TJ and Joe are back! And they are pretty sure you won’t catch any deadly germs from an MP3. This week the primary film in review is the wonderfully fun ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’. But of course, they can’t not pay tribute to the death of one of the great actors of our time, Leonard Nimoy.
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Short version for those of you who won’t read all this: The MovieByte Podcast will continue, but I’m taking a break from writing.
Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.
When Captain Picard reveals his unfortunate duty of informing Spock that his father, Sarek, has died, Data posits that Spock – as a Vulcan – would surely see death as the logical conclusion of his father’s illness. Picard explains that death is never that easy, not even for a Vulcan.
And for those of us who loved one Vulcan in particular, it’s not easy at all.
This is interesting: Anthony and Joe Russo, the directors who did a great job with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, are directing Captain America: Civil War, and have been tipped as likely successors to Joss Whedon for the Avengers series, have signed a first-look deal with Sony. The Russo Brothers Sony deal begins in April, and immediately conjures up speculation about possible ties between the Russos and Spider-Man.
Is there anything Legos can’t make better? If this Lego Back to the Future short is any indication, apparently not.
The dystopian YA trend is still going strong in 2015, with The Divergent Series: Insurgent the first one out of the gate. Shailene Woodley once again plays Tris, a special snowflake with more than one personality trait. That makes her a threat to the corrupt system, run by Jeanine (Kate Winslet).
Focus is only a few days away from opening, but that’s still enough time to squeeze in one last trailer. Will Smith and Margot Robbie play two con artists with a romantic history — which proves quite inconvenient when she shows up just as he’s trying to pull off his biggest con yet.
A spy organization recruits an unrefined, but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program, just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.
Critics Consensus: Stylish, subversive, and above all fun, Kingsman: The Secret Service finds director Matthew Vaughn sending up the spy genre with gleeful abandon.
Domestic Total as of Mar. 2, 2015: $86,765,310
Distributor: Fox Release Date: February 13, 2015
Genre: Action / Adventure Runtime: 2 hrs. 9 min.
MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $81 million