Critical End!

Seriously, kids, THIS is the only reason that the money-grabbing Hollywood gimmick that is 3D should stick around a bit longer:

Did you see that?!  The piranha hissed at that girl…underwater!  And Eli Roth and Christopher Lloyd were both there!  IN 3D!  I smell Oscars!

Did somebody say "Predators 2"? BOO-YAH!

It seems that your pals here at Critical End! reviewed the so-so Predators only a few weeks ago, and the film is still playing in most theaters, but that didn’t stop Robert Rodriguez from talking up Predators 2 at this year’s Comic-Con!

“They really wanted [Predators] to be pretty contained, pretty scaled-back.  They didn’t want to put too many of the ideas into it that we could save for a second one.  So we could see what the appetite was, because the bigger movie would actually be what comes following that.  That kind of sets up a new storyline, new location and world, and then you can really go crazy from there.”

Wait, so now they tell me that Predators was just a set up for more sequels?!  If only I had known, as Predators 2: Predator 4, is bound to be a much better film!  Damn.

Anyway, Rodriguez says that he may direct it, but not until he finishes Sin City 2, which means that we can look forward to a release date in the Summer of when Hell freezes over. 

via IGN

Murray in every movie he's made in the last ten years.

I’ve been saying it for years now: Bill Murray doesn’t deserve your respect and high praise.  While other great comedians from the late ’70’s have slowly disappeared in shame over the past decade, Murray has only gained ground for doing nothing more than being a depressed jerk.  Granted, some of my favorites (ahem, Chevy Chase) made some real stinkers during their careers, but did they beat up their wife, claim scripts that they haven’t even read suck, start fights with more successful actors, or make not one, but two Garfield movies? 

Okay, Murray claims he can explain the Garfield movies.  Well, the first one at least.  You see, it turns out that he’s a complete fucking retard.  Don’t believe me?  Here he is describing his decision to do Garfield in his own words from a recent GQ interview.  I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to. 

“I looked at the script, and it said, ‘So-and-so and Joel Coen.’  And I thought…well, I love those Coens!  They’re funny!  So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I’d like to do that.” 

Wait wait wait.  You mean to tell me that Bill Murray, being the stunning hipster god that he his, thought that a script for a movie based off of a daily newspaper comic strip starring a fat, lasagna-loving orange cat was written by the Coen brothers?!  Those of us who can read English know that Garfield was written by Joel Cohen, of Cheaper by the Dozen fame.  But wait!  It gets better!   

See, you would think that Murray, once again being the beyond intelligent voice of hipster comedy that he is, would notice that it wasn’t a Coen brothers film once he started recording the dialogue.  Well, you would think wrong.  In fact, it wasn’t until Murray was watching the film that he noticed something was not quite right.  Here’s Murray with more: 

“So I sat down and watched the whole thing, and I kept saying, ‘Who the hell cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was Coen thinking?’  And then they explained it to me: It wasn’t written by that Joel Coen.” 

Seriously, folks.  I kid you not.  Meanwhile, all of this Bill Murray being a complete and utter moron stuff is great, but how does it even begin to explain why he did Garfield 2: A Tail of Two Kitties?  Did he make the same mistake twice?  I’m willing to believe that Bill lied to GQ in this interview just to clear his name, but if that’s true, we can’t ignore the fact that the man still made two Garfield movies…and Larger Than Life.  I don’t see him explaining that one with some nonsensical story about how he thought it was written by Frank Capra. 

Listen, I’ve loved some of Murray’s work just as much as most of you, but let’s not ignore the fact that he’s made just as much crap (if not more) as other comedians of his era.  Sure, you can spend your time calling Chevy and other great comic actors of that time pretentious assholes, but don’t forget the reality here: Bill Murray is an asshole too.  

Or maybe you just started ignoring that at some point. 

via GQ

A few hours after posting yesterday’s news about Betty White appearing on the Community season 2 premiere, NBC announced their Fall 2010 schedule.  While there’s a few new shows to catch, and the usual must-see-TV crap, the real news here is that you need to go ahead and free up Thursday, September 23rd, as that’s the date Community returns to us.

And while you’re at it, why not keep September 21st free as well?  That’s the date Community season 1 hits DVD. 

Oh, and since you’re looking at your calender anyway, why not keep October 22nd free too?  That’s my birthday.

via HitFix

I think that America is in need of a new grandmother, because I’m kind of getting tired of Betty White.

Now hold on a minute before you hit submit on that “Logan Sux!” comment.  I love Betty White just as much as everybody else does…but just like your real grandmother, it doesn’t matter how much you may love her, you still don’t want her around all the time. 

Yet, within the last year it’s become near impossible to do anything without seeing Betty White.  She’s in commercials, on TV shows, in more movies a month than Samuel L. Jackson, and yesterday I opened the local paper only to discover that she’s coming to my town.  I kid you not. 

And this morning I came across even more Betty news: The Hollywood Reporter is, um, Hollywood Reporting that Betty is all set to play a wacky anthropology professor in the season two premiere of Community.  Now there’s some Betty White news I can get behind…assuming that her and Chevy get into some sort of old people fight.

Oh yeah, and a recent CHUD article (brilliantly titled “Enough with Betty White Already”) is claiming that White may be the front-runner for the George Burns role in the remake of Oh God!  Okay, I admit that I’d see that as well.

But as for the forty million other films/shows/commercials/video games/hip hop albums that Betty White has planned for this year?  Pass.  Betty, I love you, but we kind of get the point: You do things that most old women wouldn’t for a laugh.  We’re past that now.  Let’s move on.

Oh, and my vote for America’s next wacky grandmother?

On the set of his new film: Unemployment.

Have you heard the news?  It seems that several news sites are reporting that Mel Gibson is crazy.  Rest assured that your pals here at Critical End! will let you know all about it once we figure out what the actual news part of this story is.

Kudos to fellow movie nerd Harry Hanrahan, who has put together a great list of the 100 best movie insults.  The great thing about this list (besides the fact that it features it’s fair share of movies I love AND Chevy Chase) is that it’s in easy to digest video form.  It’s also a lot of fun to attempt to name all of the movies, so why not set aside ten minutes today, gather around your co-workers, and have a good laugh on company time?  You’ve earned it.

The first time I saw this new teaser poster for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I thought that it was amazingly hardcore…then confusion begin to set in.  Are they now planning on calling it HP7, despite the fact that the poster claims there’s a part 1 and 2?  Is that part 1 and 2 of 7 parts?  And if “it all ends here”, is that to say that it’s ending in both parts?  Oh yeah, and what the hell is a 2D theater?  Do they mean a “normal theater”?

I guess I won’t know the answer to any of these questions until I shell out about 30 bucks to see both movies in 3D.  Curse you, Warner Brothers!

Still: cool poster.    

He's like the high version of Peter Jackson

I’m under the impression that Judd Apatow is running some sort of Hollywood comedy mafia.  To get any script that is funny made in Hollywood it has to first go through Judd’s office, at which point he adds Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, some random blond, makes everybody get high in at least two scenes, then slaps on an Executive Producer credit for himself.  Seriously, kids.  Apatow accounts for almost half of the comedies that make it to theaters these days.

Which means that it was only a matter of time before he ruined something dear to me.  Sure, we already know that he’s handling Ghostbusters 3: Starring Bill Murray, but why the flippin’ fuck is he now taking Pee-wee from me too?

Yes, according to Pee-wee’s Twitter account and E! online, Judd is going to produce the new Pee-wee film.  Granted, I’m going to see the movie.  Heck, I may even see it two or three times.  But that’s not the point.  The point is Apatow needs to back off ’80’s franchises that were fine to begin with.

I would say more, but I’m afraid Apatow’s comedy mafia might threaten to make Funny People 2: Starring Bill Murray as Seth Rogan.

(Thanks to CE! reader Olivia for the tip)

Can you believe that this Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future?  Has it really been that long?

Rumor has it that Universal is gearing up for some pretty big announcements this coming weekend, but the biggest one has already arrived: The trilogy is finally heading to Blu-ray!  Truth be told, between the original trilogy release on DVD and the re-release that came out only last year, there’s not too much that we haven’t seen in the way of bonus features.  Click on the new cover art below for the full details.

Meanwhile, the folks over at Film School Rejects have put together a great comparison of what the actors look like now, opposed to how Back to the Future Part II imagined they would look like at the same age.  Quick summary: Elisabeth Shue is still hot.

I have no interest whatsoever in this Karate Kid remake crap.  Why?  Because my Karate kid is Ralph Macchio.  Always was.  Always will be.  Here’s why:

I’d like to tell you that this is some kind of joke, but it’s not: Here’s the first photo from the upcoming remake of Rocky, starring Hugh Jackman in the Burgess Meredith role, and a giant, red, hip-hop dancing robot as Rocky. 

Only kidding, folks.  This is actually a photo from the upcoming Hugh Jackman CGI-filled Real Steel, which I can only assume will be a lot worse than the movie that I described above. 

(Thanks to CE! reader Ashley for the tip)

Nolan to 3D: "Suck it!"

There was a time when I was forced to defend myself whenever I told somebody I didn’t like The Dark Knight.  It really would drive them crazy that somebody could find the latest Batman film mediocre at best.  Lucky for me, Avatar came along and now I have a whole new film to dislike that drives people crazy nuts.

Meanwhile, despite my dislike of both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I still think that Christopher Nolan is a fine director.  I was really into Following, Memento, and especially The Prestige.  And for what it’s worth, I’m one of those nerds that thinks Inception looks amazing.

One thing I like about Inception?  It’s not in 3D.  One thing I especally like about Christopher Nolan?  He was asked to do Inception in 3D and turned it down.  This gives me hope that there still may be a possibility of 3D dying a quick death and being written off as a late 2000’s fad.

Hey, I can dream, right?

When he’s not busy reinventing 3D technology, fixing oil spills, and rewriting the script to Ferngully, it seems that James Cameron is finding new ways to revive the endless Final Destination series.  Case in point: Cameron has recommended his second unit director (who has been with him since The Abyss) to New Line Cinema as the director of the upcoming Final Destination 5.

Gee.  Thanks, James.

While this news is a bit strange, I find it even weirder that they’re making a Final Destination 5.  I can only assume that it’s going to be a retelling of Disney’s Pocahontas, with a strong green message at it’s roots.  Zing!

via CHUD

"Oh boy! An email from Logan! Let me just read this and- WHHAAA?!"

Are you reading this, Mr. Romero?  Because you should be.     

For what it’s worth, your pals here at Critical End! were calling you a hack way back when it was considered blasphemy to do so.  However, with the release of Land of the Dead, then Diary of the Dead, it seems that most horror fans have come around to our way of thinking.

Yet you refuse to stop.

Two weeks ago saw the release of Survival of the Dead.  Survival of the freakin’ dead.  Why?  Because if I’m to believe what you and others claim, you pretty much invented the modern zombie film.  That doesn’t mean you were ever the best at it.  Hell, did you see the first iPod?  That thing was bulky, only came in white, and didn’t even have a color screen!  Whatever the case may be, you’re really giving M. Night Shyamalan and Kevin Smith a run for the “Hack of the Decade” award.

Which brings me back to where I started: Are you reading this, Mr. Romero?  If so, wipe the tears off of those big windshields that you call glasses and listen up.  If you want to get me and lots of other horror loving fans back into those theater seats, all you have do is simply make this movie:

…or something with Chevy Chase in it.  That would be good too.