Maids of Dishonor.

Norse comic-book gods not your thing? Well, as I am sure you know, the movieplex has also been offering some decently funny counter-programming for the past fortnight with Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids, and they too can bring the thunder.

I’ve noted a couple times here that I find comedies hard to review, as what folks tend to laugh at is highly variable. But, speaking for myself, Bridesmaids was a respectable-enough entrant in the Feig-Apatow wheelhouse. (Apatow is a producer here.) It’s not as memorable as Knocked Up or The Forty Year-Old Virgin, but the film is amusing enough that I had a smile on my face throughout. And, even amid the occasional gross-out sequence, Bridesmaid has the same sweetness, sense of humor about everyday foibles, and fundamental decency towards its characters that marked Feig & Apatow’s magnum opus, Freaks and Geeks. All in all, a solid summertime matinee — go ahead and RSVP yes.

Not to overstate the F&G angle, Bridesmaids is also the brainchild of co-writer and star Kristen Wiig, who claims the spotlight here after several years of ubiquitous, scene-stealing, and often thankless character work in the movies. (See, for example, Extract, MacGruber, Walk Hard, and Whip It.) How much you enjoy Bridesmaids will probably depend heavily on how funny you find Wiig. I’ve heard people complain that much of her schtick just involves awkward pauses, but I think she’s both an amusing and appealing comedienne, and that, like most people on SNL these days, she deserves better material than she usually gets. Good on her to take matters into her own hands and, with fellow Groundling Annie Mumolo, finally just write that star vehicle for herself.

From the outside, Bridesmaids seems like, and is being billed as, the double-X counterpart to Todd Phillips’ The Hangover: This time, it’s the women going wild before the big nuptials. And, to be sure, there is some of that here: For example, Melissa McCarthy’s role as brother-to-the-groom Megan, a.k.a. “the X-Factor” member of the bridal party, feels very broad and Galiafanakis-y at times. (And partly because she’s given the freest rein, McCarthy ends up running away with most of her scenes, although it helps her case that the two other “minor” bridesmaids in this story — Elle Kemper as the goodie-too-shoes and Wendi McLendon-Covey as the haggard mom looking to get disreputable — are underwritten.)

But, ultimately, that Hangover comparison is misleading. (And, as my brother noted: If anything, these bridesmaids leave opportunities for obvious Wolfpack-like shenanigans on the table. They [spoiler] never actually make it to Vegas, for example.) Despite its billing — and despite one memorably repugnant sequence involving food poisoning at a dress fitting — Bridesmaids is more traditionally rom-commy and, well, chick-flicky than the trailers let on. Instead of indulging in no-holds-barred comedy mayhem just for the sake of it, the movie more often chooses to dwell on the slow-burn courting between Wiig’s Annie and an Irish cop who pulls her over one evening (Chris O’Dowd), and/or the “love” triangle of Annie the Maid of (dis)Honor, her childhood best friend and bride Lillian (Maya Rudolph), and the newcomer/interloper to their BFF twosome, Helen (Rose Byrne).

And that’s totally ok. In the end, I probably preferred the more mellow and humanistic Bridesmaids to the fratty antics of The Hangover anyway, although I realize I liked the latter film less than most people. (I’m about 50-50 on seeing this week’s sequel.) Once you accept that, yes, we are occasionally in rom-com territory here, and thus make allowances for some of the more irritating tropes of that genre — like, say, the inevitable second-act blow-up (Gee, I hope these crazy kids work it out before the end of the film!) — Bridesmaids is a solidly entertaining summer movie. Sure, the wild swings in tone can be a bit jarring at times — at one point near the end, the film jumps from a shot of two adorable golden retriever puppies to McCarthy and her real-life husband doing unspeakable sexytime things with a sandwich — but, all in all, Bridesmaids is not a half-bad attempt at fusing the gross-out comedy with the girls’ night out.

[One semi-unrelated note: If you do happen to check out a matinee of Bridesmaids, make sure beforehand your showing isn’t “reserve-seating.” I caught the film out in the Fairfax burbs, and it was my first experience with this new — and highly stupid — phenomenon. Basically, they have you on the hook for a $3 markup per ticket, even if the show is nowhere close to selling out. Have America’s moviegoers really been clamoring for reserve seating for afternoon matinees? Somehow, I doubt it.]

The Wanderers.

“So what makes the astronomers think these are free-floating planets, and not ones orbiting stars like Earth does? Well, the lensing events themselves show only a single rise and fall of the background starlight. If the planets were orbiting stars, those stars would also act like lenses, and their effect would be seen. They weren’t.“

As explained by Discover‘s Phil Plait, a NASA-funded study using gravitational lensing finds possible evidence of billions of rogue planets wandering the cosmos between the stars. “In fact, these free-floaters may outnumber ‘regular’ planets by a factor of 1.5 or so. There are more of them than there are of us!…It’s thoughts that like which make me glad to be an astronomer, especially one living now. Just when you think the Universe is running low on surprises, it reminds us it’s a lot more clever than we are.”

Surly Bonds, Slipped.

“‘My plane flew right past the shuttle!’ she posted on Twitter, along with the photos, under the name @Stefmara.” By way of a friend, and as also seen at Cryptonaut, a New Jersey woman captures the final flight of the Endeavor from her window seat.

Only one more launch left after this one: That final mission, STS-135, will return July 20th, thus ending — only for now, hopefully — manned space flight at NASA, exactly forty-two years after the moon landing. (Unless, of course, we somehow get our act together.)

The War Bubble.

“An executive at a small defense contractor recently joked to me, ‘Afghanistan is our business plan.’ I asked him what he would do if the war ended. He stared at me for a moment and said, ‘Well, then I hope we invade Libya.‘”

Proving Chalmers Johnson‘s maxim in Why We Fight that “when war becomes that profitable, you’re going to see more of it,” PBS’s Joshua Foust looks at the economic implications of withdrawal in Afghanistan for our standing army of ~~Hessians~~ defense sub-contractors. “Ten years of war have established a discrete class of entrepreneurs, mid-level workers and administrators who are completely reliant upon the U.S. being at war to stay employed.” I somehow doubt we’ll be freezing their pay anytime soon.

A Reckoning At Last?

“The audits conclude that the banks effectively cheated taxpayers by presenting the Federal Housing Administration with false claims: They filed for federal reimbursement on foreclosed homes that sold for less than the outstanding loan balance using defective and faulty documents. Two of the firms, including Bank of America, refused to cooperate with the investigations, according to the sources.“

As the alleged perps try to get off by paying the (to-them) meager sum of $5 billion, a confidential audit conducted by HUD finds (surprise, surprise) compelling evidence of rampant foreclosure fraud at the big banks. “The audits accuse the five major lenders of violating the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law crafted as a weapon against firms that swindle the government…The audit on Bank of America finds that the company — the nation’s largest handler of home loans — failed to correct faulty foreclosure practices even after imposing a moratorium that lifted last October.“

And, in very related news, someone has finally stepped up to the plate with regards to the roots of the financial crisis: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced he’s officially going to look into the Street’s role in precipitating the meltdown. “The inquiry appears to be quite broad, with the attorney general’s requests for information covering many aspects of the banks’ loan pooling operations.” Godspeed, Mr. Schneiderman.

Unicorn Spotted.

Blue blistering bell-bottomed balderdash! Along with the spiffy poster above, the teaser for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is now online.

Hmmm. As a Tintin kid, I’m really looking forward to these movies. But, for now, I am not feeling the decision to go photorealistic with this at all. Snowy/Milou should not conjure grim memories of Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear. Here’s hoping a few more rotations in the CGI-machine smooths this out some.

Drake’s Misfortune.

“Gabriel Schoenfeld, a conservative political scientist at the Hudson Institute, who, in his book ‘Necessary Secrets’ (2010), argues for more stringent protection of classified information, says, ‘Ironically, Obama has presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history — even more so than Nixon.‘”

In the New Yorker, Jane Mayer delves deeply into the Obama administration’s continued war on whistleblowers, via the prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. (See also Glenn Greenwald on this, as well as here and here.) “‘I actually had hopes for Obama…[b]ut power is incredibly destructive,’ Drake said. ‘It’s a weird, pathological thing. I also think the intelligence community coopted Obama, because he’s rather naive about national security. He’s accepted the fear and secrecy. We’re in a scary space in this country.’“

Not Our New Bicycle After All.

“‘This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,’ West laments…’I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.“

In a discussion with TruthOut‘s Chris Hedges, Cornel West — who admittedly is nursing some rather petty personal grievances here as well — lays hard into the DLC-centrism of President Obama. “I have to take some responsibility,’ he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. ‘I could have been reading into it more than was there.‘” You and me both, brother. You and me both.

Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em.

Well, I’m sure it helped that, between the series of underwhelming trailers and the general hokiness of the source material, I went in with expectations calibrated at about shin-level. Still, I was surprised to discover this past Friday that Kenneth Branagh’s corny but amiable adaptation of Marvel’s Thor — which I caught IN THREE DIMENSIONS (the third of which adds next to nothing, by the way; save your money) — is totally and utterly not-bad.

That may seem like I’m damning this first of four comic book tentpoles this summer — along with X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, and Captain America: The First Avenger — with faint praise. But, hey, sometimes ok is a good thing. There’s not much reaching for depth here: Branagh’s Thor is smart and self-referential enough to know that, once you get past all the family strife, Norse brooding, hubris of Gods, and whatnot, this is just a breezy, early-May popcorn film, and it keeps a light touch accordingly. The Dark Knight, this isn’t.

As such, and perhaps not surprisingly, Thor — the story of a fallen deity’s misadventures in the American Southwest, and the brother who betrayed him back home — feels more in keeping with the Make-Mine-Marvel larkiness of Iron Man. (And although IM was a much better film, Thor is more successful and self-contained a story than the rush job that was Iron Man 2.)

Like Iron Man, Thor is a comic that — Walt Simonson’s epic run in the 80’s notwithstanding — I’ve remained mostly agnostic about over the years. With all due respect to the Nordic pantheon from whence he came, Thor has just never been all-that-interesting a comic book character to me. He’s…a guy…with a hammer. Nor, for that matter, are his powers very well-defined. So, ok, he’s strong and can kinda sorta control the weather. But there’re a lot of generic strongmen running around the Marvel universe — Hulk, Hercules, Colossus, Juggernaut. What makes Thor different?

With that in mind, Branagh and his team of screenwriters make the smart move of dropping the “trapped as mere mortal Dr. Donald Blake” part of Thor’s origin and taking what’s distinctive about the character — mainly, his Asgardian roots and his noble, if a bit dense, nature — to fashion a fish-out-of-water story instead. Most of the humor that keeps the movie humming along — say, Thor going to the pet store to find a Lockjaw-type large steed on which to ride through the desert — ensues from this wise decision to skip canon and tell a rollicking Thor story (Thory?) instead.

The film also benefits from a bevy of actors, including but by no means limited to Chris “Papa Kirk” Hemsworth as the titular thunder god, who can managed the dual feat of conveying comic book gravitas when it is required and delivering moments of pure cheese with a wink and a nod. Anthony Hopkins, of course, is an old hand at this sort of thing by now, but his Odin is matched well by Tom Hiddleston’s impressive turn as Loki, the God of Mischief. (Let’s face it, Loki was always a more interesting character than Thor anyway, almost by design, and perhaps the most visceral geek thrill I got out of Thor was seeing Hiddleston — in the iconic horned helmet — lounging on Asgard’s throne like something out of Milton.) And a number of other actors here match the same wry and knowing tone perfectly, from Idris Elba’s Heimdall to Clark Gregg’s ubiquitous Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D to Stellan Skargard, here in the often-thankless role of skeptical science guy/mentor to the love interest.

Speaking of the love interest, Natalie Portman continues her post-Black Swan year-of-many-films here as super-physicist Jane Foster, and she’s decent enough at it. At the very least she doesn’t exhibit the deer-in-a-headlights stare that accompanied her last venture into FX-heavy fandom, the prequels. If there’s a weak link here, it’s probably — and sadly — Rome‘s Ray Stevenson (who already did time in the Marvelverse as the Punisher, in the one with McNutty) as Volstagg of the Warriors Three, a.k.a. Falstaff in the comics, Gimli in this film. I like Stevenson, but he’s mostly just miscast here. A more rotund individual (Oliver Platt? Mark Addy?) probably could’ve sold the character better.

Still, the very fact that the Warriors Three are traipsing around the margins of a big summer movie just goes to show what an embarrassment of riches comic book fans are enjoying at the multiplex these days. Even if I’m not much of a fan of Thor per se, I have to admit I definitely enjoy watching the world-building Marvel is engaged in as a studio right now. (Here, various Marvel denizens are name-dropped, and another Avenger shows up briefly mid-movie — You’ll know him when you see him.)

Like the comics they’re based on, these pre-Avengers films have permeable borders. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before at the cinema, and the ambition is thrilling. Of course, there will be a backlash eventually — one of these comic book films is going to bomb, and bomb big. But, surprisingly to me at least, Thor doesn’t signify the end is near. To the contrary, it shows that if you get a good director, good writers, and good actors who take their source seriously — but not too seriously — the comic book experience is actually pretty translatable to the big screen. The ball’s in your court now, Hal Jordan.

Don’t Trust the Neighbors.

Two new remakes in the trailer-bin: Anton Yelchin doesn’t cotton much to Mom Toni Collette’s potential new boyfriend next door, Colin Farrell, in Craig Gillespie’s 2011 edition of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, also with Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Evil Ed and — though he’s not seen much in this clip — David Tennant as Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer. As I said here, Fright Night was one of my Halloween standbys growing up, so I hope this one works out.

And, also out today, James Marsden and Kate Bosworth run into some trouble with Alexander Skarsgard and the local yokels in Rod Lurie’s remake of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs. Even with the switch from Hammer Horror England to the Deliverance South, I’m not sure Straw Dogs needed to be remade — and it seems doubtful that Screen Gems is the studio to improve on the disturbing original. We’ll see.