Below, the teaser for “Transformers 3: Dark of The Moon.” (seriously?)

So… I’m confused. Why is the music telling me that Apollo 11 finding Transformers on The Moon is some kind of big surprise? I’m not going to go back and watch it to check, but didn’t they establish that The Decepticons’ spaceship had been crashed up there for some time in the 2nd one? And wasn’t the Transformers already being “among us” for a few thousand years the “big idea” of the first one?

So why the big “BUM BUM BUMMMMM!!!!” on the unconscious robot? None of the movie Transformers look anything like themselves, so it’s not like it can be a fanservice character-reveal thing (“he” seems to have old-man features, so fans are already speculating on Alpha Trion or Unicron, of course.)

hat-tip: io9 and Bleeding Cool

How utterly, perversely, delightfully, horrifyingly-wonderfully appropriate is it that – a mere day after it was re-affirmed that “Green Lantern” would be holding fast to Warner Bros. resolute continuity-phobia by deleting a planned Superman cameo – we now have visual evidence of… this?

Yes, “Justice League: A Hardcore Parody.” Not a hoax. Not a dream. Not an imaginary story. Possibly NSFW pics and further observations after the jump…

Two things – okay, two other things – jump out at me immediately about this:

Firstly, the obvious: Because WB/DC simply doesn’t have the balls (sorry) and/or vision for it, this will now go down (sorry) as by-default the BEST live-action movie version of “Justice League” ever. Seriously, mark it: The first time we’ll have ever seen Superman, Batman, Robin, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman chilling in the Hall of Justice (Watchtower?) in live-action is in a porno spoof. Hell, also by default: “Wonder Woman’s” outfit (anybody recognize the performer?) is now the best live-action version of itself, too.

Second: The most surprising thing, for me, is that it’s being billed as a “Justice League” spoof rather than a “SuperFriends” spoof. Is that officially the way the “mainstream” knows this arrangement of characters now. Again, memo to WB/DC: This franchise is well-known enough that they’re making major-market porn of it – pull the damn trigger already.

Third… yeah, I’ve gotta say it: The lack of at least one more female character here is kind of a letdown, no? (see update) Obviously, there’ll be more “too” this than what appears to be this one bit (it looks like a relatively expensive production, and those are usually longish – sorry) but still; “straight” porn without any girl/girl is like pizza without crust. Hell, this is probably the ONLY genre where it wouldn’t be difficult to cast Power Girl…

UPDATE!

Earlier report, also from Bleeding Cool, has the cast list. I won’t post the whole thing, but suffice it to say it’s something of an “all-star cast” if you follow the industry – or, rather, have a familiarity with the myriad entries in the “cheeky sex industry documentary” subgenre of HBO etc. productions. That’s Evan Stone (late of the “accidental football broadcast” scandal) in the Batman getup, for example.

Also onhand but not (yet) pictured: Jenna Presley as Lois Lane, Amber Rayne as Harley Quinn (not the live-action debut of the character, thanks to the “Birds of Prey” show), Tommy Gunn as “The General” and, yes, RON JEREMY (!) as THE PENGUIN (!!!) Catwoman and Zatanna round out the female cast.

This may end up being hysterical. The weak-ass title needs to go, though – or maybe it needs a subtitle… “Crisis on Intimate Earths?” “DP One Million?” “52… +17?” “Kingdom Come?” Anyone else got any?

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf

The moment Summit decided it was going to bite the bullet and release Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver” – aka “The Mel Gibson Unlikely Comeback Vehicle,” it was all but innevitable that folks would do THIS to it’s trailer…

…which doesn’t make it any less hysterical. Well done.

(Watch the real trailer HERE for comparison.)

Here’s the tempest-in-a-teapot quote attributed to Liam Neeson by the Daily Mail, pertaining to how – if at all – he (Neeson) “squares” the Christian background underlying the “Narnia” movies – in which he voices Aslan, essentially Christ in the form of a talking lion – with his own outlook:

“Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.” (emphasis mine.)

Pretty cut-and-dry, right? And note the specific use of the qualifier “for me” (twice in the actual article) to specify that he’s speaking of his own interpretation of the character as opposed to projecting onto the books or their author.

So… how was this “reported” by Andrew Breitbart’s right-wing “Big Hollywood” site?

“LIAM NEESON: C.S. LEWIS WAS WRONG, NARNIA BOOKS ALSO ABOUT MOHAMMAD”

Lesson over.

I’ll say one thing for Sony Pictures’ ill-advised, deeply-unnecessary “Spider-Man” reboot: It’s actually been fun for everyone to get to play detective again. Feels like old times.

Some of you may be too young to recall this (or you’re old enough but didn’t care, either one works) but prior to – well… prior to “Lord of The Rings,” pretty much – movie studios didn’t go kissing movie-blogger ass when it came to “geek” projects. In fact, they hid them from view as much as possible, generally regarding fandom as a collective blight whose concerns had to be dodged and “dealt with” in order to get a finished product to The Masses. There were no “accidental leaks” to geek sites, no info-dumps at Comic-Con, no nuthin’. The reporting on upcoming films was more like crowd-sourced crimesolving – fans and “spies” on sites like AICN or Corona pouring over blurry set-photos and scraps of casting-call sheets to try and determine what was going on.

Well, given that Sony seems to know they’ve got a guilty-until-proven-innocent item on their hands, it makes sense they’ve been old-school tight-lipped about it. Hence, everyone’s been dusting off the magnifying glasses for old-fashioned gumshoe work – with a Google-age twist, of course….

Take, for example, this Hollywood Reporter story about the casting of Peter Parker’s parents. A blurb item to anyone else, but to seasoned film-geek detectives its… well… still a blurb item, yeah – but a blurb item that MIGHT shed light on what form the film may take.

See… it doesn’t really come up much inside or outside of the comics, but in addition to all his other issues Peter Parker IS technically an orphan – his birth parents died when he was a baby, leaving him in the care of (Uncle) Ben Parker and his wife May. The obvious question: WHY bother casting established actors to play two characters who depart the story entirely while the title character is still in diapers? It’s not like they have a bunch of extra money on this thing  (it’s an $85 million “quickie” at last count) to blow on fancy cameos… so is this an indication of some sort of radical reworking of the origin story?

FWIW, in the original continuity i.e. when they were first introduced, Peter’s parents turned out to have been (I shit you not) high-level top-secret international super-spies framed for treason and killed in the field. I honestly have no recollection as to whether or not that’s been retconned away yet, but if THAT’S in this new movie I am prepared to change my entire anticipatory stance right-here, right-now.

Slightly more-likely scenario: The (very) early claims that most of the reboot’s story was being pulled from “Ultimate Spider-Man” still hold true. “Ultimate” Peter Parker’s dead-dad was a famous scientist whose miracle cancer-cure ultimately becomes – sigh… Ultimate Venom.

Brief sidebar: This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine – when someone is adapting some long-running franchise and decides to “streamline” things by cramming everyone’s backstories together into a ginormous coincidence-ball. See: Joker killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, Dr. Doom was up in space with The Fantastic Four, Kingpin killed Jack Murdock, despite history being altered James T. Kirk randomly “bumps into” every single important buddy he’s suppsoed to have, etc. This happens all the damn time, and it’s ALWAYS fucking annoying as hell.

Incidentally, Ultimate The Lizard is also tied-in to Ultimate Eddie Brock’s transformation into Ultimate Venom. Because everything ties-in to Venom. Because the primary goal when making any translation of “Spider-Man” into another medium or continuity is always, for some reason, to move more merch surrounding a middling 90s/”Dark Age” evil-doppleganger character who hasn’t been interesting since his first arc ended. Egh.

But the REAL “zuh?” in the article turned out to be the casual dropping of a secondary villain name: Irrfan Kahn as “Van Atter.” Who? Well, quick-digging by responders at Chud, BadassDigest and others turned up the likely answer in record time: Nels Van Adder, aka “The Proto-Goblin.” A forgotten one-and-done baddie from a “flashback” story, the idea is he was the gineau-pig for the serum that later turned Norman Osborn into The Green Goblin. It made him look like Carnage with a blonde wig, because this was the 90s and every “creature” character wound up looking “like Venom/Carnage but with a ______.” Coincidence? Someone’s idea of a cutesy fanboy reference?

Assuming for a moment that the most-likely scenario (cute, ultimately-meaningless in-joke) doesn’t pan out, this would be my… nerdy “theorizing,” I guess:

1.) Peter’s dad, Curt Connors, Van Atter will scientists/employees/whatever whose work and/or backstories are connected to the various experiments/accidents that ultimately create Lizard and Spider-Man. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some version of Eddie Brock in there, too (Ultimate Eddie Brock’s dad, Ultimate Edward Brock Sr., worked with Ultimate Peter’s Dad on creating Ultimate Venom, so there’s that.)

2.) Norman Osborn will either be a character in the film or frequently mentioned, and whatever stuff Connors/Van Atter/whoever are doing that turns him/them/whoever into Lizard/whatever will be heavily implied to set-up Green Goblin as the heavy of the sequel, a’la “that new guy with a flair for the theatrical” from the end of “Batman Begins.”

3.) Whatever else may or may not happen, Venom WILL be teased, referenced, alluded-to and all-but assured to be “coming if you let us have a sequel or two!” That one isn’t even a guess, it’s a damn innevitability.

Eh… anyway, we’ll know more once they start shooting the bloody thing.

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf
She kicks high.

New INTERMISSION as well.

Why? Because there’s no smug, hacky, creatively-bankrupt art form I won’t try my hand at, that’s why.

Pass around as you see fit.

Oh, and for the smarties: I quite aware that the “Gadsden Flag” dates prior to 1776, and that it wasn’t flown at the Boston Tea Party, and that said original Tea Party was in 1773.

Because, apparently, a 30-story billboard reading “WE ARE TOO DUMB TO LIVE” would be too ostenstatious…

Incidentally, YES this is getting built via tax breaks, to the tune of over $37 Million. The outcry from Tea Party conservatives about this massive waste of taxpayer money has been… um… oh, wait. There hasn’t been any.

Huh.

One step forward, two steps back.

As I may have mentioned, the prospects for David O. Russell and Mark Wahlberg’s “Uncharted” movie are chiefly hampered by the issue of an “Uncharted” movie being a very bad – to say nothing of breathtakingly-redundant – idea. But it seems they’ve found a way around it: DON’T base the movie around the “Indiana-Jones-if-he-was-a-total-douche” premise of the games. Well, that’s kinda-sorta-maybe good news…
Now for the bad news. The premise they’ll be replacing it with: “What-if-the-guy-from-National-Treasure-was-a-total-douche.”  Nathan Drake will apparently be reimagined as one of an extended family of well-connected treasure-protectors, with Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci reportedly being sought to sign on as Drake’s rascally dad and uncle.

Sez Russell about the film’s setup:
“This idea really turns me on that there’s a family that’s a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities … [a family] that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice,” he said.”

 Well, that ought to go over well…