A Talented Actress

Taking advantage of coincidence, porn star Lisa Ann has played both Sarah Palin and Tina Fey in pornographic parodies of, respectively, Sarah Palin's life and 30 Rock. Check out the hilarious trailers below .

Who's Nailin' Paylin? (This trailer is completely safe for work.)


30 Rock: A XXX Parody (This trailer is less safe for work due to a few women in skimpy clothing and some swearing.)

[NSFW!] Problems with the plumbing.

Two vagina-related points today:

1. Humans have apparently long had a fear of vaginas with teeth (vagina dentata). Someone recently decided to take that fear to the next level by making a horror movie entitled Teeth about a girl who regularly uses her vagina-teeth to bite off body parts.
2. The more horrifying story: "My vagina fell out." Apparently female genital prolapse "is characterized by a portion of the vaginal canal protruding from the opening of the vagina." In other words, an innie becomes an outie, as seen below. I would not wish this on anyone.
   

Alice in Wonderland.

Check out these pictures of the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen, and the White Queen from Tim Burton's upcoming interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. The characters are played by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway, respectively. (Images taken from HuffPo.)

I am worried that this movie will be disappointing in the same way that Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was, but I have to admit that these images give me some hope. Between these visuals and the fact that the film will be shown in 3-D I will likely end up going to see this in theaters despite my reservations. Does anyone know anything else about this project? Any early reviews of the script and casting?

Nobody doesn't like Tom Hanks

During Tom Hanks' interview on The Daily Show last week, a friend and I were discussing how he might be most well-liked man on planet. The interview makes it so clear what a professional entertainer he is - he knows exactly how to make everyone in a room look at him and like him. And if anyone did dislike him, you really couldn't after this:

Tom Hanks Saves Wedding



Can the man do no wrong (excluding, of course, "You've Got Mail")??

Strangely Badass III

This week: Scott Altman. Altman is a Navy test pilot and a NASA astronaut who was among the four pilots who flew the military jets in the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun. Oh, and he is the mission commander of what the Daily Mail is calling NASA's "most dangerous ever shuttle mission."

The mission, known as STS-125 and scheduled to launch tonight (May 11), is intended to repair the Hubble telescope in order to make it useful for another five years. There are, as there must be with such an introduction, a few catches.

1. No ISS-cape: Unfortunately, "Due to the inclination and other orbit parameters of Hubble, Atlantis would be unable to use the ISS [International Space Station] as a 'safe haven' in the event of structural or mechanical failure" ("STS-125"). NASA's solution? Have a backup shuttle and crew ready to launch in the event that something goes wrong, a step taken for the FIRST TIME EVER.

2. Russian roulette space-walks:"During five highly risky spacewalks, [the astronauts] will clamber aboard Hubble to repair and replace instruments contained inside, upgrading its capabilities and prolonging its life for another five years" (Daily Mail). Five times is a lot of times to risk your life 350 miles above the surface of Earth.

3. The little things: "[The astronauts] will face major hurdles, such as unscrewing dozens of minute screws while wearing gloves five layers thick and removing razor-sharp circuit boards capable of piercing the $10 million spacesuits that keep them alive in the vacuum of space" (Ibid).

4. The good guys: John Grunsfeld, another of the astronauts slated for the mission, seems to be the type of guy you do not want to spend eleven days around in a cramped environment. While others are reserved and saying, "The adrenalin is certainly pumping," or, "This is really going to be tough, the toughest servicing mission we have ever attempted," Grunsfeld has chosen to pump out metaphors of difficulty allowing people to fully understand how awesome he is. So far he has said the mission is like "performing brain surgery in space" and stated that he "[considers] this the climbing Mount Everest of spacewalking missions." (Ibid)

Somehow having a guy from Top Gun save the Hubble makes me think we are getting one step closer to a real-life Armageddon. I hope Altman can complete his job as well as Bruce and Ben completed theirs.

Strangely Badass II

Last week it was Richard Branson, this week it is voice actor Billy West. Though his name sounds similar to a crappy superhero alter-ego (perhaps I am simply reminded of the name Adam West), Billy West has voiced some of the most iconic cartoon characters of all time. Here's a list of the important roles West has played:

• Doug: Doug Funnie and Roger Klotz (1991-1994, the Nickelodeon version, not the Disney version with the stupid baseball tee version of Doug);
• Ren and Stimpy: Ren and Stimpy (Stimpy 1991 until 1996; Ren from 1993-1996);
• Futurama: Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Richard Nixon's head, and Zapp Brannigan;
• Space Jam: Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd;
• Scooby Doo on Zombie Island: Shaggy (West was only the second person ever to voice Shaggy);
• Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy: Popeye (a 75th anniversary movie).

I am blown away by the range of personality types (Ren Höek and Doug Funnie???) and by the presence on West's resumé of both original and mimicked voices (Looney Tunes and Futurama???). I can't even imitate regional accents from around the USA, let alone an imitation of a specific voice.

To be a bit more direct: Billy West is strangely badass because he represents a whole bunch of animated childhood icons jammed into a body that looks somewhat like Richard Kiel (more commonly known as 'That giant guy who had a nail in his head in Happy Gilmore').

By the way, everyone should feel welcome to add some names to the Strangely Badass series.

Confirmation!

Ron Howard confirmed that work on the Arrested Development movie has begun! Mitchell Hurwitz is writing the script right now. And Jeffrey Tambor has his own solution to the 'Michael Cera is being an ass' problem: "If I have to call him up and say, 'Get on set right now, young man,' he'll be there, the movie is going to happen this year, and Michael Cera is on board. Trust me." I hope Tambor has to hit Cera at least once for his insolence and arrogance.

I kind of want to have a ridiculous celebration party when this comes out. Anyone in?

Dreams do come true!

This may not mean anything to anyone else, but I was pretty exiting to read in today's Times about a rescue mission to lead lost whooping cranes home (above). Why? Because it's a real-life version of one of my favorite (crappy) childhood films, Fly Away Home, in which Jeff Daniels flies a bunch of geese South for the winter. My ten-year-old self is VERY excited.

what Nate's up to

predicting less important things, like the oscars, for new york magazine:

Oscar Predictions You Can Bet On!

Arrested Development Movie

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but this interview gets me close to nail-in-the-coffin status on giving up on Michael Cera.  (The word "d-bag" comes to mind ...)

The real-life Departed

Crazy story that inspired The Departed.

25 Most Anticipated Movies of 2009

The article's title is over-the-top, but it's worth a look.

I'd watch anything with Ricky Gervais, Jason Bateman, and Tina Fey in it, and I could stare at that Brad Pitt picture for hours trying to think of various scenarios that could result in that image.

What the hell, man?

Michael Cera screws up my Christmas

Seven Pounds

Curious about movies coming out and how good they are, I decided to check out some reviews this morning. One that stood out (I'm not even done) was Will Smith's Seven Pounds, which all-in-all got average reviews. One review that was not average, however, was A.O. Scott's review in The New York Times:

"Frankly, though, I don’t see how any review could really spoil what may be among the most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made. I would tell you to go out and see it for yourself, but you might take that as a recommendation rather than a plea for corroboration."

UPDATE: On the other hand, The Wrestler got astoundingly good reviews. (Yahoo, RT)

'80s Shawshank Ending

Quite a funny parody.

King of Kong

Saw this movie again last night. Didn't like it the first time - not sure why. It was great the second time. I think maybe some of you saw it. It's a documentary about the Donkey Kong high score record and I thought it was a scripted mockumentary for a while, but it's all true. Anyway, aside from that I saw that one of the guys in the film broke 16 arcade video game records in one day in 2007. That is just amazing.

Netflix gets more awesome

OK, so I know that the Xbox 360 is not likely to be common hardware among our crowd, but I figured I'd share this nonetheless. When I got on mine the other day (I'm not a big video game player, but I got it on the cheap) I noticed that Xbox Live was doing a cross-promotion thing with Netflix.

So basically the way it works is the movies available for "Instant Watch" I can now watch on the Xbox. I'm excited about this because while instant watch is available for your computer, connecting mine to the TV is kind of a pain, and so I don't really make much of use of it.

The downside: not that many titles are available yet and I did have to buy an Xbox Gold membership ($50 a year allows you to play online - a ripoff, sure, but hey, now I can play Netflix movies and I can play sports games with my friends). And one other thing, which is kind of stupid but mostly hilarious: Mark informs me that Sony Pictures titles are not available for viewing through the Xbox.

Now that's some good JCVD!

Yes! JCVD is doing his best to promote this movie. It turns out that his best includes, among other tactics, hitting on a reporter mid-interview. I love this man. Frankly I cannot wait until Double Team II: Quadruple Team gets the green light. (For those of you out of the mid-1990s-action-film loop, Double Team was unleashed in 1997 and starred JCVD, Dennis Rodman, and Mickey Rourke (Seriously.). Hilarious honors the film has received include "[...] three Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Supporting Actor (Rodman), Worst New Star (also Rodman) and Worst Screen Couple (Rodman and Van Damme).")

Arrested Development movie

The movie is a little closer to reality, with Ron Howard and Mitchell Hurwitz signing deals.

Quantum of Solace unacceptable deviation (Updated)

I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but I just want to say that I saw Quantum of Solace and was quite disappointed.

Let me say first, it's not a terrible movie. The fact that the plot is darn near impossible to follow is its main problem. The action scenes are awesome, and Daniel Craig delivers as the new James Bond.

The problem is that, even though this is quickly becoming cliché, the new James Bond is entirely too similar to his initial-sake, Jason Bourne. Because that's exactly what this movie felt like (even a lot of the Bourne crew worked on Quantum).

The cheap puns, the light wit, the shoot-at-the-camera opening - all gone. Hardly any stealth involved. No gadgetry. Even to say that there was a love scene in the movie is being more generous than I'm willing to go.

Now, I'm a little biased because I've been going through a bunch of the old Bond movies recently, but this movie abandons nearly all the themes that unite the previous installments. It abandons everything Bond, better or worse, and makes it into just another action movie, albeit a decent one. All I'm saying is, when I go to the movies to see a Bond movie, that's what I want. I could have stayed at home and watched Mission: Impossible or a Bourne movie.

Finally, the one element I will sort of defend them on is the title. The title Quantum of Solace is awful, obviously, but it is the name of an old Bond story, not merely something they pulled out of their butts to sound cool in the 21st century.

Update: trivia note: director Marc Foster also directed Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger than Fiction, and the Kite Runner.