This Is The First I've Heard Of "Neighborhood Watch" And I Am Already Sick Of It

OMG, you guys... seriously... this is like SOOOOOO FUNNY! ThIS car is driving all slow-mo and people are looking all like "day-um!" but it's the suburbs instead of like New York or something and it's totally not that kind of car; and there's TOTALLY a rap song playing but they're all dweeby white dudes! LOL!

Escape to the Movies: "Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie"

There's my Chippy.

"Intermission" follows-up on "Act of Valor"

AMERICAN BOB: "Lost & Founders"

"Frankenweenie" Trailer

The original "Frankenweenie" short-film - about a monster-movie obsessed kid who ressurects his dead dog with mad science told in as a black-and-white Frankenstein parody - is like a time-capsule of what used to make Tim Burton such and exciting voice in filmmaking.

The first trailer for the feature-length remake (still b&w, but now executed in stop-motion a'la That One Movie That Makes Us Keep Giving Burton Another Chance) hopes to recapture some of that magic; and other than insistently reminding us of "Alice in Wonderland" it seems to succeed:

Andrew Breitbart Is Dead

UPDATE: As can probably be expected, Breitbart's acolytes appear quite convinced that he was assassinated - surely another victim of the Terrifying Black Man who haunts their nightmares.

No doubt, kind of a shocker.

Obviously, it's no kind of "happy" occasion when someone clocks-out at 43 leaving a wife and 4 kids behind; it's easy to forget that someone whose "public face" and/or actions lead most to consider them fairly vile human beings can be someone's father, husband, son, etc. "offstage." I won't pretend to be especially "sad" for Breitbart himself, particularly considering I remember him asking "Why do you grant a bully special status upon his death?" when Ted Kennedy passed away. But for all the negativity that surrounded the man in life, I never heard anyone call him a bad father, so I have to assume his family is crushed by their loss and I feel bad for them.

"Piranha 3DD" Has A Full Trailer

I was a big fan of the first "Piranha 3D;" which I thought struck the appropriate balance between being sincerely-bad and self-consciously bad. The sequel (which apparently can't decide whether or not to actually open in theaters) seems to be leaning more on the "self-conscious" side; with David Koechner as sleazebag entreprenuer who turns what I'm assuming was supposed to have been a family water park into Hooters-style operation with strippers as lifeguards and David Hasslehoff (as himself) paid to lounge around in his "Baywatch" getup, only to see the place invaded by the prehistoric piranha from the first film.

Christopher Lloyd and Ving Rhames are back, the later presumed dead at the end of the first film but evidently back and sporting bionic legs outfitted with anti-piranha weaponry. I'll say this, I admire their lack of shame...

More Like It

The new (final?) "Avengers" trailer has more action, more character-interaction and more "holy crap!" money shots, still playing hide-and-seek with the villains... though the post-credits beat has a pretty "WTF?" reveal.

Argue about what "that thing" is after the jump:

"Cowboy Ninja Viking" Is Your Next Funny-Name Theatrical-Failure

Deadline reports that Universal is setting up a feature-film adaptation of the 2009 Image comic "Cowboy Ninja Viking," (which I bet get's retitled as just "C.N.V.") a riff on the Bourne setup of highly-trained, mentally-reconditioned assassins with a high(er)-concept twist: The brainwash-ees are mental-patients with Multiple Personality Disorder, the supposed benefit being that each individual personality is trained in a different discipline; hence the title character alternately has the "powers" of a Cowboy, a Ninja and a Viking (there is, apparently, also a Pirate Gladiator Ocenaographer.)

Y'know, because both "Snakes on a Plane" and "Cowboys & Aliens" were both massive, runaway boxoffice hits and all...

Avengers Get Butt-Ugly New Poster

Marvel has been hyping a new "Avengers" trailer set to debut Wednesday all week/weekend (the screening prints of "John Carter" are starting to ship this week, so one imagines the trailer will be attached to that) and to go along with it here's a new, not-terribly-good poster.

Big Picture: "I Don't Know"

What some people don't know can fill a warehouse. What MovieBob doesn't know can fill about five minutes.

EDIT: I would be remiss not to re-mention that this week's show comes with a shout-out to Linkara and his impressively-mounted "History of Power Rangers" project.

TGO: "Why Do You Love Video Games?"

Quick head's-up for those who don't always follow The Other Blog, but the NEW "Game OverThinker" is out (for ALL audiences) and I have to say I'm especially proud of this one and the overwhelmingly positive reaction it's been getting so far - especially considering this started out as a "replacement episode" to make sure I kept on schedule despite my brief illness throwing a wrench into production:

Brad Pitt's Gargantua Memory

The lone bright-spot of the otherwise excerable 2012 Oscars was when Brad Pitt momentarily broke up the gooey solemnity of the evening's weirdly-unfocused "Stuff You Like About Movies I Guess I Dunno Look We Had Like A Month To Throw This Shit Together After Ratner & Murphy Imploded Hey Look Popcorn Girls" theme by waxing straight-faced nostalgiac about an obscure giant monster movie in one of the interstitials. The movie? "War of The Gargantuas" - but, then, "Big Picture" fans already knew that:

Oscar

We're about five to six hours away from the bi-annual spectacle of Hollywood lavishing an embarassing amount of praise onto a Harvey Weinstein pickup that nobody will care about within a month. I'm thinking I'll live-tweet the Oscars this year (unless circumstances don't permit it) so if you're not already following my Twitter @the_moviebob now would probably be a good time...

Escape to the Movies: "Act of Valor"

I liked it.
"Intermission" sez The Oscar Are Going To Suck.

Takedown

Lawrence O'Donnell doesn't rate among my favorite MSNBC personalities - he's kind of sanctimonious and a scold, and doesn't really "fit" super-well with the "Poly-Sci Debate Club Running The Asylum" vibe the network has been building for itself ever since Rachel Maddow replaced Olberman as the star attraction. Not as bad as Sharpton, though. (And now you know what Bob's editing-background-noise is.)

But, credit where it's due, O'Donnell's Thursday night piece-by-piece dismantling of Internet obsession Ron Paul's bogus "libertarian" credentials was delightfully necessary:

Sacrificial Lamb

I liked how my off-the-cuff comment to this Jeff Wells' thread about a potential Rick Santorum presidential candidacy being a sign that the GOP is essentially conceding the 2012 election to Obama (re: let the "true believer" with no real shot run and lose, regroup for the likely-open spot in 2016, tell the religious-right to please stand-down and zip-it for a change because "their guy" so clearly failed last time) so I'm reposting here. Slow news day:

Bile

I didn't like "American Pie" when I was of the exact age it was supposed to be relevent to me - but then, high-school movies aren't actually for High Schoolers but for grade-schoolers who fantasize about being High Schoolers so... whatever. I'm 31, I'm sure there are 20-and-under folks with really fond, life-changing memories of these movies. At least, that's what this "American Reunion" trailer is banking on...

Big Picture: "Untransformed"

Given my now-recovering illness (no clue what it was, but my room looked like Hendrix died there) you almost didn't get this today. But here it is:

Rights

In the spirit of NJ Governor Chris Christie playing election-year politics with people's lives vetoing the legalization of gay-marriage passed by the elected representatives of the NJ State Senate because, to quote the Governor, "an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide;” here is a quote from someone present-day Conservatives pretend to have read books by respect on the subject of putting civil-rights issues up for popular vote:

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)" -- Ayn Rand.

Escape to the Movies: "This Means War"

Sucks.

"Intermission" is my favorite (written) piece in awhile.

Prospects Looking Grim For "John Carter"

Deadline reports that "tracking" (re: "do audiences care?") numbers for Disney's impending "John Carter" are looking pretty poor, despite good early reviews starting to slip out. Blame is being laid at the feet of bad marketing and the Mouse House's seeming indifference to the project (which was begun under a different regime than currently runs the show there.)

Below, a comment of mine from Jeff Wells' reporting on the same story:

Half of "Crank" to Write/Direct All of "Twisted Metal"

Brian Taylor, the "Taylor" half of the Neveldine/Taylor team that did the two "Crank" movies, is getting 7 figures from Sony to write and direct a "Twisted Metal" movie; presumably spurred by the impending (hopeful) success of the newest game.

I guess the question now is which of the many, many characters who could be played by Jason Statham (including some of the women) will actually end up being played by Jason Statham... or which "big guy" actor will be the fancasting favorite for Sweet Tooth - Tyler Mane? Derek Mears? Kane Hodder?

Time To Start Paying Attention To "Wrath of The Titans"

Bad 80s-nerdstalgia news from yesterday: Michael Bay will continue fucking up "Transformers" at least one more time. Good 80s-nerdstalgia news from today: Michael Bay will NOT be fucking up "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" as it looked like he might be for awhile there. Instead, directing duties will fall to Johnathan Liebesman; currently of "Wrath of The Titans." The same basic production/studio setup that shepherded that CGI-animated psuedo-sequel to the original trilogy a few years back are handling this one, but it's set to be the beginning of a new series as opposed to a further continuation.

Liebesman has demonstrated mostly-solid action chops in the past, but overall his filmography is pretty bleak: nobody remembers or much cared about "Darkness Falls" or "The Killing Room," and while he made bank with "Battle: Los Angeles" the movie was pretty damn terrible. On the other hand... he's NOT Michael Bay.

Funny Ladies

Frequent-commenter Sofie Liv has joined the Agony Booth crew for a video series called "Red Suitcase Adventures." I like what I see. Go take a look at a countdown of wacky female cartoon characters.

Big Picture: "The Will Never Be Another Watchmen"

Here it is. Stop asking now :)