There is Moderate Joy in Marvel-Ville

Well, the giant hauls at the box office of summer are clearly winding down.  Mission: Impossible 5 is still at #1, if only barely.  This is starting to turn into the Final Fantasy series... except that that's video games.  Apparently we can look forward to "Final Fantasy 15" in 2016.  It's one of the mysteries of naming things that a never-ending series is called "Final" Fantasy, as opposed to say... Daikatana!! Oh, s'z'nap.  Seriously, though, I do love the people behind the original Id Software, and the Doom series that I still have on my computer to this day.  A toast to the old games that take less than a gigabyte of space on your computers.
Anyway, on to the debuts.  We have yet another reboot of a Marvel movie; this time, it's the Fantastic Four series reimagined... just to take advantage of 3D?  I mean, you can redo the old movies so they're in 3D.  Did you know that, Marvel Studios?  They did it with Titanic and Jurassic Park, you know!  Oh, I get it... see, neither of the two Fantastic Four movies from the Dubya years made enough money to justify such lavish treatment.  Slightly cheaper to redo it with all the new effects and a new bunch of current hot young thespians.  And of course, Marvel's shooting themselves in the foot by pitting Ant-Man against Fantastic Four.  I guess three weeks of space between releases is enough for them.
Unfortunately, this epidemic of Remake Fever has led to this whole impending Batman v. Superman disaster.  But apparently there's no time to think or wait.  Ben Affleck's playing Batman in four new movies!  So much for directing a new movie every two years.  He's no Soderbergh, alas.
Meanwhile at #3, it's The Gift... I mean, The Gift (2015), and while it's not triple-threat Joel Edgerton's first rodeo as director, it is his first national rodeo in Dallas, so to speak... well, for me, anyhow.  Smarter heads than mine, and in the biz, have decreed that this guy's the new... Kevin Smith?  Russell Crowe?  Clearly he's got something special going on if he gets to work with Jason Bateman.  The Bateman family should be pleased that The Gift looks like a project that will challenge Jason's acting range, if only slightly.  He can probably play this role in his sleep; alas, they can't all be like Foy in State of Play!  You have to be Mickey Rourke to do that!
The last debut this week is Ricki and the Flash, otherwise known as Diablo Cody's foray into mid-life crisis territory.  Well, let me be the first to just, you know, kinda throw this out there... second Oscar for Diablo?  Give the Diablo its due, people!  I mean, 20th or so nomination for Streep, that's a given.