Cold War Update: Michael Bay Rules the Summer, 007 Marries, Plus New Trailers for The Iron Lady, 5 Days of War & More!

By Jason Apuzzo. • Libertas is about to break some major news regarding one very big, forthcoming movie related to the history of the Cold War, so stay tuned …

• .. although of course, the biggest Cold War-related news of late is the whopping debut of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a film steeped in the lore and romance of the U.S.-Russia space race (see my review of the film here). Dark of the Moon had its huge, worldwide premiere just over two weeks ago in Moscow, and as of the writing of this post is already approaching the $500 million mark at the worldwide box office.

I’m liking this film even more as I ruminate over it – and over the entire Transformers series, which snuck up on me unexpectedly, in so far as I only ever saw the first two films on DVD. Some of you might ask, is it possible – or even healthy – to ‘ruminate’ on a Michael Bay film about giant toy robots? I’d say ‘hell yes’ it is, when the films are as well-crafted, warm and human as these are – not to mention freedom-loving. And although Dark of the Moon to some extent surrenders to its (admittedly fantastic) technology in the third act, it only feels that way because – once again – Bay does such a nice job setting up his characters in the film’s early sequences. This is the aspect of Bay’s work that is so consistently underestimated by critics: his ability to create sympathetic characters, who bring a human dimension to the mayhem that otherwise transpires in his films. Believe me, f this were an easy thing to do, more directors would do it.

Incidentally, it looks like Bay may actually complete the trifecta here. Both previous Transformers films were the top grossing films in their year (in part due to Avatar straddling 2009-10), and it looks like Dark of the Moon may complete the hat trick. I don’t think anybody’s done anything like this since the Lucas-Spielberg heyday. Dark of the Moon is also is tracking young, which has suddenly – and mysteriously – become Hollywood’s big problem this summer; plus, the film is also blowing up all of those silly, premature burials of 3D – most of which were based on bad 3D conversions.

In related news, Michael Bay talks-up the native 3D aspect of the film to The New York Times, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley talks about working with Bay, and Shia LaBeouf does this extremely colorful interview with Details. He apparently landed both Megan Fox and Isabel Lucas while making these films. That’s heroic. They’re not paying this kid enough.

• And while you were out enjoying Transformers, did you catch the new Mission: Impossible trailer? I thought it looked great. It begins with a terrorist bombing of Red Square, and proceeds in exhilarating fashion to show Tom Cruise … more or less back to being Tom Cruise. Finally! We’ve missed you, Maverick.

Of course, unlike the Bond series, the Mission: Impossible franchise has never really been about very much thematically, so much as the films are great exercises in style (the last one excepted). Initially, Ghost Protocol really seems to be pouring the style on, while providing a terror-based storyline – and visits to Moscow, Mumbai and Dubai – that will probably make this film feel a bit more relevant to the real world than previous installments. I’m definitely looking forward to it – especially Cruise’s scaling of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which actually he did for ‘real’ (i.e., non-digitally).

Incidentally, does anybody think the new Daniel Craig/Sam Mendes-directed Bond film is going to look this good? Anyone? “Bueller … Bueller … ?”

See some choice Ghost Protocol images here, read about the film’s stunts here and here, and actor Simon Pegg talks about the film here.

• Not only did we have the Mission: Impossible trailer hit recently, but no less than four other Cold War-related trailers were released recently for: Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy (a little dull), Apollo 18 (not much better than the last, but still an improvement); the Renny Harlin/Andy Garcia/Val Kilmer movie about Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia called 5 Days of War (pretty good, although Kilmer looks bloated) … and now yesterday we had a teaser for Meryl Streep’s The Iron Lady, about Margaret Thatcher, in which Streep acts precious, and in a mere 30 seconds justifies fears that the film will be a smarmy hit job. Best bet out of this bunch? I’ll take 5 Days of War, by a nose.

You can see a picture of Gary Oldman in Tinker, Tailer here; further details about Apollo 18 are available here, and 5 Days of War also has a new poster out.

• X-Men: First Class rolls on. Read here about the 13 deleted scenes likely to appear on the DVD, FX recently a acquired the film for TV, and there’s a lot of talk from the film’s creators (see here, here and here) about the possibilities for a sequel, and how a storyline would proceed into the mid- to late-1960s. I’m wondering, frankly, whether the film’s global box office take of $336 million necessarily guarantees there will be a non-Wolverine sequel at this point. We’ll see.

• In 007 news, did you hear that James Bond got married? Or at least, Daniel Craig got married (very un-Bondlike behavior) to his Dream House co-star Rachel Weisz. Craig is otherwise apparently pumped to do the new Bond with Sam Mendes (uugh), and Naomi Harris has just been confirmed to play the new version of Moneypenny (a character thus far absent from the Craig Bonds) – with Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, and Ralph Fiennes also in the cast. In other news, Casino Royale director Martin Campbell recently trashed Quantum of Solace … which he really shouldn’t have, given that he himself just directed Green Lantern …

• In other Cold War News & Notes, we’re apparently going to be getting a Spy vs. Spy movie from director Ron Howard and writer David Koepp; Warren Beatty wants to direct and star in another movie about Howard Hughes, and he’s trying to pull together a big cast; Steven Soderbergh is moving forward on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; there’s a sexy new promo trailer out for ABC’s forthcoming series Pan Am (with a spy subplot); NBC’s new Playboy Club series is already causing a lot of controversy; and the classic Patrick McGoohan TV series The Prisoner is finally hitting Blu-ray.

• And in today’s most important news … were you really wondering which girl we’d be featuring today? The only real question was which Rosie Huntington-Whiteley picture we’d feature for today’s Cold War Update. It wasn’t easy to choose, but I’ve selected this one of her in vivid red from the Dark of the Moon New York premiere, which seems to fit our theme …

And that’s what’s happening today in the Cold War!

Posted on July 8th, 2011 at 11:11am.