We're ready for your close-up, Dr. Zetsche

The head of DaimlerChrysler is now on our TVs! Kind of refreshing to see a guy who's not totally pandering, as in the one where he leaves a guy speechless in a car after driving around like a madman for 30 seconds, which in a car commercial can seem like forever, and bidding him adieu, or rather, Aufwiederzehen! ...Is that how you spell it? And dude! The guy's accent is about as thick as Ahnold's! In the above one, however, Mr. Zetsche tries to fend off the wrath of Goober, the angry car commercial director. Well, the USA is kinda hated the world over right now, so maybe this commercial will make up for it and start the global healing.
So what's happening in the world lately? I mean, in the world of movies. Well, Mel Gibson's officially turned into his Lethal Weapon character, only more beard-y and less likable. It just ain't the go-go 80s anymore, Melissa! Well, like father, like son, eh? Actually, I'm more reactionary than ol' Hutton. He believes the sun revolves around the earth, whereas I believe it revolves strictly around North America, and I have the charts to prove it ... somewhere. I wrote it on toilet paper.
What else happening? Saw an interesting movie on the horizon, the dramatic version of The Corporation if you will, called Jennifer Government. And E. Max Frye, better make sure it's not another Amos & Andrew! Like I need to tell you. Why do I see what's her name in the title role... Jennifer Garner, that's it! That Dude where's my car 2 never did happen, did it? :(
Oh yeah, The Ant Bully's coming out soon. As David Spade might say, I liked it the first time when it was called The Genesis Tub on ... let me look it up here... Treehouse of Horror VII! ...man! Was it that long ago? Maybe it's time to revisit the theme.
In other news, the ad budget for John Tucker must Die has officially passed the film's budget. This John Tucker guy's a real bad-ass playa. One of his catch phrases is "What's my type? Girl is my type." Which is why, for example, the outspoken Camryn Manheim isn't in the cast. Which doesn't explain why Hollywood auteur Betty Thomas is behind the camera! Shame, Betty, shame.
So many movies out there, the proverbial glut. I'm just concerned films like The Groomsmen and Clerks 2 will get lost in the shuffle. Well, can't worry about it. It'll be a distant memory by next week. I'll try to post sooner than that next time. Man! A week in blog time, well, you might as well be dead.

Yarrgh! And the latest cinematic Scuttle-poop

test cinematic... damn jumping cursor! I currse thee... Anyway, better post again before I forget how. Life... taking over! Not good. So what have I been up to? Finally thrown off the Full Metal Jacket addiction for a while; starting to turn into a marine. Here's an interesting fact you might not know about the movie Full Metal Jacket: no one actually wears a jacket made of metal in the whole movie! And Kubrick had them made and everything, too; girl, you know he did. That was the primary cost of the movie; damn perfectionists. D'Onofrio needed a larger one, what with the weight gain and all.
Anyway, let's take a look at the latest news, and for that there's really only one place to go: Moviefone, baby! Remember the Seinfeld Moviefone episode? Of course you do! One of the headlines is: Will Spider Man end with #3? Gee, I hope not. However, what with the budgets skyrocketing on each one, the fourth will have to cost at least 500 million to make. That money better be up there on the screen, that's all I know! And Sony... , but Spidey is tackling a lot of villians this time. There's only one solution to that: have them all jet-ski towards each other like in Waterworld... oops! Sorry. fprgpt to say Spoilers! There's also something about the Top 700 best superhero movies ever... obviously, I didn't have time to read the whole list. Hey! I ain't Jeff Albertson here! However, I do know that Payola was involved because Constantine was in the top 30...
The other big story is the premiere of Clerks 2: Ec-clerk-tic Boogaloo. Oh, c'mon, now! There's no way this is not going to be funny, right? Well, apparently Joel Siegel walked out of the premiere, about 30 minutes into it. I point that fact out because it's going in the new TV spot: "It's a Generation Gap War, folks! Don't trust anyone over 30. They'll only see Clerks 2 for 30 minutes and walk out, like a g--damn sissy movie critic." That, and the "If you think you've seen it all before... see it again!" spots will be playing soon. I'm hoping for the best, of course, but they might have to downgrade from "#1 movie in America" to "#1 Comedy in America" to "#1 NEW comedy in America!" Damn you, Little Man!
Incidentally, they say Kevin Smith's never done a Clerks sequel before. Well, unless you count The Flying Car (2002) (TV), or the animated TV show... which we won't, even though it followed Who Wants to be a Millionaire. When Regis was on, and the show was good, and the whole world was watching.. Regis! Well, I didn't want to spill the beans, but... another spoiler! He's actually making two Clerks sequels back-to-back like everyone else these days. Clerks 3 will hit in about six months. They're always spaced six months apart. Except for PTC3. There always has to be an exception.
What other new movie news? Well, I must say, shame on Jay Leno. Shame, sir! He made a joke about Haley Joel Osment crashing his car recently. Leno called him a "former child actor". Former child actor? Hey, we're not talking about Rick Schroeder or Soleil Moon Frye or Barrett Oliver here! Isn't HJO a little bigger than that? ...guess not. Yeah, he's right. He's always right. I didn't watch ... what was that turkey called? Self-made Lions? And I guess the voice-over work's suffering ever since they dropped. Well, whatever the reason for the car crash ... ah! Not yet a part of his mini-IMDb bio yet... we're pulling for you, buddy. If nothing else, daddy will get another job with Spielberg playing someone's assistant. And next time, if you have to crash a car, do it closer to the release date!
And now, an update on the only new movie I care about, NCFOM... I don't know. In this age of CSI, and NCIS and The Unit and The Shield, and whatever the hell else is on TV in the realm of cop / police detective shows... does anyone care anymore? Will anything stick? Just how jaded are we? Is there a Jade-o-meter? Are the Republicans using it against us? Incidentally, here's a great Coen bros. site: it says NCFOM's going to have about a 30 million dollar budget, and Hail Caesar is definitely going to cost WAY less than Intolerable Cruelty. Play it safe for a while, guys. :)

Re: Good news regarding the economy dlo

ATTENTION H0MEOWNERS -- REFINAANCE RIGHTNOW!!! Consolidate your bills, slash montly mortggage payments and experience huge savings. ...oops, sorry about that. Sometimes my junk email gets past the filter. They're getting smarter!

So much news to get to... My man M. Night is flogging his latest auteuring Lady in the Water on my man Jon's show, The Daily Show. All I know is, the commercials are at least ground-breaking: there's a woman doing the announcing in the commercial! In your face, LaFontaine!

Meanwhile, as if you needed more evidence that TV is the new Movies ... Movie Theater, what have you, you get what I'm trying to say; thank you very much, Jerry Bruckheimer! Bet all those critics are kicking themselves now for panning Bad Boys 2! Anywho, James Woods takes it to the Small Screen, and brings it big time to a new show called Shark. Hey, who wouldn't be tired of slumming in films like The Virgin Suicides and Another Day in Paradise and ... True Crime? It's time to be seen again! Incidentally, in the show, Shark, he plays a former defense attorney turned Federal prosecutor named, uh ... Sebastian Shark. That's all I have to say about that.

In other commercial news, Nick Lachey's got a big Screw You to the new Daisy Duke running like hotcakes on my beloved Comedy Central, for one. Yes, it's an ad for a product called Clix, from the makers of Axe and Tag body spray. A little something for all those guys in traction now, from getting tackled by all those girls who smelled the body spray. The guys are a little older now, a little wiser, walking with a cane or crutches, but still want the ego boost. Now they just want to be noticed, not tackled. Surely our Nicky's not gone out to pasture on us already? We need you, Nicky! The War of the Sexes is still on! Us men have got next to nothing left!...

What else? Well, Brad Garrett finally breaks the Raymond curse with his new show, 'Til Death. Just as Freaks and Geeks shattered the illusion of High School, 'Til Death shatters the illusion of the happy marriage. Wow! Holy Originality, Batman!

Commercials may just be the new Movie Star launching pad, just as a stool in Schwab's was once so long ago. The dude what plays an iMac in them iMac commercials is the star of a new movie, Accepted. And I mean the STAR! Not the bland love interest that draws you into Dodgeball. Not more Ancillary Character falderal of the Jeepers Creepers saga. THE Star. Of Accepted, which is a PG-13 Animal House, or Old School if you like, except now they're creating their own college. Nice to know the same old jokes apply, though, huh? Hoorah for the internet! Also check him out in the upcoming Idiocracy, Mike Judge's next pic. I can see the ads now: "From the director of Office Space... all you bastards think THAT's a masterpiece now, right? So pony up for this you cheapskates!!!" So what's Harrison Bergeron, chopped liver?

Dang. Up too late again. Caught most of Into the Night. I get the distinct feeling Jeff Goldblum is channeling Chevy Chase. How that ladies' man didn't nab Michelle Pfeiffer I'll always know. Incidentally, you notice it says here that Nick Lachey's favourite actress is Michelle... Nice try, Nickie, but that Clix crap's not gonna work on that one. David E. Kelley might not have a hit show on TV right now, but you're gonna need more than man perfume to drive a wedge between him and his lady. And their two kids.
And on that note, g'night!

Oh yeah... I do albums, too.

Recently felt a'hankerin' to hear one of the old classics, Peter Gabriel's 3rd eponymously (or is it apocryphal? The dictionary's just no help to me these days) titled album with the melty face on it. Good ol' Peter Gabriel, Charlie Brown! I couldn't help but notice all his CDs have gotten similar makeovers; the backs aren't the originals, but at least the covers remain; well, there's only one movie to link to on that one, am I right people?
Now I'm not on the street these days so I don't know what the word is about ol' PG. Some may theorize that he killed Genesis, but not enough so that Phil Collins came back to do the wonderful opening drum riff on the opening track, Intruder! All these years later and I still love the showmanship in that song. The drums, the eerie ethereal piano, the xylophone on crack, and if I remember correctly Phil himself did his own ... homage, if you will, called "Mama". Anyway, Intruder kind of sets and whets the palette for the general tone of all the songs on the album about deranged psychopaths, excepting of course Biko, but you still gotta give this album some mad props: four of its cuts made it onto Shaking the Tree, his compilation CD from diddley-some years ago... am I aging myself or what?
Anyway, march with me as I continue my analysis of the tracks... No Self Control; I wonder where the lyrical inspiration came from that bridge section (There will always be the silences, waiting behind the chair...) Also, I wonder what it would sound like if Ray Charles covered it. Anyway, the third is an instrumental which leads into John Poindexter's theme song, I Don't Remember. It got trimmed a little in its transition to Shaking the Tree, which is always a shame in my book. Is this not Rock's thumping tribute to amnesia?
Next is Family Snapshots, and again, the showmanship helps counterbalance the lyrics. I can't help but think of the movie Chaplin where Chaplin's brother at every turn warns that the people don't want to hear pop songs about Lee Harvey Oswald. Something like that. Anyway it also made the Tree. The same can't be said for And Through the Wire, which, with Come Talk to Me off his '92 album Us, is a nice duet in praise of the phone company. ...sorry, can't find a link to those first 1-800-Collect commercials, so skip it. Then, side two of the old vinyl (really dating myself now!) rippingly begins with Games Without Frontiers, or Jeux sans frontiers... damn! So many french words in English. How exactly did that happen? I remember being underwhelmed by the music video, maybe because they had to cut out the part about pissing on goons.. or did they? Anyway, he made up for it with Sledgehammer, big time. I guess we'll never see a music video like that ever again, people are just too jaded by tv and videos in general.
It's been a whie since I heard the opening guitar riff of Not One of Us. Again, I don't know what rocks, but I humbly ask, does that not? And how can you not like the chorus reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's overtly sexual track Big Love? Incidentally, I'm told that both songs are used quite a bit at the Connecticut underground orgy scene. The wonders never cease.
Then of course, every recording artist dreams of having a song with the corrosive simplicity of a song like Lead a Normal Life. You know, something that a friend will speak of to a friend "Man, you won't believe the song I heard the other day! It's just these same damn notes over and over again..." You can't BUY that kind of attention. So what else can I say? The song is as I remembered it... Which closes the album with Biko. Peter said he never wrote a ... oh, what was the word? Activist song? Oh, it's such a dirty word now. Political! I think that was it; that's even worse. Again, balancing the mostly fictional album out with a political song... good move. And good feng shui, or whatever they call it these days. Future memory? Scary!!! Speaking of Richard Attenborough, anyone remember Cry Freedom? Herein lies the danger of promoting a film on MTV; everyone thought it was going to be about Biko (Denzel Washington). Ah, 1987 was a rough year for the big auteurs, Attenborough with Cry Freedom, Spielberg with Empire of the Sun.

Speaking of Peter Gabriel, Napster seems to have come full circle being free again, but I know the music biz will never really forgive Napster, bringing style and zazz to checking out CDs from the library and making a couple new millionaires in the process. But there's another crime against music that hasn't gotten as much attention from the press or the Federal Government. Something so heinous that even Keith Gordon's stomach is churning! I was watching Phenomenon recently (Can you believe it? Schwarzenegger turned down the lead! And we all thought he was so magical once...), getting sucked in to its slickness of production, sinking down lower and lower in my chair as it washed over me, when I was violently awakened by the re-tooled version of Gabriel's I Have The Touch!! Completely re-mastered featuring new Elevator-Friendly guitar riffs, probably supplied by Bruce Hornby and his Range. And I don't need to tell those of you in this Know that yes, they did indeed tiptoe around the lyric "There you stand before me, all that fur and all that hair..." heh heh. This is a PG picture, after all! I'm sure some people will blame Gabriel himself for agreeing to go along with it, but it's such a massive retooling of the song that I can't get too mad at him about it. I'll bet even he was surprised by it. It's like the makeup in Dick Tracy, I don't think we've seen a reworking of a song like this since (except a little in The Rocketeer) Tell you what, though, there's another song off that same album, Security, (the Shock the Monkey album... oy! Don't even get me started on Project X!!!!!) that no one will EVER touch with a 10-foot soundtrack pole, not even Scorsese himself, and that of course is The Family and the Fishing Net. :)

Box Office Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Dang! Still evolving into a dyslexic typist. Good thing I catch myself sometimes.
Well, folks, John Dean's got a new book out, which means it's time for someone to publish a sequel to Silent Coup. I mean, c'mon folks! Nixon removed himself. See also Joshua Then and Now for another nice apaeaan ..paean? About Nixon. ...no one's put up that quote yet? Guess I'll have to do it. Later on.
And of course we've been hearing lately on the news about how conservatives are being elected all over the globe now, too. Speaking of pirates, POTC2 baby! #1 with a bullet at the box office! And a sword and doubloons and all that pirate crap. Actually got to see it this weekend, and man, what a freakshow. If only they were handing out bonus points for dressing the part. A good percentage of the audience would've gotten something. The usher warned me to get there 45 minutes early. Got there about ten minutes beforehand, but I got a better seat than I got for the first one, that's for sure. Craned my neck skyward until I decided about the halfway point I've had enough.
Anyway, they did the new old reliable Wednesday Release trick to boost the box office take. It worked for the first one and The Da Vinci Code, and why not? Bottom line, they're entertaining flicks, and now it's a Star Wars-esque franchise. Unfortunately we have to wait more than six months for the last installment, so it's not all good news.
Now there may be some of you out there wondering why I'm not profiling the other nine entrants in the usual Box Office horse race. The answer is quite simple, really. They're LOSERS! Damn dirty losers! Not worthy of time nor space, but I will give a brief shout out to Waist Deep, the little movie that could. And why? Even I don't know, but it's hanging on by fingernails, and not sliding down the drapes as fast as everyone thought it would. Hmm! They must be running trailers for it on Fox News Movie Channel!
All right, that's it for me. More big movies on the horizon, though: Clerks 2; Little Man, or White Chicks 2; Basic Instinct 2 now out on DVD! And PSP... what is this PSP everyone keeps advertising about? And how much more debt am I going to rack up thanks to a new format?

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - The Motion Picture

O Kenny Boy, the pipes the pipes are freezing... Guess it's not as lingering a story as the passing of, say, Ray Charles or Rosa Parks, ... or as big Heston's will be. There. Is that fair and balanced enough? CNN's web site doesn't have the story now, that's all I know. And Yahoo took down their candlelight vigil Flash animation. Then again, my conspiracy theory buddy's already on the case, speculating that there's a Chinese prisoner missing somewhere and now Ken's got a new face and is living in Acapulco, the land where the law leaves their slippers at the door. I didn't think anything of it at first, but then Jeff Gannon's unofficial blog was harping on and on about the new pet at the Oval Office, some old pudgy eggies-eating Chinese guy with these massive scars around his face who's just moved in to Kenny boy's old room! Face/Off sequel, here I come!
Which reminds me, you just don't see that many slashes or backslashes in movie titles anymore. Have we truly grown so accustomed to web conventions? Meanwhile, in other depressing news, all those rubes who picketed Akeelah and the Bee are learning the joys of labor, organizing and the like, tactics which used to belong to the working people of this country. There's yet another story about how it's time for another Tectonic shift in the way words are spelled in the English language. It's this kind of thing that makes me think more and more... I'm barely in the adult world myself, but today's High Schoolers must think all adults are just a raving bunch of a'dorks. (see David Ogden Stiers in Better Off Dead..., balance it out with his mighty football prowess in Creator...) Also that if this movement were gaining steam under Clinton's presidency, why the cognoscenti on the right would be howling from the aisles! George Will and Buckley would be decrying the fall of the once mighty Diphthong. The art of proofreading would gain cult status alongside chugging beer. This is why we need a Democrat in the White House again, so these kinds of things won't see the light of day in the national media.
In the instant case, the news story has the following sentence: "wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound? " Holy Ghoti, Batman! The plan now is to show this sentence to third graders and ask them what they think, and all the third graders that think this new spelling is cooler get to live. Makes it simple, don't it? Me myself, I could go on and on about how I take humbradge... Whoops! I'm a Rube! I don't even know how to spell that damn word! ..UMBRAGE. That's it. I actually had this idea myself as a joke a while ago but didn't think to patent it, how it's taken off. Well, first of all, would and wood should BOTH be spelled 'wud'. Emphasis should then be placed on figuring out which is which by studying the context it's used in, and funding given exclusively to faith-based teaching approaches, especially those that encourage abstaining from writing on paper. You know, recycling! Saving the earth and all that feel-good good stuff. Sound should be spelled "sownd". Yeah, that's more like it. And 'make' shouldn't be 'maek', its 'mayke'. Every idiot knows that. More is not 'mor', it's "mohr". And the new 'words' is not "wurdz", it's "werdz". What's with the leaning towards the overusage of "u", anyway? Whatareya, DUTCH? Personally, I'm kinda glad 'it' and 'the' are staying the same, but I still think they don't look anything like they should be pronounced. I'm going to vow to make some progrefs this year in petitioning Congrefs about that. Meantime, there's two places where misspelled words reign supreme: the web, and the advertising world. Anyone remember Artic Blue beer? Or how about Bläk, the perfume by Robert Blake? That's the only two I can come up with off the top, but try finding an article online about them where all the words are spelled correctly! I bet you won't find alot!

Where was I? Oh yeah, better wrap this up, but the point being, the news is very weird and depressing these days, in varying degrees. But there was something of a silver lining last week or so. Our Dubya met with the Japanese Dubya, and they both went in peace and harmony to Graceland, because they're Elvis fans. See? I knew Mystery Train would come around eventually. Incidentally, isn't the President of the United States the last person in the world who should be saying "Hope for the best, and expect the worst" and really, seriously mean it? Just a thought.

Lost in the Dust

Every once in a while a movie comes along that replaces a TV program you were expecting to see, so you watch this movie instead and you think to yourself, My God! This is an unexpected treasure! I'm going to buy it on DVD, I like it so much. Unfortunately, the opposite Effect happened to me from this exact instance of Cause. And I've got a bone to pick with you, IFC! You hear me? See, they had Henry's Film Corner listed on the grid this evening, and I was told it was a pretty hilarious episode, and would I burn a disc of it for them, but instead they went straight into the next movie, a turkey called Dust. It's the sophomore feature from the dude who made Before the Rain, which I guess in the movie world is one of those Titles like All the Pretty Horses or Different for Girls or Castle Freak that's also a pretty good movie, too. Anyway, I don't know what it is! It's one of those deep, unanswerable philosophical questions: what makes a bad movie bad? In the case of Dust, it just seems like a student film, and I've seen my share, believe me. It's like a feature length student film, with a big Hollywood soundtrack budget. But even student films sometimes have lessons to impart: Lesson 1, never rob an old person's house. They're just gonna wanna tell you a story. Lesson 2, ... well, guess that's the only lesson, really. Unless it's about soundtrack. Yeah, the way they use James Brown's I Feel Good... I think there's a lesson there somewhere of how NOT to use a song: at least, not one as ubiquitous as I Feel Good. The protagonist, or the dude who's milque-toast enough to draw us into the movie because we can relate to him/her, (Anonymous from Primary Colors, ironically enough - I kinda thought that was him! And that this role was beneath him somehow...) draws a gun when a street thug draws a knife. I know we're supposed to celebrate the little victories, but puh-leeze!!!

...still watching it. yecch. Boromir's brother is in another major gunfight. Only the finest for the movies. I thought everyone was going to start laughing again, but now he's just shooting everyone. There's about twenty dudes with rifles and he's just picking them off one by one. I guess the rule is that the group has to wait until he shoots half the guys before they can attack. Defies all logic.

See, it's all in this story within a story where these two brothers fall in love with the same French whore and ... ah, what's the point. Trust me: Dust blows.
* 1/2

Good double bill with: Sunshine.

Re: Refinance current Mrtge approved

brought to you by Goat Milk Ice Cream.com

As tradition dictates, it's time to take a look at this week's Box Office horse race. But before we do that, let me just preface it by saying something that might shock you, surprise you, even educate you. Everyone's heard about the infamous Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but it wasn't always called that. It originated in the bowels of Microsoft when the internet was first taking off, and it was called the Six Degrees of Bombs Away, a movie filmed in Seattle. Apparently they didn't copyright it as vigorously as Windows 3.1 'cuz they would've made a ton of money off it, off of T-shirts alone.
And so, in honor of this nugget of history, we now take a look at the Box Office. At #10, The Da Vinci Code ... starring Tom Hanks who was in The Ladykillers directed by Joel Coen who also directed The Big Lebowski starring David Huddleston who is the father of Michael Huddleston who is the STAR of Bombs Away. Need more be said?

9. The Break-Up featuring Judy Davis who starred in Absolute Power with Gene Hackman who appeared in Wyatt Earp who also featured Michael Huddleston as Albert, who STARRED in... BOMBS AWAY.

8. Waist Deep directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall who appeared in Falling Down starring Michael Douglas who produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Christopher Lloyd who appeared in Three Warriors with Michael Huddleston, the STAR of ... BOMBS AWAY!!!!

7. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift starring Lucas Black who appeared as Ebb in The War starring Frodo himself, Elijah Wood (as Stu) who was in the LOTR trilogy directed by Peter Jackson who also directed The Frighteners starring Jeffrey Combs who appeared in Castle Freak as John Reilly which was produced by Charles Band who co-wrote Bad Channels starring Michael Huddleston as Corky who also... was that more than six? Close enough.


6. The Lake House starring Sandra Bullock (incidentally, was that a nip slip on the cover of Vanity Fair? Or was it totally planned?) who made her first debut in Love Potion No. 9 which features Anne Bancroft as Madame Ruth, who also played Dr. Catherine Holland in Mr. Jones which also stars Tom Irwin as Dr. Robert Shaye who played Gary in Men Don't Leave which also features Arliss Howard who was in The Prodigal with Susan Ludlow who played Lilian in ... B.A.

5. Nacho Libre starring Jack Black who appeared in Bob Roberts starring (and directed by) Tim Robbins who appeared in High Fidelity with Joan Cusack who starred in A Smile Like Yours with Michael Santo who is in ... Bombs Away! oops, one step too many, better tweak the software.

4. Cars starring Paul Newman who starred in The Hudsucker Proxy directed by Joel Coen who directed The Big Lebowski starring David Huddleston who is the father of Michael Huddleston who STARS in Bombs Away

3. Click starring Adam Sandler who was in Anger Management with Heather Graham (unbilled) who appeared in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle directed by Alan Rudolph who also directed Trouble in Mind featuring Mara Scott-Wood who IS the voice of M.A.R.Y. in ... YGI! (you guessed it)
Bombs Away

2. In a surprise move, about as surprising as Waist Deep, it's The Devil Wears Prada starring Meryl Streep who played Karen Traynor in The Seduction of Joe Tynan which also starred Rip Torn who appeared in Jinxed! with Bette Midler who appeared in Bette Midler: Ol' Red Hair Is Back (1978) (TV) which was co-written by Pat McCormick who stars as The Dispatcher in ...BOMBS AWAY

And finally... 1: And finally, Superman Returns which stars Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor who also stars as Subway Thief in Heartburn which was written by Nora Ephron who made, well, let's face it, she was the real star of Sleepless in Seattle which was Second Unit photographed by Marty Oppenheimer, the First Unit big cheese cameraman on... BOMBS AWAY!!!!! Small world, that Daily Planet, indeed...

Whew! got through that. Well, hope you enjoyed yourselves. Catch ya later on down the trail. And remember, if you want Box Office analysis, you didn't get it here! :)

Oh yeah, and the rest...

So what's the latest scoop? Well, I tell you what. I already know this You Me and Dupree is going to be a hit because this dude in my building who enters all the sweepstakes entered in the You Me and Dupree Sweepstakes. You can't BUY that kind of publicity! Oh sure, it's just another day at the office for the hunky star of Wedding Crashers and Bottle Rocket, Owen Wilson, but Kate Hudson, man! She's come out of retirement AGAIN to do this movie! That's saying something. As for the directors, I love those guys. Nice to see them go from The Matrix to more of a date movie.
In other new movie news, The Devil Wears Prada is about to hit, and big. For Meryl, it's a follow-up to She-Devil, or perhaps, more practically, a replacement; still, you can't beat that title sequence. For Anne Hathaway, it's The Princess Diaries 3: Dream Over. And hey, all you big time movie critics! New York Times, in particular. Where's all the complaints about product placement in the movies, huh? What if it were called The Devil Drinks Pepsi?
Oh wait, I got more. Yeah, that's right. You know, it wasn't so long ago that if a character were named Priestly, everyone would've made the instant connection to 90210 star Jason Priestl(e)y. Has that time passed so quickly? Is cameraman Tom Priestley more famous? Lord help us if we come to that. But I guess we at least know when the torch was passed... Then there's Alec Baldwin as Kudrow in Mercury Rising... Becker, am I the only one who remembers?
Meanwhile, on cable, I caught enough of the remake of Gloria with Sharon Vonne Stone to find distate with it. Why, even Henry Hill himself would find the setup more than a little implausible. It starts off where a low-level mobster, Mike Starr, who's usually a likable guy whatever role he plays, goes to a stoolie's house and kills him and his whole family. And I mean, his WHOLE FAMILY, one by one, except for his son who he sends out the back with a valuable 3 1/2" floppy disk. Ah, the good old days of data storage; must be a really efficient mob if it can be incriminated with just one floppy. The point being, even the most spineless stoolie is not going to just stand by and do nothing as each of his family members gets shot. To be fair, he was packing heat but forgot the bullets, or the gun jammed or something. I don't know. Maybe it's a dignity thing; it was directed by Sidney Lumet, after all.
In the meantime, while the whole world waits to see how much money the new Superman's going to lose, I did see a trailer for the next Nicolas Cage vehicle. It was a little strange because it said "On February 16..." which is like, 7 months away? I can't wait that long! Maybe they meant to release it 5 months ago but forgot. Anyway, he plays another walker between both worlds, only this time there's a motorcycle involved. Then there's a thing that looked like the Balrog with a similar fiery whip. And finally there was a sequence where he's driving the motorcycle up the side of a damn skyscraper, but alas I found it less than inspiring. Am I getting too used to this new CGI / Motion Capture visual ethic / ethos? Well, with Superman back in town, the DC Comics may finally be putting the kaibash on Marvel's heretofore successful reign of Box Office terror. That Stan Lee's been strutting around like he owns the place!

Report from the Road

Ah, the power of technology! This will be my first remote blog-cast. I have yet to see if it actually works. Plus, the data pipeline out here's a little thinner so it'll take me even longer to get this Box Office NIE right. Man, too depressing of news. Bush calling something disgraceful, what a laugh. And are we finally going to lose Federalsburg, MD? Who will care? Barry Levinson?
Anyway, on to the good news that no one's reporting, and that's this week's Box Office! Let's just start from the tippety-top this time with Click! And boy, did it click with audiences opening weekend, no surprise. While not doing as well as Big Daddy, 1999 dollars, it debuted strong at 40 million. On the down side this makes it only 7th cumulative-wise. Now if only there was a remote that could fast forward you to where the movie's made 200 million, or if you could forward past having to do commentary on the Special-edition DVD with Rob Schneider and company...
Meanwhile at #2 it's Pixar's Cars with only 22 1/2 million, but making it 3rd overall in this horse race. Guess it's surviving the critical bashing it's been getting after all. And Pixar and the Mouse have mended fences, too! Yes, everything's coming up roses for Senator Lasse(t)ter and his group of cyber-cronies. But, while even Pixar's not powerful enough to resurrect Ernest (Pink Lady and Jeff forever!) they have found a fairly suitable replacement, although he's still in talks for Toy Story 3. French Stewart is still slated to play the lead in the direct-to-video release Health Inspector 2...
Nacho Libre is still holding strong at #3, and you know what that means! Who knows how many more films we'll be seeing from those Hess-ian mercenaries. Napoleon Dynamite Goes to Hollywood? Or how about that time they crossed over into Montana on a sidecar? Man, did they get a paddlin' for that! Personally, I'm getting a little tired of seeing Jack Black's nipples while I'm going for a stroll in the mall. I don't want to have to think in there!

...and then, like a bolt of Black Lightning from out the blue, it's the rare Non-Dame Madea FUBU Cinema entry! This time, it's called Waist Deep, and no, it's not about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, thankfully. We'll tolerate none of that New-Orleans-ploitation cinema, thank you very much! I'm talking to you, Spike! He's scrapped plans to do his Get on the Bus sequel about Katrina, called Get on the Boat. (paid Bruce Vilanch for that one, heh heh...) But back to the instant case at hand. Waist Deep blew in like a Category 4 hurricane, sucking in 9.45 million in its debut week, and no, a percentage of the profits are not going to Hurricane Katrina victims. Business is business. Just ask Federalsburg, MD. Besides, in about five years we'll all be living in houseboats anyway.
Rounding out the Top 5 it's ... okay, a big mouthful. I gotta psyche myself up here: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It'll revive the Soap Opera cinema movement as we know it! Finally the perfect date movie. All that sentimental crap for the chicks, and cars for the dudes. You know, Pixar could learn a lot from this flick.

Gotta cut this short, folks, although this may be the last! :(

¡Box Office Salsa!

I'm literally out the door for my extended 3-day or so vacation, but I'm not about to leave all my loyal readers hanging! I promised to open up a six-pack of whoop-ass on last week's box office, and so I shall... although it's a rough draft. See you later!!


...
It's that time of the week again! Where we put the Box Office on the slide and observe it wriggling around under the microscope. We got a couple newbies, plenty of oldbies, and only one over 200 million! Sorry, Da Vinci, a million is a million.
At #10 it's Over the Hedge, and it's almost over the horizon! Sorry, DreamWorks, I already watched the whole thing at Costco on 60" HDTVs, b'eatch! The way God intended movies to be watched.#9 it's Da Davinci code... At this point they've scrapped all TV and print advertising and are instead relying on accompanying magazine articles. Take Newsweek's most recent cover story "Was Da Vinci gay?" I understand he did have artistic tendencies... Case closed.
At #8 it's The Omen. Sigh. America's just not in the mood to be scared right now. They, like me, are waiting for a Saw 3 Halloween, baby! That's all the candy I need.
And now, we get to the newbies. Garfield 2 debuts at #7... Frankly, I remain un-impressed. The first one did better than that! So, you mean to tell me I spent the last 3 weeks reading Garfield strips of that fat cat saying "I hate sequels" for NOTHING?!!!
X-Men has hardly taken its last stand at the box office as it stays at #6 with an impressive cumulative total of 216 million. With Wolverine's fingernails to cling with, it could stay there forever!
Ah, The Break-Up. Guess America's not in the mood to see America's 2nd hottest couple on the skids. America needs to believe in love right now, and the jazz-scatting of Favreau and the Vinnie Vaughn Invasion just isn't gonna cut it. Sorry, guys. We'll wait for Made 2 for that.
The Lake House, aka Speed 3: Through the Portal of Time debuted strongly at #4, almost as well as Hope Floats. Hey Letterman, will THAT float?
FF3 debuts at, where else? #3! Nothing more fitting. I think the scariest thing about this is there are Paul Walker clones out there! How he escaped from the gravitational pull of She's All That, I'll never know, and neither will Stephen Hawking or Baby Albert Einstein... I just eMC square'd in my diapers!
Finally we get to Nacho Libre. The big one. The sophomore debut of the Idaho Coen Bros. and with advertising muscle like MTV behind it, how could it not be the #1 live action comedy? I assume MTV helped out where it could with behind the scenes specials every other hour, and a Nacho-themed episode of Undressed to boot. I don't know, I haven't watched MTV in years. Show videos again!

Flesh Frolic

Normally I don't do this, but I feel I really have to speak out this time. Is it injustice? I'll leave that to you, dear readers. All I know is, it sure feels like injustice to me, and I'm sure the loyal readers of Maxim Magazine will surely agree. But before we get to that, better make this a three-parter, just in case. After all, all good things come in threes, right?
Where to begin, then? Oh yeah. Sea of Love. Saw most of it, anyway, enough to fog up my glasses, that's for sure. And I thought Mr. Becker learned his lesson from The Boost. No more love stories! Too bad they had to have all that murder mystery stuff get in the way of the plot and all. Well, it was probably a necessary evil, otherwise it's just Booty Call. Can you believe it? Academy Award (TM) winner Jamie Foxx STILL to this day won't return Jeff Pollack's calls! He'll get through one of these days, though. They've already got the title for the sequel: Badonkadonk. ...is that how it's spelled? I just don't speak Blackanese!
Anyway, part two. They were showing Porky's on Fox Movie Channel. While I don't think it's in Animal House's league, it certainly has a certain sense of time and place, or at least a semblance of a budget for it. And of course ample amounts of flesh. How quaint, too, when the guys are peeking in the shower and the one kid gets stuck with the fat chick. He tells her to get out of the way loudly so the jig is up. Good gag, but is he gay?
Later on, in a feat of isomorphic mental acrobastics, I will attempt to draw parallels between the instant case and director Bob Clark's other KC Masterpiece, A Christmas Story, but on to #3, which is A Good Woman. While I haven't seen it, I was perusing some DVDs at ... Fred Meyer, was it? This was in a bin and I read the description on the back, and it said "Scarlett Johansson plays a newlywed trying to win her husband back from seductress Helen Hunt." Do I need to repeat that? Let me repeat it anyway. That's Scarlett Johansson trying to win her husband back from (Academy Award winner) Helen Hunt. As Lewis Black might say, are you f******* kidding me?!! Son of a Bitch! How hard could that be? All she'd have to say to me is "I'm Scarlett Johansson"! Game over! Even Woody Allen knows it, Scarlett is this generation's Marilyn Monroe! Done two pics with her, lucky bastard. I mean, Helen was okay in Empire Falls, and whatever else she's done, but c'mon! Am I right, all you slobbering editors over at FHM? Then again, she did play a size-obsessed lady of the evening on a Ladies' Man sketch on SNL. I think that was her audition tape for this role. The producers were between a rock and a hard place on this one: rumor has it Madonna was also interested in the part, but the producers turned her down. Ouch!
All right, I'm done. On to bigger and better things now. Why I have yet to tear this week's box office a new one! Hopefully I'm not too late, got just the image for it too. Stay tuned! :)

Congrats! 100 entries

Sorry, this was the only movie-related 100 I could think of, and I think it knocked all the other 100's out of my head. Yes, it's true! This is our 100th episode of The Movie Hooligan blog. A cause for celebration! And how to celebrate? I'm not sure myself. This site doesn't have the best navigation in the world but I guess we could always look back, but do it yourself, please. I'm too tired.
Well, here's a thought! Okay, I confess, so I checked out the DVD of Throw Momma from the Train from my local video purveyours. I did try to make a copy of it but my computer wouldn't let me. Damn copyright laws! See, here's how I think it should be. Once all the parties involved have made all the money they're going to make off a movie like, well, TMFTT, for example, why not remove all that Copyright Protection mumbo-jumbo and see where the private sector takes it? I mean, let's face it, not everyone's going to want a copy of this turkey, am I right? These days it's all Mr. & Mrs. Smith! Incidentally, why isn't every other line of dialogue in that movie just something along the lines of "You know, Angelina, you look damn sexy - you are aware of this, right?" In case no one else has beaten me to the punch, when they remake Throw Momma I think it should be Owen Wilson in the Danny DeVito role and Luke Wilson in the Billy Crystal role. Good brotherly dynamic. Why, I can just picture Owen in Cars right now: "C'mon, Newman! Ya gotta lighten up, man! I mean, look @ us! We're a couple of cars here! Driving! You know?"
Other movie news: Bee Movie's still a work in progress. I know these Pixar-type pics are a lot of work, but puh-lease! At least we now have a timetable. I just assumed there were script problems, even though he's got some of the finest minds from Seinfeld working on it. Even the Simpsons hit a snag every now and again, right?
And now, the only movie news I care about: NCFOM - Ah! Looks like there were successful negotiations after all. You won't regret it, Tommy Lee. They've been showing U.S. Marshals lately on cable. While that was good, I think this will be a little meatier role for you. That's right, even more so than Double Jeopardy. Who knows? Time for another Oscar, maybe? What's this? Now Tim Blake Nelson's in negotiations? Hey, the Coens made you, buddy! Yeah, I know you're a director, too, but I'm sorry. Kansas and Eye of God weren't going to put you over the top.
Oh yeah. Finally saw the all-grown-up Peter Billingsley. You remember him! A Christmas Story? And I'll be damned if they don't pay some kind of homage to it in The Break-Up. That's perfunctory these days in movies, like David Hasselhoff in the upcoming Click. Guess Shatner was busy.
Okay, it's time to go. Thanks for all the support, people! Keep watching... :(

You know what's not hot? Reruns.

Oh, Letterman, you dog! What would Drew Barrymore say? Yes, that's naughty newbie Paris Hilton parading herself around on Dave's little dog and pony show for what, the third time? I love how she says she's busy working. Well, I do know she likes to earn her own money. That estate tax is going to bite her in the ass someday, better plan ahead now. Guess it also explains the recent cover of ... I think it was U.S. News and World Report, decrying retirement. Apparently it's not enough for people to enjoy retirement anymore; they still gotta work. C'mon, Republicans! Come out and say it! You hate retirees! All those people who say they don't have to work anymore, they've paid their dues in years and it's time to relax and enjoy life. It eats you up inside, don't it?
Meanwhile, on The Daily Show, they showed this Rob Corddry report called ... damn! Must be having too much sugar again. It's about high gas prices, and they first showed it on May 31st, 2005, then again that November (slightly edited, perhaps for time; when he drives away from the bicycle chick they cut off the car running out of gas again), and now yesterday (they showed the original uncut version that day). You might say they're getting good ... mileage ... out of it! (drumroll) After all, it's not the years - it is the miles, and besides, it's more timely than ever. But 2.59 per gallon only a year ago? Only on the Republican's watch. But I guess that's not fair. I'm sure someone will show that Carter was just as beholden to the oil companies as Dubya, if not more so. Who needs evidence these days? Just saying it is enough.
I had a third part to this fiasco, but again, didn't write it down. Oh, how things slip from memory these days. Yes, Letterman once said to Jeff Altman in fact, that the chemical that converts short term memory to long term memory isn't produced in as great a quantity as it is just after birth, when young minds need to absorb as much as they can about this crazy world we live in. Well, maybe this was it... as I was working today, I thought to myself, I wonder if in the new Superman movie, if Superman will fly over someone's house and the owner comes out and says "Excuse me, could you not fly over my house please?"

GRAND HEFT AUTO! That was it...

Box Office Autopsy

Awwright! Let's dissect this Box Office corpse. At #10 it's Poseidon, still on the radar for now, 8th overall at the box office with 54.9 mill total. Ya need a hit, Wolfgang!
Meanwhile at #9, RV is about to drive off into the horizon, but look out for European RV and Christmas RV coming down the pike. Get Chechik on the phone! Quick!
Mission Impossible 3 ... Well, it's not quite doing the impossible, but it is at #8 this week with a Paltrow 3.02 million. 127 mill overall, making it 4th cumulative-wise.
At #7, PHC debuts with a strong 4.57 million... strong for Altman, anyway. Did The Player hit #1? Ya need a hit, Lindsay!
Clinging on with proverbial claws and dropping down the curtain, ripping all the way, it's Over the Hedge at #6. It is 3rd overall with 130 million total; so far that only means one sequel. We'll see how that one does, then we'll talk trilogy. Still no sequel to Antz, right?
Now we're into the heavy hitters! sort of. Da Vinci's still boffo at #5; at 189 million it's 2nd overall cumulative-wise. Looks like it'll make 200 million after all. Everyone breathe a sigh of relief - Opie's still got it!
At #4 it's The Omen, folks. And I thought you wanted to be SCARED, America! Guess reality's bad enough as it is. But at least we have Enzyte these days, right? Good work, Bob!
X3 at #3! Isn't this how it should be? Guess the studio doesn't think so. How would that look in an ad? "It's the #3 movie in America!" Don't think so. But Nacho Libre's got that ad in the can just in case. Anyway, the conspiracy. Bryan Singer directed the first two X-Men movies. He is executive producing a hit show on Fox called House, M.D. Hmph! House. A guy named House. What next? A hip, precocious kid named Fudge? Then you have super-director Brett Ratner, director of X3, who is exec-prodding ... surprise! A hit show on Fox! Prison Break! Boy, they don't let just anybody direct these things! Guess that's probably why Joe Carnahan didn't stay attached to MI3, no pun intended... Shame on me! I thought he was a one-film wonder! I didn't know he did Narc! Maybe I'll watch it.

Oh yeah, and Break-Up at #2, and Cars debuts at #1, big surprise. I mean, let's face it, there's no beating the high that was X3 at #3, right folks? ;) Gotta go, it's dinnertime. So sad! It's the part of Octopussy where there's no Maud Adams! quel dommage. And to think she lost out to Mimi Rogers in Dumb and Dumber 2. Tasteless? No such thing!

Auteur Watch: Sylvester Stallone

Well, so far the new millennium has been a little slow for ol' Sly, not like the go-go 90s, that's for sure. But things are heating up now, baby! Could it be all because of "The Contender"? Yeah, I think so. Look what's coming down the pike now! Sequels on the house! Sequels all around... Rocky. Rambo. Now if only there were a sequel to Judge Dredd the trifecta would be complete, but this is a good start. Is America ready for this Phoenix to rise again? I'm really the wrong person to ask because I sure don't think so. In the meantime be sure to visit Instone's official website. Hey, these vitamins don't sell themselves, people!
Hmm! Guess that's all that really needs to be said about that. Thought this entry would be longer. Oh yeah, almost forgot. My insider source tells me the new Rocky's going to start where Balboa's watching Cop Land on DVD with commentary. Okay, I'm outta here... :)

Latent Box Office Séance

Okay.... (sighs heavily) I'm going to try this ONE MORE TIME! I think the Devil really is watching me! The Blogger servers went down last time I tried to post, and before that I couldn't post a pic to save my life! (see previous post) But now it looks like ... All Systems Go, Friend or Foe, It's something with the Devil - it's Touch and Go, followed by the coolest synth riff in the history of MTV videos... although it manages to escape the many lists on TV now. Face it people! We're living in a List Renaissance. It's time to sit back and revel in all the great cultural achievements that have come before our time. Yes, there's never been a better time for a critic to make their mark in the world...
Anyway, let's look at the Box Office tally for this week. Hanging by fingernails at number 10 it's Donald Petrie's Just My Luck, and his luck must be taking a turn for the worse. Then again, what busboy in the heart of Hollywood wouldn't kill everyone they ever knew for a streak like Miss Congeniality, How to lose a Guy in 10 days and Welcome to Mooseport? Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan's parents are scolding her, saying "You were beaten by A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!" On the plus side, Lindsay's brother is now an understudy for Alan Cumming in the Broadway play... well, just a general understudy.
Meanwhile, coming in at number 9, from the director of Gossip, it's An Inconvenient Truth. Eat your heart out, Michael Moore! Actually, I think F9/11 had a little bit stronger opening, but never mind. Global Warming is just becoming a celebrity in its own right. Oh, I miss the days of El Niño! Anyway, so they had a commercial for AIT during The Daily Show, kinduvan Action Movie-style trailer. The next commerical was this Tanqueray commercial where this wicked British black dude was on a cruise ship somewhere amongst the ever fewer icebergs, and he says "I'm told there's over a billion ice cubes in one of those things." Kind ov a depressing thought: it used to be an iceberg had at least 5 trillion ice cubes in it. That was the size of the one that took down the Titanic, I'm told [by James Cameron himself! :) ]
Moving on, from impending real evil to good old fashioned made-up movie evil, it's See No Evil making just, pitiful numbers. That's 2 million dollars this weekend from people too impatient to wait and see The Omen. Or, for that matter, Saw 3.
At #7, RV is still riding strong on low gas mileage, but it probably hasn't made a profit even yet. 5 weeks on the charts - you know why? It's outta respect. Oh sure, maybe it's only doing slightly better than Wild Wild West, surely not as good as the first two Men In Black's. And didn't Get Shorty spend its first three weeks at #1? The point being, theater distributors give respect to these great directors who've entertained the hell out of us... oh yeah, and Sonnenfeld too. :)
At #6, in a cruel ironic twist, Poseidon's box office totals are slowly sinking into the oblivion that all movies must endure. 3.49 mill? That's not even enough to pay the illegal aliens working on the picture, for Chrysler's sake! Moving on...
All right! Now we're getting into those extra-bloated ticks sucking all the blood out of the proverbial Box Office dog. The next four in a row have already raked in 100 million. Now they're just greedy! New rule: once a film makes 100 million, it's immediately pulled from theaters, and they just start selling the DVDs.
Anyway, #5 brings us MIIII as Stephen Colbert is fond of saying, and no, it's not Men in Black 4 misspelled. Rather, it's Tom-Kat's Mission Impossible 3: Talladega Nights. And even after all that, the Cruise-missile-meister STILL won't do a guest shot on Lost for poor, long-suffering J.J.! You bastard!
#4 brings us the Red State fave, The Da Vinci Code. And guess what? It's already made Entertainment Weekly's 25 Most Controversial Films of All Time list, just edging out Freddy Got Fingered. Payola Forever!
#3 is Over The Hedge, and it's hardly over the hill, my friends. Why, the now defunct DreamWorks has already got three sequels planned, and they're even going to let Bruce Willis into the script meetings so he can sneak in some of his many right-wing views. Bruno will sing again, oh yes... Idar-Oberstein Uber Alles!!!
#2 is X3, already well on its way to make 300 million, or the catering budget of Spider Man 3 (never to be outdone). I'm already way behind schedule so I'll append my further remarks til next time. Trust me, it'll make my head spin.
Finally we come to the magic that is the Vince-ifer Vaughn-iston... Jen-ince-fer Anis-ghn? Vin-gifer Vaughn-niston-ghn. Obviously this requires a lot more study, and I'm hardly the guy to do it. I didn't get no Doctoral Dissertation from USC! If they can't do it, who else would want to? Yes, it's The Break-Up! All part of my New Rat Pack theory. Actually, it's my New Rat PackSSS theory. Now the 3 S's are for who's at the helm of each prospective Rat Pack: Soderbergh, Stiller and Sandler. Now, Sandler's crew is about to hit big with Click, so watch out, Stiller! See, Vaughn is in the Stiller Rat Pack (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2) although at this point he's clearly the Sinatra, what with his Shirley MacLaine on his arm, JenAn. But moron that later, I gotta go shopping. G'night!
(now Post, damn it, Post!!Like an idiot I won't save a backup copy, as usual...)

Big Horizon Sky on the Movie... ?

Sorry, folks. No image this time. The computer won't let me for some reason. Some unreasonable reason! That's what I get for always blogging first, posting images later. :(

Man, still tired! Where does all the time go? I haven't even made half of the preparations for company to arrive at my humble casa de abode, and this week's box office STILL goes unreported! Though I had a feeling that The Break-Up would kick ass, it was just a question of by how much. Some say it means Jennifer Aniston's back on top again, but how does that explain Mr. & Mrs. Smith? I forget; was she on The Real World? What season? heh heh ...
Anyway, more big movies on the horizon. Nothing yet from the Clooney camp, and we're still waiting on Syriana on DVD - maybe they're working on the unrated version with more Jolie than you can shake your stick at. Sandler's got his yearly project in the can, though. Ah, yes! Coraci's back in the fold! And who knows, maybe he'll show up in a crazy bug-eyed cameo, where YOU GET HALF OF A-DA PIZZA!!! Too obscure? All right...
What else? Macho Nacho Libre's within striking distance, but not before Cars has had its way with the box office first. Some say it's the best car movie ever! And they haven't even seen it yet. I forget, it was some car magazine, but I don't know. Cars with eyes? Well, if they don't make a certain brand of truck look like the villain, they've lost a bet. Note to self: find a picture that illustrates what I'm trying to say. (huh?)
Yes, for all intents and purposes it's the sophomore feature from the Hesses. Are they the Coen brothers of Preston, Idaho? The two-headed director from the non-Aryan section of Potato Land? The John Hughes of the Idaho tweens and their not-so-eloquent angst? Have they severed all ties with the Duffs? Does Peluca count? Is this indeed their junior effort? Is this movie going to do for Mexican wrestlers what Napoleon Dynamite did for ... the Hesses? So many question, so few answers, but all I know is in the TV spots for Nach. Lib., there's a certain four-wheeler crash that looks an awful lot like the one in the other one! Ya know what I mean? ;) Gotta be careful, guys. You want to have a rich directorial palette, a wider array of themes and stark imagery to draw from than the same old quadmaker crashes. It's time to travel the world, guys. Join Conde Nast, or is it the Cosa Nostra? No shame in interning with Woody Allen for a while, borrow from him a little bit.
All right, that's about all the tidbits I can handle at this time ... Pheww! Still reeling from this film I saw called Butter. I think it's the kind of film Harold Lloyd would make today if he was young and black. And Zedd(e)more! You were so big once. Not good to be a star in this kind of turkey. This makes Airheads look like friggin Shakespeare! And Peter Gathings Bunche, stick to what you do best: Erotic Confessions-style fare on late nite cable.

Meany, beany, Gandalf-ini

Hold the phone! Stop the presses... My prayers answered: the UNRATED version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith! Finally, Shiloh Nouvel's conception caught on film! For some reason I didn't think they'd pander like that. Then again, we're not talking about Syriana here or anything. Incidentally, when's that coming out?

On video, that is... Looks like the sequel's already in the works. Ayn Rand gives me a boner!

Anyway, what does Gandalf care? They're running the next crop of Da Vinci ads (see it again for the First Time, you know the drill), but his X3's the Lord of the Box Office now! (maniacal laughter) Boy, his career's really going to take off now! Doogal? Wow! That's a shock. He could've owned that movie.

Meantime, I'm about to unleash on the world my New Rat Pack Theory. Things are happening. We'll need a Venn Diagram to explain it all, for one, and some kick-ass graphics. Meanwhile, it's official: Maxim magazine sez The Break-Up is great! I can't believe they didn't like Tomcats. It was made just for them! Guess we've finally grown up as a nation and moved on to fare like, well, like The Break-Up. Yes, the Frat Boy wave(olution?) of the late 90s has finally crashed on the shore like so much white powder... Let's check in on NCFOM ... Damn! The leads are STILL in negotiations! Well, they've got their work cut out for them as it is. If Josh Brolin's playing the part I think he's playing, they can do some of the scene where the guy first stumbles on the briefcase... oops! I forgot. Spoiler alert. :) Better get to bed now before I do much more damage.

I loves you Amelie! (Don't let them take me...)

Anybody missed me? I didn't think so. Waah. I don't think I've ever taken a hiatus that long since I've been on here! Well, maybe once before, but that was it. Sorry, baby! I was busy, but you know I'm not like all those other guys that lay false claim to loving you. They would've just put up that picture of you with your Creme Brulee spoon like savages but not me! I know there's more to you than just that Fourth Wall, baby! C'mon! You know I love ya baby. You know I didn't mean to let "A Very long engagement" slip from my mental To-Watch List! I didn't see The Princess and the Warriour either baby! I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean that. I need your ethereal guidance, baby! I got lost childhood treasures, too! From my days of living in rural France... well, at least, the French part of Los Angeles. It's the same thing! Heading down to the Bread-oteau Boulangerie in the afternoons and the proprieter would always give me a free baguette, and I could barely carry it all the way home... Yeah, those were the days.
Ah, what's the point of pretending. Besides, I'm not ready to start a family yet. That's right, I'm getting that cynical about love. Or am I? The world always seems to open more opportunities to the married with kids, doesn't it? At least with the tax breaks and all. And it does make me think of that quote from the Simpsons where Patty (or is it Selma? Even I, a die hard Simpsons fan, get the two mixed up) says "Making a baby isn't supposed to be hard work. It's supposed to be an expression of the feelings we're SUPPOSED to have for each other!" Incidentally, it was the only episode where someone else did the voice of Fat Tony, but I'm just not sure who. And I care not to speculate.
Anyway, I'm kinda glad that X3 kicked ass at the box office this weekend. A victory for Secularia over the more religious Oceania! Because that's how the USA rolls these days. Only thing is I think Bryan Singer's going to direct Rush Hour 3. That's the only corollary. I mean, aw c'mon Amelie baby! I didn't mean nothin' by it! I want the Da Vinci Code to do well, too! I'm just sayin' you'll always be Amelie to me!
Okay, I've done enough damage...