Avengers

We're back from San Diego Comic-Con 2012 with a wrap-up show of everything we saw at the show. This being our first year, it quickly became obvious that we missed the first rule of Comic-Con: leave your civilian clothes at home!… Read more

Avengers fans will soon be able to grab the popular movie on Blu-ray and DVD at Target stores, with a little bonus added to the action.

Starting September 25, the retail outlet will be selling the blockbuster film for $32.99. For that you get both the Blu-ray and DVD edition in one single package.

But Target is throwing in a bonus disc called "Building a Dream: Assembling the Avengers." The extra 90-minutes of footage will show how the original Iron Man, Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America films were developed, forging the array of mighty … Read more

Karita Brun is her own designer, makeup artist, model, and photographer. The self-taught artist proudly sports her geeky sensibilities by interpreting characters as diverse at the Hulk and Darth Vader through eye shadow and liner.

"Many comic/movie characters have easily recognizable color or patterns which are easy to transform to makeup," Brun tells Crave. "I just take some key features of a character and start working from there."

Brun has delved into the "Star Wars" universe for both R2-D2 and Darth Vader eyes. Darth presented a special challenge. "My first idea was to do the makeup in the shape of his mask, but as it turned out, it didn't work, it wasn't instantly recognizable," she says. That's when she hit on the idea of adding the lightsaber and cape. The Dark Side has never looked lovelier.… Read more

Jeff's still gleeful after the results of this weekend's NHL Eastern Conference Finals, but there are other things going on in the world of The 404 too.

On today's show, Jeff gives a 50/50 review of "The Avengers," Justin gets an East Coast geography lesson, airports around New York announce holographic avatars designed to "help" lost passengers, Facebook reveals plans to develop yet another Facebook-exclusive phone, and Sony files a patent that could pause games to show players advertisements.… Read more

In 2005 the MPAA estimated that roughly $3 billion a year is lost to Internet movie piracy. Since 2005, there have been five films that have broken a previous opening weekend box office record. Most recently, of course, is this past weekend's $200.3 million blockbuster, "The Avengers." Not only did the film shatter the previous weekend opening record, but it do so with a pirated copy of the film in circulation an entire week before it hit theaters. What's even more impressive? The new record is also the biggest jump in revenue, dethroning 2011's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" by more than $30 million.

All this has us wondering what exactly the MPAA is talking about when they say Internet piracy is destroying the film industry. It's tough to feel remorse with box office turnouts like this past weekend, and also when we read reports that claim there is no relationship between piracy and U.S. box office returns. So when the movie industry does complain about shoddy theater attendance perhaps they should be pointing the finger elsewhere.… Read more

$200 million. That's how much money "The Avengers" brought in this weekend. And who says the movie industry is in trouble? On today's show we welcome CNET editor Scott Stein to the show and discuss the disgusting amount of money Joss Whedon's Marvel mash-up accumulated. We'll compare it to the other top weekend grossing film of the past 30 years and then decide on whether or not "The Dark Knight Rises" will join the list.

Next we'll get into a discussion about the possibility of an $800 MacBook Air and whether or not Apple settled on the design of the iPad 3. Finally, it's an E3 2012 preview. Scott and I will be at the big show in Los Angeles next month and have some pretty bleak outlooks on what the world's biggest video game expo will bring.… Read more

It wasn't the evil god Loki who defeated the Avengers last week; it was the slippery fingers of a projectionist.

The new film "The Avengers" ran into a glitch at a recent press screening, according to The Verge. The digital file of the movie being readied for the press was accidentally deleted by the projectionist. Though one would hope certain safeguards would be in place to prevent such a hiccup, apparently deleting a digital copy of a film is no different than deleting any other type of file.

No word on why the file couldn't be … Read more

I donned my superhero cape and 3D specs to check out "The Avengers" (titled "Avengers Assemble" in some countries), the new film featuring Earth's mightiest heroes, The Avengers. Is it worth seeing in 3D?

Based on the Marvel Comics characters, "The Avengers" sees leather-coated Samuel L. Jackson recruit a roll call of superheroes when a powerful energy source is stolen, or somesuch. The Avengers include supersoldier Captain America; superspies Black Widow and Hawkeye; flippant philanthropist Tony Stark, who suits up as Iron Man; brilliant scientist with rage issues Bruce Banner, who hides the Incredible Hulk inside; and Thor, the Norse god who puts the Pantene in pantheon.

I have to admit I had my doubts about uniting all these characters on-screen. In a comic you can get away with a colorful cast of increasingly far-fetched superfolk pootling about in flying aircraft carriers and biffing aliens, because the medium just lends itself to such gleeful, overblown ludicrousness. Suspension of disbelief isn't an issue the way it is in a film, which needs to be more grounded to sell itself.

Read more of "Should I see Avengers Assemble in 3D?" at Crave UK.… Read more

Our guest today is documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who joins us today to talk about his new film "Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope."

He'll tell us about what it was like to meet geek royalty like Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Kevin Smith, and more. We also ask him about his own history with comic books and how sci-fi movies pushed him to create his own movies.… Read more