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Metacritic Ranks '88 Minutes' As The Third Worst Movie Of All Time

Seth — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:25:00 EDT

A Defamer operative browsing Metacritic happened to notice that 88 Minutes—in which Al Pacino plays Dr. Jack Gramm, an FBI forensic psychiatrist who has (all together now!) 88 real-time minutes to solve his own murder!—has received a Metacritic score of 2. To give you some indication of just how bad that is, 10,000 B.C. got a 34, making Roland Emmerich's exhaustively researched recreation of the Great Mammoth Fur Trade a roughly 1700% better film. But how does it rank against releases of similar or lesser quality?

Somewhat astonishingly, their All-Time Low Scores—a Cinematic Excrement Hall of Fame, if you will—ranks it at #3, bested only by Bio-Dome, and lesser-known, gay-Holocaust-romance-with-supernatural-elements drama, The Singing Forest. (We highly recommend watching the trailer.) With Uwe Boll coming in at a relatively respectable #18 for Alone in the Dark, we imagine it's only a matter of time before the reviled director adds 88-helmer Jon Avnet to his ever-growing shlockteur shit list, filled with those guilty of unleashing far more heinous cinematic crimes upon the moviegoing public than he.

All-Time Low Scores: The Worst-Reviewed Movies [Metacritic]

Clint Black, Living Proof That Dying Is Easier Than Comedy

Mark Graham — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:30:00 EDT

If you were to conduct a poll of the 276 million people living in these here United States asking what they'd REALLY like to know about their favorite celebrities, we're pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find even one person who's wondering whether or not country music star Clint Black is any good at stand-up comedy. Still, that didn't stop CBS from devoting close to 6 minutes of airtime last night to answering that very question as part of their brand new show, Secret Talents Of The Stars. Sandwiched between segments of other equally perplexing talents of Z-listers (Can George Takei sing country music? Can Mya dance? Does a bear shit in the woods?), Clint Black spent some time prepping his stand-up routine with old friend Garry Shandling at the preeminent comedy hotspot for people born in the 1950s, The Comedy Store. Unfortunately for all of us, when a clearly concerned Shandling asked the yukless Black if "he had any OTHER secret talents" besides comedy, Black's answer was no. Shandling's advice and Black's so-bad-it's-bad performance follow after the jump.

The worst part? Clint Black won last night's competition!

Secret Talents Of The Stars [CBS]

First Review Of 'Step Brothers': Less Entertaining Than 'Two and a Half Men'

Mark Graham — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:09:51 EST

The first review of Will Ferrell's new movie just came in and, wow, it's a doozy. No, we're not talking about Semi-Pro, which opens today; we're talking about Ferrell's next movie, Step Brothers, which was produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Adam McKay. The film, set to open in late July, screened in Los Angeles last night. A Defamer tipster was in the audience and passed an early review our way. Based on some of the pullquotes (if, indeed, you can call words lifted from an email tip "pullquotes"), this sounds like it's going to be closer to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story than Talledega Nights in terms of both laughs and B.O. We hate to say it, but it's looking more and more like John C. Reilly is Box Office Poison when cast in anything other than a supporting role. Full review after the jump, but here's a few of the choice quotes: "The story makes no sense - repetitive, forced and predictable would be compliments" and "the dialogue is less entertaining and envelope-pushing than anything on Two and a Half Men." Ouch!

Hugh Jackman Casino Murder Musical Just As Popular As Anticipated

Mark — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:36:02 EDT

In a development that will probably surprise no one save the Hugh Jackman producing partner who counseled the star, "You know what we be an inspired career move, Hugh? Let's get you into a TV project with casinos. But not Vegas—someone's done that already, I think? Oh, also? There should be SINGING! And a murrrrder!," the debut of CBS's conceptually adventurous Viva Laughlin bombed so badly that network corporate overlord Les Moonves may order the execution of everyone involved after its next airing. Reports TV Week on the Nielsen carnage:

"Laughlin" fell 63 percent from lead-in "CSI" to post a 2.4 preliminary rating among adults 18 to 49 at 10 p.m., coming in last place. Moreover, the show lost 31 percent of its demo rating in its second half hour and was the lowest-rated program among the major broadcast networks for the night.
CBS is going to wait until after Sunday night's "Laughlin" airing in the show's regular time slot before making any decisions about its fate. But if you're working on the show, you might want to stop payment on the boat.

Naturally, such a spectacularly poor result invites second-guessing about the network's programming choices, especially considering CBS's early season struggles with its new series. We speak, of course, of their egregious passing over of Babylon Fields, whose horny zombies could have made a nice lead-out for CSI, allowing viewers to see what might happen if the hit procedural's corpses unzipped their body bags and reassumed their lives once their murders had been solved.

'Viva Laughlin' Craps Out [TV Week]

Secret Pentagon Plan Sought To Create Most Powerful Gay Bomb Since 'Showgirls'

Seth — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:12:37 EDT

With news that a Berkeley watchdog group has discovered an abandoned Pentagon plan to develop a "hormone bomb" that would turn enemy soldiers into lusty, same-sex-craving flesh addicts, producers—whose antennae are always attuned to a juicy, plucked-from-the-headlines story—instantly went into a Gay Bomb movie pitching frenzy. Studio executives were soon inundated with varying takes on the basic Manhattan Project-meets-The Birdcage premise. ("Ours is a musical!" "Ours is from the Gay Bomb's point of view!" "Ours dares to keep the cameras trained upon steamy displays of insurgent-on-insurgent action!") Ultimately, it was the little-known indie team who envisioned a Dr. Strangelove update, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal in full cowboy regalia bareback riding the Gay Bomb out the bay doors of a mirror-tiled B-52, that won Hollywood over for its bold, fabulous vision.

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb' [CBS5.com]

Breaking: Bomb Scare Near SAG, Variety, E! Buildings

Mark — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:10:50 EDT

Reports are pouring in about a bomb scare stopping traffic over on Wilshire Blvd, close to the headquarters of SAG and across the street from Variety and E! [Ed.note—Has anyone checked to make sure that Seacrest is safe?] A sampling of our nearby operatives' descriptions of the situation apparently created off by a mysterious briefcase left in front of Organic to Go:

· It appears that there is a bomb threat at the SAG building or one of its connected restaurants. Wilshire has been blocked off by LAPD patrol cars from Curson to Hauser and there is police tape across sidewalks leading from Wilshire Courtyard/E! Building to SAG, across the street. The restaurants along the row have been evacuated, but there seems to be some guy on the roof of one of them sitting in a lounge chair reading a book. He's either a really relaxed bomber, or the evacuation hasn't made it past the first floor. Either way, you'd think the helicopters would have tipped him off. Happy traffic, Wilshire drivers!

· Police have taped off Wilshire around SAG and Variety offices on Wilshire near Masselin. We first heard that there was a bomb threat to the Ralphs, but now it seems that a brief case left at Organic To-Go is the culprit. People are milling outside the Variety and SAG offices as the cops cover everything with reused yellow caution tape. LAPD doesn't have the funds for new tape?
· Apparently someone may have a grudge against SAG or the organic food place right next door... or maybe it's just another ill-conceived Adult Swim marketing stunt? Our office pool is betting that it's a rasher of bacon left outside the Organic cafe to stun the normally militant raw foodies into submission.

Var's The Knife blog confirms the shoddiness of recycled police tape, and has a photo from a safe distance. Developing, as local authorities and news crews try to determine the likelihood that the potential bomber was in some way trying to protest Paris Hilton's early release from prison.

(What, you thought we were going to get out of this without a Hilton mention?)

UPDATE 2: The Knife again reports from within the Var office:

UPDATE (2:32 pm) We've got two cops in our newsroom, telling us to stay 30 feet away from all windows. Our film reporters are paying no attention.
UPDATE (2:36 pm) OK, now they are.

To the best of our knowledge, nothing has yet exploded.

UPDATE 3: All clear, says internal e-mail from within the affected area:

Dear Tenants,
Wilshire Blvd. has re-opened! All of the caution tape has been removed and
we can now resume back to business as usual.

BREAKING: Briefcase "bomb" threatens lunch for Variety, E! [The Knife]