(500) Days of Summer Busts Your Blues

Monday’s right around the corner but after watching this clip, I don’t care. I dare you not to allow this one minute and forty five seconds put you in a great mood.

Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Wells.

Movie Review: The Crazies

Ogden Marsh is Hollywood’s typical snapshot of small-town, Podunk, Midwest America. Located in Iowa, it’s the kind of place where hunting, pickups, farming, the gentle smell of manure and voting Republican are generally the norm. It’s the type of town without strangers, where kids ride bicycles gleefully and without fear down Main Street, and where the entire town shows up to cheer on the high school baseball team. It’s idyllic, old-fashioned and charming. And when The Crazies opens you already know how this film is going to turn out; this Normal Rockwell-esque hamlet is about to get it’s ass kicked.

The Crazies is a remake of a 1973 movie with the same name, written and directed by George Romero, the brains behind Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and most recently, Diary of the Dead (2008). Romero is credited as a writer for the remake and both stories are basically the same: The inhabitants of a small town start going murderously cuckoo, the government barricades the area, and a man and his pregnant wife have to escape both their nutjob neighbors and the conspiring government handymen, dead set on leaving no trace of the mysterious toxin infecting the town’s citizens.

… Continue Reading

Breaking News: 99.7 Percent of Twilight Fans are Morons

I realize it’s easy and popular to bash the Twihards, Stephanie Meyer’s craptastic writing and the whole fabric of the Twilight universe, but while I poke fun at the fanbase (divided equally between cougars and those who just bought training bras), I do think some people tend to bash the movies and books simply because of the mass appeal. However, with that said, when I see Twilight fans sending ignorant hate mail, it just makes me want to mock them ceaselessly.

Check out the email below, sent to George Roush of the website LatinoReview.com. If you’re having a bad Friday and need a good laugh, read Kayla Patterson’s words below or visit their website to see the email complete with attached images. Try not to punch your own loins in the process. Yes, she is that dumb.

To whom this may concern:

This movie was a complete waste and I feel that it offends ALL Twilight Fans around the world, that including myself. For one, it was a COMPLETE remaking of the Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga: New Moon. It gives the werewolves a bad name and makes them look like some deformed mutation of a rabid dog. I actually started to like werewolves after seeing Jacob Black and all his awesomeness on the big screen at the movies. That was until I saw your crappy remake of what you call to be a “were wolf”. I don’t see how you live with yourself for making it the way you did. If I made this movie, I would be ashamed to even admit that I owned it. How can a werewolf be killed with a silver bullet? Better yet, have you saw the transformation of the man that is “supposed” to be the wolf? He sits in some chair and his entire body turns in to some mutated freak. If you would watch the transformation of Jacob Black, (Taylor Lautner) he doesn’t come close to looking as fake, cheap and or mutated as the wolf man.  You tell me, who looks to be the better werewolf. Your stupid Wolf Movie didn’t even make the top Movie for the charts; Valentines Day WITH TAYLOR Lautner! Get that this is MY oppinion and I felt I wanted to express it because I saw that your

email was on your site. I wanted to let you know this is what i thought of the wolf man that sucks.
FREAKIN LAUTNER DID!

Batman: Dead End

After reading about the tragic suicide of actor Andrew Koenig, best known for his portrayal of “Boner” during the 1980s on television’s Growing Pains, I was surprised to learn he played the Joker in one of the best fan films I’ve ever seen, Batman: Dead End. Apparently this short movie premiered during the summer of 2003 at the San Diego Comic Con, but I wasn’t aware of it until Dan showed it to me last year. I’ve posted the movie below. It’s eight minutes long and was directed by Sandy Collora, who, as of this writing, has made a feature film called Hunter Prey (See the trailer here). I couldn’t find any information about a release or DVD, so my guess is you’ll have to keep checking Netflix for a release date.

At any rate, if you haven’t seen the video below, check it out. Nothing could be cooler than Batman, the Joker, Aliens and Predators, right?

Nightmare On Elm Street Cuts A New Trailer

If anything, the New Nightmare on Elm Street is going to be  a great looking schlock-fest. We’ve see the trailer that came out way back in September, but it wasn’t until checking out this new green band I noticed how slick the new Nightmare looks. Sure, there’s a gooey pile of shots lifted straight from the first, but this one shakes its pretty ass while doing it.

Still, that’s not to say it’s going to be worth recommending. Or will April 30 be the day Platinum Dunes breaks precedent with an enjoyable 80′s horror remake that’s not more interested in being mean-spirited than good?

Weigh in after watching Freddy sharpen his fingernails on both pipes and nubile flesh below.

Trailer Tuesday: Middle Men Red Band Extended Trailer

Luke Wilson is long gone from his best acting performances in The Royal Tenenbaums and Old School, but the current AT&T Wireless spokesman, looking rather plump these days, definitely has the potential and skill to find his niche again in Hollywood. Perhaps Middle Men, a movie – and a true story I might add – about a family man who helped launch the first-ever web porn billing business, is the type of picture and role Wilson needs to remind everyone why he was so great as Richie Tenenbaum.

Middle Men also stars Giovanni Ribisi (Avatar), James Caan (Get Smart), Gabriel Macht (The Spirit), Jacinda Barrett (The Last Kiss), Laura Ramsey (The Ruins), Kelsey Grammer (Fame), Terry Crews (Gamer), Kevin Pollak (Cop Out) and Robert Forster (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past).

Check out the extended red band trailer below and give us your thoughts.

Johnny Depp Needs A Rest From Wonderland

Early word on Alice in Wonderland is that it’s wretched. Not that early buzz matters when pressed up against the hairy-chested brawn of studio marketing and Johnny “loved by all” Depp– (doing his best impression of Elijah Wood).

To celebrate, Obsessed with film rolls out the Alice In Wonderland red carpet with an interesting take on Johnny Depp and what he’s become “at the hands of Tim Burton”.

In the last five years, Depp has made the following films: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the three Pirates of the Caribbean, Public Enemies, and Alice in Wonderland.  In only one – Public Enemies- could anyone argue that Depp played a recognizable human character that wasn’t a complete cartoon. The rest of those performances are shallow, one-note performances lacking in the depth that made some of his earlier craziness so enduring. Even his Jack Sparrow characterization, much vaunted by a stunned public at the time, is lunacy without any real point.

Amen.

Since Depp’s re-arrival amidst his much ballyhooed performance as Pirates of the Caribbean’s Jack Sparrow, the guy’s become the every man’s favorite actor. The general gushing about his acting skills as based solely on Captain Jack has always bothered me. Probably because it comes off as a false analysis of greatness: A cheap card trick that leaves the audiences giddily clapping with flat hands when the real magic was to be found elsewhere. When Johnny Depp was first cast as Jack Sparrow, was anyone talking about Depp as an all-star headliner off of his previous films The Libertine or Secret Window? … Continue Reading

Trailer Tuesday: Defendor

So you know about this little movie called Kick-Ass: sewer-mouthed kids dressed in bright pajamas and capes who cheerily introduce bad guys to the pitfalls of additional holes in the head/the miracles of modern day prosthesis. If it can get past it’s first-blush head-trip of being insanely crude just for the sake of “we can”, Kick-Ass will be the latest entry in a deconstructive super-hero sub-genre that’s as interesting as it is fun.

With Kick-Ass‘ April arrival sucking all of the air out of the multi-plex, the also-ran superhero flick Defendor may be left in the lurch. The movie stars Woody Harrelson as a “slower than normal” everyman out to avenge his mother’s death. Apparently, it’s part comedy, part drama and part sympathetic character study. Either way, it’s set in the steamy dark alleys of a major city and has Woody getting beat to a pulp.

Of course, Defendor and Kick-Ass are just the latest– not the only– entries into the “real” superhero subgenre. 1999 gave us the love-it-or-hate-it Mystery Men and 2006 introduced us to Special, a hard-knock look at a delusional guy who uses his new “does he or doesn’t he have them” super-powers to fight crime. Another film along the same lines, Super (directed by James Gunn, the guy who gave us the silly, fun and underseen Slither) is due this year as well.

We’ll see how the genre continues to hold up, but with real people in real cities living the superhero dream, movies like Defendor continue to be no less fascinating. Defendor is arriving on Friday in limited release, but with positive reviews coming in, deserves to be seen when it arrives sooner than later in your Netflix queue.

Ian McShane to Play Blackbeard in Pirates 4?

I just finished reading Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes, so despite Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End sucking three levels of Davy Jone’s squidbeard, I’m a little jazzed for a new pirates movie. Now the only question is will it be Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, due to hit theaters in May 2011, or the aforementioned Pirate Latitudes, coming to cinemas via Steven Spielberg and David Koepp, that I see first. I’m guessing it will be On Stranger Tides.

I should feel leery, given the crapfest that was the third Pirates movie, but I’m encouraged by the cast: Johnny Depp returns as Jack Sparrow, as does Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa, and Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane are in negotiations to play adversaries to Captain Sparrow, with McShane playing the famous pirate, Blackbeard. I wonder if he’ll juice himself up for the roll by sniffing on some of Blackbeard’s Delight. It’s a formidable scent!

Kick-Ass Red Band Trailer is All Kinds of Bitchin’

Maybe I’m a filthy old man, but there’s something absolutely hilarious about a spunky 13 year-old girl (Chloe Moretz) spouting spicy dialogue that would make a sailor blush. The only problem is will the shock-value of Kick-Ass, coming to theaters on April 16, 2010, be the foundation for the film, or simply the cherry on top? My hope is the latter, especially considering what looks to be strong, quirky, memorable performances from Nicholas Cage and Mark Strong.

If you haven’t guessed from the trailers, the plot of Kick-Ass centers on a teenage boy, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who decides to become a real-life superhero. He goes by the name Kick-Ass and is soon joined by Hit Girl (Moretz), Big Daddy (Cage) and Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). I would be lying through my teeth if I said I was absolutely and unequivocally looking forward to April 16 like a six year-old looks forward to Santa Claus on December 25.

Take a peek at the newest red band trailer below and give us your thoughts. Me? I likey.