Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star
I’ve determined that Adam Sandler through his Happy Madison shingle is trying to make everyone hate him. I cannot fathom any other explanation for his recent output (see Jack & Jill below). I needn’t really say much because the crap speaks for itself. Even the trailer announcer sounds bored. Watch for it to hopefully tank this weekend, September 9. Bucky Larson trailer

Abduction
“Whatdya say we remake those Bourne movies with that kid from those, eh … Twilight movies? Yeah! No, not Robert Patterson (sic)! The other hunky one. Yeah. We just need to get a big director like Spike Lee! Oh, he’s not available. What about John Singleton? Yeah, that’s the stuff. And, uh, we’ll pack it with good actors like Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver! Big blockbusta on our hands!” – random movie exec. I’ll pass on this September 23. Abduction trailer

Real Steel
Pop quiz, Hollywood hot shot! What do you get when you combine the Fighter/Rocky/any other boxing movie with Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots? Uh, the humorously named Real Steel apparently. From the trailer below, it seems to hit all of the stepping stones for a underdog sports movie … except by replacing the underdog with a pile of metal under the tutelage of Wolverine and some bratty looking kid. Expect it to make a trillion dollars off the backs of stupid movie fans on October 7. Reel Steal trailer

Footloose
Sacrilege alert! I’ve never seen the original Kevin-Baconized Footloose. Wait, is that cheering or booing? Either way, chalk another 80s film to the Tinsel Town remake train as a small town with a ban on typical teenager fun like dancing. I would assume the sex and drugs are off-limits as well. A new cast of unknowns attempt to shake up the establishment by dancing any-damn-way (shocker!) and ruffle Dennis Quaid’s feathers. It looks flashy like Step Up and edgy like … Step Up 3(?) with the hollowness of both combined. Mark your calenders to skip this turkey October 14. Footloose trailer

Red State
Honestly, it’s hard to judge this one by the trailer alone. It looks part awesome (the gunfight mostly) and questionable (everything else). But this has gotten crapped on by a lot of reviews regardless of what Quentin Tarantino says. Kevin Smith will probably chalk that up to critics being stuck-up assholes but I am hardly a critic and despised Cop Out. Be educated when it drops October 21.
Red State trailer

Tower Heist
I’ve already spoken of Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist before but mostly because it was a pretty good cast in a horrid looking movie. It is even more relevant now that Eddie Murphy has been tapped to host the Oscars next February (coincidentally produced by Ratner too) and I still cannot imagine a good movie coming out of this. Be skeptical come November 4. Tower Heist trailer

Jack and Jill
Dear baby Jesus. I cannot believe this is a real movie! I honestly cannot conceive that “From the Producers of Just Go With It and Grown Ups” is a selling point in the trailer! I cannot comprehend that there seems to be twice as much unfunny Adam Sandler in this than his last aborted comedy I watched. I am still waiting for the day before November 11 that Sandler announces to the world that this was merely a big-budgeted hoax made into a trailer just to show movie-goers how asinine their purchases are. I’m really waiting … still waiting. Jack and Jill trailer (Dear God, why?)

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
So … positives! The trailer came in under two minutes! That’s pretty good considering the recent crop. And … well, I got nothing else. Yes, you might recall that I kind of liked the last one to an extent. At least it wasn’t as bad as the preceeding entry. Watching this trailer makes me want to go tear off my shirt in anger and go run in the rain. If I transform into a werewolf, at least I won’t have to worry about gaining admittance to this piece on November 18. And I hate weddings too! Breaking Dawn trailer

New Year’s Eve
What can Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Zac Efron, and Sarah Jessica Parker equal? A movie that I unconditionally do not want to see! I never saw Valentine’s Day either. I consider myself lucky for that but even the celebratory night of drinking and shenanigans is not safe from the rom-com crew. Put those folks in a remake of New Year’s Evil and I’ll be there. Otherwise, have fun in a probably crowded theater when this launches December 9. New Year’s Eve trailer

Well, other than an uninspired title. Is this Eddie Murphy’s comeback? Or just another shit sandwich of a movie? Embedded below you will find the trailer for today’s discussion Tower Heist. Please scroll down and watch it. No, I’ll wait.

Caught up now? Great! Let’s begin.

What the hell? I cannot begin to describe how I feel about that preview or the prospect of the subsequent movie. No, I really can’t. I saw this trailer with Digger in front of Cowboys & Aliens and I had never heard of it before. Immediately after, I wondered if this was a comedy, drama, or absurdest tale like Daddy Day Care.

First thing: does Hollywood really think plastering Brett Ratner’s name on a trailer is a draw? You can apparently only say “From the director of Dark Knight” about Nolan but Ratner and his shenanigans get a pass? Fuck that.

Second thing: really, is this supposed to be a comedy? Because it was not funny. I would be more apt to see it if it had a sorta-black humor quality to it and if it were played as a straight-up heist movie, I might actually be sort of excited. Sadly, the trailer (probably like the movie) does not know what the hell genre to portray and thus it is all over the place.

Third thing: Can Eddie Murphy just go away? Pretty please with sugar on top? You needn’t have more example why than the embedded video below.

Fourth thing: Can Matthew Broderick get some decent roles with the hopeful retirement of Eddie Murphy? Lest we forget he was Ferris Bueller. And damn excellent in Election.

Last thing: Why the hell is this trailer almost three minutes long? If this is a 90 minute movie, then we have seen almost 5% of its entirety. Did they need more time to show up just how lousy this thing will be?

Here’s part 2! We spend a lot of time discussing upcoming sequels. Also, Kenny finally admits that G.I.  Joe* may not be that good after all. Enjoy!

*I’m not linking that piece of shit.

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So, out of nowhere, Puck wanted to do a podcast. Then Kenny from UFG got involved. We started talking about movies and a 2 and a half hour conversation took place. I simply started recording so there is no formal introduction, just great movie talk. In Part 1, we cover Paranormal Activity, Battleship, Smurfs and I think I may have stolen a joke from Dane Cook. Kenny’s audio varies in quality, so you may have to turn your volume up a bit during his parts. Enjoy!

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I am still debating on if I want to see the new bastardization of 80s nostalgia, namely Transformers: The Dark of the Moon. It’s not so much that I am a hater of the franchise (even though I have many issues with it) as much as I don’t know if I want to devote another two and a half hours of my life to Michael Bay. Yes, 2 1/2 hours of military porn, random explosions, and Shia LaBeouf.

I know the common thought is that Americans are obsessed with excess, thus why we have mini-mansions, tank-sized SUVs, and more collective fat than all the third-world countries combined. But, I don’t particularly care for my movies to be as bloated as Rosie O’Donnell.

A few weeks ago, I watched the Spanish film Biutiful with Javier Bardem. It was interesting enough but admittedly I got discouraged when I realized that I had an hour left in the almost two and a half hour movie. And, if you recall from my Bridesmaids review, my biggest problem with it (other than the flimsy structure of the story) was that it lasted an eternity at over two hours in length.

For me, the sweet spot is somewhere between 100 to 110 minutes on average for most movies (horror films probably knock about 10 to 15 minutes off that). Of course that is mostly because I am likely to fall asleep around that time or get preoccupied with something else and have to put the film on hold. Nolan films excluded, there are very few movies that I can think of that are 150 minutes long and still impactful as I (and probably most) tend to check out long before the credits roll.

Are you down with a gargantuan-sized movie?

It’s been a while since the last installment of Faded Celebrity when we discussed the waining star power of Katherine Heigl, Michael Cera, Tom Cruise, Robin Williams, and Eddie Murphy. I will say that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and my hopeless addiction to Arrested Development made me more sympathetic to Cera. The rest can go right to the food bank line. In a perfect world, more would be on the way.

Brendan Fraser
It’s probably a bad thing when your career was most promising in a Pauly Shore movie. Starting primarily with a dramatic turn in School Ties, Fraser worked his way down from starring with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler in the entertaining dreck Airheads. The quality of the movie notwithstanding, Fraser seemed to be on the uptick with The Mummy with a decent homage to Indiana Jones. Yet the quality of those movies dropped precipitously leading to the one-two shit punch of a cameo in that damn G.I. Joe movie and Furry Vengeance in the past couple of years. Perhaps he should put himself out there for Encino Man 2.

Cameron Diaz
If you haven’t heard our latest podcast, we talked at length about Diaz’s upcoming movie Bad Teacher. ::SPOILER:: I’m dubious about its entertainment value. Regardless, since she first surfaced in 1994, she has been mostly employing the same character traits with little variance: beautiful, frenetically energetic, rather ditzy, and even sometimes clumsy. In The Green Hornet, Diaz wasn’t playing a single character so much as an amalgamation of her previous notable roles. She could use another quirky indie movie like Being John Malkovich or branching out into more dramatic roles. But not like The Box since I heard that was terrible.

Ben Stiller
This is a tricky one because I truly do think that Ben Stiller has some talent, not only as an actor but a writer/director as well. Unfortunately, he continues to choose movies that are one small step above DTV junk. In fact for every Tropic Thunder, there seem to be a handful that reek of EZ-filmmaking such as Along Came Polly, The Heartbreak Kid, Starsky & Hutch, or that damn Focker series that won’t die. He should spend less time cashing paychecks and more time honing his own projects since those turn out well. And don’t cross Mr. Furious. After all, he is a ticking time bomb of fury.

The Cast of Grown Ups
Look, I hated that damn movie. It was awful. I am angry at those who have since remarked that they found it funny. I don’t dislike Adam Sandler but his shtick wore out about twelve years ago. I think Chris Rock should stick to more grown-up affairs like Madagascar or Everybody Hates Chris. I am mad that Rob Schneider and David Spade are still considered “movie stars.” I am furious that Kevin James is anything other than an annoying mall security guard in real life. I am sternly waving my finger, with a disapproving glare, at those involved with this movie. You boys go to time out and think about what you did!

Larry the Cable Guy
I feel dumb putting Larry the Cable Guy on this list because he isn’t an actor. He’s just a stupid personality that happens to get put into movies. And his movies such as the tender Witless Protection or the triumphant Delta Farce tend to be pretty horribly received. I am pretty sure Cars would still be a soulless movie without him but that film needed all the help it could get.

On this podcast we discuss (at length) the upcoming summer films! Bonus: every time PBF says the word “like,” take a drink. Enjoy!

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I think we all get that the fat cat film producers are either plum out of ideas or unwilling to take a chance on anything new. That is the reason we have about a dozen sequels, prequels, sidequels, and whatever else coming out this summer.

But who in the hell thinks a remake of Kevin Coster’s The Bodyguard is a good idea? Based on my hazy recollection from fifteen years ago or so the film itself isn’t necessarily bad albeit a little cheesy and overly-romanticized for my tastes. But is this such a high concept that it warrants a remake?

Hell, what is to stop Warner Brothers from taking the same concept, casting Usher and Lady GaGa, and calling it Absurdity: The Movie? People complain all the time that recent movies are blatant rip-offs of previous films (most recently The Roommate = SWF). I guess film studios are now going to acknowledge that something is a remake (you know, because any similarities are then intentional). Sadly, I’m sure that this will be a surefire hit just like the original was almost twenty years ago.

But I wonder, where are all the movie goers demanding to see something they haven’t already seen before? Oh, they’re probably seeing that Justin Bieber “movie.”

Deadline Hollywood: Warner Bros Remakes ‘The Bodyguard’

In case you were unfamiliar with it, Yo Gabba Gabba is a pretty crazy looking pre-K show on Nickelodeon. It features five characters who are toys that come to life when DJ Lance Rock places them into their playset/whatever. Thereafter ensues a bunch of singing, dancing, and lessons for our youngest members of society. I started watching this as my 3-year-old was quite picky in her television tastes and would only sit still in front of this (she has since “graduated” to Dora but I sincerely recommend DO NOT make a Dora movie).

So, why would I want to see a movie based on a kid’s TV program? Simple. Intertwined with the moral stories about eating vegetables and cleaning up are some pretty funny occurrences, interesting guest stars, and trippy graphics. Surely you’ve seen the Kia commercial with the Sock Puppet and Muno (that’s the big red Cyclops thing) bowling and getting tattoos. I would imagine the plot would go in the direction of the characters are lost in the real world, they try to fit in but fail miserably, and there is a nice lady that helps reunite them with DJ Lance. Watch the embedded video below and tell me you would not pay money to see that happen on a city street with people standing around thinking “WTF!” This only scratches the surface of why Yo Gabba Gabba is so awesome.

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While I just recently acquired The Strangers on DVD courtesy of a Hollywood Video fire sale, it is a film I had seen a year or so ago and was taken by it. We discussed it on one of our early episodes as a gripping tale of two unfortunate souls tormented by a deranged clan for the purposes of merely shits and giggles if you will. Early on after the movie debuted to impressive numbers for a horror movie in the summer, there was talk of a sequel brewing. A recent article sheds some light on the status and the story but had one truly disturbing tidbit: studio execs wanted a back story to the titular strangers.

Here’s the thing that you probably know and what studio execs apparently haven’t figured out: back stories in and of themselves can be cool but can also drag down a movie and/or franchise. Immediately, I point out the awesome Halloween as an example of back stories run amuck. The original started off great with just a shape stalking girls and descended into a convoluted series of Druid rituals and darkly dressed men in the sixth installment. While I have a soft spot for Halloween 6, the simplicity from the first was shot and drug to hell in a sea of screenwriters and abandoned ideas. But when they went back for Halloween: Resurrection (I’m not linking to that piece of shit), it was absurd that the plot line of the previous four movies, one of murdering family members, was all but jettisoned.

Now, this is not to say that all back stories are bad or unneeded. I would imagine the greatness of the original Nightmare on Elm Street would have been diluted (yet still effective) with no idea why Kruger was targeting kids in their dreams. Even still, in that franchise, as we delve into his murder, his mother(!), or his children, it lost track of the original intent: scaring the shit out of people without to much thought as to why or how. Monsters are scarier if they just want to kill you, not avenge a death of their sister thirteen years ago due to a freak accident on the monkey bars.

Origin stories work in comic books because you want to see what led to the heroes (or even villains) becoming who they are. Most other movies do not need that level of detail in a character’s story. This is not to advocate the abandonment of a rich character. Far from it in fact.

In Die Hard, is it relevant to know McClane is on the outs with his wife? Yep. Is it important to know how he cut his teeth in the NYPD busting drug dealers and German terrorists, leading to a hatred for Hans Gruber and his kind? Nope and the filmmakers knew it. I would argue there is a difference between character history for a motive and character history for actions.

That said, are there holes in this rant? Absolutely. Are there movies, or characters, that I wish would have a back story not described here? You betcha. The point is, not all characters are created the same. Some are better without (Chris Nolan’s The Joker for example) and some better with.

Studios: don’t try to shoehorn in what clearly does not belong.