What more can be said? The upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron looks amazing. We can’t wait for it to arrive. Until then, we keep getting cool trailers and more to keep everyone interested until the release.

As if that was needed at all. However, Marvel keeps releasing new promos, so we will keep bringing them to you. This time around it’s a new TV spot featuring the whole gang and a whole lot of action.

Pay particular attention to what Captain America can do with a motorcycle, other than just looking cool while riding it. You’ll enjoy it.

Check out the new spot after the break. Look for Avengers: Age of Ultron to hit theaters on May 1.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the summer blockbuster I’ve been waiting for for longer than I can remember.

The usual adjectives of effusive praise are appropriate: funny, clever, touching, and, of course, fun. While Marvel Studios has certainly found the formula for successful films, they’ve been progressively more and more serious and, worse, self-important. Guardians has the good sense to mock itself and its concept, which is likely due in large part to its star, Parks & Recreation‘s Chris Pratt, and writer/director James Gunn (Slither), and perhaps almost as large a part being that it’s relatively free of the Marvel Universe around which every other film it’s made snugly revolves. I doubt we’d see even Tony Stark using a space-rat as a make-believe microphone, especially in the first two minutes.

So Gunn and Pratt bring a delightfully refreshing sense of self deprecation to their film, Pratt playing the somewhat well-known Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, intergalactic swashbuckler. The promotional writeups describe him as a mix of Han Solo and Marty McFly, but I think Indiana Jones may be more appropriate, since they’re both adept at getting into and out of particularly sticky situations.

This time Star-Lord has snatched an orb of potentially unimaginable power, which puts him in the sights of nearly everyone across the galaxy, from assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to planetary ravager Ronan (Lee Pace) to Yondu (Michael Rooker), Star-Lord’s kind-of adopted father, to genetically modified raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and his Ent-ian-ish pal Groot (Vin Diesel). After a three-way battle on the universal capital planet, the four are imprisoned and…blah, blah, blah. They team up, everyone tries to kill them, and so on.

In 1977, at the age of 8, I sat in a theater and experienced the awe and wonder that was Star Wars. At the time, no one had any idea what kind of cultural significance it would have or what it would mean for cinema in general and science-fiction films in particular. Though there have been many books, essays and college theses that have attempted to quantify and examine those impacts over the years, at age 8 I didn’t really care about such things.

If I’m being completely honest I should admit that I still don’t, I just remember sitting in the darkened theater being completely pulled into a new and completely realized new universe of awe and wonder and being completely captivated and immeasurably entertained by it. Thanks to James Gunn and Guardians of the Galaxy, that feeling has returned 37 years later.

That’s right, it’s another new episode of The Flickcast. We’re back on a roll with two in a row! Can two really be a roll? Sure, why not?

This week we’ve got an episode chock full fun, exciting and useful information, discussions, observations and even more! That’s right, even more! More than last week even. Well, maybe.

Topics this week include Godzilla, Mob City, Christmas movies, how to fix Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Tom Cruise and powered armor, Starship Troopers and a whole lot more.

This week’s picks include Chris’ pick of Gareth Edwards’ Monsters and Joe’s pick of the TV series Arrow, which just had its winter finale.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+ or via email.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

A select few saw, and most only heard about, the first peek at Guardians of the Galaxy when it was given at Comic-Con and part of the cast appeared on stage including Dave Bautista, Chris Pratt and a recently shaved headed Karen Gillan. But even though Drax, Starlord and Nebula were represented, there were a few characters vital to the Guardians of the Galaxy roster that were not present, notably Rocket Raccoon and Groot. Now while we weren’ t expecting to see a walking and talking raccoon and tree combo take the stage, it was possible that their voice actors could have shown up, but that wasn’t the case.

Yesterday, the internet nerd community went crazy with rumors of Vin Diesel getting the role of Groot. While it has been known that Diesel had spoken to Kevin Feige, it was said that Disney and Marvel might not be using him any time soon. Well this didn’t mean anything to the internet after Vin Diesel briefly changed his Facebook cover image to that of Groot for a few minutes before changing it back to an image of himself shortly after.

(On a side note, can someone tell Vin how douchey it looks that half of the images he has used for cover images on Facebook were pictures of himself featuring his own quotes?)

So if there was ever a reason to watch Once Upon a Time last night, we found it with the premiere trailer for the coming series, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And look who is back… Coulson! The man who started out as an unknown supporting role and quickly drew his own cult following to the point where he became the spark that brought the Avengers together against Loki is headlining this upcoming series. While there are theories about how Coulson beat death (and sorry but this late in the game, you aren’t allowed to call spoiler on me for it), he will be heading up the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

From the look of it, this isn’t going to strictly be a super hero story as Coulson and his team aren’t powered up heroes. They are going to need to rely on their varied skill sets to take on the emerging metahuman threats in their world. From the trailer, you may spy a certain African American character with super strength (who speculation is already pointing to be the Marvel movie continuity first appearance of Luke Cage).

One great aspect to the show can be the introduction of such characters to the movie continuity without forcing too much of the film to revolve around their origin and instead focusing on the team dynamic or maybe even provide Easter eggs for characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy before their theatrical debut.

The Avengers has come and gone, and now we get to see Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) dealing with the trauma he apparently experienced in New York. He has insomnia, and it strains both his work on the latest Iron Man suit as well as his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). His bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau) is now head of security for Stark Industries. And, all around the world, there’s broadcasts from a strange terrorist figure named “The Mandarin” (Ben Kingsley).

The movie opens with Stark recounting a New Year’s Eve party way back in 1999. He’s at a conference in Bern, trying to bed a buxom botantist, Maya (Rebecca Hall) before the year’s turnover. He’s interrupted by pimply geek Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who’s trying to start a think tank and wants Stark’s help. Stark blows him off, and if the use of Guy Pearce didn’t already suggest it, Stark states outright that it was the beginning of trouble.

Thirteen years later, Aldrich shows up at Stark Industries, again seeking support, though he does seem more interested in rubbing everyone’s nose in his success. He has created a new whatsit kind of technology called “Extremis” that allows the brain to regenerate tissue…and, somehow, make the patients melt things with their hands. (Dr. Curt Conners from the latest Spiderman films is going to be smacking his head with his tail when the inevitable crossover comes.)

If you were looking for someone to fitting take on the role of a character whose last name is “The Destroyer”, it isn’t a shock to see that former WWE Champion Batista will be filling the boots of Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Late yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter leaked the announcement that Dave Bautista would be taking on this role in Marvel’s 2014 Summer Blockbuster.

Alongside Chris Pratt who will be playing the part of Star Lord, Dave Bautista will be filling the shoes of a team of cosmic heroes fairly unknown to the audience outside of the comic book world. Though having success in the better half of the last decade, the Guardians of the Galaxy are only known to the mainstream audience because of Marvel’s announcements tying them in to the greater Avengers Marvel Studios film universe.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is entering into untested grounds. While the first phase of films was groundbreaking in its structure, it still had the familiar grasp of forward momentum. Like a wave crashing onto the beach, the momentum is beginning to recede as Marvel gears up for their next big push.

So it falls on the capable shoulders of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man to embrace the narrowing focus of the universe, while still setting in motion the momentum for the next phase of Marvel films. So considering the pressure this film is under, it makes sense that we are seeing an expanded presence from this film’s marketing as the Super Bowl approaches.

We do not have the new TV spot, or a full trailer just yet, but Marvel Studios has just released a beautiful new poster to stroke everyone’s  anticipation glands.

The poster itself is a simple image of Iron Man, or as simple of an image of Iron Man you can get when he is plummeting to his certain doom. A cheery one-sheet that sets the tone for the ringer Tony Stark is set to be sent through.

You can check out the full new poster after the jump.

This week is going to belong to Iron Man and Marvel Studios, today we have the first look at the teaser poster and an actual shot of The Mandarin for you to oogle over. Tomorrow we will get a glimpse of the first teaser trailer for next summer’s blockbuster to be and by Friday all of this will be dissected 1000 times over by the fan community and we will know if the film will suck or not. Things move fast these days.

First up is the teaser poster, which gives away absolutely nothing new. It is just a stylized version of Tony’s hall of armor with an unsuited Stark looking back to stare deeply into the audiences eyes as he ponders ‘what should I wear?’. It is a fine poster and actually ranks as one of the better Iron Man one-sheets to date. Posters is oddly one aspect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that has been lacking over the last few years.

The second image for you to feast your eyes on is Sir Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. For those who are not comic fan boys first, The Mandarin is the arch nemesis of Iron Man and has not made an appearance in the films, but his presence has been felt in the guise of the ten rings syndicate which is likely his criminal force.

Take a look at both after the jump.