Critical End!

Growing up, Friday night at Li’l Logan’s house was all about pizza, pajamas, and ABC’s TGIF.  Sure, there was a period when I dumped it for FOX’s The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., but when that show died off in 1994, TGIF was still there for me.  A lot of shows came and went (I still have a soft spot in my heart for Baby Talk and Teen Angel), but the standards (I’m thinking Family Matters, Boys Meets World, Step by Step, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Perfect Strangers, Dinosaurs), were pitch perfect family programing that prepared me for the weekend the same way FOX’s Sunday night of The Simpsons and Married with Children prepared me for the week.

And now there’s talk of bringing it all back.  Which is expected.  You may have heard that Nickelodeon is brining back most of their 90’s shows, which is mighty fine by me.  I’m sure if all of this works out, ABC won’t be bringing back their old shows, but let’s hope they deliver a few shows in the same mold that made my generation love Friday nights.

Time to play my favorite cartoon-turned-live-action-movie game: Gag Ratio! It’s simple and you can play along at home. Step one, watch the new trailer for The Smurfs. Let’s do that now!

Did you do it? Great. Now mute the audio so you don’t have to listen to that godawful commercial. And by the way, Yahoo! and its advertisers: You think you’re so cool with your non-skippable advertising embedded into my site? Well, your product is terrible and nobody loves you. There, I’ve cleverly countered your marketing with counter-marketing. Game. Set. Ryan.

What were we doing? Oh right. Now that you’ve seen the trailer, you count up all the jokes and put them into three piles. Pile 1 is for slapstick jokes where people fall down or get hurt. Pile 2 is for dick and fart jokes, anything scatological or sexual. Pile 3 is any other joke. Aaaaaannnnd GO!

How’d you do? Here’s what I came up with:

SLAPSTICK: 5
DICK/FART: 7
NOT FUNNY: 4
OTHER: 0

Oh, did I forget to mention the pile for derivative, unfunny bullshit? Well, on my third viewing of the trailer, I decided there needed to be a fourth pile. Anyway, this summer don’t forget to Smurf the Smurfin’ Smurf! RADICAL!

After the last episode, you were never supposed to listen to this podcast again. Your plan has changed. REVIEWED: The Adjustment Bureau. PLUS: We play a game and fix the Oscars.

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There.  Now you have.  Pretty neat, huh?

What you’re actually looking at is every single frame from The King’s Speech compressed into a single image. I’m not quite sure what the tecnacal details are behind this, but moviebarcode has a lot more.  Check out that color scheme!

Happy Monday, kids. Here’s another batch of stuff that fell through the cracks…

Badass Digest reports that Shane Black, writer of Lethal Weapon and writer/director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang may direct Iron Man 3.  Good news, I say.  I’m usually a fan of Black’s stuff, and he’s got just the sense of humor (and reporre with Downey Jr.) for the job.  Of course, this would be his first comic book flick.  But as you can see below, he’s been studying up:

Speaking of comics, /Film reveals that the producers for that Godawful Spider-Man musical have hired a new writer to fix it.  They wanted someone who really understood the character of Spider-Man.  What makes him appealing both from a visceral, action-focused perspective, as well as an emotional character-focused perspective.  With that in mind, they’ve hired ANY 15-YEAR-OLD IN AMERICA.

In happier times.

I’ll tell you who needs his story rewritten (segue!), Tommy the Green Power Ranger AKA Jason David Frank.  And yes I knew that name from memory because I saw it every weekday morning for a good four years straight.  Sadly, according to Geekologie, JDF’s in a bit of a jam after cracking some dude in the jaw so hard, his teeth came out.  To be fair, this was during an officially sanctioned mixed-martial arts bout.  To be EXTRA fair, this was NOT the guy he was supposed to be fighting, but some random employee of the gym.  Apparently he forgot the Power Ranger’s rule of escalation: start out with harmless gymnastics, wait for the bad guy to power up BEFORE you morph.

Hey, know what else was green and a part of my childhood?  Gremlins, which was a horror comedy directed by the great Joe Dante.  And now it looks like Dante may be returning to the genre with a new Vampire/Werewolf comedy called Monster Love.  Yeah it’s kind of a tired concept at this point, but if anyone can inject some new life into it, it’s him.  /Film’s got the pres release.

Finally, you know I love to end a roundup with a video, so check out this excellent compilation of conspicuous product placement in films put together by FilmDrunk (via /Film):

It’s a great video, but of course it’s missing one of Logan and my favorites, featuring a very-pre-famous George Clooney:

Happy Friday gang!  The only thing that could make this Friday more awesome is some new Toy Story!  Well, some free money would be nice too.  Heck, I’d even settle for free lunch.  I think that new taco place delivers.  Whatta say?  I’ll get you next week, I swear.  C’mon, be a pal.  Fine.  You suck.  Worst Friday ever.

Anyway, click on Buzz to check out the clip over at Entertainment Weekly!

It’s Thursday, which means that it’s time to check in with Community.  While we weren’t huge fans of the last episode (I think Ryan pegged it when he described it as seeming somewhat like fan fic), the rest of the web has already moved on and is already abuzz with news of the mid-May season 2 finale. 

The cast and crew are promoting it as a “sequel” to the infamous paintball episode, which I find somewhat yawn inducing.  Doing more paintball at this point seems too easy.  Wake me when it’s over.  Oh, what’s that?  Lost‘s Josh Holloway is going to be in it as a sexy cowboy?  Okay, Community!  Ya got me! 

This week, we saw the one where Nicolas Cage escapes from hell wearing a leather jacket and kills a bunch of dudes. No, the OTHER one. REVIEWED: Drive Angry 3D. PLUS: Post-Oscar talk.

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I didn’t use to think much about James Franco.  I liked him in Freaks and Geeks and when he popped up in other stuff (almost always unannounced), I didn’t mind. 

But now? Not so much.

I really blame Sunday night’s Oscars for this.  I’m really starting to feel like I would rather stop watching him and start punching him in the face.  MTV just reminded me that he’s next playing “a San Francisco scientist who makes a breakthrough during his research into ape intelligence” in the upcoming Rise of the Apes.  Let’s allow this newly released picture to say the rest:

Blarg.

via MTV

Photo ripped off from CNN.com

First, a big ol’ thanks from Logan and me for making this year’s Oscar Live Blog our best yet. The snark was flying fast and funny, from us as well as from a record number of commenters. If you spent the night with us, we certainly appreciate it and hope to see you again next year (or perhaps sooner, we’ve always talked about doing more live blog events). If you missed it, check out the full replay here.

Now let’s see how the rest of the net’s feeling this morning:

• /Film’s got all the winners for ya.  So does everyone else, but I like their formatting the best.
• CNN has the lowdown on the Twitter buzz.  Surprisingly, criticism was not constructive.
• Badass Digest has an excellent article interpreting James Franco’s lazy nonchalance as a brilliant deconstructionist performance piece.
• Finally, on the flip side of things, here are your 2010 Razzie winners.

UPDATE: Another year in the can. Read the transcript of the night’s events below!

UPDATE: And we’re off! Read and comment away!

The fun starts in a half hour, folks! Stay tuned to this space.

Well, not so much free…and the sex part is mostly a lie too.  Come to think of it, what that should probably read is “Reminder: Oscar Live Blog with Logan and Ryan Sunday Night”, but you wouldn’t read about that now, would you?

Sign up to be reminded to your left.  See you Sunday night!

Despite the fact that rumors of it’s cancellation are looming, GQ got the Community guys (along with a few other male cast members from shows like Skins that will most likely be on for years to come) together for a quick photo.

And let me just say that this may be the greatest thing I’ve seen all year.  I’d like to order thirty prints please, GQ.

If Betty Draper forgets about you, just go with it. REVIEWED: Unknown. PLUS: We get a studio audience!

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Does anybody know if the upcoming Rise of the Apes is going to be a prequel to the awesome Planet of the Apes or to the lame Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes? And while we’re at it, just why did Gorilla General Aldo want to cause an ape civil war in Battle for the Planet of the Apes?

Lucky for us, the ever awesome John Landis is on the case this week as he does commentary on the first, second, and final Ape films over at Joe Dante’s Trailers from Hell.  I’ve always said that I would listen to John Landis read a Denny’s menu, so to hear him talk about a series that Ryan and I killed an entire weekend watching in college is going to be beyond amazing. Schedule and link below!