The Rock Gives Up.

There was a time after THE RUNDOWN was released that it looked like The Rock was ready to tackle the action genre by storm. The movie wasn't a huge success but it did a lot to show that he could headline a film that didn't involve him being shirtless ala THE SCORPION KING. Sadly, since THE RUNDOWN The Rock has turned out a whole slew of tired films. Now it appears things are only getting worse with The Rock's next movie, THE GAME PLAN.

In THE GAME PLAN The Rock plays a pro quarterback who finds himself saddled with a daughter he never knew existed. This leads to many wacky moments involving The Rock trying to cope with his new status as a father. You know things are gonna get wacky in the trailer because a James Brown song starts up about midway through.

I have no problem with The Rock not wanting to be typecast as an action actor. What I don't get is why that means he has to make total shit. It's often true, as in the case of THE PACIFIER, that total shit can make a lot of money at the box office but it could end up being at the expense of fans who will now be less interested in seeing him beat dudes up.

This is where I normally like to link to a trailer that I've been talking about but I'll spare you that here. Odds are if you go to the movies this summer you'll see THE GAME PLAN'S trailer before its September release. No need for you to waste your time watching it now.

Supernatural Season 2: Cowboys and Zombie Indians

After finishing the second season of Supernatural, I think I have figured out why I like it so much. The world of the occult, zombies, vampires, demons, magik (not a typo), etc. has been so inherently European in the past. I can only think of the terrible "John Carpenter's Vampires", "Lost Boys" (to some extent), and maybe some aspects of Buffy being more American takes on the subject matter (although all the examples are very vampire related).

Supernatural is like a real grade A American take on the occult. Muscle cars, check. Hard Rock, check. Cowboys, check. Hot chicks, check. Big guns, check. The way that Eric Kripke and Robert Singer have managed to work things like Samuel Colt into the mythology of the show gives it a very American feel, which gives everything a fresh feel. Mix in Buffy-esque humor, intelligent homages, and some general ass kicking you have a winning formula.

I applaud the show for putting what seems like a definitive stamp on the yellow eyed demon plot line that has been dangling throughout season 1 and 2, and not leaving us with a big cliffhanger. While the 2-part finale was tense and exciting, it almost felt anti-climactic by the end of it. I did really enjoy the short return of Papa Winchester, played excellently by Jeffrey Dean Morgan (yes that dude who was on Grey's Anatomy for some time). There are many seeds planted for where the show can go in season 3, but we also got some significant closure. That is a rarity in TV nowadays.

Supernatural is easily one of the most underrated shows on television along with Friday Night Lights. If you are a fan of Buffy, Evil Dead, or just the sci-fi genre you really should give this show a chance on DVD. If you aren't hooked by the middle of season 1, then you probably don't like good TV.

Run McT-MC

This news really excited me. John McTiernan has been tapped to direct "Run" starring Karl Urban (I think he was moromir or boromir or one of the riders of rohan or whatever in Lord of the Rings).

Now, when the man who directed two of the most perfect action films ever, Die Hard and Predator, signs on to a new action flick I take notice. But I was even more intrigued when the Variety store brought to my attention by Ain't It Cool News mentioned that the script has approximately 100 pages of nothing but CAR CHASES! Now that is sweet.

While McT's recent efforts haven't changed cinema as we know it, they have been decent films (lets pretend Basic and Rollerball never happened). When you factor in this script, this director, and a non-household name actor, I think there is a chance for something special here.

Heroes: The only show that can turn Shaft into a pussy

My thoughts on Heroes have been a long time coming. My friends over at CHUD just posted a real scathing review of Heroes, which I am all for. Devin Faraci, a CHUD dude, pretty much laid down the gauntlet and said it like it is. You can check it out here

As for my thoughts, it basically comes down to this. Nothing you ever liked or thought was cool about Heroes is original. Plain and simple. Tim Kring and his stable of hacks have proceeded to lift multiple well known stories and multiple major superhero powers over the past season. Just to name a few...(Possible spoilers)

Linderman's plot - direct rip from Ozymandius' plot in the seminal piece of comic book work, WATCHMEN (if you want to read good superhero drama, read this book now). BTW, how did Linderman an apparent former do-gooder type become the head of a casino and apparently an organized crime syndicate? They made no attempt to explain his motives. They just used him as a bad guy most of the season, then all of a sudden he is a former hero gone over the edge/evil genius?

5 years in the future - multiple rips from Chris Claremont's brilliant "Days of Future Past" storyline on his legendary run with X-men

Hiro's bullshit sword quest - EVERY LAZY COMIC BOOK WRITER EVER...seriously, you are going to do a "it was never about the sword, the power was always in you" storyline...FUCK YOU.

Hiro dropping into Kensei's time - go watch Evil Dead II then Army of Darkness

And that is just a short list I just came up with right now. If I felt like digging deeper, it would be much longer.

As for the characters, 90% of them are idiotic. Nikki/Jessica still makes no sense after one full season of Ali Larter's brilliant performances. Who is powerful? Can Nikki now control jessica? What the hell is up with the mirrors? Ah...who cares. She is a terrible character.

Hiro, the one the geeks find most interesting. Is the most cliched character in the show. And his dad purposely being a jerk to him to test him was one of the stupidest and once again biggest cliches I have ever seen. And seriously Sylar, all of a sudden you decide to let Hiro stab you? Before you froze his fucking sword! Now he just runs at you all fairy like and stabs you so easily?

Nathan Petrelli and Parkman are probably the only interesting characters. I liked the conflicted Nathan. His arc was probably the only decent one over the season. And I am pretty sure he will be back. Parkman was also great because he was such a loser and in many ways still is even though he has this super power.

The cheerleader is stupid. I hate her. I hate everything about her. I hope I never see that Haitian dude again. At times I wish he would mind wipe me so I would forget some of the time I wasted on this show. Her storyline along with Horned glasses dude was so unnecessarily convoluted and drawn out.

I think the moment that really really really bothered me the most was in the season finale when Shaft, for a reason they decided WAS NOT IMPORTANT, begins talking to Peter in the flashback. What he said, almost made me vomit. Its all about love? What the hell is that? Screw you Tim Kring for turning Shaft into a girl. And fuck Peter Petrelli. I dont care about you. You have all the power in the world, yet you continue to act like a bitch.

And...whatever, I am tired of skewering the specifics of the show.

It comes down to this. Heroes started out slow as shit. It is no coincidence that as once it started to get real interesting, it started to steal more and more from popular comic books. I am not quite sure why geeks have not caught onto this. I can understand soccer moms and the like eating this stuff up because they are very interesting stories that they have never been exposed to. And they STILL don't do it well. But where is the geek outcry? Instead, geeks are eating it up just as much as the gilmore girl watchers...peter has a cool scar in the future!!! But wait cant he heal...ah who cares, it makes him look bad ass!

All the chances the creative staff had to take things down an original route or interesting path were wasted. They had legitimately good setups early on in the season, but they chose to take the easy way out and copy someone else's work.

I know this was scathing, but I think the show deserved it. I just don't feel its right for it to get away with robbery and not catch any heat for it.

Die Hard...On a bus

You know with the age of the internet upon us, it seems like print advertising is coming to a close. Thankfully though, in bigger cities like LA or NYC there are still a lot of billboard posters, bus stop ads, etc.

Right now in Los Angeles, there is a poster running on the side of Metro Buses for "Live Free or Die Hard" that may just be the greatest thing ever.

Unfortunately, a google search turned up nothing, and I am not ambidextrous enough to take a picture with my cellphone while trying to drive as these buses go by.

The gist is this.

Long banner poster alongside a bus. It reads:

"YIPPIE KI YAY MO" (the rest gets "cut off" due to the banner not being long enough)

and underneath ala quoted bible verses, it says "John 6:27".

Now, LFODH is rated PG-13, but Bruce has assured us in his aintitcool talkbacking that the line is spoken. Either way, being the die hard nut that I am, that poster really got me excited to see Die Hard 1-3 again. Still not too excited to see 4, but I feel obligated to the franchise to see it. Who knows, maybe Len Wiseman actually pulls it off...

EDIT: Thanks to CHUD.COM we got the ad up now.

JOHN RAMBO...'nuff said

You know, I don't think I need to explain to you guys that there is an upper echelon of action film stars the likes of which we will never see again. I am talking about Arnold, Bruno, and of course Sly Stallone. For whatever reason, Hollywood just doesn't promote these types anymore nor do they greenlight the types of scripts that made those guys famous.

Luckily, someone put a lot of faith in Stallone's "Rocky Balboa" and got that brilliant movie made, giving a fitting end to the Rocky series. Now, I think the fruits of Rocky VI's success is paying off.

What we have here is possibly the greatest promo reel/trailer ever created. And I am not being hyperbolic here.

Sly is at the Cannes film festival showing this promo reel to all the film distributors, who are living it up on the French Riviera right now. I can only imagine that it is blowing people away. At times, this promo reel seems to be evoking a real grindhouse feel...but most importantly it seems like Sly has found the perfect combination of First Blood and Rambo: First Blood part II. Some interesting character work shown off in the beginning, and then of course the gore kicks in. I have never really had a chance to see Stallone direct real action, seeing as how all his non-Rocky action flicks were all directed by others. But judging from this promo, Stallone has picked up a few new tricks.

Without further ado, I give you "John Rambo"...

HUMAN GIANT: 24

MTV and MTV2 have been currently taken over by Human Giant, the next great sketch comedy group.

They are also attempting to get 1,000,000 hits on their website HERE

I suggest you start watching and start surfing RIGHT NOW. The fate of comedy depends on you

No more Skeeting...

After a great finish to the season, we have now been informed by CBS that the fall lineup does not include Jericho Season 2.

I can't even say I would recommend the show as a DVD purchase because of its cliffhanger ending now that we know questions will never be answered.

Oh well. I guess Skeet Ulrich's rise out of mediocrity was a short lived one.

The Day the Punishment Died

It's estimated that about 217 people enjoyed the 2004 version of THE PUNISHER. I'm one of them. I was also one of the few souls who was really looking forward to seeing Thomas Jane get another crack at playing the character in a sequel. It appears as though I'm going to have to find something else to look forward to as Jane himself has stated he's leaving the project.

It wasn't too long ago that I read Kurt Sutter, a writer from "The Shield," was hired to work on the script. This gave me high hopes. I don't know if it was exactly script trouble or just general movie studio bullshit, but whatever the case it has taken its toll on Jane who has been working hard the last 3 years to get a sequel off the ground. Jane really seemed to enjoy playing the character and wanted to give the fans a movie that would make up for the shortcummings of the original (though again, I liked it).

This doesn't exactly mean the sequel itself is dead. HULK is getting a follow-up with a new lead and I gotta believe that a character like THE PUNISHER, who isn't nearly as expensive to portray on screen, will get another chance in front of the camera. The problem now is will they be able to find an actor as psyched to play the part as Jane. Doubtful.

Check out the AICN exclusive where Jane explains the situation in his own words here.

HUMAN GIANT TAKES OVER MTV: May 18th @ NOON

In an unprecedented show of good faith, MTV has apparently given HUMAN GIANT free reign over both MTV and MTV2 for 24 hours starting May 18th at 12 pm. I will go ahead and repost what Aziz Ansari posted on Myspace (i have taken the liberty of bolding some of the bigger names)...

"Last week, MTV told us we could get 24 hours on MTV and MTV2 to do whatever we want. So on Friday, May 18th at noon - we'll take over both channels for a full day and will host live from MTV's Times Square studio. They're literally letting us do whatever we want - we can program whatever shows we want, have guests, bands, music videos, anything! We just have to stay up for 24 hours and get a million hits on our website.

Here are a few of the guests we have coming down, (more bands and guests will be announced later in the week):

Fred Armisen
Will Arnett
Todd Barry
Jon Benjamin
Andy Blitz
Michael Cera
Zach Galifianakis
Jon Glaser
Bill Hader
Nick Kroll
Eugene Mirman
The National
Bob Odenkirk
Rob Riggle
Slovin and Allen
Michael Showalter
Tapes 'n Tapes
Ted Leo
Tegan and Sara

If you are near NY and want FREE tickets to be in the audience, just send an e-mail to battleofthebands@mtvstaff.com and please include the following:

-Name
-Age
-Phone number

Of course, you are not obligated to stay in the audience for the full 24 hours and can stay as long as you want from what I understand. It should be really fun."

This could be something special...

Human Giant: The next great sketch comedy show

Aziz Ansari, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel.

Remember those names. In a couple of years we will be talking about how awesomely famous they have become...or we will be talking about how awesomely famous they could have been if MTV hadn't cancelled their show.

As of now, these three guys along with writer/director Jason Woliner comprise Human Giant. A sketch comedy show born out of the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy theater. They had gained minor fame over the internet thanks to shorts like "Shutterbugs", "Illusionators", and "Shittiest Mixtape Boombox Blast". After toiling away in late-night comedy theater, they got their shot at sketch comedy on MTV.

The show is amazing. The three previously mentioned skits all make a return, and the wildly original "shutterbugs" has continued the story of the biggest name in tiny talent. I have embedded a couple youtubes of the early "Shutterbugs" stuff and linked to MTV's overdrive site so you can watch their two recent installments, which blew me away. Note: If you are a fan of child actor prodigy Bobbe'J Thompson (the little kid on the short lived Tracy Morgan Show) you will love the most recent installment.

In my opinion, Human Giant is doing some of the best sketch comedy on TV since Comedy Central cancelled Upright Citizens Brigade. We all know that MTV has a poor track record in supporting shows that don't involve 20-somethings getting drunk and sleeping with each other, which is why I am encouraging you all to give this show a couple viewings. You won't be sorry.



here is the link to the most recent installment

Changes on the Horizon

Now that I am back in the states, I figured I gotta couple weeks before I move out to Washington DC so I will be messing around with the look of the blog. It is long overdue for a new look.

But I have to warn you, I have no working knowledge of HTML so hopefully the recent overhaul of Blogger's services offers me some easy to manipulate templates. Let me know what you guys think about the new look(s).

Farewell Mr. Baur

It is with a somewhat sad heart I have to inform you that 24 is no longer holding the number one spot in my Tivo's list of season passes. I was on vacation for the past two weeks, and when I came back I realized I had 4 unwatched episodes sitting on my hard drive, but for the first time in a long time I had no interest in watching them. Sitting through 4 episodes actually felt like a daunting task, not an enjoyment like tv should be.

It was then I realized I am finished with 24. It has become too tedious to watch, especially this season. All the magic bulletts, magic head trauma recovery, Russians with paper thin motives, cookie cutter terrorists, etc finally pushed me over the edge. This show has become more and more shitty with every season...but for whatever reason the rest of the world feels its becoming better? More and more awards are given to it for no good reason.

Anyway, more power to Mr. Sutherland. An iconic character like Jack Baur doesn't come around too often for a lot of actors, and Kiefer is definitely making the most of his second life on fame. But this is where I get off this crazy train.

P.S. And no this doesn't necessarily mean Heroes will be taking a season pass either. I have been keeping up with that show through NBC.com replays...and boy is it a frustrating show to watch (especially for a comic book fan like myself), but more on that after the season finale.

Jericho: AAAAAAAAAH SKEET SKEET SKEET SKEET

So Jericho had its season finale this week...and it was pretty damn good! I think at the beginning of the TV season Jericho was probably the last show I would have thought would be surviving AND renewed for season 2. In retrospect though, the show really came together nicely about halfway through the season. The creative staff built up a ton of questions in the first 6-7 episodes and then proceeded to answer them pretty clearly.

We found out what Jake was up to in his time away from Jericho.

We learn about Hawkins' past.

We learn about the bombs.

By the end, the show was far less about the mysteries of the bombs and more a character study about how people would survive in a post-nuclear holocaust world (minus the super power mutations...which I am fully expecting to see explored in season 2).

Once this show hits DVDs, I would suggest giving it a rent. It is far less sexy (although Ashley Scott always looks smokin' when on screen) a show than Lost, but it is a fun and sometimes poignant diversion.

Android, Psycho, Author?

If there is one actor who has seemingly done it all it would be Rutger Hauer. From roles in genre favorites like BLADE RUNNER and THE HITCHER to appearances in all sorts of cheap DTV films he has stood the test of time. Recently Hauer has popped up in mainstream hits like SIN CITY and BATMAN BEGINS. While he still has many years of acting left in him, Hauer has decided to share a little insight into his life by writing a new book titled "All Those Moments."

I'm looking forward to picking this book up. Hauer has worked with a wide range of actors and directors. Everyone from Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott to Ice-T and Gary Busey. Hopefully Hauer's writing style is as colorful as many of the roles he tends to play.

It appears this book's release was timed for the 25th Anniversary of when BLADE RUNNER first arrived in theaters back in '82. Personally I'd like to think the book is being released to celebrate the 26th Anniversary of NIGHTHAWKS.