Into the breach, meatbags! New, scab-free "Futurama" premieres tonight

You know, I've never even been remotely tempted to watch a Syfy movie, but the channel may have finally just found the formula to break down my resistance for about five minutes or so.

In a move that surely can only be hailed as evil genius, it has made the cast of its next movie, "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (because, I suppose, on Syfy it always has to be something vs. something), a real battle of the '80s pop divas, Tiffany vs. Debbie (apparently back from Deborah) Gibson. And yes, really.

Just in case the plot actually matters to anyone, here goes: Debbie "not Deborah" Gibson will play a fanatical animal-rights activist who frees illegally imported exotic snakes from pet stores, sending them into the Everglades, where they grow to mega sizes (natch). Tiffany will play an overzealous park ranger who uses dangerous methods to save endangered alligators. Then, of course, the pair brawl at a party, then take matters outside into the swamp.

That's really probably enough about that nonsense, but just for the record, I'll take Tiffany, just on general principle, and because her dance music career has brought her here to Macon twice in the last few years.

In other, hopefully more important, news, the signs are increasing that Cameron Crowe really will direct another movie and at least somewhat wipe the sour taste of "Elizabethtown" from my movie memory. It appears that Matt Damon is in negotiations to play the lead in "We Bought a Zoo," which would begin shooting in January for a Dec. 23, 2011, release.

So, what's the movie about? Well, it's based on a memoir by Benjamin Mee, who along with his family bought and moved into a dilapidated zoo housing 200 exotic animals in the English countryside (but not, as far as I know yet, either Debbie Gibson or Tiffany.) In all seriousness, though, I really hope this all does come together, because with "Almost Famous" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" the man has directed and written two of my favorite flicks, and he surely deserves another winner.

And speaking of another director I really like who's been on a bit of a losing streak lately, I finally got around to watching Fernando Meirelles' "Blindness" a few weeks ago, and man was that a bleak bit of business. Not entirely awful, but not too close to entertaining either. Anyone who bothered to read my list of the best 100 movies of the '00s (and I suppose there just might be one of you) knows, however, that Meirelles rather easily topped that list with his debut flick, "City of God," so any news of him working again is welcome in this corner of the world, especially when he joins forces with a first-rate screenwriter.

Meirelles and Peter Morgan (writer of "Frost/Nixon," "The Queen" and, best of all, "The Damned United" - do yourself a favor and watch that ode to futbol futility as soon as possible) are joining forces for the "mature" drama "360." It will be based on the 1900 Arthur Schnitzler play "La Ronde" (which I'm not going to claim I've actually read), which apparently examined "the sexual morality and class ideology of his day through a series of sexual encounters between pairs of characters.” Sounds like equally juicy and heady stuff, and I'd imagine they'll contemporize it for what should be anything but a boring flick. Stay tuned ...

OK, before I got distracted by all that, this was supposed to be about the rather miraculous return of "Futurama" with back-to-back new episodes on Comedy Central tonight at 10 p.m. After Fox's brief flirtation with firing the entire voice cast and replacing them with scabs, they were eventually shamed into backtracking and bringing everyone back, and everything I've read about the new episodes indicates they're just as fun and trippy as ever. Just in case you need a refresher on all things "Futurama," here's a 7-minute "Recap-O-Rama" clip hosted by legendary Captain Zapp (not Zaff, as an alert reader politely informed me) Brannigan to get you caught up. Tune in to "Futurama" tonight and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Recap-O-Rama: 5 Seasons in 7 Minutes
www.comedycentral.com
Futurama New Episodes Futurama New Episodes Ugly Americans

Opening today, the best movie almost no one in America will get to see

If you'll allow me to vent a little bit, easily one of my favorite books of all time, "The Damned Utd," has been made into a movie (with the final word stretched out to United), but I now find it's opening today, but not ANYWHERE near me.

I checked Access Atlanta just in case an hour drive would deliver it to me. Nope. I checked the movie release schedule to see if it's ever slated to play wider than L.A. and N.Y. As far as I can tell, nope. Sheesh.

If you've never heard of this book, I really can't recommend it highly enough, whether you are a soccer fan or not (and don't even get me started on just how we're getting screwed with Saturday's U.S.-Honduras World Cup qualifier.) The piece of historical fiction by David Peace gets inside the mind of football manager Brian Clough for the ill-fated 44 days he led Leeds United, a team he admits he hates even as he takes the helm.

Though the Clough family has taken issue with both the book and movie, Peace's work is a fascinating psychological portrait, and it keeps up a brisk pace as it jumps back and forth between Leeds and Clough's earlier triumph at Derby County. And just in case you're reading this and do happen to live in a place lucky enough to get this flick, here's a little more incentive: It stars Michael Sheen as the manic Mr. Clough and features a screenplay from Peter Morgan, writer of "The Queen" and other works.

For the rest of us, I suppose it's just "Couples Retreat," but I can't imagine there's any chance you'll catch me anywhere near that one. It's more than a little depressing that something that looks so stupid was written by Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, making it, I suppose, their "follow-up"-of-sorts to "Swingers." Oh well. I'm sure they all had fun filming this in Bora Bora or wherever with Ralphie from "A Christmas Story," and as for me, I think I'll take the chance to catch up with Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying" before it surely leaves theaters after this week.

And, since at least my Friday is a little better with a little "Damned United," here's a four-minute-or-so clip from the flick of Brian Clough's first day on the job at Leeds. Enjoy, and catch this if you can. Peace out.

When's the last time you saw a great baseball movie?

Well, I actually saw "For Love of the Game" just the other day on DVD, and as sappy it is that one still just gets me every time, but I'm talking about a new-to-theaters, bona fide baseball movie.

I couldn't remember one for several years now, but "Half Nelson" creators Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden have one (very long) in the works that sounds just about perfect.

First premiering at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, their flick "Sugar" follows the fictional saga of Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a Dominican pitcher who comes up through a baseball academy in San Pedro de Macoris and gets a shot to test his talents in America. Though there have been occasional movies about minor league baseball ("Bull Durham" the most famous, of course), this is the first one I can think of that addresses the Dominican pipeline.

This is apparently going to finally get some kind of American release in April, but I'll probably have to catch it on DVD. Enjoy the trailer.



When it comes to sports movies, the only ones I like more than baseball flicks are ones about soccer. Heck, I even like the corny "Goal" series, which so far has followed Mexican immigrant Santiago Munez to Newcastle United and then to Real Madrid and - in the chapter I haven't seen yet - eventually to the 2006 World Cup.

There are much better soccer movies than those, of course, and the one I found a trailer for at the froggy film site Cinempire.com looks like a real winner.

Starring Michael Sheen (and therefore by law, apparently, written by Peter Morgan, from a novel I now have to read by David Peace), "The Damned United" tells the story of very successful English football manager Brian Clough at his most unsuccessful point. Hired to coach Leeds United in 1974, Clough only managed to last 44 days, in which he managed to win only one out of six games and alienate just about everyone associated with the club.

This one is listed as coming out in March in the UK, and hopefully it will sometime after that play wide enough to even reach my little corner of the world. Anyways, here's the very enjoyable trailer. Have a great rest of the weekend.

"Frost/Nixon" review

Say hello, good evening and welcome to one of the greatest political movies ever.

That bit of glorious hyperbole doesn't come from me, of course, but from the British tabloid The Sun. My sentiment would be, this was a pretty darn entertaining flick, but I really wish I could have seen the play.

The first question I always ask when I see a movie that's taken directly from the stage is, "did it gain anything in the transfer"? In this case, I'd say a conditional yes, with the big minus that it also adds one very unnecessary distraction.

Either at the urging of director Ron Howard or from the mind of playwright and screen writer Peter Morgan (I have no way of knowing which, frankly), the movie adds to the main dynamic of the buildup, actual showdown and aftermath of David Frost's interview with by then ex-President Richard Nixon a series of documentary-style, cut-in interviews with the other supporting players that only manages to take us out of the main story without adding any real insight or entertainment value.

Morgan, as he did with "The Queen" and his almost-as-good TV movie about Labor Party politics, "The Deal," is best at creating living history, and more specifically filling in the intimate details in the dynamic between historical figures who are much more alike than they originally know. Adding the mockumentary touches only dilutes the fact that he's written another whip-smart screenplay and handed it over to two first-rate actors, here as on stage, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella.

Sheen excels at playing characters, as he did with Tony Blair in both "The Queen" and "The Deal," who are in need of constant attention, seemingly aware of their own talents but still needing to have them reinforced time and time again. He captures perfectly just how insecure Frost was going into the Nixon interview (which he now claims cost $37 million pounds!), and the play's/movie's biggest strength is in naturally bringing out just how much Langella's Nixon felt the same way.

Mr. Langella has received a Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of Nixon, and it's well-deserved. It's no mean feat that he manages to make us almost feel sorry for Nixon without hedging one bit on the traits that brought about his fall from grace. Unlike Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of the former president in Oliver Stone's "Nixon," which I found far too often to be a caricature, you never see Langella as anything but Nixon's big ball of vanity, arrogance (of course) and, surprisingly, loneliness. It's that last trait that makes the final act of "Frost/Nixon" the best one, a quiet moment when Frost and Nixon meet several months later at Nixon's compound, La Casa Pacifica.

Which isn't saying that the pre-game action and the showdown itself lack the appropriate dramatic tension. Langella and Sheen (and, of course, Morgan) give their exchanges a wicked humor, but almost as much credit here should go to the uniformly solid supporting cast.

Similarly to "Man on Wire" (a better 2008 movie that, sort of, actually is a documentary), Morgan and Howard set up the staging of the interview as much as a heist than as any attempt at actual journalism. And any heist needs a solid slate of co-conspirators on either side, led here on the left by Sam Rockwell as Nixon antagoniste James Reston Jr. and on the right by Kevin Bacon as Nixon's post-White House chief of staff, Jack Brennan. They get the meatiest supporting parts because their convictions set up the main conflict at the movie's core, getting the truth vs. hiding it all costs, and they both just run with it. Toby Jones is (as usual) just a hoot as Nixon's "literary agent" Irving "Swifty" Lazar, and though I always like to see Rebecca Hall, she's given little to do here as Frost's girlfriend, Caroline Cushing.

In the end, I'd say Ron Howard's movie would have been great rather than very good if, like the superior "Doubt," it had had the courage to trust the inherent strength of its source work. As it is, it is indeed a nearly first-rate bit of political theater, but not for me in the category of Best Picture. If I had a vote, which so far exists only in my mind, I'd give that final slot to Darren Aronofsky for "The Wrestler" or Guillaume Canet for "Tell No One."

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do my cooking for the week and then see Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married," which I'm really looking forward to. Peace out.