Idiot Americans, otherworldly idiots, idiots with knives and connections, and one plain old idiot writer/director, will leak all their smarts onto your movie screen.
There is no spoon.
A Musical Movie, Dummy: Universal Pictures has plans to turn the hit Broadway musical, American Idiot, into a theatrical film. Yay! Wait, yay? I dunno. When I think of the phrase American Idiot I don’t usually think of some wailing, emo-dude with eyeliner. I basically think of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann co-starring in Sarah and Shelly’s High School Reunion! I imagine it would be a fanciful tale about two shrill old ladies who are best friends and live in an apartment littered with the carcasses of various gummi bears who still listen to Amy Grant and Tori Amos while spinning colorful tales about how they’ll be somebody special one day. Why not start at the high school reunion! Squeeeee! Yes, that’s it. This is what they’ve been waiting for. They’ll hitch up their Jesus approved mini-skirts, slap on the Jean Nate body splash, tease their limp hair for all it’s worth and then march themselves right down to the high school gym where they’ll see Todd and Marcus standing by the punch bowl in their Members Only jackets and aviator shades, and they’re all like, “Hey, boys. This is really cool, right?” “Yeah, look there’s even fruit in the punch bowl. Let me take out my cinnamon gum.” “My breath is like awesome, right?” “What?” “Yup, sure, we’ll come with you guys to your dad’s Chevy Impala out back.” “We’re like waitresses down at the Waffle House, of course we know what to do with sausage, why do you ask?”
Living with Aliens…Now All the Time: Hollywood is moving beyond calling things remakes and reboots now. They’re just basically saying, “You know that movie we made thirty-years ago that is exactly like this one? Yeah, okay, that movie doesn’t exist anymore.” And we the audience are like, “Hell no, I know for a fact I saw Howard the Duck. You just can’t convince me that I didn’t see a walking, talking duck, and Lea Thompson’s bad hair choices.” Well, apparently, Hollywood is like a cabal of ancient wizards and they can make movies disappear. They’re doing so with a visual re-fried bean called, They Live, about a guy who wakes up and realizes that he’s surrounded by aliens that are controlling society. Hey! Isn’t that just like the movie about the guy who sees aliens that are controlling society with those special glasses also called They Live? Hollywood says, “We have no idea what you’re talking about. James, take Spirit Fingers down to the BrainWipe room.” Anyway, they’re doing this thing and plan on making it less satirical, so that means basically a very serious alien movie. As opposed to Robin Williams in a red jumpsuit. Whatever. Na-nu, Na-nu.
48 Hours with John Rambo…bring your bowknife: Sylvester Stallone and his retired face muscles will be in a movie called Headshot. Walter Hill director of The Warriors, 48 Hrs, and Brewster’s Millions will helm this non-Rambo offering starring Adrian’s husband. I wasn’t actually sure Sylvester Stallone made movies that didn’t involve killing outlaws in Burma or teaming up again with the massive walking pot roast that is Dolph Lundgren, but these things are still happening, I guess. This particular sure-to-be the Spike channel’s movie of the year will star Stallone as a New Orleans hitman who teams with a young NYPD detective: “The unlikely duo, brought together by two vicious murders, take on all who stand in their way, and are willing to sacrifice everything to exact revenge.” Soooo, this will be 48hrs Stallone style. Ho, boy. I’m not sure there are enough monosyllabic utterances in the world for that.
Crazy trivia time: Do you know who was considered to star in 48hrs? Gregory Hines, Richard Pryor, Burt Reynolds, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, and Denzel Washington. Now that we’re obviously trying to right a grievous wrong here according to Stallone, who should play the young NYPD detective? My money is on Mickey Rourke so the entire cast will look like everyone just attached road kill to their faces.
Gotti Get A GoodFella: So, in addition to John Travolta’s synthetic dancing widow’s peak playing John Gotti in the biopic Gotti: Three Generations, Joe Pesci has signed on to play Angelo Ruggiero, deputy to the infamous mafia boss. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Sure, I’d still like to see Pesci threaten to break someone’s aorta for mentioning the word “shinebox,” but I just don’t know if he still has the fire in him like he used to. Where’s he been for the last fifteen years? Even De Niro has somehow fallen straight into a bottle of fun, family comedy, and Ray Liotta was recently a warlock in some crazed medieval schlocky shitshow starring Jason Statham…so, uh, it’s like the Goodfellas went on vacation to Wally World and haven’t returned. Maybe this is just a phase. But the biggest news about the Gotti movie is that Lindsay Lohan, yes, that Lindsay “crack pipe in stilettos” Lohan is in talks to play somebody in this movie. No one knows what part she’s vying for. Perhaps a younger Victoria Gotti? Perhaps the girlfriend of one of the Gotti boys? Perhaps she’ll play herself as John watches her court proceedings on jail TV? Either way I’m sure Michael Lohan will attempt to squeeze himself into his daughter’s handbag the day she reports on set.
Transforming the Rope a Dope: So if you don’t think Michael Bay has ruined robots for all eternity, and the thought of a Robocop remake doesn’t make you want to choke on an Atari cartridge, then perhaps you’re excited for the upcoming Hugh Jackman boxing robot vehicle, Real Steel. Which to me just looks like Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots on steroids with an Australian screaming things at them in American talk. Fine. Whatever. I’m not sure it can get worse than toilet humor alien robots with gold teeth. Sheesh. Well, DreamWorks wants to put that to the test! Real Steel hasn’t even premiered yet and they’re already talking sequel! Apparently test screening for Real Steel Original Sauce has been successful. Why do I suspect the “test group” was a room full of ten-year old boys who watched the thing high on Doritos dust while holding the pre-marketed action figure and sipping from a Real Steal juice box? I’m not sure why they’re even releasing the first one, if number two (pun intended) has already been greenlit. Why do we even bother going to movies anymore? Exactly. Hollywood is working on a putrid movie additive they plan to put in our drinking water. We’ll quench a thirst and mentally absorb Nic Cage’s back sweat as he frantically tries to save the world from his zombie monster bird hair and his weird Friday night drunken binges.
M. Night Shyamalan To Get Schooled: This is just hilarious. Rotten Tomatoes found this little gem from Entertainment Weekly that talks about a website dedicated to crowdsourcing funds to send filmmaker (or fehmaker, six of one) M. Night Shyamalan back to film school! “If we all donate just one dollar, we can send M. Night back to NYU so he gets the help we all so desperately need. Let’s make it happen so we can get him enrolled before he starts principal photography on 1000 A.E.” In addition, they say if they raise the funds, but Shyamalan refuses their check then they’ll start a scholarship in his name instead and “send the NEXT Tarantino to NYU.” Um, this will never, ever, work. I just don’t think Shyamalan has hit bottom yet. No, no I don’t think he has. He wasn’t deterred after he created that magical water-boy nonsense about magical Avatars, which to his shock wasn’t about the veritable movie gold that was alien Blue Donkeys with vibrating genitalia in their braids. And now he’s somehow convinced an A-list actor to star in a movie surely about mysterious alien kangaroos living in a cave filled with five-testicled sea urchins. Bring it, Cameron! No, surely this isn’t rock bottom. Rock bottom is probably remaking Howard the Duck.
Casting News:
- Michael Shannon, creepy, weird, face-picking bug guy, will be General Zod in the upcoming Superman movie
- Zach Galifianakis, the chubbiest Ewok, has pulled out of the buddy comedy R.I.P.D co-starring Ryan Reynolds
- Jessica Biel, star of Oscar-winning Foreign Film Valentine’s Day is in talks to join Colin Farrell and Bryan Cranston in the Total Recall remake
- Tom Hanks, fifty-percent of Bubba Gump, will join the Wachowski brothers’ Cloud Atlas
- Bradley Cooper, who may have misunderstood his agent, may be starring in a remake of The Crow
- Michael Clarke Duncan who did something in that Daredevil thing, will do something in the Green Lantern thing
- Hugh Laurie, Dr. House’s alter ego, will star in the movie adaptation of Mr. Pip
- Russell Brand, our newest movie king, (bow to his pants), will star in the movie adaptation of Rock of Ages; Amy Adams, understandably so, is out
- Sally Field, who, yes, we really like her, will play Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln
- Hugh Jackman who’s apparently so busy making ten Real Steel movies is out of Snow White and the Huntsman
- Helena Bonham Carter and Jeremy Irvine will be all forlorn in a new adaptation of Great Expectations
- Ryan Gosling despite a seventeen-year age difference, is being considered to ride alongside Johnny Depp’s Tonto as the Lone Ranger in the new film adaption of the same title
That’s it for this week. I feel smarter. Don’t you?
