Somebody needs to get fired over this.

THIS movie should’ve been screening for weeks before it came out, just to get word out about all the “you’ve got to see this” insanity of it. Instead they barely even showed it to critics. Fools.

Anyway, just got back from it and it’s AWESOME – an authentic, no-bullshit splatterfest thats all about how much gore, blood, over-the-top death scenes and gratuitously-naked gorgeous women it can wring out of it’s thin premise (school of prehistoric super-piranha versus a lake full of Spring Break kids.)

I literally could not name a single film recently in theaters that spills as much onscreen blood in it’s whole running time as THIS one does during it’s extended ten-minute “piranha attack partygoers” sequence.

Riley Steel and Kelly Brook perform a nude underwater dance/lesbian sex-act with one another. For like two or three solid minutes. IN 3D. It is literally the single finest argument on behalf of the 3D format ever produced.

Ving Rhames essentially becomes the Bruce-Campbell-as-Ash of cinematic fish-fighters.

A speedboat drives through/over a crowd of several-dozen swimmers.

Christopher Lloyd is in it. So is Richard Dreyfuss. They are both awesome.

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf
Yes, it’s that bad.

“Intermission” is called “Game Changer.”

At this point, I’m not even sure what Matthew Vaughn’s “X-Men: First Class” (aka “X-Men 4: Sorry About X-Men 3”) is supposed to be – everyone knows it’s a “young Xavier & Magneto” story with mostly new characters and younger versions of the familiar ones, but no one yet seems willing to say whether this is a prequel like “Origins: Wolverine” (though casting new actors for Xavier and Cyclops when “O:W” had different ones would seem to negate that) or a reboot.

What everyone has been more-concretely wondering has been just what the “bad guy” is, since this is supposedly the pre-villain Magneto. The government? Other mutants? Mr. Sinister? Well, a dig through the various bits of casting-news turns up a fairly intriguing possibility.

Firstly, today we learn via io9/XMF that January Jones is apparently playing Emma Frost, aka “The White Queen,” (another role someone else already had in “Origins”) generally-speaking a role most fans begin and end caring about to the degree that she might wear “the costume.” But then again, remember that blip awhile back that Kevin Bacon was playing “a bad guy” in this, too? Well, did anyone bother to go look and see if his “bad guy” had a name? Well, he does…

Sebastian Shaw.

If you’re an X-Men fan, that name alone ought to send something up your spine – especially coupled with the constant refrain of Frost being a “major” character in the film. In the comics, they were two parts of a bad-guy collective called “The Hellfire Club” – a bunch of Euro-flavored mutant aristocrats who’s organization had more than a hint of S&M/instutionalized-decadence hovering about it (re: corsets, whips and lots of anachronistic Victorian fashion) and who’s actions more or less kicked-off the infamous “Dark Phoenix” storyline (the Club and the story are both generously-“borrowed” references from an old “Avengers” storyline – the British spy show, not the comic.)

So is some version of THIS the “big threat” for “First Class?” On the one hand, it fits nicely into Vaughn’s ever-expanding wheelhouse. On the other hand, an even remotely-faithful version would be pretty far outside “typical” for the series or Fox superhero movies in general: In their original incarnation, the Club seduces Jean Grey into joining their ranks by using illusions to let her live out her “darkest fantasies.” Among those fantasies? Morphing into a female plantation mistress in the antebellum American South and taking fetishistic pleasure in personally whipping a disobedient slave girl – “played” in the fantasy by lone black X-Person Storm.

If someone were to ask me, “do you like ballet?,” my answer would probably be “no.”

…but, on the other hand, I DO like high-maintnance, unusually-flexible, control-freak Ice Queens with self-esteem issues the muscle-strength to kill a man with their calves, so… yeah, I guess I do…

Anyway, Apple has the trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s “The Black Swan,” which no one is even bothering to pretend isn’t better-known as “that movie where Natalie Portman fucks Mila Kunis.” The part you’re looking for is at 1:25.

Portman is hardworking a ballerina who’s waited too long for Her Shot, Kunis is the younger(?) natural-talent understudy who swoops in and effortlessly-overshadows her, driving her all kinds of crazy. So… “Showgirls” from Gina Gershon’s POV meets “Suspiria” crossed with “Mulholland Drive” and bit of “The Fly” right toward the end. On the one hand, looks pretty interesting. On the other hand, show-of-hands as to who’s already A.) sensing a Big Twist and B.) sensing that they know what it is? On the OTHER hand… yeah, I’m in.

For people who actually give a damn about movies beyond some kind of statistical horse-race (really, guys – when did moviegoing become fucking Fantasy Football?) watching boxoffice numbers is usually one of the most depressing things you can do. Which is why I rarely engage with it, save for circumstances like this weekend where the sociological implications carry a measure of interest. In any case, The Numbers are in…

Worthless, artless pandering to the lowest common-denominator “guy movie” (and the worst action film not featuring a badly-designed transforming robot)? #1.

Worthless, artless pandering to the lowest common-denominator “chick flick?” #2.

Something brilliant, genuinely-inspired and one of MAYBE three movies from Summer 2010 that will actually MATTER a year (or even three months) from now? #4. Behind fucking “The Other Guys.”

Egh.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Already assured cult status, huge on DVD, remember-what-happened-for-Fight-Club-and-Fear&Loathing, etc. And take solace in the “big picture” that this wouldn’t have even gotten MADE five years ago. All true.

But, still… “The Expendables?” Really? Humanity, sometimes you really just disgust me 😉

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You bet your ass it’s that good.

“Intermission” wraps up the Nerd Movie Bible.

Normally, I’m uncomfortable being a movie “advocate” in addition to “critic,” but I really am compelled to join the rest of the web in just PLEADING with anyone within earshot of this with even an inkling of seeing “Scott Pilgrim” to go give it some business this weekend. Yes, even if you’re “sick” of Michael Cera – he’s REALLY good in this. It’s an almost-certain modern classic – easily one of the best films of the year, a future landmark in terms of the “language” of western filmmaking (editing in particular) and just a spectacular piece of work… and it’ll be a real shame if it gets stomped all over – financially, anyway – by soulless, pandering “gender-niche” flotsam like “Eat Pray Love” or the unmitigated shitstorm that is “The Expendables.”

Happy August-13th-as-of-45-minutes-ago everybody!

So, this week’s “Escape to The Movies” should be up later today at noon, as usual. But since I only get to video-review one movie at a time (usually) I wanted to get the “bigger picture” in as soon as possible: And since it IS August-13th-as-of-45-minutes-ago, I can tell you that the answer to the puzzel… which all of you smarties apparently got right away… was that “The Expendables” is absolutely shit, “Eat Pray Love” is almost-certainly shit, but “Scott Pilgrim” is awesome – like, top-ten-best-of-the-year awesome.

But seriously – “The Expendables” is SHIT. I cannot stress that enough. Shit. S-H-I-T shit. At some point in the future I’ll probably elaborate in video-form, but it can’t be repeated enough: It sucks. It’s “Transformers” bad. THAT bad.

And no, I don’t mean that it sucks in the awesome way that 1980s “guy movies” suck and therefore it’s ironically-awesome. I know that’s what you’ve heard, and you’ve heard wrong. It’s not an “homage” to bad movies, though it WANTS to be – it just IS a bad movie. Sloppily-directed, terribly written, and it doesn’t even play to the strengths of it’s assembled cast: Stallone and Rourke are both capable dramatic actors – why not give them anything to do? Statham and Jet Li are both skilled martial-arts stars – why are all the fights choppy over-edited MMA-looking crud? Dolph Lungdren and Terry Crews are funny – why not let them be? I’m struggling to think of anyone in this for whom it’s NOT one of the worst things they’ve ever done, well… except for Steve Austin.

Oh, and the action? It’s terrible. Guns get shot, guys fall over, pyro blows, that’s about it. Occasionally there’s an uninteresting fight scene. Remember all that glorious ultra-gore in “Rambo?” Yeah, not here. It was obviously shot with one eye on a potential PG-13, so it’s all quick hits and blink-and-you-miss-it inserts.

It’s a complete disaster, cynically banking on audiences either A.) actually still desiring this crap, or B.) thinking their getting Tarantino/Rodriguez-style crap-cinema-elevated-into-self-commentary when it’s really just leftovers. So guys, I’m beggin’ ya: PLEASE don’t let it pay off for them. Not when a real, honest-for-real game-changing masterpiece like “Scott Pilgrim” (which, incidentally, also has better action scenes) is out there, too… or, hell, when you could even just go see Inception again 😉

The meaning of this image will be revealed on Friday. Happy decoding.

The last time I stuck hastily-assembled Mario photoshop stuff up on here, I wound up seeing it all over the web.

Let’s see if that can happen again…

I don’t know how many Paleontology buffs read this blog, but if you’re out there with me this is about as big as this stuff gets. Writing in the Journal of Vertebrae Paleontology, Jack Horner (the “rock star” of fossil hunters) and John Scanella have concluded that Triceratops (discovered 1889) and the similar-looking Torosaurus (1891) are not differently-sized cousins of the same species; but rather a child and adult specimen of the same animal. As Triceratops (aka “kid version”) was named first, both animals will now be known as such and Torosaurus will be stricken from the records.

The actual article is HERE: