Anyway, if you want to be in on what us asshole film snobs will be using to make ourselves feel superior THIS weekend; check out this sign found posted at the Stamford, CT Avon Theatre (posted right, click to embiggen) warning patrons that refunds will not be issued in the event of blown minds – keep in mind, this is a movie with NO real violence, sex or even much language; they are issuing a WARNING for a non-linear narrative.

I think my favorite part is the sheer level of “we’re fucking sick of idiots* bitching about this movie” condescension dripping from the language here. “Auteur?” Nobody who walks out of this particular movie knows or cares what that word is. You can just feel the reservoir of “are you people kidding me!!??” helpless rage boiling within whoever had to type this up. I hope they had to have a meeting about it, especially because you know there were one or two members of the management repeatedly going “see? See? I told you we shouldn’t have booked this – I didn’t get it at all!”

Ah, well. If Rome is gonna burn anyway, you may as well fiddle…

*No, I am not calling YOU an idiot, hypothetical-reader-who-takes-this-personally-for-some-reason. I completely understand people not “getting into” this particular movie, I just remember being in the position of whoever had to make this sign and frankly have never understood the rationality of people who try to get their money back because they didn’t like a movie they’ve already (partway) watched.

EDIT: I am aware that there is a spelling-error, it’s being worked on.
EDIT: I am also aware of the bitter irony in mispelling a common Latin phrase in a video posted directly below one making fun of people for walking-out of “Tree of Life.”

INTERMISSION is a “fanboy-free” breakdown of “Green Lantern” – no comic stuff, no geek nitpicks, strictly it’s failures on basic filmmaking.

Hat-tip: Hollywood-Elsewhere

Good sign: That business with the chair. That’s cool.

Seals the deal: How can you NOT respect an action trailer with the balls to use “Rock You Like a Hurricane” in a non-parody context? Exactly – you can’t.

Not bad either: Cutting-to-black on a guy getting punched in the nuts.

Apparently the final theatrical poster for “Captain America,” via Yahoo. (hat-tip to BAD)

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the GREAT BIG FLAG backdrop will be replaced by something else for the international “First Avenger” release version – or is Marvel just kind of rolling the dice on that at this point?

I don’t love that he’s not wearing the helmet – the marketing for this seems to be actively afraid of the mask, much in the same way “Thor’s” was wary of showing Asgard – but other than that it’s pretty damn incredible.

The early word on this is very good so far, though it probably helps enormously that it’s coming on the heels of “Green Lantern’s” spectacular crash-and-burn, as opposed to having to “follow” a better-recieved superhero flick like “Thor” or “First Class.” Then again, it opens up after both “Potter” and “Transformers,” so are people going to be burned out on Summer by then?

UPDATED: NEW TRAILER after the jump!

UPDATE: Here’s the new trailer, which one assumes will be running in front of “Transformers.”

Hating the generic metal-riff music. Loving everything else – especially that they pointedly spelled-out that HYDRA are Nazis, hopefully killing the “they took out the Nazis!!!!” bullshit thats been running rampant on the web.

Chris Pranger and Kyle Martinak, whom some of you may know as the “Armchair Thinkers,” have a show now called “No Right Answer.” You should maybe watch it, yes?

DISCLOSURE: Yes, I have worked with Kyle and Chris in the past, and the show airs on a website I am also affiliated with. I have not been asked by any of these parties to do a “plug,” I just liked the show.

This is probably only a curiousity item for most of you, but here in Boston this is probably the biggest local news story in very long time. James “Whitey” Bulger has been CAPTURED after 17 years on the run.

Bulger was South Boston’s very own master-mobster in the 70s and 80s, leader of the feared “Winter Hill Gang” that more-or-less OWNED organized crime in the city for decades. He’d been a career criminal for almost his entire adult life – while interred at Alcatraz in the late-50s, he was one of the human test-subjects in the CIA’s infamous MKULTRA Project. And in case he didn’t already sound like something out of a bad movie, he had a “good guy” brother who was a State Senate President and President of the University of Massachusetts during the same period he running his syndicate.

At the height of his power, he was essentially untouchable; operating practically right out in the open yet invincible to police and making short work of rival gangs – he’s even reputed to have double-crossed the IRA without incurring direct retribution. As it turned out *gasp!* his power had a less-than-mythic source: He was protected by his status as a high-level FBI informant. (Yes, this is where Frank Costello in “The Departed” mostly came from.) In 1994, his FBI handler allegedly tipped him off that arrest was imminent – driving a bitter wedge between Boston cops and the FBI that lingers to this day – and he’d been on the run ever since.

I’ll promise you this: There are A LOT of aging gangsters in Boston being woken up to some bad news by their underlings and/or shady live-in grandkids right now – this is a guy who knows where ALL the bodies are buried, and probably won’t be hesitant to resume his guts-spilling now. He was at one point, for example, believed to have had a hand in (or at least knowledge of) the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist – the largest single property theft (by value) in recorded history.

Alright, so… as you can probably tell, there is now a PayPal “Tip Jar” button on the sidebar of both blogs. I just wanted to clarify a few things about that after the jump.

Here’s the thing of it, folks: While I DO get paid to produce some of the content that is linked/embedded to this site, a good deal of it I do not – i.e. Game OverThinker, American Bob, “pieces” posted directly to the two blogs themselves, etc. So I figured that, on the off chance that folks who enjoy those things ever wished to “express” said enjoyment in the form of a tip here or there, it couldn’t hurt to make the option available.

I want to be very clear on this point, though – the “tip jar” is EXACTLY what it says it is, and nothing else. It’s not going to effect or be effected-by the content of the site – i.e. you will NOT see things in the vein of “if the tip jar gets X-amount full, this or that will happen on this or that show.” Because that would be INCREDIBLY tacky and lame. It’s a virtual jar by the virtual till, period; and will have no influence on content – PERIOD.

Conversely, please know and take seriously any comments/emails/whatever along the lines of “if I put X-amount in the jar, will you start/stop doing this/that?” will be ignored. In fact, I’d prefer not to talk about it AT ALL – even in the well-meaning “hey man, I liked that so I tipped etc etc” in the comments/feedback or otherwise because – again – that seems tacky and uncomfortable to me.

The “tip jar,” much like the ads, is STRICTLY a way for me to break a little bit more even on this whole “free entertainment and content” thing. If you like the blogs, content, etc and want to “show support” by tossing some change in the jar or clicking the ads; awesome, bless you, thank you very much. If not, that’s cool too and thanks for reading/watching all the same.

“Pacific Rim,” a treatment/spec-script from Travis Beacham, has the good fortune of being Guillermo del Toro’s next movie… and the bad fortune of being the movie del Toro “fell back” on when “At The Mountains of Madness” fell apart a few months ago – meaning that everyone was too upset about “Mountains” to give it the proper “Holy shit del Toro doing a giant monster movie!!!” hyping it deserved. Now that it’s begun to add a cast, maybe that can turn around.

“Rim” has been more-or-less pitched as “Gundam vs. Godzilla” – or, more appropriately, “Stuff From Japanese Pop-Culture Americans Like: The Movie.” It’s premise involves an interdimensional portal opening up in the Pacific Ocean that starts spitting out angry giant-scale monsters. The good guys are humans who pilot “building-sized” robots to fight them. That’ll work.

Elba and “Sons of Anarchy’s” Charlie Hunnam are signed to play the two human leads. There’s been some speculation that the script may have been reworked so as to not focus too much of the monster-destruction business on Japan (which it initially did) in the wake of the recent disasters there.

Trailer for David Cronenberg’s upcoming feature, adapted from the play “The Talking Cure.” Viggo Mortensen is Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender is Carl Jung, Vincent Cassell is Otto Gross and Keira Knightley is a patient hankerin’ for a spankerin’…

“Twilight – But For Psych Majors And Not Sucky” is supposed to debut at the Venice Film Festival in September, no U.S. release date has been set.

Hat tip: Hollywood Elsewhere

Conan the Comedian offers the most concise appraisal of “Green Lantern” yet:

http://i.cdn.turner.com/v5cache/TBS/cvp/teamcoco_drupal_embed.swf?context=teamcoco_embed_offsite&videoId=12967

In case you’re wondering, yes – Ryan Reynolds really does have that exact “actor-not-recieving-any-direction-while-standing-on-a-greenscreen-set” bewildered stare in EVERY damn FX shot in this movie.