Mel Gibson is clearly just an angry old man

Actually, I doubt anyone had any real doubts about that already, but the video proof is still worth watching simply to see just how little he's changed in the last five years or so.

But, before we get into any of that, there are at least a few other things out there that caught my eye, so here goes.

The two funniest people in Judd Apatow's "Funny People" were very easily Aziz Ansari and the RZA (and the latter's "my n****" joke about Michael Richards made me laugh out very loud.) And though he got scant on-screen time in that flick, Ansari went to great lengths to become his character, Randy, who tells dick jokes with such glee that they seem much funnier than they are. I'm really not describing that anywhere near as funny as it is, so here's a clip of him doing standup in character (and please, be warned, along with being extremely crude and juvenile, this is also certainly nothing you want to watch at work without headphones.)



Like I said, the character and the delivery are a lot funnier than the jokes themselves, but if you were to make a movie about Randy, I'd certainly watch that, and I'm apparently not the only one. Here, according to Mr. Ansari himself, is what Quentin Tarantino had to say about it:

Yeah! That was one of the coolest things. I was at some party and he showed up and yelled “RAAAAAAAANDY!” I couldn’t believe it. I talked to him for a bit about it. One of the three movies we’re doing with Judd is a Randy movie; we’re not sure what order we’ll do them in. People on the Internet were like, “a Randy movie would be terrible!” How do you know? You think we just said “Randy movie” and didn’t think about it at all? But Quentin Tarantino was like, “Man, a Randy movie, I would love to see that!” So I just want to send a mass e-mail to all those Internet people who thought a Randy movie would be terrible: “You know who thinks it would be a great idea? Quentin Tarantino.”

Actually, I wasn't aware of any Internet attention to this at all beyond my bizarre fixation on it, but I certainly think it's a great idea too. But what are those other two movies he's talking about? Well, they are apparently something called "Let's Do This," a road movie about guys working at a motivational-speaking company, and an "untitled astronaut movie" about "two disgraced astronauts who have to go back to space to clear their names," according to The Playlist.

No idea when or if any of these three would actually happen, but Aziz Ansari is one seriously funny guy (new "Parks and Recreation" tonight, huzzah!), so hopefully at least one of them gets going very soon.

OK, enough about that. Before we get to the main Mel event, I have a couple of other nuggets.

"Scrubs" has been so bad in what must be its 18th season that I have finally stopped watching, but I'll tune in to at least a few episodes of just about anything with Sarah Chalke in it, especially something that sounds this promising.

Chalke, who had a great guest run recently on "How I Met Your Mother," has signed on to star in a new ABC comedy "The Freshmen" from HIMYM executive producer Greg Malins and Arianna Huffington (yes, that Arianna Huffington.) The show will center on the friendship of three freshmen members of Congress - two men and a woman, Chalke - who live together in D.C.

A comedy about Congress, the most unpopular group in the country? An odd idea, but I'm still betting this will be funny whenever it hits the air.

And finally, before we get to Mel, anything people want to do to help the people of Haiti is great, but few things sound more fun than what Shane MacGowan has cooked up.

In what could I guess be described as a "We Are the Rest of the World" kind of thing, the Pogues leader has recruited Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Chrissie Hynde, Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, Mick Jones of the Clash, Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols and others to record a version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins "You Put a Spell on Me," with all proceeds going to Haiti relief.

I wish I could say I had a sample of it to share, but it hasn't been released yet. I do know that I'll certainly buy this when it's released later this month, both for the cause and because that much alcohol and debauchery in one room has to lead to something at least comically amazing.

And, speaking of alcohol, we're finally back to Mel Gibson. And before you play this, if you haven't seen it yet, please know that I enjoyed "Edge of Darkness" quite a bit. That, however, has nothing at all to do with the man, and if you play this interview with Chicago TV host Dean Richards until the very end (it's only 90 seconds or so long), you'll see that in terms of muzzling himself or not revealing his own inner a**hole, Gibson has learned absolutely nothing since his drunken tirade about Jews from a few years back. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

A Cool Coens gathering in Macon, and the bizarro future of "Scrubs"

I don't think I'll ever be particularly good at social networking or understand the real use of Facebook beyond an amusing diversion, but it finally came through at least slightly last night.

Sitting at home on a Friday night watching the Braves blow out the BoSox (fairly pathetic I know, but entertaining all the same), I decided to check the facebook, blog, etc., and got this interesting post from my friend and boss Stephanie Hartley.

It seems that some group in Macon called the College Hill Corridor Commission, while being far from the most organized folks in town, are fans both of great (or at least extremely funny) movies and showing them outside, hence a rather cool happening Sunday night less than a mile from my house.

The original plan, which would have made me just say meh, was to show some version of "Shrek" this Sunday night. Well, thankfully, but with little notice, they've changed both the movie, "Raising Arizona" (huzzah!), and the venue, to Tattnall Square Park. There are few better communal movie viewing experiences than watching a very funny flick with a hopefully large group of people, so come and check it out this Sunday starting at 8 p.m.

But here today it's largely about a deliriously silly comedy that might appeal to people who might just not live within 20 minutes or so of my house, "Scrubs," which is somehow headed for a ninth season on ABC, but apparently in radically different form.

Before I launch into it, credit for all this goes to the seriously TV-obsessed Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly, who got the goods in an interview with "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence.

Now, we already know that the core stars, Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke, will be back for very limited runs at best (and worst of all, Neil Flynn's delightfully deranged janitor will not be back at all), so to fill this void, Lawrence has come up a change of venue of sorts.

When the show returns next winter, John C. McGinley and Donald Faison will be the principal stars (in no way at all a bad thing), and they will now become med-school professors rather than active doctors. Take that in for a moment.

Actually, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Since you have to start with a whole new crop of players, why not make them students and shake things much more than a bit? Anyone who tuned in for the truncated eighth season earlier this year will probably agree with me that the new crop of doctors shared only one trait: They were uniformly unfunny. So I guess they realized it's time for at least a gallon of new blood.

And besides, for classroom comedies, Lawrence at least seems to have his source material right. As he told Ausiello:

"It'll be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy, It's going to be a different show. It'll still be life-and-death stakes, but if the show is just Scrubs again in the hospital with a different person's voiceover, it would be a disaster and people would be mad."

He said Sacred Heart wouldn't go away completely, since it will still be the show's base of operations and allow familiar faces to return from time to time, but it's still almost a complete change of course, and since "Scrubs" has defied death many times now, it's certainly not of me to doubt its creators.

And with that, I'll simply leave you with the trailer for the October flick "Zombieland," because what Saturday morning isn't at least a little bit better with a funny dose of zombies? Enjoy, and have a great weekend. Peace out.

Terry Gilliam and the art of perseverance ... or is it insanity?

Well, Friday came and went with no word on "Chuck," so I guess Tuesday really is the big day in that department. Two other shows I just assumed were dead, however, have somehow escaped the chopping block.

When Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" premiered, I was sure it would be canceled after four or five episodes, because frankly those early shows were almost as abysmal as the ratings. Not awful, I guess, just awfully generic, and with really no touches that would tell you it was a Whedon show.

As the season went on, however, it slowly developed into a solid little bit of sci-fi, so I'm pleased to see it will be back for a second season. And, frankly, just as glad that it will once again only be 13 episodes. More network shows should adapt to this cable-like schedule, in my opinion, since a lot of them - while perfectly entertaining - just clearly don't have enough ideas to sustain a full 22-episode run.

And, perhaps even more amazingly, "Scrubs" is somehow coming back to ABC for a ninth season, after what was clearly intended as a series finale. Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke have both agreed to return for six episodes to help transition to the newer cast members, and thankfully Donald Faison, John C. McGinley and Neil Flynn will all be back for at least some of the new episodes too.

I'd call this mostly great news, since "Scrubs" is just the perfect pitch of silly fun, except for one very big problem. A quick test: If you watched the "Scrubs" season that just ended, can you name any of the characters who were added? I can't, because none of them were all that memorable or entertaining, and I really think it's gonna be a big leap to make people want to watch them week after week without a BIG dose of the real regulars.

But enough of all that. Here today it was supposed to be all Terry Gilliam, and from here on out it will be.

When I first saw this news Friday, it just made me smile, but it also made me finally realize that I really like Gilliam as a personality at least as much or more than I still do as a filmmaker. Don't get me wrong: I'm cheering for him to return to form, but his last flick, "Tideland," was just the definition of unwatchable (although I did, in a couple of sittings, somehow make it to the end.)

And I wish him nothing but the best in finding a proper distributor for "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus." Tom Waits as the devil? I'll be there as soon as I can, but I really don't have terribly high hopes that it will ever be at a theater anywhere near my little corner of the world.

But for his own sanity and hopefully at some point our entertainment, I'm most happy to now hear that - truly against all odds - Gilliam has somehow revived once again "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote."

If you're unfamiliar with this saga, it began nine years ago and has already spawned a feature documentary about just how epic a failure it was the first time around. And if you haven't seen "Lost in La Mancha," I can't recommend it highly enough as an oft-times depressing but nonetheless engaging portrait of exactly how NOT to make a movie.

But even after watching that doco in Atlanta with my mom at the fabulous Plaza Theatre in Atlanta, I was always cheering for Gilliam to finally somehow pull this off, mostly because I've been a big fan of perseverance that borders on and often crosses right over to insanity. And beyond that, what he was cooking up the first time and hopefully again this time just sounded like tons of fun.

This time, screenwriter Tony Grisoni and Gilliam are working on a tale that will revolve around a filmmaker who is charmed into Don Quixote’s eternal quest for his ladylove, "becoming an unwitting Sancho Panza." If this really happens, it will begin shooting next spring, but the biggest remaining question would have to be will Johnny Depp really go through all this again?

If I were a betting man, which I almost never am now, I'd say yes, both because he clearly has tremendous loyalty to Gilliam and because he often seems to have the same obstinate qualities that make Gilliam so fascinating in the first place. Here's hoping he also brings along his wife, Vanessa Paradis, again, and that easily one of my favorite actors, Jean Rochefort (who had a small but pivotal role in one of my very favorite movies of 2008, "Tell No One"), will also be able to take on the lead role again, though it was his back pains, among other things, that doomed Gilliam's Quixote the first time around (and if you want to see another great Rochefort movie on DVD, Patrice Leconte's "L'Homme du Train," with Rochefort and the French pop singer Johnny Hallyday, is just a nearly perfect little flick.)

And no matter how this all turns out, to me it's just an inspiring tale of insanity. And with that, I'm off to watch "Star Trek" again to do my part to put it on top of the box office ladder again, and hopefully miles above the ball of shite known as "Angels and Demons." Peace out.

Seth Rogen overload?

I don't think I've reached that point yet, but it certainly does seem like the "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared" veteran unleashed by Judd Apatow is just about everywhere nowadays.

A look at the IMDB sheet after "Kung Fu Panda," the surprisingly satisfying summer flick that's currently kicking all kinds of box office tail (we're talking about a kids' movie after all, so let's keep it clean) reveals a very busy slate. First comes the comedy I'm most looking forward to this summer, the stoner buddy flick, "Pineapple Express"; then, if this ever really does see the light of day, a role in the geek flick "Fanboys"; the lead opposite Elizabeth Banks in Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno"; voice work in Dreamworks' "Monsters Vs. Aliens"; playing a delusional mall cop for "Foot Fist Way" (why in the world isn't that playing everywhere?) director Jody Hill in "Observe and Report"; a reunion with Judd Apatow for Apatow's next directorial effort, to be about the world of standup comedians; and finally, if they can pull it off, a remake of "The Green Hornet" with writing partner Evan Goldberg.

Whew! As the last entry on that list shows, and luckily, Mr. Rogen isn't one to forget about his friends. Probably somewhere in the middle of all this, now comes news that he and Goldberg, the duo that brought us the nearly flawless "Superbad," will team up to create something called "Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse" (apparently the shtick of actors using their actual names trotted out for "Knocked Up" hasn't gotten old to them yet.)

The horror-comedy, set to co-star fellow "Undeclared" vet and very funny guy in his own right Jay Baruchel, apparently springs from a Web short they all concocted during the brief time Fox bothered to put that fairly great show on the air. I don't know much about it beside that, but there's actually a trailer for it that was put up on Youtube about a year ago, and I've included it here for you to enjoy (as you can probably figure, the language is more than a little NSFW, so please use headphones when you watch it!)

"Superbad," for all its very juvenile humor about things like the "Ghostbusters lunchbox dick treasure chest" (still the thing that made me laugh hardest in all of 2007) has just stuck me longer than a lot of other comedies of its ilk, and I just can't wait for "Pineapple Express." Here's hoping these guys can keep the funny coming for a long time to come.



What's next for "Pushing Daisies" and "How I Met Your Mother"?

OK, OK, I don't know the answers to the most pressing questions about easily two of my favorite shows, namely, for the latter, will adorable Sarah Chalke say yes to our hero Ted's wedding proposal and, for the former, why in the world isn't ABC reairing it's best freshman series in years this summer as a reintroduction to viewers who might have somehow missed it's nine-episode first season? I do, however, have a couple of intriguing bits about each show from Variety.

First, for "Pushing Daisies," creator Bryan Fuller promises that his habit of reintroducing the show's premise with each episode will be a thing of the past, so that in season two he can delight us with one epic story arc.

Fuller, in fact, described the writers strike that killed the first season as a kind of blessing in disguise: "We were just going to continue telling a lot of these episodic tales, and we weren't able to weave in as much of the serialized storyline as I wanted to in the first season."

And he promises he's learned a thing or two from his days working on "Heroes" (remember that show?): "Learning from my days on 'Heroes,' I'm planning to add some cliffhangers, which we'll get into starting with episode five. That's when a new character comes into the world and really shakes things up, somebody who has a link to the shared histories of both Chuck and Ned."

Sounds cool to me, and Fuller and friends have already created a world that I love returning to each week, so I can't wait to see where they go next.

The big news about "How I Met Your Mother" is that co-creator Craig Thomas promises that the showrunners have their penchant for random celebrity drop-ins under control. If bringing in Britney Spears was really necessary to lock down a fourth season than I'm certainly grateful, but enough is enough. Lucky, Thomas apparently thinks so too: "Our core audience turns in to see those five characters," he says. "We're not 'The Love Boat.' "

Amen, brother. And on that note, I unfortunately still have to go to work. Peace out.

The flameout of "Jezebel James"

Even if the end was inevitable - because the show was in many ways just bloody awful - this is still an awfully harsh fall from grace for the creator of the often sublime "Gilmore Girls."

After airing only three episodes (over just two weeks) of the only seven episodes ordered, Fox has indeed already pulled the plug on Amy Sherman-Palladino's new show, "The Return of Jezebel James." To give credit where it's squarely due, this news was broken by TV-obsessed Michael Ausiello here.

There were a number of factors going against this show from the outset, but though it pains me to say it, the biggest problem was easily Parker Posey. It wasn't that she's not Lauren Graham - because there can of course only be one of those rather perfect human specimens - but a whole other problem.

Posey could keep up with ASP's rapid-fire dialogue, which hasn't seemed to slow down much at all, but in order to do so she had to adapt the mannerisms of a meth addict, which along with being thoroughly annoying just didn't gel too well with her New York book publisher persona. Lauren Ambrose fared better by playing it a little more cool, but still ended up often looking nothing but awkward.

The second big killer was that laugh track, which is easily the worst I've heard in many years (though I don't watch many sitcoms.) Why do networks still use this? It never sounds real, and when it's turned up very loud in all the wrong places - as on "Jezebel James" - it just points out how unfunny the show really is.

If I can digress a bit, it was great to see Sarah Chalke on "How I Met Your Mother" - another show that should just dump its laugh track - last night. Britney was, as I guess should have been expected, just pretty darn awful, but Chalke was just as charming as she's always been on "Scrubs." Could she be the secret "Mother" in this puzzle? Probably not, but that would indeed be pretty friggin cool if so.

But, getting back to "Jezebel James," the real shame here is that buried beneath all its obvious faults was the foundation for a pretty good show. The relationship between these two sisters with almost entirely different views of the world could well have developed into something very interesting, but for once at least I can't blame Fox: The gap between potential and payoff was just too wide with this one. R.I.P. Jezebel James.

The "Cadillac" of movie casts?

I've recently added Blackfilm.com to my morning reading list (in place of the froggy site Cinempire.com, which has just fallen off precipitously of late), and it's definitely a welcome addition.

As might be expected, they tend to track the minute details of movies that others pay little attention to, as they're doing with the rather fun-sounding "Cadillac Records," which is quickly attracting quite an A-list cast.

The newest addition is Gabrielle Union, who I'll admit to being smitten with ever since "Bring It On." She'll play Geneva Wade, the girlfriend and later wife of Muddy Waters, being played by the great Jeffrey Wright.

Written and directed by first-time feature (but long-time TV) director Darnell Martin, the story is about Leonard Chess, the legendary founder of the South Side Chicago blues label Chess Records, who will be played by Adrian Brody. Also confirmed for the biopic are Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Beyonce Knowles (heard of her?) as Etta James, Eamonn Walker as Howlin' Wolf, Columbus Short as Little Walter and, easily one of my favorite actors working today, Mos Def as Chuck Berry.

Mos Def as Chuck Berry? It just doesn't get much cooler than that, so definitely keep your eyes on this one. Peace out.