This year has been sort of a weird thing. Usually I have no problem weeding good from bad and ordering things, but it seems like everything this year has been separated into tiers, as in my ordering is merely arbitrary and foolish, as my #3 is equal to my #8 and #9 through #16 are nearly equal etc. etc. It’s a real pain to order but it goes without saying that I’ve seen a lot of good stuff so far this year.

1. The Brothers Bloom dir. Rian Johnson
2. Adventureland dir. Greg Motolla
3. (500) Days of Summer dir. Marc Webb
4. Watchmen dir. Zack Snyder
5. Moon dir. Duncan Jones
6. Up dir. Pete Docter
7. Funny People dir. Judd Apatow
8. The Soloist dir. Joe Wright
9. Ponyo on a Cliff By the Sea dir. Hayao Miyazaki
10. Fanboys dir. Ryan Newman
11. Observe and Report dir. Jody Hill
12. The Girlfriend Experience dir. Steven Soderbergh
13. The Limits of Control dir. Jim Jarmusch
14. Drag Me to Hell dir. Sam Raimi
15. Broken Embraces dir. Pedro Almodovar
16. The Hangover dir. Todd Phillips
17. I Love You, Man dir. John Hamburg
18. The Hurt Locker dir. Kathyrn Bigelow
19. In the Loop dir. Armondo Iannucci
20. Antichrist dir. Lars von Trier
21. Star Trek dir. J.J. Abrams
22. Public Enemies dir. Michael Mann
23. Bruno dir. Larry Charles
____________________________________
Rotten:
24. Orphan Jaume Collet-Serra
25. Whip It! dir. Drew Barrymore
26. Terminator Salvation dir. Joseph McGinty
27. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince dir. That Goddamn Sucker Fucker David Yates
28. Confessions of a Shopaholic dir. P.J. Hogan
29. Taken dir. Pierre Morel
30. The Obama Deception dir. Alex Jones
31. Obsessed dir. Steve Shill
32. The Pink Panther 2 dir. Harald Zwart
33. X-Men Origins: Wolverine dir. Gavin Hood
34. Bride Wars dir. Gary Winick
35. My Sister’s Keeper dir. Nick Cassavetes
36. Paul Blart: Mall Cop dir. Steve Carr
37. The Unborn dir. David S. Goyer
38. The Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience dir. Bruce Hendricks
39. Dragonball Evolution dir. James Wong
40. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen dir. Michael Bay
41. He’s Just Not That Into You dir. Ken Kwapis

Ready to jump ship yet? Reports are out today from a DailyKOS/Research 2000 poll that 77% of Americans believe Obama is a citizen, while 11% don’t and 12% are “not sure”. If you break it down by party lines, the numbers get even more ridonkulous. Among Republicans only, 42% think he’s an American citizen, 28% do not, and 30% are not sure. All numbers by region and party after jump.

(Yes/No/Not Sure)

Dem: 93, 4, 3
Rep: 42, 28, 30
Ind: 83, 8, 9

Northeast: 93, 4, 3
South: 47, 23, 30
Midwest: 90, 6, 4
West: 87, 7, 6

18-29: 88, 4, 8
30-44: 72,14,14
45-59: 82, 8, 10
60 +: 69,17,14

Source: Taegan Goddard

Hilarious stuff. This is how trailer mashups are done.

It’s pretty widely known that Katherine Heigl after the release of the uber-successful Knocked Up, that she talked down the role that really bolstered her career by saying that “It was offensive and demeaning to women and sexist.” when it really wasn’t. She complained about her character being a stuck-up bitch, more or less, which was true, but first, she chose the part, two, it was a perfectly respectable part and most of all, she was biting the hand that fed her. But Seth Rogen, her co-star, and Judd Apatow, the director of the film, both together again in Funny People, tore her apart as they should over her new film The Ugly Truth, a despicable flick that is everything she claimed Knocked Up to be. Read it and mock her after the jump. from their Howard Stern interview.

Said Seth: “That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way.”

Added Apatow, “I hear there’s a scene where she’s wearing … Underwear …with a vibrator in it, so I’d have to see if that was uplifting for women.”

When asked if it was a good excuse, that she’s in press for hours and hours at a time and probably at some point loses track of what she’s saying, Seth quickly shot back:

“I didn’t slip and I was doing f*cking interviews all day too … I didn’t say sh*t!”

Seth does put it in perspective though. They weren’t the only targets of her asstalking:

“I gotta say it’s not like we’re the only people she said some bat sh-t crazy things about. That’s kind of her bag now.”

It’s been known a while that the creator of Deus Ex, one of the undisputed best games ever made, has been wanting to make a steampunk Disney game, which is just a crazy thought that up until now, I haven’t been able to comprehend. But apparently, this thing is happening and it’s gonna come out on the Wii. And this is like Kingdom Hearts except probably about 100x better, and it’s really one of the coolest games I’ve ever seen just from looking at the concept art alone. Like, wow Disney. The game is being developed at Junction Point Studios, a studio owned by Disney Interactive that Spector started, but has been working on an unnamed “fantasy title” for a few years which has a concept still on its site that looks similar but not quite like this, but maybe that was the point.

Erin Andrews is terrible at calling 9/11. In the call where she reports paparazzi outside her home in a gated community, she basically rambles on about her naked self to the dispatcher, but finally begins to start crying as she’s “being treated like she’s fucking Britney Spears”. I would say “poor her”, because she’s distraught and this whole story is terrible, but in the video and in this mp3, she just sounds so…pompous. “Yeah, I’m all over the internet, someone filmed me naked, blah blah blah I’m hot I rub my ass and stuff.” Not an exact quote, and I’m being an unfair jerk, but whatever. Listen to the call post-jump.

072909_erin_3.mp3

Source: TMZ

Source: BuzzFeed

Richard Branson really does know how to run business. His VirginMedia site runs not only as sales for every kind of product imaginable but it is also a gem of hilarious stuff that you can enjoy about every topic, including movies. My favorite one so far is “When Movies Are Watched Backwards”, which contains 20 fantastic rewritten synopses, including Jaws, Cloverfield, The Fly, and my personal favorite re-write, Alice in Wonderland. Read them all after the jump.

Jaws
“If you watch Jaws backwards, it’s about a shark that keeps regurgitating people until they have to open a beach.”

Cloverfield
“If you watch Cloverfield backwards, it’s about a monster created by the US Air Force who runs around New York fixing everything until it goes for a swim. Then everyone has a party and goes to bed.”

Thelma and Louise
“If you watch Thelma And Louise backwards, it’s about two women with a flying car who slowly realise their place is in the kitchen.”

Highlander
“If you watch Highlander backwards, there can only be two.”

The Shawshank Redemption
“If you watch The Shawshank Redemption backwards, it’s about a guy who breaks into jail through a secret tunnel of excrement.”

Raging Bull
“If you watch Raging Bull backwards, it’s about a fat comedian who becomes a boxing champion and the more he beats his wife and brother, the more they like him.”

Titanic
“If you watch Titanic backwards, it’s about the citizens of the Lost City of Atlantis finally escaping to the surface in a giant boat.”

The Matrix
“If you watch The Matrix backwards, it’s about Neo losing faith and leaving the Resistance to go and work in an office.”

The Big Lebowski
“If you watch The Big Lebowski backwards, The Dude finally gets his rug back.”

The Fly
“If you watch The Fly backwards, you realise it’s about a fly who turns into Jeff Goldblum.”

The Sixth Sense
“If you watch The Sixth Sense backwards, the surprise is that Bruce Willis is not a ghost.”

Rocky
“If you watch the Rocky movies backwards, it’s about a man who discovers the key to eternal youth is getting punched in the face.”

Ghostbusters
“If you watch Ghostbusters backwards, you’ll realise they’re basically releasing ghosts into houses.”

Deep Impact
“If you watch Deep Impact backwards, the President makes all the water go away by sending a giant rock into outer space.”

The Shining
“If you watch The Shining backwards, it’s about a murderer who is convinced by ghosts to give up the drink and settle down for a nice vacation with his family.”

Scarface
“If you watch Scarface backwards, Tony Montana gets deported.”

Fight Club
“If you watch Fight Club backwards, it’s about a schizophrenic who cures himself by going to terminal disease gatherings, which give him insomnia.”

Alice in Wonderland
“If you watch Alice In Wonderland backwards, it’s about a girl who lives in a funny, surrealistic world who falls asleep and has a really boring dream.”

300
“If you watch 300 backwards, King Leonidas helps the messenger out of the well with his foot and tells him ‘SPARTA IS THIS!’”

Déjà Vu
“If you watch Déjà Vu backwards, Denzel Washington travels through time to make a ferry explode and kill lots of people.”

Source: Virgin Mediat

When you think of Wes Anderson making an animated stop-motion movie, it’s been hard to imagine just what it would look like, but now we know. And all I can think now is, “Ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” It’s exactly what I should have been thinking all along, and while most people on RT have been alienated by it, for whatever reason, and it’s clear now that this probably won’t click at the box office, most likely, it doesn’t change the fact how great this film looks to me now. You better be atoning for Darjeeling with this one, Wes. I think you might be. Trailer in HD after the jump.

The Coens are doing something they haven’t done in quite a while, a very dark comedy with next to no-names filling out the entire cast (how famous do we count Richard Kind?), all presented in a weird, ballsy way. At least, that is how the trailer for A Serious Man implies what we’re in store for, a film that looks so obscure and alienating that the makers of the trailer went almost hilariously out of their way to slap in the faces of moviegoers that “THIS IS THE COEN BROTHERS YEAH FARGO LEBOWSKI NO COUNTRY OMGOMGOMGOMG”. It’s an awesome trailer, though, and though it seems to not say very much, and kind of underwhelmed me by not making me want to know more with that approach, it’s still an awesome trailer. Because it just screams Coen, and luckily not the Ladykillers kind. Not much focus on Richard Kind though, who was the one getting Oscar buzz for this in the preliminary “we look at cast lists and make guesses” stage. Scratch that one off, probably. Trailer post-jump.

As Keith Olbermann continues to be on his annual long summer vacation, some pretty interesting choices for temporary replacement hosts have been on. First David Shuster was on, which was…David Shuster as usual, great as a fill-in but not working for days at a time, and then they had folks like Richard Wolffe and Lawrence O’Donnell host which were definitely interesting to watch. But for tonight and tomorrow, they’re trying something a bit different than that to fill the Olbermann slot. Former Presidential candidate and DNC leader Howard Dean is going to be hosting the lefty-skewed program, and even though it looks like his skin is falling off his face this year, well…HOWARD DEAN HOSTING A TV SHOW OH MY GOD.

So yeah, watch tonight. I wonder if he’ll do any soapboxing…

Source: Drusie

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These guys aren’t Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson, but D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, Eagle Eye) and James Wan (Saw, Death Sentence) are two guys I don’t want anywhere near my video game adaptations. I’m quite the proponent of video game adaptations, as a lot of games contain some really rich stories and ideas that would work splendidly on film, but studios tend to not care about the quality of these products, and attach directors-for-hire who have no attachment or ambition with the material. But with Gore Verbinski’s Bioshock and Mike Newell’s Prince of Persia, that can hopefully change.

Caruso is signed on to direct Dead Space, a game that is already deeply soaked in influence from Alien, Solaris, and is altogether just cinematic in its nature. It’s a game with very little plot, which is both a blessing and a curse for Caruso, as the guy just can’t tell a story, and Eagle Eye showed this especially.

Meanwhile, James Wan is directing Castlevania, taking over for Paul W.S. Anderson and co. who were set to ruin that franchise too, but since vampires are hot on the ticket right now, this game is being poised for…brighter directors. That said, James Wan isn’t particularly talented, but he has ambition, I’ll give him that. The story revolves around a group trying to hunt down Dracula, which is about as simple as I can get in a sentence, as the series has quite a bit of games and storyline and blah blah blah that Wan has a lot more to work with in his series than Caruso does.

Both are without release date and hopefully will not be made.

Sources: Movie Make-out and Filmsnmovies

I know there’s a few Toronto readers, and a lot of other readers as well who are dying to see Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant “remake”, if I can call it that, with Nicolas Cage in the starring role. If you haven’t seen the trailer, it’s after the jump, and oh my god, it’s beautiful. One of those movies I must see this year even if it kills me. It’s being a part of the Special Presentations section alongside Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, and a more surprising choice, Drew Barrymore’s Whip It!, a film that’s just as banal as the trailer would suggest. But absent from the Toronto Film Festival is The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is also absent from the Venice Film Festival too, which tends to love Wes. Instead it’s going to the London Film Festival to premiere. What does that mean exactly? I don’t know.

The Toronto International Film Festival is pleased to announce the addition of two Gala Presentations and eight Special Presentations to the programming lineup for this year’s Festival, running September 10 to 19. Included are works from critically acclaimed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, Werner Herzog, Rebecca Miller, Michael Moore and Oliver Parker, and featuring on-screen performances by Drew Barrymore (in her directorial debut), Jim Broadbent, Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Colin Farrell, Colin Firth, Rebecca Hall, Val Kilmer, Christopher Lee, Juliette Lewis, Blake Lively, Eva Mendes, Julianne Moore, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Robin Wright Penn and Keanu Reeves.

Source: RowThree

Exhibit A: Barney kid brushing his teeth. Exhibit B: The Shake Weight. If you don’t believe me that these two things may singlehandedly be the most disturbing things you’ve ever seen, and this includes you folks out there who have Sandbox Kids play on a loop on your monitor, click after the jump.

I can’t describe any of these. They can only be seen.

https://www.shakeweight.org/

Watch the video on the shake weight site (it’s not on Youtube…yet).

4chan, like it, hate it, or just ignoring it, is possibly the internet’s most notorious, most sickening, and most important websites. It’s spouted just about every single meme in the dawn of the new age of pop culture, being responsible for most of what even people who’ve never even heard of the site talk about in regular watercooler conversation of “that thing they saw on YouTube”. Details post-jump.

AT&T, a leading proponent for trying to tear down free speech and channels through the internet in all this Net Neutrality hooplah has produced That Shot Heard Around The Web, by blocking 4chan entirely. It isn’t yet clear if AT&T “intentionally” did this and if it isn’t just an elaborate 4chan hoax (funnier things have been done), but reading threads on /b/ right now, these guys aren’t happy. And you know what they do when they’re not happy.

1-800-288-2020

24 customer service for AT&T. Call.

Source: Encyclopedia Dramatica (lulz)