Today’s Secret Shame: Megan Fox’s Fake PSA Has Made My Morning August 13, 2009

ASUUU MADREEE!!!  There are mornings when I simply adore the MTA and all that public transit has to offer.  Then, of course, there are the days in which a train ahead of you stalls, and you find yourself pondering the injustice of another fare hike while your train idles on the track.  Sadly, today was much more like the latter than the former, so you’d better believe that I totally had my bitchface on when I got off the subway.  Gene Tierney bitchface, to be precise:

Fortunately enough, a new bit of viral marketing for Jennifer’s Body has cropped up all over the interwebs, and it simply reconfirms my suspicions that this movie is going to be trashy goodness.  The clip’s a PSA in which Megan Fox discusses the trials and tribulations of being a teenager.  She may not be the obvious (or even reasonable) choice for such a message, but NO MATTER!  When Megan Fox wants to talk about peer pressure and teen bullying, you’d better shut up and listen:

A Guide to the Red-Band Jennifer’s Body Trailer For People That Don’t Care About Megan Fox’s Boobs July 7, 2009

Have you seen the red-band trailer for Jennifer’s Body, which sells us Diablo Cody’s teen horror film by emphasizing the cursing and Megan Fox’s boobs?  Oh, and Megan Fox being teasingly “bisexual”?  Maybe it’s me, I can’t help but think Showgirls did the boobs and bisexuality so much better and with so much less Megan Fox.  Fortunately, I think the rest of us (and by rest of us, I mean people lacking an interest in Megan Fox and/or her boobs) still have plenty to be excited about.

For starters, there’s Amanda Seyfried:

And she’s been the best since her scene-stealing turn in Mean Girls, and it’s simply a matter of time before she finally blows up.  She infinitely appealing and incredibly versatile (I believe her dumb blond every bit as much as her high school outcast), and this could be the breakthrough she deserves.  After all, Jamie Lee Curtis–the original Final Girl–made it big with Halloween.  For those of us who appreciate women or character and substance, she’s the Jennifer’s Body (Final) girl to watch.

And what about a generation’s nostalgia for a certain West-Coast based teen soap?  Jennifer’s Body has got the goods IN SPADES:

Wild Horses Cannot Drag Me Away From Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen June 24, 2009

Robo-testicles?

Check.

Wonky-eyed, racist caricature-bots?

Check and double-check.

Megan Fox giving lessons on how to dress appropriately for work?

Then there are the reviews, which confirm what I’ve long suspected.  Ladies and gentleman, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which is at long last in theaters, seems like it’s going to be one seriously ferocious train wreck, no CGI necessary.

I may no longer be a teenager, and I certainly never was a straight man, so the reality of the situation is that I’m definitely not this movie’s target audience.  There will be no Shia LaBeouf in hot pants slouched over a motorcycle, and there are no reports of a gay robot that wishes all the Transformers could stop fighting and start striking a pose.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be loud and stupid and completely devoid of any positive social value, but it will at least be one thing other thing, and that thing will be over-the-top camp.  

“But wait,” you ask, “isn’t camp bedazzled, transparent badness capable of launching gays into giggle fits?”  Indubitably, my dears, but hear me out.  

When the Monster Demands a Mate, She’d Better Be Sexy! June 18, 2009

No sooner than you could say “I bet you the Frankenstein monster just loves himself some foxy boxing,” my friend Sarah came across a bit of Hollywood casting gossip that seems to suggest that this whole Bride of Frankenstein remake might be more screwed than we think.  The producers are aiming to cast someone along the lines of Scarlett Johansson or Anne Hathaway, which is the sort of shit they always say, but still, yeesh.  I’m saying nothing against either’s talent or beauty, but be more creative, Hollywood!  This is what you’re trying to recreate:

You’re remaking an indisputable masterpiece and reenvisioning one of the most iconic characters in horror, and the best you  can think of is Anne Hathaway or Scarlett Johansson?  Ugh!  That’s the sort of braintrust brilliance we’ve got funding this movie?  Egads, it’s time to upgrade the Bad Idea Alert to DEFCON Dreadful!

The real kicker, though, is the source for this buzz, aka, the ever trustworthy New York Post, which reports:

BRIAN Grazer is remaking “The Bride of Frankenstein,” but this time, the female monster is going to be a babe. “She’ll be young. They’re looking for a person with great power and sex appeal,” a Hollywood insider told us. “Someone along the lines of Scarlett Johansson or Anne Hathaway.” In the 1935 original, the frizzy-haired bride was played by bug-eyed English actress Elsa Lanchester. The new Universal Pictures/Imagine Entertainment version, first disclosed by The Hollywood Reporter, will be helmed and co-scripted by Neil Burger, who wrote and directed “The Illusionist.”

Really?  REALLY???  The totally unwarranted jab at Elsa Lanchester’s appearance is trashy and gross, but the New York Post is trashy and gross, so that’s not shocking.  Par for the course, if anything.  But there’s still plenty to take issue with.

The “Plot” for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is Even More Ludicrous Than Expected May 1, 2009

The final trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has arrived, and it makes me yearn for the days when it looked like this movie was just going to be two hours of Michael Bay’s patented brand of “high art” (robot carnage and lots of explosions).  Just look at this mess:

So let’s get this clear: Shia LaBeouf touches that shard thing, has an acid flashback, and then proceeds to scribble ominous hieroglyphics anywhere and everywhere possible.  All of this somehow relates back other hieroglyphics found around the world that seem to have something to do an impending robot war.  A war that, amongst other places, will take place in a college library.  Riiiiiight.  I’m not saying that this is the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever seen, but, really, it’s totally the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever seen.  This of course means I have to see it as soon as is Earthly possible.

I’ve never seen a movie enter such crazed stratospheres of absurdity in its attempt to string together set pieces.  These action sequences are held together by the narrative equivalent of Batshit Krazy Glue.  I recognize that trying to find a glimmer of logic in a movie about battling robots that’s directed by Michael Bay is a foolish endeavor, like going fishing in a bath tub or me making love to a woman, but really?  Most movies require you to suspend your belief, but Transformers 2 is looking as though you need to jettison it off into the darkest recesses of space. Well played, Michael Bay.  You’re officially the craziest man in Hollywood, and I mean that with the utmost respect.

Also, judging from the trailers, Megan Fox’s character doesn’t go to college because she’s staying back home and working as a motorcycle mechanic.  The sexy motorcycle mechanic who wrote THE textbook on dressing appropriate for work, natch.  Seriously: