Oh lordy, y’all. So Jersey Shore‘s second season premiered last night, and much like the above image from Videogum of Snooki and Sammi Sweetheart listening intently to their conchs, it was a strange thing of booze-fueled, sh*t-talking, train-wreck-of-zen beauty, and how could it be anything but? Let’s discuss a few of my favorite moments, shall we?
Angelina’s returned prompted The Situation to deliver serious FACE:
Truer feelings of utter disbelief, total confusion, and SENSE OF IMPENDING RIDICUDRAMA have never been FACE’d. Well played, The Situation. Very well played, indeed.
And let’s not forget when Snooki gave a brief dissertation on revisionist history:
I don’t even care that Where the Wild Things Are isn’t out for another two months. Actually, I do care because I’m over-it-and-a-half with this whole “patience” thing. Seriously, the first trailer has been around since the end of March! MARCH!!! Spike Jonze, the madness must stop! Even from the first teaser, I was convinced:
So convinced from the get go. But now? I’m double-convinced!
The full trailer has finally arrived, and it’s chockfull of stunning imagery, the Arcade Fire goodness, and enough childhood innocence to reduce you to a blubbering mess. Just like a bomb made of hyper-concentrated nostalgia for the halcyon days of youth, it’s pretty much designed to make a teary-eyed believer out of even the staunchest of cynics. So have you got your Kleenexes ready? Good.
It was one thing to see the pictures that had hit the internet a few weeks back. They were great, no doubt, but seeing actual footage–even a minute-and-a-half of it–is an entirely different beast of pure, visual ferociousness. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter is even more fabulously deranged than those first images would have let on, Tweedledee and Tweedledum look like they crawled straight out of an Edward Gorey illustration, Anne Hathaway looks absolutely fabulous as the White Queen, and Wonderland itself looks like some sort of fantastical, demented acid trip.
Really, I could try and muster up some sour grapes to make a quick cup of bitch wine, but this trailer just had me to giddy to even make the effort. Really, this is about all I can muster:
Me: Wait until March?!? YEARGH!!! That makes me want to poop on your face, Disney!
See? I told you that I’ve got nothing. NOTHING! Now, if you’ll excuse you, I’ve got a face to fix.
UPDATE (7/22): Aaaand of course it’s gone as soon it appeared. The interwebs giveth, and Disney taketh away. Now I really do want to poop on their face!
DOUBLE UPDATE (7/24): A higher quality, though non-embeddable, copy of the trailer’s found its way back to YouTube and can be watched here. Looks like the Disney-lawyer-face-poop crisis has been temporarily averted.
Some months back, I randomly stumbled upon the totally ridiculous looking trailer for Orphan,and I immediately began to wonder what the hell her secret is. Of course, I’m equally curious as to why Vera Farmiga keeps getting saddled with Bad Seed rip-offs, and I’d love to know why Peter Sarsgaard said yes to this mess, but none of these questions can distract me from the most important fact that this movie looks ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT INSANE, and so I naturally can’t wait. The latest TV spot is just a 30-second taste of the crazy, but–like a good cheese–things are looking ever more delicious as time goes by:
I first thought this looked more like trashy camp, and I still get tingly whenever I see Vera’s hysterics, and there’s apparently a scene where a car is driven into there house (totally awesome, but also huh?), but I’m beginning to think this movie looks to be both completely ridiculous and creepy as hell. There’s something about the way that girl puts her homicidal bitchface on with such aplomb. Seriously, when I see that final shot, I don’t know whether to giggle with camp glee or piss myself in terror. After taking a good look at the poster, though, I’ve gotta go with the latter:
Pure comedy gold, that’s what. Powder Blue is totally shaping up to be legendary, y’all. Just check out all this ACTING and DRAMA:
Hot damn! Forget the acting (which is totally ridiculous, to be sure; whenever that tranny throws up her hands, an angel gets its wings). What in the world is going on with the directing in this movie? Timothy Linh Bui is cramming so many unnecessary edits into this scene to show off the DRAMA and ARTISTIC INTEGRITY of his VISION; unfortunately, the sense of time is so disorienting that I feel like I’m on Lost island, complete with the nosebleeds! Yikes!
I’m also at this point completely in love with the screenplay for Powder Blue, which in this scene alludes to a Candid Camera-esque TV show that apparently involves picking up tranny hookers and having their johns make bizarre requests. It’s kinda like Punk’d, I suppose, but with less Ashton Kutcher and more transexual prostitution. Yes, that definitely sounds like a show. On TV. In the real world.
And let’s not forget the tranny’s words of wisdom: “Everyone’s got problems! Deal with it!” Oh, tranny, truer words never spoken. I smell Oscars, y’all. Oscars all around!
Like I said, people: Powder Blue shall be legendary (for how it’s divorced from any and all notions of reality and artistic competency). Or, in other words: Powder Blue will be the best.
One time, in an independent cinema class I took in undergrad, we were watching Ulee’s Gold, which stars a quite excellent Peter Fonda and features a young Jessica Biel in a supporting role. When her name appeared in the opening credits, I shrieked her name out loud in a mixture enthusiasm and surprise; this is apparently something most people don’t do, so I’ve had quite some trouble living that incident down amongst the friends of mine who’re in that class. Whatever, I digress.
Point is, I really do love Jessica Biel, but before today I could never quite explain why. Now I have an answer, though, and that answer is Powder Blue. I mean, really, there are no words for this:
I’m sorry, but did we all just share that moment? I hope so, because that moment was magical. Jessica Biel even borrows from Elizabeth Berkley’s tricks and does a classic Nomi-shove! YES!
I know that I like to throw around the Showgirls love a lot, but damn does this look like the heir to the thrown in terms of pure camp. What is being played for maximum dramatic effect only manages to achieve maximum giggles. Jessica Biel is HARDCORE because she SMOKES and CURSES AT DOCTORS, but she’s also DAMAGED and DESPERATE because she TRIES TO SEDUCE THE DOCTOR. This is a SERIOUS MOVIE, and these are SERIOUS SITUATIONS, and this is SERIOUS ACTING. If you couldn’t tell, Powder Blue is clearly shaping up to be the year’s subtlest drama.
What I love the most, though, is the seduction moment. The second Jessica Biel puts on that sexy voice, you can literally see the trains crashing into each other in a firey blaze of LOLs. I genuinely worry that, with such a high level of camp, I may explode if I watch this movie in a single sitting. Trust me, though, that threat is not going to stop me. Not by a long shot.
People, it’s official: Powder Blue has been upgraded from mere Bad Movie to Anticipated Camp Classic. To hell with Netflix, I’m seeing this mess opening night. The rightful heir to the Showgirls thrown drops May 8th, y’all.
It’s no secret that I can’t wait to see Obsessed. I’ve long enjoyed watching Ali Larter since her days in The House on Haunted Hill and Final Destination, and I’m quite serious that I believe this movie will make her a camp icon for a generation of the gays. She’s like the Gina Gershon to Beyonce’s Elizabeth Berkley. Now theres a new viral marketing campaign for the movie, Get Obsessed With Ali, and it’s totally set my camp sensors off.
All you do is upload a photo, answer a few simple questions from a list of preselected answers, and then the site generates a personal message from Ali’s totally crazy stalker character, Lisa. It’s so simple, I can even do it:
Ruh-roh! Looks like Ali Larter’s my batshit insane stalkerriffic fag hag! I hate it when that happens (I’m totally lying when I say that).
Beyond simply being a total pleasure to watch Ali’s eyes burn like a the flaming pyre of a warehouse of Levi’s bootcut crazy jeans burning to the ground, the ending is an absolute LOL-bomb, y’all. Make sure you’ve just peed before you you make your own Get Obsessed With Ali video; you might otherwise wet yourself.
If this site is any indication, then Obsessed is well aware of the trashopalooza that it is. April 24th will clearly be the campiest day of this month, and I’m painfully giddy in anticipation. You should be too.
I’ll never in a million, bajillion years make an argument claiming that what Michael Bay does behind a movie camera can be called art; I’ll leave that to Criterion. I will, however, always been willing to make the argument for Michael Bay as the Grand Poobah of Blowing Shit Up. Plot frequently takes the back seat to absurdly choreographed, incoherently edited action sequences. Of his oeuvre, Transformers is indubitably his masterpiece of exploding batshit insanity. Any movie that involves giant robots blowing things up, screaming their names whenever possible, and peeing on John Turturro doesn’t even care to masquerade as a coherent narrative operating in a world governed by logical thought; it just wants to be the best at being awesome. Mission accomplished, Mr. Bay.
Now we have Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen heading to theaters this summer, and even the trailer shows off that Michael Bay obviously directed this movie in the most finely tailored pair of haute couture crazy pants that the world has to offer:
The distinct lack of any suggestion of a plot beyond robots fighting each other makes me think this is an extended teaser trailer, and the fact that Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox even speak dialogue in this thing just seems distracting and counterproductive to the goal of showing shit blow up. There’ll be a (paper-thin) plot in this movie, but right now we’re just getting our appetites whet. Of course, this trailer could also be indicative of the amount of plot the movie will feature; after all, do we really need narrative justification to put some totally ridiculous robot-on-robot fighting on screen? Hell no, audience! What do you do Michael Bay is? French???
The latest news only further confirms that plot is likely not high on the agenda.
Seriously, y’all, I woke up this morning to my alarm pondering, “Why would I set my alarm so early for a Saturday morning?” Roh-no! All studies indicate that this is not the way to begin your Fridays; it’s like waking up with a major urge to just stay at home in your pajamas eating ice cream sandwiches and pickles and grilled cheese sandwiches because you just know it’s going to be your heavy-flow day, but you’ve got important meetings all day so you can’t call in sick. It’s a frowny-faced, sad panda sort of feeling, and trust me when I say this: New York City subway commutes are not going to turn that frown upside down.
FORTUNATELY, though, I’ve been abusing my favorite stimulant (coffee) like it’s going out of style, so I’m Lil’ Miss Perky Pollyanna right now, but in case anyone else needs a pick-me-up, I bring to you the already quite wonderful LCD Soundsystem ballad “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” As performed by Kermit the Frog. It’s like “Rainbow Connection,” but totally better:
See, aren’t you feeling better already? James Murphy (the guy behind LCD Soundsystem–and the Kermit puppet) is the best. Now I won’t be tempted to make (as many) bitch faces on my ride back home.
If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you really must. It’s the sort of epic, über-trashtastic nonsense that Hollywood should make more of a commitment to if they insist on giving us terrible movies. We do not need more Paul Blart: Mall Cops or Meet Daves; we need more of this utter garbage. I’m not even kidding. Just look at this train wreck:
RRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrKRASH! In case you were wondering, that’s the sound of a train wreck. Duh.
I can’t seem to decide what part of the trailer I like most, so I’ve decided that I simply adore all of it. There are some highlights that must be pointed out, elements that completely convince me that you’ll have a six-pack by the end of this movie because you’ve been laughing so hard and so frequently. For example:
The fact that this movie is essentially Fatal Attraction but without any insane sex scenes because this movie is only PG-13. I didn’t put on pervy-pants today (I’m wearing my corduroy boot-cut pants, actually), but these movies can’t work if they aren’t erotic, and the lack of sex is likely going to make this movie as erotic as watching the ink on an abstinence pamphlet dry; fortunately, a lack of eroticism in a sex thriller is a guarantee for laughs. We call this the Cinematic Law of Body of Evidence.
Ali Larter’s seduction moves in this movie are pure genius. It’s a potent mixture of Dakota Moss and Nomi Malone. Between her bathroom attack and the writhing about in the car, I’m pretty certain she’s the only person in this mess that’s well aware of what kind of movie she’s in. Her performance alone looks to be worth the price of a ticket.
Jerry O’Connell doing the finger gun gesture. The finger gesture is never appropriate.
Hell, the fact that Jerry O’Connell is in this at all is kinda blowing my mind. I really liked him in Scream 2 and Scanners, so I’m glad to see he’s still working; still, I thought he’d been relegated to terrible Lifetime movies. I guess his theatrical film career is getting is getting another go with Beyonce vehicles that probably should’ve remained Lifetime movies.
Oh, how can I forget? Ali Larter sinisterly holding the baby is brazilliant. I’m glad they’ve thrown a dash of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle into the narrative mix; it really is like a dash of smoked paprika in this bad movie stew. She doesn’t just want the guy’s body, y’all. SHE WANTS BEYONCE’S LIFE! Scary.
Mostly, though, there’s the catfight. The epic catfight that destroys Beyonce’s beautiful house. It’s like Russ Meyer on crack rock.
So, yeah, Obsessed. It comes out April 24th, and Internet Movie Database claims the movie’s working title was Oh No She Didn’t. How do you say no to that?
