Fortunately, you can’t kill vampires with a car. According to Reuters, “Twilight star Robert Pattinson was hit by a taxi in New York as he tried to run away from a crowd of hysterical teenage fans, but he was not seriously injured, US media reported.”
I feel sorry for the guy. You really look like a wuss when you have to retreat to defend yourself from from adolescent girls.
We haven’t gotten really excited about a movie this summer (except, that is, for rewatching Ghostbusters for Ghostbusters Week) since Star Trek. (We liked Up, but that’s not quite the same as being excited.) Will that change this weekend with Year One? Hey, what do you think of George Michael Bluth’s…er…Michael Cera’s movie career? A long down-slope form Juno to Nick and Nora to whatever quirky™ indie comedy comes next?
And, since none of us have seen the movie, we should really take this opportunity to pontificate about Bruno and whether it’s offensive to gay people.
Also, a little announcement: we’re excited to be exchanging guest posts next week with the fascinating guys at the Ecocomics blog. I won’t say exactly what they’re writing about—it’s not, strictly speaking, comics-related—but I will say it involves zombies.
I’m particularly excited to have these guys OTI. When Belinkie sent a link to the site around to our email list we discovered that a number of us were already fan of their work. For example, they take up the question of whether Batman villains should betray each other, analyzing it in terms of the Prisoner’s Dilemma (and offering a clear explanation as to why the rational choice to play the strictly dominant strategy leads to outcomes that are Pareto inefficient). You may remember Mlawski’s similar analysis of The Dark Knight Returns…see? They’re right up our alley. Stay tuned.
(Like game theory? Learn it where most of the OTI writers did.)
A straight guy play-acting a string of gay stereotypes for the sole purpose of screaming “Hey everyone! My character is GAY! Isn’t that HILARIOUS?”
Oh, my aching sides.
Funny People is coming out with Sandler and Apatow. Anything Sandler AND Apatow is the anti overthinking it.
But then, like all cosmic things, Sandler is so far out that he comes back for some OTI goodness…
Funny People is about veteran comedian Sandler who is terminal and his young protege Apatow. Sandler’s character, George Simmons, is popular as a standup comedian and movie actor. The movies are obvious send-ups. On “his” site, http://www.george-simmons.com/ , he has videos, bios, and so forth. He has been in Merman, a sendup of Mermaid with Darryl Hannah. It’s a remake story about the jilted ex-boyfriend who comes ashore to get his girlfriend back – an awful movie premise. I swear the Funny People PR machine has had this in the news. Another is Astro-NOT, about a janitor in space. Another is Re-Do, an obvious joke at Little People.
Is Sandler making a joke (the funny part) about a joke (previous cheesy movies) about a joke (Hollywood’s willingness to remake bad movies and do it worse the next time) ?
Michael Cera still has a career; I haven’t seen poor Ellen Page in ages. It’s been so long, in fact, I’m not even sure if that’s the right name of the girl who played Juno in “Juno.” A star-making role becomes a career-ender because no one wants to see her as anything other than a sassy teenager with an incomprehensible language and a penchant for driving Jason Bateman crazy. I do hope she finds something soon to offset the “one-hit wonder” tag that I fear will be assigned to her (I know she was in other things before “Juno,” but that was really the breakout role).
“Nick and Norah” as a movie was okay, but I like the soundtrack a hell of a lot more. It also makes me feel like less of a hipster than I thought I was, as I’d never heard of half the bands on the CD. But maybe being a hipster isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (looking down your nose at people who shop at Starbucks or Wal-Mart is only going to get you so far).
The “Public Enemies” trailer has given me mixed emotions: on the one hand, there’s the chance that this could transcend summer blockbuster fare and be an incredibly good movie (a’la “The Dark Knight”). But the slickness that seems to be omnipresent puts me off a bit (can John Dillinger really be a Johnny Depp kinda guy?). Plus, the whole “I’m John Dillinger, I rob banks” line is ripping off “Bonnie and Clyde” (though, to be fair, Dillinger did indeed rob banks, and a hell of a lot more successfully than Bonnie and Clyde. It might suggest a subversive tone to the whole enterprise like the 1967 film, but I doubt it).
All her performance in Juno did was balance out her miserable showing in X-men. That leaves her at a neutral balance, not a star.
Trevor: I’m looking forward to _Public Enemies_, but more for the eye candy, admittedly. I like to think it has the potential to be a great movie, but I’ll be satisfied even if it’s written poorly because I just want to shamelessly drool over Depp and Bale for two hours. Anyhoo, it’s risky since it’s of a specific genre/format that has been done pretty recently by films like _Catch Me If You Can_ and _American Gangster_. _American Gangster_ suffered under the shadow of _Catch Me If You Can_, and so _Public Enemies_ has an even greater shadow to slip away from. The previews for this one downplay the cop role, as did those for the other two movies- a move I hope they’re doing on purpose to cover up something awesome about Bale’s character and NOT because he’s just not as interesting as Depp’s. So for it to be a “good” movie, the writing and character development has a lot of ground to cover and a high bar to clear. It must do “good” things in “good” ways in order to avoid feeling “the same” or “trite” or something. I have no idea when I’ll get to see it, alas.
I didn’t see it myself, but I have numerous friends with very different personalities and tastes that all saw _Year One_ (in different groups, too) and were unimpressed. I’m not surprised (based on the previews). They were MORE impressed with _The Hangover_. I think Michael Cera is kind of type-casted in that awkward position of, well, the “awkward young one” because of _Juno_. He’s going to need to get older-looking before being cast as anything else. Look at Justin Long, for example: his first role was in _Galaxy Quest_, wherein he played a kid no older than fifteen, even though he was twenty at the time. It wasn’t until _She’s Just Not That Into You_ that he broke the sort of nerdy stereotype set by Brandon (since even his character in _Accepted_ was sort of a nerd- or at least a helluva lot younger than Long in real life, as was his character in the fourth _Die Hard_). And you could tell they worked *really* hard on his physical appearance to make him believably in his late twenties/early thirties for the role.
But I wouldn’t blame Ellen Page for _X-Men_, though- I’d blame the writers. There is a long feminist rant about why she’s screwed because of the success of _Juno_ versus Cera getting a bunch of roles afterwords (starting with possibly sexist implications of the movie’s premise), but I’m tired. And I doubt anybody would be interested, anyway.
I’m intrigued by the PETA v. Obama stuff. Of course _The Daily Show_ and _Colbert Report_ went after him, too. But not like PETA.
It’s not really “recent” necessarily, but *I* recently discovered there is a two-disc version of the soundtrack for _The Dark Knight_ with the first disc essentially a reselling of the original soundtrack; but the second, containing all of the new stuff, is available digitally and on its own on Amazon. If you like Hans Zimmer or movie soundtracks and have the original version already, get this, too- especially since the two-disc version is over $45 (it’s available digitally, too, but again, why rebuy the first disc?).
What’s up, is there anybody else here?
If it’s not just all bots here, let me know. I’m looking to network
Oh, and yes I’m a real person LOL.
Peace,