Peter Dinklage and more cast as Angry Birds voice cast is revealed, Whedon regular teases SHIELD role

Its UK debut is yet to have been aired but the second series of Marvel’s action thriller show Agents of SHIELD has already kicked off in America. The original cast (Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennett, Iain De Caestecker, Brett Dalton and Elizabeth Henstridge) expanded drastically in the second half of the show, introducing regular spots for Bill Paxton, BJ Britt, Saffron Burrows, Ruth Negga, J August Richards and Patton Oswalt with cameos from Amy Acker, Cobie Smulders, Adrian Pasdar, Ron Glass and Samuel L Jackson. Reed Diamond, Lucy Lawless, Nick Blood, Adrianne Palicki and Kyle Machlachan have already boarded season 2 as newcomers but they don’t seemed to have stopped there.

Fran Kranz has posted a fairly cryptic tweet featuring the words “Robbie Baldwin, SHIELD, soon!” Baldwin would be referring to the Marvel hero Speedball. Kranz is a Joss Whedon regular following a lead role on Dollhouse, the Whedon-written horror Cabin in the Woods and played Claudio in Whedon’s Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing. He’s the fourth Much Ado star to join the show after Clark Gregg, Amy Acker and Reed Diamond, who played Leonato, Beatrice and Don Pedro respectively. Should this theme continue, we may see Nathan Fillion make his MCU debut on the small screen. Alexis Denisof may be after more of the action after his abrupt exit in Guardians of the Galaxy.

In a plethora of Appstore installations, ornithology anthology Angry Birds is likely the most iconic. Across numerous sequels, the game has tied into the Fast and Furious, Rio and Star Wars franchises but is now ready for a film of its own. The film’s incredible, and largely comedic, voice cast has now been unveiled: Jason Sudeikis (We’re the Millers, Horrible Bosses), Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, Away We Go), Bill Hader (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Paul), Josh Gad (21, Frozen), Danny McBride (This is the End, Tropic Thunder) and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days of Future Past).

Angry Birds – July 15th 2016

Agents of SHIELD – continues this year on ABC and Channel 4

The 2014 Tuorhoth Awards Nominations

If you’ve been following some of our recent posts, you’ll have picked up that The 2014 Tuorhoth Awards are on their way and today we’re going to announce the nominees. The nominees have been selected by a group of four elite judges. Our aim is to provide a mix of mainstream and arthouse for a honest awards ceremony to celebrate the best in film. The winners will be announced next week.

Best Movie:

12 Years a Slave

Captain Phillips

Cloud Atlas

Gravity

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Kings of Summer

Much Ado About Nothing

Rush

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Thor: The Dark World

Best Leading Actress:

Carey Mulligan – The Great Gatsby

Amy Acker – Much Ado About Nothing

Rinko Kikuchi – Pacific Rim

Sandra Bullock – Gravity

Amy Adams – American Hustle

Best Leading Actor:

Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave

Idris Elba – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Martin Freeman – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Tom Hanks – Captain Phillips

Zachary Quinto – Star Trek Into Darkness

Best Director:

Justin Chadwick – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity

Ron Howard – Rush

Peter Jackson – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Baz Luhrmann – The Great Gatsby

Best Supporting Actor:

Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips

Moises Arias – The Kings of Summer

Daniel Bruhl – Rush

Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave

Tom Hiddleston – Thor: The Dark World

Best Supporting Actress:

Doona Bae – Cloud Atlas

Naomi Harris – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle

Evangeline Lilly – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave

Best Comedy:

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

The Kings of Summer

Much Ado About Nothing

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Wreck-It Ralph

Best Sci-Fi:

Cloud Atlas

Ender’s Game

Man of Steel

Pacific Rim

Star Trek Into Darkness

Best Fantasy:

47 Ronin

Cloud Atlas

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Thor: The Dark World

The Wolverine

Best Animated Film:

Despicable Me 2

Monsters University

Wreck-It Ralph

Best Drama:

12 Years a Slave

The Great Gatsby

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Rush

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Best Thriller:

Captain Phillips

Gravity

The Lone Ranger

Now You See Me

World War Z

Kermode Award for Best Newcomer:

Barkhad Abdi

Moises Arias

Doona Bae

Luke Evans

Lupita Nyong’o

Best Original Song:

Atlas – Coldplay – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Young and Beautiful – Lana Del Rey – The Great Gatsby

I See Fire – Ed Sheeran – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Ordinary Love – U2 – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Happy – Pharrel Williams – Despicable Me 2

Best Musical Score:

Oz: The Great and Powerful – Danny Elfman

Gravity – Steven Price

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Howard Shore

Cloud Atlas – Tom Tykwer

Man of Steel – Hans Zimmer

Best Special Effects:

Ender’s Game

Gravity

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Pacific Rim

Star Trek Into Darkness

Best Original Screenplay:

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa – Armando Ianucci, Steve Coogan

American Hustle – Eric Warren Singer, David O’Russell

Gravity – Jonas Cuaron, Alfonso Cuaron

The Kings of Summer – Chris Galletta

Wreck-It Ralph – Jennifer Lee

Best Adapted Screenplay:

12 Years a Slave – John Ridley

Captain Phillips – Billy Ray

Cloud Atlas – Lana Wachowksi, Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer

The Great Gatsby – Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – Steve Conrad

Are We Crazy? Did we miss out a classic? Tell us your favourite movies from the last year in the comments and get unsung heroic in the soptlight!

Much Ado About Nothing review

Director: Joss Whedon

Starring: Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion, Jillian Morgese, Fran Kranz, Clark Gregg, Sean Maher

After wrapping up The Avengers with critical and box office success (the third highest grossing film of all time), your first choice for geek god Joss Whedon wouldn’t be a 400 year old, micro budget Shakespearean classic. But, as always, he’s delivered a masterpiece.

In a modern setting of an Elizabethan comedy, Claudio (Fran Kranz) is engaged to Hero (Jillian Morgese), the girl of his dreams, and they agree with Hero’s father Leonato (Clark Gregg) and the best man Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) to fulfill the seemingly near impossible challenge of pairing Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof), who’s verbal warfare is the highlight of the show. But the jealous drastic actions of Pedro’s brother John (Sean Maher) could tear Claudio from his wife to be…

Just a quick note on the production. The film was shot in Whedon’s house over just twelve days. We’ve heard that he frequently has friends (pretty much the cast of this film) round for readings of Shakespeare. So they decided to throw in a few extras and pretty much just video one of their performances.

The greatest success of Much Ado is that it grips you talons when necessary and can then have you laughing out loud a minute later. The gags are occasionally broad but still fit the scene. With no knowledge of the play at all, it did take me while to work out who’s related to who but as soon as I did I enjoyed it much more.

Not one performances was flawed. Fran Kranz delivers an heart wrentching sequence at the first wedding. Acker and Denisof prove a couple of stinging banter while the ever brilliant Nathan Fillion provides comic relief as the clumsy yet vital police chief Dogberry. Jillian Morgese has come an incredible way to this film. Her only other role was as an un-credited, line-less extra in The Avengers and she’s somehow winded up fantastically portraying a well known character. All she had to do the the 2012 superhero hit was pretend to be a New York waitress, gaze upon the impending doom and then die. But after many casual conversations with Whedon on set she’s got an excellently promising career. Clark Gregg did not seem old enough to be Hero’s father but that isn’t a surprise when you hear that Anthony Head (famed for playing Giles in Buffy) was first choice and when the space opened up, due to Giles Head being unavailable, Gregg offered to stand in. Gregg isn’t quite the scenestealer he was as Agent Phil Coulson in The Avengers but a witty heartfelt performance does the trick this time.

Many of the stars (I’m sure you noticed) are former Whedon contributors, affectionately known as Whedonites! Nathan Fillion and Sean Maher were series regulars the disappointingly short lived sci-fi show Firefly. Reed Diamond was best known for Dollhouse. Alexis Denisof, Tom Lenk, Fillion, Amy Acker and Riki Lindhome will be familiar to fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s spin-off Angel.

I think that Joss Whedon has spent a lot of time comparing notebooks with Kenneth Branagh. Branagh is best known for directing many Shakespeare adaptations and Marvel’s Thor, which led up to Whedon’s Avengers. During the planning of the Marvel series, Joss must have been inspired by discussions with Branagh which led him to adapt his love of Shakespeare into this triumph.

Yes, Much Ado is a triumph and my film of the year as we reach the half-way point. Plus we’re told Whedon will continue his Marvel progress with the ABC tv series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and The Avengers 2 and possibly adapting Charles Dickens with Dombey and Son!

10/10