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I received a severed and burnt Barbie doll head in the mail today. It was lovely.

http://tinyurl.com/cn2elr

oh, that's creepy, kam! can i add that to my list of stuff that creeps me out/gives me the willies? (even if it was a gag)

oh, that's creepy, kam! can i add that to my list of stuff that creeps me out/gives me the willies? (even if it was a gag)

Two film-geek rants no one will care about, but whatever, just to throw some things out there:

1) I assume a lot of you guys are DVD collectors, so anyone ever observed or fallen victim to this? Like, when some "long-lost classic" of your youth drops on DVD, everyone gets all stoked for it, like, "Oh, I GOTTA snap that up." Meanwhile, you've gone TWENTY YEARS without watching it at all. Like, suddenly, you NEED to OWN IT, and asap?

I thought of this because Bogdanovich's NICKELODEON finally dropped on disc this week, and at some other film sites (yeah, HE included, but not just there) all the film geeks are making some MAD DASH out to buy it. Like, cool, it's an interesting piece of 70s film history and maybe something geeks would want to have for posterity (self included)... But just because it's out there, are you REALLY gonna watch it again and again? Or give it one spin then it collects dust til 2030?

I'm way guilty of this myself... I have a shitload of DVDs, and every time some 70s or 80s chestnut makes its long-sought-after debut, I'm on Amazon pre-ordering. "WHOA, COOL, BOBBY DEERFIELD is on DVD! Finally!!!!!" Meanwhile, that shit then sits on a shelf for years, often still shrink-wrapped. Because the last time I felt the need to watch it, it was 1984 and Warner Brother's clamshell VHS boxes were still the size of an average closet door.

2) Re: Terminator Salvation's PG-13.

Did I read somewhere some brief potential Moon Bloodgood (HOT HOT YES) nudity was endangering the DREADED R? Or was that a rumor?

Anyway, always funny how all the AICN and DVD message board dork mouth-breather types, when there's a movie with a hot chick, invariably ask, "Does so-and-so SHOW HER TITS? Otherwise, NO SALE!"

Like, yeah, I'm sure these nerdy dudes would've TOTALLY ponied up multiplexes prices just for a tame half-glimpse of nipple. In fact, quite the opposite, I think in American moviegoing etiquette, extensive nudity is just something that makes "the masses" uncomfortable; Every time some "Heartbreakers" or "Into the Blue" or "Sin City" drops, all the message board douchebags get all ENRAGED that hot-chick A doesn't show any actual skin, but if push came to shove and whatever hot chick(s) were reenacting THE HUNGER for 17 minutes of hard-R screen time, I actually think that would make most of these posers too nervous to sit in public watching it, and the box office would suffer accordingly.

Wow, Lex you are really on fire with your recent post.

My parents took me and a friend to see 'Stripes' many moons ago. I was 12 or 13 at the time. We didn't set with my parents, but I remember during the shower scene, I could feel my mom's stare burning through the back of my head. Yes, when I should been excited to be seeing FULL FRONTAL, I just felt awkward.

And I also have to keep reminding my girlfriend, just because she liked some horrible movie when she was 12, it doesn't mean we have to own it on DVD.

I always rent the films of my youth first before buying just to be sure I'm not making a mistake. And while I enjoyed seeing The Last Dragon again after all these years, I am happy that it is not on my shelf.

And no matter how old you are nudity on screen with your parents in the audience does not mix. I went with my wife and my parents to see Sideways, and while everyone enjoyed the film Haden Church's ass and the fat man's genetalia made for some really uncomfortable moments.

Speaking of decades past, has anyone seen the Variety review of STAR TREK? Holy cow, what an absolute rave. I'm now actually confident about it.

Lex: I'd probably buy Nickelodeon (though not ASAP), both out of curiosity to see it again and because it's a double feature with the excellent The Last Picture Show.

To tie this together with your point about "uncomfortable" nudity, I saw The Last Picture Show with my parents and siblings at a drive-in when I was about 13. Full frontal Cybill Shepherd was certainly an eye-opener in that context. But I think I was too hormonal to be uncomfortable. I mostly recall being riveted.

I grew up watching HBO with my family, and I can't believe we'd sit together and watch HOUSE BY THE LAKE, DELIVERANCE, TAXI DRIVER and even STRIPES...

I'm anxious to visit NICKOLODEON again, since I had the paperback and was in love with Tatum O'Neal. But the one time I saw the film, I found it very labored, especially the slapstick. But Burt Reynolds and Brian Keith are always a treat.

Apparently the DVD of "Nickelodeon" comes in the released color version and also black and white which was what Bogdanovich originally wanted. Stuff like that makes a DVD worth owning, I think. But yeah, I buy DVD's of my youth (or whenever really) and they don't even get unwrapped. Pathetic.

Cadavra- just because Variety is "FIRST!!!!" with a review, don't take it to heart. They probably broke embargo but had permission to do so because their review was a rave. Another example of the stupidity of film embargoes and how it's o.k. to break them when you go positive.

Hey, so it's apparently Earth Day or something?

I do not REMOTELY care about the environment or the planet because all that shit's probably not gonna go down for another 100 years or so.

But I'm watching the Channel 11 news here in L.A., and ELIZA DUSHKU is on the beach talking about saving the planet and being a conservationist and there's some Earth Day even where she's front and center. On the beach. Eliza Dushku.

Does anyone know if I went down there with like a bag of empties or something, she'd be down with taking a picture and throwing up the horns?

As I have mentioned before, my goal in life is to take a picture with a famous hot chick who gives me a b--er, and she's throwing up the horns. Douche-ku would MORE than qualify.

Maybe I should blow off work and delight her with my rattling Hefty bag of beer bottles I was otherwise gonna leave out for Skid Row Joe.

Only thing is I'd have to drive all the way to the beach, and my car has no A.C. I can't go two blocks in the Valley without hitting five-minute red lights and sitting there sweating like I just stepped off the Poseidon. Eliza would probably be grossed out.

Lex "Inertia" G.

donlewis -- variety wasn't 'first', the mail was and it was an unmitigated rave also...i'm sure there'll be an eventual backlash but the people i'm talking to who've seen it make it sound like the wheel has been reinvented....
i can't get to a screening 'till friday but i'm certainly more interested now than i was originally.......

and, btw --- the b&w version of 'nickelodeon' is a revelation...really

'trek' is damn good, scoot

like yancysk, i'd get 'nickelodeon' because it's a double feature with 'last picture show', which i have on a really worn out VHS

(lex, i'm a totally straight girl but i find eliza dushku hypnotically beautiful, i'll watch 'wrong turn' just to watch her, she's like a human cup of cocoa, all tawny brown with those big brown eyes)

"Did I read somewhere some brief potential Moon Bloodgood (HOT HOT YES) nudity was endangering the DREADED R? Or was that a rumor?"

McG himself said it at some panel -- that 30-minutes-of-footage deal he was touring with. He implied it was essential to the plot.

has this been commented on?

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Just got back from "Crank: High Voltage" (64% positive on Rotten Tomatoes?!) and quite loved it, thought it surpassed the original in some parts, even, though I think I still love the first one more.

That said, the two Lionsgate sports docs trailered in front of it - "Facing Ali" and "More Than a Game" - actually looked pretty great, like stuff I'd actually go see in a theater. I know that "More Than a Game" has done a couple of festivals, so I figured I'd ask - anyone seen it/know if it's worth checking out?

Poland smack down Trek style

Trek yourself before you wreck yourself.

LEX'S NIGHTLY FALLON UPDATE (GREATEST SHOW EVER):

Damn it damn it DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

The ONE NIGHT I miss FALLON (aka, GOD), the main guest was MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG????????

SUPERMAN, if you are listening, can you do that whole FLY REALLY FAST AROUND THE EARTH SHIT, so I can go back in time 54 minutes and BASK in the HOTNESS??????????

^^ GREAT post, give me an Emmy.

Long as I got the floor, somebody in charge get me GABE KAPLAN IN "TULIPS" on DVD.

Hell, throw FAST-BREAK on that shit and make it a double feature like that Bogdanovich disc that just dropped.

GABE KAPLAN IS YOUR GOD. BOW TO HIM.

How can Lex go from being spot on the money at 2:05am to being a stark raving loon at 10.28AM. Doesn't he have his peak drinking times mixed up or something. :(

Eliza Dushku is amazing though, but I don't like the beach. Earth Day is nice, but it just reminds me of An Inconvenient Truth and how much I hate that lecture movie.

Don, it's not that Variety was first but that it was such a hugely enthusiastic piece from a publication that tends to review things more from a business perspective than an artistic one.

Cadavra-
My point is more that a couple hundred writers and fans have already seen the new Trek...but aren't allowed to publish anything yet. Why does Variety get to? And if Variety was bashing it, would the Trek people still "allow" it to be published.

I hate to sound like a prototypical film blogger baby, but why should some outlets be forced to sit on their Trek review when Variety isn't held to the same standard?

Lex: Fallon's show can be viewed for free at hulu.com, no Superman required. The Trachtenberg ep is here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/69484/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-wed-apr-22-2009#s-p1-so-i0

Something I've been wondering about: Why does that B&W Nikki Finke pic I keep seeing look like a head shot of Audrey Totter from 1949?

Yancy, thanks for SAVING THE DAY. TRACHTENGODDESS was both CHARMING and DELIGHTFUL... But why did her legs/knees look kind of pasty? Oh, well, still HOT.

Ugh, Scott Mendelson just noted over on his Film Threat blog that Rod Lurie has cast James Marsden as the lead in his "Straw Dogs" remake. Ack. Frying pan, meet fire. As I noted there, sounds like another "pretty family gets attacked by creeps upsetting their perfect home" movie. Laaaaame.

don lewis, i feel your pain re: the 'straw dogs' remake, but having recently seen 'nothing but the truth', which i thought was well-written, taut, and terrifically acted by the two women in farmiga and beckinsale, i have a glimmer of hope that lurie will eschew the hokey 'pretty people attacked by inbred yokels' angle and go for something more intelligent and perhaps akin to the source material of 'siege of trencher's farm' (a book i own for some weird reason, i think i bought it a lifetime ago out of curiosity at how it differed from peckinpah's screenplay, which is quite a bit).

marsden has grown on me lately as more than just a prettyboy, so if lurie can cast a dynamite amy (if 'nothing but the truth' is anything to go by he can bring it with his actresses), there might be an interesting flick to be made, a modern twist on the mistrust/conflicts between the classes, the lengths a man will go to when push comes to shove to protect his family/territory and all that profound animalistic stuff. it would seem yet another unnecessary remake but you never know, if done right it could be fresh and contemporary. or not

Is Sumner a screenwriter in the novel or is that a Lurie invention? I believe he's a mathematician in the Peckinpah film.

I dunno, yancy. The whole POINT of the original film was that Sumner was a nebbish with a smoking hot wife. The feelings (and her antagonisms) about his inability to keep up are the driving force. Marsden will likely show up in the film in glasses so he looks, ya know, smart.

Straw Dogs is nothing more than a gussied up masculine version of I Spit on Your Grave. And that's all I've got to say about that.

yancysk, the book character of 'george magruder' is an american professor on sabbatical with his wife and kid in the english countryside. the siege basically involves him protecting his family and a retarded child murderer that he accidentally runs over from a vigilante mob. the wife isn't raped and there's none of peckinpah's conflicted sexual politics or love/hate shit with women, it's almost more 'night of the living dead' than peckinpah's 'straw dogs' adaptation

Kamikaze, you say that as if it's a bad thing.

(and I don't think you're accurate, anyway - there's a lot more going on in SD than in ISoyG).

Peckinpah called the book "lousy."

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