Yes, I really did go see Piranha 3D

And I even kind of liked it too. Far from anything approaching high or even low art, Alexandre Aja's movie is what so many others just claim to be: A genuine B movie, chock full of gore, nudity and, best of all, humor.

It's no surprise to me, then, that the movie not only did fairly well at the box office ($10 million in week one), but also that Dimension has already announced a follow-up. In spite of its many excesses (just as a word of warning, I'm certain I didn't have to see a robotic piranha belch up a severed penis - yes, it's often that silly and gross, too), it's a really fun ride, and I'm almost certain I'll climb on board again, especially since the ending leaves open the possibility of something really wild (I won't spoil it for you.)

I have, however, and probably shouldn't admit this, committed my first bit of thievery since I was 8 years old or so. Instead of "recycling" the 3D glasses this time, I just kept them, and plan to, the next time I give in and watch a movie in 3D, simply buy a ticket for a 2D release showing at nearly the same time, then just slip in to the 3D movie. Juvenile and crooked? Sure, but charging a $3.50 or so surcharge for each 3D movie is at least as criminal, and I'd argue much more so.

But enough about my latest petty scheme, since there's some other actual good movie news out there this week, starting with easily one of my favorite directors, the Japanese animation giant Hayao Miyazaki, who, thankfully, doesn't seem ready to slow down any time soon.

In an interview with the Japanese magazine Cut, thankfully translated by the Miyazaki-obsessed portal Nausicaa.net, he hinted that though he doesn't have any directing options in the immediate future, he does plan to hopefully produce a sequel of sorts to one of my favorite of his flicks, "Porco Rosso."

If you haven't seen that magical movie about a fighter pilot who's cursed to live his life as a pig (yes, really), it really is a delight, and here's some of what Miyazaki had to say about a sequel:

"So I want to escape to "Porco Rosso: The Last Sortie". I have all its materials."
"It should be interesting."
"It is set for Spanish Civil War."
"If next two films succeed and [studio president Toshio] Suzuki-san lets me make it (Porco) while saying, 'It cannot be helped because it's a hobby of the old man', I'm happy. It's my hobby."

The most beautiful animated movies around simply the "hobby of an old man"? You gotta love that, and a "Porco Rosso" sequel set in the Spanish Civil War? Sounds like its not yet a done deal, but I can only say bring it on.

And finally today, does anyone remember the original "Spy Kids" movie? Though Robert Rodriguez's movies lost more and more of the fun in its sequels, the first movie (starring Reel Fanatic fave Carla Gugino, among others) was a perfect little bit of escapist entertainment.

Well, Rodriguez, never one to tire of an idea quickly, has now decided to launch a reboot of sorts of the "Spy Kids" franchise, this time with Jessica Alba sort of in the role started by Gugino.

This time out, Alba will play a retired spy who has been reactivated. Her character is the mother of a baby and two preteen stepchildren. This will, of course, mean casting new "Spy Kids," since the originals, Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara, are surely too old by now. The only other thing that's known so far is that the villain is known as the Time Keeper, whose goal it is to stop time.

That last bit, at least, gives me hope that this will return the series to its roots, which would be a fun turn. And Alba, of course, stars in Rodriguez's "Machete," which will cut a bloody swath through theaters beginning Sept. 3.

It's just about time for me to go to the job that still pays my bills, but I'll leave you with a clip from another movie opening that week, Anton Corbijn's "The American," starring one George Clooney. With its retro look and feel, the tale of a hitman trying to retire is one I'm certainly excited to see. Enjoy the clip, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.

Exactly the right man to play Fela on the big screen, and a welcome visit from exactly the wrong Mexican

At the same time that the Broadway musical "Fela!" has received 11 Tony nominations, Focus Features has announced even better news about who will play the Afrobeat legend in a long overdue biopic - and it's easily the perfect choice.

First, as for the musical, which I had the pleasure of seeing last winter, it would be a worthy winner in any category, but especially for the dynamic performance of Sahr Ngaujah as the man himself. I was ready for the show's first half, more than a bit too heavy on audience engagement for my liking, to end, but it just gets better and better in act two as the story of Fela Kuti just gets crazier and crazier.

And if you're unfamiliar with his saga, it's a truly unique one. Along with creating a mad musical style that fused jazz, funk, West African drums and often 27-minute-or-so-long songs, he also drove the Nigerian government mad to the point that they ... well, you'll have to find out what they did to the poor man's mother for yourself, but it's just plain insane. He also took 27 wives along the way.

Which all makes for what should be an amazing biopic in the hands of director Steve McQueen (no, not the dead one) and (yes, I know I'm rather ashamedly burying the lead here) easily the perfect star in Chiwetel Ejiofor, who has quickly risen to become one of my favorite actors. He certainly has the intensity to pull this remarkable story off, and if you haven't seen McQueen's directing debut "The Hunger," the second-best movie ever made about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands is well worth a rental (the best, Terry George's "Some Mother's Son" starring Dame Helen Mirren, is somehow still not out on DVD. What the hell's up with that? And if I may digress further for just a sec, the Macon Film Guild is showing "The Last Station," starring Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy, this Sunday at 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. at downtown Macon's Douglass Theatre. I'll be there, and if you're in Macon, you certainly should too.)

The film, though separate from the Broadway hit, has secured the rights to Fela's music, so along with being extremely political this should also just be an outright party. In my mind, I'm there already.

OK, after that today, just a couple of tidbits, and then the promised return of Robert Rodriguez's "Machete," and I can confirm that Danny Trejo is an even badder MF in the real trailer.

But first up comes the official synopsis for "Brick" and "Brothers Bloom" director Rian Johnson's next flick, "Looper," which will be a reunion with "Brick" star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. To clear up the confusion that has surrounded the "dark sci-fi" project thus far, here's what he had to say to Cinematical:

Looper is a time travel movie, set in a near future where time travel doesn’t exist but will be invented in a few decades. It’s pretty dark in tone, much different from Bloom, and involves a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is to simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. So the target vanishes from the future and the Loopers dispose of a corpse that doesn’t technically exist, a very clean system. Complications set in from there.

I'm sure they do. Like I said yesterday, that plot certainly sounds like it could be for the kind of tired "sci-fi" flicks that seem to appear for about a week each February, but here's hoping this one goes against the grain.

And in a bit of very good TV news, the makers of "Futurama" have just announced that the first two new episodes of the animated sci-fi comedy will air back to back on Comedy Central at 10 p.m. June 24. I have no idea how in the world the Matt Groening and David X. Cohen show has survived this long, but I'll certainly be tuning in when it somehow returns again. Enjoy this first still from the rather cleverly titled first return episode, "Rebirth."


And finally today, when Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" finally hits theaters Sept. 3, it will probably be as big a box-office flop as "Grindhouse," the movie in which it first appeared as a fake trailer, but I know I'll at least certainly be watching. As you can see from this trailer rather cleverly tailored to Arizona's current immigrant purge, it does indeed flesh out the original faux trailer as a pretty straight-forward tale of revenge, but with a truly eclectic cast that includes Trejo, of course, as Machete, but also Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez and even Robert De Niro. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

My (and only my) best movies of the decade: The 2001 edition

I should probably just drop the years from this thing altogether, because today's list will actually contain not one, as I had hoped, but two movies that actually came out in late 2000.

My only two excuses are that I write this very early in the morning, and well, I sometimes confuse when a movie came out with when I actually got to see it. And, to paraphrase the great Lewis Grizzard when people complained about errors in the Atlanta Constitution, "hey, it don't cost but ... well, nothing."

Anyways, here are the nine movies that made today's list, and though that's only seven actually from 2001, I really love all of these, so enjoy, and please feel free to add any you think I may have overlooked.

"O Brother Where Art Thou"
I fluctuate from week to week as to whether this or "The Big Lebowski" are my favorite Coen brothers flick, but for now let's just put them both on top as co-conspirators. Thanks to Bob for politely pointing out this should have been on my 2000 list, because no other Coen brothers flick better combines their talent for establishing a strong sense of place with simply wicked (and in this case delightfully silly) humor. It's a major strength of this flick that, although it clearly pokes fun at Southerners, I have yet to meet one who doesn't look back on it with love.

"Memento"
Nothing like getting your errors out of the way right up front, so here's another one that was apparently released in late 2000 but was misplaced by me (though, in my defense, it didn't get its U.S. debut until the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.) You can trace all the themes from Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" to this mindbender starring Guy Pearce. I love a movie that I have to watch more than once just to make sure it all adds up (and there's another one coming later on this list), especially when it's good enough - like this gem - to make you want to invest the trouble of watching it again.

"Spy Kids"
Yes, really. Though the franchise got worse and worse with the subsequent movies in this series, the original from Robert Rodriguez was just great escapist fare for kids and adults - like me - who like to act like them fairly often. I haven't seen "Shorts" yet, but I will on video, because I just appreciate that Rodriguez - when he's not grindhousing out gloriously gross fare like "Planet Terror" - makes movies he thinks his own kids will enjoy.

"Amelie"
You can count Jean Pierre Jeunet as one of my very favorite directors in the world, and I was just a sucker for this lighter than air romance starring a simply adorable Audrey Tautou. I'm really hoping Jeunet's "Micmacs à tire-larigot," as best as I can tell a goofy tale about a group of misfits who band together to take on a weapons manufacturer, is somehow playing at the end of the year when I make it to New York City, because when he's on top of his game - as with "Amelie" - Jeunet just makes movies that look like nothing else you can find in theaters, and you really can't say that about very many directors.

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch"
I love movies in which the music is at least as good as the movie itself, which is clearly the case with this flick that John Cameron Mitchell wrote, directed and starred in - as the truly unforgettable creation Hedwig. Yes, if there's a scale of somewhat gay to extremely gay, this flick clearly belongs on the latter end, but it's also just a giddy punk-rock romp and tons of fun.

"Ghost World"
This has developed - along with "Office Space" and "Super Troopers" - into one of those movies I can pop into the DVD player after a nightmarish day at work to make it all float away. What in the world ever happened to Thora Birch, who as Enid just made the perfect (anti-?) heroine? I love that, to this day, if I find the right person to talk to, we can still debate just what happened to her at the end - AND IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS FLICK BASED ON THE GRAPHIC NOVEL BY DANIEL CLOWES, PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH SO I WON'T SPOIL IT FOR YOU - in which I've always thought Enid commits suicide. No matter how you read it, this is just a bittersweetly askew view of the world, and easily one of my favorite flicks.

"Devil's Backbone"
I watched this Guillermo del Toro movie again this year for Halloween when I was petsitting for a friend of mine (yes, I have a rather boring life sometimes), and though it takes its time telling the tale, it's just a wickedly entertaining ghost story. On a side note, if you want to see a more recent horror flick endorsed by del Toro, please see Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Orphanage" ("La Orfanato") on DVD before it gets the inevitable English-language remake next year.

"Donnie Darko"
Will Richard Kelly ever make a great movie again? I sat through all of "Southland Tales" and this year's "The Box" simply out of love for this flick, but they were both just serious duds. "Donnie Darko," however, took me multiple viewings to truly appreciate, but as twisted tales go, this one about Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his giant furry friend Frank is as good and ultimately absorbing as the best work of David Lynch.

"The Royal Tenenbaums"
Nothing like saving the best for last. Though all these flicks are winners for me, the best movie of 2001 was also Wes Anderson's best (though by just a nose over his first two, "Rushmore" and "Bottle Rocket.") No other of his movies better combines his artist's eye for detail with a great knack for storytelling, here about the Tenenbaums, a family of doomed geniuses who live in some kind of alternate vision of New York City. From all I've heard, he and co-writer Noah Baumbach have recaptured this magic with "Fantastic Mr. Fox," which I can't wait to see this weekend. In the meantime I'll leave you today with one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a movie, Royal Tenenbaum's epitaph.

"Died tragically rescuing his family from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship."

So there you have it. As I said, please feel free to add any movies you think I may have snubbed, and have a perfectly pleasant Tuesday. As a bonus, here's the second trailer for "Youth in Revolt," which - despite the ridiculous voiceover pitching it as a routine teen comedy - I'm hoping will be one of my 2010 favorites, because the book by C.D. Payne is just a fantastic farce. Peace out.


Youth in Revolt Trailer #2

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

R.I.P. John Hughes, viva Machete and the continuing amazing glory that is "Where the Wild Things Are"

I'm not sure there's anything terribly profound I can say about the fact that John Hughes died of a heart attack at the far-too-young age of 59 while out on a walk yesterday, but it's certainly a cautionary tale. I never thought the man was a terribly out-of-shape-looking guy, but to only make it that long in our world is just thoroughly depressing (and, yes, you can thank me for stating the obvious.)

I was surprised to see from his IMDB resume that, although he wrote or produced a ton of movies, he actually only directed eight flicks. But when your first four directing gigs are, in this order, "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Weird Science" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," in the space of only three years from 1984-'86, you clearly know what you're doing. The man just got exactly what it was like to be a teenager in the '80s, which I was, and for that I can only say thanks.

Of those four classic flicks, I know many people would pick "The Breakfast Club" as the best, but for me it was always "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." It was one of the first movies that taught me how directors can give their movies a sense of place, which Hughes did so perfectly with Chicago, and it was just so much fun to watch Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara and Alan Ruck romp their way through it.

For me, however, Hughes made just as much of a mark with his music selections, specifically for "Pretty in Pink" and "Some Kind of Wonderful," two movies he wrote and produced.

There might not be a finer movie soundtrack than the one for "Pretty in Pink," and I just wore a hole through my cassette copy of it in the '80s (sadly, I tried to buy it on iTunes this morning, but it's somehow not even available.) Starting with OMD's "If You Leave" and continuing through Suzanne Vega and Joe Jackson's "Left of Center" (my favorite track) and the Psychedelic Furs' title track, and then, of course, finishing up with "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by the Smiths, it had just enough angst but was mostly just an aural confection I couldn't put down for at least six months straight or so.

"Some Kind of Wonderful" was in so many ways just a pale knockoff of "Pretty in Pink," but in terms of the soundtrack it stands up pretty well over time on its own too. "The Hardest Walk" has always been one of my favorite Jesus and Mary Chain songs, and to this day I still can't get that crazy Lick The Tins version of "I Can't Help Falling In Love," later used in Stephen Frears' "The Snapper," easily one of my favorite comedies, out of my head.

Rest in peace indeed, Mr. Hughes.

OK, enough of that. This is the last post I'm going to do for more than a week because I'm headed to Mexico City with my brother and the rest of the Minnesota Volunteers to watch the U.S. men's soccer team hopefully not get crushed in a World Cup qualifier at El Azteca, and just goof off for a solid week in that crazy city, so nothing but good news from here on out.

And speaking of crazy, I'm now certain it's not gonna get much better than what Robert Rodriguez is cooking up with "Machete."

The movie itself, of course, springs from the I-guess-no-longer-fake trailer that was sandwiched between "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" in "Grindhouse," and it was easily the best of the intermission fare (except for maybe that great use of the Danger Doom/Talib Kweli track "Old School" over the be right back titles.)

And now the actual movie about a Mexican federale who takes revenge on a U.S. Senator who has framed him for murder is attracting just a wild cast. Danny Trejo, of course, will play Machete himself, and Variety now confirms he'll be joined by no less than Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and even Lindsay Lohan. Take a second to take that all in.

Shooting is gearing up now in Austin, with Rodriguez's longtime editor Ethan Maniquis serving as co-director, and this will be out sometime next year. Even if it somehow turns out to be awful, which I really can't see happening, you can at least probably be guaranteed it won't be boring, so I can only bring it on.

OK, before I head off south of the border, I'll leave you with the best three videos I found this week, and yes, we will eventually get to "Where the Wild Things Are," and you just have to believe me that it's well worth the wait.

First, though, comes this little bit of thorough cuteness from "(500) Days of Summer" director Marc Webb, featuring his two almost unbearably charming stars, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. As you'll see and hear, the dance they perform is to a tune from She & Him, the great collaboration between Deschanel and M. Ward, and if you don't own their album "Volume One," I really can't recommend it highly enough. Enjoy.



Next up comes the fairly promising trailer for "The Vampire's Assistant," the first movie based on books from Irish author Darren Shan's "Vampire Blood" trilogy. While I'm growing just about as tired as anyone of stories of young vampires (though not of "Let the Right One In," which the Macon Film Guild will be screening twice on Oct. 30 in honor of Halloween, huzzah!), I don't think you can go wrong when the elder vamp in this case is played by John C. Reilly and the "Cirque du Freak" contains, among other performers, Salma Hayek as the bearded lady and Patrick Fugit as the snake boy. This is coming out Oct. 23 and is being directed by Paul Weitz. Enjoy the trailer.



OK, I've definitely saved the best for last, because this second, third or whatever it is trailer for Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are" is truly just a wonder to behold. You get to hear a lot more of James Gandolfini as one of the main wild things, and we finally get to see young Max (Max Records) bellow "Let the wild rumpus start." He also gets another fantastic line, but I won't spoil it for you, because this two-and-a-half minute bit of goodness is just the perfect way to start off a Friday. I can't wait until this finally comes out in October. Enjoy.



And with that I'm off to Mexico City until Aug. 15, and in my mind I'm already there. Peace out.

This time, the f***ed with the wrong Mexican"

If you ever wake up thinking the odds are stacked against you, which I do fairly often, I've got a rather amazing TV story to share with you, but first a word or two about the still surprising Baltimore Orioles.

Sure, they're only at .500 (8-8), but apart from a rather disastrous four-game sweep at the hands of the dastardly Boston Red Sox, the Orioles have won all four of their other series this year, by a count of 2-1 in each one. Tonight has Japanese import Koji Uehara facing off against Vicente Padilla, his 9.64 era and the Texas Rangers. Keep hope alive!

And the fact that hope is still alive at all for a ninth season of "Scrubs" is even more incredible. Given how this first season on ABC has unfolded, with almost all the new doctors being instantly forgettable, and Zach Braff already eyeing the exit, I just assumed the end was coming in a few weeks or so.

But, when the show has focused on its core characters, it has often been just as funny and plain silly as ever, and it seems that ABC has taken notice. Though no deal is complete yet, the network is said to be seriously looking at a way to lower the license fee and bring back just about the entire cast (including the weakest link, Braff, for at least a few episodes) for a ninth season next year.

Here's hoping it happens, because I can count the non animated TV half-hours I watch on just more than one hand: "How I Met Your Mother," "Scrubs," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (the best of them all), "My Name Is Earl," "Parks and Recreation," "The Office" and "30 Rock." Are there any other sitcoms out there that I should be tuning in for?

The news that "Scrubs" may still somehow be on life support is, however, far from the strangest TV news out there this morning. It seems that Pedro Almodovar, one day after it was announced that his new flick, "Broken Embraces," will be in competition at Cannes, is now getting into the U.S. TV game too.

And believe me, I'm not making this up. Fox TV is apparently adapting an hourlong series to be extremely loosely based on Almodovar's first big hit (and still his funniest flick) "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown."

Though Almodovar will be an executive producer and says he will stay involved, I still can't see this being anything but bland assuming it actually comes together. Why? First of all, the plot, as described by pilot author Mimi Schmir, seems to have little to do with the original movie: According to Schmir, it's "a suburban drama about a group of women who have known each other for a long time, perhaps from college, who are in the middle of their lives and looking at the second half of their lives."

OK, I watch plenty of shows intended for women (and yes, even one, in "Gossip Girl," clearly intended for girls), but that just sounds like nothing but boring. The original movie got all its spirit from its rapid-fire dialogue and the screwball humor inspired directly by '50s Hollywood comedies. I suppose there's a chance they can keep all that alive, but count me as a skeptic.

Oh well, that's probably more than enough about that. On to the main event. Robert Rodriguez's Machete character, played by Danny Trejo in the best faux trailer from "Grindhouse," seems to be even more resilient than my Orioles.

Even though "Grindhouse" can't even generously be called anything but a box-office disaster (though still tons of fun in my book, with Tarantino's second half being even better than Rodriguez's first) after taking in only $25 million in the U.S. and costing $67 million to produce, Trejo's blade-wielding Mexican day laborer and former Federale Machete is seemingly somehow about to rise again with his own feature film.

Rodriguez says he is eyeing a June start for the flick, which he will co-direct with longtime editor Ethan Maniquis, to begin shooting in Austin.

And for anyone who has managed to block Machete from their mind by any number of things that would have to be much more important, I've included the trailer from "Grindhouse" at the bottom of this post (and be warned that, if you watch it at work, along with rather spectacular cartoon violence, it does feature some rather bare breasts.)

Rodriguez has several other irons in the fire, but "Machete" is certainly the one that I'm most interested in. And with that, I'm off to the second weekend of the Atlanta Film Festival 365, to hopefully squeeze my way in to both James Toback's "Tyson" and Carlos Cuaron's "Rudo Y Cursi." Enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.

A great day for comedy

If you like comedy of almost all kinds (and who doesn't?), there's a lot of good news and clips out there today, and at least one simply horrible idea: Having run out of appealing targets to roast well before they hit Larry the Cable Guy last month, Comedy Central is now turning to its worst subject yet: Joan Rivers.

I mean, really, if the person you're roasting is so unfunny that she deserves at least the abuse being hurled at her by her "friends" and more, where's the entertainment value in that? I think I'm just the wrong audience for these to start with, but that just sounds like a whole new low.

In much, much better news, tonight on NBC should just be epicly good. At 8:30, the new show created by "The Office" writers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, "Parks and Recreation," debuts. I can only take Amy Poehler in very small doses, but I thought the same thing about Steve Carell before "The Office" started, so here's hoping I'm wrong.

Even better than that, though, is that it will be sandwiched between two brand spanking new episodes of "The Office" itself. I don't think anyone really believes Michael and Pam have left Dunder Mifflin for good, but it should still be cool to see Michael's big showdown with Charles, played by "The Wire" vet Idris Elba. For just a taste, here's the opening 90 seconds or so courtesy of NBC, featuring Kevin's considerable lack of ability to answer the phone and a very funny kicker:

You're bad at this too!



And in a very good bit of TV news for those who don't mind their humor dark and - as Jody Hill himself puts it - "full of a**holes," HBO has picked up a second season of Hill's series "Eastbound and Down," starring veryfunnyman Danny McBride as a former Major League ballplayer trying to make a comeback (like the mighty Baltimore Orioles, who are now 2-0 at the expense of the dastardly Yankees!)

Director Hill, of course, hits theaters this week with the mall-cop comedy "Observe and Report" starring Seth Rogen. Even with the tired premise, when I saw Associated Press critic Christy LeMire's hyper-ventilating review in which she called it both "vile" and "disgusting" (overkill, anyone?), I knew this would deliver just about completely what I'm expecting and looking forward to.

OK, enough of that. There are three promising trailers out there today that in their own way serve up comedy too. Sometime around August of last year, I put up a poll in which 26 readers voted (not a scientific sample, mind you, but not too shabby, I suppose) for the movie they were most looking forward to for the rest of the year. At the time, I declared that "Slumdog Millionaire" was the single movie I most wanted to see in all of 2008, and we all know what happened to that one.

Well, I don't think it's headed to the same fate as Danny Boyle's flick, but I'm giving the same designation this year to Rian Johnson's "The Brothers Bloom," finally set to open hopefully very wide in a busy May 29 weekend that will also feature at least Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" and Pixar's "Up."

Why so excited for this one? Well, if you haven't seen Johnson's high school noir flick "Brick," rent it now, and you'll see how much potential he has as a director. Plus, I just love goofy movies about a big con, and when it features Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody and Rinko Kikuchi, I'm definitely in. Enjoy the new trailer.

"Where are we going?"
"New Jersey?"
"I'm gonna grab my coat."



Almost as good is the video proof that Mike Judge is returning to the working world for "Extract," hopefully coming to movie theaters outside of L.A. and Austin sometime in August. Starring Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Mila Kunis, J.K. Simmons and a fairly well-disguised Ben Affleck, it's about "the personal and professional problems of the owner of a flower extract plant (Bateman)." I'm laughing about that already.

And if I can digress just a bit before we get to the trailer, as Judge's "King of the Hill" is coming to an end on Fox after a rather remarkable 13-year run, he's about to have a new animated comedy coming to ABC. Called "The Goode Family," the show about a politically incorrect clan will premiere at 9 p.m. May 27. And in a final bit of TV news for all fans of ABC's late "Pushing Daisies," the facts are these: The final three episodes of that fantastic fantasy will indeed hit the air, for three weeks in a row beginning at 8 p.m. June 20.

And now, without further dithering from me, here's the "Extract" trailer:

"They're just hanging there."



And finally, for real, here's a first glimpse of what Robert Rodriguez is cooking up with "Shorts," also set to hit theaters in August. I'm a sucker for what Rodriguez comes up with when he makes movies for kids, especially the first "Spy Kids." This one looks very similar to others in the current crop of mild fantasies being pitched to youngins by Walden Media and other companies, but I'm still betting it will be a lot of fun. Enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

"I wish I had telephonesis!"

Robert Rodriguez wants to wrack your nerves

Although he can make some seriously fun movies, Robert Rodriguez is also just a maddeningly uneven director in my book.

After making the purely entertaining "El Mariachi" and "Spy Kids" he felt the need to follow each flick up with a pair of thoroughly unnecessary and just increasingly bad sequels. "Desperado" - really just a useless continuation of "El Mariachi" - was just particularly irritating.

He also, however, channelled the spirit of Frank Miller's work perfectly with "Sin City" and made the easily more disgusting but still just insanely good half of "Grindhouse" with "Planet Terror" (I even found "The Faculty," certainly a lesser title in his filmography, to just be a lot of fun.) And now, after what seems like a very long break from working on movies of any kind, he's getting back in gear with something that could be as entertaining as any of those.

He will write and direct the "futuristic thriller" "Nervewrackers," and since the flick already has a release date of April 16, 2010, it seems very likely he will actually follow through on this one. Set in 2085, the story (according to Variety) centers on "a character named Joe Tezca who is part of an elite unit dispatched to quell a crime wave in a theoretically perfect future society."

Even if that does seem like a rather blatant ripoff of "Blade Runner," I suppose there are worse sources of inspiration, so for now I can only say welcome back, Mr. Rodriguez.

What's up with Ang Lee

I recently got around to watching Mr. Lee's "Lust/Caution" on DVD, and I have to say it made a surprisingly entertaining little spy flick. And he's just wrapped "Taking Woodstock," which as the title implies is a biopic of sorts of the life of Elliot Tiber, who was instrumental in the creation of the titular hippie fest.

That flick will be released in August by Focus Features, and Mr. Lee has now set his sights firmly on "The Life of Pi," which already has a script penned by "Amelie" director Jean Pierre Jeunet (who was originally slated to direct this too.)

I have to admit that the novel by Yann Martel, which won the Booker Prize and plenty of other acclaim, just left me a little cold, but I do think it has a lot of potential for an at least visually appealing film in these capable hands. The odd coming-of-age tale tells the story of Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian youth who survives the sinking of a freighter and ends up sharing a life boat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger.

Plenty of people have fallen in love with the novel by Martel, so don't let my misgivings keep you away from this one.

Remember Agnieszka Holland?

I had almost forgotten all about the Polish director of "Europa Europa" and one of my favorite children's flicks, "The Secret Garden" (and - rather amazingly - three episodes of "The Wire" too), but this morning her name came up again on the French film site Cinempire, a daily stop for me.

It seems Holland is getting back in the game in a big way with an upcoming biopic about Polish super spy Krystyna Skarbek, also famous as Ian Fleming's mistress and allegedly the inspiration for the character of Vesper Lynd.

Skarbek, who took the nom de guerre Christine Granville, became a spy for the British and was celebrated for her sabotage efforts in Nazi-occupied Poland and France during World War II.

Interestingly enough, The Daily Mail reports that Eva Green, Vesper Lynd herself, is in the running for the lead role in this flick, which will be rather oddly titled "Christine: War My Love" and should start shooting in June.

Nothing but cool there, but now I have to unfortunately get ready for work. Sometime tomorrow or Friday, feel free to come back for a video presentation about the Oscars I'm cooking up with fellow Telegraph blogger Phillip Ramati (a k a The TV Guy). We pretty much agree about all the categories this year, but hopefully it will still be a bit of fun to watch (I'm even getting a hair cut for the occasion, somewhat of a rarity for me.)

And, even though it wasn't from an episode directed by Holland, I'll leave you with one of my favorite clips from "The Wire," in which Stringer Bell learns about and then imparts to his disciples the principles of macroeconomics. Peace out.

It's official: In Grindhouse duel, Tarantino wins big

Though it was a bit of a visual overload watching Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" and then Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" as one movie in "Grindhouse," I loved just about every minute of it.

I also thought at the time, however, that for all his talk about the "grindhouse" aesthetic (which I must admit is still a little murky to me), Tarantino cheated at the game and left Rodriguez more than a little shorthanded.

Don't get me wrong: I thoroughly enjoyed "Planet Terror," even if I could have done without seeing QT's testicles melt. But it was pure schlock, and unapologetically so.

With "Death Proof," however, Tarantino simply started with the premise of making a '70s car movie but then made it completely his own. I realize many people found the dialogue of Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poiter), Zoe Bell and their two sets of gal-pals to be more than a bit contrived, but it worked for me, and the ending car-chase is worth the price of admission alone.

And now, with "Death Proof" getting a snazzy, extended, stand-alone release on DVD this week, I have to wonder if these guys are even talking any more. Granted, "Planet Terror" will gets own chance, appropriately enough, closer to "Halloween," but it definitely looks like - to put it as crudely as possible - sloppy seconds.

If you spring for the "Death Proof" set (which I'm about 70 percent or so sure I will), here are some of the extras you'll get:

The so-called "missing reel," containing Vanessa Ferlito's unseen lap-dance for Killer Mike, plus the following featurettes: "Finding Quentin's Gals," "The Guys of Death Proof," "Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike," "Introducing Zoe Bell" and "Quentin's Greatest Collaborator: Editor Sally Menke."

I suppose for purity's sake we should hold out for the full "Grindhouse" flick on DVD (and in case anyone was wondering, none of the fake trailers are set to appear on this release, or on "Planet Terror"), but I'm still just a sucker for QT. What do you think?


Jesse Eisenberg a big star?

The most interesting thing I could find in this morning's rather yawnworthy trades was buried under the news that Ryan Reynolds had joined the cast of Greg Mottola's "Adventureland." Since he's never seemed to be anything but dim to me, especially in the thoroughly annoying "Smokin' Aces," that just said meh.

But reading behind the lines, to find something I had apparently missed, made it much better news. Though Reynolds will indeed get a big part in the 2009 summer flick, the lead will be none other than Jesse Eisenberg, aka Walt Berkman. That's at least how I'll always know him, as Noah Baumbach's alter-ego in one of my favorite flicks of the past five years or so, "The Squid and the Whale."

I haven't seen him in anything since, so this is welcome news. Mottola, a card-holding member of the Apatow mob, directed this summer's funniest movie, "Superbad," so the semi-autobiographical "Adventureland" should be a lot of fun.

Set in 1987, it stars Eisenberg as a recent college graduate who has to cancel his plans to tour Europe and instead take a job at the titular (New Jersey, I think) theme park. Reynolds will play (and this is definitely more fitting to his rather annoying persona) an aspiring rock star and the icon of cool to all the kids working at the park. Kristen Stewart, who's grown up more than a bit since being menaced with Jodie Foster in "Panic Room," will play the romantic lead, a tomboy who also works at the park.

That's a lot of words about a movie not coming out for almost two years, I concede, but I really like Jesse Eisenberg, so I wanted to pass that along to anyone else who might have missed it. Peace out.

Best DVD week ever?

Well, probably not, but given the sea of crap that usually flows onto DVD shelves this time of year, it's rare enough to have three movies that I thoroughly enjoyed hit all at once.

First, of course, comes "300," Zack Snyder's take on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the battle of Thermopylae. Gerard Butler leads the 300 scantily clad Spartans of the title into battle in what was probably the most over- (and incorrectly) analyzed movie so far this year. It's just a popcorn movie, after all, and as I argued here, a damn fine one at that.

Extras for the two-disc edition include a commentary by director Zack Snyder, writer Kurt Johnstad and director of photography Larry Fong, deleted scenes with introduction by Snyder, and three featurettes: "The 300: Fact or Fiction?" Historians, authors and filmmakers reveal how much of the film was based on fact; "Who Were The Spartans: The Warriors of 300" touches on the customs and ways of life of the Spartans; and "Frank Miller Tapes" shows how Miller exerted his control to make sure his epic graphic novel looked right on the big screen. Definitely my first buy this week.

"Hot Fuzz"

Is "Hot Fuzz" the funnest movie of 2007? So far, I'd have to say yes, by just a nose over "Knocked Up." Anyone who liked "Shaun of the Dead" will love this ode to '80s action movies from Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost. It goes on at least 10 minutes too long, but you'll be laughing so hard you'll hardly notice. You can read my full review here.

"Starter for 10"

Among the many nice things I can say about South African Airways is that their inflight movie selection is sensational. Although I decided to skip "The Painted Veil," I did watch the nearly flawless "Breach" again and discovered "Starter for 10," a thoroughly predictable yet utterly charming British take on the '80s teen romantic comedy.

James McAvoy, who must have been pushing 30 when this came out last year, is surprisingly convincing as a British public school student who, of course, is more interested in chasing co-eds than he is learning anything. The rather awful title, which meant nothing to me before seeing the flick, comes from a quiz show for teams of prep-school students.

There would be nothing to recommend this movie if it weren't so entirely, well, British. From the great music to the hideous attire, it invokes the spirit of Thatcher's Britain if nothing else, and it's well worth a rental. Besides, I once watched "Big Momma's House 2" out of desperation while trapped on a plane, and this is a damn sight better than that.

Welcome back, Mr. Franklin

It's a rare feat when a director manages to make two of my favorite movies, so I can only give a hearty huzzah to the return of Carl Franklin to the big screen.

His "One False Move" is an almost flawless film noir, and that "Devil in a Blue Dress" flick with Denzel and Don is almost as good. Now, after years of directing for TV and serving up the occasion big-screen clunker, it seems that Mr. Franklin is getting back on course.

First will come "Tulia," based on the book about one Texas sheriff's plan to wipe out the black population of his town by concocting an imaginary drug ring. It would make a sensational story if it weren't all so horribly true. For the movie, Billy Bob Thornton plays an attorney who tries to take him on, and Halle Berry figures in here somehow too (please, please, please let this be better than that simply craptastic "Monster's Ball" flick!)

And now comes word of a new project that is even more up Mr. Franklin's alley. Inspired by true events chronicled in a PBS "Frontline" documentary, "Snitch" centers on a devoted father whose son faces 30 years in prison after being set up in a drug deal. The father goes undercover in the drug world to make a bust that will free his son. I can see Denzel being involved in this one already, but we'll have to wait and see.

No matter how it all turns out, I can only say welcome back, Mr. Franklin.

Three more intriguing Comic-Con tidbits

Here are three more nuggets from the sunny San Diego comics confab, all of which sound promising to me and come directly from Dreadcentral.

First, it seems that Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant of "Reno 911," who are also extremely prolific (and hit and miss) screenwriters, are now at work on a sequel to their "Night at the Museum." So far, we know only that Ben Stiller and Robin Williams are on board, and there will be "exisiting characters and plenty of new ones." I thought the original flick was just silly fun, so bring it on.

Actually, I should have listed that one third, because these next two are just perfect. It seems that Robert Rodriguez, though he'll surely first turn his attention to "Barbarella," hasn't given up on making a feature-length "Machete" movie. For anyone who's forgotten, the "Machete" trailer featuring Danny Trejo (huzzah!) preceded "Planet Terror," Rodriguez's half of "Grindhouse," and was far superior to any of the fake trailers that cut the flick in half. Trejo is simply the definition of a badass, so I can only hope he follows through on this before his attention gets diverted once again.

And, finally, it seems that Frank Darabont will have Stephen King on his mind for the foreseeable future. After "The Mist," which I'm thoroughly psyched for, he'll be adapting two other King stories for the big screen, "The Long Walk" and "The Monkey."

According to Dreadcentral, "The Long Walk" is about a 16-year-old boy who is on a survival walk with 99 others. They walk for honor and their lives with the winner being promised everything his or her heart desires. "The Monkey" revolves around a father-son relationship and a toy monkey whose clanging symbols are harbingers of death.

Those sound intriguing, but first get ready to be enveloped by "The Mist" in November. And now, unfortunately, I have to get ready for work. Peace out.

P.S. Nell Minow, Yahoo's Movie Mom and easily one of my favorite bloggers, e-mailed me over the weekend to share some of her crazy adventures at Comic-Con (and make me, of course, insanely jealous.) You can read all about what she found in sunny San Diego in her great blog here.