New Ben Stiller flick coming up, Tropic Thunder, released the following image a couple weeks back:

Robert Downey, Jr. is the dude in the middle.

And, obviously, everyone thought it was horrible that he would do a role in blackface. Obviously.

Today, they put out the trailer, here, which gives much more of the story, and turns what everyone thought was blackface into a comment on blackface.

Kudos to you, Mr. Stiller, and to Justin Theroux for continuing to impress me with everything he does.

That’s something a friend of mine said after we hadn’t hung out in a while, and I said something funny (obvs) and then his girlfriend got miffed. Which was also funny.

However, here’s something I laughed at, and I can’t recall laughing this hard at something in a while. Ricky Gervais is blogging about his new movie, and he talks to radio producer Karl Pilkington about a movie idea he has. You have to click on the “play” button at the end of “Week Two” to hear it. It’s brilliant. And, um, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for some writers to sit around and go “Here’s this idea I have for a [book/movie/play/short story/poem/epic poem/sketch/tv show/sonnet]“, there it is.

Take Matty Tucker’s #1 sketch comedy influence, via its most well-known member (read: the State/Michael Ian Black), team him up with one of Matty’s current favorite creative comedic actor/writers (read: Simon Pegg), have them write a screenplay from a story by the former, to make a film starring the latter, and you get this.

Now, please tell me why two of my favorite funny people have created something, only to hand it over to David fucking Schwimmer to direct?! Hm? Ridiculous.

If this doesn’t excite you, we can’t be friends.

This is extremely brilliant. Live sketch comedy? Who knew? I think it could be a hit.

In other news, I went to see Beowulf in 3D at the imax tonight. Sure, it was $14, but it was pretty dang stunning. It pulled no punches (actually, it pulled Angelina Jolie’s cgi nipples. Wait, “pulled [her] nipples” makes it sound like they actually pulled on…I mean, her nipples weren’t in the movie.), and it was honestly good to see something that was stylistically similar to Shrek have some extremely overt sexual overtones.

What follows is a discussion on “suspension of disbelief” in film.

I’m not entirely sure if the “motion capture” cgi accomplished anything in terms of adding to the film, except for the idea that entire landscapes can be facsimilated more easily than they could in live action. But, if Lord of the Rings has taught us anything, it’s that enormous live action fantasy epics are possible. The thing about film is that suspension of disbelief is not nearly as required as it is on stage, or in graphic media, or even the written word. On film, what you see is what you get, and since your mind does not need to fill things in (thereby, since the origin of the image comes from within the beholder, the beholder is more likely to believe it), what appears on film needs to be believable. Now, this can be circumvented in animated film by having something realistic (a princess, for instance) next to something fantastic, yet stylistically congruent (a dragon). This all changed with Jurassic Park putting live action on screen with cgi dinosaurs. The use of dinosaurs as the subject of the cgi made the process much easier to digest, since they weren’t human. CGI humans are still not perfect, and therefore somewhat distracting. In The Matrix: Reloaded you could tell in the fight between Neo and the 100 Agent Smiths when it stopped being Keanu and started being cgi Keanu. And it was distracting. And with Beowulf, where all of the characters are cgi, it’s hard to not think about that. I feel that a film like A Scanner Darkly utilized “rotoscoping” to make the trippy drug-addled hallucinations more believable, and it worked well. I’m just having trouble trying to figure out why Robert Zemeckis made the decision.

I haven’t had a ciggy in a week.

Yesssssss!!!!!!!

I’ve been looking forward to this movie ever since I first heard of it. Woo to the hoo.

Apparently, when shooting the remakes, Jack Black, Mos Def, Gondry himself, and everyone else involved in the production were not allowed to have watched the movie prior to shooting so that the movies would exist as they exist in our memories.

That is so Gondry.

“Hotel Chevalier” by Wes Anderson, the short film/prelude to the feature the Darjeeling Limited, is available to download from iTunes here.

I like it, and not because Natalie Portman appears nude, although that’s the source of the major buzz surrounding the piece. Frankly, I usually find nudity in film distracting. It takes me out of the movie in such a way that’s generally pleasing to my baser instincts, but it takes me out of the movie. (in my current secret project, which is getting in motion (fyi), I specifically avoid a scene of unnecessary eroticism because I think it would be too distracting.) Although I thought it was kind of appropriate in this short. Like, it was erotic, but not in an erotic way. That sentence makes sense to me.

Jason Schwartzman’s character (he goes unnamed in the short) has the most blunt breakup lines possibly ever uttered. And it’s quite compelling for that reason, in that virtually everyone who has ever broken up with someone has felt the words he speaks, and yet they are never spoken in real life, even though the situation he is in almost always occurs. And that’s what I feel the beauty of the piece is. It’s the juxtaposition of the dream of a breakup with the reality, and it creates this postmodern breakup that’s relatable both in its honesty and dishonesty. But it’s familiar in a way that’s exactly familiar, which is not to say that I’ve ever pictured a breakup of the sort, but rather that Wes Anderson has created a breakup that’s more break up-like than the best breakup I’ve ever imagined. And kudos for that.

I love movie trailers. I think they’re great. I watch as many trailers as I can.

I just came across this one. It’s for a film called Fierce People, which as of right this second appears to not have an official site, nor is it listed on its distributing studio’s website. Hurm.

Now, watch it. It looks interesting, and seems to appeal to me, in that it seems to have the vibe of films that I tend to watch (quirky nervous young man, quirky spunky girl, weird families, dromedy, etc.). And I’d like to see it.

However, the striking thing about this trailer in particular is the music. Listen for echoes of Bowie/Queen’s “Under Pressure”, Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” and the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” (and another I can’t identify–good work, trailer people!). They don’t sound exactly perfect, and I had to check my speakers to make sure they weren’t fucking up when I started watching it. But, no. They took songs I know (and love), switched a few chords around, layered sound oddly, mixed shit differently, and made a new song that sounds like another song, but isn’t, yet is. Confused? So am I.

So, they apparently couldn’t afford the rights to the songs, so they paid some hack to make some facsimiles. That’s my take. It’s distracting, like hearing “Lux Aeterna” from Requiem for a Dream in any movie trailer for any movie of any genre. If you can’t use one song, use another one. Don’t take the one you want and screw it up. It pisses people (read: me) off.

This is also discussed, poorly, on IMDB.

Control.

Here’s the positive:

• That dude really looks like Ian Curtis, which is kinda creepy, but makes me exceedingly pumped.
• The cast, apparently, plays all of the Joy Division songs in the movie. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.
• Anton Corbijn
• It’s the Ian Curtis biopic! Ian Curtis! My favorite song ever is “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (which I vehemently refuse to sing at karaoke). I mean, 24 Hour Party People is awesome, and I love it, but this one’s just about Ian Curtis.

Here’s what worries me:

• It’s a biopic. Biopics tend to suck. I thought that Walk the Line was the best biopic I’ve seen, but I still think it kinda sucked. The problem is the third act, when the subject stops doing cool stuff, and starts to deal with fame or whatever, and the flick really slows down. It happens in every biopic. And it irks me. It irks me.
• It’s Anton Cobijn’s first feature.
• The cast plays all of the songs in the movie. This could ruin the movie if they suck.
• If they picked an actor who looks like the subject, rather than someone who can really fucking play him, that’s ridiculously myopic.

However, since *Spolier Alert* Ian Curtis killed himself at 23 *Spoilers End*, the third act may not slow down. I’m going to see this movie. And I’m pretty sure it’ll be awesome.

So, remaking a children’s show into a feature-length movie. Ok. I mean, when was the last time Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was relevant (this may be the greatest teaser trailer ever created.)? I don’t know. But they put out a movie. Transformers was an awesome cartoon in my youth, and then they’ve redone that one a few times. And then they did the movie (this may be a close second).

Clearly, though, you’re shooting for my specific demographic, here: People (usually males) who watched cartoons in the mid-80’s. What’s next? Mask? Masters of the Universe? Some random cartoon I used to watch in middle school? (Seriously, I don’t know where that thing came from. That’s the weirdest idea I’ve ever heard).

No, it’s this. Which I used to be into forever ago. Actually, it’s been around for long enough that my dad could have been into it when he was a kid (actually, when he was, like, in college, so probably not, but I only said that for effect. 1958.). But I still think they’re shooting for my demographic. Why? Watch the teaser. See, it’s got Jason Lee in it. Who’s, like, totally appealing to people my age. That’s number 1. Number 2, however, is the last bit of the trailer (there’s a pun in here somewhere). I mean, what the fuck are they thinking? That may be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in a trailer, ever. That’s something I haven’t seen happen on Jackass. And they did it in a children’s movie.

But that just makes me want to see it more.

In other news: Go see The Ten from the State’s peoples, and also go see Superbad from Camp Apatow.