The Hot Blog

What's down there? Fucking Rancor?...

Nope; just the Academy, Emmy's, Grammy's, and Tony's. They are having a poker game down here. Hosted by the Ace awards. It's really sad, but they comfort themselves with their bad decisions.

They comfort themsevles with the knowledge (belief?) that the other guy's bad decision was worse.

Saw Valkyrie the other day. It's alright. Not much tension until they're trying to put the plan into effect. Felt like a lot of the context was left out. I would like to correct my earlier boneheaded statement that Stauffenberg was Prussian. He was Swabian, as I knew and should have known, a much more likely place of origin for such a conservative Roman Catholic aristocrat as himself.

What's with all the love for Button? Pitt manages about 3 expressions for the overly long film, CGI doing the rest. It's just not that good.

I was delighted to see Melissa Leo get a nod. Few saw the lmited release Frozen River, but at least her peers know how fantastic she is.

At least with the Razzies you can't buy an award -- you've got to earn it.

I can't help but find it ironic that Cate Blanchett could get nominated for Elizabeth 2: Elizabether, but not for something that was, you know, actually good.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216538&title=changefest-09-obamas-inaugural

Hey that dude from every commercial on TV who looks like Jacques Renault from TWIN PEAKS is currently owning up this episode of ELEVENTH HOUR.

Also, Marley Shelton really owns and should be in better stuff; Was kind of a C-tier member of the late '90s teen movie Pack (Prinze, Suvari, Biggs, Reid, Klein, Sobieski... did that crew ever have an official moniker?) But she's seriously stunning and was great in Grindhouse. UNDERRATED ACTRESS.

So does KILLSHOT go WIDE this weekend? Swear I actually saw a trailer for that on a DVD of *SHADOWBOXER* I rented TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO. Excellent cast, but "FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE" doesn't really seem to mesh with Elmore Leonard crime material where Mickey Rourke is kicking ass.

And just me, or kind of an odd decision to go with BILL NIGHY SLUMPING IN A CHAIR as the key marketing image of UNDERWORLD 3? I know we discussed the Mitra-for-Beckinhotness bait and switch before, but every bus stop poster I've seen seems to be Nighy kickin' it on his throne; I don't have a degree in advertising or anything, but I'd tend to think "hot chick in catsuit with shiny gun" catches the eye more than "gaunt, wispy-haired British character actor kind of ineffectually sitting in a chair."

Maybe S.I. can wrangle John Neville for the cover of this year's Swimsuit Issue.

Lex, do you post on imdb under the name "michaelflatley"?

Lord Of The Caps?

I've seen that michaelflatley guy wasting his life way trying to trick dumb people. About the lamest troll I've ever seen. It ain't Lex. michaelflatley is so fucking annoying that he cleanses Lex of his sins.

HA! Not me, but wow, what an awesome idiot.

Looks like the dude is British; You can search for his semi-serious "reviews" throughout the site, which go back some time, but then it appears the message board and pulling that routine caught his fancy at some point and he switched over to that shtick.

Well, Rhona doesn't have a catsuit or a gun in Underworld 3. And Nighy's been in two Pirates movies that grossed more than any movies the rest of the cast have been in combined.

Granted, he wasn't the reason for the grosses. I'm figuring they know they have the fanbase secured no matter what, and want to let other audiences know that even though it's a January vampire movie, there's a good actor in it that everyone likes.

Saw the movie earlier tonight. It's the most pleasingly unpretentious of the series, but still has that annoying hyper-stutter cam in action scenes.

Dude, "Lord of the Caps" was the best comeback zinger of early '09. Well played, laz...well played.

I already regret posting my comment. Now the guy's probably getting more attention than he ever dreamed of.

(He was going on about how the lead actress in that devil-baby movie ruined it by failing to get naked, which made me think of ol' Lexie. Plus, it's hard to tell just where the idiot act overlaps with actual idiocy.)

Let's never bring him up again, ok?

Anyone who goes to a PG-13 movie expecting nudity deserves to be disappointed.

Though if he's overseas, maybe they rated it differently. UK ratings are tougher on violence and frightening content than sex.

OK, I will preface everything I'm about to say by acknowledging that I have been paid on three occasions to appear on At the Movies. So take this with however many grains of salt you wish. Tonight I watched their year-end wrapup show, in which both guys announced their Top Ten lists. And I think some folks on this blog will be very pleasantly surprised by some of the titles mentioned. That is all.

So...Twilight?

I don't watch the damn show, and have no way of knowing what the lists are. Please spoil them, Joe.

My informed sources tell me that Still Life is #1 on both Lyons' and Mankiewicz' lists. Congratulations to Jia Zhangke and everyone at Shanghai Film Studios.

I have no idea what At the Movies is listing in their top tens (they're incredibly irrelevant, right?). But if Joe could somehow isolate and remove the Gloating gene from his genetic makeup, we'd all be better off.

I'm serious: if it's not "Look at how well 21 is still doing!" it's "Look at how well Valkyrie is still doing!" which is just plain silly after a point.

Jesus christ, Still Life is such a great movie. PEOPLE! GO WATCH IT! Ugh. Of course you won't, who am I kidding.

LYT: Since you asked...

http://www.stopbenlyons.com/2009/01/at-movies-1409.html

Jeff: Nice to see you're still hanging on every word I write. But the restraining order is still in effect, OK? Also, remember what the judge said: You have until Jan. 30 to return those pairs of my underwear that you swiped from the laundromat.

Jeff: Joe is fucking Santa Claus, and fucking Santa is a gloating motherfucker,

That aside; Rise of the Lycans is a nice little January action film. Rhona Mitra is stunning, and everything else falls into place. Good stuff all-around. It makes me appreciate Screen Gems that little bit more.

Oh yeah; the Wrestler fucking owns. Another mistake by an Academy overran by old pill poppers and reprobates. Easily one of the better films I have seen in years. Go see it whenever you freakin can.

"I can see it now."

GO SEE IT NOW!

"Okay. Okay. Pushie."

I have decided that I like both Deschanel Sisters.

Zooey was always obviously The Hotness, but now that Fox is running round-the-clock ads for Bones where Emily and that Boreanz clown are shucking-and-jiving to Young MC's BUST A MOVE (1989 4 EVA), I have decided E-DESCH has joined her sister in the Pantheons of Awesomeness.

IO: You want to hear gloating? OK: I just got word from one of my former students that my letter of rec somehow helped get him into the NYU grad film school, and he's now about to finish his thesis project, a feature-length documentary. I fully expect an onstage shout-out when he gets his first Oscar.

See Jeff? Santa loves to gloat!

"Oh yeah; the Wrestler fucking owns. Another mistake by an Academy overran by old pill poppers and reprobates."

They nominated Rourke and Tomei didn't they? If they put it up for Best Picture, we'd just have one more flick pushing The Dark Knight down the tally sheet wouldn't we? (a more respectable tally pusher than The Reader, but still...)

IOI: I know, it's tiresome.

Totally off-topic - AICN and McWeeney report Green Hornet is DOA at Sony, and neither of these braintrusts can deduce that maybe, possibly, it had something to do with Sony's billion dollar loss announced last week.

Back to the Oscar talk....

Not happy when Green Hornet was Kevin Smith-ed, then Rogen-ed. Maybe it will evolve to be a better movie later, on its extremely slow road of synthesis.

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