'Junior 2: Paternity Suit'

Good luck blaming this one on DeVito, ya jackwagon.

You Know Who Hates Good Actors? Mortality.

That sumbitch just took from us Pete Postlethwaite--the spelling of whose surname I memorized after seeing In the Name of the Father in 1993 and haven't forgotten since.

Metroville's Movie Corner: Did I or Did I Not See 'Inception'?

I did.

No, I didn't.

Or did I?

Never mind that. What matters is that you think Christopher Nolan is a self-important douchebag--

Or is he?

Yes, he is.

What? No. How dare you.

Or don't I dare you?

What else were you going to do this weekend--clip your toenails while chasing down the deadbeats in your fantasy World Cup Soccer league?

Just go see Inception and forget about all that.

But also don't forget about any of it, ever.

Or do.

Corey Haim Is Dead

Now let us all 1980s'-nostalgia-fueled hipsters commence pretending that we didn't see this coming ten years ago nor were we making jokes about it.

Time in a Bottle (of CoCo Butter)

THR, Esq. has torn away any lingering threads of legitimacy from NBC's attempts to paint Conan O'Brien as the bad guy in the 'Tonight Show' fiasco (or at least I think they have; legalese makes me sleepy): despite the network's previous claims to the contrary, O'Brien's original contract specified that his program was to air at 11:35.

[THR via Movieline]

The Blindest Side

Say what you will about Jay Leno, you can't say the guy isn't blessed by good timing (scheduling timing, that is).

The man who lucked out by booking Hugh Grant on "The Tonight Show" following the latter's solicitation arrest in 1995--which forever turned the tide in the Leno-vs.-Letterman ratings battle--and scored Kanye West on the premiere episode of "The Jay Leno Show" the day after West's ass-bananas Taylor Swift-usurping at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards has today completed somewhat of a hat trick:

On the very day that Conan O'Brien proved himself the bigger man by rejecting NBC's offer to remain the host of a bumped-to-12:05 version of "The Tonight Show" that would've accommodated Leno's merciless, self-serving quest to return to the 11:30 slot, who happens to be the lead guest on the canceled "Jay Leno Show"?

None other than Sandra Bullock, who is currently receiving acclaim for starring in a movie that made a lot of money for numbing NASCAR fans to their vague awareness of their own latent racism. Just as Leno used to be funny, Bullock once starred in Speed (which kicks ass).

Conan O'Brien Schools Jay Leno in Dignity; Comedy To Continue To Suffer as Result

Jay Leno hasn't been funny on television since he snookered the "Tonight Show" gig out from under the heels of the vastly-more-deserving David Letterman in 1992. In the years hence, Letterman has continued to rock-the-party hard (perchance a little too hard?) while Leno has stripped away every last piece of himself that used to be funny in order to cater to the George W. Bush-fetishizing, teabagging middle-Americans (who hate that goddamn nigger president SO MUCH--but not 'cause he's a nigger but 'cause he's whatever Glenn Beck says he is on the magic talkin' box) that've kept him chin-deep in vintage automobiles.

Leno chose to retire from "The Tonight Show" in 2009--a decision that he had announced five years in advance. When the moment arrived to hand the mantle to O'Brien, Leno--in all his narcissism--balked, making a deal with NBC for a new nightly show that would air before O'Brien. Now that "The Jay Leno Show" has spectacularly (and predictably) failed and with NBC proposing to keep both Leno and O'Brien via a Slap Chop bastardization of "The Tonight Show", Leno has one move to make if he has any modicum of decency and/or respect for his predecessors, his anointed successor, and the art of comedy as a whole--and that move is to actually retire.

So of course, he's not doing that, and Conan O'Brien is leaving NBC.

May Conan find a new show on Fox and crush Leno in the ratings.

[NYT via Movieline]

[UPDATE: In addition to my just being mean about Jay Leno, allow me to supplement it with some more nuanced thoughts from a top-shelf comedian (play the audio at the bottom of the linked page).]

Tabloid Culture Sneaks In a Late-Year Victory

Regarding Brittany Murphy's death on Sunday, Courtney Hazlett of MSNBC.com's "The Scoop" made sure to mention that "there are speculative rumors of the usual Hollywood chemical abuse beginning to circulate".

Go get 'em, Courtney! You know all about these "Hollywood" people off of whose lives (and deaths) you make your living by blindly judging. They're the ones keeping you from your true calling of...

What, exactly? The Traveling Ass-Clown Circus? I'm not sure that's a real thing.

Unsolicited Reflections of Jake Busey

Gary Busey died today.*

*(NO, HE DID NOT. I just figured that would be more of a "grabber" opening for a post about that very much (?) alive man's offspring than the actual truth that a twitpic made me think of said spawn.)

Somewhere between ten and two hundred years ago, I lived out in Santa Monica (California...near the ocean). A stone's throw (literally--my roommates and I even had a girl do it one time) from my apartment stood a "Vons" grocery store on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Euclid Avenue that I visited regularly. One sunny summer afternoon, I found myself walking into that Vons at the very same moment that a gentleman and his lady-friend were walking out. I stepped aside to let them pass...at which point I all but shit my pants:

That "gentleman" was no gentleman! He was the guy who had tried to kill my beloved Michael J. Fox (and, slightly more recently, my appreciated Jodie Foster)!

But I let him go, anyway, 'cause he was super-scary.


Wonder what he's up to these days.

[Twitter]

World News for the Narcissistic American

People are leaving Venice, and nobody knows why.

I used to live out near Venice--before I moved back east into West Hollywood--so I am uniquely equipped to offer a theory:

Homeless people. They smell, and they make me feel bad for owning a dope-ass flat screen.

If the people of Venice kick enough homeless people out in time, they--in turn--will not be forced to relocate...thus retaining their homes (and, resultantly, their balls-to-the-wall home entertainment systems outputting at HD-1080p).

In which case...you're welcome, America.

Metroville's Movie Corner: Decipher the Dialogue in the Bootleg 'Expendables' Trailer

I count 23 instances of attempts at spoken English in the bootleg trailer for The Expendables (seen below); following it are my results at translating them, sorted chronologically, along with my best guesses as to what actor is responsible.



(1) "Drop your guns!" - PASS/Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje?

(2) "Fat chance." - Transporter

(3) "whydooyooinssablamma." - Sylvester Stallone

(4) "I kill them ALL! I don't CARE!" - PASS/Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje?

(5) "wunsekkin..." - Sylvester Stallone

(6) "Gettin' a text." - Transporter 2

(7) "skyoodamee?" - Sylvester Stallone

(8) "North thing flower... AH! BLAH!" - PASS/Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje?

(9) "Shift it no!" - PASS/Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje?

(10) "How did two obvious professionals pass right through security?" - Julia Roberts' brother

(11) "Makes we one of 'em." - Dolph Lundgren (aka "Sacrilegious He-Man")

(12) "Bring it, happy feet!" - Sacrilegious He-Man [Ed. note: Hey, I guess he and Sylvester Stallone stayed friends even though he killed Rocky's black friend]

(14) "OF ALL KARMA!" - Sacrilegious He-Man

(15) "Again...the man's name." - The Cable Guy's Eric Roberts

(16) "You are done here!" - PASS [Ed. note: This guy sounds like the guy I thought was (but probably isn't) Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje; ironically, he resembles one of Akinnuoye-Agbaje's fellow 'Oz' cast members, David Zayas]

(17) "I OWN YOU!" - Eric Roberts [Ed. note: He appeared in an episode of 'Oz' as "Richard L'Italien"]

(18) "Who sent you?" - PASS/'Stone Cold' Steve Austin?

(19) "Your hairdresser!" - Sylvester Stallone [Ed. note: If that IS 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin he's talking to, that's superhilarious 'cause 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin is bald]

(20) "We will kill dis American disease!" - PASS/David Zayas?

(21) "What's he sayin'?" - Transporter 3

(22) "He said 'we're dead', wid an accent." - PASS/Tyrese?

(23) "FOOD, DESTRUCTION, FORTUNAYO." - PASS/the bad guy from the Saw movies?

Can you do any better?

(If so, shame on you.)

[YouTube]

Nobody Rips Motherf**kers' Throats Out

...or at least they don't like Patrick Swayze--who succumbed to pancreatic cancer on Monday at the age of 57--did in Road House:










RIP, Dalton. (And, okay, also Johnny Castle and Point Break.)

They're Too Busy Singing to Put Any of Their Fraudulent Wives Down

Charge: $136,866 stolen by Micky Dolenz's wife in a housing scam.

Verdict: Whatever. The Monkees rule.

Samantha Baker Can't Believe They F**king Forgot Her Birthday; I Can't Believe John Hughes Is F**king Dead

And I have to suspect that I share that sentiment with anyone who grew up during the 1980s and cares at all about movies.

"Life moves pretty fast..." et cetera.



[YouTube]

Metroville's Movie Corner: Guess the Secret of 'Orphan's' Orphan

(a) She's a dude.

(b) She was dead the whole time.

(c) She's Macaulay Culkin.

Having seen Orphan, I can state with complete confidence that Esther's secret is one of the above or something else entirely.

You know what else I can state with complete confidence? That Katherine Heigl looks like Mr. Bill and hates women; that the computer-animated guinea pig you think is voiced by Flavor Flav is actually voiced by Tracy Morgan, which makes you a racist; and that Orphan (at the time of this posting) has a higher positive-rating total on Rotten Tomatoes than do The Ugly Truth and G-Force combined.

Also, anyone over the age of 17 who voluntarily goes to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a pedophile.

Can I Be a Dick for Two Seconds Regarding the Below Caption?

(1) No, you don't.

(2) Some people do.

To the video!

"You Can Have Your Money Back, Sure. But Wouldn't You Rather Have a Piece of Paper that Isn't Money?"*

*To paraphrase the ingenious plan of the promoters of the late Michael Jackson's never-to-be concert tour in their attempt not to eat 90 million dollars.

Cash4Gold, MC Hammer Held for Questioning in Ed McMahon Death

Yeah, no, they aren't. Plus, one of them is a website.

But Ed McMahon is dead...and that is sad.

The Matthew McConaughey/Kate Beckinsale/Gary Oldman Dwarf-Based Rom-Com You Might Have Missed

According to the trailer for the unreleased 2003 film Tiptoes, "when the going gets rough, it's only the size of your heart that counts."

This statement is only half true for stars Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale and (especially) Gary Oldman, who plays a freaking dwarf in the movie. From their perspective, probably the other thing that counts is your agent's ability to keep potential career-ending mistakes buried.

[YouTube]

John Furia, Jr. - 1929-2009

In terms of modern celebrity, there are two kinds of artists: those of widespread fame and those who are subjectively famous, known primarily to students of their particular field and/or work.

Screen and television writer John Furia, Jr., who passed away on Friday, falls firmly into the "subjective celebrity" category for me. Had I not the privilege to know the man personally as well as to be taught by him, it's likely that I wouldn't know his name.

But I did, so I do...and I will remain forever grateful.

Here's to you, Professor Furia.