Hollywood Troglodyte

Coming Soon and Top Ten

2009-09-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Opening Tomorrow

For the kids, we have "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," a goofy looking, by-the-numbers chucklefest that is great for anyone on this planet who made the mistake of breeding, though beyond insignificant for anyone else.

Also opening is "Jennifer's Body," the latest opus from "Juno" scribe Diablo Cody. I doubt this is going to be another Oscar winner and despite the looks of its dark humor and bangable leading ladies, it arouses about as much interest in me as filling out a job application to work at the Gap.

Finally, we have "The Informant," in which Matt Damon plays a whistle blower at an agricultural firm who seems to suffer from some cognitive disorders. Good looking performance from Damon, playing against type, but one again this just doesn't seem to spark any interest at all. Director Steven Soderbergh has already done the corporate take-down thing, and reworking it as a comedy doesn't really make it any fresher. Overall, a pretty dull Friday coming up.

Top Ten at the Box Office

1. "I Can Do Bad All by Myself," which is another in the long string of Tyler Perry family comedy-dramas. I know I'm not the intended audience for this and shouldn't be expected to like it, yet I still feel the need to point out that Perry's entire oeuvre is about as creative as turning every single episode of "The Gilmore Girls" into a feature length film.

2. "9," a dark, interesting-looking animated feature about a group of puppet-creatures battling robots in a post-apocalyptic world. So basically the last "Terminator" movie with a more sensible plot and more life-like actors.

3. "Inglorious Basterds," the latest Quentin Tarantino splatterfest, this one focusing on killing Nazis in occupied Europe. It's become a major hit and has received a fair amount of raves, but I found it not much more than decent. Three or four great set-pieces and a pile of half-baked characterizations don't go a long way in a two-and-a-half hour long film. Highly entertaining, but I'm beginning to suspect that the days of Tarantino making great movies is fairly well over. It feels like he's using the cliches of other genres in order to get away with bad dialog and predictable plotting. The same people who are pissed at me for not liking "Fight Club" are going to yell at me over this as well, but fuck it. I know what I saw and what I saw was a decently goofy action film with some suspenseful set-ups but no real sense of direction or purpose.

4. "All About Steve." Sandra Bullock blah.

5. "The Final Destination." We can only hope. This entire series is based on a logical fallacy. If the personification of death is trying to kill people and is capable of moving physical objects around to do it, why not just give everyone brain aneurysms? You could counter that then there wouldn't be any plot and the movies would only be five minutes long apiece, to which I would say, "Good."

6. "Sorority Row." A remake of a slasher from the 1980s. It stays faithful to the original in the sense that both are completely and utterly forgettable. It's tough to work up an interest in a film when its most remarkable feature is how inconsequential it is.

7. "Whiteout." Killer, Antarctica, blah. It looks like John Carpenter's "The Thing" without the thing.

8. "District 9." A solid sci-fi action movie in the "Aliens" mode. Hints at having some deeper meaning, but it's mostly just for the entertaining ride.

9. "Gamer." Oh god, does this look inane.

10. "Julie & Julia." It's partly about Julia Child. Julia Child is awesome. Meryl Streep is apparently awesome as Julia Child. Therefor I have no objections.

Celebrity Death Parade, Coming Attractions and Popular Bullshit

2009-07-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing on the internet much recently. This is due to a variety of factors, the primary one being disinterest and a busy schedule. Writing about movies has the added problem that I haven't been going to a lot of movies this summer, since nearly every big blockbuster film I was excited for turned out to be a big, steaming pile of dog shit in my good-times frittata. Subsequently, almost every film I've seen in the past two month has been something I checked out from the library (I worked in video stores for too long to enjoy actually paying to rent movies), which means I've been watching real, god-honest, good movies that make most of the current product look like rejected kindergarten art projects from the Land of the Retards.

Not even some major celebrity deaths were able to get my interest up. First there was Ed McMahon, who died of being fucking old back in June and whose death mainly served as a way to remind people that he wasn't dead already (I don't think they even had to update his Wikipedia page). Then Farrah Fawcett went and later that same day, as if the world of celebrity were clearing out its most insignificant inhabitants, Michael Jackson kicked it. And is if to give us one extra at no additional cost, TV pitchman Billy Mays died in his sleep a few days after that, apparently just to fill the urgent need people have to make jokes about his passing.

As I've state many times, I have no interest in whether any of these people live or die. Their deaths matter to me as a media observer, and I find people's reactions to the event interesting, if often irritating. Jackson was the biggest of the bunch and his death has been the elaborate freak show you'd expect, with people chanting and praying and dancing over his corpse like they're trying to raise it from the dead for one last performance. I never fully bought the whole "child-molesting" thing about Jackson (if someone would have taken him all the way through a trial without settling out of court for absurd amounts of cash, I might have given his accusers the benefit of the doubt), though I did find him creepy and uncomfortable to listen to. His death has basically served the purpose of letting lots of people, who wouldn't have said so otherwise, admit that they like his music. We'll talk about how important he was for a few weeks and then all breath a sigh of relief that his past accomplishments will no longer be tarnished by the long, extended tabloid fever dream that was the last two decades of his life.

But moving on...

Coming Attractions

There are a couple of releases coming out Friday, with one of them being another entry into this seemingly endless summer pain parade and another working to make this horrid cinema season worthwhile.

In the latter category is "Bruno," the latest from "Borat" creator Sacha Baron Cohen, in which he pretends to be a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter in order to make an ass out of himself and others across America. As anyone I've dated will attest to, I'm a big fan of awkward pauses and uncomfortable silences, so this might actually get me into the theater, even if it feels like Cohen is scrapping the bottom of his character barrel.

Also opening is "I Love You, Beth Cooper," a 1980s style teen comedy from Chris Columbus, one of the blandest people to sit in a director's chair since somebody put a cardboard cut-out of Martin Scorecese behind the camera as a joke (it went on to direct the bulk of "Gangs of New York" before anyone thought to take it down).

Top Ten at the Box Office

1. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was created with care and love by the biggest group of petulant assholes this side of a Hummer rally. The film is exciting and thrilling in the way getting your nuts caught in a lawn mower is exciting and thrilling. Sure, it will get your adrenalin flowing, but in the end you'll be in pain and you'll just wish the whole thing had never happened.

2. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," which was not only computer animated, but apparently also computer written and computer directed. I'm fairly certain that no actual human beings were involved in the creation of this film or any of its predecessors.

3. "Public Enemies." The story of John Dillinger and FBI agent Melvin Purvis, as played by two terminal psychotics. I might actually go see this, as soon as I have more than two bladder-busting hours to spend watching gangster movies.

4. "The Proposal." This movie doesn't actually exist and there is nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. Even if I went to the theater, paid for a ticket, sat down and watched this film all the way through, I would still not believe that it exists. My memory would just tell me I went and saw the new "Star Trek" film again.

5. "The Hangover." So this is basically "Memento" but done as a comedy about a drunken weekend in Las Vegas? Just so long as we're clear on that point.

6. "Up." My problem with Pixar films is that they're fantastic, but the intended audience means I can never enjoy them in theaters (going to a theater with children is like going to church with howler monkeys duct-taped to your head). If I buy or rent the films, they make me feel like the kind of weirdo who owns children's films but not children. I feel like I need to hide them when I have guests over, but somehow having children's films hidden around your house only makes it so much worse.

7. "My Sister's Keeper," which manages the twin marketing goals of being both depressing and inconsequential.

8. "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3." When I can look at a new thriller and decide not to see it because it lacks the screen presence of Walter Matthau and Martin Balsam, then there is something seriously wrong with the film industry.

9. "Year One." So?

10. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian." This isn't a film; it's a brain injury.

Top Ten at the Box Office This Month

2009-05-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

1. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". A character whose appeal is based in part on his mysterious origins has his origins revealed in a late-term cinematic abortion. I saw this out of a perverse need to punish myself for having good feelings about humanity recently, and I was not disappointed. The dialog is atrociously bad and the only thing the characters have over cardboard cut-outs is a wider range of movement. The action is so laughably absurd that you wonder if anyone involved in this film has ever seen a good action movie, or is even aware of the existence of concepts such as "quality" or "the laws of physical motion" The film only looks good when compared to some of the other comic-book films of recent years, which is like saying Idi Amin looks like a stand-up guy when compared to Stalin.

2. "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past." Matthew McConaughey plays a man attending his brother's wedding who is haunted by his romantic encounters from the past. To me the question becomes not "will he learn from his errors?" but "why are so many of this man's former girlfriends currently inhabiting the spirit world? Is he some kind of serial killer?"

3. "Obsession, Which is a 'Fatal Attraction' Remake, Only Even More Depressingly Mediocre"

4. "17 Again." Do I even need to tell you what the plot is? It stars Zac Efron and Matthew Perry as the younger and older versions of the same man. If you can make a sound, rational argument for why the money used to make this film would not have been better spent if it had just been dumped in a hole, then you deserve some kind of award.

5. "Monsters vs. Aliens." This is an investment opportunity, not a film. Dreamworks seems to come up with most of its animated features by seeing what would make the best toy lines and what has the most sequel potential. Any entertainment gained from the product is purely incidental, not to mention fleeting and cheap.

6. "The Soloist." Jamie Foxx is a serious actor. See? Look how serious he is. Standing next to Robert Downey Jr. and everything. Being all dramatic, pretending to have musical talent like in every other film he's in?

7. "Earth." Also known as "Cute Animals: The Movie, as Narrated by the Bald 'Star Trek' Guy."

8. "Hannah Montana: The Walking Entertainment Product Unit"

9. "Fighting." I think it's hilarious when major Hollywood movies show the "underground" street fighting, auto racing, whatever circuit and the "shady" characters who inhabit them. They always seem to play it as if the people involved in these things are "keeping it real" and not selling out by going pro, when in fact these are amateur tournaments. So what you're really watching a movie about is guys who fight as a hobby when they're not at their day-jobs. If you think about it, it's kind of like making a movie about a guy who makes birdhouses in his garage on his weekends, instead of a film about a professional carpenter. But I guess "Punching Enthusiast" doesn't sound as tough.

10. "State of Play." Despite the fact that the two lead male roles are cast with two of the biggest assholes currently available, this actually looks like a decent enough thriller. Unfortunately, "decent enough" doesn't get me to go see thrillers the way it used to.

Dr. Feelgood Should Pull The Plug

2009-05-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

There has been a recent spat of coverage concerning a woman named Susan Boyle, a Glaswegian who appeared across the pond on ITV's "Britain's Got Talent." With 14 million hits and climbing, you've probably seen the clip of her performance on YouTube, where she some how manages to have a singing voice despite having a bulldog-like facial structure and frizzy, unkempt hair. The whole thing has been played, both here and back in Britain, as a rousing human interest story that teaches a moral lesson about how "we shouldn't judge a book by its cover" or some such cliched bilge.

Now, I'll start off by saying the clip is pretty impressive. It's set up like a joke, the whole thing aimed at making you think Boyle is another of the over-confident losers that shows such as this thrive on. Her above-standard performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserable" is the punchline, pulling the rug out from the expectations that have been set for you. It's a perfectly orchestrated rousing moment, the kind that would be right at home as the conclusion of your common "Mr. Holland's Opus"-style bit of saccharine cinematic melodrama. It's entertaining.

But I have reservations about this whole happy-slappy-arch-humanity clusterfuck of feelgoodness. The performance is just entertaining for what it is, but people are trying to throw the veneer of meaning over the thing, as if this is some kind of triumph of the human spirit we should all be celebrating. It's not. It's a highly manipulative piece of television product, an example of "documentary reality" that plays on its audience's emotions the way a pianist plays a piano.

It's not an original observation to say that "reality" shows are the most inaptly named television genre since MTV stopped playing all those pesky music videos. These competitions are intensely organized, with the "reality" edited together from hours and hours of video to tell a narrative that bears only a blurry-eyed resemblance to the truth. The producers of "Britain's Got Talent" knew what they had when Boyle auditioned for them, long before she ever appeared in front of their audience. They edited the whole performance together, from the dialog they chose to show before she came on stage to the music they played as she came before the judges, to set a certain expectation with the audience that they would not have had with a different presentation. An honest producer could have chosen more dignified music on her entering, had the judges treat her less condescendingly, chosen dialog clips from before she came on stage that make her look less buffoonish and generally set a more reasonable expectation for what kind of abilities the woman has. But that wouldn't have been as exciting of television, so instead they essential lied and led the audience to view her a certain way before hitting them over the head with a cheap moral.

Because it's not like it's shocking news that unattractive people can sing. If Susan Boyle had come out claiming she was going to perform a intricate gymnastic performance to the song "I Touch Myself " by the Divinyls then no amount of gimmickry would have changed the audience's dubious attitude, since Boyle looks like she would be more comfortable around a pan of Scotch eggs than any form of exercise equipment (I know the feeling). But she came out to sing, and no one really things ugly people can't sing. If we got rid of all the dumpy, unattractive singers, operas would have a fuck of a time finding a decent tenor. Yet the show and the news coverage surrounding this whole mock event has been pointing fingers around saying, "See? We should all be less judgemental!" It reeks of condencension, because if the show hadn't endeavored to make her look like a loser people would have only been mildly surprised that she could perform as well as she did and none of this hoopla would be going on. It's no fucking miracle that this woman can sing and pretending like this is such a shocking development is dishonest.

The only person who comes out of this pretty well is Susan Boyle, who is finally getting the fame and attention she wanted. All she has to do is sit politely and live with news announcers and talk show hosts patting her on the head and treating her like an autistic child that just learned how not to shit all over the furniture. If you think that this is going to represent some kind of sea change and that less-than-perfect people will start appearing on television and being treated with some respect, you're wrong. As some other commentators have pointed out, this is just becoming an exception that will reinforce the rule, an excuse to fill the "ugly quota" so that everyone can make themselves feel better for a minute or two before going back to exaclty how they were before.

I Watched "Watchmen"

2009-04-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to seeing "Watchmen," the recent adaptation of the classic graphic novel, and I had a few ideas about it I wanted to air. I'm going to post a review on my other site once I get around to it, but these notes are separate from my views on the film as piece of cinema and are more in regard to some of the issues surrounding it.

First off, let me say that I enjoyed "Watchmen". It was entertaining and visually compelling. I'm also a fan of the original graphic novel, which I consider one of the classics of the medium. I'm not going to go into some comparison of the two works, since I feel that's kind of like comparing apples and Honda Civics. They serve different purposes and express themselves through different means and saying one is better than the other is a meaningless sentiment.

Now, though I enjoyed the film, I can't say my opinion of director Zack Snyder has improved. I've gone from considering him to be as dumb as a bag of rocks to now considering him being as dumb as a particularly stupid bag of rocks. I don't see his work improving over the course of what I fear will be a long, successful career. He's the directorial version of an abortionist, taking the work of others and cutting out the ideas from like so many unwanted pregnancies. I first noticed this with his "Dawn of the Dead" remake, which was an entertaining film, yet lacked absolutely everything that made it worth remaking. The original was a grand guignol commentary on the ills of American society and human nature; the remake was a zombie film that mostly took place in a mall.

I never actually bothered with "300," which looked like a headache in cinematic form, so let's skip right to "Watchmen". The graphic novel was a rambling discourse on the meaning of heroes in our culture. It was philosophical in its own way. This film is just a particularly epic superhero movie. The words are the same, but the purpose is gone. When the Comedian points to a riot-ravaged NYC in the 1970s and says that this is the culmination of the American dream, the words don't have any meaning. They just sound cool. "Watchmen" wasn't intended to be a thrilling action story, though those elements are there. Snyder located them and focused on them exclusively. A more creative director could have found ways to use some of the paraphernalia Alan Moore included in the book to add depth to the story and give meaning to the ideas expressed in it. Snyder just slavishly translated everything to screen that was translatable and filled it with little in-jokes for the fans.

Apparently I really hate fans. They always seem to ruin everything they claim to love. For example, I feel a less faithful adaptation of "Watchmen" would have been closer to the spirit of the source material. During the project's long production history (there have been talks of an adaptation since the late 1980s) there was once a director (I believe it was Darren Aronofsky) attached to wanted to updated the story to modern times, with references to terrorism and the Gulf wars. The studio balked and subsequently Snyder was chosen, in part because of he promised not to change the story. Wouldn't want to upset the fans by adapting a work that had said something about contemporary society in such a way so that it continues to say something about contemporary society. In a way, this film is like watching a performance by group of Monty Python fans recreating their favorite sketches, repeating everything the same as the original, right down to the vocal inflections. You might laugh because the sketches are still funny, but the spirit of anarchic invention and unexpected surrealism is gone. It becomes a museum piece rather than a continuation of the ideas that made the original have such an impact.

Even a less radical adaptation would have been more interesting than what we got. I would have loved to see Terry Gilliam's miniseries adaptation or Paul Greengrass's take on the work. But unfortunately Gilliam is cursed to never finish another good movie for as long as he still breathes and Greengrass got distracted by less interesting projects. And what we got was a film that is entertaining for exactly the 2 hours, 45 minutes it's playing, but gives you nothing to think about later other than how it looked or hour entertaining it was. It's a fun movie to watch, but a boring one to think about.

Top Ten at the Box Office This Month

2009-04-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

1. "Fast & Furious." Dipshits pretend to be badass while playing with their over-sized, gas-fueled dick substitutes. Ra ra.

2. "Monsters vs. Aliens." Huh, what? Oh, yeah. Movie. Gothcha. Listen, guys, if you want to remain impressive in your preview, "from the makers of 'Shrek' and 'Kung Fu Panda'" is not the right way to sell it.

3. "The Haunting in Connecticut." Apparently this is based on a true story, which is odd considering that the whole "ghosts" thing has been pretty much shown to be bullshit. That the film seems to have a plagiarism-ish resemblance to "The Amityville Horror," which was also based on a not-actually-true-in-the-sense-of-being-bullshit story, is worth noting.

4. "Knowing." Nicolas Cage is like some sort of super-human shitty-high-concept film-making machine. He stars in more ill-conceived movies in a given year than most actors can manage in a lifetime.

5. "I Love You, Man." Though he has no direct connection to the film, this still has the stink of Judd Apatow all over it. Most modern comedies don't really do much for me. Even the trailer for this one seems padded, so I'll probably pass, unless someone can give me a valid reason to do otherwise.

6. "Adventureland." This year's indie-comedy success. Good to know that slot has been filled.

7. "Duplicity." Two people in morally dubious professions start a relationship with trust issues. By the way, it's a thriller. Are you thrilled yet?

8. "Race to Ruin All of Your Fond Childhood Filmgoing Experiences With Cheap Corporate Schlock, Part 56."

9. "12 Rounds." Renny Harlin alert. The plot is ripped from the Hercules mythology (what?), which apparently someone thought was a clever idea, and the whole thing seems to be aiming for this kind of "not really worth giving a shit about" tone.

10. "Sunshine Cleanup." Just too wonderfully quirky for words. The indie-drama slot for the year has now been filled.

The Good Month

2009-03-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

I tend to write a lot of, shall we say, "negative" things on this blog. So much so you might get the impression I don't really like movies all that much. This couldn't be further from the truth. I really love cinema. Love it dearly. Which is why the existence of so much pure filth disgusts me, why the criminal waste of talent and resources that goes into 90% of film production is such a constant irritant.

Still, I feel it's time for a slight corrective, so I'm going to write about some films coming up in May that I'm actually looking forward to (in all honesty, I chose May because looking at the releases for June was too depressing. Literally not a single interesting film coming out and just one Jack Black comedy too many. For its part, April isn't much better. A "Fast and the Furious" sequel and the Hannah Montana movie are kind of acting as killjoys for me). So, for once, something positive. Don't expect it to become a habit.

May 1: "Limits of Control." A new crime thriller from Jim Jarmusch. Bizarre criminal plots and existential dialog? Who could ask for more? This looks like something that might put Jarmusch back on people's radar after his less-than-interesting last few features, and looks to be at least as good as "Ghost Dog."

May 8: "Star Trek." Yeah, I know. I'm a pathetic fanboy. In my defense, I'm merely a casual fan of "Star Trek," enjoying the original series and the bulk of "TNG," but not much else. Don't really care about any of the other series or any of the movies. The preview gives the impression that they've kept the look and the mythos without the corniness, which might work out well. The casting also seems spot on from what I've seen so far. I'm pretty sure it will at least be entertaining, if not out-and-out great. Can't ask for much more than that from a major blockbuster.

May 22: "Terminator: Salvation." I had my reservations about this one. The mono-monikered director brought us one of the "Charlie's Angel's" movies and spent a lot of time at Comic Con talking about the themes of individuality and destiny in this new one, which is all a load of intellectual crap to give his blcokbuster some veneer. However, I can't argue with the look of the film in the previews, and I'm pretty sure that when I saw those giant robots start smashing buildings I grew an extra testicle. It's like a grungier "Transformers" with a NIN soundtrack and some semblance of a brain. If nothing else, the preview at least wipes the sour taste of "Terminator 3" from my mouth.

May 29: "Up." Pixar has done more to combat the tide of cynicism than just about any single entity. Most religions can't claim to have brought as much good will into the world as this company has with its series of films. Every time they release a new one, I go through a slight period of forgiveness and redemption. This usually ends around the time a new Ben Stiller release comes out, but it's nice while it lasts.

However, all the goodwill in the world will not help me through the fact that I hate children and won't go to theaters where they appear in mass. So on opening day I'll probably go see "Drag Me to Hell," the latest from Sam Raimi, returning to the horror genre for the first time in years. The plot has its fair share of social commentary (a loan officer is cursed for foreclosing on an old gypsy woman and is hunted down by demons), but it feels a little heavy-handed. If nothing else, the film seems to at least break the dour tone most horror films have had recently and brings a little fun and weirdness back to the genre. Will probably suck, but I'll see it anyway.

Dead Celebrities and Top Ten

2009-03-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

Dead Rich People

I suppose the big news this week is the death of Natasha Richardson in a skiing accident. So a woman born into wealth, who gained a multi-million dollar acting career in part from her family connections died while performing a leisure activity at an elite resort? Golly, I'm torn up.

I know I always seem to harp on the death of celebrities as if I don't give a shit about them, but the simple fact is I don't. Care about them, that is. And neither does the vast majority of humanity, when you get down to it. Celebrity lives are just another form of entertainment to most people, a meta-drama that keeps the masses entertained until the next film comes out or the new season of the show starts. People care the same way they care about a soap operas. They may even cry about it if the story is compelling enough. I just don't care about the story and feel no real emotional attachment to the small culture of people who make entertainment.

The only honest emotional reaction to this sort of thing is lack of interest, maybe a passing sympathy for the family. Because if I told you that a single mother in Minot, North Dakota, whom you had never heard of and had no connection to, had died in a car crash this weekend, you might say "how sad," but you would be mildly psychotic if you actually, sincerely, cared about it.

Leave it alone and let the grieving grieve. The only way it affects your life is that you won't be seeing Richardson in any more movies. In other words, very little.

Top Ten at the Box Office This Week

1. "Race to Witch Mountain." Your childhood, once again diluted and reissued. Get used to it.

2. "Watchmen." Still haven't seen it, but I plan to. And the only reason I will is because I am having trouble getting over the feeling that it somehow sucks despite what everyone who has seen it has told me. I need to settle this matter in my mind. To be clear, I want it to be good. However, my personal experiences with this sort of thing are telling me I should prepare for disappointment.

3. "The Last House on the Left." Shit buckets. I am really sick of this nonsense. Despite its pseudo-classic status, the original wasn't even that good. More interesting for historical reasons than quality. And this just looks abysmal.

4. "Taken." I'll bet you anything there are box office analysts out there trying to calculate what kind of sympathy boost this will get now that Liam Neeson's wife is dead.

5. "Madea Goes to Jail." I think it would be great if we could lock up Tyler Perry and just make him watch his own movies for 24-hours straight. I'd put down even money that he would rip out his own eyes before he got to "Meet the Browns."

6. "Slumdog Millionaire." I have no problem with this.

7. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." This, on the other hand. Just looking at the posters for this film makes me feel weird and sticky, like someone just dumped an Orange Julius on my soul.

8. "He's Just Not That Into You." Could you cram any more mediocrity into a single film? Maybe have Ryan Seacrest narrate it?

9. "Coraline." If you have kids, take them to see it. Me, I'll probably never see it unless I stumble into the wrong theater at the multiplex after a particularly competitive beer festival.

10. "Miss March." What is it about so many comedy troupes that causes them to take their first chance at big screen success and jam it full of the most overworked cliches? Rap stereotypes, scantily clad women, road-trips-for-sex, doofus best friends, drunken high school antics. It's like they're working off some kind of list that was completed around the "Porky's" era and hasn't been deviated from since.

You are a Precious Snowflake

2009-03-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Another older article, written for another site, that I wanted to send back into the light of day.

Movies That Want You To Think You Are Unique

Everybody thinks that they're special. We all want to believe that we have some great talent or some destiny that we were meant for and all we need is the right opportunity to show the world how great we really are. Admittedly, this illusion is easier to bear than the reality, which is that we are a congregation of cells that follow a basic pattern and that the vast bulk of us will never be remembered for anything by future generations once we slip off the mortal coil. Most of our talents involve things we did when drunk ("I can projectile vomit four whole feet. Will I use it for good or evil?"). We like entertainment that reinforces our concept of uniqueness and we keep alive the myth that anyone can become someone of merit, ignoring the fact that most people who make it in this society do so by either years of hard work or dumb fucking luck, if not both. Here are some movies that would have us believe otherwise:

8. "The Matrix." This world can't be real, it's all just a ruse. You aren't really just some dipshit office drone with no girlfriend and crappy meth-addict friends. You're really the savior of the human race, imbued from birth with the power to control reality. Yeah fuckin' right. This is every entitled white college-age male's wet dream. You are so much better than those sheeple, you know what's really going on because you look at stuff on the Internet. We're all being controlled and only you know it and if they just listened to you we could fix all this shit. Except they don't listen to you because you're a flabby, white asshole who's never done a real day's work you didn't whine about and spends his days downloading "South Park" episodes and babbling about Ayn Rand and that worthless Ron Paul prick on whatever website that hasn't booted your trolling ass yet.

Goddammit, I hate "The Matrix."

7. "Star Wars." The original trilogy got by on pure entertainment, while the prequels exist on the white-hot force of George Lucus' hatred for humanity, but the real secret of the success of this series is the baseline concept that you might actually be an uber-cool zen knight who could totally rip a fucker in half with your brain. In the original trilogy you see Luke Skywalker going through about a month of training in a shitty-ass swamp and he becomes some kind of Space Jesus for the effort. At least he put some work into it. In the prequels we find that all that Jedi shit is based on a biochemical reaction that you are born with, so only an elite few can master the powers. Thus we get the future Darth Vader building rocket sleds and fighting space battles when he's still old enough to be wetting the bed. Effort is for losers.

6. "Wanted." Probably the most recent example of this phenomenon. Some jackass becomes a super-assassin based totally on the merit that his father was a super-assassin. Because learned behavior is apparently hereditary. Would you let a guy perform surgery on you based on the fact that his father was a brilliant surgeon? Let me answer that for you: Fuck no, you would not. You would send the little bastard to medical school and see if he can figure out the right way to hold a scalpel before you even let him near your appendix. Thinking like this is what got George W. Bush elected president. His daddy was a smart guy with the foreign policy, maybe some of it rubbed off on Junior. Except that his dad was a former CIA director and had served as vice-president for 8 years, whilst GWB pissed away fortunes and spent his free time snorting coke off a hooker's tits. We all know how great it turned out.

5. "Pirates of the Caribbean." I'm not talking about crazy-as-fuck Johnny Depp here, but rather Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. Sure, he was a good sword fighter because he practiced all the time, but where the fuck did he pick up all those sailing skills? On something like his second boat ride he's ordering a group of hardened sailors around like he's Lord Nelson. What does sword fighting and blacksmithing have to do with sailing? Absolutely jack shit. Oh right, his father was a pirate. But what about Knightly? Her father was a babbling idiot, but you don't see her possessed with his remarkable "acting like a retard" abilities. No, she's up there telling pirates how to run a ship, when in reality the same group would have raped her to death and hoisted Bloom up the mast by his hairless genitalia, then gone on their merry way.

4. "Harry Potter." Tell me something: in any of the books or movies, did Harry Potter ever have to make any kind of effort to get his skills? He was a bad student, a naturally gifted jock, gets a pass on everything because of his family connections and without even trying has all the powers of a god. And we're supposed to root for this asshole?

3. "X-Men." Most comic book movies could fit into this category, as their bread-and-butter is adolescent wish-fulfillment. But quite a few make being a superhero seem like work. Bruce Banner is a brilliant scientist who suffers for his errors by becoming the Hulk, Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark reject their privileged lives by working hard to do right for humanity, Peter Parker gets nothing but personal fulfillment from his heroics, often at great sacrifice. Even Superman has the whole "moral uprightness" thing, his small town values the only thing standing in the way of him ruling us like a god on Earth. But in the X-Men universe, anyone could be born with incredible powers, no effort or consequences necessary. Naturally, society fears them, but then again being a victim sure makes you feel self-righteous and awesome. Why do you think Wolverine is the most popular X-Man? Because we all know that if we had powers like that, we would be the lawless-bad-ass-loner type, rather than the principled and hard-working Cyclops.

2. "Chronicles of Narnia." When life has you down and society doesn't seem to understand you, why not escape into a magical fantasy world where you are regarded as important for no other reason than because a prophecy said you would be? Never accomplished anything, never done anything of merit? No problem, just go from point A to point B and we will treat you like a hero.

1. "Cinderella." Probably the most insidious myth to pervade human relationships in the Western world in the last century. The original tale, in its various incarnations, is a lot darker and not as pleasant. People really go for the Disney version here, since it whitewashes everything. Sure, you toil ceaselessly for a family that doesn't understand how special you really are, but one day someone will come by and give you everything you want and then a rich man will fall deeply in love with you. Why will he love you? Well, for your looks and demeanor. "Love at first sight" doesn't leave a lot of room for him to notice your personality. Despite years of feminist deconstruction, this myth still exists within just about every romantic comedy that passes through our theaters like turds on their way to a sewage treatment plant. Both genders buy this shit, in their own way.

You want to find someone worthwhile? Then read a book every now and then, get a hobby, improve your mind and personality and try not to be such an asshole to everyone. Maybe then you'll meet someone who likes you and treats you with some dignity. You're not special. Being one in a million just means there are 6,000 people in the world exactly like you. Grow up.

I Hate Your Childhood

2009-03-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I wrote a little while ago for another site. I stopped writing for them when I got tired of it and they deleted all my material during their last site update. This is my favorite piece from the work I did for them. I'll probably have another up in the next couple of days, if I can find it.

Ten Nostalgic 1980s Classics That Suck

Every decade gets its moment in the sun, that brief period when people pine for the simpler time of their youth. They look back at their childhood and how innocent and heartwarming the pop culture was, and realize how deserving of veneration and preservation it is now. The 1980s is currently the decade of choice for nostalgic types, with every loser bit of pop-cultural detritus getting its own special DVD release and a reference on "Robot Chicken." This is a dangerous habit, since people will forgive a number of flaws for something that brings them back to the rose-tinted time of their youth and soon enough they become fully grown adults who spend a substantial portion of their waking hours watching "He-Man." Appreciating the time period ironically is no better, since it has long been known that irony is just a way for hipsters to hide their shitty taste in beer. I now offer to you a slight antidote, wherein I take a look at some veneered cinematic classics from the era so many of us grew up in, and telling you why they sucked balls.

10. "Spaceballs." Apart from providing some hilariously embarrassing Comic-Con costumes, this film has not done anyone any real favors. A smorgasbord of cheap jokes and Rick Moranis, the film has a special place in the hearts of many comedy fans for its spoofery of the "Star Wars" series, though as we have been able to see in recent years, doing a spoof of "Star Wars" is about as difficult as putting on a hat. For every solid bit of comedy from the film that gets repeated ad nauseum by fans, there are dozens of painful flops (funny names are the first sign of hack work in a comedy, and this film is full of them). The film's most painful legacy is what it would lead to later, with director Mel Brooks modeling both "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" after this, his last truly commercially successful film.

9. "Back to the Future." Logical paradoxes aside, this is a ripe piece of filth. It's odd that this would become a nostalgic classic for lovers of the 1980s when the film itself was trading in on the nostalgia for the 1950s that was rampant during its release. The storyline doesn't make one lick of sense when held to the most basic level of intellectual scrutiny, and I always spend the entire film wanting to do nothing more than kick Michael J. Fox in the nuts until he cries. This is the sort of simpering feel-good callback to "better times" that director Robert Zemeckis made his name on. As a side note, the idea that Chuck Berry needed some smug white boy's help inventing his sound is so blithely racist that it makes me want to puke all over Elvis Presley's grave.

8. "The Breakfast Club." We have now entered John Hughes country. Be sure to roll up the windows, because there are a whole lot of stray emotions flying around here. Aside from having one of the shittiest soundtracks of all time (hard not to if you're filling it up with 1980s chart-toppers), the film is such a blatantly obvious emotional play that it's almost laughable how strongly some people are tied to it. The collection of stereotypes who spend their day together in unsupervised detention feels market-tested to appeal to as wide a range of teenagers as possible, while the cheesy moral of the film is so far removed from the everyday life of a high school student that you wonder if the people who made this had ever actually experienced adolescence. However, watching Judd Nelson play the World's Oldest Teenager is hoot.

7. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." You're probably thinking, "He's not going to go there." Well, fuck you, Mr. Dissenting Opinion I Made Up. I'm going there. I hate this fucking movie. I hate this movie like fucking cancer. Another shitpile from the John Hughes Crap Factory with jokes about as subtle as a punch in the teeth, which is exactly what I want to give Matthew Broderick every time I see his smug face. I'll concede a few key moments in the film, but honestly if you think this is some kind of comedy classic then don't be surprised when your children call the release of "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle" a generation-defining moment.

6. "Top Gun." Does anyone actually like this movie anymore, or is it just some sort of long-running national joke? If you want a prime example of absolutely everything that was wrong with 1980s action cinema, this would be a good place to start. Aside from its much commented-upon homo-eroticism, the film is also a fawning piece of jingoistic propaganda, the sort that Hollywood seemed be almost sycophantically willing to put out during the reign of Ronald Reagan. Tom Cruise is at his block-of-wood best, while the the soundtrack is so cheesy it defies ironic appreciation. As an aside, while the most notable thing about the soundtrack is the presence of no less than two Kenny Loggins performances, the film also reeks of the 1950s nostalgia mentioned above, as the two big sing-along moments involve Jerry Lee Lewis and the Righteous Brothers.

5. "Pretty in Pink." This is every teen comedy ever. Unlike many young men of my generation, I'm not bitter about the fact that the film ends with the hunky guy getting the girl rather than the nice goof-off. Personally, I found Duckie annoying and kind of wanted the film to end with him being thrown into a thresher. That the film champions the worst sort of Cinderella myth as its primary plot point is a tad more irritating, but this is at least true to form. James Spader just about gives Judd Nelson a run for his money in the Old Teenager department, playing a high school senior who is very obviously in his early thirties.

4. "Flight of the Navigator." This is a beloved childhood classic for sci-fi geeks, but when you start looking at things with an eye cleared of the fog of nostalgia you begin to realize how deceptive the term "beloved childhood classic" really is. A boy wakes up 8 years in the future without having aged a day due to an accident with an alien spacecraft. He meets up again with the sentient craft by escaping from a government task force so intensely inept it makes you fear for our country's security. They go on some boring adventures. By the way, the spaceship is voiced by Pee-Wee Herman. No, I'm not kidding. Kind of pisses all over your fond memories of the film when you think about that, doesn't it. Glad I could be of service.

3. "Good Morning, Vietnam." Aside from being the most saccharine piece of sub-comedy that Robin Williams had done up to that point (he topped it with "Patch Adams," to the extent that "Patch Adams" can be considered to "top" anything), the "true story" of the film is mostly bullshit, a Vietnam War fairy tale with Robin Williams in the middle. Here's an idea: Take all of William's "hilarious" commentary in the film and edit it together in one long string, subtracting out all the reaction shots of soldiers finding it funny. Now how funny does it all seem? If you answered "not very" then you have won the award for the most obvious statement made during this article.

2. "Stripes." Quite your god-damned blubbering, it's not a good movie. It's another piece of military propaganda, this one going for a soft sell by seeming to make fun of the army while actually reinforcing its values and without actually questioning its authority. You could make a pretty convincing argument that the film is an ode to military arms spending, showing how even the most total of fuck-ups can win wars with the billions of dollars we spend on high-tech weapons, but it's much easier to just say that this is one of Bill Murray's weakest comedies, starting off strong enough but then having the laughs come to a complete and utter halt through much of its last half.

1. "Goonies." I'm going for the balls here. This movie is a long car ride through a hot desert with a group of young children suffering from bladder infections. It's a plane-ride with a convention of "Sex in the City" fans that has become delayed on the runway without drink service and won't be taking off until early next week. This movie grates on me like steel wool rubbing an exposed nerve ending. I want to take these children and shake them until they stop making noise.

An Acknowledgement

2009-02-26T16:41:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should at least recognize the fact that the Oscars did occur this weekend. Personally, I skipped it in favor of drinking heavily, so I have to take it on faith that they actually aired and awards were given out.

Some notes:

Best Picture: "Slumdog Millionaire", the least objectionable nominee, goes for the win. Not what I would call a great movie, but at least it's not some pandering piece of Hollywood liberal revisionist history or a thunderously dull exercise in stylistic hubris like some of the other nominees I could mention.

Best Actor: Called it. Did anyone actually think Mickey Rourke would nab it?

Best Actress: And Kate Winslet officially becomes the Meryl Streep of her generation.

Best Supporting Actor: The Vegas odds on Heath Ledger getting the award were practically 1-1. I think in the future, the ceremony can save a lot of broadcast time by just eliminating the presentation of awards that are foregone conclusions.

Best Supporting Actress: We could probably also skip awards where no one cares who wins, though that would slice out half the ceremony for me every year.

Best Director: Danny Boyle, for something that is really not his best work. Still: Suck it, Fincher.

Best Original Screenplay: "Milk"? Really? Did the copy of 2008 Adobe BioPic they used to write that thing accept the award?

Best Adapted Screenplay: This was a given, though maybe Eric Roth will take the hint and come up with a better idea that just slapping some art house paint on his old "Forrest Gump" screenplay.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2009-02-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

1. "Taken." Liam Neeson plays a former spy battling slave-traders for the life of his daughter. I'm actually happy to see this at the top of the list, since I always get a kick from watching Liam Neeson beat the shit out of people. Doesn't happen in enough of his movies.

2. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." What fresh hell is this? Director Steve Carr continues to blight the earth with his cinematic vision, and the fact that someone thought Kevin James would make a thrilling lead in anything resembling a comedy goes to show that our cultural bankruptcy runs deep.

3. "The Uninvited." Christ, I miss good horror movies. The PG-13 rating has officially become a sign of over-market-tested, bland-as-a-beige-wall mediocrity. Movies like this just make me clutch on to my DVD of the original "Dawn of the Dead" all the tighter.

4. "Hotel for Dogs." Fuck a duck, does this look awful. I really can't stress this enough: Dog movies=boring movies. Add cute kids to the mix and you have a recipe for total mental degredation.

5. "Gran Torino." Clint Eastwood is sooooooo oooolllld. He's ooooooooollllllllld. And raaaaaaaaaciiiiissssst. But he learns an important leaaaaaaasssoooooonnn.

6. "Slumdog Millionar." If this movie wasn't as well made as it is, I would hate it. The story is the same sort of "love conquers all," "being together is our destiny" shit that every other romantic film out there peddles, and which has no relationship to the real world or real emotions. But this is such a good looking and well-constructed film, I can't really dislike it. Shame.

7. "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans." Actress Rhona Mitra is cursed. Here is a sample of her filmography: "Doomsday" (kinda shit), "Shooter"(pansy-ass action shit), "The Number 23" (really shit), "The Life of David Gale" (she should castrate her agent with a rusty tuna-can lid).

8. "New in Town." Hollywood likes to pretend it knows something about small towns. It doesn't, and hence these movies always fail.

9. "My Bloody Valentine 3-D." This is still here? Did anyone tell it that it could stay? For shame.

10. "Inkheart." Kids, power of imagination, evil goings on, fantasy, blah blah blah.

Year of the Suck: 2008 Oscar Nominations

2009-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

For the most part, 2008 was a piece of crap year for everything. Sure, we got a decent president, but the effect of that didn't really start until 2009. So I think we can really just write off the whole last years as "not worth fuck all." Just a big black mark in the history books where 2008 should be, "Not worth a tick-riddled dog dick" written over it.

So with that image in mind, here is the most recent batch of Oscar nominations. May our sins be forgiven.

Best Picture
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": A man is born an old man, ages backwards, then dies as a child. Commentary on human condition: Not really. Any lasting significance: No.
"Frost/Nixon": My money's on Nixon. Frost is younger, but ol' Tricky Dick is a wily one.
"Milk": A very average movie telling an interesting story.
"The Reader": Kate Winslet seems to have made a career out of sleeping with young men. It also has Nazis.
"Slumdog Millionaire": A film so full of feel-goodness that you just want to bloody well punch a nun after seeing it.

Best Director
David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": David Fincher can go suck a curly cock for all I care about him. He has a lot of style hiding a lack of ideas and the majority of his filmography is like a depressing wart sitting in the memories of my cinematic experiences.
Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon": Ron Howard was nominated for a film that isn't a saccharine, happy-time whitewashing of history? Lord be praised.
Gus Van Sant, "Milk": These days, I'm just happy when Van Sant directs a film that doesn't make me want to strangle him with his own internal organs.
Stephen Daldry, "The Reader": I'm trying really, really hard to care about this film's existence as if it actually matters. It's hard, because it doesn't.
Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire": The least objectionable choice, though I wish Boyle would go back to making movies about heroin-addicted zombies. Not that I want to typecast him for those films, I just think there should be more of them.

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor": Apparently it has something to say about illegal immigrants living with real people.
Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon": I guess he's pretty Nixony.
Sean Penn, "Milk": Do you really need to nominate anyone else? We all know how this is going to turn out.
Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": This is some sort of bad omen.
Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler": This is worse.

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married": Maybe my desire to see her win is related to my desire to bone her stupid. I'll have to talk to my bookie.
Angelina Jolie, "Changeling": I hear she drinks the blood of kittens.
Melissa Leo, "Frozen River": She smuggles stuff and it's cold. Awesome.
Meryl Streep, "Doubt": I just realized that Streep hasn't actually won an Oscar since 1982. Needs more cancer roles, I say.
Kate Winslet, "The Reader": At this point I think Winslet's movie career is just an excuse to bang teenagers.

Best Original Screenplay
"Happy-Go-Lucky": Wanted to see it, missed it, will probably never see it.
"Frozen River": Yeah, really cold, poor people, Eskimos. Gotcha.
"In Bruges": The only thing I care about even slightly this entire award season.
"Milk": Wow, someone came up with the idea of a heartwarming story of human struggle overcoming adversity? The air feels so much fresher now.
"Wall*E": Yeah, why the fuck not?

Best Adapted Screenplay
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": I doubt F. Scott Fitzgerald would recognize his short story in this film. Though I doubt F. Scott Fitzgerald would recognize his own face in the mirror during much of his hazy waking life, what with it being caked with his own 90 proof gin vomit. He's also dead.
"Frost/Nixon": Now the "Presley/Nixon" tapes, that would be a good story. Nixon: "Jews....(garbled)...fuckers...all out to get me." Elvis: "BLAAAGGH!"
"Doubt": You know, apparently some people have doubts. And some people thought this would be an interesting idea for a movie.
"The Reader": So?
"Slumdog Millionaire": Yeah, sure. Fuck it. Fuck it all.

Coming Soon and Top Ten

2008-12-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

God Dammit, what a fucking pitiful month December was. "The Spirit" seems to be fulfilling all my worst ideas about it and "Quantum of Solace" wasn't nearly good enough to go see again (ever, for any reason). The theaters were a barren wasteland of holiday comedies and other such saccharine drivel. Doesn't look like next month is going to improve matters much, but let's look anyway.

Coming Soon:

January 2 brings us nothing. Really. Not a single major release that I can find is coming out on Friday ("Defiance" is getting a limited release to make the Oscar deadline. I'll get to that in a bit).

January 9 gives us something worse than nothing in the form of "Bride Wars," starring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway as brides competing with each other for some dumbfuck reason or other.

Also opening is "The Unborn," a horror film from David S. Goyer. The preview has some creepy elements to it, but it looks like a pretty standard J-horror retread. You'll notice they're marketing it as "from the co-writer of 'The Dark Knight'" rather than as "from the director of 'The Invisible'" even though the latter credit seems more relevant.

January 16 brings us the above mentioned "Defiance," a story of courage, honor, Jews, WWII and other Oscar-ready topics. Stars Daniel Craig and some Nazis.

Also opening is "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," which looks about as good as something this completely and utterly pointless can look. The reason this is coming out a month before Valentine's Day is that the "Friday the 13th" remake already took the February 13 slot. It's kind of like watching one retarded elephant get knocked down by another, larger, retarded elephant. You feel a little bad for the smaller one, then you get over it when you remember that they're just a bunch of retarded elephants.

January 23 births another "Underworld" sequel screaming and wet into this world, something I need like a lead pipe to the cranium. Also opening is "Killshot," an Elmore Leonard novel adapted into a total Weinstein Bros.' clusterfuck. The film was directed by John Madden and produced by Quentin Tarantino, so by all rights it should be shitting money right into Harvey Weinstein's wallet, but apparently the film came out as such as turd that it's had its release date moved back five times and is now nearly three years old.

Top Ten at the Box Office:

1. "Marley & Me." If there is one thing in this world that bores me more than football movies, it's dog movies. I feel sticky and weird just looking at the posters for them, like my skin has just be rubbed with cane sugar. I have a low tolerance for heartwarming tales of companionship, and I personally don't like owning pets (I have a rule not to own anything that will die if I leave my apartment locked and unattended for three weeks). A more appropriate tagline: "The story of an adorable pet that can be replaced at least five times in the average human lifespan".

2. "Bedtime Stories." Jesus, people must be ill this time of year if this is the kind of crap that's at the top of this list. Adam Sandler and Disney, working together with some gimmicky kid's comedy that exhausted its novelty about three seconds into the preview.

3. "The Curious Case of How People Have Been Fooled Into Believing David Fincher Has Any Real Ideas." He also apparently doesn't have an editor, since this adaptation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story has been pumped to a solid 159 minutes, I guess to give that fabled Brad Pitt thespian talent some room to breath.

4. "Valkyrie." This is the tale of a plot by some Nazis to assassinate Hitler during WWII. Gee, wonder how that turned out? So is it like "The Lost Stories of World War II" month or something? I am fucking sick to death of that war. Why not a good World War One story? Maybe something about the Battle of the Somme, that one where 1.5 million people were killed over the course of four months (including 57,000 British casualties during the first day alone). Fuck all this "no moral ambiguity, good guys v. bad guys" crap. I want rivers of blood and years of rotting, screaming horror. That's a war, people.

But I digress. The real point of "Valkyrie" is to revive Tom Cruise's public image from the shit-filled gutter it's been squatting in for the last few years. Too bad he never got that "acting" thing down right.

5. "The Yes Man." Christ, this is getting painful. Did Jim Carrey's cash jacuzzi need a refill, or has he just been tossing piles of money into a large wood fire oven so as to give his homemade pizza that "pitiful waste of riches" zing it was missing? This is so fucking unnecessary I'm surprised I can even focus on it for long enough to write this. Surprised, but not pleased.

6. "Seven Pounds." I care less about movies the more Will Smith is in them. And I mean that in a general sense, not a specific one. I actually become less of a fan of cinema the larger a star Will Smith becomes. I think his continued desire to make movies actually ruins movies with which he has no connection. If he continues on this upward trend, within the next few years I'll probably feel the same way about "Casablanca" as I do about drinking warm spittle.

7. "The Tale of Despereaux." CGI mouse, knightly adventures, no real interest. Gotcha.

8. "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Sometimes I worry that mediocrity is winning the war for our culture. Then I remember that mediocrity is the norm, not the exception. And I cry.

9. "The Spirit." I had such high hopes after the first preview. Should have seen it coming. With every other second of this film that got revealed over the following months, the anticipation I felt withered and eventually died, like an old woman who led a grand, exciting life only to be taken down in a long and painful battle with the diseases that resulted from her decades of debauchery and hedonism.

10. "Doubt." This looks pretty good.

Slow Grinding Nothing: Opening This Month

2008-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

This Friday we get a treat in watching Beyonce Knowles try and pull off Etta James in "Cadillac Records," a biopic about Chess Records and its classic artists. Apparently Knowles is the only star any studio executive can think if to play a R&B artist, since she's about a stone too thin to play the singer during her peak years. Mos Def is Chuck Berry, so I can't complain too much.

Also opening, for some reason, is "Punisher: War Zone," a rejiggered sequel with a new star and new director, though oddly enough it seems to have kept the same script. Original star Thomas Jane has been replaced by equally cardboard-like Ray Stevenson (seriously, are these guys grown in a lab somewhere?) though I doubt anyone will notice.

December 12 brings us what has to be one of the most useless things ever (and I'm including that tiolet paper dispenser with the iPod mount attached to it in this category) in the form of the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The film stars Keanu Reeves, to the extent that Keanu Reeves can "star" in anything. I'm guessing what happened here is that someone saw how much that "War of the Worlds" thing Spielberg did worked and decided to dig up another old chestnut from the classic sci-fi era and dump a useless lump of chalk such as Keanu in it.

Also opening is "Gran Torino," a new urban drama from Clint Eastwood. Though Eastwood has already released one piece of Oscar-bait this year, it seems he feels like hedging his bets a little for award season and is starring in this one as well as directing it. Still, he seems to have aged into his badassery pretty well and his voice sounds like an earthquake in a gravel pit, so no complaints.

On December 19th is "Seven Pounds," another Will Smith tale of hope and understanding that will make serious bank and be forgotten before the year is out.

Also opening is "The Wrestler," a film for all of those people who wanted to see Mickey Rourke back in a starring roll, with Marisa Tomei as his female lead. At least, I assume there must be people out there who wanted to see that. There are people who like to have sex while dressed in animal costumes, so why not?

Of course, we can't forget the latest Jim Carrey pain parade, "The Yes Man," in which America's beloved fartsmith comes back to form (and $20 million dollar paychecks) with some convoluted plot designed to make him do absurd things that make no sense. It truly is a season of miracles.

December 26 brings us "The Spirit," Frank Miller's adaptation of the classic Wil Eisner comic. The first preview I saw was impressive and at first I was looking forward to some cheap holiday badass entertainment. However, everything else I've seen from the film since then has been, to put it politely, llama shit. I'll probably still see it, just because some train wrecks deserve to be watched.

Opening This Week and the Top Ten

2008-11-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

Opening This Week

The big one is the sequel to 2006's James Bond revision, the ball-flatteningly awesome "Casino Royale." Called "Quantum of Solace," this film picks up where "Casino" left off, with Daniel Craig James Bonding it the fuck up by running over rooftops and shooting things and wearing suits and generally just being a badass.

Some might wonder at my enthusiasm for these new Bond films given my dour view of everything else that's been released in the modern era. Basically, I just enjoy seeing an action film that feels real, uses CGI only when necessary and has a fairly smart script. I feel the same way about the new "Batman" films. Not necessarily the best movies ever, but how rare is it for you to experience a purely entertaining piece of cinema that doesn't insult your intelligence? It is very fucking rare, that's how rare. Let me have my moment.

Also opening is... fuck it. James Bond, motherfuckers!

Top Ten at the Box Office

1. "Madagascar: Escape 2 Mediocrity." Our lovable cast of talking animals runs through another hackneyed piece of rote comedy for the kiddies. Will anything of interest happen during the 89 minute running time? My prognostications say "no, nothing will happen."

2. "Role Models." Energy drinks plus assholes. Has there ever been a riper subject for comedy?

3. "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" Hey, Vanessa Hudgens. I saw your vag on the Internet. Just thought you should know.

4. "Changling." Clint Eastwood's latest piece of Oscar-bait, aiming for a "Chinatown," "wow wasn't Los Angeles interesting during the 1920s and 30s, it sure is the only city in the world where anything ever happened" thing.

5. "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." I'm split over this. A lot of people have told me it's funny, but on the other hand I want to see Kevin Smith lose his nuts in an accident with an industrial cheese grater. Decisions, decisions.

6. "Soul Men." A film about two former soul singers who reunite for one last concert. Stars Samuel L. Jackson and the ghostly visage of the late Bernie Mac.

7. "Saw V." Holy shit, are they still making these? I must have stroked off there for a month or so. People have noticed that these all suck, right? Like, with bad scripts and horrible acting and cinematography that wouldn't pass muster at a low-rent film school award show?

8. "The Haunting of Molly Hartley." Bland, cheap-ass PG-13 devil possession thing. Has Catholic schoolgirl uniforms going for it, but not much else.

9. "The Secret Life of Bees." Estrogen-fest. Not my kind of thing.

10. "Eagle Eye." I still refuse to believe the basic concept of this film, which is that someone actually wants to know what Shia LeBeouf is doing at any given moment. Because if it's not "drowning in a pool of his own mediocrity," then I can't conceive of anyone having an interest.

Extra Spooky Blog Post

2008-10-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

Since I feel like getting into the Halloween spirit at the moment (as opposed to tonight, when I will get into the "drunken stupor" spirit and later the "beat up children and steal their candy" spirit) I think I will regale you with a list of the planned horror releases we have no choice but to look forward to over the upcoming months. Enjoy wearing a novel costume (perhaps celebrating some abstract subject, or possibly as a "sexy" version of a common profession) while celebrating this ancient harvest festival in the traditional manner, i.e. throwing the bones of slaughtered animals into a bonfire and pouring ale into the ocean as a libation for the sea gods.

Now for our horror movie goodness:

November 7 brings us "House," which is fortunately not a remake of the 1980s non-classic, but makes up for this failing with one of its own, in that it's a fairly generic serial killer thriller that focuses on the battle between good and evil with what some are calling a Christian bent. Golly, wonder which side will win? Has some Michael Madsen crazy goodness, so there is that at least.

I would be remiss in not mentioning the November 21 release of "Twilight," which isn't a horror film per say, but does have vampires. It's based on a wildly popular series of young adult novels, which is really all I need to know to know that I have next to no interest in it. This has a built in screaming-teenage-girl fan base, so I don't think my support will be missed. I have a general equation I live by, which is that if you want to make something completely mediocre, just add vampires to it. Cop shows, superhero comics, romantic comedies and basically any horror film made since 1980. I'm fucking sick of vampires, and you should all be ashamed of yourself.

There are no major horror releases in December (to be expected during the award season rush) but January 9 brings us a ripe slice of shit in the "Hellraiser" remake. This will probably be pushed back again as a new director, Frenchman Pascal Laugier, was just announced a couple of days ago and there has been no announced cast. Ideally, it never happens. Realistically, the best you can hope for is mediocrity.

January is a common dumping ground for studio leftovers and embarrassments, which brings us to "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," which opens on January 16. From the preview, it seems the primary reason for this remake to exist is so pick-axes can be thrown at the screen. The hopeful could take it as a sign that the horror movie remake cycle is coming to an end, since they wouldn't be trying to spice up these blandfests with 3-D gimmicks otherwise. I'm not hopeful, and the rest of this list should explain why.

January 23 brings us the exciting third film in the "Underworld" series, "Rise of the Lycans," in which... Kate Beckinsale isn't in it? Fuuuuuck. Her tight leather pants were the only thing that made the first two films bearable (if slightly frustrating).

On January 30, we get a treat of another bland J-horror-inspired (not a remake, fortunately) film about creepy ghost children. "The Uninvited" stars some people doing some things and this will be forgotten before the second reel starts.

February 13 brings us the reason that the "My Bloody Valentine" remake didn't open closer to Valentine's Day in the "Friday the 13th" remake/reimagining thing. Fanboys will shit their pants over this right up until it opens. From what I've seen so far, looks fairly generic, but apparently I hate everything .

Skipping ahead to April 3, we get "The Wolf Man" remake as part of Hollywood's continuing effort to shit on my fond childhood memories. The cast is solid (Benicio Del Toro stars, with Anthony Hopkins as his father) but the director is Joe Johnston. He's one of these hack directing automatons you hire when you want something to be moderately successful and as mediocre as possible (try to envision these films in your mind: "Jumanji," "Jurassic Park III" and "Hildalgo.") If you like weepy sentimentality in your horror films, this will be the one for you.

Divorce, Pestilence and Fashionistas

2008-10-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

Their Pain is Funny
Gweneth Paltrow has stated publicly that she is offering her support to Madonna, who is going through a divorce with husband Guy Ritchie. Because nothing soothes the pain caused by a painful break-up like the support of your skeletal, talent-atrophied friends.

The State of the Nation
Vice-Presidential candidate and Brit Hume fan club member Sarah Palin recently courted some controversy in the press by referring to small towns as "the real America" and as being "the pro-America" parts of this country. The irony of her being married to a secessionist aside, I'm really sick of the trumping of "small town values" over all others. Small towns are where you live when you don't have the ambition or drive to try for something better, or where you move to once you've earned enough money to be able to afford to never have to actually deal with the problems with living in one. They're not inherently nicer or better than urban areas. The dimwit-to-normal-intelligence ratio is about the same in each setting (that is, staggeringly skewed to the former). Mrs. Palin's husband, Todd, also had a great little quip along the same lines recently, referring to "hunting and fishing" as American values. We'll let Mr. Palin's confusion over the difference between "values" and "activities" slide for a moment. Along these lines of thought, in terms of time spent engaged in them, some more accurate American values would seem to include "meth production" and "complaining about Mexicans."

Fuck small towns.

Death of a Professional Prick
Richard Blackwell, a fashion critic famous for his annual "Worst Dressed Women" lists, died on Sunday of complications from an intestinal infection. I guess that's what happens when you spend your career pulling opinions out of your ass. I know I should probably be more sensitive to the passing of an old man, but I honestly see anyone involved in the fashion industry as being the scum of our planet. It's a massive, useless scam perpetuated by the vainest, most self-possessed people imaginable and supported by the simpering, suckling need for status and conformity. But I digress.

Top Ten at the Box Office

2008-10-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

1. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." Just watching the preview for this film is like having a physically incarnated form of pure evil violently fuck your eye sockets.

2. "Eagle Eye." Two people find that their every move is being watched by a mysterious person with sinister intents. The film makes no sense though, in that one of the people is Shia LaBeouf, and no one is interested in what Shia LaBeouf is doing, ever, anywhere, for any reason.

3. "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." Movies about the trials of teen relationships stopped being interesting to me the moment I was no longer a teenager. After that moment it just became a bunch of self-obsessed brats who think they know what real suffering feels like.

4. "Nights of Rodanthe." This title + Richard Gere tells you everything you need to know about this film. It will magically cease to exist the minute no one is paying attention to it any longer.

5. "Appaloosa." Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen star as lawmen in a Western. I think that the only reason this film exists is because it's such an obvious idea that the universe simply brought it forth from the ether to fill the necessary gap.

6. "Lakeview Terrace." I wish that Hollywood directors would just stop pretending they have something interesting to say about race relations in America. Because they really do not.

7. "Burn After Reading." Brad Pitt plays a blithering idiot pretty-boy.

8. "Fireproof." A married couple, who are also fire fighters, try to save their marriage with a blatant, simpering metaphor.

9. "An American Carol." This is part of the reason public discourse in America has sunken so low.

10. "Religulous." This is the other part.

Blithering Idiocy

2008-10-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

Just Plain Folks

The vice-presidential debate became the most watched inconsequential event on television last night. The big surprise was that Sara Palin surpassed everyone's expectations during the debate. This really isn't too much of a shock if you think about it, since the bar was set so low for her, the simple fact that she did not shit her pants right there on stage was considered a minor personal victory. You know that when we consider the fact that a politician can construct a semi-coherent sentence one of their positive points, then we have taken a significant turn as a culture.

Opening Today

For some reason, Hollywood has collectively decided to release every single film currently in production into theaters today, so this is a bit of a doozy.

"Beverly Hills Chihuahua." This film's existence makes no sense in a rational universe.

"Nick and Norha's Infinite Playlist." Michael Cera slowly begins to corner the market on teenage awkwardness, right on his way to becoming his generation's John Cusack. He'll be making vaguely liberal political parables within a decade or so.

"Blindness." The advance word on the street is that this kind of sucks. Who would have thought an adaptation of an unfilmable novel would have such trouble getting off the ground with critics?

"Religulous." A snarky atheist goes around and mocks other people's beliefs. Whoop de fuckin' do. Has it occurred to anyone else in the world that Bill Maher is kind of a fuckin' idiot and he ought to be dumped on the same liberal trash-heap as Michael Moore?

"How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." My Saturday nights, brought to a theater near you.

"The Express." Motherfuckin' football movies. I can't name two football movies off the top of my head that I actually give more than a shit about (I stall out after the original "The Longest Yard"). I doubt this is going to make the list.

"Flash of Genius." Based on a true story about a man who finds that his copywrited invention is being used without his permission by an auto manufacturer and takes his case to court. The judge throws it out when it is revealed that the inventor is played by Greg Kinnear.

"An American Carol." A conservative spoof of Michael Moore directed by David Zucker about a filmmaker trying to cancel Independence Day. In other words, the man who directed "BASEketball" thinks he has something relevant to add to the grand American political discussion. This just sounds plain retarded. Honestly, is Michael Moore even worth spoofing? Is this really the best conservative filmmakers can do? "Ha ha, Michael Moore is fat and hates America!"? You all suck so hard.

One of these days we may have a filmmaker who knows how to express his politics in a way that's elequent and convincing. A modern Preston Sturges or an updated Milos Forman. And what will happen? That director will be ignored and never be able to get a film into production, because our political landscape insists on nothing more than cheer leading for one's own side and sneers at the other side.

This is the sound of me giving my own country the middle finger. Suck it, America.

Opening Soon and Top Ten

2008-09-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Opening Tomorrow:

Tomorrow brings us the latest Oscar-bait from Spike Lee, "Miracle at St. Anna," which in some sort of strange Best Picture trifecta has managed to incorporate racial issues, religious overtones and WWII. Also opening in limited release is "Choke," the first Chuck Palahniuk adaptation since "Fight Club" (fuck you, "Fight Club").

Top Ten at the Box Office:

1. "Lakewood Terrace," in which Samuel Jackson plays an LAPD officer who torments his new interracial-couple neighbors. This is director Neil LaBute's attempt to wash away the shameful, toxic aftertaste of his "Wicker Man" remake with a punch-in-the-face obvious message film. The narration in the preview might as well just say, "The black guy is... A RACIST! It's a switcharoo!"

2. "Burn After Reading." The Coen brothers fill out the part of their contract that says they have to follow every classic with a couple of middling comedies. This film does remind me, however, that George Clooney is just about the only major Hollywood star I can actually look at and think, "You know, I don't mind that guy. I don't want him to die in a chemical fire or anything."

3. "My Best Friend's Girl." Speaking of dying in a fire...

4. "Igor." A lonely, abused outsider with dreams of greatness in a strange world, who happens to be voiced by John Cusack. This looks like gothic-light for the kiddie crowd, and I have about as much interest in it as I do in eating spoonfuls of mayo straight from the jar.

5. "Righteous Kill." Two men who have wasted their talent for a solid decade waste it together in a formulaic thriller.

6. "The Family That Preys." Tyler Perry seems to be competing in his own Shitty Family Drama Olympics. If that's the case, then he has another gold medal winner on his hands.

7. "The Women." A tale of drama, betrayal and revenge based on the 1939 classic. The entire cast, much like the audience, is female.

8. "Ghost Town." Ricky Gervais is haunted by the ghost of Greg Kinnear's acting career.

9. "The Dark Knight." Keeping Hot Topic in business for another season.

10. "The House Bunny." This is how much God hates you.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-09-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

1. "Bangkok Dangerous." Sometimes films will do really well for simple lack of competition. If a three minute film of John Goodman drooling on himself had been released last week, it would have beaten this in total box-office earnings. The only reason to see a new Nicolas Cage film these days is to take a look at what outrageous hairstyle he's currently sporting.

2. "Tropic Thunder." Every time someone tells me that this is the funniest movie they have ever seen, I sigh a little and then wander quietly back to my apartment, where I lock the door and proceed to weep uncontrollably.

3. "The Dark Knight." Yeah, it was okay.

4. "The House Bunny." Watching the preview for this film is like receiving a sharp, sudden kick to the testicles.

5. "Traitor." Don Cheadle is a national security threat and must be stopped, with deadly force if necessary. He is also starring in this new film.

6. "Babylon A.D." Vin Diesel must save the world by jumping out of an airplane. I think we can all agree this is for the best, assuming he doesn't wear a parachute.

7. "Death Race." I think that NASCAR would be so much more entertaining if the drivers were rewarded points for running over their fans. Someone back me up on this.

8. "Disaster Movie." The existence of this film actually makes other, unrelated comedies less funny. This movie is to humor what genital warts are to human sexuality.

9. "Mamma Mia!" I think I might suffer from clinical depression.

10. "Pineapple Express." Oh, nope, wait a moment. I'm okay now.

Opening Soon and Top Ten

2008-08-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

Opening This Week:

"Disaster Movie." I'm pretty sure this was approved due to a horrible mistake on the studio's part. These films are to humor what AIDS is to Africa.

"Babylon A.D." "Children of Men"-lite for the bang-bang-go-boom crowd. It doesn't look half-bad for what it is, but I'm beginning to suspect that Vin Diesel must have some sort of clause in his contract stating that he has to jump from an exploding plane while strapped to a snowboard and firing a machine gun in every movie he appears in. I'm interested in seeing how that plays out in his upcoming Hannibal biopic (maybe jumping off an exploding elephant while strapped to a canoe and throwing a spear. Just an idea, Vin).

"College." Three high school seniors are in for a wild weekend when they visit a local college. They meet with an academic adviser, tour campus and begin work on their applications while weighing the option to attend the school or to look into financial aid so they can afford something out of state. Then they puke on themselves.

Top at the Box Office:

1. "Tropic Thunder." Little bit of a dust-up over this film regarding its use of the word "retard." Protesting the film seems to have worked wonders.

Just a quick note though: Using the word "retard" when referring to a person with a particular mental disability is cruel and mean-spirited. Using the word in its actual sense, which means "slow or limited in intellectual development," is a pretty funny synonym for "stupid." For example: "Protesting a comedy because it satirically used the word 'retard' is kind of retarded."

2. "The House Bunny." Speaking of retarded...

3. "Death Race." Bang, kaboom, whoop de fuck. If it doesn't have David Carradine with a grenade for a hand, then I don't really give a shit.

4. "The Dark Knight." Do you remember "Batman & Robin"? I guess by that standard this is the greatest thing to happen in all of cinematic history. But by most other standards it's a decent action film with one iconic performance that will inspire way too many Halloween costumes this year.

5. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Is it okay for me to say I don't really care all that much about "Star Wars"? Because I really don't. The original trilogy was pretty entertaining, to a point. But anything that has been associated to them since has been like some kind of weird anti-fun, causing joy to be sucked out of my life every time I encounter it.

6. "The Pineapple Express." Hey, Harold & Kumar! This is how you make a fuckin' stoner movie. Please pay attention.

7. "Mirrors." If you've seen the trailer then you can guess at this film's one spooky little trick it has to scare people with, which it no doubt drives into the ground. Looks about as frightening as a box of donut holes.

8. "Mamma Mia!" You can't stop it. The disease is inside of you.

9. "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor." Whenever I look at the ads for this movie, I can't focus on them. It's like when the people in the movie "Dark City" try to remember if they've ever seen daylight. My consciousness won't accept that this film exists even though my memory tells me otherwise.

10. "The Longshots." Fred Durst directed this. By seeing this movie, you are directly supporting the career of Fred Durst. Mull that over for a moment and then consider doing some charity work as a way to protect your immortal soul.

Random Prick Assault Force

2008-08-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

Who Watches the Watchmen? No One

20th Century Fox has engaged in what industry insiders generally refer to as a "dick move" and filed suit against Warner Bros. to stop the release of the highly anticipated "Watchmen" adaptation. Not to just get a cut of the profits, but to actually keep the multi-million dollar production from ever seeing the light of day. This suit is in regards to a spat over the adaptation rights, which Fox claims it still owned. They of course didn't decide to work this out before the much publicized film went into production, instead waiting until after it was completed and slated for a Spring 2009 release before suing.

Personally I couldn't really give less of a shit. I have no great hopes for the film right now and am one of the few people around who still thinks that some stories just aren't worth turning into movies, especially ones that are so tied into their original medium. But then again, Kevin Smith has seen the film and says it's going to be great, and we all know that Kevin Smith's taste in cinema is unimpeachable.

Here I am employing sarcasm to indicate that I do not actually think that highly of Kevin Smith's cinematic taste, and in fact think that everything the man says or does in his life ought to be struck from human memory.

Five Bees for a Quarter

John McCain had a fairly interesting gaffe recently. When asked at a press conference how many homes he owns, his response was that he couldn't remember and that he would have his staff check for him. Pundits are still split on which fact is more disturbing: That McCain can't remember how many homes he owns or that he has to have staff members go and count them for him.

So can someone explain to me why the Republicans have decided to nominate Grandpa Simpson to be their candidate for the nation's top office? A crotchety, hot-headed war hero who exaggerates his accomplishments, often outright lies and seems to have a slim grasp of current events doesn't strike me as being an entirely stable choice. He's referred to Vladimir Putin as the president of Germany, doesn't seem to know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims and has on multiple occasions referred to Czechoslovakia as if it were a current country, rather than one that split into two countries in 1993. One of these days I expect him to come out and tell the story about how he took the ferry to Shelbyville, because he needed to get a new heel on his shoe. So he tied an onion to his belt, as was the style at the time. They didn't have any white onions, because of the war. All they had were those big yellow ones...

Dead Celebrity Hammer Throw

2008-08-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Fuck Multiculturalism

The big news in entertainment this week has been the veritable nationalistic orgy of the Beijing Olympics, which are about as exciting to me as clipping my toenails. Of course our whole nation is cheering on Michael Phelps, the gold-medal-winning machine of a swimmer. Swimming is basically an elaborate way to not sink under the water and drown; Phelps does it very quickly.

Do you remember during the Athens Olympics when Australian swimmer Ian Thorp said Phelps would never beat Mark Spitz's gold medal record? Apparently Phelps told Thorp to "go suck a dick" and has proceeded to wipe him out of the record books, and is now on track to exceed the Spitz record, powering his swimming performance on the gasoline of pure hate.

And that is truly what the Olympic games are all about.

Dead Celeb Coral

Couple of famous deaths this last week. Comedian Bernie Mac died of complications from pneumonia, while soul artist Isaac Hayes just up and died. In order to gauge my feelings about these events for you, let me updated my Death Response Priority List. In descending order of importance: Immediate family, close friends, pets, casual acquaintances, fictional characters, celebrities that I don't know personally, anonymous Chinese earthquake victims.

In response to Hayes' death, his former employers Matt Stone and Trey Parker had this to say: "Blippity bloppity blew Ron Paul."

Tom Cruise is a Penis

Tom Cruise has apparently been written out of an upcoming action film he was set to star in because he was considered too old to be a bankable action hero and that he no longer justifies his large paycheck. Since age has not stopped Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Nicolas Cage or any number of other hobbling old coots from playing the hero role, it stands to reason that the real purpose for removing Cruise from a project is that he is in fact a large walking penis that squawks in something resembling a human dialect. His attempts to get a fourth "Mission: Impossible" film off the ground have also met with problems, since no one seems interested in creating a multi-million dollar vanity project starring a third-rate punchline who resembles an anthropomorphized genitalia.

Coming Soon

2008-08-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at a few of the cinematic tidbits that are ready to expand our film-loving pallet:

August 8: "Pineapple Express." A stoner action-comedy full of laughs and violence. Who could possibly be the audience for this? The trailer actually makes it look interesting and the cast is spot on, so this might be something to look forward to, though I'm still scratching my head as to how David Gordon Green ended up directing it.

Also opening is "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," which will give the other end of the marketing spectrum something to watch. It stars a bunch of women in their mid-20s as college freshmen who must go through the loves and frustrations involved with being contractually obligated to do a sequel they have no interest in.

August 15: "Star Wars: Clone Wars." An animated gap filler for the trilogy of prequels, this exists as a simple testament to the gullibility of science fiction fans and of George Lucas' pure and unabashed hatred for all that is good and pure in this world.

Also opening is "Tropic Thunder," which stars Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as action stars who end up acting as real soldiers for some oppressed peasant-folk. Sounds great doesn't it? It certainly isn't an unabashed rip-off of "The Three Amigos," right? It will most definitely not be an embarrassingly ham-fisted sub-satire, like "Zoolander" or "Cable Guy," the last two films Stiller directed himself, right?

August 21: "Death Race." Director: Paul W.S. Anderson. Synopsis: A "not-really" remake of the cult classic, "Death Race 2000." Status: Will suck worse than a Dyson vacuum.

Also opening is "Hamlet 2," which looks to be this year's requisite middling indie comedy hit. The soundtrack will sell well at least. They always do with these films.

August 28: "Disaster Movie." A more apt title has yet to be logged into the history of cinema.

Also opening is "College," which is a comedy. About college. You can fill in the rest from there.

Politics as Bloodsport

2008-07-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

I don't cover politics much in this blog, but seeing as the presidential primaries have now become my favorite form of televised entertainment, I feel I should post a nod to a few interesting ongoing stories:

The Revolution Will Be Televised

Katie Couric will become the first woman to head a major news organization's convention coverage, as she will be at the top of CBS's Democratic and Republican convention team. A bold stride for women everywhere, who can now take pride in the fact that their gender has produced one of the absolute fucking worst news anchors to ever grace a national broadcast station. Did you see her recent interview with Barack Obama? She asked him the same question FOUR FUCKING TIMES! She just could not drop that shit about the surge in Iraq and kept bringing it up until Barack just got up and popped her right in the goddamned mouth. Actually, that last part didn't happen. Except in this daydream I had where Barack Obama turns out to be Teddy Roosevelt in disguise and America elects a truly badass president again.

Barack Out With Your Cock Out

In other Obama interview news, Tom Brokaw recently interviewed the junior senator and managed to repeat basically every point from David Brooks' most recent New York Times column. This would be all fine and dandy if David Brooks weren't such a blubbering asshat. Honestly, the man has one trick, which is to break up social groups into convenient demographics based on sociological data he draws by shoving a hand up his own ass and seeing what he pulls out. He then gives the group some cutesy name and cashes another hefty NYT check while wiping is sphincter with a dead Iraqi, checking to see if any other ideas fell out before he tosses the mangled corpse off into the garbage. If he isn't just outright lying in his columns, he makes points so illogical and wrongheaded that you wonder why he hasn't been put into a special home or elected to a high cabinet position yet.

Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't have put up with that kind of shit. He would just stomp up to Brokaw and karate chop him in the face until he shut the fuck up, then he would have jogged to New York and punched David Brooks so hard in the balls he would have been singing falsetto for the rest of his life.

You know that saying of Roosevelt's, "Talk softly and carry a big stick"? That wasn't a metaphor for his diplomatic tactics. It was a literal description of his favorite hobby, which was to sneak up on people and then beat them savagely with a 2 x 4.

The Whiniest Generation

McCain and his surrogates have been complaining a lot in the press about how much press coverage Obama has been receiving (take a minute to soak in that irony). They've even released an ad pointing out how popular Obama has been with the large media groups. So basically the complaint is that their opponent is more popular than they are. This in spite of a recent studies that show Obama has received more negative coverage than McCain. You know McCain just wants to shake his fist and tell that damn darkie to get off of his lawn.

I know making fun of McCain's age is supposed to be so passe, but then he really shouldn't be acting like such a crotchety old bastard. This whole campaign is basically boiling down to the Democratic Jesus vs. Old Man Withers, Who Runs the Haunted Amusement Park (I think Obama could end this race right now if he just pulled off McCain's "Zombie Senator" mask, so we can all hear that this entire campaign was just a plot to get to a chest full of Spanish doubloons that are buried under the White House).

You know who would make a better president than either of these guys? Teddy Fuckin' Roosevelt:

Fuck yeah!

Opening Today and the Top Ten

2008-07-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

Opening Today

"Step Brothers" opens in theaters today, much to the delight of not a fucking soul. Two adult men enter a sibling rivalry when their respective single parents marry each other. It looks, feels and sounds like a contract-filler, a way for Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay to wrap up their three-picture deal with Sony. And given Ferrell's most recent string of comedies ("Blades of Glory," "Semi-Pro") it might be wise to take into account that his comedic touch might be a tad, shall we say, non-existent? I'm trying to dance around the fact that this is going to blow chunks.

Also opening is the sequel no one even realized was happening, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe." Somehow, fans of the show got really excited about this when it was announced, as if it were some sort of major event rather than a quick cash run by a group of folks who couldn't find work otherwise. Honestly, how much did the show blow the last few seasons of its existence? If you answered "Why, it blew quite a lot, didn't it?" then you are correct. And the original film was serviceable at best, hardly the beginning of a franchise. So why get worked up? Just relax and let it go. It'll be okay. Shh. Hush now.

Top Ten at the Box Office This Week

1. "The Dark Knight." Yeah, no shit. The only surprise here is that the movie made a metric assload, rather than the more conservative metric buttload that industry insiders were expecting.

2. "Mamma Mia!" I still think this is an elaborate joke that's being played on me. There is no way someone could make a romantic comedy where people break out into ABBA tunes at random moments without having gleaned the idea from my nightmare journal.

3. "Hancock." Will Smith is cheered on as he unleashes wanton destruction on an unsuspecting world, possibly by releasing a new rap album.

4. "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Brendan Fraser and some kids fall down a deep dark hole. I was all for the movie until I heard there was more to the plot than that.

5. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army." Awesome-o-Meter currently holding steady at a 6 (translates to somewhere in between "bank error in my favor" and "new Terry Pratchett novel comes out in paperback").

6. "Wall*E." Pixar is really too good to be true. I fear that one day we'll find out all the money these movies made went to a fund for Nazi child molesters who have fallen on hard times (hey, I smell a sitcom!).

7. "Space Chimps." In space, no one can hear you masturbate and fling your feces at each other.

8. "Wanted." One of these days I'm going to make the perfect action movie. It will have real stunts rather than computer generated bullshit that feels lifeless and dull. It will have a plot that will engage your brain while it keeps your pulse racing. It will combine everything that was good about "Bullitt," "Predator," "The Wild Bunch," "The Road Warrior" and "Die Hard." It will be a film so awesome that Michael Bay will kill himself during the closing credits, right after his balls explode during the burning-freight-train-crashes-into-a-pirate-ship climax. I will show it once, to a select few who can appreciate how awesome it is. Then I will lock the movie in a vault and not allow anyone to ever see it ever again, in order to punish civilization for having made "Wanted" a hit.

9. "Get Smart." You can start by watching the original series.

10. "Kung-Fu Panda." I miss kung-fu movies. Nobody makes them anymore as far as I can tell, and I wouldn't watch them if they did. Basically I just have to wait and see if whatever Stephen Chow does next is any good and maybe see if that guy from "Ong-Bak" is working on anything. Oh yeah, pandas. Right.

Dickheads and Useless Growths

2008-07-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, That's Wacky

Andy Dick has been arrested for drug possession and sexual battery. Could you imagine being sexually battered by Andy Dick? The image just has some sort of weird R. Crumb surrealism feeling to it. Apparently he yanked up some 17-year-old girl's shirt and exposed her breasts to a bar on his way out the door and when he was pulled over by the cops later that evening they found pot 'n' pills on him. That this story didn't end with a severe roadside beating and tasering just goes to show that our law enforcement officials have their priorities all wrong.

Holy Mole

There is speculation that Sara Jessica Parker has had her trademark mole removed through cosmetic HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK WHY AM I EVEN WRITING ABOUT THIS AND WHY THE SHIT ARE YOU READING IT! JESUS!

Opening This Friday

The big news is the "The Dark Knight" will open this Friday, with the backlash occurring approximately 24 hours later.

Also opening is "Mamma Mia!," which takes place on a Greek island and is a musical full of ABBA songs. It's sort of like clinical depression, if clinical depression had choreography and a soundtrack.

Finally, like the not-so-bright cousin the older children are forced to take along with them whenever they do something fun, is "Space Chimps," a CGI kids film about talking monkeys. How original. It barely has a marketing campaign and the preview looks as if it's trying to avoid anything entertaining. I would pity parents that end up watching this with their kids, but really they have only themselves to blame.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-07-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

1. "Hancock." Requisite Will Smith blockbuster for the summer. I'm pretty sure that this man has sold his soul for success. Nothing else explains it. He isn't that interesting of an actor, most of his movies are piddling and yet year after year he does nothing but hits. Is it worth roasting in Hell, Mr. Smith?

2. "Wall*E." Thank you for small mercies. Pixar has yet to fuck up ("Cars" was middling, but still entertaining) and this is looking to be a classic. Too bad I can't go see it without an audience full of annoying children. I sometimes think that no one under the age of 20 should be allowed into a movie theater without passing some kind of personality test first.

3. "Wanted." This film is such a juvenile male fantasy that you would almost think it were scripted by a gaggle of 10-year-old boys high on Mountain Dew and whippets. Nerdy man becomes super-assassin because he has all the skills his father had (making it "his destiny"). He also gets to date Angelia Jolie, who is a vampire (I don't mean she plays a vampire here, I just think that in reality she drinks human blood and cannot be killed by mortal weapons). The stunts are all computer-generated, so there is no sense of danger or reality, and in the end you will realize you just paid the price of a meal to watch a movie about someone who achieved a fantasy life without the slightest bit of effort, because he was special and you aren't.

4. "Get Smart." You can start by going to see something good instead of this movie.

5. "Kung Fu Panda." You know you want to see this movie. Why lie to yourself. OBEY THE PANDA!

6. "The Incredible Hulk." Still haven't seen it. Probably will eventually. You can't argue with a movie where a large green man rips a car in half.

7. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Again with This Shit?"

8. "Kit Kittredge: Pedophile Fodder."

9. "Sex and the City." This movie has herpes.

10. "You Don't Mess with the Zohan." This movie is like Jesus pissing all over your grandmother's corpse. Think about it.

Dispatches from the World of Celebrity Cocksuckery

2008-07-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

Presidential Politics

"Actor" Stephen Baldwin has stated that he will "leave the country" if Barack Obama is elected president. Is that a promise? Did Alec put you up to this?

My Dreams Come True

Someone has finally gotten around to torturing Christopher Hitchens. The reporter, pundit and "New Atheist" nitwit had himself waterboarded for an article in Vanity Fair and came to the conclusion that, by golly, it is actually torture and not just some frat prank we've been subjecting brown people to so they'll tell us all the things we want to hear.

I respect Mr. Hitchens and his opinions. I just wish they would have taken the procedure to its logical conclusion, because while he may be a good writer, he's also a total drunken douchbag.

Workers of the World Unite Again

There have been rumblings in Hollywood of another strike, this one from the Screen Actors Guild. While experts are saying it isn't likely to go full out, what with a lack of support from the union base and the $2.5 million a day in total lost wages for the members it would cause, I'm still holding out hope. The actors going on strike would mean a complete shut-down, not just a cough and sputtering like when the writers took a leave. No new shows, no new movies. Complete collapse. $23 million-a-day loss to the California economy. It would be beautiful. I think we need a little wanton destruction like this to shake things up. I'll happily let the half-dozen or so decent actors and actresses in Hollywood go if the endless piles of hacks go with them. Did you know that Tom Cruise is a SAG member? Keanu Reeves, Adam Sandler, Ashton Kutcher? Can you imagine a couple of months of these guys not working? Don't tell me it doesn't give you that nice, warm feeling inside.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-06-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

1. "Get Smart." The cast is good and the source material is funny, but the director is like a giant black hole of funny out of which no humor escapes. Quick rundown of Peter Segal's previous films: "My Fellow Americans," "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," "Anger Management," "50 First Dates" and "The Longest Yard." We're not exactly dealing with a master satirist here. Meanwhile, writers are the same folks who brought us "Failure to Launch" (you know, that movie that sucked) so I think the pedigree of this film is a tad mixed. Kind of like an Irish Wolfhound that has managed to breed with a particularly unfunny brick.

2. "The Incredible Hulk." If you wanted John Woo to direct your movie, why not just hire John Woo? No need to grab his retarded French cousin.

3. "Kung Fu Panda." I object to this movie on principle, but in practice it looks kind of funny. We have a conundrum.

4. "The Love Guru." If you're allergic to laughter, then this is the film for you.

5. "The Happening." How is it that a man who has made only one good movie (and at least three intensely shitty movies) can continue to get funding and support for his films? Do you know what could have been done with the budget that was used to make this piece of shit? Aside from the usual humanitarian aid efforts, it could have funded a scholarship for upcoming film makers. $50,000 a piece for 1,140 different directors to fund and market their films. How many good 90 minute movies do you think could have been made for what it cost to make this poorly-executed slumberfest?

6. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of One Decent Action Sequence and a Senseless, Annoying Plot."

7. "You Don't Mess With the Zohan." If you do, he might occupy your homeland with brutal apartheid.

8. "Sex and the City." I don't think it's normal for my balls to hurt slightly every time I hear about a movie. I should really have that checked out.

9. "Iron Man." Has anyone else ever wondered what would happen to Tony Stark if he sneezed inside that suit?

10. "The Strangers." I still haven't gotten to this yet. Looks bitchen'.

Horror Re-Hash

2008-06-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'm all for taking an established series back for a do-over. It's worked before and can sometimes yield interesting results ("Batman Begins"). It's at least better than just doing the same thing with the same people for so long it becomes embarrassing to watch ("Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Fuck This Shit").

The one genre this doesn't really work is horror (in practice, at least). Similar to the way Hammer remade all of the Universal monster films for a decade or so, jazzing them up for the modern market, studios have been nabbing up the rights to established films and banking on the name recognition to give their box office an edge. The only the difference being that the Hammer films didn't suck so much.

While there have been directors making new and original horror films recently, all of the recent horror movie remakes have been shit. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Amityville Horror," "Halloween," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Prom Night" and so on for a depressingly long amount of time. It's creative bankruptcy at its mind-numbing pinnacle. Even when the original film was no great shakes, the remake somehow manages to be worse. It's as if they're competing in a kind of shitty movie track-and-field competition and the remakes just have to go that extra mile for the gold.

Horror, as a film genre, is highly subject to trends (J-horror, "Scream"-like self-referential meta-slashers, "Saw"-inspired torture porn) and all trends eventually ebb. Unfortunately, it seems we've got to suffer for a few more years of this garbage. The remakes are still earning money so the studios think they have a winning formula, rather than just a depleted market with few other options and an undiscriminating fanbase.

Here's a few of the slated remakes of classic (or at least memorable) horror films. I found most of them through the scientific method of typing titles into the Internet Movie Database and seeing what came up. Good news: No "The Exorcist" or "Re-Animator" remakes on the books (though there is talks of another sequel to the latter, which is a tad depressing). The bad news: every movie on this list.

"Hellraiser." Yep. Countless shitty sequels notwithstanding, the series is going back to its roots. Fine, whatever. Slated for January 9, 2009 but there is still no director listed so we may be spared.

"My Bloody Valentine 3-D." The original was goofy slasher fun, but no one does that well anymore, so prepare to be depressed. The 3-D in the title doesn't help matters and the director's biggest film to date was "Dracula 2000." Remember that? Of course you don't. You also don't remember the two direct-to-video sequels he also helmed. Or the sequel to "White Noise" that not even Michael Keaton deemed worthy of being involved with. Yikes. Set for January 23, 2009.

"Friday the 13th." Now we get to the big time. Took some legal finagling before the studios that owned the rights to the original films got this worked out, but now it seems to be happening. I don't know, might be cool...wait a moment, who's directing it? Who the fuck is Marcus Nispel? Billy Joel music videos? Amy Grant? Cher? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Set for February 13, 2009 (whoa, on Friday the 13th. Probably the only thought that went into this shitpile).

"Last House on the Left." This one was too obvious. The director is Greek and has only done one film before, some shit about wayward teens that no one on this side of the world ever saw. The original was shitty and got by for being revolutionary. It's an historical piece, and the cards aren't stacking up for the remake to be worth the film it's being shot on. Slated March 6, 2009.

"The Evil Dead." I ain't making this shit up. No details other than a 2009 release date and that Sam Raimi is involved, though not as a director. Might even be an adaptation the musical they made of the original films, but I doubt we'll get off that easy.

"The Crazies." Set for 2010, this is a remake of one of George Romero's non-zombie films from the 1970s. The original mostly dealt with how government and military incompetence causes a massive viral outbreak and then how their continued inability to function without bureaucratic ineptitude and departmental infighting exacerbates the problem. Think they'll keep that anti-authoritarian element of the plot in? Yeah, just like they kept the dark humor and social commentary in the "Dawn of the Dead" remake. The director is also working on a "Creature from the Black Lagoon" remake for 2009, in Hollywood's continued collective attempt to piss all over my childhood. Also word of an "The Invisible Man" remake for 2010. You fuckers.

Couple of others I found but couldn't dig up any details for: "Susperia" and "Rosemary's Baby." Both slated for 2010, though I think the former might be more wishful thinking than anything else. The original was a crazy piece of work and any mainstream remake would streamline it so much you wouldn't even need to bother giving it the same name (not saying the won't do it). "Rosemary" would be watchable if they got a classy old-school director and a cast of actual actors. I'm cynical enough to think that this won't be the case and we'll be lucky if Keanu Reeves isn't in it.

Post-Summer

2008-06-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

I see as many of the big blockbusters as I can during the summer. Not that I enjoy most of them, but it beats being outside during the hottest, most pollen-filled months of the year. Same as anyone, really. But what's the fun in writing about the movies everyone is seeing? Why not take a look at some of the things that we can watch in the other seasons still scheduled to occur this year as we take our slow, inexorable march to the grave? Here are some of the post-August highlights:

September 26:

"Choke": Yep, it's a Chuck Palahniuk adaptation, the first since "Fight Club." Stars Sam Rockwell, so it has the built in indy-cred, but it's doubtful this will reach the same level of cultural influence as "Fight Club" did. Good. I'm fucking sick of that movie and anyone who likes it.

Fuck you.

"Blindness": Another adaptation, this one from the only essential Jose Saramago novel. Everything was lined up for this to be a big ol' bucket of awesome, but it got yawned out of its Cannes premier. Hell with it.

October 17:

"Quarantine": Group of people locked in an apartment building by a CDC quarantine and their experience is recorded by a news crew trapped with them. Rushed out remake of a Spanish horror hit looking to cash in on "Cloverfield"'s success. I've never liked viral internet marketing, going all the way back to "Blair Witch," and this seems like it's on a fast train to Blandsville. But if you can make a good horror film, I fault you nothing. Just try to make the movie more interesting than the advertising campaign.

October 24:

"Changeling": Clint Eastwood's play at "Chinatown"-like LA conspiracy. Getting some early buzz, but it stars Angelia Jolie and it is impossible for anyone to relate to Angelia Jolie on a human level, which is a bit of a detriment considering that's basically the job of an actor. Might be good, but I generally don't go for such obvious Oscar-bait, which is what all of Eastwood's recent films have boiled down to.

"Passengers": Airplane crash leads to conspiracy in the Pacific Northwest. Stars the ever do-able Anne Hathaway and apparently plays up the mist-and-fir-trees creepiness of the location, but it's helmed by a television director (sure sign of flatness) and is staying at PG-13, which is like coding something as being mediocre, over-test-marketed fluff.

November 7:

"Quantum of Solace": "Casino Royale" was the sort of movie that made you glad you watched movies. Along with "Batman Begins" it showed that Hollywood can still produce pure entertainment that didn't make you feel guilty for enjoying it so much. Makes up for a lot of shitty 3D animated films about wise-cracking animals ("Madagascar 2" opens up the same day as this, by the way). With the "Batman" sequel, "The Dark Knight," looking to be so entertaining it could start its own religion, we might just luck out with two ball-flatteningly awesome sequels in one year. Unfortunately, with injuries and deaths to those involved in both sequels, it seems the two movies might be cursed. By the third films in each series, expect Christian Bale to end up choking to death on something humiliating and Daniel Craig to have his head sliced off by a helicopter propeller, sending it flying over the House of Parliament and landing with a "plonk" in the Thames.

November 21:

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." I only mention this because it means we're that much closer to this series being finished. I'm so sick of this stupid uber-jock prick who has never had to work a second for any of the many gifts he's been given.

Harry Potter is an asshole.

November 26:

"The Road": Movie studios have a really ham-fisted way of aiming for success. An adaptation of an author's work does well and suddenly anything available by him gets optioned. The book "The Road," has a scene where a baby gets roasted on a spit and eaten as food. Not exactly Thanksgiving material, but I'm not complaining so long as they make a good movie out of it. Music video director at the helm, which could go either way (the two ways being "shitty" or "not that shitty").

December 26:

"The Spirit": If the preview for this film does not get you pumped, then you do not have testicles. Frank Miller flies solo as director and is bringing the "Sin City" style to Will Eisner's classic noir comic strip hero. Miller's prose (he wrote the screenplay as well) is full of machismo and violence. This ends up being neo-fascist in any context other than the art-noir style he essentially created for himself (the uber-stupid "300" comes to mind). So this seems to be the ideal platform for him. If this ends up sucking, then I will have lost all hope in a just and merciful god.

Opening Soon and Top Ten

2008-06-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Opening Friday:

"The Incredible Hulk." Let me put this sentiment in all-caps, just to make myself as clear and irritating as possible: THE ANG LEE FILM WAS NOT A BAD MOVIE. It was an unsuccessful movie, it certainly wasn't a great movie, it could have used a little trimming (cut out Lee's sub-Freudian bullshit and this would damn well be a classic), but overall it was a solid piece of work. People complained that there wasn't enough action (too much subtext going on, which might not have been the best idea in when telling the story of a character best known for being green and smashing things, at least from a marketing standpoint). It wasn't the kind of movie you build a franchise out of and franchises are all Marvel is interested in, so now we're being treated to this odious filth. It's going to suck, we all know its going to suck, and because it's still going to do 10 times the business of the first film we'll be treated to at least two, maybe three sequels in the same style. The first one was a good film made at the wrong time with bad marketing. This film will be a bad film made at the right time with, well, bad marketing (the previews all make it look like shit).

"The Happening." M. Night Shyamalan should not be allowed to write his own scripts. That's really where he seems to fail as a director. "The Sixth Sense" was a solid movie, but it was one of those one-time brilliant ideas that creative people sometimes get (doesn't take a genius to come up with a clever idea and work backwards to build the plot). His need to top it has led to a string of poorly-plotted, increasingly lunatic movies that indulge his cinematic messiah-complex. "Unbreakable" was a non-entity, "Signs" was brilliant style wrapped around a trite plot, "The Village" was... "The Village" and "Lady in the Water" explored possibilities in the world of suck of which others had not yet dared dream. So expectations for "The Happening" are somewhat, shall we say, "tempered in the fact that most of his films are shit." He has the talent to make great movies, but he also has the ego to think he can tell interesting stories. Even Hitchcock knew his limits and had others write his stories, dude, and he also made his appearances short and subtle in his movies. Let it go.

Top Ten at the Box Office:

1. "Kung-Fu Panda." Considering that the film is about a wise-cracking panda that knows kung-fu, do you really think that saturation marketing is really necessary? Just a quick note to the press, "this movie is about a wise-cracking panda that knows kung-fu" would have been sufficient to get the point across. If the marketing for your movie makes "Bee Movie" look dignified, then you know you've overdone it.

2. "You Don't Mess with the Zohan." This movie might have been good if it had stared Sacha Baron Cohen or Stephen Chow, or anyone with real comedic talent. Even a better director would have added a little more polish to this turd. Instead we get another in a long string of goofy, pointless Adam Sandler comedies that involve a silly voice and a plot pulled from a hat. Complacent, meaningless time-fillers with all the creativity of nailing two pieces of wood together.

3. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Whatever." If this had been made ten years ago and with a script that attempted to make some sense, it might have been a solid film. Instead it looks just like the kind of movie that has gone through the bowels of pre-production hell and come out through the studio-system anus into the toilet bowels that are our multiplex theaters. It has a too many scripts fighting for dominance and too many action sequences that don't have any real meaning or influence. Fun enough, but overall an unmemorable addition to a series that is mostly unmemorable.

4. "Sex and the City." This is sci-fi geekery for women. Its absurd, poorly plotted and doesn't make any sense unless you have some obscure, esoteric knowledge. It's also sexist and focused solely on the lives of elite white people. Just like any number of countless science fiction franchises. Guys, if you ever hear a woman complain about "Star Trek," just point to this.

5. "The Strangers." The preview for this film is the best horror movie released this year. I'll probably need to do some personal confirmation on whether or not this is actually worthwhile, as film critics as a group seem to really suck at reviewing horror movies.

6. "Iron Man." Again with this.

7. "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." If you're going to adapt the works of a Christian apologist, at least pick something by someone interesting. May I recommend G.K. Chesterton?

8. "What Happens in Vegas..." Ashton Kutcher is going around touting the merits of the current fad celebrity religion of the week, Kabbalism, thus cementing his dipshit status. Madonna and Britany Spears have also gone along with this one at some point or other, so I guess its a religion that caters to the shallow and vapid. Much like this film.

9. "Baby Mama." Idiotic, heartless, makes-me-weep-for-the-future-of-my-generation romantic comedy trifecta in play.

10. "Made of Honor." Trifecta complete.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-05-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

1. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Stuff blows up, fisticuffs are exchanged, none of it makes any sense and it didn't really need to be made. This is the second film in as many summers that has tried to play Shia LaBeouf as an action star, which is about as convincing as Keanu Reeves playing a professor of astrophysics. The joke there being that Keanu Reeves talks like someone recovering from head injury and Shia LaBeouf has about as much testosterone as a Girl Scout bake sale.

2. "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." I suppose the moral lesson of these films is that when life is difficult and things are looking their worst, it's best to escape into a magical world of fantasy where you are revered and respected for no reason other than that an arbitrary prophecy said you were special. I can see why it works so well as a religious parable.

3. "Iron Man." "Do not worry, America. Your corporate masters love you and are capable of learning moral lessons from their errors. They will protect and serve you. Go back to sleep, America. You have nothing to worry about."

4. "What Happens in Vegas..." This is the kind of movie that makes God cry.

5. "Speed Racer." Why pay for a ticket when I can just drive my car around really fast while looking right into a strobe light?

6. "Baby Mama." Whenever I see a plot summary that describes one of the main characters as "career-driven," I know I'm in for some goofy hijinks involving the differences between a stuffy office drone and a free-spirited rebel. You know, the kinds of conflicts that would occur if everyone was boiled down to the most basic of demographically confined stereotypes. Where someone who has a good job they care about learns to enjoy life from someone who, in reality, probably doesn't have health insurance.

7. "Made of Honor." It's not a movie, it's a bad dream I had after a night spent mixing Nyquil with my Heinekins.

8. "Forgetting Sara Marshall." When was the last time anyone saw a comedy that had a plot? Or have I just been remembering things that never happened again?

9. "Harold & Kumar Escape From Stupid Fucking White People While Smoking Weed. Weed Weed Weed." If these two aren't careful, they'll end up being the next Cheech & Chong. Which gives them maybe a decade of viable career status and about a half dozen shitty movies to make.

10. "The Visitor." A nuanced drama about love, life and friendship. What the fuck is this doing here?

So What Are You Going To Do This Weekend?

2008-05-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the films opening tomorrow:

1. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Technically it already opened, but fuck you Hollywood, I ain't making another fucking list. The early reviews have ranged from "blah" to "decent," which is about what everyone expected, if they were to search their souls and be honest with themselves. There was no way this would match the original unless they decided to do some sort of series revamp with a new director and cast, which won't happen for another decade or so and might actually be something to look forward to. Until then we get a useless add-on to a series with one good entry and two decent-in-a-I-would-watch-them-on-cable-but-wouldn't-pay-to-see-them sequels. I'll probably see it, as the pickings for stupid entertainment seem surprisingly slim this summer.

2. "War, Inc." Just what the world needed: Two hours of ham-fisted political satire from liberals with million dollar bankrolls and no interesting opinions. Unless you are supporting anarchist revolt, your weak-kneed left-wing fun-poking ain't of any interest to me. Basically what I'm trying to say is, fuck you John Cusack. Remember back when a political satire could end with the human race exterminating itself? Now we get Dan Aykroyd doing a lame Dick Cheney impression.

3. "Postal." I'll give it to Uwe Boll. Dude found himself a niche and rooted himself in it like a bad scabies infection. I can't even really get up the gumption to hate him anymore. He's just a fact of life, like diarrhea, or syphilis. You can't hate the virus for making you sick, it's just what it does. Doesn't mean you have to like being sick though.

Lost Loves, Gun Control and the Sweet Sound of Failure

2008-05-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Zero to Shit in One Weekend
"Speed Racer," which cost $300 million to produce and market, pulled in barely $20 million in the domestic box office this weekend. Almost makes you feel good to be an American for once, watching as we come together to say "no" to an unmitigated piece of crappy film making. Though just a quick note for Warner Bros.: The next time you feel the need to waste $300 million dollars with no prospect of earning a return on your investment, why not just give to poor people so they can buy food?

Celebrities Always Marry Each Other
Kate Hudson has denied rumors that she is engaged to Owen Wilson, because as we all know not even Jesus is capable of loving Owen Wilson.

How the Mighty Have Fallen
Dennis Farina was arrested recently for carrying a concealed handgun in the Los Angeles International Airport. I like to think that anyone who has recently spent a significant amount of time around Ashton Kutcher will start carrying a weapon capable of scattering another human being's head all over a wall, but I doubt the prosecutors will see it that way.

Top Ten at the Box Office:
1. "Iron Man." Why do women seem to love this movie? Nothing against women or the movie, but I'm just curious as to why every woman I have spoken to about it thinks it's great, despite being a loud, dumb action movie.

2. "What Happens in Vegas..." This movie is God giving you the middle finger.

3. "Speed Racer." A heaping serving of shitiness in a giant bowl of fucking stupid. As mentioned above, despite its place on this list it's actually bombing on a spectacular level.

4. "Made of Honor." A dime-store Hugh Grant in a rom-com plot that charts new territory in the land of retarded. I can see why it's doing so well.

5. "Baby Mama." A neo-"Odd Couple" story about a career-driven woman and some goofy nitwit she hires to be surrogate mother to her baby. Hijinks will no doubt ensue. Stars Tina Fey, the SNL alum voted "most humpable" by a majority of my male friends.

6. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." I hear that there might be jokes about penises in this one.

7. "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay." It's like they took my college dorm-mates and made a goofy stoner comedy about them. Illegal drug use and high crimes against humanity have never been so funny.

8. "The Forbidden Kingdom." Do you remember when martial arts movies had martial arts in them? Do you remember when you could hear that a movie had Jackie Chan or Jet Li in it and think that it might be entertaining in some way?

9. "Nim's Island." Top scientists have concluded that I do not give a shit about this movie.

10. "Prom Night." So where are the horror movies for grown-ups? Any of those coming out any time soon?

Sizzlin' Summer Sinema

2008-05-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

What with a film about a heroic international arms dealer protecting the world topping off the box office, it seems the summer movie season is now officially upon us. Let's take a look at a few of the upcoming offerings:

May 30: "Sex in the City: The Fucking Movie" opens up, bringing the tale of four women who have more sex in a week than Jenna Jameson has had in a lifetime to the big screen. Change the gender and you have "The Scott Baio Story," so I don't really get the appeal.

June 6: "Kung Fu Panda" brings the trend of CGI talking animals to dizzying new heights of absurdity, with a marketing campaign that does to media what the Japanese did to Nanking. Also opening is a new Adam Sandler comedy about a Mossad agent who follows his dreams of becoming a hairdresser, but eventually returns to his true calling, e.g. murdering Arab people.

June 13th: The latest from M. Night Shyamalan, "The Happening," opens up. The twist in this one is that Shyamalan has directed one good movie and a has shown himself to be a creatively bankrupt hack in every other project. Also opening is "The Incredible Hulk," the "sequel" to the underrated box-office bomb, "Hulk." Apparently to make sure the film will be a success, the studio has set everything up to make sure it can never possibly be good in any way whatsoever.

June 20: "Get Smart" brings a mostly forgotten television comedy to the big screen for no real reason other than it hasn't been done yet. Also opening is the "The Love Guru," a new Mike Meyers comedy that from its description sounds terrible and from the previews looks to be a crime against humanity.

June 27: "Wall*E," the latest from Pixar, promises to revolutionize modern CGI filmmaking by bringing a new and exciting concept to the screen: No celebrity voice talent. Also opening is "Wanted," some stupid bullshit about a kid who follows in his dad's footsteps and becomes an assassin, because apparently learned talents are hereditary.

July 4: "Hancock," which promises to ignite the summer by bringing the idea of a "super hero" to the big screen.

July 11: "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," which promises to ignite the summer by bringing the idea of a "super hero" to the big screen. Also opening is "Meet Dave," which is about how Eddie Murphy is controlled by a crew of small aliens living in his head. A terse, thrilling documentary.

July 18: Batman returns in "The Dark Knight," which objective observes are referring to as "the greatest thing in the history of anything." Also opening is "Mamma Mia!," which stars Meryl Streep in a non-cancer victim role as a woman who lives on an island where people suddenly burst into ABBA songs, possibly due to an outbreak of mad cow disease.

July 25: "Shitty Will Ferrell Comedy, Part 8" opens, along with a belated, pointless and idiotic new "X-Files" movie. Just go see the new Batman movie again.

August 1: "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" goes on to prove that you can't kill a moneymaking franchise no matter how mind-numbingly shitty it gets. Also opening is "Swing Vote," which stars Kevin Costner as a man whose vote will decide a presidential election. The story takes place in a fantasy world where Kevin Costner actually matters. Also also opening is "The Midnight Meat Train." I don't know what this film is about, but after reading the title I think I can just picture the whole movie in my head, so no need to bother seeing it.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-04-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

1. "The Forbidden Kingdom." "Hey, I know what would make this martial arts-fantasy film better! Let's shove an awkward white teenager in there! Who wants to see a whole movie full of Asians anyway?"

2. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." I haven't seen it. I probably won't, despite the stream of accolades. The plot is the height of rom-com inanity and I think Judd Apatow has passed the point of being decent and fallen off the deep end of overrated. That he's only producing rather than writing or directing means the film is banking on his name rather than his talent.

3. "Prom Night." Did we all read about the same film? Because the one I read about and decided to avoid as if it were a HIV-infected pit bull looked like a total piece-of-shit movie no one with an active frontal lobe could ever possibly enjoy.

4. "88 Minutes." Al Pacino continues to cash out the bales of artistic goodwill he has earned by starring in something that feels like fatal accident at the cliche foundry.

5. "Nim's Island." Enjoy that sunny fantasy world, kiddos. Dark days are coming fast. You will look back at this film with fondness while you write self-absorbed poetry and cut yourselves just so you can watch the wound heal and feel as if something has been accomplished.

6. "21." Holy bloody hell, is this still here? Is this really the best thing everyone could think to watch?

7. "Street Kings." Years of pre-production purgatory, three directors attached and a major scripting overhaul led to this cinematic abortion in which Keanu Reeves speaks dialog that's ludicrous even by his non-existent standards. Hugh Laurie has a role, so I'll cut it a little slack. Not enough to see it, however.

8. "Horton Hears a Who The Fuck Actually Likes This Movie?"

9. "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." If you haven't heard of this, you aren't alone and are probably better off. This is that anti-science doc that has caused such a ruckus on the internet because of its claims that the theory of evolution led to the Holocaust. I suppose this is true, in much the same way as the laws of aerodynamics led to the September 11 terrorist attacks. The film is an unmitigated crock of shit (in part for its assumption that anyone wants to listen to Ben Stein talk for more than half a second at a time before punching him right in the fucking mouth), and audiences have responded with a colossal "meh." Despite the film's place on this list and the fact that it is now one of the highest grossing political documentaries of all time, it still only earned just over $3 million this weekend, about $500,000 short of its production budget. That isn't counting the many millions spent on marketing the film and the many more millions that will be spent on its legal defense (they kinda forgot to get the rights to a John Lennon song they used in the movie, and nobody is more lawsuit happy in the music industry than the lawyers connected to former Beatles. A song by the Killers and a number of the video clips shown in the film were also used without permission). Since few films do better in their second week than they did in their first, this is looking to be a turd in the water.

10. "Leatherheads." Earned less than the above movie despite only being in its third weekend and starring George Clooney.

Coming Soon

2008-04-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at some of the films opening up over the next few weeks:

April 25 brings us "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay." I think I speak for everyone in the entire world when I say: Where the fuck did this come from? I'm all for mocking the plight of the forgotten and the tortured while simultaneously making goofy digs at those in power, but why have it star the two silly bastards from a movie that didn't really need a sequel? At least it has the decency to look funny.

On May 2 we get the unbridled coolness of "Iron Man," the story of a drunken billionaire who saves the world. Also opening is "Made of Honor," in which Patrick Dempsey plays an insufferable prick who ends up with the woman of his dreams. Basically a gender-switch "27 Dresses." The director is best known for "Leonard Part 6" and "City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold." Keep that in mind when this rakes in tens of millions of dollars.

The summer movie season really kicks off with "Speed Racer" on May 9. The Wachowski Brothers will undoubtedly employ their ability to make something that looks interesting without making a bit of fucking sense. Also opening is a film starring human genital wart Ashton Kutcher, who looks like a total douchbag even in the poster.

Finally, May 16 brings us "Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Trendy fantasy action mixed with a Christian parable and with Lewis's anti-Islam portrayals watered down. I'm really looking forward to when the post-"Lord of the Rings" film cycle comes to an end and we can move on to some other grating, overblown trend.

Murder, Mayhem and Celluloid

2008-04-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

They Train You About This Before You Start Work
Lawanda Jackson, a hospital employee at the UCLA Medical Center who was caught accessing the records of over 60 celebrities, insists that she had no intention of selling off the information and was only "just being nosy." By "being nosy" she of course means "violating a federal law." At that point it actually kind of stops being "nosy" and starts being "a criminal offense that you know perfectly well will get you fired."

The Great Depression Produced Great Movies
A couple of film projects have fallen apart due to financing issues reportedly related to the current recession, include a new Oliver Stone project and a Tim Robbins-directed feature. Go, Recession, Go! Let's see if we can keep Michael Moore from making another film!

Current Top Ten at the Box Office
1. "21." Still fucking at it with this, eh? I'll once again go out on a limb here and say that no movie ever made about gambling has been better than mediocre.

2. "Nim's Island." I read the description of this and went, "Huh?" Springtime family fun about some people and some things and fuck it I'll never see it.

3. "Leatherheads." The only really positive thing I can think to say about this film is that there could be worse movies on this list.

4. "Horton Hears a Who!" I rest my case. Dr. Seuss is probably spinning so fast in his grave at this point that he could be used as an electric turbine.

5. "The Ruins." Sounded awesome, but the previews provoked nothing more than a thundering "'k" within me. Withholding judgment for the time being.

6. "Superhero Movie." I swear by all merciful mother of fuck I hate these fucking spoof movies and by extension anyone who is involved in them or willingly pays to see them. You will all rot in a vast seething hell of your own creation.

7. "Meet the Browns." Is it too much to ask of Tyler Perry that he try to make a movie that's good?

8. "Drillbit Taylor." Did I miss something here? I mean, this movie sucks, right? I have not seen any indication that it's funny, have heard nothing but poor reviews about it from friends and critics alike and yet there it sits, squatting on this list like a dead cat in my chili.

9. "Shutter." So...much...pain.

10. "10,000 B.C." Yikes. You know, I used to get depressed that movies like this always seem to become popular. I harked back to a better time when people could see quality films on a regular basis and good movies earned money from positive word-of-mouth while bad films were buried and forgotten. Then you know what I realized? There was no such time. It has always been shit. We have always supported the basest, most anti-intellectual, marketing-focused drivel imaginable and we only imagine it was ever better because film history has been written by appreciators who praise the quality works while ignoring the shit. But in truth it has always been a pretty steady diet of shit. Now I don't get depressed anymore when I see movies such as this making a fortune. I just polish my rifle, adjust my scope and wait for the hand of God to guide me.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-03-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

1. "Horton Hears a Who Gives a Shit!" Jesus Fucking Christ on an Fucking Pogo Stick, is this really the best we can do, America? Show some fucking self-respect for once.

2. "Meet the Browns." Tyler Perry indulges in his transvestitism again and pulls out another winner. Perry seems to have found the key to success in Hollywood: Find a formula that makes money and then plow it into the god damned Earth. I wonder why more people haven't tried this scheme? Ah, that's right. They have. And that's why as a culture we are being buried in a titanic mound of shit spewing forth from every available medium.

3. "Shutter." Creepy dead people in photos. Stars a "Grey's Anatomy" reject and an actress from a Michael Bay movie. Why not just spend the $8 bucks on some nails and a hammer with which to pound on your own or someone else's genitalia? Either way, it's much more entertaining, and you will have saved an hour and a half.

4. "Drillbit Taylor." Owen Wilson plays a con artist who exploits some socially inept teenagers for his own personal gain and finds love along the way. You know, I really do want to like movies. I always hope that each movie that comes out will be worthwhile and entertaining. And then movies such as "Drillbit Taylor" come out and a part of me dies inside like a cold, shivering child at the hands of a homicidal pedophile.

5. "10,000 B.C." Roland Emmerich deserves to have his cock rubbed with a nail file until there is nothing left of it. He is a blight on our world, creating distracting images that keep us from developing as a culture and attaining a state of true fulfillment. If you see any of his movies willingly, your soul will be poisoned forever and we won't let you on the spaceship when the rest of us go to explore the Universe.

6. "Never Back Down." Cage fighting and high school drama combined with "Karate Kid" to make some sort of uber-retardo plot about something that no one with an IQ higher than Econoline Van full of tweekers will ever care about.

7. "College Road Trip." I have this frightening vision sometimes that movies such as this are not actually written by anyone or approved by anyone. They just sort of enter development and are produced without anyone really knowing why, the product of a vast unseen evil that hides with the bureaucracy of major movie studios.

8. "The Bank Job." I'm probably going to go see this, if for no other reason than that it is the only movie on this list that does not look like a complete and utter piece of shit.

9. "Vantage Point." Stuff happens. It's confusing for awhile and then it starts to make a little bit of sense and then it ends. There, summed up the movie for you and I haven't even seen it.

10. "Under the Same Moon." Illegal immigrants are people too. They have obvious, saccharine family dramas made about them just like the rest of us.

Random News

2008-03-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

Disposable Income Scattered to the Wind
People came out in droves this weekend to see Hollywood piss all over a beloved childhood classic and subsequently "Horton Hears a Who!" had the best opening weekend of a film so far this year. Expanding a book that couldn't have more than 500 words into a feature length film, "Horton" tells the tale of an elephant that can hear a microscopic civilization and attempts to protect it, thus imparting the valuable moral lesson that we should all listen to the voices in our heads and do what they say, even if other people tell us we're crazy.

Religious Persecution and Fart Jokes
Hindus are raising a ruckus over the new Mike Meyers comedy "The Love Guru," apparently for its stereotypical and insulting depiction of Hindu holy men. Not that you need a reason to protest the release of a new Mike Meyers film, as the man is about as funny as watching puppies get thrown into a stump grinder...over and over again...for a solid hour and a half...it...just...won't...stop.

Paul Retains Custody of Ringo
Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills has been awarded nearly $50 million in their divorce settlement, an amount I believe Sir Paul was able to dig out from under his sofa cushions. The divorce will certainly inspire McCartney to write another album, to be played exclusively at Starbucks and to be purchased solely by his fellow pod people.

Rich People Breeding
Halle Berry recently gave birth to a baby girl. You know what this means, don't you? Someone has had sex with Halle Berry and it's not me. I guess I'll just have to hold out for Natalie Portman (I forgive you for the "Star Wars" prequels, sweetness, just promise you won't do it again).

Coming Soon!

2008-03-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at some of the upcoming releases audiences will be sure to just orgasm in their pants about:

March 21: "Drillbit Taylor." I'm guessing, based on the previews, that the release of this film was the reason for Owen Wilson's emo moment a couple months back. A couple of high school freshmen get picked on too much and hire a blah dee blah who gives a fuck? What has been released from the film so far couldn't be less funny if it involved the anal rape of starving Ugandan orphans, so unless they're holding back on us (the filmmakers, I mean, not the orphans) this will probably be a mild distraction for the inebriated and not much else.

March 28: "21." "Based on actual events" in much the same way your bowel movement this morning was based on the tandoori platter you ate last night. Young math wizards count cards and take casinos for millions. Notice how they shove all of the Asians into the background and sex everything up? This is supposed to a group of MIT students, right? Also, from the previews, the main character seems to need the money to pay for school, but is also shown getting phenomenal grades at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Which would mean he would be eligible for big time scholarships, right? If you can't wrap up your glaring plot loopholes in the preview, then that doesn't imbue me with a lot of confidence for your project.

April 4: "Leatherheads." George Clooney attempts old-fashioned scewball comedy with this film about football players in 1925. The main plot thrust involves attempts to discover why Renee Zellweger never opens her eyes.

April 11: "Prom Night." A remake! A PG-13 horror film! A cast of nobodies and a television director! It couldn't possibly suck! (By the way, for you horror fans out there, director Nelson McCormick is also planning on shitting over "The Stepfather").

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-03-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

1. "Semi-Pro." Will Ferrell farts out another sports comedy, full of piddling "improvisation" and 1970's kitsch. Top at the box office, despite only pulling in just over $15 million, about half its expected earnings. Great start to the week.

2. "Vantage Point." Five points-of-view are tied together depicting an attempted presidential assassination. This is the sort of film that critics will call "Rashomon" style in order to sound informed, despite the fact that just telling a story from different perspectives doesn't make it anything like "Rashomon." Not that anyone will remember this film in three month's time.

3. "The Spiderwick Chronicles." I keep forgetting this movie exists. Then I have to write this list and I remember it for a moment and then it slips away again.

4. "The Other Boleyn Girl." Whenever I hear that a movie is about British royalty, my heartbeat drops a bit and my lids start to slide shut. Generally someone has to slap me in the face to keep me from lapsing right into a coma. Eye-candy of the year Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman star as sisters fighting for the affection of King Henry VIII, who murdered his friends and caused his country endless misery during his rule, starting his own religion because he wanted to bang one piece of ass rather than another. How romantic.

5. "Jumper." This still exists? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

6. "Step Up 2 the Streets." I'll sum up the entire appeal of this movie: jiggle jiggle jiggle.

7. "Fool's Gold." 20 years ago this would have starred Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn. I guess Hawn's daughter will have to carry the torch with her own slab of beefcake by her side.

8. "Penelope." As soon as I hear the words "modern-day fairy tale about a princess who..." I die a little more inside. If we really wanted to make an old school fairy tale, the princess would end up raped by gnomes and someone's grandmother would be dismembered. Have you ever actually read any of the Grimm Brother's tales? The closest modern equivalent is "Tales from the Crypt."

9. "No Country for Old Men." Riding the post-Oscar rush, though I might add still earning less than all of the movies I have just mentioned.

10. "Juno." Yes, it is a good movie. No, it is not the best written film of this or any other year. I have said my piece.

Some Notes on the Oscars

2008-02-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

Pretty run-of-the-mill ceremony this year, even though it is the award's big 8-0. Jon Stewart was occasionally funny and kept out of the way, managing not to mince around and embarrass everyone and himself, as seems to be the Oscar tradition going back to the Billy Crystal days. When jokes fell flat, it usually wasn't Stewart telling them. There was also no interpretive dance, though having to listen through three songs from "Enchanted" was a bit of a trial (no Celine Dion though, and thank you Jesus for small mercies).

It helped that the movies nominated were at least good-to-great this year, and there was nothing on the odious level of "Crash" or "Gladiator" floating around, causing me to go into spittle-flinging rants.

Here are a couple of stray observations:

-Michael Moore did not win for best doc, so we can all just go back to pretending he doesn't exist.

-The fucking penguins did not win an Oscar.

-The Foreign Language award went once again to what was reportedly the worst of the candidates, carrying on the long running Oscar tradition of making sure that the only foreign films most Americans hear about are the shitty ones.

-Now that Diablo Cody has won an Oscar, maybe she'll go on to write something with multidimensional characters who don't speak in inanely quirky dialog.

-Weird how everyone who won the major acting and directing categories, even the best film, seemed to deserve it.

The March of Progress and Other News

2008-02-21T11:09:00.000-08:00

This Article Brought to You In Hi-Def
The spat over which high definition video system would dominate the market has been decided. The winner: The one with the silly name that doesn't really describe what it is. With Blu-Ray the new gold standard in video image technology, consumers can now go out and replace their film collections, confident that they won't have to just replace them again for at least another year or two.

Taxman, Mr. Thief
Nicolas "Miscast" Cage has been accused of tax fraud, allegedly using his production company to write off $3.3 million in personal expenses. The total taxes Cage is disputing are $814,000 while his production company is refusing to pay an additional $988,000. Sounds like a lot, eh? Those dastardly tax officials, always trying to screw the struggling multi-millionaire, someone who gets more money for doing maybe three or four months of actual work in a year than anyone reading this site will likely see in their entire life. Damn shame, really.

Barely Legal
Lindsay Lohan has set the fists of millions of internet browsing men a blazing with her recent nude photo session. In the finest work of her career, the strung out, freckled piece of jailbait stripped down for a shoot identical to one done by Marilyn Monroe. I'm sure we can all look forward to Ms. Lohan copying Monroe's final pose: overdosing on barbiturates and collapsing naked on the floor.

Top at the Box Office This Week
1. "Jumper," or "We Have This Special Effect and By God We're Going to Use It." Hayden Christensen plays some handsome asshole who gains amazing abilities without making any effort and instead of using them to better the world decides to fulfill all of his juvenile power fantasies. We're supposed to cheer for him.

2. "The Spiderwick Chronicles." And the post "Lord of the Rings"/"Harry Potter" fantasy franchise clusterfuck continues. 50/50 chance this is a giant marketing ploy rather than a film, but I have no interest in seeing it in any case, so I'll let it slide.

3. "Step Up 2 the Streets." Did somebody forget at some point that dance movies don't have to take place in some Hollywood dreamland version of "the ghetto" and that they can have actual plots happening in the background? Or am I just feeling nostalgia for a thing that never really existed?

4. "Fool's Gold." Holy fucking crap, does this look rancid. Is this why we let the writer's strike end? So we could get more of this?

5. "Definitely, Maybe." Could you be more vague?

6. "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins." Another film depicting black people in one of the only two or three ways they seem palatable to a mass audience: The close knit family unit (the others being drug dealers and break dancers). Martin Lawrence continues to try and cover his bad habits with bland family comedies.

7. "Juno." The joys of teenage pregnancy, minus the consequences.

8. "The Bucket List." Topping the chart on the emotion-o-meter.

9. "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Holy Fucking God I Weep For Our Culture."

10. "27 Dresses." You know, movies don't have to be mediocre. They can actually be exciting and interesting and thought-provoking and original and fun. However, by settling for movies like this rather than something new and thrilling, we work to lower the standards of our culture and dumb ourselves down until we can no longer recognize quality cinema. This film is a symptom of our national disease.

Have a pleasant day.

Lawyers, Guns and Money

2008-02-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

Just Thinking

I wonder what Thora Birch is up to these days. I always thought she was pretty.

Strike Down

The writer's strike is officially over. They didn't win much and nobody really noticed they were gone (nobody with a life outside of television, that is), but boy was it a goofy ride. We got rid of the Golden Globes for a year, but still have to endure the Oscars. A bunch of crappy shows were forgotten about and a few good ones were put on hiatus. Screenwriters can now go back to being ignored for another decade.

Scamarama

New Line Cinema is being sued by the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien and publisher HarperCollins, as it seems there was a minor little accounting error in that New Line forgot to pay up something in the area of $150 million dollars. Oops. In similar news, Mel Gibson is being sued by the screenwriter of "The Passion of the Christ" because Mel had told him there wasn't a lot of money available for the script, despite the fact that the film had a $30 million budget and made more than half a billion. So basically, Gibson stiffed the Word of God on the bill. Who would have thought batshit crazy people could be so manipulative?

Celebrity Causealicious

Steven Spielberg has stepped down as the artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. His reason? China is not doing enough to help end the genocide in Darfur. Amazing how some people will have such a one track mind. THAT IS THE REASON YOU CHOOSE NOT TO WORK WITH CHINA!? FOR A HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE THEY AREN'T EVEN PERPETRATING? Mia Farrow put the icing on the cake by sending a letter to the president of China asking him to sever ties with Sudan (which is where China gets two thirds of its oil supply. Even if China was able or willing to make that sacrifice to end the genocide, I don't think Sudan would have trouble finding another buyer). So instead of stepping down and complaining about the vast multitude of human rights violations that the Chinese government does ON ITS OWN IN ITS OWN COUNTRY, these nitwits have somehow managed to tie everything to their trendy pet cause. I guess it doesn't count as a crime against humanity unless Brad Pitt stands in front of it.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-02-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

1. "Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." Pardon me, but what the holy living fuck? The Disney Channel and its tween money making machines invade the cinemas. Debby Gibson only wishes she could have attained this level of corporate synergy.

2. "The Eye." Another Asian horror remake, this time of something that's actually good. The movie itself and everyone involved can go rot for all I care, so long as this gets somebody to put the original back in print on DVD.

3. "27 Dresses." This is the exact kind of romantic comedy that makes most men want to castrate themselves with a dull, rusty knife. Phenomenally attractive woman can't find a man who appreciates her? Watches the man she loves get married to her sister and has to help, but has a darkly handsome man in the background who seems to understand her? Will it all work out in the end, or will everyone die in a subway station during a terrorist nerve gas attack? I would prefer to let it remain a mystery.

4. "Meet the Spartans." Another in an increasingly dour selection of pop culture parody films that seem to work mostly as a scam. Throw enough obvious pop culture references into a plot that you make up as you go along, keep the production values low and add a few C-list celebs and you are bound to get enough idiots to spend their disposable income on it to make a profit.

5. "Rambo." Did you see that scene where he obliterates that one guy with that gigantic machine gun at point blank range? That was awesome. Rambo continues in his life-long goal of exterminating the entire population of Southeast Asia while grunting unintelligibly.

6. "Juno." So what do you think next year's "Little Miss Sunshine," indie comedy no-hope Oscar nominee will be? I think it will have something to do with a precocious teenage girl who is interested in crossword puzzle competitions, whose step-father is Icelandic and whose mother collects porcelain ballerina figurines. Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! will work on the soundtrack. It will be directed by a unicorn.

7. "The Bucket List." Cancer is a big sell. Cancer and road movies about old people.

8. "Untraceable." I think it's hilarious how Hollywood seems to think that computers can do anything. Shot in Portland, OR, so I'll give it some props for good taste. Though it should have starred either Sandra Bullock or Ashley Judd.

9. "Cloverfield." I don't generally go for projects that cause fanboys to cream in their pants months before the release. Experience has taught me that such buzz is generally a sign of eventual disappointment. However, watching NYC get laid to waste always gives me a special kind of thrill.

10. "There Will Be Blood." Yes. Yes there will.

Dead Celebrities and Other Meaningless Crap

2008-01-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

Hunky Guy Dies
Actor Heath Ledger died in his hotel room yesterday. The autopsy was inconclusive, but I'm going to go ahead and call it and say it was an "accidental" sleeping pill overdose. I hate it when really popular people die. Not because I like them, mind you, but because it means everyone will now spend the next couple of months talking about how wonderful the deceased person was. That he was a moderately attractive man (in a what we might call a "gay cowboy" kind of way) means that he will be lauded as a tortured genius, which is an unmitigated load of crap, but to say otherwise somehow makes you insensitive. Basically what I'm trying to say is that, all apologies to his friends and relations, I feel about the same way about Ledger's death as I do about a new Uwe Boll movie: I wish it did not have to happen, but only because hearing about it causes me a mild irritation.

This Study Has Been Rated "Bullshit"
The MPAA recently announced that its study about how movie piracy on college campuses causes billions in lost profits was slightly flawed, in the sense of being completely wrong. The study was a way to pressure college campuses that provide high speed internet access to students into cracking down on illegal downloads. I guess along the way someone must have realized that it is in fact impossible to estimate "losses in profit from digital piracy" with anything resembling accuracy and that any numbers associated to such a study are generally pulled out of someone's ass.

Oscar Fever! (Catch It!)
The nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards were just announced (well, recently announced, in any case). Though the writer's strike could potentially cut the ceremony's legs out from under it (please oh please oh please), that doesn't mean it doesn't present a fine gambling opportunity.

Here are the nominees for the big ones:

Best Picture:

"Atonement": Based on a piece of actual literature, also with British accents. A shoe in.
"Juno": Taking over "Little Miss Sunshine"'s slot for quirky indie comedy that doesn't have Eskimo's chance in Hell of ever winning this award. Funny movie, but not the best picture of this or any other year.
"Michael Clayton": George Clooney acting serious and lawyerly.
"No Country for Old Men": Violent death and bad haircuts. Has my vote.
"There Will Be Blood": Might not win for best picture, but will win my personal award of "Ass-kickingest Title of the Year."

Best Actor:

George Clooney, for "Michael Clayton": It was bound to happen one of these days.
Daniel Day-Lewis, for "There Will Be Blood:" He ought to get an award for just consenting to make a movie.
Johnny Depp, for "Sweeney Todd": You have got to be kidding me. If looking serious and singing while caked in blood and dressed all goth is all it takes to get an Oscar nom, why not just give the award to the lead singer of Skinny Puppy?
Viggo Mortensen, for "Eastern Promise": The man looks like he hasn't taken a crap since high school. He's a shoe in.

Best Actress:

Cate Blanchett, for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age": Haven't we gone through this?
Julie Christie, for "Away from Her": Never heard of it. Never will again.
Marion Cotillard, for "La Mome": Sure. Okay.
Laura Linney, for "The Savages": I can see that.
Ellen Page, for "Juno": She played a girl who put out for a guy like Michael Cera in high school. She has my vote.

Other Highlights: A former stripper was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay award. Michael Moore's "Sicko" was nominated for Best Documentary, which means we have to pretend to care about what Michael Moore has to say about something for a few more minutes. Also, another fucking movie about fucking penguins was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. Do you know that penguins molest children and eat kitten fetuses? And they would gladly kill an Alzheimer's suffer without a second thought, if they had the chance? I fucking hate movies about penguins. Unless it is a movie about penguins getting eaten by killer whales. I love killer whales. Especially when they are in the wild, where they are free to devour penguins at will, the way God intended.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2008-01-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

1. "The Bucket List." Cancer? It's hilarious! Rob Reiner panders for an Oscar the only way he knows how: Calculated heart string tugs and old warhorse actors riding the cliche coaster.

2. "First Sunday." Stars the same people but is not related to the "Friday" series (thank you lord for small mercies), though looks to be about as big of a comedic train wreck. Watching Katt Williams mince around as a choir director looks to be a good substitute for an ipecac, so bulimics take note.

3. "Juno." The indie comedy quirkfest of the year. "Arrested Development" cast members, a script written by a stripper, highly precocious teenagers and a soundtrack that is just too indie-rock precious for words.

4. "National Treasure: Book of How Does Nicolas Cage Get By With That Idiot Smirk of His? He Is The Worst Fucking Action Star I Can Imagine Short of Jimmy Fallon"

5. "Alvin and the Chipmunks." This is real? I thought it was a sick, elaborate joke that everyone was playing on me. Amazing how one novelty song could lead to 50 years of unmitigated shit.

6. "I Am Legend." Every celebrity's self-perception come to life: They are the only real human being and everyone else is just a diseased parasite.

7. "One Missed Call." The J-horror crap factory strikes again. Do you think it involves a ghost? And telecommunication technology?

8. "P.S. I Love You." Movies: Now with emotions.

9. "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Except Sell Christian Morality to an Undifferentiating, Unreflective Mass Audience of Faith Bound Jesus Spawns."

10. "Atonement." By the way, it's adapted from something.

Assholes and Elbows

2008-01-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

On the Hour Britney Update
Britney Spears' car was towed and impounded recently. Nude photos of her were also recently sold to an Australian tabloid for a reported $57,000. She's also an oversexed piece of trailer trash with the cognitive ability of a butternut squash and will probably be the first against the wall if the revolution comes, assuming her naked corpse isn't found in a Burger King dumpster within the next year or so.

You Can't Say 'Prostitute' Without 'Protest'
The writer's strike continues... to not have any noticeable influence on my life outside of the joy of watching the entertainment industry swallow itself whole. Warner Bros. is expected to begin firings starting on Friday and the Golden Globes have been cut down to an hour long press conference and it looks like something similar might happen to the Oscars. And that, well, that would just be a darn shame.

HA HA HA HA HA HA! FUCK YOU, HOLLYWOOD! FUCK YOU ALL TO HELL!

I tried. Somehow I've been having trouble taking this all too seriously. All of these assholes have all had it too easy for too long. I'm sure they will have it easy again shortly and nothing substantial will change, but until then you can all fucking rot, the writers who want to be paid better for their shitty, formulaic work ("According the Jim" is off the air indefinitely? Boo fuckin' hoo) and the producers who green light any piece of shit they think will get a few extra chuckles and a couple extra million from the lobotomized mall rat demographic.

News Flash!
Amy Winehouse did some shit to her hair. She's also a malnourished junkie who is wasting her talent on childish excess and will soon be dead and hailed as a genius despite her overall insignificance.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2007-12-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

1. "Enchanted." How many simpering, punalicious headlines do you think will be published above the reviews for this one? If you guessed "This is why I don't read newspapers anymore," than you are correct.

2. "Beowulf." Robert Zemeckis takes his freakish, hideous looking motion-capture animation process to pointless-albeit-goofy new heights by adapting the Old English classic to the big screen in such a way as to make it look like the cinematic sequence in a video game (you know, the part you skip over to get to the fun stuff). By the way, what is it about Neil Gaiman that causes almost everything he's written for the big screen to hit that key pitch of mediocrity that makes you forget it almost as soon as it is out of your line of sight?

3. "This Christmas." By the way, did you know that black people also celebrate Christmas? And that they can make saccharine, painfully obvious family dramas about it as well? Director Preston A. Whitmore II decides to rebound from making one of the worst movies of all time by becoming a Tyler Perry alternative.

4. "Hitman," which will go down in history as one of mankind's greatest crimes. Was there some lack of films about bald men with guns that I was not informed about? Because I was pretty sure we were all good and done with those.

5. "Awake." Hayden Christensen in the role he was born to play: Someone who is conscious yet anesthetized.

6. "Fred Claus." Concept: Santa Claus's personal life. Hollywood Strategy: Pound this concept so far into the fucking ground that you have to get a stepladder just to see the lower reaches of Hell.

7. "August Rush." Who goes to see movies like this? Is it like some sort of outpatient thing? Do they spend a lot of time crying?

8. "The Mist." The inexhaustible Stephen King back-catalog farts up another winner. It must be a little weird for Frank Darabont to be known as "the most consistent cinematic interpreter of the works of Stephen King." I guess it's better than being known as "that no-talent douche that directed 'The Majestic'."

9. "Bee Movie." Jerry Seinfield makes his triumphant return from being an retired obscenely overpaid television actor by staring in a computer animated film that exists as a pure force of marketing will. Will everyone please try to remember that Jerry Seinfield is not what made "Seinfield" a good show and that he has sucked in almost every other thing he has done before or since. As an actor he is incapable of playing anyone other than himself and as an comedian his shtick was old long before he became popular. Just something to remember the next time around, before we all go giving him the benefit of the doubt again.

10. "No Country for Old Men." A fine return to form for the Coen brothers, widely regarded as one of the best films of the year and overall a pretty bitchin' sounding piece of work. And currently earning less than every other movie on this list.

Workers of the World Unite

2007-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

The Hollywood writer's strike continues. Sitcoms are closing production for lack of scripts, talk shows are dying on the vine with no material, "Saturday Night Live" is dead in the water and there is still no resolution in site. It...it...it's like heaven. Of course the writer's are right to be on the picket line, since the producers they have been negotiating with seem to have been competing in the Douchbag Olympics for the entire debacle, trying to see who can be the top asshole of the bunch. Here's the entire issue summed up for you:

Writers: "We believe we should be paid an additional 1/3 of a penny in residuals."

Producers: "I have a better idea: Why don't we just stop paying you any residuals? Now pardon me while I wipe my ass with this enormous pile of money."

In other strike related news: Ellen Degeneres is being lambasted by the striking writers for crossing the picket line to film her show. Ellen's reason for crossing the picket was that members of her audience had paid to be at the show and some had traveled across the country to be there (I guess that if you traveled across the country to see a talk show run by Ellen DeGeneres, you've probably faced enough disappointment in your life). In honor of the writers, DeGeneres chose not to do a monologue to open her show. Unfortunately, she failed to realize that appearing on television at all shows disrespect to the striking writers, not to mention, in her case, the rest of humanity.

In even more strike news, "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria was taunted by the striking writers while trying to serve pizza to them on her way into work.Work of course being on the other side of the picket line. Apparently someone forgot to look up the word "solidarity" before deciding on this course of action, though the writers ought to have realized that it's an actor's second nature to pay lip service to popular causes without making any real personal sacrifice. Of course, Longoria has since decided to join the writers on the picket line. An easy choice to make, now that "Housewives" has shut down production and picketing will no longer be an inconvenience to her. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when wealthy, famous people become totally oblivious.

Famous People Are Better People

2007-10-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Sorrow and the Pity
Britney Spears recently lost custody of her children to ex-husband Kevin Federline. You realize what this means, don't you? It means your life is utterly valueless to society. It means that if you died tomorrow, your whole existence would have gotten less coverage than the minor trials and tribulations of some stupid, talentless bimbo.

The Brood
In other news that will totally devalue all of our lives, Jennifer Lopez is pregnant. Just try to imagine that woman as a mother. Imagine what that child will be like. Did scenes from "Mommie Dearest" flash through your mind? I sometimes feel sorry for these children born to insufferable, overbearing celebrities who treat them like accessories for as long as they are small enough to be carried. Then I realize that the children will probably become just as awful, only with twice the sense of entitlement. Then I start dreaming of the Cold War, when nuclear holocaust was a distinct possibility. Mmm. Good times.

Top at the Box Office This Week
1. "The Game Plan." Do you realize that the man who directed this also directed "She's the Man" last year? And is directing a remake of "Fame"? Where is your god now?

2. "The Kingdom." A politically charged drama that deals with issues at the forefront of world consciousness. And an advertising campaign that practically screams, "Arabs are weird and Jamie Foxx is going to kill them all."

3. "Resident Evil: Shitty Sequel, Part Deux." Good news for the series in that director Paul W. S. Anderson did not helm this entry. Instead they got someone who used to direct music videos for the Human League. I would say that's a about a 10% improvement.

4. "Good Luck Chuck." What is it about Dane Cook that makes me want to mess up his smirking face with a broken whisky bottle?

5. "3:10 to Yuma." I have no problem with this movie. Weird.

6. "The Brave One." It's always strange when revenge films come back into popularity. This one is interesting since the tone set by the marketing campaign seems to be "she's a merciless killer out for revenge, and isn't that just special? Good for her!"

7. "Mr. Woodcock." Someone should lose a testicle for greenlighting this film.

8. "Eastern Promise." I have no problem with this movie. Double weird.

9. "Sydney White." A pretty girl exploits a bunch of unattractive nitwits in order to further her social status. At least "Revenge of the Nerds" made the losers the focus of attention. Are we not allowed to display unattractiveness in a Hollywood film anymore without having some hefty-chested cheerleader standing in front of it?

10. "Across the Universe." You know, there's a reason that it's so difficult to license the music of the Beatles for a film. It's because people fuck it up so bad, so often. Have you seen the film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"? If you have, you will understand why the simple existence of "Across the Universe" gives me a headache.

TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-09-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Oh joy and rapture, it's fall again, the time of year when the world dies in small, painful increments. What a perfect time for the start of the new television season and its vast cornocopia of crap. Here's a look at some of the new shows hitting us this year.

"Kid Nation"

Now here is a promising scenario: 40 kids in the a desert community with plenty of supplies and constant supervision build a "society" with pre-selected leaders and regulated social classes while also engaging in meaningless activities that ostensibly prove their worth as human beings but in fact are empty rituals. Can't imagine where they got the idea for this.

"Back to You"

Kelsey Grammer and that woman from "Everybody Loves Raymond" star in a sitcom about Pittsburg TV newscasters. Did you lapse into a slight coma while reading that? This is the sort of show that will probably last five to ten seasons without a single original thought, surviving simply because the network forgot to cancel it.

"K-Ville"

A cop show with a twist: It takes place in New Orleans. We will mention this fact over and over, because it is important. We won't make a program that depicts the city with any kind of reality, and we won't make anything better than the most mediocre, clichéd cop show, but just so you know: Katrina Katrina Katrina.

"Chuck" & "The Big Bang Theory"

There is nothing more awkward than watching television shows that painfully try to imitate coolness. Watching them imitate intelligence will probably end up being considered a war crime.

"Cavemen"

It's the cavemen from those Gieco commercials, in their own television show. This idea is so awful that it has actually gone past being a meta-show about awful television and come back around to just being an awful show.

"Moonlight"

He's a cop. And a vampire. Holy crap-in-a-hat do I not give a shit about this. Adding vampires to any concept on television automatically marks you as being completely and absolutely creatively bankrupt.

The Naked and the Dead

2007-09-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

Peach Fuzz
The internet is abuzz with the story that "High School Musical" star Vanessa Hudgens was fired by Disney over some nude photos that are making the usual semen-soaked gossip site rounds. What is our obsession with seeing wholesome people naked? The psychology is so obvious that it's practically some kind of joke. Not that anyone is complaining, as this is without a doubt the finest work Hudgens has done up to this point.

Too Bad
Owen Wilson recently tried to take his own life, though after "You, Me and Dupree" who can blame him? By the way, Owen? Vertical cuts man, down the vein. Horizontal across the wrist doesn't do the job.

Pissing on the Classics
Rob "Are My Dreads Straight?" Zombie's remake of "Halloween" is cleaning up at the box office, because audiences were interested in seeing an up-and-coming director's interpretation of a classic piece of cinema. HA HA HA HA HA! Just kidding! People are sheep. The film is in general about as popular among critics as a late term abortion in their salad, yet is raking it in anyway. I could go on a diatribe about how critics are out of touch with the movie-going public and don't know how to appreciate horror films, but we all know that's a load of horseshit. The general public will see almost anything that entertains them and wouldn't know a decent horror film if one stabbed them in the fucking eye. If anything film critics in general have never really understood that slasher movies are fun. They're as formulaic as romantic comedies, but in slasher movies the irritating little bastards on the screen get what's coming to them (being a bad actor automatically volunteers you for an axe in the face in my book).

Top at the Box Office This Week

2007-07-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

1. "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry." Most of Adam Sandler's comedies have been about as funny as the Bataan Death March, and this is no exception. It doesn't help that there is something about Kevin James's face that makes me want to shove it into a vat of hot frying grease until he stops wiggling.

2. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Holy Living Fuck Do I Not Give a Shit."

3. "Hairspray," which apparently is good despite all evidence to the contrary.

4. "Transformers." I've heard this is decent enough for a big dumb action film, but I'm having nasty visions of a "G.I. Joes" film adaptation running through my head.

5. "Ratatouille," Is this some sort of opposite land where solid, entertaining films are popular? What's going on here?

6. "Live Free or Die Hard." Ah. There we go.

7. "License to Wed." At what point in the creation of this film did this seem like a good idea? And why are people seeing it? WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO THIS COUNTRY? ARE YOU ALL SNIFFING PAINT? WHAT THE FUCK?!

8. "1408," in which John Cusack plays a man who meets Samuel L. Jackson while drudging the bottom of the Stephen King adaptation barrel.

9. "Even Almighty." This still exists? I thought everyone involved had had their genitals torn off by rabid badgers. Or did I just dream that?

10. "Knocked Up." Opposite world again.

Wizards and Rich Cocksuckers

2007-07-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

In Other "Harry Potter" News:
Go fuck yourself.

In Celebrity News:
Will Smith and Tom Cruise are hosting a party to welcome some hunky dipshit soccer player and his no-talent wife to America. Expected attendees include Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey and some other assholes. Expect much uber-rich, self-important Hollywood cocksuckery to occur.

Opening This Week:
"Hairspray," the film adaptation of the musical adaptation of a John Waters film from the 1980s. 1980s film comedy combined with musical theater? Could the level of Idontgiveashittery be any higher?

Also opening is "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," which is one of the worst titles imaginable for what is looking to be one of the most wretch-inducing gay panic comedies of the last couple of years or so (at least as far back as "Boat Trip"). Adam Sandler must have some sort of grudge again laughter, because he's been trying to kill it his entire career. This one is interesting because it co-stars Kevin James, who has apparently been typecast as someone who marries people who are thinner and slightly more attractive than himself. By the way, did you know that the man who directed this also directed "Problem Child"? Think about that for a moment. Try to conjure up in your mind images from that film. Now look me in the face and tell me whether or not you still believe in an all-merciful god.

A Look at Comic Book Adaptations

2007-07-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

A massive slew of comic book adaptations is planned for the next couple of years. Having exhausted most of the major super heroes, the studios are now digging up the mass pile of second-rate comics from both DC and Marvel. Aside from the obvious sequels (the "Batman Begins" sequel, "The Dark Knight," "The Punisher 2") there is a hot steaming load of heroism coming to the screen. Here's a look at a few selections from the pile:

The most promising of the bunch is "Iron Man," which involves an armor-plated billionaire saving the world. The special effects are looking to be semi-decent and it stars the tolerable Robert Downey Jr. The director hasn't done much other than some bland, kid-friendly comedy, but at least he isn't Tim Story. Two of the screenwriters were involved with the excellent "Children of Men," but there are two others listed as well, who collectively haven't produced shit before this. We'll let this one slide for now.

In the inevitable-but-somewhat-pointless sequel department, we have "The Incredible Hulk," which ditches Ang Lee's Greek tragedy-inspired original vision for what instead is looking to be a film about a large green man who smashes things. The original cast has been replaced (really, everyone) and the director is the guy who brought us both of the "Transporter" films, which might indicate the studio wanted to take things in a different direction, i.e. dumb it down so it won't bomb this time.

There is an ass-load of lesser-known comics coming to the screen as well, with "The Sub-Mariner," "Thor," "The Flash," "Nick Fury" and "Iron Fist" all set for release between now and 2009. But what about black people? Oh yeah, "Luke Cage," which is about a really strong guy. Being really strong is kind of a boring super-power when you think of it, like being able to fly or shooting lasers out of your eyes (Superman = Most boring superhero of all time). Yeah, it gets stuff done, but it also shows a real lack of creativity.

You can almost see the thought process going on at the major studios in regards to these films: "You know, when we put interesting directors with original visions, such as Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan in charge of these film, we got intelligent, exciting movies that ended up becoming popular franchises. Let's try to recreate that success by putting total hacks in charge of the films and giving them sub-par material! Quick, give me another line of coke before this idea train I'm riding totally derails!"

Speaking of franchise opportunities, after Brett Ratner fucked the holy living hell out of the third "X-Men" film (really, was there a character in that film they didn't totally screw up? The stoic one becomes a rash, emotional wreck; the intelligent villain comes up with the world's most retarded attack plan, the brilliant leader/mentor causes untold damage by not sparing five seconds for some exposition. And so on and so forth), I guess they decided the best way to salvage the characters was to start farming them out for prequels. Hence, "Wolverine" and "Magneto" are both planned for release in the next couple of years. "Wolverine" I can see, if you do it right (which they won't), but "Magneto"? WTF?

Here are a couple of really absurd ones: "Shazam!" (Points for being esoteric, but does anyone really think this will be good? I'm having "Thunderbirds" visions of this one), "Wonder Woman" (this belongs in the 1970s and there it should stay), "The Avengers" ("What hero should we do next?" "Ah fuck it, let's do them all"), and finally "Captain America," which in case you have forgotten was actually done once before and will look incredibly silly no matter what they do to it.

And finally, it wouldn't be a list of upcoming comic book adaptations if someone weren't planning on ruining an Alan Moore comic, in this case the seminal "Watchmen." How do I know they will screw it up, you say? Fan boys are going ape shit about it and the director is a really big fan of the comic, so why shouldn't it be good? Because fan boys go ape shit about everything and they're almost always wrong because they want to see everything adapted into a movie regardless of how it would turn out. And every director who directs a comic book adaptation says they are a big fan of the comics. That's part of the problem. They try to make a comic book instead of a movie and the thing ends up sucking more than a Dyson vacuum in a wind tunnel. In this case the director in question is Zack Snyder. Sure his last two films were big hits, but they were also stupider than a bag of hammers. His general tactic is to take something he likes and dumb it way the fuck down, whether it be "Dawn of the Dead" or "300." Sure, he can make it entertaining, but this is only provided you don't feel like thinking it through. Do you really think this is the right approach to take with one of the most critically celebrated, literate, multi-textual graphic novels of all time? Do you think having leeches attached to your testicles is a cure for headaches? Then boy do I have a movie for you.

Horror Movie Update

2007-07-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

A remake of "Day of the Dead" is in production. Planned as a direct sequel to the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead," with many of the same characters returning, the film is hoping to recreate the success of "Dawn" by slyly replacing the director and writer with much lamer substitutes, in this case the director "Halloween H20" and "Lake Placid" and the screenwriter for the entire "Final Destination" series. Would it be possible to make this any more mind-numbingly boring?

A remake of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" is in the works for 2008. Originally, Guillermo del Toro was attached to this as director, but I guess someone decided that would just be too impossibly awesome for words and came up with the bright idea of having the guy who directed a multimillion dollar "Indiana Jones" wannabe piece of shit flop staring Matthew McConaughey take the helm. The writer at least has a better track record, if you count a popular Tom Hanks comedy from the 1980s a track record.

The classic 1980s slasher film "Prom Night" is also being remade (it was inevitable at this point, wasn't it?), despite the fact that the original was such a dull non-entity that it would hardly make any difference if you called it a remake or not. They did decide to try something new with this remake though. You see, they took a forgotten horror film they owned the rights to, had a random hack shit out an update screenplay, hired a dull as dishwater television director to helm it and populated the cast with oversexed WB rejects willing to whore themselves to whatever artistically dubious project might bring them the chance for even the most fleeting bit of fame. Certainly, nobody has tried doing this before?

Reel Life Prison Hoes

2007-06-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

Prison is a Bitch
Paris Hilton was ordered to go back to prison recently to complete her sentence, because apparently the judge didn't believe that being a spoiled, whiny little bitch was a legitimate medical concern.

Coming Soon:
June 15th brings us "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," the shitty sequel to the shitty original. So it seems that an alien entity known as the Silver Surfer shows up on Earth to herald the coming of the planet devouring Galactus and it is up to the Fantastic Four to stop them, but they run into trouble when their old nemesis Dr. Doom shows up. Then things really get wild when Snoop Dog joins the party!

It's as if Marvel has decided to just dump all of their worn out, worthless comics into one franchise and put the man who directed "Taxi" at the helm. I'm not going to be interested until they throw in Moon Knight or the Sub-Mariner. Hawkeye, baby. That's what I'm talking about. Maybe a little Doctor Strange action. Little bit of She-Hulk while we're at it.

Opening June 22 is the sequel to "Bruce Almighty," "Evan Almighty," which has become the most expensive comedy ever produced and makes me stomach sick in a very magical way.

June 29 brings us the fourth "Die Hard" film, "Live Free or Die Hard." Did you know that there is also a "Transformers" movie coming out as well as another "Rambo" film? WHY ARE WE TRYING TO RELIVE THE 1980's! THEY SUCKED THE FIRST TIME AND THEY ARE SUCKING EVEN MORE NOW!

Also opening is the new Michael Moore documentary, "Sicko," which will cause a lot of controversy and arguments and then will be basically forgotten in a year or two because it really isn't all that interesting and he has nothing relevant to add to any argument, just like all of his other films.

All the Important Stuff

2007-05-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

Science News
Scientists have discovered some female sharks apparently can give birth without the assistance of a male partner. So Jesus came back as a hammerhead? Who saw that coming? Maybe the Methodists, but I think everyone else got blindsided.

American Idolatry
American Idol has oh my god THE SQUIRRELS ARE BACK INSIDE OF MY BRAIN!

This Week:
John Mayer is/is not banging Jessica Simpson (circle appropriate).

Top at the Box Office This Week

2007-05-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

1. "Spider-Man 3," in which Spider-Man faces off against Venom, the Sandman, the New Goblin and Sam Raimi's complete inability to direct honest human drama.

2. "Disturbia." You do realize this is just a teen version of "Rear Window," don't you? You do? Well, okay then.

3. "Fracture" in which Anthony Hopkins WILL EAT YOUR FACE!

4. "The Invisible." Wow, the jokes just write themselves on this one. Basically, it's like "Ghost," only more emotastic.

5. "Next." So is making a shitty Philip K. Dick adaptation like a Hollywood right of passage now? As is standard for these films, they nab the gimmick and skip the subversive paranoia. Though it is nice to see that Nicolas Cage has stopped trying to be a real actor and gone back to selling his soul to the highest bidder.

6. "Lucky You." Has there ever been a film about poker, or even just gambling in general, that didn't make me die a little inside just thinking about it?

7. "Meet the Robinsons," in which Disney tries again to do computer animation without Pixar, and hey guess what? They made another soulless piece of bargain bin shit.

8. "Blades of Glory," a film based on the theory that Will Ferrell doing anything at all is funny.

9. "Hot Fuzz." HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF COMEDIC FILMMAKING!

10. "Are We Done Yet?" FUCK!

Dead People and Racism

2007-04-12T19:11:00.000-07:00

Dead Famous People
Kurt Vonnegut died at the age of 84 yesterday. He can now look forward to a lucrative career of having his dead image exploited to sell credit cards or some such crap. "When you're unstuck in time and the lights go out..."

The Dead Rise
Willa Ford will play Anna Nicole Smith in a new film about the recently desceased gold-digging whore. I believe she has everything needed for the role: Tits, blonde hair, no brain and the acting ability of a dead goat.

Race War Clusterfuck
There's been a big stink up about someone I've never heard named Don Imus of calling a female basketball team composed mostly of African-American's "nappy-headed hoes." He didn't make it much better for himself by groveling to anyone who would let him, begging to be forgiven by the likes of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, who aren't going to let such an juicy target off so easy. It's so much simpler when the person making racist, degrading comments about a woman is a person of a different skin color. Not so easy to hold, say, the men with tracks on the Billboard Hip-Hop charts up to the same standards.

Stuff is Happening

2007-03-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

Death Becomes Her
Anna Nicole Smith's diaries from 1992 and 1994 have been sold on eBay for $500,000 total. To rephrase that, someone spent half a million dollars to read the private thoughts of a person who, according to all visible evidence, had no brain. This is where the fall of the empire begins, this moment. If barbarians aren't sacking the capital by next Tuesday, I am going to be very disappointed.

Fantasia
In other news involving the printed word: The son of J.R.R. Tolkien (he doesn't actually have a name, he's just "that 'Lord of the Rings' guy's son") has finished the last book by his father, "The Children of Hurin," using his father's notes. I'm sure it will be just fantastic. Though I do find it a little interesting that he only decided to publish this after the film adaptations of "Lord of the Rings" trilogy made billions of dollars. And that nobody is actually talking about the book itself, just the possible film adaptation. And that J.R.R. Tolkien was not that great of a writer and that his son has been basically publishing any old crap that was left on his dad's desk for going on thirty years now.

Top at the Box Office This Week
1. "TMNT," i.e. a new computer animated version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Will they completely miss the irony of the subject? Will the 1980s actually happen again? We'll just have to see.

2. "300," a film which has caused a bit of a dust up, apparently because it kind of sucks, but is popular regardless. Oh yeah, and Iran think it's anti-Iranian propaganda, which would be completely absurd except for the fact that it kind of is. It's hard to miss since the film makes the Persians (of which the Iranians are the remnants) come off as preening pansies that are taunted by the Spartan heroes as being "boy-lovers." Which when you think about it is kind of an absurd thing for a Spartan to taunt someone about since Spartan society was about as gay as a San Francisco gay pride parade on international "Fuck a Man in the Ass" day. I mean, these guys were REALLY gay. When your ideal measure of beauty is "the pert round butt cheeks of a fair-haired male youth," you are dealing with some hardcore rainbow-flag-waving motherfuckers. Oh yeah, and the Spartans eliminated all family ties in preference of ties to the State, were stone morons when it came to battlefield tactics and were defeated by the Persians whenever the Persians had a general with half a brain. They were war-worshipping uberjock fascists whose idea of a romantic wedding night was to shave their wife's head so she would look more manish and then bang her prison style. It was like an entire society made up of Texas high school football teams, only without the repression. And it was actually the Athenians who defeated the Persians in the end. Funny how none of that made it into the film.

3. "Shooter" which stars Mark Wahlberg as a bad ass, the role he was born to never, ever play.

4. "Wild Hogs." It's like someone took everything that is not funny in this world and put it in a movie. Honestly, this looks about as laugh inducing as a late-term abortion.

5. "The Last Mimzy." We can only hope.

6. "The Hills Have Eyes 2." The sequel to the remake of the film that already had a sequel, but not a remake of the sequel to the original film. Got that? Who gives a fuck, they hired a music video director to shoot it and it came out about a shitty as expected.

7. "Premonition." I'm looking into the future and seeing another piece of semi-supernatural crap with Sandra Bullock in it.

8. "Reign Over Me," in which Adam Sandler continues his attempt to be taken seriously, in between his attempts to make bank by producing/starring in comedies so tediously unfunny that they actually suck the joy out of other films showing in the same theater.

9. "Pride" combines the "coach turns ragtag team into champions" plot with the "teacher turns tough inner city kids into talented winners" plot, along with a dash of the "inspirational true story" plot to make some sort of ultra-boring Super Plot.

10. "Dead Silence." AKA "Ventriloquist Dolls Are Creepy When They Move by Themselves, Here is a Movie About It."

Oscar Notes

2007-02-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

I know I'm a little late on this, but here's some thoughts on the Oscar Ceremony:

1. Did you notice how when the ceremony started, members of the audience were standing up and applauding no one in particular? I know that award shows are supposed to be orgies of self-congratulation, but is there really any reason to be such cocksuckers about it? At least they got Errol Morris to do a cool little intro before the ceremony, though it took me a minute before I realized I wasn't watching a Mac ad.

2. So, Ellen DeGeneres, eh? Sure, whatever, at least she managed to go through most of the night without being terrible or making me cringe. Though you know it does not bode well for you as an award ceremony if Ellen DeGeneres comes off like a breath of fresh air.

3. Jack Nicholson looks like a penis. Just thought I would throw that out there.

4. So "Pan's Labyrinth" wins an assload of tech awards and is nominated for best screenplay but does not win the Best Foreign Language award? Fucking Germans.

5. I think I threw up a little bit when the words "interpretive dance" were spoken out loud.

6. So Jessica Hudson gets an award and Peter O'Toole gets the shaft again. Not that he really deserved it this year. I think at this point the Academy is just nominating him out of spite.

7. Celine Dion, WTF? What necromancer did they have to contact to get her to perform? And what exactly does she have to do with Ennio Morricone? I did like the way Clint Eastwood Alzhimered his way through his tribute. You could tell Ennio was impressed (for those not watching, through most of the ceremony his face looked like someone had just taken a dump in his breakfast).

8. Scorsese finally gets his Oscar, though it's for a film everyone seems to know is not his best work, which means it's more like an apology than an award. The best picture win is no big surprise, since it was basically a crapshoot (though "Little Miss Sunshine" didn't have a chance. You know the last time a comedy won best picture at the Oscars? 1977).

9. Acting awards went to people playing national leaders: a charismatic, homicidal cannibal and Idi Amehn, respectively.

10. Those fucking dancing penguins won an Oscar. If I had children, I would rather take them to a snuff film then have them see "Happy Feet."

Time Keeps on Slipping

2007-02-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

Quick Question
Okay, entire population of the world, show of hands: Who here has NOT fucked Anna Nicole Smith? Anyone?

Top at the Box Office This Week
1. "Norbit." So it's finally happened: Eddie Murphy has been paid $20 million dollars to fuck himself on screen, and people are willingly paying to see it.

2. "Hannibal Rising." Does anyone actually give a shit about Hannibal Lector outside of "Silence of the Lambs"? And he really wasn't even the villain in that. So...why?

3. "Because I Said So." Great. A movie about someone's mom getting it on. Just the thing to lift my spirits in these dark months.

4. "The Messengers." Sounds pretty cool, looks kind of creepy. Wait, PG-13? Fuck it.

5. "Night at the Museum." Why do movies like this even exist? "Because it's so nice to have a movie we can take the kids to." Oh yeah, that lame fucking excuse. Listen, instead of taking your kids out to see this brain-rotting piece of garbage why don't you just take them out back and beat them with a shovel for an hour and a half. They'll be quite afterwards and it will do about the same amount of damage to their future development potential.

6. "Epic Movie." "You know all those shitty blockbusters that came out in the last year? Here are some scenes from them with different actors. Oh yeah, and it's supposed to be funny."

7. "Smokin' Aces." Bunch of people with bad hair and guns and the acting ability of lukewarm pork shoot at stuff and exchange swear words for an hour and a half of poorly thought out plotting. I AM SO THERE!

8. "Pan's Labyrinth." Fan boys around the world are wetting their pants around this.

9. "Dreamgirls," which was nominated for a few Oscars, but was surprisingly shut out of most of the major categories, apparently for the unfortunate flaw of not being all that good.

10. "The Queen." If the Academy Awards had a specific set of rules for the type of movie that is always going to be nominated for an Oscar, this would meet most of the criteria. If I had a specific set of rules for the kind of film that evokes absolutely no emotional response from me, it would meet most of those as well.

A Look At Upcoming Films This Year
"The Hills Have Eyes II," the "Are We There Yet?" sequel "Are We Done Yet?," "Shrek the Third," "Ocean's Thirteen," "Hostel: Part II," "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," the "Bruce Almighty" sequel "Evan Almighty," "Live Free or Die Hard" ("Die Hard 4"), "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Rush Hour 3," "Resident Evil: Extinction," "Saw IV," "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" and "Alien vs. Predator: AVP2."

Also expected in the next year:

Horror Film Remakes: 3

Video Game Adaptations: 2

Stephen King Adaptations: 2

Adaptations of Old Cartoon Shows: 3

Movies with Cuba Gooding Jr. in Them: 3

Movies Directed By Ben Affleck: 1

Movies About Football: 2

Death Surrounds Us

2007-02-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

Dead Famous People
As I'm sure you have all heard, many times from many different sources, Anna Nicole Smith was found dead recently. Apparently we are supposed to care about this. Apparently this is more important for us to know about than the fact that our country is gearing up to invade Iran while the Vice President has a good chance of being indicted and convicted of blowing a CIA agent's cover. Apparently we are all supposed to pretend that Anna Nicole Smith was a person of some value to our society, rather than a brain-dead, gold-digging leech. I don't mean to be insensitive...Okay, wait, actually I do. I could not possibly give less of a shit about her. She was a living monument to everything that is sick and wrong in our society. The only reason I'm not glad she's dead is that I'm not really that cruel of a person. Also, if she were still alive I would not have to deal with the insufferable, meaningless and over-hyped tabloid bullshit about her death.

Nothing Else On
The 2007 Grammy awards are on the way. A dozen award presentations scattered over three hours of shitty rock bands, forced and awkward duets and tired performances by bland, aging pop stars. Couldn't we just drop the pretense of this being an award ceremony and just call it a big, mainstream record company circle jerk that for some reason is being televised?

OSCARS!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

Gold Statue Time
The Academy Award Nomina..........sorry, blacked out there for a sec. Here are the nominees for the top awards:

Best Picture:

1. "The Queen," which like the royalty it depicts is elegant, classy, and something that I do not even give the slightest bit of a fuck about.

2. "Babel" which as I have stated is one of the two best films of this year I will never, not even at knifepoint have any compelling desire to see.

3. "The Departed." This is the other.

4. "Letters from Iwo Jima," which is this year prerequisite Eastwood film.

5. "Little Miss Sunshine." HOW THE FUCK DID THIS END UP THERE? I mean I heard it was good, but WTF?

Best Director:

1. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, "Babel." I do not care about this director on a profound level.

2. Martin Scorsese, "The Departed." I lost money on him a couple years ago and now I'm just totally pissed at him.

3. Clint Eastwood, "Letters from Iwo Jima." Why do all of Eastwood's recent films just make me want to OD on sedatives and slip into a nice, relaxed coma?

4. Stephan Frears, "The Queen." Snarky_comment_not_found.

5. Paul Greengrass, "United 93." Prerequisite Bold Choice.

Best Actor:

1. Leonardo DiCaprio, "Blood Diamond." Whoops, puked a little.

2. Ryan Gosling, "Half Nelson." Teacher. Drug Habit. Inner City. He's a shoe-in.

3. Peter O'Toole, "Venus." Have you seen the poster for this? O'Toole looks like one of the living dead.

4. Will SmitAHHHHHHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH!!!!!!!!!

5. Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland." He plays Idi Amin? Cool.

Best Actress:

1. Penelope Cruz, "Volver." Some shit with a ghost. I totally missed it.

2. Judi Dench, "Notes on a Scandal." Is there some clause in Dench's contract that she has to be nominated for an Oscar no matter what she stars in?

3. Helen Mirren, "The Queen." AKA "The Simon Cowell Story."

4. Meryl whoop-de-fucking-doo Streep in some shit based on a crappy book.

5. Kate Winslet, "Little Children." Are they not even trying over there at the Academy?

Other Highlights:
An "American Idol" loser got nominated for Best Supporting Actress; A movie about dancing penguins got nominated for Best Animated Film; a film that was largely improvised was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay; an honorary award is going to a man who used electric guitars to score westerns; Al Gore got nominated for an Oscar.

In Other News:
Members of the church's leadership recently called Tom Cruise the "Christ" of Scientology. Like Christ, Cruise has spread his beliefs across the land, has been unpopular with the majority religions and eventually will be nailed to a piece of wood in public, will descend into Hell and then will appear to his followers three days later in the form of ghostly visions. I am also coming to suspect that, like Jesus, Cruise is in fact just a figment of someone's imagination.

Pretty People, Ugly Souls

2007-01-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

Romance Abounds
Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz have confirmed that I don't give a shit. It is rumored that Scarlett Johansson who really gives a flying fuck?

Hail Oprah
On an upcoming Oprah special, three Oscar winners will interview their favorite Oscar winners in a big, fat Hollywood circle jerk of fun. Julia Roberts chose to interview George Clooney, Nicole Kidman chose fellow Australian nutcase Russell Crowe and Jamie Foxx chose to interview Sidney Poitier. So let me get this straight: Roberts and Kidman chose to talk to a pair of Hollywood heartthrobs while Foxx chose to speak to a highly respected actor and a civil rights hero. There is some kind of painful disparity here that I just can't seem to put into words.

Top at the Box Office This Week
1. "Night at the Museum," which is about a dim witted security guard working in a museum in which the displays come to holy living fuck does this sound inane.

2. "The Pursuit of Happyness" which is the inspirational film with the spelling error in the title and a concept so heartwarming I just want to step on something small and defenseless.

3. "Children of Men." Apparently one of the best films of the year with a cool sci-fi concept that might actually get my ass over to the video store once it comes out on DVD (it takes a hell of a lot to get me to the theaters these days).

4. "Freedom Writers" Hilary Swank stars in another entry in an exhausting series of films about teachers who inspire troubled students to make something of their lives but generally inspire me to bore into my own skull with a power drill.

5. "Dreamgirls," which has garnered a lot of mass-produced hype and is looking at getting some awards this year despite the fact that the filmmakers decided to stick to the classic Motown tradition of prefabricated, factory created hits that tend to sound a lot alike over time.

6. "Happily N'Ever After," which is like the "Shrek" films, minus the humor, originality, entertainment value and irritating voice talent. Okay, so that last one is a positive, but it still doesn't make me want to see this piece of shit.

7. "Charlotte's Web," which is kind of creeping me the fuck out, the more I think about it.

8. "The Good Shepherd," which is about the CIA and directed by Robert De Niro and has Angelina Jolie (who makes me a little uncomfortable) and sounds kind of boring so I can see why it's a hit.

9. "Rocky Balboa," which has been pretty successful and has garnered some critical acclaim, which is making me start to think that I've stepped into Opposite World, where good is bad and bad is good.

10. "We Are Marshall," because we all know that Football + Tragedy = Overcoming Adversity = Inspirational Filmmaking = I Would Rather Pull Out My Own Toenails With A Rusty Pair of Pliers Than Go To See This.

Total Mental Capacity of People Mentioned in This Post = nil

2006-12-29T18:53:00.000-08:00

Dead Famous People
Gerald Ford, a former one-term, unelected U.S. president, recently died tragically at the tender age of 93. Doctors cited cause of death as being "he was really fucking old, what did you expect?" James Brown also passed into the netherworld this week, making the world that much less funky. By "less funky" we mean of course "containing one less drug abusing geriatric."

Crap Actor Buffet
Justin Timberlake apparently refused to take acting classes to prepare for his role in an upcoming film, "Alpha Dog," preferring to rely on lessons he received as a child. Half-forgotten tips from a decade ago and limited experience ought to put him right on level with co-stars Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone.

The End of an Era
The most popular Britney Spears fansite, WorldOfBritney.com, has closed down. The reason for the closure, according to the creators, is that Britney is "over," which is a little confusing to me as I've always thought that for something to be "over" it has to, you know, "begin."

Celebrities Are Just So Awesome

2006-12-22T18:49:00.000-08:00

Battlefield Earth Redux
Victoria Beckham has signed up for a role in a new film about Scientology that will be funded by Tom Cruise. The film, entitled "The Thetan," has reportedly been turned down by every major film studio. Ha? I'm sorry, but there is no joke or snide comment I can make about this story that will make it sound any more ridiculous than it already does. I mean it basically sounds like "The Passion of the Christ" without the built-in audience, it'll bomb something serious if it really does get released and will end up being nothing more than an artistic punch line for the rest of film history. If Tom Cruise weren't such a colossal douchbag, I'd almost feel sorry for him.

News Flash:
Britney Spears' vagina.

The Karma Strike Team Catches Up
So Judith Regan, the mastermind behind the "Maybe I Did Kill My Wife" O.J. Simpson shitfest of last month, was fired for some anti-Semitic remarks she apparently made. The obvious joke being that they needed an excuse to fire a soulless, immoral executive who is single handedly responsible for taking the publishing business to depths so abysmal they were starting to pound on the roof of Hell like a cranky upstairs neighbor.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2006-12-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

1. "Apocalypto," the new film from the drunken little anti-Semite who could. So Mel, maybe you can answer this for me, how do you say "I don't give a fuck" in Mayan?

2. "Happy Feet," which is about dancing...penguins. Dancing...penguins. Penguins...that dance. I swear to all merciful God there are not enough bell towers in the world.

3. "The Holiday," from the director of "Cookie Cutter Romantic Comedy in Which Jack Nicholson Tries to Bang Diane Keaton" and "Painfully Awful Romantic Comedy in Which Mel Gibson Tries to Bang Helen Hunt."

4. "Casino Royale." Bond is Back, and He's as Not Pierce Fucking Brosnan as Ever.

5. "Blood Diamond," an action film about an under-recognized, terrify aspect of the diamond industry that I don't really care all that much about. Somehow Leonardo DiCaprio just makes it impossible to take human suffering seriously. Especially with that accent.

6. "Déjà Vu." It stars Denzel Washington! It has a plot!

7. "Unaccompanied Minors," the film with the trailer that just sucks the soul right out of me.

8. "The Nativity Story," which tells the story of the birth of everyone's favorite fictional character, Jesus.

9. "Deck the Halls," which is about, I don't know, Christmas or something. Some stuff happens and it has Danny DeVito in it.

10. "The Santa Clause 3." Could you possibly think of a concept blander this film? It's like they found a way to convert spackle into a plot.

Death, Magic and THAT Word

2006-11-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

Guess the Slur and Win a $100
Former "Seinfeld" star Michael Richards has come under fire recently for making a racial slur during a stand-up routine in Los Angeles. The racial slur isn't nearly as astounding as the revelation that Michael Richards is still alive and people are paying to see him perform.

Dead Famous People
Director Robert Altman died recently at the age of 81 on Monday. Which sucks for him I guess. Also for his friends and family and cinema lovers worldwide, though when you think of it they all got the better end of the deal as they get to stay alive a little longer. It's good to keep these things in perspective. I guess I just have a little trouble feeling really bad when someone I didn't personally know dies, even if they made movies I loved. From highest to lowest, my death reaction hierarchy is as follows: Family, friends, pets, celebrities, fictional characters, anonymous Indonesian natural disaster victims.

Blainiacs
David Blaine is currently strapped to a gyroscope hanging over Times Square in New York City. WTF, dude? Can you go anywhere in Time Square these days without running into David Blaine doing some insane act? I think if he wanted to do something really astounding he should just give himself AIDS and then cure himself. That would impress me. None of this spinning around in mid-air shit. Or maybe that's the secret. Do you think? Have we tried strapping an AIDS victim to a gyroscope yet? Someone should look into that.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2006-11-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

1. "Borat: Semi-Clever Subtitle I Don't Really Feel Like Typing Out," has topped the box office, proving that Americans can take a joke about themselves. That is until they find out there's money to be made and terms such as "mental anguish" start popping up in properly filed legal documents.

2. "The Santa Claus 3: Holy Living Fuck It Has Martin Short In It And People Are Still Going To See It I Cannot Believe This Film Has Earned Over $40 Million I Mean For The Love Of God It's A Tim Allen Christmas Film With Fucking Martin Short In It."

3. "Flushed Away." The only thing more trite than the plot of this film is the heinous punnery of the critics reviewing it. Wow. Clever you guys. You found a way to make a joke from the title "Flushed Away." That's just so funny it makes me want to vomit. Really. It makes me want to empty my stomach contents into a toilet until I dry heave. It's good to know we still have such a wonderful collection of film critics in this country that can come up with such clever insights such as "'Flushed Away' struggles with comedic flow'." Wow. Do I feel nauseas or what?

4. "Stranger Than Fiction." Will Ferrell aims for becoming a real actor, just like Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler before him. Fuck.

5. "Saw III." Does this still exist? Goddamnit

6. "Babel." One of the two best films of this year that I do not care anything at all about.

7. "The Departed." This is the other. Is it okay to say that I just don't care about Martin Scorsese all that much? I'm not saying he's bad, I just haven't been that interested in more than, say, three of his past twelve films.

8. "The Prestige." Those crazy magicians, still duking it out.

9. "The Return," which will be forever known as the supernatural thriller that starred Sara Michelle Geller that wasn't "The Grudge." Which is actually saying something in its favor.

10. "A Good Year." This would be a dull romantic comedy even if it weren't such an obvious PR effort from Russell Crow to downplay his occasional violent outbursts. And why the hell is Ridley Scott directing this? Here's a tip to all film producers: Instead of hiring Ridley Scott, just under-saturate every shot and tie the camera to an epileptic's head during a grand mal. That should match the effect perfectly.

Old People, Boring People and Made Up People

2006-11-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles
Director Frank Darabont has stated that he thinks the fourth installment in the "Indiana Jones" series will not make it to development after George Lucas rejected Darabont's script. Too bad. I was really looking forward to the latest installment in a series has lain fallow for 17 years after two tepid sequels. Shucks, I don't get to see Harrison Ford embarrass himself by pretending to be an action star half his age again. It's a shame. Really. Darn.

In Famous People News:
Britney Spears and Kevin Federline have fi.........................blghahhgghhsh.

Looking at December's Movie Calender
December 1 brings us "The Nativity Story." Cast as Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a 17-year-old unmarried pregnant woman. Market around that aspect of it, bitches.

December 8 has the new film from Mel Gibson, "Apocalypto," which is about the collapse of the Mayan society and is apparently a parable about corruption of U.S. culture as it collapses into fundamentalist religious insanity. I least that's what I got from the plot outline, but I've been known to read these things wrong.

December 15 brings the new Will Smith film, "The Pursuit of Happiness," the poster for which is so inspirational it makes me want to run over orphans with my car. Also opening is "Eragon" which I've heard is some shit about dragons. Let me ask you a question, right out: Has there ever been a movie about dragons that has been anything more than mediocre? I'll let you think about that one.

December 22 brings us "Rocky Balboa" and our culture's official return to the 1980s.

December 25 brings "Dreamgirls," which tells a fictionalized account of Diana Ross and the Supremes and stars Beyonce Knowles and Jamie Foxx and...Eddie Murphy? Didn't he die?

The Drone List

2006-11-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

Superman is Rereleased
Time Warner will be releasing a director's cut of "Superman II," with original director Richard Donner piecing together his vision for the film with test footage and deleted scenes, subtracting most of the footage shot by substitute director Richard Lester. Few points of interest here: Richard Donner could not direct his way out of a paper sack, having helmed not only "Goonies" and "Scrooged" but also directed and produced the entire "Lethal Weapon" series, including parts 3 and 4, as well as two other Mel Gibson movies, a Sylvester Stallone film and a Michael Crichton adaptation. On top of that, most of the footage he plans to add does not match the existing footage. Also the whole thing reeks of a shameless marketing ploy to promote the DVD release of "Superman Returns," and "Superman II" just kind of sucks anyway.

In Other Superhero News:
Ben Affleck has stated he will never play another superhero after his experience with the film "Daredevil." Now if he will only swear off every other kind of film role we'll be on to something good and I won't have to feel like ripping my own eyes out of my head every time I see that smug fucking face of his and have to be reminded that he earns millions of dollars doing a substandard job in a profession a fucking child can succeed in. Honestly, show of hands, who here would rather watch someone set an infant on fire than see a new Ben Affleck film?

On the Music Scene:
Kevin Federline released his first album, "Playing with Fire." Apparently it sucks and nobody likes it and somehow this is news.

At the Box Office:
"Saw III" topped the box office this week for no real reason. Do people just not have the ability to engage in rational thought when they go to the theater? "Well, the first one was okay and the second one kind of sucked, and the whole concept of the film is kind of morally idiotic and the plot is not plausible when subjected to even the most lenient standards and none of the actors or filmmakers are that good. HOT SHIT, THIS I GOTTA SEE!"

My Own Private Hell, With Jokes

2006-10-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

Guess What!
Did you know that one of Laurence Fishburn's first significant acting roles was as Cowboy Curtis on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse"? The man went from "Apocalypse Now" to "The Matrix" and in between played a cowboy on a children's show that starred a porn addict and featured a talking chair. This really isn't news, but it's been bugging me so I figured I would throw it out there.

Opening Today:
"Flags of Our Fathers," a film about the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photo, subject matter so moving and patriotic that it makes me want to shove my head in a bucket of boiling water.

"Flicka." (Disturbingly hot adolescent girl+horse)/family ranch in trouble= I will cut off my own dick before I would willing see this movie.

"The Prestige": Because you can never have too much of 19th century magicians in a single film-going year.

"Running with Scissors." Is anyone else made unaccountably uncomfortable by the poster for this film?

"Marie Antoinette," in which Kirsten Dunst gets all crazy French decadent with her bad self before some wacky revolutionaries cut her head off. I am so there.

Top at the Box Office This Week:
1. "The Grudge 2," which concerns an American film studio that has convinced an occasionally talented Japanese director to direct watered down remakes of his own films so as to shamelessly cash in on the Asian horror trend.

2. "The Departed," which will go down as the best film of the year that I care absolutely nothing about.

3. "Man of the Year." It's a comedy! With Robin Williams! Those two statements cannot coexist in a rational world!

4. "Open Season": Testing the limits of how many CGI films involving domesticated animals lost in the wild the market can support.

5. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning." Why must everything I love be tied to the back of a truck and drug through a field of shit for the amusement of others?

6. "The Marine," which looks like they took a bunch of random action film plots and played Boggle with them until something resembling a movie came out. Christ, you would almost think this was being produced by the WWE. Wait...fuck.

7. "The Guardian." Kevin Costner in an action film about the Coast Guard. Are we actually regressing back into the 1980s? Has anyone told Duran Duran yet? Comeback tour, baby, I'm telling you.

8. "Employee of the Month." I'm boycotting this movie as it's just perpetuating the awful rumor that Dane Cook is actually funny.

9. "One Night with the King." Where the fuck did this come from? Tells the story of Esther, who becomes the queen of Persia after who gives a flying fuck. Fox cashes in on Christianity by making Bible stories on the cheap.

10. "Jackass Number Two." Oh, I get it. The title is a poop joke. How clever.

I Will Never Laugh Again

2006-10-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

God Wills That it Will Suck
The budget for the upcoming film "Evan Almighty" has skyrocketed to an estimated $175 million, making it the most expensive comedy ever filmed. That's right, a studio is actually spending enough money to keep 4,375 families fed and clothed for a year on a sequel to "Bruce Almighty." Doesn't that just kind of make you want to bash your own head in with a brick? I'm not kidding. This news story has given me an honest desire to take a brick in my right hand and bring it down hard on my own cranium over and over again for as long as I am capable of doing it. Because there is no irony left in the world. None. This news story has officially killed irony.

News in the News
Dan Rather stated recently in an interview that major media outlets often cave into political and marketing pressure when deciding what news to cover and how to cover it. Thanks for the fuckin' story, Dan. We hadn't guessed. In an unrelated story, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt stated that Rupert Murdoch exerts an unusual amount of control over the editorial content of Fox News and his other media companies. No goddamned shit, dude, really? Fox News is actually the American arm of a massive corporate-conservative propaganda machine controlled with an iron fist by a ruthless capitalist billionaire who has stated on record that he is willing to sell his version of reality to the highest bidder? You must be 'shrooming. Honestly though, is it like Obvious Day or something? Did I miss the memo?

Guess What!
Did you hear that Jada Pinkett Smith started a heavy metal band? No shit dude, I looked it up on Google. Do you know what they're called? They're called Wicked Wisdom. I am not kidding. Irony is dead.

Top at the Box Office This Week

2006-09-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

1. "Jackass Number Two," because apparently there is still endless appeal in watching Johnny Knoxville get hit in the balls by a hammer-wielding midget.

2. "Fearless," which is reported to be Jet Li's final action film before moving on to an acting career.

3. "The Gridiron Gang," which is ANOTHER GODDAMNED FORMULIAC PSUEDO-INSPIRATIONAL MOVIE ABOUT FOOTBALL I MEAN JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I DO NOT GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT SPORTS!

4. "Flyboys," which tells the story of some computer generated action scenes during WWI that are occasionally interrupted by a plot.

5. "Everyone's Hero," the film that even the death of director Christopher Reeve could not stop. Well, I can see how this could be good, I mean WHAT? IT'S AN INPIRATIONAL MOVIE ABOUT BASEBALL? FUCK YOU REEVE, YOU DEAD SON OF A BITCH!

6. "The Black Dahlia," which is directed by Brian De Palma. In a risky move, De Palma decided to ditch the entire story and just film actors exchanging meaningful glances in between rapid jump cuts and explosions of violence.

7. "All the Kings Men," which is the adaptation of the classic Robert Penn Warren novel, has a wonderful cast and a stylish director, and would certainly be an Oscar contender this year were it not marred by the fact that it apparently totally sucks monkey balls.

8. "The Illusionist." Bad accents! Fake beards! Magic! No wonder it's a hit!

9. "The Covenant," which is some shit to do with warlocks and was directed by the man who brought us "Cliffhanger" and "Deep Blue Sea." Yeah, this is real high on my list. Get to it right after I take up yoga. And go scuba diving. And rip out my own toenails with a pair of pliers. And set myself on fire.

10. "Little Miss Sunshine." Steve Carell with a beard. That statement sums up my feelings about this movie. It's up to you to decode them.

Things That Cause Terrorism

2006-09-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Jingotastic
A lot of controversy has surrounded the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11," which apparently depicts Democratic senators pissing on Ground Zero and George W. Bush single-handedly strangling Osama Bin Laden. It's good to know the self-deception and jingoistic spirit that followed the 2001 terrorist attacks is still alive and well in America.

The Special Ingredient in Coke
Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston have HOLY SHIT I'M TURNING INTO A LEMUR!

Happens All the Time
Apparently the death of Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel has been deemed "suspicious" by authorities. So a 20-year-old man suddenly dies from a massive heart attack and all the sudden it's a criminal matter? What's this world coming to?

Random Things

2006-09-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

In News News
Katie Couric's first major story for the CBS Evening News was the first photograph of Suri Cruise to be released for the public. The photo will appear on an upcoming cover of Vanity Fair. Wait a sec, could someone tell me where all the news stories produced for grown-ups are? This is it? Fuck.

This Art is Shit
By the way, did you hear about that artist in New York who made a bronze representation of Suri Cruise's first solid stool? I understand that this is satire of a sorts, something about society's sick celebrity fetish, but you know someone is going to pay $25,000 for that thing and I'll just want to bash my head against a concrete wall until I can no longer retain new memories.

Guess What!
Mike Judge's new film, "Idiocracy," was given a limited release on September 1 and received about as much fanfare as a new Foghat tour. So let me get this straight: "Snakes on a Plane" arrives in theaters with loads of publicity and bales of unnecessary critical analysis despite having little going for it other than its title, while one of America's greatest satirist releases a new film and it passes like a fart in the wind? These are the kinds of things that make me want to hurt small, defenseless animals.

Top At the Box Office This Week

2006-09-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

1. "Invincible," which tells the true story of a Philadelphia Eagles fan who enters an open tryout and whose dreams come true when he is selected to play for the team. Tragedy strikes when 30 years later his story is filmed as a hackneyed piece of Disney inspirational sports movie bullshit starring Mark Wahlberg.

2. "Talladega Nights: The Story of Ricky Bobby" stars Will Ferrell as a NASCAR driver. Which basically just lays out the whole thing for you right there.

3. "Little Miss Sunshine" is about.... Alan Arkin as a heroin addict? Okay, that sounds pretty cool.

4. "Beerfest" is a movie about some guys who like to drink and act like idiots. There is no actual film, just a giant mirror held up at the expected audience during each screening.

5. "World Trade Center" is the movie that shows us the inspirational, heroic side of the 9/11 tragedy so often passed over by other storytellers in the wake of the events. It's directed by Oliver Stone as he pathetically grasps for the last shreds of respect available to him.

6. "Accepted," in which a high school slacker has his ignorance and slovenly behavior rewarded after starting his own college. Anybody remember the film "Camp Nowhere"? I didn't think so.

7. "Snakes on a Plane." No, really, why is this movie important? No, really. I mean it. Why?

8. "Step Up" is some shit about a dance school. What, couldn't do something about spelling bees? Maybe throw in a FBI agent infiltrating a beauty pageant?

9. "Idlewild," in which OutKast makes a musical that is one half "Moulin Rouge" and one half a movie staring rap stars. Did this at any point sound like a good idea to anyone?

10. "Barnyard." No. Fucking. Way.

Popular People Saying Things

2006-08-28T17:17:00.000-07:00

Do You Think This Will Hurt His Career?
Paramount has ended a production deal with Tom Cruise due to his personal behavior. Apparently just being a shitty actor who is obscenely overpaid wasn't enough. Jerry Bruckheimer has stood up to defend Cruise, saying he is "still one of the biggest stars in the world" as if the opinion of the man brought us "Kangaroo Jack" counts for absolutely anything.

Fat Guy Stands Up for Jews
Rob Reiner has called upon Mel Gibson to apologize for the film "The Passion of the Christ" on the grounds that it's anti-Semitic. In response, I have called upon Rob Reiner to apologize for every movie he made between 1997 and 2005, on the grounds that they were shit.

What a Bitch
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has criticized Jessica Simpson and Pete Doherty as having no taste or style (thanks for the news flash, boy-o). For the record, Lagerfeld is part of the fashion movement that has single-handedly advanced one of the most disgusting, unhealthy and insidious images of female sexuality in human history.

Kids Drink the Darndest Things

2006-08-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

In Dead Child News
A former schoolteacher was arrested in Thailand in association with the JonBenet OHHMYGOD MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING AGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

In Living Child News
Millions of people are wondering what has become of the demon offspring of Tom Cruise and his brood mare, Katie Holmes. Some tabloids have even speculated that the child might be disfigured. That anyone really wants to, or believes they have any right to see this child does not bode well for us as a species.

In Former Child News
Haley Joel Osment was charged with drunk driving and drug possession. The charges are related to the child star's car crash last month. Much like Mel Gibson's famous outburst, Osment had a few interesting things to tell the police upon their arrival to the crash, particularly: "HOLY SHIT MY RIBS ARE BROKEN, JESUS CHRIST CALL AN AMBULANCE!"

Comings and Goings

2006-08-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

One Down
Rob Schneider has announced that he will never work with Mel Gibson, following Gibson's recent anti-Semitic remarks during a DUI arrest. Many agree that this is a positive step for Schneider, bringing him closer to the day in which he will no longer work with anyone ever again.

Guess What, Internet:
"Snakes on a Plane" is going to suck, and you know it deep in your empty little blogger heart.

Coming Soon:
September 1 brings us a Hollywood remake of "The Wicker Man," starring Nicolas DEAR GOD WHY WON'T HE JUST STOP Cage. "DOA: Dead or Alive" opens on September 8, bringing another goddamned video game adaptation to the big screen and sending obsessive fan boys up in arms over the casting or some such useless bullshit, even though you know those nerdy fuckers will be jacking off to the female stars and their skimpy costumes, crying as they do it over what sad, wasted little lives they lead. September 22 starts with another "Jackass" movie, which brings the endless appeal of watching Johnny Knoxville being whacked in the balls back to the silver screen.

Booze is Good Food

2006-08-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

In Crazy Drunkard News
Mel Gibson has apologized for anti-Semitic remarks made during is arrest for drunk driving, stating HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO FUNNY YOU'VE GOT TO HEAR THIS "Please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot." HAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT A FUCKING RETARD! Gibson also apologized for the sexist remarks he made during the arrest YOU CALLED A POLICEWOMAN "SUGAR TITS" DURING YOUR ARREST! GOOD WORK THERE, BRAINIAC, YOU'RE LUCKY YOU DIDN'T END UP WITH A BILLY CLUB SHOVED UP YOUR ASS. After the incident, ABC announced they were dropping an mini-series produced by Gibson's production company that was to take place during the Holocaust THANK YOU MERCIFUL GOD though in a statement from the network the reason for dropping the project was that it had been two years and no finished script had been presented CREATIVE JUICES NOT FLOWING FOR YOU MEL? SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME THINKING THOSE DISGUSTING GAY JOKES YOU'RE ALWAYS MAKING, PERHAPS? I HOPE YOU CHOKE.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You
Will Ferrell as a race car driver, Robin Williams as an unfunny DJ, a group of unknown actresses as horror movie slaughter-fodder and Kevin James in an animated film that apparently went all the way through production without anyone realizing that male cows do not have udders.

Gay People, Trailer Trash and Crappy Cinema

2006-07-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

Liberace Would be Shocked
Former 'N Sync member Lance Bass has announced to the surprise of absolutely no one that he is a homosexual. Could someone explain to me why this is news?

Who?
Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock are engaged to be married, a union so inherently comical it defies anyone's ability to actually make a joke about it.

Opening Today
TV-to-film adaptations move into the 1980s with the release of "Miami Vice," and thus marking another moment in which I died a little inside. "John Tucker Must Die" also opens, a teen comedy that sounds as if it was cribbed from a MySpace message board and will probably pass through theaters like a fart in the wind.

Top at the Box Office:
Too depressing to even talk about.

The Death of Mirth

2006-07-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Countdown to Liberation Day Continues
Jennifer Lopez turned 37 today, that much more of her wasted, parasitic life having now slipped away.

Nerd Alert
It was revealed at the latest Comic-Con that the "Spider-Man" franchise will not end with the upcoming third installment, much to the surprise of everyone who thought insanely popular things that make hundreds of millions of dollars would have no chance at longevity.

Funny Will Just Have to Take One More Hit for the Team
"Saturday Night Live" head writer Tina Fey is leaving the show to write and star in her own series. This would come as a major disappointment to fans of the SNL, if there were any. Her new show, "30 Rock," is being produced by Loren Michaels, the Dark Angel of Comedy, He Whose Very Touch Is The Purifying Antidote to All Which Brings Us Mirth.

News You Can Use

2006-07-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

Rock Out With Your Cock Out
The winner on the new reality series "Rock Star" will get to be the lead singer of a band called Supernova, which will consist of drummer Tommy Lee of Motley Crue, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted and former Guns & Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke. All I can really think to say about this is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU GUYS ARE GOING TO SUCK SO BAD, HOLY SHIT THAT IS JUST TOO MUCH! I MEAN WHAT THE HELL? WAS IZZY STRADLIN UNAVAILABLE? HAHAHAHA. COULD THERE BE A WORSE FUCKIN' BAND?

News Flash:
Kevin Smith is a shitty director.

Buttless Chaps and Pain
Somebody recently paid more than I earn in a year for a pair of Hugh Jackman's old jeans. There just aren't enough bell towers in the world...

Blogasm

2006-07-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

Critical Cold Shoulder
The much-anticipated "Snakes on a Plane" will open without press screenings on August 17, the studio's logic being that since the audience will be the driving force behind the film, "they should be the first to see it." Which I guess is like telling us that since that bullet was intended to hit us in the chest we might as well take the bulletproof vest off.

Arrgh.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" has earned $258.4 million to date, making it the highest grossing film of the year so far. In other words, Americans have spent more than most impoverished nations receive annually in medical aid, food supplies and financial support on a movie about a lovable pirate.

Famous Person Dead
Famed crime writer Mickey Spillane died recently, tragically taken from us too soon at the age of 88. This announcement has at last put and end to the nasty rumor that he was in fact already dead.

Mediocrity and Madness

2006-07-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

You Know...
I'm sure people whose fragile egos are tied to the lives of those more popular and attractive probably think Angelina Jolie did something interesting recently.

Looking Forward in the Film Calender:
Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson star in "My Super Ex-Dear God I Cannot Even Write This Title Without Cringing," in which a man breaks up with his girlfriend only to find she's a needy psychopath who tries to destroy his happiness. Oh yeah, and she has superpowers, so I guess it's supposed to be funny. M. Night Shyamalan's latest, "The Lady in the Water" opens on July 21, but more vital is the fact that I am now taking bets on what the twist ending will be. Odds are now 10-1 that Paul Giamatti turns out to be a murderer and/or ghost. "Clerks II" also opens that day, the much anticipated sequel to oh my god Kevin Smith is so fucking pathetic it hurts.

The Wrong Things Edited From the Wrong Movies

2006-07-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Social Commentary Time
Courts have ruled that third-party companies cannot edit movies for content, as such editing violates the copyright on the films. In an interview with Salt Lake City's Desert Morning News, Daniel Thompson, owner of four Cleanflix outlets, said, "I think it's ridiculous that you can't watch a movie without seeing sex, nudity or extreme violence. I don't understand why they're trying to keep that in there." Or, in an edited version of that statement: "I think it's ridiculous that you can watch a movie without seeing sex, nudity or extreme violence. I understand why they're trying to keep that in there." Or in a reworked version of that statement: "Fuckity fuckity fuck fuck fuck, kill babies, fuckity fuck fuck."

Coming Soon
Opening this week is new film by oh dear god no not the Wayans brothers. Also opening is Owen Wilson's latest attempt to pay off whoever it is blackmailing him with photos of him and a goat doing the barnyard boogie. In the new inevitable hit comedy "You, Me and Dupree," Wilson plays a somewhat overbearing wise-ass who could probably be doing better things with his life.

At the Box Office
In the box office this week, a movie about goofy pirates beat out a movie about a flying man in a skintight uniform, which was followed by a film about an overbearing boss, an film in which Adam Sandler can control reality, a film about talking cars, a comedy about Mexican wrestling and a romantic drama in which Sandra Bullock travels through time.

Drone-a-thon

2006-07-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

It's Driving Me Nuts
The big film opening this week is the highly anticipated "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," in which Johnny Depp once again tops the goofy meter by speaking all of his lines in Dutch and then desecrating the corpse of Barbra Stanwyck. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley play two pieces of semi-animated cardboard that help Depp during his wacky adventures, which since he's a pirate I suppose involve rape, thievery and murder.

Go Cry, Teenager
The new album by the Dashboard Confessionals debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts this week, because people are so predictable.

On the Music Calender:
New releases are expected from blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah new Mars Volta album in August.

Clap Your Hands and Say "Blah"
Because mediocrity is something we should all pay big money to see, the "American Idols Live" tour kicked off on Wednesday, but unfortunately runner-up Katharine McPhee couldn't join the first part of the tour due to a case of severe bronchitis and laryngitis. Which, you know, is just really too bad I HOPE YOU CHOKE TO DEATH ON YOUR OWN BLOOD! ALL OF YOU! I'm sorry. I've got to get that under control.

Bad Things Happening to People I Don't Like

2006-07-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Talk Show Circle Jerk
Fired "The View" panelist Star Jones Reynolds' appearance on "Larry King Live" drew 3 million viewers, three times King's average audience. You know, because people like that kind of shit.

The End of an Era
NBC has recently ended its contract with the Arena Football League, proving once again that boring, unpopular and useless things just can't find a home on television.

The End of an Era, Part Deux
Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are officially divorced. Their pain is funny.

Magic Powers and Painful Memories

2006-06-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

The Anti-Christ of Comedy
The new Adam Sandler film "Click" has topped the box office since its release, grossing $40 million during its opening weekend and once again proving that God is dead and the Devil dances on his grave, celebrating the conquest of the world he can now form into another Hell.

HARRY POTTER!!!!
J.K. Rowlings mentioned in an interview that two major characters will die in who the fuck cares and why is this even news?

Superman is Dead
"Superman Returns" opens tomorrow, reintroducing the world's blandest hero to the big screen and giving us all a chance to wonder what horrible, life-crippling thing will happen to star Brandon Routh. I mean really, isn't playing Superman basically like taking a hit out on yourself? George Reeves got multiple gunshots to the head, Christopher Reeve had his whole horse accident/depressing wheelchair person thing, Dean Cain had to be Dean Cain for the rest of his life and Tom Welling had his body taken over by a symbiotic fungus that now controls his thoughts (and his perverted appetites. You know what I'm talking about). I'd say there's about a one in ten chance that Routh ends up with his head on a pike in some Eastern European war zone.

Lunacy Abounds

2006-06-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

Boll-ed Over
"Alone in the Dark" director Uwe Boll has challenged his critics to fight him in a boxing ring in what would be a filmed bout, apparently because he is angry over an online petition with over 13,000 signatures from people who want him to stop making films. While some think it might be easier for the man who made "House of the Dead" to JUST STOP MAKING SHITTY MOVIES, apparently Mr. Boll needs thousands of people to punch him in the face in order to get the point.

Queen Bitch Tits Update
Britney Spears probably did something trashy and mundane today, like chew tobacco while breast feeding in public, or give her child a mullet, or finish half a pack of Marlboros during a cell phone call to the Psychic Friends Hotline. I'm sure you'll hear all about it in People next week.

On the Dead Tree Front:
Here are the top five books in the New York Times Bestsellers List (Hardcover Fiction): A shitty book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, a shitty book by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, a shitty book by Patricia Cornwell, a shitty book by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge and, topping the list, a shitty book by Dean Koontz.

Because Things Celebrities Say Are Important

2006-06-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

Opening This Week
Adam Sandler stars in a new film so mundane that no one can seem to remember the name of it or what it is about, other than that the US government is optioning the film to be used as a psychological weapon. A fictionalized account of what happens to Guantanamo Bay prisoners is scheduled for release this Friday, but is matched in its ability to disturb by the release of a new documentary about Leonard Cohen.

Rich Person Breeds
In an interview recently, Angelina Jolie admits that she was "terrified" while giving birth to her daughter, though not nearly as terrified as the rest of us are at the thought of Angelina Jolie breeding.

Coming Soon...
The "Ghost Rider" comic books will get the big screen treatment, starring... Nicholas Cage? And directed by the guy who directed "Daredevil"? And it's getting released in February? Dammit. Coming in April is the latest edition of Michael Bay's personal endeavor to take a big, fat, honkin' shit on all my favorite horror movies, this time with a remake of "The Hitcher." IS NOTHING SACRED TO YOU, YOU BASTARD? CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE GOOD ENOUGH ALONE?

Smiley face time :)