Refried Screens

Daniel Craig is the new bad luck Schleprock of the James Bond franchise:

The curse of James Bond has struck again - after 007 actor Daniel Craig sliced off the tip of one of his fingers filming  an action sequence.  Craig, 39, was taken to hospital today while the 22nd Bond movie, ‘Quantum of Solace’ was being shot at Pinewood Studios.  It is the second time in two weeks that Craig has been injured during filming.  A week ago his face was cut and required eight stitches.

Apparently, other folks have suffered:

The ‘Curse of Bond’ has struck Halle Berry in 2002 during the making of Die Another Day as Bond - played at the time by Pierce Brosnan - was filmed firing at a helicopter.  In 1997, during the filming of Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan was left scarred after he was hit hit by fragments of a bullet.  And In 1967 during You Only Live Twice with Sean Connery a stuntman lost both his legs in the rotor blades of a helicopter.

Is it coincidence that Amy Winehouse, who was recording the title track for the movie is having her own problems?  Maybe we can blame the Bond curse for hubby Blake’s incarceration.  Or Duran Duran’s fall from grace after recording the View To A Kill.  Maybe the curse goes back in time and is the reason Ike Turner got all abusive on Tina Turner years before she recorded Goldeneye. 

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For months, people have been speculating about Cloverfield.  Even though the movie doesn’t tell us what the name means or really what the monster looks like, we kinda sorta have a sense of it…I think.  I guess like the movie Alien, we’ll have to wait until the toy comes out to see the monster in all of its glory.

Seeing the Cloverfield monster is one thing, but knowing how it arrived on Earth is quite another. Little did viewers know that the origin actually occurred on the corner of the screen at the end of the movie.

Thanks to the Internet, someone has mapped it out, thus saving money needed for motion sickness pills to brave another screening:

But that’s not enough for most, so you’ll find out the Cloverfield monster’s TRUE origin right here:

That’s right, although J.J. Abrams said:

“I want a monster movie, I’ve wanted one for so long. I was in Japan with my son and all he wanted to do is go to toy stores. And we saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own monster, and not King Kong, King Kong’s adorable. I wanted something that was just insane and intense.”

He couldn’t come up with one, so he did the next best thing.

He ripped off the Japanese.

In particular, Sin from Final Fantasy X: big sea monster with little killer monsters.  Or this dude from, you guessed it, Final Fantasy:

I know you’d think that one day, we’d get an original American monster, but why bother when there are so many great ones in Japanese video games?

No matter how cool Indiana Jones was supposed to be, he was nothing but a grave robbing necrophiliac with a Ph.D. who got posh teaching gigs and adventure stipends because of treasures he stole from dead people.

Now the makers of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, know how those dead people must have felt when Indy jacked their shit:

Computers and photographs related to the production of director Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated “Indiana Jones” film have been stolen…”We want to warn the media that anything that is offered is stolen property,” Marvin Levy told the paper. “We know it is out there.”

Steven Spielberg is concerned the thieves might try to sell the materials.

Now is the time for Indiana Jones AKA Harrison Ford and Indy Jr. AKA Shia Laboeuf to man up and get back the stolen property.  Maybe Spielberg can shoot the search. 

It’d make one hell of a documentary…unless this is all a cheap publicity stunt. 

But Hollywood wouldn’t do that to us, now, would it?

We all loved the The Karate Kid back in the day. 

Hell, I know women who STILL get flush when they see Ralph Macchio because of the movie. 

That is the power of Hollywood.

Since Will Smith is a box office kingpin, he’s using his power to not only direct The Karate Kid remake, but to make a generation of girls exited about his son Jaden, who Smith has cast as Daniel-san.

That is the power of Nepotism.

Some would think that Spider-Man and X-Men movie godfather Avi Arad’s insistence that Bratz are “X-Men for girls” with superpowers of singing, fashion, soccer and cheerleading, is the most disingenuous attempt to court comic fanboys displayed by a movie exec.

But I disagree.

Bratz are like the X-Men.

Only sluttier…and more dangerous.

Both Bratz and the mutant X-Men are widely viewed as a threat to society. Humans fear mutants will remove humanity from the planet. Parents fear Bratz will remove childhood innocence from 4-10 year old girls.

The X-Men wear leather.

Bratz also wear leather…miniskirts.

Parents fear their kid dressing like an X-Man might attract bullies.

Parents fear their kid dressing like Bratz will attract pedophile scum.

The X-Men have Psylocke, a British woman trapped in a Japanese body.

Bratz have May Lin, a Japanese doll trapped with a Chinese name.

Finally, the X-Men have Magneto, filled with rage and bitterness that the X-Men won’t follow him.

Bratz have Paula Abdul, similarly filled with rage and bitterness that she no longer controls Bratz.

All in all, I couldn’t think of a better analogy for Bratz than “The X-Men for girls”.

Jason Bourne’s posse hates James Bond’s guts:

Bond is “an imperialist and he’s a misogynist” according to Matt Damon. (AP)

After Live And Let Die AKA James Bond vs All The Black People In The World, who could disagree?

Paul Greengrass, director of Bourne Ultimatum, takes it a step further:

He worships at the altar of technology. He loves his gadgets. And he embodies this whole set of misogynistic values…Personally, I spit on those values.” (AP)

In your FACE, James Bond and tech geeks!

Q wasn’t available for comment. But I’m sure he’s mad as hell and plans on taking care of business the old fashioned way.

I can’t wait for Sean Connery’s response. Hopefully he’s as crotchety as Burt Reynolds is here.

Find it here.

Almost as good as the family safe 300 trailer:

BRUSH YOUR TEETH!

If you’ve seen stills from the upcoming Transformers movie, you’ll notice these aren’t your friendly, childhood Transformers…

They’re SPOOKY lookin’!

Seems as if Hollywood is treating the 80s better than the 70s and making the characters tougher. Wish we could say the same about what they did to 70s characters played by macho icons like Burt Reynolds From The Longest Yard…

Instead of comedic genius Adam Sandler from the remake…

Even Darth Vader went from looking like a possessed granddaddy from hell…

To a lost member of N*SYNC…

With the meaner, nastier Transformers looking tougher than the cartoon, there is hope that they’ll do He-Man and ThunderCats better than these guys:

Before Transformers comes out and flops, Warner Bros is making a live-action ThunderCats Movie.

Is nothing sacred?

This kind of thing has been tried before, and I don’t mean the Super Mario Bros Movie. It was something even more horrid: Masters of the Universe.

Masters of the Universe was based on the cartoon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. As if it wasn’t bad enough I had already wasted my allowance on the He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword, theatrical release which was later shown on tv for free. Allowance that could’ve been spent on comic books. Comic books that appreciate in value and could have paid for my law school tuition! They had to rub salt in the wound and waste even more of my money with Masters of the Universe.

For those who didn’t see any of the movies, I can sum the bastardization up with a brief comparison. The He-Man cartoon had a funny imp called Orko:

The Masters of the Universe movie had Gwildor: who looks like he contracted some intergalactic venereal disease:

I shudder to think about what they’re going to do with Cheetara.

Someone finally pulled a John Hinckley analysis, AKA “Blame the Movie/Book/Videogame for creating the psycho“, on Cho Seung-Hui for the Virginia Tech massacre. The movie of choice, for today at least, is Oldboy.

Look at the photo: Cho has a hammer and so does Dae-Su Oh, the protagonist of Oldboy. Cho was violent and so was Dae-Su.

Forget the fact that Cho used 9mm and .22-caliber pistols, not a hammer.

Forget the fact that Oldboy took place in Korea and Dae-Su fought to defend himself from thugs who kidnapped him and a criminal mastermind who tricked him into committing incest.

Yes, you read that right: Dae-Su slept with his daughter. At the end of the movie, once he finds out, he cuts out his tongue.

Forget that Dae-Su doesn’t commit suicide. He, like George Michael suggested, Chooses Life. Unlike George Michael, Dae-Su decides to continue his monogamous relationship with his daughter. Unlike Dae-Su, Cho was childless and kept his tongue intact. Unlike Dae-Sue’s mop-top hairstyle, Cho shaved his head.

What is the parallel between Dae-Su and Cho? Oh yeah, I forgot.

He took a photo with a hammer.

Since Cho was an English major, wouldn’t it make more sense to blame John Henry?

Maybe Cho took a Norse Myths class. We can blame Thor…

Sorry, he probably read comics, so I got the wrong Thor…

Nope, throw all that out the window. It’s Oldboy to blame.

If out of touch critics want to blame something. Why not blame a videogame? That’s the “hip” thing to do these days. Don’t worry, if you’re not up on videogames. I’ll give you a character who, like Cho, has a hammer…and even better yet…he’s Asian!:

That’s right. The Hammer Brother from Super Mario.