the major studios prove they’re still capable of putting out product that can contemplate serious topics even while reveling in visual dynamics and not shying away from moments of emotional intensity.

No, not the one with the Marthas’ boys in it.

Continue reading →

“Snowpiercer”: No Saints After the Apocalypse

July 10, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Snowpiercer!

“Marvel Team-Up” presents Captain America and the War Doctor in Snowpiercer.

Sure, a bleak Korean sci-fi film based on a French graphic novel, delayed for months while studio heads squabbled over whether or not to delete nearly 20% of it before letting Americans see it, doesn’t sound like the perfect star vehicle for Chris Evans, cinematic hero of this summer’s Captain America: the Winter Soldier. It’s certainly not a vote of confidence that the Weinstein Company compromised by leaving it intact but downgraded to a limited-release run with minimal advertising. In the hands of an unkinder corporation, Snowpiercer could’ve found itself sentenced with immediate relegation to the Walmart $5 DVD bin.

Thanks to exactly one theater in all of Indianapolis, last weekend I had the chance to witness one of the darkest, riskiest, most thought-provoking spectacles of the year. Considering the competition is mostly sequels, I’ll admit that’s not saying much.

– All aboard for the Trip to Bountiless…->

Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Captain America: the Winter Soldier” End Credits

April 8, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Winter Soldier FTW

The Winter Soldier meets his worst enemy: springtime.

You already knew that, right? If you’ve seen a Marvel film, you know the drill. Even though Marvel’s penchant for end-credits epilogues is public knowledge, many viewers still refuse to see for themselves and don’t want to know details till after the fact because they’re dying to exit the theater and go buy ice cream or whatever.

That’s why Midlife Crisis Crossover includes end-credits coverage in its consumer-reporting movie coverage. If we see a movie, we’re there till the bitter end whether there’s a treat waiting for us or not. My wife and I are sticklers for getting our money’s worth for the ticket price, even if it means skimming past listings for quasi-participants such as Production Babies, legal counsel, and caterers’ gofers. Imagine the pride they’ll feel, knowing there’s a remote chance that someone besides their parents spotted their names at the end.

…what were we talking about? Oh, yeah — Captain America: the Winter Soldier, my new favorite 2014 movie so far.

This way for all-American action!