Anne Hathaway Catwoman

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1. Battle Los Angeles - I kept thinking maybe this movie was a come-on, and the punchline was right around the corner. That it couldn't really be pushing these cliches honest to goodness. There is an earnestness here that would make the shots of little children waving American flags while running through fields of sun-dappled wheat in slow-motion in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor positively cringe. But earnestness really is too kind a word - it implies good intentions. Battle Los Angeles is dumb and cynical right down to its obnoxious shaky-cam aesthetic. It was apparently crafted while snorting Oxycontin off a burning copy of Guns and Ammo.

2. Rango - There's some nice animation here and some very nice character design but oh my god this movie is so boring. I actually gave up ten minutes before it was over because I just couldn't find it in me to care enough to take ten more minutes of my life to see it through, even after already wasting an hour and a half. The next morning I asked my boyfriend what happened at the end, he saw it through, and he shrugged and said, "The water came back, I guess?" He couldn't even remember.

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--- Mo Better Boy - I have to admit that the prospect of a Spike Lee directed remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy is an interesting idea. Spike certainly isn't afraid to be controversial (ha, understatement) and could possibly be ballsy enough to take this movie where it needs to be taken, unlike somebody like Spielberg, who momentarily talked about doing this. Would Denzel Washington inevitably star? Hrm dunno about him in the role. It's a shame Morgan Freeman's too old - he'd be perfect considering outside concerns, ahem. I know this is a really weird suggestion, but I can't stop thinking Eddie Murphy now. Oh Dae-su should have a "broken clown" quality to him.

--- Deeper Than Deep - A lovely little observation about a moment in Dario Argento's Profundo Rosso from Arbogast here.

--- Cold Flesh - Apparently Bruce La Bruce decided he wanted to take the wound-fucking scene from his last movie Otto, or Up With Dead People (a movie I liked) and turn that into a whole movie, and that's what LA Zombie is. Which well obviously I'll see this at some point. Go read Adam's take on the film.

--- Wack-a-duo - Reunited and it feels very fine - Michel Gondry will direct the new Bjork video for her new song "Crystalline." Yes, that is a good thing. Sad story: I was grooving to this song at a dinner we had at my house over the weekend when I realized everyone's conversation around me had turned to how much they hate Bjork. Awww. Cue my deflated face and head-hung trip to skip to the next track on the iPod. Rejected!

--- RoboStatham - There's some probably entirely baseless speculation going about that Jason Statham could star in a 4th Transformers film which - post-Bay and LaBeouf - would take the series into a darker direction. Can't really get much darker than being a signal of the end of times like the entire franchise has been so far, can ya? And I doubt there's much space for half-naked field fucking in a Transformers movie so I says pass, Jason!

--- The Woman Beat - Ever since an audience member freaked out at a screening of Lucky McKee's The Woman (starring his May star Angela Bettis) I've been jonesing to see it (good press, that), so I'm happy to hear it's been picked up for distribution finally. I was hoping it'd play here in NY some time before officially getting released but it's been months and no go so I guess I'll have to stick it out with the rest of y'all plebes!

--- Hey It's Hooper - Apparently Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper has written a horror novel called Midnight Movie in which he is the star. STYD has the details - it's fairly reminiscent of Wes Craven's script for New Nightmare in a lot of ways. Now he just has to direct and star in an adaptation and we can slide right on down the rabbit hole.

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If you ask me - and by clicking on a link that brought you to this blog you've waived your rights to dispute the fact that you have indeed asked me - there's been something really gross these past couple of weeks about Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf's need to drag Megan Fox through the mud, hasn't there? I suppose expecting gentlemanly behavior from the purveyors of mindless robot snuff porn was my first mistake, but still you'd think they'd have better shit to talk, like how just massive their dicks are or something. Course I'm one of the only Megan Fox apologists out there, it seems. Ah well. Point being, Big Dick: The Movie is out in theaters as well as that one where Julia Roberts finally dislocates her jaw and begins eating up people left and right, and I'm talking these things over at Celebrity Beehive today, go check it.

I did mention yesterday that I've got today off from work but I didn't mention that that means I won't really be posting between now and Tuesday. Which it does. Mean, I mean. So y'all have a wonderful weekend cramming hot dogs into every hole of your body, in the patriotic sense. Peace!

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Seriously, somebody talk me out of this. I just found out I have tomorrow off from work and I can feel my brain convincing me that I should waste my afternoon by going to see Transformers 3. Michael Bay movies make me crazy. CRAZY. Every single one of them. They make me rue the existence of life itself. And yet I am drawn to them, over and over again, like some sort of brain-damaged masochist. I forced myself to stop with Transformers 2 - that's another thing: I've never seen the second film, however will I keep up with the plot? - in the wake of its "worst film ever made" reviews even from the fan-boys, but now everybody's saying T3's 3D is the best since Avatar and I do really dig the image of that snake robot crushing the building that's in the trailer and Frances McDormand and Alan Tudyk as, and I quote, "a gay ex-Nazi manservant in a weird suit," and ACK make me stop!

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I didn't dislike the first Cars film as much as most people seem to have disliked the first Cars film, but if they are going to insist on making a sequel to it I can't imagine a less appetizing way to have gone than to have shifted their focus to the character played by Larry the Cable Guy. Small doses, dudes. Very very small doses! I'm taking Glenn's lead on this one because he and I saw pretty eye-to-eye on that first Cars film and he's seen the second one and sounds as if he wants to pluck out his own eyeballs in the wake of it, so I'll be avoiding. You?

Read some more of my thoughts on that flick and the rest

of the movies out this weekend over at Celebrity Beehive.

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(via) I love you so so much, Frances McDormand. I didn't watch the Tonys last night - I'm sure you're just shocked! - but I heard Franny was a bit of a nutjob? Bless her! I'd expect no less. Seeing her face in the new Transformers 3 trailer this weekend had the opposite effect then I thought it would - instead of making my soul rend itself apart with grief it made me momentarily consider seeing Transformers 3. The horror! Damn you and your need for a beach house, Franny! You are literally killing me.

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--- Dark Tidings - Via STYD there's the hi-res version of the poster for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Why no giant floating Katie Holmes head? Or at least giant floating Guy Pearce ass?

--- My Magneto - I'm trying to decide if I'm going to see X-Men Muppet Babies tonight or tomorrow morning. My excitement for it begs for the closest time-slot manageable, while my aversion to Friday night movie crowds whispers otherwise into my ear. Either way, it will be mine, Fassy and all, within the next 24 hours! Whoop! That film and the next couple weeks of Summer releases are covered in Joe's most recent Movie Preview post over at Low Resolution. Check it.

--- How Hungry Are You - Somehow I never got around to mentioning this, but apparently Lionsgate is considering turning the three-book Hunger Games series into four films, should the first movie be a success. Hrm. Lord knows I love 'em, but I'm not entirely sold on this. But I'm easily won over. (Make the third film nothing but Finnick in his skimpy aquatic costume posing for two hours, and I'm yours!) (pic via)

--- And speaking of Katniss & Co, PopWrap got to chat up Jennifer Lawrence today - it's mostly about her role as Mystique in X-Men Muppet Babies as well as her recently discovered talk-show agility - a girl who can charm Letterman so has a big future in the biz - but there's some Hunger-flavored manna towards the end.

--- More Than Meets The Eye - PopWrap dissects some recent comments by Shia Labeouf on the departure of Megan Fox from the Transformers series, and I feel like I'm the last person standing defending Megan Fox - even Mickey Rourke has jumped ship, as if he's got a leg to stand on - but there does seem to be a somewhat mangled attempt at defending her by Shia, so good on him.

--- His Song - The Film Experience is celebrating Moulin Rouge Week, and while I don't really have much to say about that movie, I can appreciate other's enthusiasms for it. (I've got a love-hate thing with it, personally. I like a lot, but sometimes it just gives me a fucking headache.) Anyway my favorite aspect of it is Ewan, so Nat's Top Ten list of Ewan's greatest performances is right up my alley. Ewan forever.

--- Monkey Business - It's amazing what a surfeit of anticipation the Rise of the Planet for the Apes movie I've got at this point. I realized this morning that I never even got around to watching the first trailer, and now we've got a second one. Nothing against Jimmy Franco of course; should we lay the blame at Tim Burton's feet? (Of course we should.) I guess if nothing else it's giving Andy Serkis a new opportunity to shine, hidden in the shadows. You don't have to hide Andy in the shadows, ya know, world? Sometimes we like to look at him just plenty.

--- Who You Callin Fairy - I feel guilty at this point eleven years later still referring to Mary Harron as "the director of American Psycho," but that is and remains where I fell in love with her work. (I feel no such qualms about illustrating this only tangentially related bit of news with a picture of Christian Bale in that film, because duh.) She went on to make the terrific The Notorious Bettie Page after that, and did a lot of TV work, but it's hard out there for female directors, as y'all well know. Her most recent flick, the girl's boarding school vampire movie The Moth Diaries (with Scott Speedman playing a teacher!) remains in limbo right now, but according to BD there is good news: she's lining up another flick. It's called Wicked Lovely and it's based on a series of books about a girl that gets caught up in some faery netherworld... that happened to me once. With sexy results!

--- And finally, Jared Leto done went and cleaned himself up some for a Huge Boss cologne commercial, so sure, I'll post it. He cleans up well. (via)

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