<![CDATA[Gawker: defamer, movies]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: defamer, movies]]> http://gawker.com/tag/defamer/movies http://gawker.com/tag/defamer/movies <![CDATA[Spoiler Filled Stills From Iron Man 2: What's Happening To Tony?]]> Last night the first ever trailer for Iron Man 2 was released, and it is jam-packed with spoilery goodies. Here's a shot-by-shot break down of what we noticed.

Uh oh, Pepper looks pissed. And Tony looks alone. What happened to all his friends?

Garry Shandling makes his big debut as Senator Stern, so Tony mocks him, naturally.

See Tony is alone. Empty chairs. Empty soul. It's lonely at the top.

But wait, it's Rhodey, he's back...and he looks pissed. And who's that to Rhodey's left? It's Sam Rockwell, as Justin Hammer. Did they walk in together? And where did Pepper go? Where's Happy?

Same sexual chemistry between Pepper and Tony, check. But then again I think RDJ is so charming he could have chemistry with a lamp post... lucky lamp post.

Iron Man is America, and a rock star. And look in the background — it's the Iron Man dancers, thus proving the slutty Halloween rule to be true: any outfit can be made whorish.

These gloves could very well be the best little party favors ever. Please hand these out at Comic Con!

Whiplash is obsessed. See? See? He has newspaper clippings. And newspaper clipping are to stalkers what glasses are to shy mousy girls with a hot girl dying to get out inside: stereotypical. But let's assume that since he's spent so much time cataloguing the family story, that this grudge may go way, way back. Since he's had time to make a scrap book.

Who hit Tony?

The garage is all cleaned up and stocked with new rich guy toys. Bruce Wayne who?

What is happening to Tony's neck?

Yikes it's spreading. Tony is literally turning into an Iron Man. Also, he could be turning into a human computer, which has happened in the Iron Man comics before.

More Justin Hammer, and in perfect timing with Whiplash's "shark" comment.

Nick Fury just wants to get motherfucking Tony onto the motherfucking team.

More Iron Man-ettes. I suspect this may be a banner year for the cosplay fans.

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff in her Black Widow "business casual" attire.

War Machine prototype!

Is the Black Widow working for Rhodey? Is that her in the background?

Black Widow in her ass kicking attire, is she beating up Happy? I bet Jon Favreau just loved that.

Whiplash finally shows us what his lightsaber whips can do — which is break Tony's car.

Which he does.

I'm still not sold on the Whiplash outfit, but it does look pretty bad ass from behind.

Uh oh — will Tony be Whiplashed in half, or will the bad guy just show off some more? Answer: Show off.

Whiplash has nasty metal mouth.

What is this flying contraption? It looks like it's shooting at Iron Man? Multiple Mecha suits?

A first look at War Machine, and Tony's new suit, with a triangle chest plate. Is this due to the metal veins? Also the background is filled with power suits, almost like an Armor War...

War Machine and Tony fight other mechas and you get a faceful of War Machines shoulder gun, and Tony's fully reconstructed suit, Mark VI. Very nice. So who thinks they are filming the Armor Wars story?

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<![CDATA[Nicolas Cage: The Worst Actor of His Generation]]> Nicolas Cage is completely broke. One theory is that he spent money more frivolously than the people who paid to see Wicker Man in theaters. Our theory at Gawker.TV is that he is the worst actor ever. Here's proof.

Honestly, trimming down bad acting moments throughout Nic Cage's career may just be one of the hardest jobs in editing.

For our masochistic readers, clips sourced from: Vampire's Kiss, Con Air, National Treasure 2, Ghostrider, Snake Eyes, Wicker Man, City of Angels, and The Rock.

Sincerest apologies go to all the interns who were forced to watch these movies.

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<![CDATA[Unauthorized Alien Movie Promotion Will Save Newspapers]]> Struggling Alaskan newspapers have come up with a new revenue source that could well become a model for the whole industry: Being paid restitution by a Hollywood studio that used your paper's name without permission to advertise an alien movie.

Universal decided to promote its movie "Fourth Kind," about real live actual alien abductions in Alaska that actually happened, by publishing a fake archive of fake news stories from real Alaska papers, purporting to report on the fake things that happened in the fake movie. Then the real Alaska papers were like, whoa, hey, pretty sure we didn't write any real obits of fictional characters lately, and Universal was like, ha, you're right, we're giving $20k to the Alaska Press Club to show you how sorry we are. The studio also vowed to pull all the fake stories off the internet, but, of course, you can still find some cached on Google.

The Tribune Co. is very interested in expressing outrage over any Hollywood movies that may choose to use fake LA Times headlines to recount any imaginary tales of murder, scandal, or disaster, whether human or alien. Call them.

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<![CDATA[The Secret Formula of Nikki Finke's Success]]> Dumenco: Nikki Finke offers Hollywood the thrill "of seeing a spun reporter do as told."

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<![CDATA[Elijah Wood Is the Most Critically-Acclaimed Actor, Freddie Prinze, Jr. the Most Hated]]> Indie mag Miller-McCune performed mathematical voodoo on a zillion movie reviews to figure out critics' favorite and least favorite actors, as well as which critics are the nicest and the meanest.

Using scores from Metacritic, Miller-McCune weighted the critical scores of actors' movies with the relative size of their roles in those movies. The final list shows that everyone who was in Lord of the Rings is an awesome actor with great taste in projects, with Elijah Wood topping the list and Viggo Mortenson and Ian Holm (the British geezer who played Bilbo Baggins) making the top four, too. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as serious an actor as you think he is, and Jessica Alba is as big a hack. Bottoming out the list was Freddie Prinze, Jr., followed by someone named Eddie Griffin and a tragic Matthew Lillard who had so much potential, once. Here's an abridged sampler:

Equally interesting was scatterplot showing the relative niceness and consistency of America's 25 most prolific movie critics. We discover that the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington drinks the kool-aid more than any other critic, followed by the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert's perennially upraised thumbs. The meanest critic in America is the Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov, who gives low scores but deviates regularly. On the other hand, TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh gives low scores and has a relatively low standard deviation from her mean score, meaning she's always stone cold.

[Miller-McCune]

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<![CDATA[Tucker Max Has an Explanation]]> Schlitz-grasping cargo short sporter Tucker Max has finally figured out why his movie, Penis in a Beer Cozy, was a financial failure.

[Tells some story of this girl in a bar who totally loves him, like, so much, but doesn't know about the movie]. I mean, when someone who identifies themselves as a huge fan, who has read the book and passed it to their friends and self-identifies as this type of person, when the movie is IN THEATERS and they don't even know there is a movie at all…that is a complete failure in the publicity and marketing of the movie...
I don't want to go through it, because it'll just be depressing, but the failures in marketing were just…big. Unrecoverable.

I would have guessed "Because it was awful." But I'm no Tucker Max.
[Pic: Flickr]

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<![CDATA[Poor Sad Terminator to go on the Auction Block]]> How the mighty tumble! Just yesterday, Hollywood trembled in awe before the Terminator series; creator of planet-devouring sequels and merchandising. Today, it goes on the auction block like the baggage at some grizzly slave auction.

The Financial Times reports that the rights to the Terminator kingdom — films, TV shows, ringtones, pajamas, you name it — will be put on the block this month, with Sony the front-runner to take home the goods.

While the original films, and T2 in particular, were powerhouse earners in their day, after the franchise lay dormant for a decade, attempts to reboot have been spotty.

2003's Terminator 3 did not turn out to be the artistic or box-office bomb that many feared, but shortly after that film's release producer Mario Kassar sold off the franchise to the all-but-unknown unknown Halcyon Entertainment, which created a forgettable TV series and an abysmal McG directed film, Terminator Salvation.

Halcyon has now been driven to Chapter 11, which led to the court-directed auction of its assets, primarily poor forgotten Terminator.

Fortunately for the sad little franchise, any idea that has any sort of merchandiseable juice behind it is nothing to be sneezed by a teetering Hollywood, grabbing for any thin reed they can. And in fact, despite being battered and bruised, Terminator remains a fairly lucrative cash cow, with the full Salvation take, all told - international, DVD, etc at more than $375 million. A few weeks ago the Mutant Ninja Turtles sold off for $60 million and it certainly seems plausible that
Terminator could fetch a higher price tag than that.

And with Arnold leaving the Governor's office in just over a year... it might be time for the world to say "Hasta la vista baby" all over again.

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<![CDATA[Who Knew the Weinsteins Still Had 30 Employees Left to Fire?]]> Page Six spotted Bob and Harvey Weinstein saying tearful goodbyes to 30 laid-off Weinstein Co. employees at a TriBeCa steakhouse recently. So goes the Weinstein Empire's slow, painful collapse.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the latest round of layoffs brings the company's total payroll down to 70 or 80. Just for perspective, Nikki Finke reported that they had 224 staffers in November 2008. How many more tear-filled dinners can they stand before they go from the Weinstein Co. to just the Weinsteins?

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<![CDATA[Tucker Max's Biggest Fans Explain His Transcendent Movie]]> Tucker Max's movie "Poop: My Story" is really, objectively not doing well, at all. We'll just delicately link to the weekend's movie chart, with no overt comment. However! The sycophants on Tucker Max's message boards have an alternative view.

There is probably nothing more enjoyable on the internet today than to contrast the movie I saw with the reviews of said movie by the only other people in America who saw it: the hardcore Tucker Max fans who frequent his message boards. Never let it be said that we don't provide space for differing opinions.

1. "The comedic value isn't what sets the movie apart to me, it's the fact that it actually has a soul. When I walked out of the theater I wasn't really thinking about how funny it was, I was thinking about friendships I've had in the past that I screwed up or have lost - it made me introspective."

2. "Much in the same way 'fratire' became a new genre, Tucker made this movie from a completely different mold. And, he deserves to be evaluated on that basis."

3. "Tucker and Nils could make 10 sequels to IHTSBIH and they'd still be funny so long as the dialogue didn't repeat. Because that's where the humor was derived: the fucking English language. Crazy concept, right?"

4. "I think you infused the right amount of slapstick, physical comedy (the shit scene, Dan pissing on the cops) into the movie. I like it when you can laugh at two very different levels of humor in the same flick."

5. "I've seen Tucker on camera many times, but it was weird to see him in a movie about him...with him not playing...him. And was it me or was he overacting that role like a motherfucker in the background of those scenes? Haha, nah, you were good dude."

6. "Expected more laugh out loud moments in the movie, but that was mostly from my high expectations. I rarely laugh out loud in movies, but I remember I did during the shit scene and the scene with Drew strangling Lara. A few of the one liners like 'You smell like you got buttfucked by a garbage truck.'"

7. "Take Drew. Not a single person who's criticized the Drew/Lara relationship has mentioned a characteristic of his other than that he "hates women," a fact that shows a deep misunderstanding of the character and relationship. Drew is bitter because he's fucking hurting. He is a very deeply moral character. He clearly puts a lot of weight on trust: he won't lie for his friends because Dan's fiancée trusts him and he will not undermine that. To not have that same trust reciprocated in a relationship as involved as the one he just got out of is fucking devastating.
To give someone your all, to buy them his and hers chairs to play video games in, to so let them into your life, only to catch them sucking off a fucking rapper on your couch? The damage that does to his emotional health is so palpable it's ridiculous. Some of the shots of Jesse reacting to Lara and the kid back at their house are priceless. Bradford does such a good job letting that pain and longing simmer. Chills."

8. "I loved the fact that even though I didn't find it funny, I was only bored during one scene."

9. "We've been so conditioned to see people dodging wrenches to practice dodging a ball, Asian gangsters in car trunks, and Jason Biggs sliding to home plate with a pie that when we see flaming Dr. Peppers we probably expected someone or something to catch fire for some cheap laugh. Instead we heard "So who's the slutty one?" said to a bachelorette party. The line – like the entire tone of the movie – is in your face and that artistic choice is so different the combination is unsettling to some people, but funny to nearly everyone."

10. "In a few years, when critics look at the IHTSBIH franchise as a whole, they're going to be eating a lot of crow. Not because they wrote bad reviews (this movie, like every other movie, has its flaws), but because they failed to miss the "experience" aspect all together. In the same way that George Lucas generated long-term success for Star Wars with cutting-edge movie-making technology, IHTSBIH will ultimately succeed as a franchise and a brand because it completely redefined what it means to "experience" a movie. That's why it's unfair to compare this to any other film. It isn't like them."

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<![CDATA[Will Miramax's Impending Doom Signal the Death of Studio Indies?]]> The Disney-owned production house named after founders Bob and Harvey Weinsteins' parents, Miramax, is—like Bob and Harvey's current shop—facing tough times. But while The Weinstein Company struggles for air, Miramax is being choked out by its corporate parents.

It wasn't much of a surprise when it was announced that Disney would be "restructuring" Miramax down to three films a year and cutting their staff by 70%.

When Disney studio chief Dick Cook was ousted last week, it was pretty common knowledge that an absent Cook, who was long a proponent of keeping the Miramax brand alive, certainly wasn't going to help things. Miramax hasn't been sufficiently profitable for a while, at least by Disney's standards. Sure, they've turned out some quality films over the last few years (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood) but most people attribute those victories to New York's Worst Boss '07, producer Scott Rudin, and not Miramax head Daniel Battsek, the Brit who couldn't zero in on American tastes without the help of producers like Rudin: ears for quality and easy ins to studios. Miramax has also had far more than their fair share of failures lately, which the LAT report nicely reduces to their most recent three (Extract, Cheri, and The Boys Are Back). Are we forgetting Adventureland, Eagle vs. Shark, Blindness, etc? Because, well, we shouldn't.

These are mostly expensive films with fairly "bankable" stars being trotted out as "independent" fare, or as the LA Times enjoys calling it: "smaller, offbeat movies," which is a nice euphemism for anything that doesn't have a nailed-down demographic of conspicuous consumers (or, for that matter, teenagers). But big studio dramas used to do really well! Remember the 90s? Braveheart, Schindler's List, American Beauty, Gladiator: these films used to win box offices and Oscars. Not anymore. In their place are smaller affairs: The Reader, Crash, Revolutionary Road. Restrained pieces of moviemaking that aren't as epic as their history would suggest. Times change.

Picturehouse, Warner Independent, and now, Miramax: all of these were so-called "specialty division" studio-within-studios that failed. They were built up to lure stars with the promise of getting their art-house rocks off in exchange for a multi-picture deal involving a blockbuster. Why? Because, for studios, they weren't worth the cost of the money they were losing devoting resources to making or acquiring and marketing these mostly unprofitable movies. So: studio indies are coming to an end. Thank god.

Miramax got their name by making movies like Swingers and Pulp Fiction. They stumbled upon raw talent who could make an incredible movie on the cheap, and the profits were extraordinary. When you have the backing of a studio like Disney, or Warner Bros, that's never going to happen. As much as they probably enjoy the schadenfreude of Disney fucking up their baby, even The Weinstein Brothers, still hopped up on the memories of their last moneyed days with Disney, are now caught between pissing cash into the wind on highbrow stuff, or focusing on making more stuff like Halloween 2. Layoffs are impending for Miramax employees who once thought they had the safety of a studio that cared about "good" movies. Disney's commitment to "quality" extends as far as their bottom line, like so many other multinationals trying to turn a buck.

Independent film used to be a game of digging through the dark to find something incredible, and that might be what it's returning to. Hollywood's new producers are savvy to New Media marketing games; they know how to make good films while keeping the kitchen sink. We can try to avoid the symbolism of Miramax's doom as much as we want to, but in the end, it's simple: conglomerates are out of the art-house game, which means its full-on open season for underdog movies again. Let the new Weinsteins emerge.

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<![CDATA[So How's That Tucker Max Movie Doing?]]> As you all know, we've just concluded the opening weekend of Tucker Max's film debut, "Alcohol and Poop Go Together Like Whores and EZ Cheez." How grand a mark has it made on cinema history? Let's go to the scorecards!

Box Office Mojo sez: It opened on 120 screens and raked in a total of $369K, for an opening weekend average of $3,075 per screen. That puts Tucker's movie eighth in per-screen revenue out of the nine movies that opened last weekend. Although he came close to matching the $3,100 per screen average of Blind Date (2009).

But sometimes critically acclaimed films don't have boffo box offices. It's just the nature of high art. Let's go to the reviews:

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<![CDATA[Michael Moore in Self-Promotional War with CBS]]> So, Michael Moore has been making the media rounds to promote his latest project, Capitalism: A Love Story. The film, we're sure, will be enlightening, but, as happens with all things Moore, may be overshadowed by the man himself.

Moore's press train began last week on Good Morning America, when he took some time to rail against the show's use of "permalancers," a group that's basically permanent, but don't get the benefits and, therefore, count as the underdog. It was all very amusing and true, and provided Moore with a great excuse when CBS "canceled" his appearance on tomorrow's Early Show. From a tweet Moore posted Sunday morning:

Backlash Begins: CBS has cancelled [sic] me on its Mon. morning show. After I criticized ABC/Disney on GMA, they didn't want me to do same to CBS.

While that could be true, CBS bookers tell media scallywag Rachel Sklar that they never booked him. Moore's people, though, tell a different story: they were negotiating a firm date with CBS, but then CBS got all diva about getting the sit-down after GMA already landed Moore:

I can accurately say that the bookers who book the show have definitely been in discussion with us to have him on the show. When we attempted to confirm the booking they said they didn't want to follow GMA.

Hmmm. So, Moore, we're assuming, knew CBS had said they didn't want to follow GMA, but tweeted that the network was scared of his inflammatory nature. Why are we not surprised?

Anyway, Moore's assertion, however valid, only brings the spotlight back to him, which is good when you're promoting a movie. And the movie's doing well, by the way: it opened with about $306,000 on four screens. That's the higher per-theater average for the year. Love him or hate him, Moore's a hit machine.

Did CBS Cancel Michael Moore? [Mediaite]

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<![CDATA[Patrick Swayze is Now Dead. And It's Sad.]]> We've all known this was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier to announce. Patrick Swayze, American actor and icon, has died and, at the tender age of 57, succumbed to pancreatic cancer.

We all remember the Texas-born Swayze from his roles in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, but the actor's real break came from the television adaptation of North and South, a Civil War drama. The actor went on to star in a number of hits, like Point Break.

While we all have fond memories of Swayze's silver screen hits, we are most impressed by his courageous cancer battle. Though he knew his days were numbered, Swayae signed on to star in A&E's The Beast. And, honestly, whatever you'll say about the show, his gumption was commendable. We've previously honored Mr. Swayze with a video tribute, but here;s our absolutely favorite performance from Dirty Dancing, the sleeper hit that helped make him a star.

RIP, Patrick. You touched many lives and, as cynical and mean as we may be, will always be adored

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<![CDATA[Team Michael Bay's Megan Fox Diss Letter: Censored!]]> Megan Fox was being cute by calling Michael Bay a "Nazi" regarding the Transformers 2 shoot. Some Michael Bay crew members wrote a letter about Awful Megan Fox on Michael Bay's site, which has since been censored. Just awesome.

So! Megan Fox was promoting Jennifer's Body, the new Diablo Cody monster whatever movie. Wonderland magazine asks her about Transformers 2, and she goes off the reservation on Michael Bay:

God, I really wish I could go loose on this one. He's like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it's endearing to watch him.

Now, while Megan Fox is trying to cement her reputation as a ridiculously inaccessible super rad badass post-femme hottie goddess rockbitch (or whatever Diablo Cody would call it) by basically calling Michael Bay a small-dicked boy with big explosive toys, a bunch of Michael Bay crewmembers—Or fanboys! Or both!—posted a letter on a Michael Bay message board. They write:

Megan has the press fooled...we have never understood why Megan was always such – the grump of the set?

...When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we've had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it's very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) easily another 45 minutes in the chair

Yes! Written like true techies. She's got a tat? Call her trailer trash! And again:

Megan says that Transformers was an unsafe set? Come on Megan, we know it is a bit more strenuous then the playground at the trailer park, but you don't insult one of the very best stunt and physical effects teams in the business! Not one person got hurt!

And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we've all worked around. She's as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom.

Yeah, well, we imagine that's the case with everyone. What say you of franchise star Shia LaDouche? Exactly. Furthermore!

The press certainly doesn't know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn't let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, "I can't believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!" I guess this is the "Hitler guy" she is referring to.

Okay, that's just funny. So! Word of the letter leaks out. Sister Jez gets to it, Michael K at D-Listed gets to it with his own analysis:

The letter is supposed to make you want to run for president of the I HATE MEGAN FOX fan club, but it actually makes me kind of like her stupid ass for a quick minute. I mean, she's dumb, she's a slut and she's a bitch. The dumb slutty bitch is my kind! It's like we were separated at the free clinic!

God, he's a poet. And for a moment, this struggle of two work cultures—the "talent" culture, and the "techie" culture, this ages-long Hollywood battle over the value of diva actors and the work they do and the class struggles that exist between them—it hung in the air, dangling over the edge of becoming an all-out war, like an Autobot teetering on the precipice of a cliff, about to fall into the Grand Canyon, when Michael Bay, the great negotiator, stepped in. The letter was removed from the site! Forget for a moment that D Listed has it up, Just Jared still has it, and Google has it cached, and read into the great peacemaking the Michael Bay doth purport, on his site:

I don't condone the crew letter to Megan. And I don't condone Megan's outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on Transformers 3.

Michael

Genius. This is the man who brought us Armegeddon; he's a natrual crowdpleaser and one hell of a moneymaker, at heart. You think he'd do anything but leave open the possibility of more cast and crew infighting and insanity?

Winner: Michael Bay.
Losers: Classless Tech Crew Who Can't Write A Letter Very Well, With Exception To The Egypt Anecdote.
Push: Megan Fox. Yes, probably an asshole, but an honest, funny one. Like, sometimes, you're in Egypt, you just don't want to see the fuckin' pyramids, you know? Someone get me a mango lassi while we wait for these robots to get gassed. I've got my wonderful freaky thumbs to look at.

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<![CDATA[In Stunning Breakthough, Jennifer Aniston Performs Role While Actually Asleep]]> Scientists around the world are in stunned today over the breakthrough in human performance technology made by actress/explorer Jennifer Aniston. Clips released from her new film Love Happens reveals Aniston was able to complete an entire film while comatose.

The five newly revealed scenes from Aniston's new filmLove Happens show the famed actress standing erect during shooting, moving her lips and forcing muted sounds to emit from within her body. But other than these basic motions, Aniston shows few signs of actually being alive during the shooting of this film.

On close study of the clips, her emotional range can be seen tilting from "slightly bummed" to "kinda okay" — a range often studied in hibernating creatures in the wild. Slumbering bears, for instance, will often terrify hikers who stumble across them into believing they are actually awake when they raise one corner of their mouth and tilt their heads back and forth in a "yeah, kinda" motion.

Fears that she might actually be dead while making this film rather than merely asleep were put to rest when careful study of at the second clip revealed a moment of "pissed off" emotion — a feeling considered far beyond the capacity of most human corpses.

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<![CDATA[America, You're To Blame For Hollywood's Artistic Decline]]> Much hay has been made over Hollywood's growing reliance on the remake. Creativity is dead, yes, we know, but, more importantly, the silver screen's recycling kick also acts as an endorsement for mediocrity. And it's all your fault!

Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times offers three reasons why remakes are all the rage. First, despite some duds, many remakes do make scads of money, as exhibited by Star Trek. Second, the audience likes them. Finally, after years of rejecting the remake, directors are now keen on the idea.

There was once a time when filmmakers used their craft to elevate their ingenuity, vision and originality. Sadly, those traits are few and far between these days and, rather than stretch their own lazy imagination, filmmakers claim they're "reinventing" previous big screen forays. Bullshit.

While people like Rob Zombie may want to call themselves "auteurs," no self-respecting artist would take someone else's work, shoot it from a different angle — or, heaven forbid, in 3D — and display it as an example of their bottomless creative well. But, like any business, Hollywood's ruled by a little thing called supply-and-demand and can't be held entirely accountable for this developing trend.

The public's only endorsing this sort of behavior: by going to remakes, we are tacitly telling Hollywood, "Hey, it's okay: we crave nothing new. We can't stretch our tiny minds to understand — or even demand — an entirely innovative film going experience." No, we're all telling upcoming filmmakers that we'll happily consume any well-trod, familiar story.

We can blame Hollywood all we like, but it's really the public who's encouraging laziness on the part of our entertainers. It's we who are helping erode the foundations of America's collective imagination, thus giving rise to remakes like Fame, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 and, why?!, Footloose. This isn't nostalgia. This is a sad indictment of our insatiable love for all things safe, secure and ultimately conventional. And it's for that reason that we don't deserve entertainment at all. Not until we can prove we need more than flashing lights and shiny objects to get us off.

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<![CDATA[Ritchie Finds Post-Madge Project, Lobo]]> The most recent comic book movies have focused on a hero who overcomes obstacles to save the world. Woo. Thankfully, Guy Ritchie's about the change that with Lobo, about a bad ass alien who takes no shit. Good. [Variety]

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<![CDATA[Does Obama Have the Guts to Take on Big Cartoon?]]> With Disney's big buy of Marvel, America suddenly finds much of its entire animated universe — from Spider-Man to Pluto — in the hands of one media conglomerate. How many cartoon characters must a company own before the FTC acts?

For decades, young MBA's have stepped off the Greyhound with little more than an attaché case and a dream — a dream of making their fortunes by turning a moribund 1960's comic book character into a gazillion-dollar international film franchise. Today that dream just fell out of reach for many young dreamers.

The news that Disney has shelled out $4 billion to buy Marvel comics means, for all purposes, the ownership of America's beloved cartoon characters is now in the hands of two companies — Disney and Warner Bros.

Of all the issues facing Washington now, superhero rights no doubt fall low on the list, but what will it take for the government to step in with anti-trush legislation and let these animated citizens enjoy the full pleasures of the free market?

Facing off each other across from opposite ends of Burbank now, America's cartoon titans stand amassed in two armies like The Legion of Doom and The Teen Titans.

Serving now on Disney's payroll:


The classic Disney characters; Mickey, Minnie and the Country Bears

The Pixar Universe - from Buzz Lightyear to Up's formidable Carl Fredricksen

The Muppets

And now Marvel's Spiderman, the Moon Knight, Kingpin, Captain America and the Human Torch.


Here's what's in the Warners camp:

The DC Universe from Batman right on down to Mr. Mxyzptlk

The hangdog but never to be counted out Hanna-Barbera world — including Scooby Doo, a Tom and Jerry film in production, and the perpetually unquenchable demand for updated versions of the Jetsons and Flintstones, not to mention a little outlet known as the Smurfs.

And how could we forget Bugs Bunny and the Warner Brothers cartoon empire


Which leaves very very little for the other studios to pick over.

In fact, if one looks at Empire Magazine's list of the Greatest Comic Characters of All Time, Art Seigelman's holocaust allegory Maus stands as the lone member of the Top 20 not now in the Disney or Warners camps. Of the complete Top 50, the ten remaining free agents are a fairly motley collection of satirical characters (The Tick), untranslatable imports (Astro Boy) and edgy "alternative" characters (Harvey Pekar). When Steven Spielberg's work-in-progress Tin Tin finallys hits the screens, it may be a brave last stand for independent comic book characters, free from the iron chains of the Disney/Warners duopoly.

But ultimately, the greatest losers on this historic day are certainly the other studios whose coming summer slates are heavily dependent on help from their Marvel friends. Sony's Spiderman franchise, Paramount's Iron Man films and Fox plans for a thousand year reign of Avengers origins and team up films are now dependent to some degree on the good will of their friends at Disney.

And all that assumes the winds don't pick up and the fires raging in the hills don't consume us all in flames sometime before tea time today.

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<![CDATA[Robinov Renewal Likely]]> It's looking more likely that Warner Bros. Picture Group's president Jeff Robinov's renewing his contract.

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<![CDATA[Tucker Max's Movie: Poop]]> Last night I went and watched the upcoming Tucker Max movie, in full. Here is what I saw, before I erase it from my mind entirely.

It was bad. It was really bad. It was not bad in the good way. It was not bad ironically. It was not bad in the "Let's go see it because we like to watch bad movies like Knowing, and laugh at them" way. I do not want to say the wrong thing here, that might convince anyone that this movie is worth paying to see, even for train wreck purposes.

This is the movie that happens when a narcissist—not an interesting one, though—writes an entire movie about how cool he is, and is given full creative control over that movie. Imagine someone you know who is an asshole. Now imagine that person being able to write and produce a movie about themselves, and how awesome they are. There you have it.

The plot of this film: Tucker Max and two of his bros go to a bachelor party, meeting various cum sluts along the way. Whore bitches can't get enough of Tucker Max's bad boy personality, which is probably why so many of these twats want him inside of their vaginas. Tucker fucks a midget stripper and the world loves him for it, the end. Other highlights:

  • Close-ups of poop, coming out of someone's butt, a lot.
  • There's a wedding scene in the end where the guests are all white and the servers are all black. There's not a joke to go with that.
  • The best character in the film is Tucker's friend Drew, because he looks like he was just dropped in from another movie, and can't wait to get back. Drew is a misanthropic video game nerd who goes to strip club and meets a hot stripper who is also a video game nerd and falls for him and they rush home and sleep together and Drew instantly bonds with her son and they become a couple immediately. This is as close to a plausible male-female interaction sequence as this movie gets.
If you're still curious about Making a Mess In a Cum Slut's Mouth Because She Won't Let Me Not Do That, just watch our preview clips or read the script we published a year ago, which did indeed turn out to be pretty close to the final version.

This movie is not, in fact, hilarious.
[Pic: Flickr]

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