That’s also the first indication I’ve seen that Thandie Newton can act.

Jennifer Lopez is about to be spoofed in a new porn flick that takes obscene liberties with her hit song “Jenny From the Block.” The XXX flick, titled “J-Ho: Jenny on the [Rhymes with Block],” will be an adults-only parody of her career. Playing J.Ho will be Jasmine Byrne, a Lopez look-alike who previously starred in “Britney Rears 3″ and “Angels of Debauchery.” “I always loved . . . J.Lo, doing her singing and acting and . . . I jumped at the chance to do it,” gushed Byrne.

That I didn’t think of “Britney Rears” is bad enough, but that I wasn’t the first one to think of “J-Ho: Jenny on the Cock” is just criminal.

I’m sorry, my peoples. I have failed you.

The guy on the left? That’s Simon Pegg. You know, that hilarious guy from Spaced and Shaun of the Dead? The guy on the right? That’s Nick Frost Ed from Shaun of the Dead. Ed!

I’m psyched for Hot Fuzz just based on Pegg’s involvement, though I really think they need to get working on Day of the Ed.

It appears that Universal Studios recognize that the followers of the cult favorite TV show Firefly would be a great source of viral marketing for the movie based on the show, Serenity. They put together a huge viral marketing campaign, in part with Special Ops Media (a company…. However, as with so many of these things, it appears that the marketers at Universal forgot to tell the lawyers at Universal, who recently decided to send out cease and desist letters to a bunch of the guerilla marketers they had pushed to promote the film. Adding insult to injury, the lawyers also demanded $8,750 in “retroactive licensing fees” from at least one individual.

Of course, the Brownshirts are taking the appropriate tactic – retroactive billing for their viral marketing efforts on behalf of Fox/Universal.

The reaction from the jingoist nutballs was so incendiary, so ridiculous, so disproportionate to the innocuous comment by Maines, that it deserves a nice, long, objective look on the hows and the whys. I hope this documentary does that.

Note: NBC and CW Television (= UPN & WB) are refusing to air ads for the documentary. This after CNN and NPR refused to carry ads for Death of a President (the fake documentary about the assassination of W). Censorship, anyone? (and I’m being serious here, not in the fake “censorship”! way people who don’t understand censorship cry). Oh, and if you really want to get mad at the censorship in our country, observe how nearly every instance of refusal to carry ads by major media networks is for the benefit of the Bushevik administration.

Stay gold, Atene. Stay gold.

That being said, UCLA has brought me on as a visiting professor this semester.

Naturally (or bizarrely, as some of my critics would point out), it’s in the School of Cinema and Television – a field I know a thing or two about (as I’ve watched many movies and TV shows). So, for the last month, I’ve been spearheading a class called “Sucks Less, with Kevin Smith”, in which we produce a weekly TV show entitled, ironically, “Sucks Less, with Kevin Smith”. It starts airing this Thursday on MtvU (the college-campus only arm of the Viacom-owned Music Television empire), as well as on MtvU.com and, in an uncharacteristic-for-me nod to what’s being called “new media”, also on the Amp’d Mobile Phone. This means we’re producing Episodes, Webisodes, and Mobisodes – which, while sounding ambitious as fuck, simply means we’re producing one show that airs on three different platforms. Eat your heart out, Dick Wolf.

Right on, Kev. He’s still my doppleganger:

“My tastes, for better or for worse, fall far outside the mainstream,” I argued. “And if I could write/create for the mainstream, I’d be a one of those successful filmmakers. So, really – you guys want someone else.”
“Yeah, but we like your sensibility.”
“But my sensibility isn’t in line with the masses.”
“What makes you say that?” I was asked.
“I’ll bet you’re tying to get Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as hosts.”
“We are,” they replied.
“Okay. I’d rather see David Cross be the host. You’re voting for the most popular kids in class, I’m voting for the class genius. And there’s nothing wrong with your instincts; I just don’t share ‘em.”
“Fine. But there’s gotta be something you can do in the Mtv family. We’re edgy, too. Have you ever seen ‘Wonder Showzen’?”

See? Eerie.

The first bumper from his class:

it is quite possibly the worst movie I have seen in the past five years.

I don’t give zeroes, so consider this a low, low 1 star out of 5.

As best as I can tell, it was a vehicle to see how far Will Ferrell could carry a crappy movie. The answer? About 10 minutes. From the boring opening to the stylish-but-not-nearly-stylish-enough 70s schtick, it was pure, unadulterated crap. The dialogue was abysmal, the characters were amateurish, the plot was nonexistent, the acting was pure dogshit (natch), and the only single redeeming feature was Steve Carell – and he seriously needs to watch out for that typecasting thing (though I think he may be big enough to avoid that wrecking ball. Evan Almighty should tell us one way or the other).

You know, if I wanted to watch a 2 hour movie about a moron in an absurd setting – but one that was actually funny – I’d pop in Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison.

Will, I know Adam Sandler, and you, sir, are no Adam Sandler. At no point in this rambling, incoherent mess of a movie did you come close to engaging the audience or obtaining even a chuckle. I award you no points, and may FSM have mercy on your soul.

Still, it’s entertaining enough to be worth your 5 minutes or so.

Although only 27, Canadian Sarah Polley has proven with her feature film directorial debut that she can tackle any subject — even one about the complexities of an elderly couple in the final stages of their marriage.

Away from Her is based on the short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro, about an elderly man trying to deal with his wife’s Alzheimer’s disease and feelings of guilt about his past misdeeds.

Just because she has a movie coming out isn’t the reason why she should rule all. No, this is why:

Her disenchantment with Disney was rooted in an incident during the Gulf War, when she was invited by Disney to appear at a Children’s Awards Show in Washington, D.C. With the United States still engaged in the Gulf War, 12-year-old Polley wore a peace symbol to the event, refusing requests from producers to take if off. She has reportedly been blacklisted by Disney since then.
…
In 1995, she lost several teeth to riot police while protesting against the Provincial Conservative government of Mike Harris in Queen’s Park, Toronto. [citation needed] She was subsequently involved with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Not wanting to be seen stealing the spotlight, she has recently scaled back on her political activism but remains one of the most engaged young actors in North America.

Hard. Core.

The role eventually played by Kate Hudson in Almost Famous was supposed to be Polley, but I like her best in Go and Dawn of the Dead.

Rock on, Sarah. Give them Hollywoodies a kick in the nuts as you race on by.

The Oscar-winning Lost in Translation made her the most powerful woman director in Hollywood and icon of cool for her generation.

OK, first – I dig Sofia Coppola. For a nepotista who was given a horrible big intro to the biz, she’s done exceedingly well. … but icon of cool? In this universe. I mean, sure she’s gotten a nose job and slimmed down since Godfather 3 (which would put her in the ‘hip’ circles, and Lost in Translation was a great movie, but cool? How many other movies in the new wave/existentialist mode have you seen lately? How many shots have been copied? Dialogue? Scarlett Johansson’s career has taken off, but that’s because she’s freakin gorgeous and can act a bit.

Let’s grant arguendo that she’s cool, but if she’s the most powerful female director in Hollywood, then I think that is sufficient grounds to burn that city up. It’s insane that an industry that is so propelled on the backs of a multitude of the looks (and sometimes talent) of starlets is less progressive than the US Senate.

I don’t really have a way to wrap up this post. I could go on the systemic hurdles facing women in Hollywood … but that would take a good few thousand words and I’m just not feeling it anymore. Feministing, anyone?

Update: must be a meme. See, e.g., EW

Newmarket Films set itself an unusual challenge when it decided to release the controversial faux investigative documentary “Death of a President” just six weeks after acquiring the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

But it might face an even more formidable obstacle because several major theater chains are refusing to play the film, which mixes real news footage with dramatized segments depicting the fictional 2007 death of President Bush.

Newmarket, the 12-year-old Los Angeles-based film financing, production and distribution company, plans to open the film October 27, just in time for the November 7 election.

“Yes, it’s controversial,” Newmarket co-founder Chris Ball said. “It’s quite a compelling political thriller. In many ways it is sympathetic to George Bush. It talks about a rush to judgment. In no way is it a call for violence.”

Or are you really just cherry picking your moments of outrage, in the manner best fit to incite your bigoted belief system?

Sony Pictures will pay “Black Hawk Down”"Black Hawk Down” screenwriter Ken Nolan $3 million for his 75-page “script-ment” (less than a script but more than a treatment) of Whitley Strieber’s as-yet-unpublished alien sci-fi novel “The Grays,” marking one of the studio’s largest payments for a treatment.

$3 million for 30-40 pages. Nice work if you can get it.

There’s quite the tastefully named cast in the movie as well, I might add.

“Idiocracy” is a movie that looks stupid, but only in the service of astute commentary. As a prologue explains, smart people are getting outnumbered. While the intelligent tend to be careful about their breeding, a lot of morons are not; too boneheaded to think about birth control or sensible family size, they’re cranking out more dumb babies every day.

So when soldier Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) wakes up 500 years in the future, the result of a botched hibernation experiment, he finds the country hopelessly dense and incapable of solving the most basic problems. Buildings are teetering and collapsing. Garbage towers high in the streets. Farm fields are barren because a sponsor pumps salty energy drink into every place water used to be — including the irrigation systems.

Most everyone in 2505 is a mouth-breathing lout, barely capable of forming a sentence. They’ve elected as president the guy who seems cool to them, a loudmouthed porn-star wrestler (unfailingly funny Terry Crews, the dad from “Everybody Hates Chris”). They pass their days consuming, defecating, fornicating and gawking at anything that goes boom. Then consuming some more. And because they don’t know any better, they’ve let themselves be co-opted by corporate marketers, taking brands (“Frito”) for names and wearing disposable clothes covered with ads.

Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead, Office Space) is the creator. It’ll still have to go behind Borat, though. THERE IS NO STOPPING BORAT!

Tony Takitani had a solitary childhood. Being alone was normal since his mother died young and his father was always away with his jazz band. At school he studied art, but while his sketches are accurate and detailed they lack feeling. Used to being self-sufficient, Tony seems to find emotions illogical and immature.

After finding his true vocation as a technical illustrator, he becomes fascinated by Eiko, a client who in turn is fascinated by high end fashion. Eventually he marries her, and his life changes. He feels vibrantly alive and for the first time he understands and fears loneliness. But her obsession with designer clothes begins to worry him. When he asks her to economize, the consequences are tragic.

It is quite a good movie; subtle, symbolic, powerful. Very much a minimalist masterpiece of love and longing and loneliness and isolation.

Jamie would not like this movie because the visuals are so austere; very flat colors with lots of stark contrasts (almost black and white movie level), but with spots of color at interesting or crucial points (interesting points in the frame, rather than in the story). Like the expression of an emotion that you just can’t keep contained. Did I mention the movie was subtle? Because it is.

In other words, the movie is very Japanese.

Murakami, who is as popular in Japan as, say, Stephen King is here, writes these strangely compelling stories, filled with supremely flawed characters who exist in a sort of narcissistic existentialism world. Some of his overriding themes are loss, solitude, despair… and love. For example, in A Wild Sheep Chase, the divorced, chain-smoking loner protagonist falls for a woman who has ears so enticing that she can never show them in public lest they cause a disturbance. And yet these characters function, in society and in the story, organically. And you, the reader, understand and love these characters by understanding their quirks. Understand and love them without explicitly saying so, because with understanding comes love, and your attention and interest in them is an expression of that love. No garment rending or grandiloquence required.

Like I said, very Japanese.

The pallette chosen by the director for the movie was deliberately muted in order to better reflect Murakami’s literary world. Much in the same way you would want a Luhrman adapting Allende‘s House of Spirits instead of an Aronofsky, I think the director was perfectly suited to the Murakami material.

There’s a gallimaufry of art house Art in the movie as well, which can float your boat or not, depending on your tastes. For me, it’s like a relaxing, thoughtful zen interlude amidst all the strife and turmoil of life. An expression and reflection of outward calm amidst crushing isolation and loneliness; an imposition of discipline to reign in some of the wild, potentially explosive emotions in life. The restrained formalism is also a nice counterbalance to the so-real-you-can-smell-the-horse-shit reality created in a series like Deadwood and without the overwhelming opulence and beauty of a Wang Kar Wai flick like 2046 or In the Mood for Love (the heartbreak remains).

From Murakami’s narrator, talking about the protagonist:

And even the emotions he had once embraced gradually receded from his memory.

His memory gradually shifted, like mist in the wind, growing dimmer with each change.

There’s more to it than that, of course. There’s some truly whack psychosexual overtones for the second half of the film (not to worry, it doesn’t take a turn to Audition land). Good score to the movie as well, also done in a minimalist, spare fashion (solo piano throughout, unless I missed some parts).

As for the actors, Rie Miyazawa, the lead actress (there are only four credited thespians in the movie) first became known to me from Twilight Samurai, where she was as striking as she is here. Turns out, she’s had quite the turbulent life (apparently,I’m not alone in constantly thinking “someone give this girl a sammich” whenever she’s on screen). I could find less about Issei Ogata, the actor who plays Tony.

Definitely very Japanese.

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan made his smallest splash since his Sixth Sense breakthrough with Lady in the Water, his first major feature apart from Disney. Shyamalan’s self-described “bedtime story” drew $18 million at 3,235 venues, compared to the $50.7 million debut of his last picture, The Village. According to distributor Warner Bros.’ research, 56 percent of the audience was female and 64 percent was under 25 years old, while the verdict from moviegoer pollster CinemaScore was a discouraging “B-.”

Funny, that’s also how you spell “hack.” I should have included him in the Ratner v. Jackson discussion too.

Looks like that decision to direct “Lady in the Water” over the award-winning, popular, yet plagiarized, Life of Pi wasn’t the wisest movie ever, eh?

What I did do is come across this great video of a portion of a talk by a sorta-famous, pretty successful movie writer/director. Watching it made me realize something – in an alternate universe, my Hollywood career would not have been like Joss Whedon’s. No, he has far more warmth and humanity than do I, is less aggressive, and is a natural.

I would have, instead, been more like Kevin Smith. The foulmouthed suburban irreverent smartypants white boy, Kevin Smith. Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma. That guy. Fuckin-A, he’s a much better comp.

Here’s the video. Watching it, if you know me, you will, I’m sure, see many parallels. Humor, language, the asides. Well, except the part where I can’t tell a good story (and this one’s a good one. I was captured by it, anyway).

Seriously, though, listening to Smith is like hearing alterna-me. Only, you know, talented and shit. And I wouldn’t have cast Linda Fiorentino.

More proof:

Discuss

For my part, I’m going with Ratner. Ratner is the definition of ‘hack,’ while Jackson is the definition of ‘schlock.’ They’re both horrible, but when it comes to pure hackery, Ratner’s got everyone beat.

I dub thee, the Hackteur.

Jackie Chan disrupted a concert by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Jonathan Lee and exchanged insults with the audience, a news report said Tuesday.

Ming Pao Daily News quoted the 52-year-old action star as saying onstage that he was drunk.

Chan suddenly jumped on the stage Monday night and demanded a duet with Lee. He then tried to conduct the band but stopped and restarted the music several times, the newspaper reported.

aaaaAAActing! Genius!

Every. Single. Time.

Sixth Sense was the only one of them that was any fun, and that’s because Haley Joel Osment was pretty damn creepy. But after that it’s been nothing but ultracrap. Unbreakable? The Village? Signs? Fucking Signs?!? Add in the completely unwarranted [Name's] Title here and what you’ve got is a world class wanker.

I know why Hollywood puts up with him – because idiots keep going to his shitty movies.

This must stop, people! His movies are pedestrian in cinematography, his writing is clunky, his plot arcs are shit, and he’s so known as a Gotcha! guy that everyone predicts the Gotcha! (See, e.g., The Village).

This is the guy who fucking wrote Signs, people! Don’t give him any more money! Signs! The hamfisted allegory about faith (which in any reasonable world would be called delusions), the one where the little girl leaves millions of half-filled glasses of whatever everywhere and evil aliens who are allergic to water come to our 67% water planet to eat our 88% water bodies… just so a baseball swing in the living room will dissolve these Wicked Witch/alien things.

People get paid for this shit?

And don’t even get me started on his hubris at giving himself roles in his own movies when he can’t fucking act. At least Hitchcock, whom Shymalan obviously idolizes and thinks he’s better than, had the decency to make tiny, passby cameos.

Every movie Shyamalan makes has an ending as pretentious and enraging as Jacob’s Ladder. At least Jacob’s Ladder had some sweet sex scenes in it. I think. It might have been an anime alien/demon rape vine, but Elizabeth Pena was hizzot! Where was I? Oh yes…

I’m on this rant because the studios are pumping Lady in the Water like there’s no tomorrow and it’s driving me crazy. I hate TV. I’m so cancelling this bitch when they raise the rates.

Shyamalan’s pacing makes Ang Lee look like a manic on amphetamines.

Let’s chart the Shyamalan arc, then I’m going to make a WILD GUESS at the Lady in the Water spoiler.

1. Sixth Sense – pretty good
2. Unbreakable – OK
3. Signs – worm-infested, putresent, bloated and stinking in the sun piece of shit
4. The Village – worse than Signs
5. Lady in the Water – ____

OK, my WILD GUESS: Lady in the Water originated as a bedtime story, thus it follows that everyone in the movie is actually a character in the same bedtime story, and the movie is the telling of this story for you, the viewer. No twist ending, more of a revelation, and you’re supposed to go “wow, man! that’s so… recursive!” The SCARY BAD THINGS are either nightmares, page margins, or editors trying to reign in Shyamalan’s tendency to make 14 hour movies. Got that? It’s a story about being a story, and I’m guessing it will cast you, the viewer, as another character in that story so you are participant and observer. Like gonzo porn, only without all the cock.

Alternate, less interesting but more likely: Giamatti is a writer/storyteller, Story is his story, the wolves are his personal demons, and the movie is the story that he’s telling.

FSM, this guy bugs.

I think am pretty damn sure that I would rather gnaw my own arm off with the help of a rusty spoon, scoop out the subcutaneous fat in the now-severed limb, boil the fat, get the tallow, make some into soap and the rest into bombs, and then impale my right nutsac with a dull kebab while simultaneously rubbing my ass on a cheese grater than see Lady in the Water.

Unless you’re paying.

Equality is not a concept. It is not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this Earth as men and women.

Serenity is being shown around the country right now as a fundraiser for Equality Now. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s good, and now you can for a good cause.

Whedon’s a good representative for what I consider the ideal of the creative class. Smart, funny, and using entertainment to show that which should be normal. No, not vampires and space cowboys, but gender equality. Right on, Joss.

This does:

No, I am not making this up. This is the cover the DVD pirates have made for their version of Good Night & Good Rack Luck.