Movies/TV's 3R’s 12.22.09: Kevin Smith, Predators, X-Men, Dexter, Chuck, More...

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 12.22.2009

From Dexter killing all the competition, Bryan Singer assembling more X-Men, Kevin Smith losing his Dicks, and Chuck getting punked to Kevin Bacon being a super villain, the new Clash of the Titans trailer, Avatar's opening weekend, Brittany Murphy's death, and more, 411's Shawn S. Lealos breaks down the Right, wRong, and Ridiculous from the week in Movies/TV!



Welcome to Week 26 of The 3 R's for the Movie/TV world. Because of the year end awards season, this week's column will be a bit short. It's a good thing nothing big happened this week in the TV world.

THEATRICAL PICK OF THE WEEK

DVD PICK OF THE WEEK

Without any further ado, here is...

The Right

Kevin Smith loses his Dicks: I knew it was only a matter of time before Kevin Smith's next movie, A Couple of Dicks, would get a name change. Smith has already stated this movie is not "A Kevin Smith" film and he is only a director for hire in this case. This means there is no way he can get away with a title like Zack and Miri Make a Porno. More than likely, it would end up with a title like the DVD I saw at Wal Mart the other day called Zack and Miri. Well, the name has been changed and, much like Kevin Smith, I like it. I don't like the title because it is a good film title but because of the connotations it carries. The new title is: Cop Out. That is awesome in so many ways. Now, I only hope Tracy Morgan proves to be a star here, working alongside Bruce Willis.

Lawrence Fishburne to hunt some Predators: JoBLo has announced that they discovered Lawrence Fishburne will be joining the cast of Predators as Noland, a character with experience fighting Predators. This is fun news for me because I have been a fan of the actor since he was just known as Larry and played a Cowboy named Curtis. Fishburne has been part of big franchises before with a small role in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and a much larger role in The Matrix trilogy and was last seen in Predators director Nimród Antal's heist flick Armored.



Bryan Singer returning to X-Men: Bryan Singer was interviewed at the Avatar red carpet premiere and made an amazing announcement. When asked his next project, he said he has just signed on to direct X-Men: First Class, which is a prequel telling about Xavier's first mutant class. This film has been talked about for awhile now and will apparently feature characters like Cyclops and Jean Grey and their entrance into the mutant school. This is awesome news because Singer was able to bring real-life pathos into the X-Men world, something that made the films resonate on levels much higher than a typical superhero movie. It is something Brett Ratner attempted to duplicate, and failed at miserably. Kids who love Wolverine will be disappointed not to see him here but it's nice to see Cyclops return after going out off screen like a bitch in X3. I'll never forgive the movie for that.

Here is a quote from Singer himself.

"This is the formative years of Xavier and Magneto, and the formation of the school and where there relationship took a wrong turn," Singer said. "There is a romantic element, and some of the mutants from 'X-Men' will figure into the plot, though I don't want to say which ones. There will be a lot of new mutants and a great villain."

Release the Kraken: Oh, hell yeah!



Kevin Bacon is Super, Thanks for Asking: Kevin Bacon has signed on to play the baddie in James Gunn's next movie Super. Bacon will play Jacques, an evil nemesis of Rainn Wilson's Crimson Bolt and joins Wilson, Liv Tyler, Ellen Page and Michael Rooker in the ever-growing cast. Anyone who has seen Slither already knows how fucking Epic this movie is going to be. The film shoot will be taking a holiday break before picking back up in January and then hopefully Gunn will release more news about the rest of the cast that he is keeping under wraps. Any Super news is good news to me.

I have officially changed my tune: I wrote a couple of months back about how I was not interested in the violent comic book adaptation Kick-Ass. I complained about the increased violent nature of the movie and how the fact it is children - young children - involved in this violence is reprehensible. Since then I have read reactions to the movie, which screened at Butt-Numb-a-Thon, and I am now actually anticipating seeing the movie. It is, as I suspected, ultra-violent, but the R-Rating and tongue-in-cheek feel of the film seems to be something worth seeing. For those out of the loop, Kick-Ass tells the story of a young boy (Aaron Johnson) who decides one day to don a costume and become a superhero. The problem is he has no powers and ends up in the hospital in critical condition. When he recovers, he tries again and finds more heroes, these trained (and also children). His arch enemy is McLovin. One of the kid heroes is Hit-Girl and here is part of her origin story as her dad (Nic Cage) teaches her a valuable lesson.

The wRong

Rest in Peace: Brittany Murphy 1977-2009. 32 is way too young to die and it is being reported to be of natural causes after a cardiac arrest. Also passing away this week was screenwriter Dan O'Bannon, finally losing his battle with Crohn's Disease. Most of you know O'Bannon for scripting both Alien and Total Recall and directing the awesome Return of the Living Dead. O'Bannon was 63 when he passed away. To complete the trifecta, Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, also died at the age of 79.



Avatar kicks off with $77 million opening weekend: That number is about half of what New Moon opened to and the vampire flick is sitting around $275 million now. Avatar is a hard sell. Most "average" filmgoers don't care about 3D or revolutionary filmmaking techniques and go to movies to see something to entertain them. Avatar, by all appearances, is a fantasy movie with aliens and strange races and - well, nothing that attracts mainstream America. $73 million is a great opening for a fantasy movie but - don't believe IMDB - the budget for this movie is close to $600 million. The movie will make more money on Christmas Day but will have to fend off Nine, Sherlock Holmes and the new Chipmunks movie and I have a feeling it will not reach its budget. They will keep it on screens as long as possible and maybe foreign numbers will help it a lot but Hollywood doesn't seem to care about those numbers when calling something a flop (see: The Golden Compass).

Update: Avatar's foreign numbers are at $159.2 million, making the total opening weekend $236 million but it is going to be an uphill struggle to break even.

The Ridiculous

This is a feature length movie?: Warner Bros. and Alcon Entertainment have signed director Alex Zamm (Chairman of the Board) to helm their upcoming big screen "adventure" Marvin the Martian. The premise is that Marvin plans to destroy the earth on Christmas Day but ends up being wrapped up as a Christmas present instead. ... - ... umm ... It will be live action with a CGI Martian, just like Garfield! So the guy who wrote and directed the Carrot Top movie is going to make a movie that looks like Garfield and has the premise of a ten minute cartoon. This same director is completing post production on Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2. Following Marvin the Martian, he will then be directing a movie based on the Warner Bros. character Hong Kong Phooey.



New director to remake classic horror flicks: Commercial director Carl Rinsch, whose feature film debut is set to be 47 Ronin has signed on to remake both the Universal classic monster movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon and David Cronenberg's The Brood. I don't have much more to say about this except Universal has not made many good horror remakes of their classic monster flicks over the years. I don't even know how Creature will come across to today's audiences.

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The Right

Dexter Kills: Remember two weeks ago when I reported that the December 5 episode of Dexter was the most watched Showtime program in ten years? Remember last week when I mentioned that the season finale of Dexter kicked everybody's ass? Well, that finale will go down as the most watched episode of any show in the history of Showtime. The season finale (and don't talk to anyone about that show until you see it, else you be spoiled) drew 2.6 million viewers. Great numbers for one of the best shows on television.

The wRong

Is Scrubs falling again?: ABC has announced a decision that does not bode well for Scrubs. On Jan. 5 and Jan. 12 the network will air two episodes of the show and then air another new episode following the Rose Bowl game on Jan. 1. This is 5 newly ordered episodes airing over 2 weeks. This will only leave two new episodes left to air which means by the end of January, Scrubs might be off the air, maybe for good this time. Ratings have dropped, with the most recent episode only drawing 4.2 million viewers with a 1.8 rating among adults 18-49.

The Ridiculous

Fox Cock Blocks Chuck: House is not scheduled back from hiatus until Jan. 25. However, Fox has done a complete dickhead move and has scheduled a new episode for Jan. 11, opposite Chuck's season premiere. Then the next week, House will be MIA while 24 has its premiere before returning on Jan. 25. There is only one reason for Fox to do this. They are using the powerhouse known as House to try to crush Chuck's new season before it ever gets started.





I'm sure that the soap operas are down because of the same reasoning that network primetime shows are down. That is, there are 100's of channels to choose from now and gravitate to other things. Plus people don't have to set their VCR's to record as they can just set the DVR to record it everyday. - Posted By: Chris (Guest) - I can see that but I am interested in my theory about less stay-at-home-moms being an indicator. For the week of November 30-December 4, 2009, The Young & The Restless was the ratings winner at 3.5 with The Bold and the Beautiful second at 2.3. Everyone else sat between 1.8 and 2.0 for the week. Current speculation is that the recession is forcing people to take jobs to help sustain household incomes and there is nowhere this is more evident than The Oprah Winfrey Show. In the 1991-92 year, her show averaged 12.6 million viewers while in 2008-09, she only averaged 6.2 million. I do believe that the DVR is a huge indicator that prime time network television is not in as much danger as some would have us believe, though. Here is a ranking I found of the DVR numbers that increased the ratings of the show for 2009.

1. Battlestar Galactica +59.4%


2. Mad Men +57.7%


3. Damages +56.3%


4. Rescue Me +53.2%


5. True Blood +46.9%

What was the original ending to terminator salvation? - Posted By: rich (Guest) - John Connor died. They then took the advanced Terminator of Marcus Wright and changed his face to look like Connor so the revolutionary forces would not fall after his death. I thought it was a risky and daring proposition but, rumor has it, once McG and the studio found out the end was leaked they scrapped it and we got the boring ending with Marcus sacrificing himself to save Connor.

i must say the ending of dexter left me speachless i was just not expecting that and it totally caught me off guard which is a good thing - Posted By: Guest#8872 (Guest) - I so want to talk about this ending with people but since most of my friends don't have Showtime and wait for the DVD, I am stuck because this is an end you don't want spoiled.

Why do you dignify obviously fake Spider-Man/Batman casting rumors constantly? These things will never happen. - Posted By: Guest#6254 (Guest) - Because all the major movie news sites are reporting it. I don't think the Vulture storyline is fake, however the Felicia Hardy news might be a bit off. And I don't remember ever talking about any Batman rumors... I haven't heard anything about a new Batman movie at all.

Completely agree with your take on There Will Be Blood. I think that it should've won Best Picture over No Country, because in my opinion it is the superior film. (And don't get me wrong, I love No Country too. But Blood was a...better(?)...masterpiece.) Great stuff as always with the 3R's, Shawn. A must-read each and every week. - Posted By: Rick T (Registered) - Thanks for reading. I feel There Will be Blood is a movie that needs time to settle in your head, as I didn't like it that much the first time I saw it. Time has made it a favorite.

Sam Rami hated VENOM!!!!??? I hope Sam blah blah blah. - Posted By: awsome69 (Guest) - I can see his dislike for the character. I personally like Venom, although I can't for the life of me understand everyone's love for Carnage. I want a Lizard/Kraven storyline, myself.

FYI: In other Adam Green news, his sophomore effort Spiral will be hitting Blu-Ray on February 2, 2010.
You can already watch it on the Netflix Instant queue. - Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) - I have the DVD already. I just am in the process of replacing a number of DVDs with Blu-Rays, and figure anyone with a PS3 would rather have a Blu than a DVD if they don't own it yet.

I'm disappointed that Sons of Anarchy got ignored by the emmys. It's one of the best shows a lot of people seem to overlook. Sutter's created a great show to fill the void that The Shield left. It ties with Dexter as most fucked up finale. - Posted By: Merciful Outlaw (Guest) - It was ignored for a Golden Globe nomination as well. It didn't get a nomination for drama, actor or actress. I would have put it in ahead of Big Love, although this year's awards are gonna be a close race. Dexter is getting even better than it was before, Mad Men is always a contender and True Blood has its fans as well. Sons of Anarchy is one of those shows that just stays below the radar. Remember, the final season of The Shield was ignored in awards season as well.




2009, MY YEAR IN RANKINGS
** Click on movie to read a review of the film**

1. The Lovely Bones


2. Inglourious Basterds


3. The Hurt Locker


4. Up


5. Zombieland


6. District 9


7. The Hangover


8. Where the Wild Things Are


9. Star Trek


10. Drag Me to Hell



11. Nine


12. Bronson


13. Up in the Air


14. Watchmen


15. A Serious Man


16. Precious


17. Coraline


18. Trick ‘r Treat


19. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince


20. Anvil! The Story of Anvil



21. 35 Rhums (35 Shots of Rum)


22. Burma VJ


23. Adventureland


24. The Men Who Stare at Goats


25. World's Greatest Dad


26. Extract


27. I Love You, Man


28. Monsters vs. Aliens


29. Public Enemies


30. Miss March



31. Race to Witch Mountain


32. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen


33. Saw VI


34. Terminator: Salvation


35. Angels & Demons


36. 9


37. Defiance


38. X-Men Origins: Wolverine


39. Fanboys


40. No Impact Man



41. Push


42. My Bloody Valentine 3D


43. He's Just Not That Into You


44. Dead Snow


45. The International


46. The Unborn


47. Outlander


48. The Uninvited


49. The Taking of Pelham 123


50. Whip It



51. New in Town


52. The Girlfriend Experience


53. Albino Farm


54. 2012


55. Donkey Punch


56. Van Wilder: Freshman Year

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