The best part about this video is that you start off thinking Patrick Stewart is going to rail against technology, but he ends up composing his own very personal love letter to it. Take the two minutes, it’s supremely satisfying.
New Hot Tub Time Machine Trailer!
And an awesomely gross BTTF parody.
Oh look! Mr. Postman brought us something from John Travolta. Let’s see here… Ah. He mailed us some garbage. REVIEWED: From Paris with Love. PLUS: Apparently, the Super Bowl?
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I’m pretty sure Logan and I have mentioned the movie Hard Ticket to Hawaii on the podcast at some point. Suffice it to say that it’s one of the best, awful, borderline pornographic, low budget spy/action drama/comedies of its day. Oh, and it’s got a scene where a dude is killed by a Frisbee with razor blades taped to it.
Well, a group of brave YouTubers have recreated this classic scene on digital video and fed it to the internet. Now, normally I’d encourage you to watch the original before the remake, but I’m going to make an exception. First, take a look at the fan version:
Pretty great, right? But surely, they cheesed up the acting for comedic effect. And obviously the real movie’s special effects were more convincing, right? Let’s see for ourselves…
Yes, it turns out that the fans got it pitch perfect. If anything, their version is somehow less absurd than the one that hit theaters. Well done. For added fun, try starting both clips at the same time.
Well folks, Avatar’s two-month long reign of terror at the top of the box office has come to a close. As you may recall, Logan and I weren’t big fans of the film, so we’ve both been waiting for the arrival of the movie that would knock it down a peg. I’m proud to announce that that movie is Dear John, and when I say proud, I mean deeply, deeply ashamed.
I haven’t seen Dear John, and because I never will, I read the plot synopsis. After all, I had to know what manner of movie could dethrone the king. If you’re planning on seeing it, but are waiting to catch Avatar one more time for comparison’s sake, be advised that SPOILERS follow.
Okay. So apparently Channing Tatum, a soldier, and Amanda Seyfried, a girl, meet and fall in love. Channing confides that his dad’s been distant ever since his mother left. Naturally, this causes Amanda to suggest that, hey, maybe he’s autistic. This pisses Channing off, so he goes back to war, but the two develop a deep emotional bond through letter-writing because if there’s one person who you always bond with, it’s the chick you hooked up with one summer that told you she thought your dad was autistic right after meeting him.
They’re in so much love it’s not even funny. So naturally, Channing continually re-enlists in the army to make sure he’ll never have to come home and reveal to Amanda that he was actually born a woman. Just kidding! That would be interesting. Eventually, Amanda realizes that there are other men in the world, some of whom she’s met upwards of three times. Thus, she pens the titular Dear John letter. Channing assumes that Amanda’s going to marry her snooty rich friend from earlier in the film. This sends him into a patriotic super-rage, causing him to take a dangerous mission where he gets shot, but not fatally, leading me to believe that this was a failed attempt to have something actually happen in this movie.
Upon returning home, he discovers that Amanda has in fact married her NON-rich friend with the autistic child, which, since his child is autistic, makes everything heartwarming and all right. Channing says goodbye to his dying father, who manages to suddenly become important, then he sells his father’s coin collection to pay for an operation for Amanda’s husband, who, by the way, is totally dying. Be warned! A long distance relationship with Channing Tatum is so brutally unfulfilling, that it will drive you into the arms of your dying, non-rich platonic friend. I repeat: Three months of emotionally torturous hospital visits capped with a funeral is preferable to one letter from Channing Tatum.
So what I’m saying is this makes perfect sense. The only movie that could have toppled Avatar was one that actually outmatched its meandering, maudlin, plotless mediocrity in every way. Way to go Dear John! I look forward to the remake next year. And every year after that. And all years previous as well.
GIVE ME BACK MY SON!/DAUGHTER!/WIFE! REVIEWED: Edge of Darkness. PLUS: A quick tour through Mel Gibson’s filmography.
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Sources cannot confirm an appearance by Baby Rowlf in the upcoming film. However, I can personally confirm that he is adorable.
Just when I was beginning to get worried that we hadn’t heard anything about it for a while, The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made! has landed a director.
James Bobin, co-creator of The Flight of the Conchords, and writer/director of some of its best episodes, has officially signed on to shepherd the Muppets’ theatrical comeback. And he turned down a Judd Apatow movie to do it, which somehow makes me believe he’s got the right attitude to pull this off.
I think a member of the Conchords brain-trust is just the choice for the Muppets. Both are smart, silly, a little off-kilter, and share a penchant for musical comedy. Plus Bobin’s a Brit, and the best Muppet stuff was produced in the U.K. And hey, maybe this means we’ll get a cameo by Albi the Racist Dragon!
So we’ve got a funny British director, a script co-written by Muppet fan Jason Segel, and a cast of veteran puppeteers. If Disney can manage to not completely mishandle the marketing, this project may pump some much needed life back into the Muppets’ legacy.
Muppet Central News – James Bobin to direct Muppets new theatrical movie
What were James Cameron’s true goals as he toiled away for ten years in his basement, developing the technology that would one day make us fall in love with Panthro and Cheetara’s love children? Sure, he wanted to make strides in CG and 3D immersion, but could he also have been plotting to create a movie that would be exciting enough…TO KILL?!
Probably not. But much like the foolish military that funded Skynet, Cameron has become complicit in the death of a (presumably) kindly old Taiwanese man who, doctors say, was so fucking blown away by the film that he had a brain hemorrhage and later died. Science hasn’t yet advanced far enough to provide a record of his final thoughts. But my guess is he died just as he was thinking “Wait, this is basically Dances with FernGully–ERK!”
Of course there was one thing FernGully had that Avatar was missing:
You're gonna to make it after all!
Bruce Campbell has announced that he will star in a follow-up to My Name is Bruce, in which he played a comically exaggerated self-deprecating version of himself that saves a small town from a demon. In the sequel, Bruce Vs. Frankenstein, he’ll wind up in Europe where he, presumably, will save a small European town from a mad scientist and his monstrous creation. I’m not sure what got Campbell going on this, but if he wants to remake the rest of Abbott and Costello’s oeuvre while he’s at it (Bruce Campbell Chainsaws the Mummy, Bruce Campbell Wrestles the Invisible Man, The Wistful She-Bitch of Wagon Gap, etc.), I’m completely on board.
Honestly, though, My Name is Bruce wasn’t all that hot. It was hokey, like a lot of Campbell’s work, but it lacked the Sam Raimi execution that makes that kind of thing work. And Ted Raimi turned in four performances that made me realize why Sam usually limits him to cameos. Here’s hoping they pull it off a bit better this time.
[via /Film]
An unplanned aside after recording episode 41 of the regular podcast turned into a Critical Hit! on the Leno/Conan debacle going on at NBC. Some day we’ll all look back on this and laugh. Much harder than we ever did at either of their shows.
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Meanwhile, I don’t know why we bothered to debate, since this video explains the whole situation quite clearly.
Vampires: Grim and gritty supernatural killers or creepy angsty stalkers? To make the call, we pit the Spierig Brothers’ latest against a movie we never thought we’d see. As Bela Lugosi put it, “I have never met a vampire personally, but I don’t know what might happen tomorrow.” REVIEWED: Daybreakers, *cough*Twilight*cough*
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Alternately known as "What to Suppose When You're Presupposing" or "Placenta: A Love Story."
Good news! There’s going to be a movie version of popular (?) pregnancy guide What to Expect When You’re Expecting. And it’s a romantic comedy about parenthood!
After the stirring social commentary that was He’s Just Not That Into You, Logan and I suspected that we had a new trend on our hands. Well, this confirms it: We’re officially on to self-help books. Not since the board game adaptation trend, or even the amusement park ride adaptation trend, has a more exciting movie-from-not-a-movie trend crossed our desks.
Never one to lag behind the times, I threw the idea into the Critical End! Trend-O-Tronic Pitch Machine (TM) and it predicted what we have to look forward to between now and 2012 when John Cusack kills us all:
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Two single dads, hard working blue-collar contractor Danny Miles (John Travolta) and pampered blue-blooded aristocrat Trevor Pennybottom (Colin Firth) magically switch bodies thanks to a Wiccan ritual gone wrong. Can they each raise the other’s daughter while learning a little about themselves in the process?
Awaken the Giant Within
A young boy (Chandler Canterbury) is devastated by his parents impending divorce, so he retreats to a fantasy world (crafted by director Guillermo del Toro) where he is a man-eating giant. Aziz Ansari plays the dual roles of the kindly fisherman that befriends the boy and the voice of the giant’s comical fruit-fly companion.
Self Matters
Dr. Phillip Self (Jason Alexander) is a forensic scientist on the trail of the Paper Crane Killer. But the real casualty may be his long-neglected marriage. Bebe Neuwirth costars.
Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause
Will be exactly like the book except the full title will be Tyler Perry’s Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause.
Anyway, if you’re one of the 14 million people who have already read What to Expect When You’re Expecting, please don’t ruin the ending for your friends. (SPOILER: A baby.)
And another Ryan guest appearance. This one’s a sequel to the first episode I was on. Chris teaches Arnie and me more about the wild world of LARPing as we attempt to make our own vampire characters.
Check it (and all the other great episodes) out on iTunes or play it below.
[gplayer href=”http://cdn3.libsyn.com/mysterycove/StupidNerdShow19.mp3″][/gplayer]
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