Raimi's trip to "Hell" is a thoroughly disgusting delight

Going in to the great movie showdown that this weekend promised, I had two questions: Which movie would I prefer, Pixar's "Up" or Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," and how in the world did Raimi's movie end up with less than a R rating?

Well, after having seen them both, I can definitively answer the first query: While I liked and more so admired "Up," Raimi's return to horror is the most fun I've had at the movies this year (edging out by a nose "Star Trek.")

As to the second, however, I still have no idea, because as any fans of "Evil Dead" would have been hoping, this flick is as juvenilely, eerily and blissfully disgusting as you could possibly expect. And give Raimi credit: With the most dead-on descriptive movie title since "Snakes on a Plane," there really shouldn't be anyone who goes into this one expecting anything less.

I'm not sure why, since they are such a natural combo, but humor and horror have been a very difficult concoction to blend in satisfying form in recent years. James Gunn did a fine job with "Slither" (did anyone else see that?) and Edgar Wright and co. do even better, but with both of these the laughs come first, whereas Raimi at his best, which he very nearly is here, delivers classic horror and finds the dark laughs within it. A litmus test: If seeing Alison Lohman stalk her pet with a kitchen knife as she coos "here kitty kitty" doesn't make you laugh, this movie isn't for you.

The movie opens with a great set piece that establishes immediately (in case the title left you with any doubt) what you're in store for. Two Hispanic parents take their cursed child to a healer of sorts. It seems the youngun has stolen a gypsy's necklace, never something I'd recommend, and, well, as you can probably imagine he doesn't fare too well from there.

It seems that the gypsies aren't a group of people you want to cross, and I have to confess that on a B-movie horror level, that just works for me. I think of myself as a solidly nonracist person, but if there's a chink in that armor, gypsies are it, because I once tried to sleep on a Eurorail train and had no less than four gypsy urchins come into my car and try to steal all of my belongings. Does that mean all gypsies are evil? Of course not. But it does, if suspending my nagging sensibilities, make me very susceptible to believing for about 90 minutes or so that they would be capable of unleashing something as nasty as the Lamia curse which, believe me, you don't want to get.

In Raimi's world, the star is Christine Brown, a very game Alison Lohman. Young Ellen Page was originally set to submit herself to this hell, but either chickened out (which I'd perfectly understand) or simply passed. What Lohman, who I had never seen in a movie before (but heard in "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind") brings to this schlockfest, along with a willingness to go through all kind of nastiness, is a nagging optimism that although you suspect is woefully misplaced, is enough to keep you playing Raimi's game until the end.

Her big mistake? Lohman's Christine, an ambitious bank loan officer (is there a more evil sort in the real world?), turns down an old lady for a third extension on her mortgage. And as anyone who knows even a bit about this flick knows, this was the wrong woman to piss off (and Lorna Raver, complete with an evil eye and secreting all kinds of squirm-inducing fluids even while she's still alive, is just the perfect choice.) From there, well, even if you think you know what's gonna happen, it's still a hell of a lot of fun going along for the ride.

And going in, I was fairly certain that funny guy and Mac pimper Justin Long was going to annoy me, but luckily he really doesn't have much to do here as Christine's supporting boyfriend (but his character's parents, played by Chelcie Ross and Molly Cheek, get the funniest scene of all, no small feat here.) What you need if you're gonna dine on this cheese buffet is someone who can lead you and Christine along, and Dileep Rao as psychic and all-around dark arts sensei Rham Jas certainly gets the job done. I don't want to give much else away, but Adriana Barraza is easily one of my favorite actresses (I even liked her quite a bit in the Jesus-wall-stain oddity "Henry Poole Is Here"), and when she turns up near the end of this flick (if you haven't walked out in disgust already) I guarantee you'll smile.

Raimi wraps it all up with an ending that's among his best, but what really makes this whole exercise so much fun is that, as with Raimi's "A Simple Plan," Christine, even as she makes mistake after mistake and suffers the requisite plagues for her misdeeds, is someone who - although more than a little greedy - we can easily all identify with.

In short, I loved just about every minute of Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," and though it's not enough to erase the nightmare that was "Spider-Man 3" from my memory (really, nothing would be, because it truly was just that bad), it certainly shows Raimi's still capable of having a blast of wicked fun, and raises hopes that Spidey's fourth installment won't just suck hard. Peace out.

Friday morning links

Actually, the best news out there is that, with a revamped starting pitching staff and the best outfield in the American League, the Baltimore Orioles are now 6-1 in their last seven games. And, even better, supercatcher Matt Wieters finally makes his debut tonight against the Detroit Tigers.

With all this coming together, I can even see a .500 finish - poetically known in this corner as the "Run for 81" - in sight. Hey, one can dream, right?

And I'm almost as excited about the fact that this is clearly the best movie weekend of the year, even if it doesn't include Rian Johnson's "The Brothers Bloom." Because of my 10-10-10-5-5 (crazy, I know) schedule, I should be off of work by 4:30 or so today, and I'm gonna try and check out a screening of "Up!" for my supper.

I've been just as happy, though, to see that Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" has fared almost as well with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes - 98% for "Up" to 95% for "Drag Me to Hell" (actually, I looked through the six pages of reviews at RT to find the one splat for "Up" but couldn't find any ... I think they're just making it up.) It's clear that Sam Raimi is having fun again, and that we will too. For a great Raimi profile from the New York Times, click here (and the correction about the print headline is a hoot too ... that one had me scratching my head.)

But beyond that, here today it's about two sites I found recently that offer a little Friday morning time-wasting, the first way better than the second.

Anyone who's been here before knows that if there's a single upcoming movie I'm most obsessed with for the rest of this year, it would have to be Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are," and that really has nothing to do with all the ridiculous hoops that Warner Brothers has made Jonze and his crew jump through just to get it released.

From everything I've seen so far, they've managed to take my favorite childhood story and bring it to life with all its wild spirit intact. We won't get to see the final product until sometime in October, I believe, but just the trailers featuring that great Arcade Fire song "Wake Up" have been enough to get me thoroughly jazzed for this.

And now, the folks who are putting this together have started (well, it actually may have been going for sometime now already) a blog of sorts that's loosely about the movie, but moreso just about random thoughts that are always at least mildly diverting. The site, We Love You So, is well worth checking out, if for no other reason than right now, if you scroll down far enough, it contains a photo of a "Where the Wild Things Are" bento box. Yes, really.

Today's second site may simply be a bit of "viral marketing," but for that it is at least pretty clever. Judd Apatow's "Funny People," set to come out at the end of July, is certainly one of the summer movies I'm amped for, even if it seems like they did give away the entire plot in the trailer.

Though the main stars are Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen, the movie also features Eric Bana, Jonah Hill and a host of other hopefully "Funny People," including Jason Schwartzman, who this latest gimmick site is about.

His character in the movie, Mark Taylor, has a sitcom (or at least a pilot) on NBC called "Yo! Teach," so of course NBC has made a site devoted to it. The good news is that the three-minute-or-so clip on the first page is a pretty dead-on skewering of teacher sitcoms, and yes, that is indeed Roger from "What's Happening!!". Click here to check it out.

And, though I'm sure no one needs any incentive to go see "Up," I'll leave you with this clip introducing Doug the talking dog. Although "Ratatouille" will always be my favorite Pixar flick, I have a feeling this one will be right up there with "The Incredibles" competing for second place. Peace out.

Just how much did ABC hate "Pushing Daisies," and when can we see it end?

It really pains me to even write that headline, but given what they're doing to the last three episodes of Bryan Fuller's prime-time fairy tale, I'd have to imagine it's a valid question. Oh well. I guess we should just be happy we're getting to see these on TV at all.

And if you hate "Pushing Daisies," what do you really hate? Whimsy? Creativity? If so, I can only really feel sorry for you. Anyways, since ABC has given the show's former Wednesday night slot to footage of people falling down (unless I'm wrong and "Wipeout" is actually about something a whole lot more enlightening than that), when will be able to see the last three episodes?

Well, it seems ABC has created a graveyard of sorts for this summer, at 10 p.m. Saturdays. Beginning this week, May 30, the final three episodes will air in order, followed by the remains of two other dead ABC shows, "Eli Stone" and then "Dirty Sexy Money."

A rather ignominious end for a show that probably never much of a chance. Peace out.

Mottola, Pegg and Frost assembling A-list comedy

After the pure disaster that was Mitch Hurwitz's "Sit Down, Shut Up" (though out of loyalty, I did watch every episode that made it to air, hoping against all evidence that it would somehow get better ... it didn't), I could certainly use a smart and funny animated offering for my summer viewing slate. And I have a feeling Mike Judge has just the right thing with "The Goode Family," coming to ABC at 9 tonight.

According to Variety: What "King of the Hill" did for Texas rednecks, Mike Judge and crew accomplish with Prius-driving tree-huggers in "The Goode Family" -- a smart, wryly funny animated comedy that's going to need a strong word-of-mouth campaign to flourish.

Sounds great to me, and it also features wannabe freak Lindsay Weir, a k a Linda Cardellini, so I'm definitely in.

But the coolest news I saw this morning is about what Greg Mottola, who's quickly becoming one of my favorite directors, is cooking up starting very soon.

But first a look at his track record. As for this year, I'd say there have already been a surprising amount of good-to-great movies, with my list so far being: "Coraline," "The International," "Watchmen," "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail," "Duplicity," "Sin Nombre," "Moon" and "Tyson," with the best two of all being "Star Trek" and Mottola's "Adventureland." Though it thoroughly tanked at the box office, that flick starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and a very funny Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig was just a real charmer that moved at a naturally entertaining pace.

And before that, of course, he made for my money the best comedy of 2007 with "Superbad." I just watched that one again with that instant "play" feature on Netflix (man, is that addictive), and I have to say the B story about the cops played by Hader and Seth Rogen, which I initially thought was the far weaker of the two, has really grown on me. And, coincidentally enough given what's to follow here, I'm now waiting for "Spaced," starring Simon Pegg, to arrive in my Netflix mail, hopefully today.

Now to finally get to the main course, Mottola is next directing veryfunnyguys Pegg and Nick Frost in something called "Paul," from a Pegg/Frost script. The road trip flick is about two British geeks (Pegg and Frost, natch) who set out on a road trip from Comic Con to Area 51 and manage to encounter an actual alien named "Paul." And the flick, set to start shooting in June, is quickly attracting an A-list cast.

Rogen will provide the voice of Paul, and he'll be joined by Wiig, Hader, Jason Bateman and the seemingly ubiquitous Jane Lynch. As I said earlier, Mottola is rapidly becoming one of my favorites, and with this crew I don't see how this can be anything but extremely funny, so keep your eyes on it. And with that, I have to get ready for the job that still actually pays me a little scratch each week. Peace out.

" If the apocalypse comes, beep me": Well, for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fans, its here

Buffy: I wish we could be regular kids.
Angel: Yeah. I'll never be a kid.
Buffy: Okay, then a regular kid and her cradle-robbing, creature-of-the-night boyfriend.

Wow. I had an inkling that "Terminator Salvation" would get housed at the weekend box office by the family-friendly "Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian," but this is just downright embarrassing.

It's almost like the makers of the latter issued a dare-bet: "We'll give you an extra day, and I bet we can still beat you handily," because that's exactly what happened. Over the three days they were in direct competition, "Museum" took in about $70 million at the U.S. box office, while McG's flick netted only a truly paltry $53 million; add in his extra day numbers from Thursday, and he still lands in second place with about $67 million.

A sad saga indeed, but as a lead-in to the simply insidious tale that's about to unfold here, it's also quite cautionary. Because while for my money McG made a serviceable and even entertaining summer flick, he really didn't bother to absorb much of the Terminator mythos before he simply starting blowing things up (which, of course, certainly his its own entertainment value.) Had he studied just a bit more, his movie might have been embraced the way "Star Trek" has been by the franchise's fans and just about everyone else in the world (well, probably not, but it at least could have beat a movie with Ben Stiller getting slapped by two monkeys - you see, it's a sequel.)

And I really have tried to give up on ranting about remakes because it's just come to seem like a tremendous waste of energy. You wanna make English remakes of my two favorite movies of 2008 - "Let the Right One In" and "Tell No One"? Fair enough. I'll simply ignore them. But a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie without Joss Whedon? Well, as Buffy herself might say, that's just a whole new level of suck.

So, what exactly are these jokers up to? Well, initially Whedon and since some very talented comic book artists have been continuing the "Buffy" saga in fine form in funny books. With Jane Espenson taking over the writing duties for the issues coming in July, and with Oz returning to the story to help battle the current Big Bad, Twilight (no, I'm not making that up, and it's insanely funny), I'm certainly in for the fifth volume of "season eight."

And just writing about those characters points out all that's wrong with the drive to create a "Buffy" movie that surfaced in the Hollywood Reporter this morning. It seems that Fran Rubel Kuzui, who to give credit where its due both directed the first "Buffy" movie and wisely brought Joss Whedon along to create the rather famous TV show that followed it, has held on to the rights all this time. And now it seems she's just completely lost her mind.

To finally get to the point, with Vertigo Entertainment but without Joss Whedon, she's gotten it into her head to make a "remake or relaunch" of the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" story for the big screen. If you'll excuse me for a second, I just threw up a bit in my mouth.

What in the world is "Buffy" without the writing that made it so funny and sometimes magical from week to week? Well, she's just a girl who fights vampires, which in the wrong hands could add up to simply a big ball of meh. And, just to ensure that when this finally comes together, it will be one of the most hated movies of all time along with being a box office Hindenburg, THR reports the movie will have "no connection" to the TV series, meaning it wouldn't use "popular supporting characters like Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike" (no Spike? sheesh.)

This was pitched at THR as similar to what Abrams did with "Star Trek," but I don't see how that could be more wrong. As anyone who's seen his flick by now (and, I'll admit, I've seen it twice already) knows, he made it work because he not only brought along all of the "supporting characters" in the Enterprise crew but also created a brave new world for them to inhabit. Kuzui, however, is instead apparently just trying to pretend the "Buffy" TV show and its creator didn't exist, and is therefore headed for nothing but disaster.

OK, that's enough for today about a movie that may not ever even happen. But how much do I love the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" TV show? I think the show's best couple put it best, so I'll leave it to them.

Drusilla: Do you love my insides? The parts you can't see?
Spike: Eyeballs to entrails, my sweet.

'Nuff said.

A glimpse of Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's "Imaginarium"

It's the height of laziness, I know, but for a Sunday morning you'll have to excuse me, because all I have is this fairly tantalizing clip of Heath Ledger in "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus."

I believe it comes from Swedish TV, but some resourceful person was kind enough to cut off all the Swedish intro and just get to the clip. From what I've read about how Terry Gilliam's film has been received at Cannes, I don't believe it yet has a buyer that will get it any kind of proper distribution in the U.S. or anywhere else.

A real shame that, because while I'm sure it will be extremely odd, I'm still betting on entertaining too (unlike Gilliam's last flaming bag of crap, "Tideland.") Anyways, enjoy the clip and what's left of your weekend.

OK, "Chuck" is back, but what will it look like? Some answers

I know I write about "Chuck" an awful lot at this site, but if I don't write about things that interest me, why bother at all? I could instead wax euphoric about how the Orioles managed to pull out a 12-inning victory last night over the lowly Nats, but I can't imagine anyone would want to read that.

So, now that "Chuck" has gotten its 13-episode renewal, albeit not until January, the real question now is what will it look like now that its budget has been cut. My friend Cory Sekine-Pettite is the only person I've encountered so far to speculate that they might write out Adam Baldwin's Casey, which would just be suicide. My own fear, especially since they sort of gave Morgan an out and definitely gave Chuck an evolving set of super skills, was that they would simply write out the Buy More.

Well, thanks to a heads-up from another good friend of mine, Stephanie Hartley (who's also sort of my boss), we now have some answers via Michael Ausiello and the mastermind of "Chuck" himself, Josh Schwartz. You can read all of Ausiello's interview here, but below are some of the highlights, and it's mostly good news.

First of all, viva the Buy More? Yes: We might have certain episodes where Chuck's mission is such that we don't get the opportunity to go to the Buy More [as much]. We love our cast and, obviously, we want to use them as much as possible in as many episodes as possible.

Will Casey be back? Of course: Chuck, Sarah, and Casey are in all episodes.

Perhaps the biggest question, however, revolves around Zachary Levi's new set of super skills, which of course in the finale debuted as some snazzy Kung Fu, and whether or not they will change his character in any fundamental way. Schwartz says no:

And I think for anyone who is concerned that he's no longer going to be the Everyman, or an accidental hero, fear not.

Like I said, that all mostly sounds like good news to me, so now we just have to wait until January or so to see how it all turns out. As Liz Lemon would say, Nards! And if you'll excuse me now, I'm going to clean my house and then go have my senses (and hopefully funny bone too) assaulted by "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian." Peace out.

Well, McG's "Terminator" certainly doesn't suck ...

Before I dive into McG's take on "Terminator," I suppose the big news of the day is the return of Michael Moore, and this certainly seems to be a time that's ripe for his input.

Now, I've always had a lot of time for Michael Moore, and I'm glad he's still making noise (and documentaries), but I really just didn't care for "Sicko" at all. Watching him gallivant around Europe, Canada and finally Cuba just felt like such a stunt, and more importantly a missed opportunity to properly analyze the catastrophe that is health care in America.

But I've enjoyed all his other movies quite a bit, and I'm glad he's about to come back and tackle a subject he's rather familiar with: Capitalism and the American economy (I don't want to spoil anything here, but I don't think he's gonna be a terribly big fan.)

Due to drop Oct. 2, his as-yet-untitled flick "will explore the root causes of the global economic meltdown and take a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as 'the biggest robbery in the history of this country' – the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions."

The press release notes that year is the 20th anniversary of "Roger & Me," and assuming that's true it just makes me feel really old, but I'm still glad Michael Moore is back to make me laugh and hopefully think at the same time.

But getting to the main event, I come today mostly to praise McG, not to bury him, and he could certainly use it; "Terminator Salvation" currently sits at 33% positive at Rotten Tomatoes, made much worse because that puts it even behind "Dance Flick" at 35% (Really? Amazing.)

I, however, had a pretty great time with it, which admittedly may have had a lot to do with the fact I was going to see a new movie on Thursday at 5 p.m., when much of the real world is still hard at work. It's certainly not, however, a great chapter that propels the "Terminator" saga forward in a really compelling way. In fact, the screen script that sets the scene (Skynet, Cyberdyne, 2018) reads pretty much like what I'd imagine the flash card they gave McG to familiarize himself with the "Terminator" universe would have read.

That said, he at least doesn't manage to crap all over the established mythology like, say, Brett Ratboy did with "X-3." He instead seemed to just embrace as much of the saga as he could understand and made his own often very fun movie.

So, what's it about? Well in the truly ludicrous opening sequence (which is rivaled for sheer stupidity only by the final five minutes or so), we meet Marcus Wright (a very good Sam Worthington), a death row inmate who signs his body over to "science" (which, in this case, means Cyberdyne, so you know he'll turn up later with a secret even he doesn't know about.) Meanwhile, flash forward and John Connor (Christian Bale, of course) is leading his followers in the resistance against Skynet, and Kyle Reese (remember that name?) and a young, mute companion make up the entirety of the resistance's L.A. branch.

And that's really all you need to know, because from there it pretty much just plays out as a chapter from the battle against Skynet and little else, but given the expectations that was good enough for me (were I a conspiracy theorist, I'd imagine McG might be engineering this expectations game W. style, but I really don't think he has that much power or cunning.) And, not surprisingly, the machines are indeed pretty friggin cool, especially one particularly menacing dude who shoots robotic motorcycles out of his feet, and I hope I never get too old to appreciate that.

The main beef I had heard going in is that Christian Bale delivers a performance as robotic as any of the machines, pretty much just barking orders through the whole thing, and that's true. I have to ask, however, given the way the part was written, what else was he supposed to do? And besides, though he clearly has a knack for picking movies that I and everyone else get thoroughly geeked up for, is he really all that good an actor overall? Although it pains me to say it, I'd say no.

As I said earlier, Worthington fares much better, and he's gonna be a big star very soon. Even better, though, is Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese. Yelchin, of course, has already played Chekhov in the far-superior "Star Trek," and he's now someone whose name I'll always take note of on movie posters and wherever else I might come across it.

And, finally, what of the humanity that made the first "Terminator" such a classic? Well, admittedly, there's not much of it here at all, but I really just don't think McG has it in him as a director to draw that out. The only other movie of his I've seen is "We Are Marshall," and oddly enough it left me with pretty much the exact same impression: A solidly told tale that would have been a lot more compelling with more of the human stakes thrown in.

The bottom line, however, is that if you show up five minutes late and leave five minutes early (because, trust me, those really are just about the two worst scenes you'll see in a movie this year) you'll get a better-than-average action flick that delivers a solid dose of summer fun, which on this day at least was more than enough to satisfy me.

And I'll leave with you this featurette for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which focuses on the relationship of Harry and Dumbledore. That's what made this installment my favorite of Rowling's novels about the boy wizard, and has me thinking this will also be the best of the Potter movies when it finally comes out July 15. Peace out.

All I want for my birthday is ...

Two simple things really, but I'm really afraid neither of them are going to happen.

First, I'd really like "Terminator Salvation" to not suck, but the reviews from both critics and people who actually just like watching movies are starting to quickly pile it up in the negative. At least they bothered to release it a couple of days early so I can go see it after work today.

For me, "Terminator" isn't just an iconic franchise. It's also the first time I really understood as a kid that "Rated R" wasn't just for sleazy movies. Granted, seeing Salisbury, Md., native Linda Hamilton all kinds of naked when you're 14 years old is certainly a bonus, but it was also just seriously smart sci-fi that earned the violence side of its "R" with style and purpose.

I have a growing suspicion that McG - who I have no real beef with up to this point - is just gonna blow that all away, but here's hoping against hope that I'm wrong.

And secondly, an Orioles victory over the damn Yankees, I'm afraid, is even more of a lost cause. I was hoping Tuesday night would lead to our second defeat of C.C. Sabathia this season, but in the seventh inning the game went from 2-1 to 9-1 in favor of the Yanks in what seemed like five seconds. And the less that's said about last night's game the better.

Actually, what I really want for my birthday is to see Matt Weiters in an Orioles uniform now, and to bring a bunch of those young arms with him to replace the bums we have now. Gregg Zaun is hitting well below the Mendoza line, which even Peter Angelos must recognize isn't terribly good, so the future is now! Peace out.

Three looks at QT's "Inglourious Basterds," and what have they done with "Friday Night Lights"?

You know, I suppose the "Chuck" fiasco has been settled about as well as we could have possibly expected, with the show returning to its same time slot for the winter midseason - and maybe getting a bit of a bump from following the Winter Olympics.

But buried in NBC's upfronts (or infronts, who knows?) was a surprising note regarding "Friday Night Lights." This year, TV's best drama (by far, in my book) returned to NBC's Friday lineup in January for those of who don't have DirecTV (Jeremy, always a friend to this blog, was kind enough to send me some episodes before they hit NBC - most grateful.)

Now, however, it's been pushed back to summer, so that NBC can air f-in "Southland" instead. I suppose I should be happy that's it's somehow already guaranteed to come back for two more 13-episode seasons, but the wait is just gonna truly be a bitch. In the meantime, the third season - easily the best yet - hits DVD this week, so if you haven't caught on, it's well worth a rental (which I've already put in my queue.)

This grownass man will freely admit that the show would make me almost cry at some point in just about each episode, and I would submit that the episode in which they bid goodbye to Smash (Gaius Charles) is the finest hour of television broadcast in the past year. What else can I say? It's the best thing on TV since "The Wire," so watch it already.

Here today, however, before I got distracted, it was supposed to be all about Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," which it seems he has not only actually finished but apparently also cut to just more than two hours. As I'm writing this, I believe it's already premiered at Cannes, so I suppose we'll get a lot of reaction in the coming days. Some goofball at the Hollywood Reporter (yes, I suppose that's just jealousy) panned it as just a "standard action movie," but you can still count me rather severely psyched to see this when it comes out for the rest of the world in August.

In the meantime, here are a couple of great time-wasters to give you a little taste. The first comes courtesy of CHUD, and for those who like the music QT puts in his movies (of which you can certainly count me one), the site has put together a listing of the songs that will appear on the "Inglourious Basterds" (I seem to spell that differently each time I type it, so maybe I should just stop correcting it) soundtrack, with many of the entries linking to YouTube or Quicktime clips that let you hear the songs. Instead of the usual feast of pop nuggets, this time it's a lot of Ennio Morricone and other film music, but there's still a few fun surprises thrown in. Click here to give it a listen.

Second, and even better, are three short clips courtesy of Trailer Addict. The only real problem I have with any of these is that the more I see of Brad Pitt, the more he just seems to have the most ridiculous accent. I think that's gonna only be a minor distraction, though. Anyways, enjoy the clips and have a perfectly passable Thursday. Peace out.