Lizard overlords? This explains so much

I've liked Mike White ever since his days as a contributor to "Freaks and Geeks," and I had even more respect for him when he had the nerve to break with the Apatow Mafia just as they were about to become the new kings of comedy (even if I disagree with some of his reasons for doing so.)

White's beef with Apatow apparently began after the release of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." Like me and apparently not too many other people in the world, Mr. White thought the movie was a lot more mean than funny, especially in its treatment of women. But he didn't make it a public breach until the release of "Knocked Up," when he told the New York Times this:

"To me, I definitely stand in the corner of wanting to give voice to the bullied, and not the bully. Here's where comedy is catharsis for people who are picked on. There's a strain in Knocked Up where you sort of feel like something’s changed a little bit. My sense of it is that because those guys are idiosyncratic-looking, their perception is that they're still the underdogs. But there is something about the spirit of the thing, that comes under the guise of comedy, where — it's weird. At some point it starts feeling like comedy of the bullies, rather than the bullied."

I definitely got that same sense from "40-Year-Old Virgin," though not from "Knocked Up," but I rather longwindedly relate all that to tell you this: Mike White severely needs a new crowd, and now according to MTV he's found a great one.

For his latest script, White has gotten his revenge by teaming up with one of the few directors working today who's at least as funny as Apatow, Edgar Wright, for a truly insane project. They're apparently adaptating the rather wild conspiracy theories of British "free-thinker" (let's be real - that just means kook right?) David Icke into a “a paranoid conspiracy movie/comedy” called "Them."

And just what's at the heart of Mr. Icke's theories? Lizard overlords, of course. He apparently believes (as I frankly always suspected) that the world is actually controlled by extraterrestrial, shape-shifting reptiles who take the form of our world leaders (including W., of course.)

I'd probably bite on this if it were pitched by a no-name director, but from the minds behind "School of Rock," "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," I'm definitely in, and now have a new movie to obsess about way beyond anything that would be considered rational behavior. Read all about in the MTV movies blog here.


The Post gets "The Wire" scoop

In case anyone missed Monday's Washington Post, it has a great article on the front page about the end of "The Wire," for which reporter Teresa Wiltz was lucky enough to be on hand. It offers several tantalizing details about season five, starting with the fact that it will debut Jan. 6, on HBO of course.

Though the article is a bit heavy on the insistence that "The Wire" elevated television to art, that notion really is impossible to dispute. I've said before and I'll now repeat for anyone who doubts me: There has never been a better police show, and possibly no better show in any genre, in the history of TV. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but trust me, not by much at all.

Season five will center on the media, with Tom McCarthy (writer and director of the movie "The Station Agent") playing a morally challenged reporter. Knowing that they filmed on site at the Baltimore Sun, where "Wire" creator David Simon once pushed the limits like his fictional counterpart as a crime reporter, gives me hope that this last installment will be even better than all that's come before it (of which I've managed to see the first three seasons so far.)

Wiltz offers an insider's look at the shooting of the last scene and the wrap party in her article well worth reading here.

Going back to the movies

Not out of any organized boycott but simply because, well, the offerings have all looked pretty damn sucky, I haven't been to a new movie since my brother and I went to "Superbad" on its opening weekend. For me that's a pretty long dry stretch, but it's gonna end this weekend with two offerings I'm willing to bite on.

"3:10 to Yuma," a remake of the 1957 movie and based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, looks like a return to the old Westerns I love. I'm fairly confident that James Mangold, director of "Walk the Line," has crafted this version with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe into a winner, even though the early critics are pointing out he changed the ending to rather disastruous ends.

And then there's "Shoot 'Em Up." I see no way this won't just be tons of fun, especially after seeing this new clip at IESB.net of Clive Owen getting it on with la bella Monica Bellucci, and of course dispensing with the bad guys at the same time. Two new movies in one weekend? All hail the coming of Fall! Peace out.