It seems that every year, an R-rated comedy aimed squarely at young men (20s and 30s) with largely cynical outlooks on romance and imagined pretentions toward Rat Pack-style aloof hedonism (the audience, not the movies) comes out and makes a fuck-ton of money, and EVERY year people act like it’s some massive surprise. Wait… what?? Specifically-targeting the audience that goes to see the MOST movies makes you MONEY!!?? Why are we still treating this as a surprise occurance?

This year’s entry is “The Hangover,” best thought-of as “Bachelor Party” to “40 Year-Old Virgin’s” “Revenge of The Nerds.” As is typical of the genre, it’s primarily a guy-movie wish-fulfillment fantasy dressed up as a raunchy comedy. As is not necessarily as typical, it’s pretty freaking hillarious.

The story: A quartet of guy-comedy archetypes – Smooth Operator (Bradley Cooper), Henpecked Wimp (Ed Helms), Immature Weirdo (Zach Galifianakis) and MacGuffin (Justin Bartha) – head to Vegas for a Bachelor Party in advance of MacGuffin’s upcoming wedding. Smooth Operator is along to facillitate the coolness and offer the audience-agreement-inducing declarations against the folly of marriage and pretty much the taking of anything seriously. Henpecked Wimp is briefly fleeing the suffocation of his unbearably-controlling girlfriend. Immature Weirdo is the younger brother of MacGuffin’s fiancee, along to aid in the production of offbeat plot developments.

The hook: The screen fades to white at the very beginning of the evening’s revelry, then rejoins the heroes as they awaken in a partied-into-oblivion hotel suite. They’re memories of the prior evening are complete blanks (traces of Rohyphnol in their system), and MacGuffin has gone missing. With the still-impending wedding providing the ticking-clock, they must re-trace their non-remembered steps using only the perplexing (and amusing) evidence yielded from the room; including but not limited to a missing tooth, a hospital bracelet, ATM reciepts, a live tiger locked in their bathroom and an unidentified baby. Mike Tyson (playing himself) is also involved, in a cameo that was perhaps much funnier before his most recent family tragedies.

If you are perhaps inclined to assume that, over the course of their journey, Smooth Operator will have his ego punctured and perhaps learn to treat life more seriously, Henpecked Wimp will meet a more likable woman and learn to stand up to his worser-half, Immature Weirdo will reveal amazing and vital dexterity in a previously laughed-at skill and the ultimate answer to the whereabouts of MacGuffin will be head-slappingly less complicated than they assumed… well, give yourself a cookie.

It is, ultimately, a little predictable and swimming in the same waters as hundreds of similar films beforehand, but the cast has great chemistry and the jokes land with impressive regularity. Yes, you’ve seen most of them before from “Wacky Ethnic Stereotype Baddie” to “Wild Animal Wakes Up In Fancy Car,” but good-execution makes all the difference. It’s also expertly cast on the supporting side – Jeffery Tambor OWNS with just a handful of lines and a perfect wink, and Heather Graham deftly carries the weight of the world as the film’s mandatory lone redeeming female voice (guy-movie wish-fulfillment fantasy #3532: Angelically-sweet hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold saves you from hatefully-cruel career-oriented “snobby” girlfriend.) Graham remains a tremendously under-used actress, a walking-embodiment of the catch-22 of being too pretty for one’s own good – just watch: When/if she ages from a 10 to an 8 or a 9, suddenly people are going to “discover” how good she is.

The main guys all aquit themselves nicely, but the starmaking turn is from Cooper. It’s not that he’s necessarily the “best” of the characters, but he’s damn good and more importantly he’s got the Vince Vaughn/Bill Murray role: The one who most guys in the audience will work extra hard to imagine that “they’d be” in a real-life version of this situation – when, of course, most of them are really Helms or Galifianakis.

It’s hard to review these without blowing jokes, so take my word for it: The trailers didn’t lie, it’s funny as hell, see it before all your friends quote it verbatim to you.

So, “Land of The Lost” is the first official outright BOMB of the Summer… huge, huge dissapointment at the boxoffice. Having seen it, I’m honestly not surprised. It’s a huge mess, fundamentally inconsequential and aimed at a shockingly miniscule niche of an audience… that’s a recipe for a non-starter if I ever heard one.

Strange, too, since you’d think this would be a slam dunk: The original Sid & Marty Kroft TV show it was based on is the definition of a fondly-remembered kiddie show that just does NOT “hold up” now, but it was a success in it’s day and is remembered by it’s now-grown young fans based more on what it COULD have been rather that what it was. Here was a series that pakced youth-oriented survival-adventure, time-travel, pulpy scifi, dinosaurs, monsters and oddball ancient mysteries into a story that could easily make for a big fun family “genre” film perfect for summer… a kid-friendly self-contained cousin to “Lost.”

The film, though, goes in the opposite direction: Rather than revamping the franchise for a new generation of the youngin’s it was aimed at in the first place, it’s set up as a self-aware parody of the original show aimed at 30-somethings who recall the original with ironic fondness.

As it stands, what winds up onscreen is a collection of comedy sketches spoofing the sillier parts of the show, with Will Ferrel, Anna Friel and Danny McBride engaging in longform stream-of-consciousness banter amid dinosaurs, lizard-men and whatever. In terms of tone, think “Robot Chicken” – only not very funny and stretched out from a quick 15 minutes to an interminable feature-length.

Taken on their own, a couple of the jokes are funny and the cast has an easygoing chemistry, but they can’t overcome a “screenplay” thay overdoses on the laziest form of comedy filammking: The main cast just standing around going back and forth about nonsense to advance the plot. It even resorts to a “drug tripping” sequence, and I’m legitimately SHOCKED at how often I checked my watch during an endless scene of Ferrell engaging in slapstick with a jug of dinosaur urine.

There’s really no reason for anyone to go see this. A night at the movies for this will run you about 20 bucks, a night at home with some youtube clips of the show and a case of bear will cost a lot less and will give you EXACTLY the same effect.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/765-Drag-Me-To-Hell

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/embed/765

“Twilight” was easily one of the passing years’ worst films, but it at least it’s offered the Movie Geek set something we haven’t had in awhile: A bona-fide mass-media punching bag. It’s such a completely awful film franchise – bad story, worse script, awful dialogue, bad acting, bad direction all bound up in the selling of a cringe-inducingly campy Harlequin love story. It’s like everything worth hating in modern film (hell, modern FICITON) all rolled into one entity and magnified. The only question was whether or not the REST of the series would continue being as much fun to slap around. Well, here’s the “New Moon” trailer…

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer in HD
http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=58185785,t=1,mt=video

…which reveals that this time around the world’s lamest execuses for Vampires will be challenged by the world’s lamest excuses for Werewolves.

This is pretty cool.

“The Escapist” has offered me my own imprint for awhile, under the banner of “Escape To The Movies with MovieBob.” I even have theme music… wow.

Innaugural review for the new show is “Up,” which you should really go see right the hell now.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/embed/755

Big thanks to friends, fans, readers and everyone who’s been supportive. This is just awesome.

Today is a really, really great day for ANYONE currently producing, about to produce or considering the production of a feature film in any of the myriad “geek” genres. Today, as of right now, they can officially rest easy about the increasingly semi-meaningful outrages of hard-to-please “fanboys”…

…because today, as of right now, there is NOTHING that any of them can do in regards to their projects that can POSSIBLY piss the “fanboy” set off more than this: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i666afabc28491e6a5d5861d83ae30855

“Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Movie.” Not the movie of the show, or even a continuation. A remake/reboot of the original movie. New characters, new actors, and almost-certainly no Joss Whedon. Have at it, folks…

Major website inexplicably continues to give me a platform:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/embed/744

I’m aware that, as someone who just recently used JJ Abrams’ “Not-Your-Father’s-Star-Trek” as a jumping-off point for taking swipes at the practice of retooling cerebrally-oriented older material into flash-first/brains-second “tentpole” action movies; I’m expected to hate the idea of Warner Bros “reimagining” of Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Jr. has the title role, Guy Ritchie is directing, and the new-spin places a heavy emphasis on Holmes as a rougish, action-oriented tough guy.

Well, I don’t. Hate it, that is. I’m skeptical as all hell – mostly of Ritchie, a wildly uneven filmmaker who’s thus far failed to prove he has anything to offer beyond superficially-amusing British gangster films – but the premise itself doesn’t bother me all that much. In cinematic terms, Holmes occupies the same rare space as Dracula and Christ… characters that have been done to death a hundred times over to the point that no “departure” could concievably be radical enough to do any kind of “damage.” Hell, the image most people have of the “classical” Sherlock Holmes (deerstalker cap, opera coat, “elementary,” etc.,) has very little to do with the original literary version to begin with.

So, basically, my mind is WIDE OPEN for this movie. This first TRAILER for it, on the other hand… yikes.

The first troubling thing about this trailer, right off the bat, is that it looks like a joke. Not a “comedy.” I mean it looks like a parody… like something “FunnyOrDie” or whoever would cook up as a brutal SATIRE of the idea of Sherlock Holmes as an action franchise – right down to the quippy one-liners, slapstick partial-nudity, fireball-dodging, absurb “bullet-time” fistfight and the “S!! H!!! E!!! R!!!! L!!!!!” title-countdown bit – not something that’s supposed to be the genuine article. I mean, for our introduction to the new-and-improved Holmes he delivers a dry-cool quip, dodges a gunshot and then takes an olympic-style dive from a 5th-story window into The Thames River. Wow. Look, the “traditionalists” were going to be DREADING this thing no matter what… but I bet even they didn’t expect they’d be laughing at it.

But, whatever. Like I said, this character has been reworked and reshaped so many times nothing they seem to be doing here can really be called a “desecration” or any such hyperbolic nonsense. Bare-knuckle boxing? Fine. What appears to be two-handed baton fighting? Sure. Bantering-while-gunfighting opposite Watson like old-timey “Bad Boys?” Works for me. The production has been right up front about going for a kind of Pirates of The Carribean-style Victorian-dress adventure vibe, and so far that mission looks accomplished.

No, what’s raising my red flag here is that the trailer A.) seems to cover a lot of ground and B.) is almost entirely action-oriented. This is character you can add to or subtract from nearly endlessly, but at the end of the day it ALWAYS has to be about one thing: Smart. Holmes is smart. Ridiculously observant, probably the point of what we’d now call OCD, solving mysteries through deductive reasoning via details so small “normal” minds don’t even notice them, much less connect them. We get NO sense of that here. Not one scene shown seems to indicate anything about how Downey is playing (or how the film is visualizing) this central aspect of the character and the franchise. In fact… we don’t really see him doing anything that looks like detective work save for futzing with some old-school lockpicking tools and what looks to be a trick involving dust and hidden draft-sources. Hell, if you look at this divorced from prior knowledge of who this character is supposed to be, it looks as though The Authorities have sought Holmes’ help primarily for his martial-arts and acrobatic skills.

Granted, it’s a trailer and it’s going to go heavy on the action anyway, but… “worrisome,” to say the least. Also, that last bit with the guy and the hammer? Did anyone else get a weird “Wild Wild West” kinda feeling there?

Wow.

So… I won my matchup in the ScrewAttack semifinals. Holy shit.
http://www.screwattack.com/HardNews/051809

Thanks to EVERYONE who voted. When the finals roll around, I’ll be sure to put up another link. I’m really, genuinely surprised by all this.

Okay, so… for various reasons I couldn’t talk about this until now, but now I can, so… Yeah.

Here’s how it works: I’m part of a running contest at ScrewAttack.com called “myvidsdontsuck.” It’s a poll in their forums, pitting various vids against one-another by vote. Mine is competing from today until the 19th agains the very, very funny “Rockumentary” HERE: http://www.screwattack.com/myvidsdontsuck/Quarter2

Here’s the thing, though: IF you want to vote (for either of us) you have to register to post in their forums and then do the voting in THIS poll-thread:
http://screwattack.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=46348

I’ll be honest: I’m VERY surprised to be “in this” at all… these other shows are remarkably well-made and funny. But, y’never know, right?