Yes, I'll watch Ricky Gervais do ... well, just about anything

You know, I haven't been to a Broadway show in many years, but if I were to go wild and spring for one now it would certainly be what Julie Taymor is cooking up.

The stager of "The Lion King" has been working for some time now on a musical "Spider-Man," an idea so crazy that it should almost certainly work. And now she's got two of the main players from among her regulars.

Even Rachel Wood will play Spidey's paramour Mary Jane Watson, and the great Alan Cumming will play Norman Osborn/the Green Goblin. No word yet on who will play the webcrawler himself.

And, as a final word on all that, a formal apology from me to Ms. Taymor: I avoided seeing "Across the Universe" in theaters because it just looked like such a mess, but as happens what seems more and more every day, I was once again wrong. Yes, it's hippy, dippy and trippy, but it's also a heck of a lot of fun, so I'd definitely recommend a rental if you've never seen it.

And from here on out today, it's all about funny, and two flicks I'm certainly looking forward to.

Somewhere out in the desert of New Mexico (or maybe old Mexico, it's hard to tell), veryfunnymen Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have been working on something called "Paul," and it looks like just my kind of thing. Directed by Greg Mottola, whose last two flicks, "Superbad" and "Adventureland," have just been fantastic in my book, it's an American road movie starring the two of them and an alien they somehow manage to pick up at Area 51 on their way to ComicCon.

And now it's got a Web site you can check out here. It's pretty primitive so far, with only three videos and two collections of flicker pics, but it's still worth checking out and will surely get much better soon. If you visit, among the many things you'll learn is that the flick is set to feature Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio, among other funny folks, so keep your eyes on this one.

But the main event here today is the trailer for Ricky Gervais' fall flick, now titled "The Invention of Lying," which he co-wrote and co-directed with Matthew Robinson. It kind of looks like the most generic sort of romantic comedy, but since it's Gervais, I'm still betting it will bring the funny.

If I can make one more video recommendation, although just about no one in the world bothered to see it, "Ghost Town" is just a thoroughly entertaining little flick. Starring Gervais, a charming Tea Leoni and Wiig as a truly maddening doctor, it's well worth a rental too.

And with that, I'm off to enjoy a probably scorching day at Athfest, featuring Bloodkin, Patterson Hood and more, all for free. Enjoy the trailer, and have a great rest of the weekend. Peace out.

Wherefore art thou, David Cronenberg?

When his movies are so uniformly entertaining, I guess you really can't begrudge David Cronenberg the right to make flicks at his own pace, but I can certainly selfishly say the world would be a much better place if he indeed chose to work more often than every two or three years or so.

Since the 2007 thriller "Eastern Promises," which was made by a seriously chilling performance from Viggo Mortensen, I think he's been toying with making an opera of "The Fly." I can't even picture what that might look like!

Thankfully for the rest of us who don't live in Canada and get to see this madness, he's also now ready to get back into movies in a rather big way. Word comes today that he's managed to recruit no less than Denzel Washington (heard of him?) to star in a political thriller from "Bourne" author Robert Ludlum.

Set against the backdrop of the Cold war, "The Matarese Circle" revolves around two men — one American, one Soviet — who must cooperate in order to foil a sinister plot to topple the world’s governments. Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, who crafted the mostly satisfying "3:10 to Yuma" remake, are writing the adaptation.

Oscar alert for Forest Whitaker

I guess maybe this is Forest Whitaker's way to make up for missing out on the role of Notorious B.I.G. (which in all seriousness, of course, I doubt he was ever up for). Getting back on track in his quest to play every heavyset, famous black man on the big screen, he's next set his eyes on directing and starring in "What a Wonderful World."

All kidding aside, this should be a lot of fun, and perhaps more importantly it's actually being filmed in New Orleans for the French company - Legende - behind "La Vie en Rose."

The flick will kick off during Louis Armstrong’s impoverished early years in New Orleans and primarily chronicle his career as a trumpet virtuoso and improvisational singer. Since Mr. Whitaker's last directing effort was with Katie Cruise in "First Daughter," which I admittedly haven't seen, I'll still confidently bet this will have to be much, much better.

Julie Taymor creating a "Tempest"

I really should have given Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe" a chance when it finally came here for one week last year, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Thankfully, the Macon Film Guild is gonna screen it sometime in the next couple of months, so I'll certainly make up for that oversight when it comes again.

And Ms. Taymor is now back at it to create another oddity, this time with Dame Helen Mirren in tow. She's assembling a rather stellar cast for "The Tempest," and has already flipped the gender roles to make Prospero a Prospera for Mirren to play.

All I can really remember about "The Tempest" is that the sorcerer Prospero (Prospera), the former Duke of Milan, has been stranded on an island with a lot of his books and his 3-year-old daughter Miranda. From there I'm sure it will get very dreamy in Taymor's hands with help from a cast that will include Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Ben Wishaw, Felicity Jones and Geoffrey Rush.


Watch Kevin Smith make a porno

From what little I've seen of Kevin Smith's next flick, opening hopefully everywhere on Halloween, I think it's gonna be a real winner. To build the hype for the movie starring Seth Rogen and the fabulously funny Elizabeth Banks, Smith and Co. have starting posting brief "webisodes" at his Quickstop Entertainment site.

The first one, which is up now, features Messrs. Smith and Rogen in a fairly funny discussion about how Rogen should bring more "Affleck-tion" to the set. You can watch it here, and I think it's well worth wasting three minutes or so of your work day. Peace out.

Drinky Crow is go - for real!

Given that Adult Swim prides itself on living by, well, no rules whatsoever, the details about this are understandably sketchy, but it seems that Tony Millionaire's "Drinky Crow Show" has been given a full-season pickup.

Staying true to its vision of barely organized chaos, Adult Swim unveiled like 30 or so 15-minute pilots on one night last spring and then let viewers vote on the winner, and it seems Drinky Crow was by far the favorite.

Never heard of Tony Millionaire or Maakies? Well, if you can handle your humor extremely juvenile, more than occasionally peurile but also seriously funny, the Maakies comic strip is for you. The adventures of Uncle Gabby, Drinky Crow and the rest of the crew are linked among my favorite sites at right, but be warned, if you have any work to do today don't click on it, because you could easily spend the whole day reading the strips he has online.

Drinky Crow first appeared on TV in a series of rather poorly conceived shorts on "Saturday Night Live" a few years back, but now given new life by Millionaire and Eric Kaplan, he's back in much better condition. No word yet on when exactly more installments will begin appearing, but for proof of just how twistedly funny the pilot was, there's a 30-second glimpse at the end of the post.

And here, straight from the mouth of Eric Kaplan via the great Comics2Film site, is a potential plotline for a future episode that shows that, thankfully, this duo won't be growing up anytime soon:

EK: I'm working on one now where the idea is that Drinky Crow and Uncle Gabby are driving their car, smashing into people, beating on people, just having this night of drunken revelry. Drinky Crow comes home and peaks in the window, because they lost their key so they have to climb in. And he sees his girlfriend in bed with an elephant seal who's going ‘Urgh Urgh Urgh Urgh.' Then Drinky Crow is in this bar and Uncle Gabby is trying to cheer him up saying ‘oh, she wasn't good enough for you.' Drinky Crow is like, are you kidding, she was much better than me. And he's like, yeah I guess you're right. So Uncle Gabby says, I know how to cheer you up, you need to get back in the saddle So he finds these two really homely old hags in the bar and he's like hey, would you mind if you buy me a drink. So he's hitting on these two ladies and Drinky Crow is like, oh that's too depressing, I can't do this. Uncle Gabby says, what you need to do is lower your standards. I have these things called beer goggles. They're beer-fueled mechanical contraptions that you put on your eye. Drinky Crow says fantastic, I'll just take out my eye-tearing-out-hooks and he tears out his eyes and puts this thing in and he looks at these two ladies and they look beautiful.

And, as promised, here's a clip from the pilot in which Uncle Gabby learns the perils of using whale blubber to flirt with the captain's daughter. Enjoy!



A glimpse into "The Mist"

I apologize if this is heavy on pics and clips today, but I have far too much work to do after a long holiday weekend, so have to make this as efficient as possible.

There are few partnerships in movies that work better than Frank Darabont and Stephen King, as I'm confident Darabont's upcoming "The Mist" will once again prove. As the trailer I've posted here shows, you get a big dose of Andre Braugher, which is always a good thing in my book. It looks like he may well be playing the traditional role of "the black guy" in horror movies, which means dying early, but it looks like even if that's so he should get some good screen time in first.



Some psychedelic visions of the "Universe"

I'm not sure why, but I just can't get too psyched for Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe," set for release Sept. 14. Though Taymor is a budding visual master, her narrative skills still leave something to be desired. If "Universe," her tribute to the Beatles and the '60s, is as hollow a shell as her "Titus," it's just gonna be a very pretty montage of music videos.

I am still hoping that I'm wrong, which has been known to happen at least a few times before. To get a taste of what she has cooked up, you can see a ton of stills from the flick at Ropeofsilicon, one of which I've pilfered and included here. Click on the link for 47 more or so.


The limits of good taste

I've found, in my fairly long time on this planet, that I get offended by very little. My only real test with comedy is that it be funny.

And it's in that spirit that I'm really looking forward to the hail of bullets that will be this weekend's "Shoot 'Em Up." The viral marketing for this silly little flick has been fun to take in, as this new site proves. Be warned: If you can't, under any circumstances, laugh about infants in peril, don't click on that link. I hope I'll never get too mature for that. Peace out.