Critical End!

Guess what, you guys?  Marvel has dropped Edward Norton from Avengers, meaning that a THIRD actor will be called upon to reboot the characters of “Bruce Banner” and “Guy Whose Face Serves as The Very Loose Basis for a CGI Hulk Puppet.”  Now, Marvel’s probably going to go with an unknown who they can get for pennies on the dollar, but there are plenty of alternatives they’re not even considering.  For example…

Arnold Schwarzenegger
By the time they film Avengers, Schwarzenegger will be out of the governor’s office and raring to return to acting.  Clearly, the Incredible Hulk is the perfect comeback role.  Well into his sixties, Schwarzenegger will bring a more mature, world-weary quality to the part.  Now, I know what you’re thinking:  “Ryan, you sexy bastard, Arnold may have the Hulk’s physique, but didn’t Batman and Robin prove that he can’t play a nerdy scientist?”  Well, I’ll answer your question with one of my own.  Which is more expensive: creating a CGI Hulk that rips a helicopter in half?  Or creating a CGI Bruce Banner that sits pensively in a lab, contemplating the duality of man?  Exactly.  Let Arnold play the hulk, and leave Banner to the boys at ILM (and Rainn Wilson who will provide the nebishy voicework.)

Jonah Hill
The biggest problem with Bruce Banner?  He’s so depressing!  “Oh woe is me!  I can’t control my darkest urges!  The inner-torment is unbearable!”  SHADDUP ALREADY!  Jonah Hill’s unique brand of offbeat comedy (being fat and saying “fuck” a lot) is just the refreshing tweak this character needs.  Imagine the Hangover-style hijinks he and Tony Stark will get into!  Plus, instead of being insanely muscular  and driven by rage when he Hulks out, he’ll be morbidly obese and driven by his insatiable craving for KFC.  Product placement!

Katherine Heigl
It might be time to go a whole different direction and throw She-Hulk into the mix. Heigl’s a big box office draw (especially for the lady types that typically pass on superhero flicks).  And she’s sure to do it on the cheap, because she’s so notoriously difficult to work with that the only way for her to guarantee a longterm career is to attach herself to a franchise where she doesn’t actually have to appear on-set with any of her costars.  All the action will be CG, and whenever she’s Jennifer Walters, she’s got to be completely isolated due to…her…contagious radiation sickness!  Done.

The possibilities are endless.  Actually they end right there.  So, pick one and get back to me, Hollywood.  I’m sure we can negotiate a reasonable fee for my services (whatever Edward Norton wanted, double it.)

[/Film]

"Set sail for FUNventure with this week's Home School!"

I know, I know!  I introduced a brand new feature four months ago and never mentioned it again.  Put all the blame squarely on me, and not on our noble hero, Alec Baldwin, who makes his triumphant return in this installment of Alec Baldwin Home School.

You can check the first post for a proper introduction to the concept, but in short, Mr. Baldwin has announced that he’s retiring from acting.  He’s not a fan of his work, and thinks he’s never turned in a worthwhile performance.  We, gentle reader, are going to test his theory by journeying through his entire filmography.  What wonders will we find?  What horrors will we endure?  Time will tell!  The fun began with Forever, Lulu and continues now with  She’s Having a Baby.

The Film
In the late 80’s, John Hughes was writing and directing every third movie Hollywood released, thanks partly to the terrifying voodoo spell that forced all others to do his bidding, and partly to his masterful knack for pairing interesting plots with identifiable characters.  Unfortunately, that talent doesn’t really shine through in 1988’s She’s Having a Baby.

Kevin Bacon plays Jake, a young newlywed struggling to pay the bills while working nights on his novel.  He’s got no clue what he wants out of life, leading him to question his marriage to Kristy, played by Elizabeth McGovern, who is far prettier than the hair and fashion of the era would have you believe.  Of course, things get even scarier when he finds out that she is–in fact–having a baby.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because this titular turning point doesn’t happen until like an HOUR in.  We actually begin on the young couple’s wedding day.  Our hero has cold feet, and who’s there to act as the embodiment of his desire to remain footloose (get it?) and fancy free?  None other than his best pal Davis, brought to life by one Alec Baldwin.  Davis is essentially that no-account asshole friend that everybody has in college.  He’s a lot of fun, but eventually you grow out of him.  Then when you see him again 5 years later and he hasn’t changed a bit, it’s all sad and awkward.

Davis makes a half-joking attempt to convince Jake to call off the wedding.  Both Baldwin’s performance and Bacon’s narration hint that Davis would rather keep Jake all to himself.  On the surface, it’s a comment on the pseudo-marriage that develops between best friends.  Below the surface, Davis is totally gay for Jake, and Baldwin makes sure it comes through via lots of meaningful staring at things.  Then Davis disappears for a good chunk of the film, leaving Jake to deal with his new evil father-in-law, a job he hates, and plenty of pointless arguments with Kristy.

With Jake’s depressing suburban existence firmly established, Davis shows up once again.  He’s living in New York now, but he’s brought his slutty model girlfriend along for a visit.  This leads to a big fight with Kristy, giving Davis the perfect opportunity to slide in with some straight talk.  He misses Jake.  Kristy’s great, but she’s tying him down!  He can’t be a writer in the suburbs!  He should come to New York!  It’s a pretty transparent attempt to reconnect with Jake, and he declines the offer, but it’s obvious that he’s tempted.

Then there’s some more standard-issue married life drama.  Jake’s boss tells him he’ll never be a real writer.  Jake meets some chick at a club who he begins fantasizing about.  You get the idea.  Finally, in what I took as a desperate ploy to save the relationship, Kristy attempts to get pregnant by secretly going off her birth control.  This doesn’t work, mostly because it would have been pretty depressing if it had, so she comes clean to Jake and the two start trying in earnest to have a kid.  With sex itself now reduced to work, Jake is more downtrodden than ever.

"See! I told you it'd be neat if we all switched hair!"

Hey!  Davis is back!  This time he confronts Kristy about whether Jake is ready to be a father, then awkwardly hits on her.  It’s actually the movie’s best scene.  Davis, now resigned to the fact that Jake’s not coming back to him, reaches out for a connection by proxy.  Or maybe he’s just trying to screw up their relationship, whatever.  Kristy refuses, but she’s more bemused than angry, leaving Davis confused and alone.

At last, Kristy gets pregnant and everything is magically awesome again!  Not for Davis, who we never see again and who has presumably gone off to hang himself, but who cares!  After a short montage, Kristy goes into labor.  Things look touch and go for a second because there should probably be something resembling a climax at some point, then everything turns out great.  So great, that it’s revealed that Jake has finished his novel which is entitled, oh yes, “She’s Having a Baby.”

Reaction
Sorry, John Hughes, but BOOOOOORRRRIIINNNG.  The movie’s front-loaded with a so many “Gee, we’re young and in love, but marriage sure is tough!” scenes that I mistook it for a film adaptation of For Better or For Worse.  It comes off as so cliche and easy.  Yes, starting a family is scary, and it’s clear that Hughes is writing from his own experience, but he brings nothing new to the trope.  Not to mention the fact that everything just kind of serendipitously  works out for Jake and Kristy, to the point that it feels like that’s the moral.  “I know it seems like every moment of your life since you said ‘I do’ has been a horrible mistake, but don’t worry!  At some point you’ll have a kid and everything will suddenly make perfect sense!”  Plus it’s slow and not that funny.

Luckily, for our purposes anyway, the highlight of the film is actually Alec Baldwin.  I’d have rather seen a movie about the mournful, sardonic, closeted homosexual who boxes up his longing for his best friend and drowns it in booze and blonds until he snaps and makes a laughable pass at the very woman who robbed him of his happiness.  But even as an ancillary character in a bland family comedy, Davis shines.  You can see his repressed feelings simmering under the surface in every scene, and he gets some of the best lines in the film, including the one I’ve quoted below, which you’ll want to adopt as your new Facebook status immediately.

My only knock is that Baldwin has the melodrama meter cranked up to dangerous levels.  Every impressive display of subtle emotion is immediately followed by a mood swing or bout of pensive smoking.  Still, I dug the performance, and I view it as a great second entry in our subject’s catalog.

Final Stats
Movie Rating: 5 out of 10
Baldwin Rating: 7 out of 10
Biggest Takeaway: This explains why that dude I played hacky sack with on the quad cried when I graduated.
Quote for Your Facebook Status: “It’s rude and it’s wrong, but it’s right on the money.”

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.

"Mo' galleons, mo' problems, kid."

Not much going on today, so I’ll jump on Logan’s HP bandwagon and mention this story from /Film.  It’s a little hard to believe that one of the highest grossing movies of all time made NO PROFIT, thus allowing Warner Bros. to wiggle out of their agreement to pay certain actors and crew members a percentage of the take.

No word as to who exactly is affected by this, but when you’re getting back end points, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re one of the principal players, meaning that Warner is brazenly dipping into Hermione’s college fund.  Okay, theyr’e all like 30 now, but the point stands.  Doesn’t it?  I don’t know.  Not much going on today.

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.

UPDATE: Scroll down for the new teaser!

The new Harry Potter teaser is set to debut online later tonight.  As a huge nerd who just got through listening to all the British versions of the audio books for “authenticity”, you can bet I’m interested to see it.  Meanwhile, /Film’s got some leaked images of some of the teaser’s juiciest scenes…

Here’s the scene where Voldemort teaches Harry to pronounce Italian words so he can impress the sultry farmer’s daughter he meets on their impromptu trip to Siena.

Here’s the POV shot of Harry standing outside the farmer’s daughter’s door after having comically tripped down a hill and into a pile of manure on his way there.  If I remember the book correctly, the shot after this will reveal that he is pantsless.

And here’s a scene from the closely-guarded epilogue, in which Hermione agrees to a romantic Sleepless in Seattle style meeting with an estranged Ron, only to find that he’s a drunken insomniac lumberjack now.
(SPOILER: She settles.)

Anywho, I’ll post the trailer here when it shows up so we can see these thrilling moments in action!

UPDATE: Here ’tis!

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

It will probably look better than the NES game.

I love Back to the Future.  I love adventure games.  Telltale Games, a company composed almost exclusively of ex-LucasArts employees (they made Monkey Island and a ton of other classics) has just announced that they are making a series of adventure games based on Back to the Future.

Chills, folks.  I’m getting chills over here.  No word on specifics, yet, but they’re saying it will take place in “the world of Back to the Future” which probably means “you won’t be playing as Marty”.  Still, if Day of the Tentacle was any indication, time travel makes for a very entertaining adventure game mechanic.  I can’t wait!

On, and they’re doing Jurassic Park too.  If that’s more your thing.

"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.