BLOGS
July 2009 Archives
If anybody is planning on nominating Katherine Heigl for an award for her work in this new, fairly formulaic-looking rom-com, don't. She's just going to turn it down, because if she didn't think her Grey's Anatomy work was worthy of an Emmy nomination, then she can't possibly believe this familiar-sounding drivel is worthy of an Oscar, or a Golden Globe, or even a Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Award. Or maybe she does -- we've found a set diary that seems to be hers, and in it she gushes about the cleverness of the film and the creatives behind it. Still, we don't think she'll receive any nominations for the part, unless you count the Razzie, and we don't think you can turn those down anyway. Check out her secret Ugly Truth set diary here!
Justin Timberlake must be some kind of mutant. The man can sing, dance and act (if his recent Emmy nomination is any indication), and he was recently in the running to play superhero Green Lantern, before he lost out on the part to superhero hog Ryan Reynolds, who has already played Hannibal King in Blade Trinity and Deadpool in Wolverine, and was recently given a Deadpool spin-off. If JT is interested in playing a superhero -- and Reynolds will give someone else a frickin' chance (Double-R backlash!) -- we think he should keep trying. In fact, we've come up with a batch of comic book characters that we think Timberlake would be perfect for.
The Smurfs: We Pick The Smurfiest Movie Cast Ever
The Smurfs live-action movie is officially underway, and we can't wait to see what actors are going to be in it! For Vanity Smurf, they need someone who's pretty, but not too pretty, so that-- what? The Smurfs will all be computer-generated? But... but we just wrote this whole big Smurf cast wish list! Oh, come on! Well, maybe they'll change their minds, and realize that tiny, blue versions of some of today's funniest actors is the way to go. Click here to see who we think should play Papa, Heft, Brainy, Smurfette and the rest of the gang.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is Only Half There, but It's the Good Half
After two years of waiting, I have finally seen the latest installment in the Harry Potter series, and it is good. I mean, really good. I laughed, I cried, I was on the edge of my seat. And considering that it was only rated PG, rather than PG-13 like the last two, there was still plenty of gore and violence and scary stuff. There's also a lot of snogging (British for making out), because, in case you weren't aware, this chapter of the Potter saga is all about sex.
Wow. Today sees the release of some of the most anticipated TV on DVD in recent memory. Well, anticipated by me, anyway. So it's mostly cartoons, oiled-up body-builders, serial killer movies and sketch comedy. I know what you're thinking, and the answer is, "Yes, I am a psychopath."
While the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the first installment in a while to be rated PG, that doesn't mean it's any less messed-up. Sure, there's less blood (even though it's the first to put the word "blood" right in the title), but Harry still receives a nasty beating, there are teen make-out parties galore and at least one person gets murdered. Oh, and there are also zombies. Fricking zombies! In celebration of the scariest PG film we've seen in a while, we thought we'd run down the most effed-up moments in the franchise's first five films. No spoilers for Half-Blood, unless you count us mentioning zombies earlier. Too late!
Can you believe it's been two years since the last Harry Potter film came out? ...You can? Yeah, it does feel like a long time, doesn't it. Well, it's time to refresh your memory about what happened last time, and who everybody is, so you can go into the new film and know what the hell's going on. Because there are a lot of characters in these films. Between the students and the teachers and the parents and the Death-Eaters, nobody gets more than five minutes of screentime, and it's hard to keep their stories straight. Luckily, we've created a handy-dandy Harry Potter Character Guide with pictures of all of the old characters and a few new ones, plus info on what happened last time and what their status is at the start of this one. It's non-spoilery, so don't worry about us giving away the extremely shocking ending of the movie which everyone already knows about anyway. Still, if you don't want to know how it ends, you should probably leave the Internet.
The recent announcement that SNL's parody sketch "MacGruber" would be following MacGyver into movie theaters got us thinking about the state of the SNL movie machine. We haven't seen a new SNL sketch-based movie in a while, probably because the last dozen or so have been terrible, but not all of them have been. Some of the earliest ones, like The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World are classics, and even Superstar and The Waterboy are pretty damn funny. So we shouldn't let travesties like The Ladies' Man and It's Pat keep us from getting funny movies based on funny, funny sketches. The formula can still work, dammit! Here's a bunch of sketches we'd like to see feature-length.
Looking for a little sci-fi in your political commentary? No? How about political commentary in your sci-fi? Yes? Well, then, you should see District 9, about a slum in South Africa populated entirely by aliens from the giant spaceship hovering overhead. Maybe. We dunno, we've only seen the trailer. So have Omar G. and Pablo G., and they have a lot to say about it in the latest episode of "Trailers Without Pity." The brothers can't believe they got suckered in by the pseudo-YouTube video moviemaking style, which got them all riled up over the poor little oppressed, marooned, marginalized aliens. Check out the episode below, or click here!
My feelings about Bruno are very complicated, and to try and condense my opinions about the movie in a few paragraphs is going to be a challenge. But I can tell you that if the goal of this documentary was simply to provoke discussion, it's wildly successful in its attempts. First of all, Sacha Baron Cohen is the bravest person I've ever seen. He puts volatile people in the most confrontational situations imaginable, throwing their worst nightmares in their faces with no mercy, and he never breaks character. He's masterful, like a samurai of conflict, and it's unremittingly impressive. But here's the thing about Bruno: it's a fearless and undeniably successful skewering of bigotry and evil at times, but often it's just a bunch of ridiculous pranks that I would argue don't really say anything conclusive about its subjects. Blog Categories
A Festival for the Rest...ival
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Director? I Hardly Knew Her!
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Legal Eaglese
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Video Games Killed the Movie Star
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When Animal Movies Attack
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You Got Comic Book in My Movie
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You Know, For Kids!
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