Summer Movie Preview, Part 2: 5 Movies That Are Going To Be So Bad They'll Give You Diseases

Well...  these movies are going to suck ass.  I guarantee it.

Pictured: Comedy gold

Mr. Popper's Penguins - June 17th

Here we've got Jim Carrey doing the exact same shit Jim Carrey always does, except now he's surrounded by penguins, continuing to ruin peoples' fond memories of books they read as children.  I have to give credit where credit is due, the penguins look good.  Cute, frolicking, you know, penguin shit.  But it's going to take far more than that to save this movie.  So I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you thinks it's funny when Jim Carrey leans over and talks with his butt cheeks, then by all means, go see this movie.  If not, the I recommend you get your penguin fix by watching the Futurama episode, "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz".

Bad Teacher - June 24th

This looks like it might have its moments, but I just can't get past the fact that the rising action of the story is Cameron Diaz trying to raise money for fake boobs, because they might impress the guy from 'N Sync.  Apparently, Justin Timberlake isn't attracted to Gollum arms.  This one might not give you a disease, but it's not gonna be good.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - July 1st

There is only one Transformers movie, Transformers: The Movie.  In conclusion, fuck Michael Bay.

Once again, fuck you, Michael Bay.

The Smurfs - July 29th

Seriously, who thought this would be a good idea?  A feature length Smurfs movie?  I think "It's Pat" had a more solid premise.  I wonder if a Snorks movie is in the works.  Anyway, this is the best thing to result from the existence of the Smurfs.

The Change Up - August 5th

Have the various Freaky Fridays, Vice Versa, and A Saintly Switch taught us nothing?  Stop making body swapping movies!  It is a stale and hackneyed device that rarely ever actually works for a feature film.  A 22 minute tv show is one thing, but 2 hours of body swapping is just tiresome.

Cautionary Tales

Honorable mentions go to Zookeeper and Final Destination 5, but any more just seems like it would be kicking 'em when they're down.

Summer Movie Preview, Part 1: 5 Movies That Will Either Be Awesome Or Terrible

Swedgin!

These are the five summer movies that I honestly hope are good, but have a sneaking suspicion could end up sucking.


Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - May 20th

I loved the first movie, but as the series went on, the movies got progressively worse and convoluted.  Johnny Depp did his best to save them, but it wasn't happening.  The new installment boasts the additions of Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane, which I'd consider an upgrade from Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly, but only time will tell.  Two things about this movie are certain, though.  First, my ardent hatred of both Rob Marshall and Chicago is kind of putting a damper on my optimism about this film.  And second, at least once in this movie, when Ian McShane inevitably does or says something awesome, I will yell, "Swedgin!" at the screen.

The Hangover: Part II - May 27th

Look, they replaced the baby with a monkey!  It looks about as much like a remake as a sequel, but I hope that with as good as these guys are together that they can manage to keep it funny without doing all of the same shit over again.  I've got to give credit to the people over at cracked.com for pointing this out, but the trailers are nigh identical.  Seriously.  Open these up and watch them side by side simultaneously.  It's uncanny.  Let the second one run for like 4 seconds and start up the first one.

X-Men: First Class - June 3rd

Pictured: My number 1 reason to see X-Men: First Class.

Of all of the movies on here, this is the one that worries me most, because I really want it to be good.  I heard production was extremely rushed and I'm not sure about the mutant lineup.  If you have the rights to the characters in this vast, expansive universe, then why the shit is Banshee on the team?  Where's Cyclops?  I don't even like Cyclops, but how do you make a movie about the origins of the X-Men and leave him out for fucking Banshee.  Beast, played by the goofy looking kid from About A Boy, and a walking Professor Xavier (is he a professor yet?) are the only original X-Men featured. I just don't understand it; they didn't even get cool replacements.  There are also a ton of little things that bother me about this movie, but it's just me being a giant comic book nerd so it's not a big deal.  That being said, regardless of how this movie turns out, the hotness of January Jones alone will make it better than X-Men 3.  Also, I thought you should all know that I had the option to resize that picture to make it fit, but opted not to do so.  You're welcome.

Green Lantern - June 17th

I've got a lot of problems with this one.  Any way this movie turns out, I'm going to feel like they tried to trick me.  All of the footage since Wonder Con has looked pretty solid, but that first trailer still haunts me.  That shit looked like they made "Van Wilder Joins The Green Lantern Corps" and tried to pass it off as a movie.  And I'm still not sold on Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan.  Wally West, sure, but he's no Hal Jordan.  Then there's the costume.  It looks like some asshole photoshopped it onto a picture of Ryan Reynolds to corroborate a casting rumor he started on an imdb message board.  If the movie is more representative of the latest trailer, I think it'll be alright.  But if it's more like that first trailer, I am going to be pissed.

Is any one of these really any better than the others?

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - August 5th

Andy Serkis is back in his motion capture suit running around like a monkey!  I gather this film is supposed to explain how apes evolved from men.  The trailer actually looks pretty good, but I just don't know how you can make a movie that attempts to explain the events of Planet of the Apes and not have it be silly.  Either way, this one ought to be interesting.

There's a perfectly logical explanation for this.

I'll post Part 2: 5 Movies That Are Going To Be So Bad They'll Give You Diseases and Part 3: 5 Movies That Look Like They'll Fucking Rule here in the next few days.

Things that terrify, yet fascinate me: Part 1

The Pistol Shrimp
The Sonic boom is real.  This shrimp does it.  Click the link.

 

      

The Mighty Thor

So, I went to see Thor last night and rather enjoyed it.  They did a lot of things right.

•Kirbyness - The look of the film was true to the comic of both past 

     and present.  They went with the costume from the latest wave of 

     comics drawn by Coipel.  But overall, it looked very Jack Kirby, 

     especially Asgard.  

•Loki - Great job with Loki.  It would've been easy to make him as 

     Danny put it, "mustache twirlingly evil" but instead you almost feel 

     sorry for him. 

•Hawkeye - I was quite pleased with the Hawkeye cameo.  He didn't 

     really do anything, but I do fucking love Hawkeye.  

•Heimdall - Despite what white supremacists say, I thought Idris Elba 

     made a pretty badass Heimdall, and he actually got to do 

     something too. In stark contrast to the Heimdall of the comics, who 

     usually just stood around at the bridge, had some threat to Asgard 

     kick his ass, and waited it out for Thor to get there.  Definitely the 

     best showing of an alumni of The Wire in a comic book movie.  

     That's right, Dominic West, I'm calling you out.  

•Avengers - They did a decent job of setting up for The Avengers    

     without beating you over the head with it like Iron Man 2 did.

Though overall I thought it was a pretty damn good movie, I did have a couple of issues with the film.  

•Details - They changed some of the details of the origin story, but with most of my experience laying in the awesome Walt 

     Simonson and the unfortunate Thunderstrike eras of Thor, this didn't really bother me too much.

•Action - I was pretty pleased with most of the action, especially since I didn't really know what to expect from Branagh 

     going in, but the keyword is most.  Too often in the early action scenes where Thor and his companions are fighting the 

     frost giants, you really can't clearly tell what the hell is happening.  That shaky, handcam kind of action scene worked 

     thematically in Nolan's Batman movies, but everybody else needs to give that shit a rest.  Thanks for killing action for a 

     few years, Paul Greengrass.

If they do a Thor 2, I want Beta Ray Bill.  I just want to get that on public record right now.  Maybe they could get Sarah Jessica Parker to do all of the facial motion capture.

In Which We Begin...

Well, here we are.  Let the blogging begin.  And for those of you who have been hassling me to review Thor, keep your pants on.  That's next.  But first, let me outline the purpose of this blog.  There is none.  I will do what I want, when I want to do it.  That being said, I will try to keep it interesting and up to date.  I won't post every time I take a shit or brush my teeth like I'd probably end up doing with a twitter.  I've also been told that I should have a mailbag, so if anyone wants to ask questions for me to answer, feel free to send them in.  That could be fun.