"Mortal Kombat" Opens the Fan-Film Pandora's Box

I'm of two minds about the new high-end breed of "fan films," i.e. unlicensed adaptations of properties made by professional-level filmmakers. A lot of them are good, a lot of them are bad, and I won't lie and say I wouldn't relish to opportunity to take a shot at one myself had I the resources... but I can understand the criticism that people at that level might be better served coming up with their own material; particularly since the not-so-secret "dream" behind a lot of such projects - getting hired to make the "real" thing - hasn't happened in any meaningful way yet.

Well, now it has. Warner Bros. liked Kevin Tancharoen's "Mortal Kombat: Rebirth" short (or, at least, the online reaction to it) so much that they brought him on to do the "Legacy" webseries... and now he's getting to helm the real thing - a feature-film "reboot" of the series.

Um... yeah?



I mean, good for him certainly, but I really, truly hated "Rebirth" - just the ultimate apotheosis of the "gritty realism" style of adaptation that I'm completely, utterly sick to fucking death of. Yes, fine, it was well-directed and it was nifty that he got "name" B-list actors to show up, but right around the point where Reptile - in the games a monster from another dimension - shows up as deformed serial-killer I checked the hell out. Fuck that shit. "Legacy" was marginally better, but never rose above "here are spot-on imitations of my favorite beats from recent genre-films but with Mortal Kombat guys in it."

I'm hoping, at least, that the film is NOT a continuation of either previous effort and actually tries to capture the games a little better - part of the reason I loved the recent game reboot was that it so enthusiastically embraced the Kung Fu meets metal album-cover in a halloween store feel of the original games, with absolutely zero effort made to cover up the high-camp insanity of the premise and characters. A movie of that, basically an ultra-gory "Big Trouble in Little China?" THAT I want to watch.

In any case, the bigger story here is that if/when this actually works out, "make fan-film, get hired" is going to REALLY take hold in the up-and-comer film world - get ready to see a lot of recent filmschool grads flooding YouTube with high-gloss takes on their favorite games and old cartoons hoping to catch a rights-holder's eye.

On a completely-unrelated note, anyone have a ballpark figure on what a photo-real CGI Bowser would cost?

Escape to the Movies: "Drive"

Go see it.

"Intermission" is about release-dates.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Drive

Harbingers of Fall

If I was sketching out an absurdist one-sentence parody of a present-day Oscar-baity project; "a Sandra Bullock movie where Tom Hanks dies on 9-11, told from the perspective of a precocious pre-teen boy, directed by Stephen Daldry with a trailer set to that same fucking U2 song" would make the shortlist. Easily.

In spite of that, I'd say this trailer for "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" actually looks pretty good...



Seriously, though - is there ANYTHING more irritating than hearing "Where The Streets Have No Name" kick up on ANY soundtrack?

Avengers: Earth's Mugging-est Heroes

Anachronistic puff-piece factory Entertainment Weekly has a bunch of set photos from "The Avengers" this issue, which is reason enough to make it a "cover story" in order to snare wayward fans digging from scraps of information.

Less excusable? The absolutely horrible cover, clearly fitted-together from unrelated images (everyone's eyeline is off) and demonstrative of Marvel not having a finished look at The Hulk ready for distribution yet - otherwise why would they have used that ghastly shot of Mark Ruffalo giving a duckface?

He Speaks For The Trees

From a pure entertainment standpoint, it's been been kind of delightful to watch American "conservatives" turn into a caricature of themselves - i.e. going from "capital punishment is grim but necessary" to applauding Texas' high execution-rate, and adjusting their environmental policy from the generally-reasonable opinion that nature/wildlife should not be placed above commerce/employment on the scale of importance to trying their darndest to become "Captain Planet" villains re: global-warming denial, Hummer-worship, "Drill Baby Drill!" etc. Hell, if they weren't still potentially electable Republicans would be a real riot.

In any case, below you'll find the poster for 2012's "The Lorax," which - thanks to the above-described state of the union - will undoubtedly be one of the most needlessly "controversial" big movies to be released next year...

Film is, of course, an adaptation of the beloved children's book by Dr. Seuss in which a magical creature tries - unsuccessfully - to convince an industrialist that his factory is despoiling a wildnerness. Or, as you'll be hearing it described on Fox News: "Socialist Propaganda Brainwashing Your Children Into Environmentalism As A Scheme To Enable Communist Muslims To Take Yer Freedoms!!!"

I'm a little concerned about this one, myself - apparently they've added some additional characters, which feels a lot like a gateway to cheaping-out on the original downer ending. But even if it's not all that good, the "blowback" should be entertaining as hell.

Somebody Get Oroboros a Losenge..

Good news, producers of "Battleship": your movie will soon no longer be everyone's go-to example of are-you-fucking-kidding-me licensed-property adaptations. Lionsgate has given the go-ahead to a feature-length film based NOT on the video-game "Dead Island" ...but on the trailer for the game.

For my non-gamer readers, "Dead Island" is basically every other fucking zombie game/movie ever, except this time it's on a resort island and therefore toooooootally different. The main reason that it achieved s noteworthy level of anticipation was that it was initially advertised with a pretty remarkable trailer, seen here:



So... yeah, pretty cool short CGI zombie movie. Of course, those aren't the in-game graphics. Or the main characters. And that bleak/sombre tone isn't really replicated in the game. But you can see why it briefly became a viral-sensation. In any case, since the trailer is what drove the hype and got Hollywood interested in the first place, apparently the film will take it's cues from IT as opposed to the game-proper.

For those keeping track: Mega Man, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Kirby, Metal Gear, sonic etc? All still lacking (proper) movies. Dawn-of-The-Dead-but-in-a-different-place-and-interactive #1,698? Coming soon to a theater near you.

Big Picture: "Gender Games"

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Gender Games

"Rum Diary" Has a Poster

Pictured on the right: American film-actor Johnny Depp, waking up to the realization that he really did sign on the dotted-line for both "The Lone Ranger" and another shitty "Pirates" sequel.

Hat-tip to Hollywood-Elsewhere

"Final" Catwoman Looks Like This

JustJared (which I despise linking to as it's just the worst kind of "People"-esque paparazzi hit-baiting celebrity site, but fair is fair) has snaps from the "Dark Knight" set of Anne Hathaway in the 'default mode' of the Catwoman outfit that underwhelmed everyone a month or two ago. Wouldn't you know, it actually looks  a lot better; which maybe means that "spy" photographers are now doing a better job of promoting this movie than Warners is (or maybe means that I was right...)

As it turns out, everyone and their great aunt was right that the silly-in-a-bad-way goggles seen in all the other photos convert into silly-in-a-good-way cat ears when not in use, but evidently left out that she's wearing a wraparound eye-mask under them. Also, it appears that Nolan and company have at long last found one wholly-impractical superhero design-staple that they wanted to keep: Catwoman is doing her thing in high-heels (I'd be inclined to say they're just to make her look taller; but in some of the shots she's actually running in the damn things...)

Y'know what I like about this? Other than the obvious, I mean? That the basic design skips right over the more recent comics and "Batman Returns" and instead looks more than anything like a quasi-practical version of the getup from the Adam West series - which is otherwise the antithesis of the oh-so-serious mode that this whole series has been running in up to this point.

"Lone Ranger" May Ride Again - or - Why Everything Sucks: Exhibit A

Disney's proposed movie retooling of "The Lone Ranger" - a movie that nobody asked for, in a genre that doesn't make money, whose two most-recent comparative cousins (Green Hornet and Cowboys & Aliens) both bombed spectacularly, being reworked in such a fashion as to alienate the dwindling fanbase that none the less compromises the ONLY people likely to give a shit, so troubled as a production as to have become an industry-wide laughingstock - is apparently close to getting a second lease on life, according to Deadline.

Why? Mainly because the good citizens of Earth just handed Disney another boatload of cash to watch Johnny Depp mug his way through a shitty fourth "Pirates" movie, also a little bit because (supposedly) Depp actually wants to bring some kind of mystic/main-character version of Tonto to the big screen.

But I'd say it's ALSO probably because Disney's non-animated/non-Pixar tentpole slate isn't in spectacular shape right now. It's hard to notice because nobody spins bad news like The Mouse; but the fact is Disney doesn't have an all-but garaunteed blockbuster on the schedule other than "The Avengers" this coming May. Their other "big" projects - "Oz: The Great and Powerful" and "John Carter" - are both HUGE question-marks at this point: "Oz" has James Franco, not himself a proven boxoffice draw, in an "origin-story" for the Wizard of Oz being directed by Sam Raimi, who's had some difficulty getting back on his feet after getting sucker-punched off the "Spider-Man" franchise... the only place up to this point where he's been able to back up his considerable fanboy street-cred with serious boxoffice. "John Carter," meanwhile, is supposedly seriously overbudget ($250 Million officially, said to be waaaaay more than that unofficially) had a trailer that interested pre-aware fans but confused the crap out of everyone else; capped off by a reception at D23 that was largely described as underwhelming-to-disasterous by the very web-press most eager to get a look at it.

That's two potential big-budget duds in the offing, and it'll be doubly-humiliating for The Mouse if "Avengers" is the only project that makes money - since it was already in planning/production before Marvel was part of Team Mickey, the narrative will be that while the subdivisions (Marvel and Pixar) are hitmakers "Disney proper" doesn't know what it's doing. Incidentally; "Oz," "Carter" and "Ranger" all "belong" to the same producer team; Rich Ross and Sean Bailey. Thus, however much of an expensive mess "Lone Ranger's" production might already be, the aforementioned knowledge that audiences evidently cannot get enough of Johnny Depp galavanting through bloated CGI setpieces is hard to ignore from a financial standpoint.

Incidentally, how likely do you suppose it is that someone at The Mouse has already floated the idea of trying to fit Depp into "Tron 3" as some kind of waaaaaaaacky program?

GOP Debate Audience Boos Gay Soldier

Ideas are priceless. Beliefs are worthless.

I don't like to play the "what if the OTHER SIDE did it!!??" game, because it's mostly pointless; but sometimes it's pretty damn stark. Can you imagine what might've happened if, during the 2008 Democrat primary, a member of the military asked a question of a candidate and was BOOED by members of the audience? Every single candidate would've had to cut TV spots denouncing the action, and we'd still be knee-deep in repeats of it as "proof that The Left HATES soldiers!!!"

Here's the clip from the most recent GOP debate, as a gay soldier calls in from Iraq with a question assigned to Rick Santorum (hilariously placed directly beside a giant "Google" logo) about repealing DADT:



Listen to (some) in the audience boo the soldier, THEN listen to damn near the whole room wildly cheer Santorum's rambling, ridiculous "social engineering" response.

At the end of the day, there are two kinds of people in the world: Thinker and Believers (and before anyone asks, that is NOT code for "atheists and religious people," I'm talking about broad intellectual approaches to life not specific ideologies.) So long as American "Conservatives" are beholden to the "B" side over the "T" side they are unfit to hold lawmaking authority, and this is Exhibit A.

Hat-tip Jeff Wells

Escape to the Movies: "Machine Gun Preacher"

Holy, crap.
Frankly, this week I'm more enamored of "Intermission," which compiles all of the questions still unanswered from the pre-"Avengers" Marvel movies.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Machine Gun Preacher

If I Had a Creed, This Would Be It...

"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance."
-- Socrates

Will Patty Jenkins Become Marvel's (Literal) First Lady?

THR and Deadline both report that Disney/Marvel may have made up their mind as to who will direct the sequel to "Thor," (yes, already greenlit - that's what that monster of an overseas boxoffice gross will net you) and that the selection will be yet another Marvel Studios head-scratcher: Patty Jenkins, primarily known as a TV director (late of the pilot for AMC's "The Killing") save for 2003's "Charlize Theron Needs An Oscar" (released in most territories as "Monster.")

If selected, this will make Jenkins the first woman to direct a Marvel Studios feature. The extremely-underappreciated "Punisher: WarZone" was directed by Lexi Alexander but produced and released by a different studio.

This is the part where we're all supposed to speculate that the script may have a heavier emphasis on the relationship drama and/or Natalie Portman's Jane Foster (the issue of "how did Thor come back to Earth?" will, of course, be answered by "The Avengers" because Continuity Is Your Friend) or that female villain The Enchantress may make an appearance; but the truth is probably closer to Marvel's "Moneyball"-style management (re: right fee, right availability, project is producer-driven enough to afford a directorial risk, etc.)

In any case, it's pretty interesting as a development: Female directors have a tough time in the feature realm unless they're working in the "chick-flick" ghetto, and women getting assigned to big-ticket genre fare is basically unheard of; to say nothing of getting assigned to the follow-up to what is thus far Marvel's second biggest-earning screen hero. Kenneth Branagh turned out to be an inspired choice, so we'll see.

What The Hell is "Monstrosity?"

It's kind of strange for me to realize that Tim Burton has now been around for so long that it's time for film students to add him to the "stylistic homage" pool, but there ya go. With that in mind, below you'll find what is apparently the "teaser" for a movie called "Monstrosity" which appears to be - I shit you not - a mashup of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Dragon Wars."



As near as I can determine, the premise here is that Earth and a planet of Monsters (which looks more like Planet Halloween, actually) get fused together somehow. The director is Colton Tran, who (again, near as I can determine) is a youngish dude mainly doing shorts and spoofs on the YouTubes, and the film itself is a feature(?) extrapolation of an earlier short called "Unpleasantville," which appears to be an Addams/Munsters riff with a kiddie/Halloween aesthetic.

For what it's worth, the project's "official site" can be found HERE. Anyone who may have a better idea of what the hell it is I'm looking at here is invited to tell me ;)

"The Grey" trailer

Via Hollywood-Elsewhere:

Director Joe Carnahan aims to one-up "The Edge" in the respected-British-actor-in-silly-killer-animal-flicks game with "The Grey;" in which Liam Neeson leads a group of plane-crash survivors through an Alaskan wilderness beset by a pack of hungry wolves. Given that they've evidently managed to survive against both the elements and a psychotic governor's bloodthirsty helicopter death-squads, I'm inclined to bet on the wolves...



The title, of course, likely refers to both the breed of wolves themselves, the bleakness of the harsh Alaskan landscape they inhabit and also the morally and ethically ambiguous depths of both psychology and behavior the characters will have to plumb in order to blah blah blah WHATEVER. Did you SEE that last beat?? Qui-Gon is wearing improvised DIY "Wolverine" knuckle-claws so he can fight the Boss Wolf hand-to-hand. That's gonna be fuckin' awesome.

Two Uncomfortable Observations

In case you're given to ask; the reason these are getting posted as blogs instead of new "American Bob" episode is that A.) I'm tinkering with that format and B.) This takes five minutes whereas the videos take several hours...

OBSERVATION #1:
There is not a single "radical" thing about either President Obama or the era in which his Presidency is taking place. Everything from his policy proscriptions to his general tone to his fixation on centrist-compromise are the polar opposite of "radical." The non-superficial differences between him and the last 30-40 years of Democrat Presidents and politicians in general are essentially nonexistant. What's more, the economic downturn currently occuring is, while grim, not meaningfully worse for most Americans than the economic/energy crisis of the late-70s to the recession of a decade or so later.

Despite this, both Obama and his Presidency have been regarded AS "radical" to such a wide and fervent degree that an entire movement, the so-called "Tea Party," has sprung up specifically as a "counterweight" this supposed radicalism. Given the (empirically provable) lack of actual radicalism or even meaningful policy difference between Obama and pretty much ANY Democrat or even moderate-Republican who has taken the national stage in any of our lifetimes... what, precisely, would be the "Occam's Razor" answer to the question of what it is about him that really fills the "Tea Party" - on the primal, subconscious level - with so much panic and consternation?


OBSERVATION #2:
The key problem facing Obama's so-called "Buffet Tax" or "Robin Hood Tax" is that - despite the fact that a plurality of Americans tend to favor such a measure - 40 years of an incredibly successful campaign of subtle race-baiting subterfuge on behalf of conservative/Republican political strategists has successfully conditioned huge chunks of Middle America to hear "Tax the wealthy to help the poor" as "steal from hardworking Whites to give away to 'undeserving' Blacks and 'illegal' Latinos." (What, after all, do you suppose the repeated dog-whistle stump phrase of "Real Americans" is supposed to mean?)

Big Picture: "Junk Drawer Reloaded"

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Junk Drawer: Reloaded

"J. Edgar" trailer

Hat-tip: Jeff Wells.

Leonardo DiCaprio has the title role in director Clint Eastwood's biopic of FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover. This is the sound of Oscar season beginning.

Fire Burns. Water Flows. Ellison Sues.

Folks in my circle who fancy themselves fans of serious science-fiction movies are seriously excited for Andrew Niccol's "In Time;" set in a world where they've cured aging. To keep overpopulation from being an issue, nobody physically ages past 25... but all hearts are on a "timer" and "minutes left to live" is now the sole form of currency - rich people get to be immortals, poor people live day-by-day. Justin Timberlake is the hero, a working-class schlub who winds up with a suicidal rich guy's massive time-surplus and ingratiates himself into wealthy-immortal society, ultimately becoming a Robin Hood-esque figure stealing time and giving it to the poor. I like this concept because it's the best kind of "idea scifi," using a "what if?" hook as a metaphor for something relevant to the real present (in this case, social-economics.) Hollywood, on the other hand, no doubt likes this concept because it provides a story-driven excuse to cast every single role with model-gorgeous twenty-somethings (Olivia Wilde and Amanda Seyfried co-star, so... there ya go.)

Now, as if the incidental tea-leaves weren't already looking good for this one, the film has now crossed into a potential-scifi-blockbuster rite of passage: Being sued for copyright infringement by Harlan Ellison.




Ellison believes that the film shares enough similarities with his 1965 short story "Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman;" and is suing to block the film's release and for compensatory damages. This sort of thing happens a lot in genre film - typically it's quietly "taken care of" by a settlement to avoid bad press. Ellison, however, prefers to go big with this stuff - famously, he sued "The Terminator" for similarities to two of his "Outer Limits" episodes.

FWIW, "Repent" is prescient less of this film and more of "V For Vendetta" - the main character dresses like a clown and commits acts of vigilante nuisance in order to disrupt a dystopian society where timely schedule-keeping is federally-enforced and punishable by lowering life-expectancy.

How To Torpedo Your Own Point

Depending on your level of investment in interwed-outrage memes, you may either have forgotten or never been aware of the "#NotRightForAlyssa" incident of a few weeks ago. In which case, Long Version HERE; Short Version: Gizmodo tossed up an altogether-poor article in which an intern publically-humiliated (by name) a guy she'd met on an online dating site because he was a professionall "Magic: The Gathering" player (or, to use her words, "champion dweeb.") Subsequently, the author was made to endure an Internet piling-on that was - at least in the initial moments, more or less well-deserved from my perspective.

Of course, since The Internet tends to accelerate "justifiable irritation" up into "reign-of-terror-level-overreaction" almost overnight; eventually some late-comers to the "event" had to go and take things too far - which means it's now time for the "backlash against the backlash" articles...

Geordie Tait has used the "Alyssa" story as the jumping-off point for a lengthy and overally rather worthwhile (with HUGE caveats that will be dealt with in a moment) article for Star City Games - in the form of an "apology letter" to his own hypothetical future daughter - about the thorny problem of misogyny in gaming culture; primarily focused on the way sexual/romantic "entitlement" often manifests within a culture that paradoxically considers itself to be an oppressed and/or disregarded minority (i.e. the "Women prefer assholes over Nice Guys like me... THOSE BITCHES!!!" mentality.) It's a long piece with a fair amount of rambling, unnecessary digression and cutsie-poo self-deprecation, but I reccomend everyone give it a read - especially if you plan on reading the rest of this.

Seriously. Read it and come back. I'll wait.

...

All set? Okay, then...

For about half of the piece, I was mainly feeling sad for Tait. See, I'm very much in agreement with his overally point: For all the pride geek-culture has in itself as a "haven" where a certain segement of overlooked-outsiders can find a community of shared-interest... it tends to have REAL serious problem accepting any perspective on the content of said interests that doesn't come from (or isn't willing to conform-to) a white/male/heterosexual/western viewpoint. Too often geeks/gamers are raging against their own ostracization from mainstream society/culture... while in the same breath delcaring that anyone who offers a "feminist" or "race-conscious" criticism of a given game, movie, comic etc. needs to "shut up" and fall into line. So, on that level, I think that the discussion Tait wants to have is vital, necessary and long, long, LONG overdue...

...but, because he chose to "ground" it in what amounts to a defense of fairly indefensible behavior re: Alyssa Bereznak; his otherwise VERY worthwhile points were going to go unheard. When your trying to make a bigger point via a specific example, it's HUGELY important to pick the right example: The fact that O.J. Simpson was made the poster-child for racist-persecution by the  probably did more to ensure that the LAPD's massive institutional-racism and corruption remained in place than anything else possibly could have.

But, yeah... up to that point I was reading and thinking "This is SUCH an important, thoughtful piece... WHY did he have to throw away it's chances of being heard by making it a 'Leave Alyssa Alone' thing?" So imagine my surprise when, about halfway through the piece, Tait opts to simply blow his own point completely to smithereens...

In Part C of Section 4 (it's a loooong article), Tait ascribes a portion of the blame for the "overreaction" to "Internalized Misogyny;" helpfully-explained by a quotation about "House Negros" from Malcom X. Here, Tait criticizes the female voices in geek/gamer culture who wrote/spoke against the article for - as he sees it - attempting curry favor with the overwhelmingly male demographic through their condemnation. Or, as he puts it:

"[Tait] is very interested in integrating the gaming industry and is always ready to encourage any budding Jacqueline Robinsons. However, it is hard for girls to be taken seriously in gaming when dozens of wannabe FragDolls are tap-dancing on top of the dugout and offering opposing players “a shine.”"

He goes on to single-out Gizmodo Australia's Elly Hart, who wrote a response-piece to the original Gizmodo (U.S.) article. Tait psychoanalyzes Hart thusly:

"She's a female writer for a tech website, and that is a very, very difficult job. In order to fit in, she has had to internalize all the ways that boys in her industry treat girls poorly and take them for granted."

The level of presumption and condescension here would make for hillarious irony if it weren't so shocking to find in the midst of an article that not only tries to be studiously even-handed otherwise but is also largely dedicated to telling it's readers NOT to engage in the kind of  misogynist or inflammatory language he is now employing - right down to refering to Hart's article as "shucking and jiving" to "appease the multitudinous, nerd-raging masses."

"In her defense, master's house was on fire, and there was a warm corner in the attic waiting for her if she was able to dump some water on the blaze."

Holy crap. I mean... what do you eve SAY to something like that?

Don't get me wrong - I understand the genesis of where he's coming from: The fact that the "gamer girls" most often focused upon by the media are those willing/able/eager to don a catchphrased baby-tee and/or revealing cosplay outfit as walking embodiments of "sexy nerd" fetish-iconography isn't 100% "helpful" to the problem of intrinsic nerd-misogyny - agreed.

But the idea that Tait can't percieve ANY woman disagreeing with him on this issue other than by assuming that they are lying, kowtowing or suffering some sort of Stockholm Syndrome is the height of arrogance - and the language he uses ("Wannabe Frag Dolls") and the condescending "oh, those poor foolish little girls" tone come perilously close to what actual feminists often call "Slut Shaming." Agree or disagree with their point, but pieces like Emily Hart's condemnation of the Gizmodo article or even the "Apology on Behalf of Ladies of Nerdland" spearheaded by Susan Arendt (the Escapist editor responsible for me look like I know what I'm doing every week) or Skepchick's Rebecca Watson do not strike me as anything deserving of the snide "Wannabe Frag Dolls" moniker that Tait blanketly ascribes to any woman on the "other side" of this incident.

This is the point where it all becomes utterly perplexing to me - clearly, Tait has a solid and well-reasoned grasp on what the problems and solutions to the misogyny he's talking about in his own culture are... so what could possess him to go and drop a misogynistic mini-rant of his own right into the middle of it? I don't know that it completely invalidates the bigger picture - Tait's overall call for male gamers with what could politely be called "issues" in dealing with the opposite sex to grow the fuck up is needed and well-taken, in the end. But still - why taint the point with this AND the unnecessary (and bound to make people miss-the-point) defense of Bereznak; especially when it turns out what really spurred him to action was an entirely-unrelated Todd Anderson article.

So... that happened.

I Saw 8 Minutes of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

An 8-minute "sizzle reel" of David Fincher's adaptation of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was shown to critics and audiences at various screenings throughout the U.S. this past week. I was at one of them, here's what I saw:

It's already a given that this movie is going to be the stuff of a three-way public spat between film geeks for whom David Fincher can do no wrong, fans of the book who will resent any changes and OTHER film geeks annoyed that this is being made at all when it was already turned into a wholly-decent movie in it's native country. Now, as before, I remain comfortably in Fincher's camp - everything about this material is comfortably in his wheelhouse, and he's assembled a hell of a team.

The footage itself wasn't "in order," it was more of a very long trailer explaining the basic plot and who the two main characters are. From the looks of things, it appears a certain amount of tinkering has gone on with the structure of the story in terms of streamlining the complicated process of events it takes for the two heroes' stories to intersect; but people who were worried things are going to be "toned down" should chill - the 'iffy' stuff (Salander's bisexuality, the 'payback' sequence, the murders) seems to have made the transition more than intact.

The interesting thing will be to see how Fincher chooses to "play" the material. The odd thing about the series (book and film) is that they're that strange mix of very-silly and very-serious that often informs pop-phenomenon bestsellers, "The DaVinci Code" being the best recent example. Storywise it's a giant grab-bag of lurid pulp: A crusading activist/journalist teams up with sexy goth/punk/biker/computer-hacker girl to root out the culprit in a decades-spanning series of unsolved Biblically-themed murders from among a wealthy family of decadent ex-Nazis; but all that kitchen-sink oddness is actually there as lead-in to mini-polemics about misogyny and political-corruption.

So... how does he play it? Do you trim down on the "silly" and aim for the 'serious' movie that it's bestselller-stature would be assumed to demand, or do you keep all the wacky business and go for broke? The footage shown seems to be looking at the second option, which strikes me as the better option.

Escape to the Movies: "Straw Dogs"

You think YOU hate the end of Summer? I've got to keep reviewing "dump it in early-fall" nobody-cares movies like THIS...

"Intermission" shows you some of the more unusual stuff you can see on Netflix Instant RIGHT NOW.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Straw Dogs

"We Bought A Zoo"

Here's the trailer for Cameron Crowe's "comeback" movie. I'll give him credit for going with that title, since Variety is now just itching to write that "Crowe's 'Zoo' Bought The Farm" boxoffice-failure headline... but ye gods, could this look any more like a PARODY of the very genre/style it's trying to be sincere about?

Beautiful Mario 30th Anniversary Video

There are no words...

"Breaking Dawn" full trailer

The great hope for "Breaking Dawn" to be the first "Twilight" movie that - while not concievably GOOD on any level - is at least entertaining goes something like this: It's the part of the series that most of the fanbase seems to like the LEAST for the very reasons I liked it BEST... namely, that the various characters stop staring longingly into eachother's eyes and get down to the business of making baby daywalkers, having monster-battles and assembling big international vampire armies. It doesn't LAST, of course, thanks to an ending that screws up the landing so massively even Stephen King must've been impressed.

Which is why I like that Bill Condon is taking a (well-deserved) paycheck-job to finish up the series; as Condon very definitely gets "camp;" and "camp" - or, at least, a willingness to embrace the fact that the material really, really sucks and having fun with it - is what "Twilight" has always DESPERATELY needed:

It's certainly "broad" enough, and the sound-alike of "Journey to the Line" (or is that ACTUALLY "Journey to the Line!?") underscoring the wedding/honeymoon buildup bullshit is probably an accurate representation of how "Twilight's" audience FEELS (as opposed to 'reads') it.

Big Picture: "Out of The Park"

In which I risk incurring the wrath of die-hard "South Park fans."

ALSO! The Game OverThinker episodes are back up on ScrewAttack!

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Out of the Park

Republicans CHEER For Letting Uninsured People DIE

Below the jump, everything you need to know about what's left of American conservatives...

I'm not what you would call a great humanitarian. On my better days, any extended amount of time in traffic or in crowded public transit makes me want to know why anyone thinks abortion-on-demand and over-the-counter birth-control are bad things. I'm on record that my own personal solution to the overly high costs associated with healthcare would be to let morons die if their injuries are the result of their own idiocy. Example: Meth-heads ODing? Oh yeah, let `em. It's not like we're talking about the Spotted Owl - human beings, especially useless ones, are not something we're in danger of running out of.

I lay those cards out so that it's understood that my reaction to the following clip from tonight's GOP/TeaParty debate; which at times resembled a race to see which candidate could be the most gleefully dismissive/callous toward the "others" (read: anyone not white, rural-American, Christian or willing to lionize white rural-American Christianity as the highest possible tier of human civilization) the Tea Party believes is responsible for their problems and/or recieving all the precious, precious tax money Uncle Sam is "stealing" from The Real Americans.

In the clip, Wolf Blitzer asks Ron Paul (who, if nothing else, is probably the only person on the stage at this point who ISN'T an unbelievable asshole) what his doctrinaire-libertarian view on healthcare has to say about a (hypothetical) healthy 30 year-old who gets into a car accident without insurance. Dr. Paul goes on to once again invalidate himself from winning any American elections by giving a measured, thoughtful and nuance response - granted, it's a nuanced response predicated on the existance of the kind of Little House on The Prairie human-to-human community kindness that idealist libertarians like Paul can't accept simply not EXISTING anymore, but it's thoughtful all the same - so Blitzer gets down to brass tacks: Do you just let him die? Paul, of course, says "NO" and attempts to re-explain his carefully-reasoned position... but he's cut-off by the audience, who are APPLAUDING at the words "Let him die."

Okay, so... the clip speaks for itself and I imagine the the title has probably lured in some folks willing to "defend" the GOP as a whole on this; so I wanna take this opportunity to ask the following flippant-sounding but utterly sincere question:

WHY DOES ANY INTELLIGENT PERSON VOTE REPUBLICAN THIS POINT?

I mean this 100% seriously. I understand why the brutes cheering for "Let him die!" here or giving Perry a big "yee-haaaaaw!" for the Death Penalty at the last debate go for it. It's only logical - the Republicans are giving them what they most want. Same deal with pro-lifers, climate-change deniers, creationists and other backward-looking flat-earth dolts, That all makes complete sense - the GOP (claims to) believe what they believe. Hell, I'm even willing to grant that it makes a certain amount of sense that the "eternal vigilance" crowd still convinced that a Cold War-sized military machine is a huge necessity sticks with them.

But what about everyone else? I know for a FACT that there are intelligent, thoughtful, not-overly-religious, not-paranoid people who are also Republicans. Teachers. Students. Doctors. Lawyers. Engineers. Scientists. You get the picture. I need to ask these people... why? What are intelligent people getting out of supporting a nakedly anti-intelligence (oh, I'm sorry - "intellectual") political party? I know what the Holy Rollers get out of it. I know what the 2nd Ammendment fetishists get out of it. What is the GOP giving YOU, the nominally-intelligent Republican voter, to stick with them?

A tax cut? Is that REALLY it? A tax cut is worth letting people PROUDLY ignorant of proven scientific facts set public policy? A tax cut is worth having schoolchildren being taught about talking snakes and magic apples in science class? A tax cut is worth unbreathable air and undrinkable water? A tax cut is worth letting policymakers attempt to rewind the tide of social-progress back to an era that wasn't even really THAT nice for the white christian males who had the ONLY power in it?

Cause, I gotta tell ya... I'm a pretty selfish bastard when you get right down to it, but DAMN!

Is Richard Castle an "Avenger"??

No, of course he isn't.

I'd feel worse about running grossly-misleading traffic-bait headlines, but this IS basically Disney/Marvel's whole promotion-strategy at this juncture, so really I'm just playing the game...

I wonder... have "Firefly" fans accepted yet that Nathan Fillion is now "Castle" to about 98% of people who actually know who he is now? (Oh, but don't worry kids - that Trek-level syndication-juggernaut-followed-by-massive-pop-cultural-revival is still toooootally just around the corner. Totally.)

In any case, here's the "story": A month or so back, ABC Network president Paul Lee teased a "secret" about a "marvel superhero character" being somehow related to an episode of the series' upcoming third season, which most people figured was a jokey reference to the title character putting on a Halloween costume (he went "as" Mal Reynolds in Season 2, so there's some precedence for this.) Now, comicbookmovie.com - your #1 source for bizzarely-tantilizing non-news - thinks they've figured it out... and WHAT they think they've figured out is that it's not just a reference but a full-fledged 'real' character(s?)-cameo that would add "Castle" to "The Avengers"-continuity.

The "evidence": Lyle Lovett (seriously?) is listed on the IMDB as playing an "Agent Westfield" ("of S.H.I.E.L.D," presumably) in "Avengers," which is also the name of a vaugely S.H.I.E.L.D./Men-In-Black-esque agent character he played on an episode of "Castle" that involved a UFO/spy coverup.

FWIW, there's a certain amount of precedent for this: It's an ABC show, which puts it under the requisite Disney umbrella, and the series is big on "metafiction" - Fillion's title-character is supposed to be a mystery-novelist who teams-up with actual cops to solve murders (it's that kind of show) and ghostwritten 'real' versions of the books attributed to him are actually sold.

"Assault Girls" Trailer

About to Netflix this - wonder how it is?



Y'know, it only just now occurs to me: American trailers generally go "up-tempo-pop-music, dialogue-montage-establish-basic-plot-conflict, swelling-dramatic-action-music;" and Japanese trailers do the exact reverse...

John F***ing Zoidberg Is Tired of Your Sh*t

Is there a particular reason to post this? No. Is there a particular reason to NOT post this? Also no.

NEW Game OverThinker Coming WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14TH!

I know that, as of this writing, you still cannot see the 25 screwattack-exclusive episodes of "The Game OverThinker" on ScrewAttack's new site. I am sorry about that, it's being worked on and will hopefully be fixed by early next week. For now... GOOD NEWS! Episode 57, the much-demanded "Supreme Court" episode, will (if all goes correctly) premiere on Wednesday, September 14th. So keep an eye out for it.

Here's an announcement trailer...



ALSO! If you haven't yet taken a look at ScrewAttack's new site, you should - it's quite excellent. They're also offering something called an "Advantage" subcription, whereby users can sign up to not only get an ad-free version of the site but ALSO see new episodes of shows they've selected as well-liked faves. So, if there are any Advantage members (or prospective members) who're also OverThinker fans... it's REALLY good for BOTH of us (yes, this is NAKED self-promotion) if you make this show one of your "likes."

"The Raid" (UPDATED with all-regions trailer!)

Has Indonesia become the latest country to prove it can make better action movies than America at 1/10th the cost? Sure looks that way... (hat-tip to Devin)



Well, shit... that looks so good I don't even care that they're using "Music By That Linkin Park Guy" as their major Western market selling point. When does this come stateside?

Worst. Blaspheming. EVER. (UPDATED!)

Source: CBM

It's been a pet theory of mine for awhile now that religious-outrage and fanboy-outrage are basically the same thing, psychologically, with societal-acceptance being the main difference. Taking the text of "Spider-Man" as the basis of one's life and raging at those who don't share your commitment? "Silly." Taking the text of an English translation of a Latin translations of a Greek translation of a Hebrew/Aramaic translation of ancient Middle-Eastern campfire stories as the basis of one's life and raging at those who don't share your commitment? "Republican Presidential Candidate."

With that in mind, I'd like to thank the proprietor of North Carolina's "Comics Conspiracy" for making that point amusingly clear: He's banned "Action Comics #1" - the "Superman's first year in action" retcon-series of the "New 52" - from his store because The Man of Steel took the Lord's Name in vain. Really.
To clear this up: The relaunched "Action" is set 5 years prior to the rest of the "new" DC Universe, and shows Superman's early days on the job; so early he's doing his crimefighting in blue jeans an a t-shirt, and has not fully developed his powers. Thematically, it's writer Grant Morrison attempting to take the character back to his pre-WWII stature as a street-level social-justice crusader - a walking embodiment of the (then) new protections of The New Deal.

In the sequence that so offended this particular shopkeep, Superman is fired on by a tank and exclaims "GD!," which he has taken as an abbreviation for "God damn!" Yeah, that's really it.

Two things about this strike me as especially amusing:

1.) I haven't read "Action #1" yet, but knowing Morrison's eye for obscure character detail it actually wouldn't surprise me if "GD!" is actually supposed to be Superman SAYING "GeeDee!" out loud as an intentional non-blasphemous curse word (see also "Gosh Darn," "Geez!," "Eff!," etc) befitting the "Tom Joad with super-strength" morally-upright hayseed farmboy 'social justice' Superman initially was. In other words, Morrison could actually have intended the line to be IN FAVOR of this dude's view on language.

2.) The fellow in question says he's been in the business for 35 years - which means he's been reading for longer than that, most likely - and that this is his "last straw" in liberal comic writers (he calls Morrison a "liberal scottish schmuck") taking liberties with characters: "Superman would NEVER take God's name in vain!" Uh... dude? Even putting aside that Superman isn't real... he used to take god's name in vain all the time: HIS god's! People tend to forget this (it doesn't come up much lately) but Kryptonians are actually supposed to have had their own religion based on worship of their red sun, "Rao," and "Great Rao" was Superman's go-to "holy shit!" proxy in the 70s. In the 80s, he flat-out confirmed that "Rao" is more-specifically the name of his God. Was this guy totally cool with Superman as a sun-worshipping pagan for the last three 40 years?

UPDATE: Grant Morrison has now publically stated that "GD" is actually just supposed to be Superman making a "grunt" sound because he just got hurt; which just makes this whole thing all the more hillarious. Morrison has a "thing" for stuff like this - when he was on "Justice League" the first time he popularized Batman constantly making a "Hh!" sound.

Escape to the Movies: "Red State"

I reviewed it. Stop asking.

ALSO! Does Warner Bros. WANT you to think "The Dark Knight Rises" looks shitty?

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Red State

Will Spider-Man Meet "The Avengers" After All?

Source: Crave.

No. No, he probably will not. That's a sensationalist, nakedly traffic-baiting headline and I feel bad about it. Or, at least, I recognize I should feel bad about it. Anyway, keep reading because this is actually kind of fun...

IP rights can be a funny thing in the multimedia age. Case in point: The reason Spider-Man is NOT part of "The Avengers" movie/continuity - and that Sony is haphazardly slapping together a quickie "reboot" of the film series - is that Marvel sold the "movie rights" to his character to Sony back before they had their own studio (and then became part of Disney.) So, while Marvel still owns Spidey, SONY owns the right to put him in movies... so long as they keep making them, of course.

But Sony ONLY owns the movie rights - TV, video games etc are an entirely different set of contracts and arrangements. Did you see the "Planet Hulk" animated movie? Did you notice that during the quick shot of "The Illuminati" from the comics only two of them did any speaking and the other figures were hidden in shadow? Same issue: The 'shadowed' characters were guys whose movie rights (since PH was a movie) someone other than Marvel Films owned.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, Disney/Marvel have a new cartoon series on deck for their DisneyXD cable channel: An adaptation of "Ultimate Spider-Man" headed up by Paul Dini. Early images and trailers for the series have already revealed that what appeared to the be the "Ultimate" version of Nick Fury (which is, of course, also the movie-verse version) playing a role in the series... but in a (really fun) interview with CraveOnline, actor Clark Gregg - who plays the omnipresent "Agent Coulson" in the majority of the Avengers tie-ins thus far - confirms that HE has a part in the show, too... as Coulson!

According to Gregg, "Agent Coulson" appears on the show as the principal of Peter Parker's high school... or, rather, Coulson is undercover at the school posing as the principal but actually acting as a S.H.I.E.L.D. "handler" keeping tabs on various super-powered teenagers in attendance. Heh.

Clever fanboy gag, to be sure, but is that all it'll be? No, Marvel (probably) can't loophole Spidey into "Avengers 2" by claiming that he's "Ultimate" and therefore a different character; but can anyone imagine Marvel/Disney, who've already pushed all their chips and then some onto the shared-universe gambit, NOT dropping even more slivers of reference and/or callbacks to "Avengers" or other films and declaring this series part of the "canon?" It'd be remarkably easy to do, an IronMan/Cap/whoever walk-on here, a line about "that time Loki showed up" there, and it'd likely pay big dividends as fans of the films tune in to hunt for clues as to who (or what) else might be showing up in the future.

I think that'd be kind of cool, so long as they don't overdo it, and I bet the younger fans it's aimed at who may only just be getting into the movies would get a real charge out of it. I remember watching the "Ghostbusters" cartoons as a kid and getting a big kick out of every time they offhandedly mentioned Gozer.

Oh, incidentally: In the same interview, Gregg jokingly "reveals" The Skrulls as the other big-bad of "Avengers"... only to immediately walk it back and instead claim he meant The Kree. Which makes me wonder... is he a fan, or are The Kree actually in there somewhere and thats how he knows them?

As a sidebar... I really think people underappreciate just what Gregg brings to the movies. He gives a great deadpan "suit" reading of his dialogue, and I think having a guy around who A.) moves between films without needing an explanation why other than "government agents get around" and B.) always appears somewhat "level" about it - as though reaffirming that the Marvel Universe is so big and strange that even THIS mid-level field operative has seen enough to not be all that "fazed" by Viking Gods and aliens or whatever - is a major part of why this should-not-work continuity experiment is actually working.

Thinking back on it, I really wish he'd been around to liven-up some of the dryer expository scenes in "Hulk;" and the fact that we only see him break his disaffected rigidity ONCE, when he finds a Captain America shield among the junk pile in "Iron Man 2," now feels like kind of a big 'this is how important the legend of THAT guy is - even Coulson is impressed' moment when you see it after having seen Cap's movie.

Ten More Opinions, Likely To Be Unpopular

Anyone looking to avoid politics and/or general bitterness should stop reading at this point.


Sarah Palin is RIGHT about "Crony Capitalism." Well... okay, that might be going a little too far. EDIT: Whoever on Sarah Palin's not-a-campaign staff got the memo requesting something that could be seen as a swipe at both Obama and the current GOP frontrunners, came up with "Crony Capitalism" and taught her to sound it out phonetically is RIGHT about "Crony Capitalism."

If a given industry is directly contributing to making my water less-drinkable and my air less-breathable, it is difficult for me to care how many people it employs. I'm as sensitive to the plight of the jobless and potentially-jobless as I can be, but the fact is that, however burdensome it may be for the  good men and women of the Sludge Dumpers Local 140 to retrain in some other field, said retraining is at least largely possible. Me "retraining" my lungs to breath soot and smog? Significanly LESS than possible.

The reason so-called "conservatives" consistently have a fighting-edge over so-called "liberals" in American politics is that the emotional "default mode" of modern conservatives is HATE, while the default mode for modern liberals is FEAR. And while these are both negative emotions, hate is at least an emboldening emotion, while fear tends to produce cowardice. (This particular nugget courtesy John Lukacs)

President Obama's fatal flaw is NOT that he is willing to compromise, but that he views "compromise" or "the middle" as GOALS in and of themselves as opposed to something you temporarily settle for on the road to wearing your enemy down.

I do not object to people and things that stand in the way of social/intellectual progress - they are, after all, only adhering to their basic nature. My objection is to the all-too-frequent unwillingness of social/intellectual progress to simply shove past them.

It is perfectly reasonable for anti-abortion crusaders to promote their agenda via the calculus that a given fetus has the potential to become the next Einstein, Ghandi or Mother Theresa... providing, of course, that they allow for the equally-valid calculus that it could just as easily be the next Hitler, Stalin or Osama bin Laden. Likewise, laws requiring women seeking abortions to view an ultrasound first should ONLY per permissable if said viewing is followed by forced-listening to an audio track of a roomful of screaming brats - you know, "both sides" and all that...

Suggesting that the world would be much better off with a significantly smaller human population and significantly-reduced human population-growth is NOT some horrible statement in support of "population control" or "Eugenics." It doesn't become that UNTIL you start talking about how to accomplish it by sinister and/or unethical force - prior to that, it is merely a statement of fact obvious to anyone who has to commute to work.

Given that, in retrospect, he was amenable to enivormental and social-justice causes, a supporter of a social safety-net, globally-minded and a domestic-policy pragmatist in addition to being a ruthless political street-fighter willing to grind his opponents' bones into powder to accomplish his ends... I would gladly vote for Richard Nixon's cyborg-retrofitted head a'la Futurama were he/it running today.

The notion that both political "sides" in America are equally "bad" is a fallacy that does nothing to help anyone. The problem with Democrats is that they spend too much money and lack mangerial fortitude. The problem with Republicans is that they want to burn down the planet to make their Invisible Friend happy - these are NOT comparable flaws.

"Evolution" versus "Intelligent Design/Creationism" is not a "difference of opinion" - it is an argument between a proven-fact and a debunked-myth.

Big Picture: "Continanity: Rebooted"

MovieBob vs. The DC Reboot.

Also, yes, I'm aware you can hear my real accent in this. You should hear what all the "OverThinker" characters sound like before I re-tune their voices...

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Continanity: Rebooted

Most Sobering Political Analysis You'll Read Today

Don't even start. Yes, there will be posts about political stuff in an election year. Welcome to the world. Don't wanna read it, don't go past the jump...

Mike Lofgren, a GOP political staffer, has ended his 30 year political career. Upon his exit, he has published a lengthy "get this off my chest" piece about what he thinks has become of his own party. Spoiler: He ain't happy.

You should really read the whole thing. It's long and dry, as from-the-inside political business always is, but picture he paints is stark yet altogether unsurprising: A party that's gone from champions of practical small-government to what he calls an "apocalyptic cult" cynically willing to destroy and undermine the very bodies they serve in in order to have a "broken government" to run against, with a side-helping of unreasoning religious insanity and a blinding hatred of gays, foriengers, "intellectuals" and anyone different.

He also pulls this quote from Jon P. Judis, which seems especially insightful:

"If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

The Silliest "Avengers" Rumor (That I Kinda Hope Is True But Almost-Certainly Isn't) Yet!

WARNING: I'm running this because the circumstances of it's silliness are kind of hillarious, BUT if any of it does turn out to somehow be somewhat true it would constitute damn near the biggest "Avengers"-spoiler since the announcement that they were MAKING "Avengers" in the first place. So if you're committed to 100% non-spoilage, you should not only NOT read the rest of this but also avoid clicking the links or even hovering over them as the headline itself would even qualify.

Don't say I didn't warn you.


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ComicBookMovie.com will pretty much run any story, even high-unlikely or obviously-fake. On the up side, that means they actually average out a genuine scoop once in a blue moon. I don't think this is one of those times, but there ya go.

Short version: A "scooper" for CBM got hold of a shooting-schedule that described scenes wherein The Avengers do battle with something called "Leviathan." Now, that in and of itself would be potentially cool movie-gossip - "Leviathan" is the name of the Beast of The Sea in The Bible, and is frequently used as a shorthand for "Sea Monster" and/or "Giant Monster" in general, and the prospect of a Kaiju of some kind showing up to make "The Avengers" just that much geekier would be pretty awesome on it's own.

In any case, CBM's guess is that "Leviathan" is actually going to be a less-silly-named version of Giganto, a perennial Marvel Universe sea monster. Why didn't just jump to Fin Fang Foom, Marvel's most famous monster (and associate of Iron Man foe The Mandarin as a bonus) instead? Well, because he ALSO thinks this plus a bunch of background details in "Iron Man 2" equals the answer to what is either the source of Loki's yet-unidentified army OR a surprise secondary Big Bad...

...Namor. The Sub-Mariner.

Now, to be fair, the circumstantial evidence that Marvel has Namor on it's "to-do" list has been solid for awhile - mostly notably, Nick Fury's big map of "hot sites" glimpsed in "Iron Man 2" had a spot circled in the middle of the ocean. Plus, he's also pretty popular in his own right, and it'd be fun to "punk" Warners/DC out of the chance to make "Aquaman" first. CBM, however, thinks the have another piece of the puzzle: The Stark Expo in IM2 included multiple references to "Oracle," the name of a company that Namor ran during his "I'm also a Turner-esque activist CEO" phase. Whoa. How did we all miss that?

Well, probably because the "Oracle" stuff in IM2 was actually the real-life Oracle Software, who had a tie-in product-placement deal with the film. Oops.

So... a giant monster in "The Avengers?" Maybe, would be awesome. Loki and Namor leading an Atlantean army in "The Avengers?" also awesome, but probably not going to happen - and definitely not because a real-life software company has the same name as a made-up company at one point related to a character that Marvel Studios may not currently own the movie-rights to.

Sure would be something, though...

KY Gently Glides Into The Culture War

Via Jezebel

KY Intense brand sexual-lubricant - currently locked in a bitter battle with Cialis/Viagra/etc. over who can make the most hillariously wink-wink-y commercial hawking their products without being able to say upfront what it actually DOES - has been running a campaign for a few years now on the same basic formula: An adorably-everyday couple quirkily talk up the product, cut to goofy visual-pun for orgasm, cut back to messed-up bedsheets. Ho ho.

Well, now the campaign is branching out; with a new installment that features - *gasp!* - a female/female pair. You're shocked, I can tell. Have a look at what the "family-values" asshole in your life will be railing about this week after the jump:

Escape to The Movies: "Sight Unseen"

You still get a new episode even though none of the big new movies this weekend were shown to critics. That's how committed me is to stuffs.

Intermission offers "Ten Movies That Will Never Be."

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : The Unseen