Armond White don't need predator drones to drop TRUTHBOMBS, son

I sort of stopped keeping up with Armond White when he spent much of the new year reviewing tiny indie movies no one cares about, but it turns out I’d made a CLASSIC MISTAKE!  Armond White’s clever strategy simply lulled me into a false sense of security, giving him the cover of surprise as he dropped THE BIGGEST TRUTHBOMB OF THEM ALL!  Turns out Battle: Los Angeles, the most ridiculous film of the year so far, is actually a perfect metaphor for the post-9/11 malaise of the fascist ennuiocracy!  BOOM! MISLED BY THE PROTO-LIBERAL CHIMERAS OF WHITE GUILT YET AGAIN, SUCKA!  Big Brother A-Dubz is coming to Airstrip One to learn your ignorant ass some TRUTHSPEAK!  SKEET SKEET SKEET!

Three meaningful visual symbols are connected in Battle: Los Angeles. The first: A soldier sees a jar of mints on an officer’s desk (“They’re pretty old”), and he reaches in and grabs a handful. Second: Cut immediately to soldiers visiting a military cemetery with tombstones splayed across a hillside like fallen tablets.

PUT THESE OLD MINTS IN YA MOUTH, LIKE MY NUTS!  NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE HOBERMAN!

Finally: Fresh from combat, Staff Sgt. Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) sees a supply table stocked with ammunition and grabs a handful of bullets for the next round of fighting.

HE RALLY ROUND YO FAMILY!  WIT A POCKET FULLA SHELLS! …WORDS ON PARADE!

These moments distinguish Battle: Los Angeles from a mindless action movie about aliens attacking Planet Earth.

Because this one has tombstone mints! Used to be a library, linin’ to the mind cemetery now! …UUUGH!

When you put the equation of candy-death-bullets in context, it evokes the ambiguity of our leisure culture’s fascination with violent movies and video games and, conversely, reproves our media culture’s pervasive distaste for all things military.

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This week on the Frotcast, we bring back Laremy Legel of Film.com to talk to us about our new favorite pop star, Rebecca Black, Guy Fieri’s stolen Ferrari (which happened only a few blocks from where we’d been making fun of him only a few hours earlier when we were recording last week’s Frotcast), Laremy and I make fun of the most ridiculous film of the year so far, Battle: Los Angeles,  then we move onto the racist UCLA girl, talk Paul, and  wrap things up on The Situation at the Donald Trump roast.  We tried to keep it a little shorter and tighter this week. Enjoy, tell a friend, etc.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE. SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES. NOW AVAILABLE ON ZUNE MARKETPLACE.  ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLACKBERRY PODCASTS.  …Email us at Frotcast@gmail.com.

Relevant videos below…

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The cast sees the script for the first time

Battle: Los Angeles. Wow. Someone Wrote That.

The most telling anecdote I can provide about Battle: Los Angeles is that almost every cheese-drenched “dramatic” moment drew raucous laughter from the audience, and trust me, these were no beardy chai sniffers amused by their own detachment.  This was a Michael Bay crowd, answering texts during the film and calling each other “f_ggot.”  I.e., the target demographic. They weren’t looking for, nor would even probably recognize high art, and even to them, Battle LA‘s earnest attempts at depth were inept to the point of comedy. Can you imagine?  That’s like a kindergarten teacher getting clowned by his students. Meanwhile, a less telling anecdote about Battle Los Angeles is that the guy sitting next to me smelled like onions he’d marinated in his own butt.

Hmmm… how much exposition to do here… Aaron Eckhart is a Marine staff sergeant on the eve of his retirement.  Aliens invade.  Aaron Eckhart is too old for this sh*t. He beats them up and inspires a nation with his heroic chin of valor. Done and done.  Battle Los Angeles has been compared many times to Independence Day, for obvious reasons, but there’s one key difference.  In Independence Day, we got to know a handful of characters in different places and follow them as their lives became interconnected by DA ALIENZ.  In Battlefield LA, we literally get title cards with characters’ names on them like baseball ball cards we’re expected to memorize in the first act. Black Dude With Glasses, starting philosophizer, The Los Angeles People Running from Sh*t.  Shoots: right.  Screams: towards the Heavens.

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The cast sees Michelle Rodriguez' dailies for the first time

Battle: Los Angeles was number one at the box office this weekend, earning $36 million from about 3500 theaters.  Which, if it had been a scene in Battle: Los Angeles, would’ve been communicated through a TV reporter in the background reading that exact sentence while Aaron Eckhardt shouted some amazingly cheesy line like, “I’M TOO OLD FOR THIS SH*T!” OR “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE, MARINE, AND THAT’S AN ORDER!” (*lens flare, camera spins around its subject*)

While Aaron Eckhardt’s chin dimple was making the world safe for laughable clichés (by the way, has anyone else ever noticed that the way his cleft chin sticks out of that space in that chinstrap looks like a girl with big tits in a halter top?), Disney’s latest animated release, Mars Needs Moms was flopping hard, much like my wang.  It earned $6.8 million in its debut, barely a quarter of Gnomeo and Juliet and worse than Planet 51, Space Chimps, or Astro Boy, to become the lowest-grossing opening for ever “a broadly-released modern 3D-animated movie.”

Hoo boy, that is a lot of modifiers.  But suffice to say, giving people a reason to remember Space Chimps is never a good thing.  Oh, and Red Riding Hood (GRRR, SYMBOLIC SWOLLEN CLIT), the sexy werewolf picture from Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, didn’t do that great either.  The search for a successful Twilight knockoff continues.  Twilight is a sexy Mormon abstinence parable with vampires, so maybe… a super hot Pentacostal resurrection allegory with zombies?  Just throwing out ideas here.

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My, what a mighty big space between the eyes you have.

Ok dorks, let’s do a quick rundown of movies that are opening this weekend. Skinny Marinky Vinky Dink started doing this last week, then promptly bailed and left it to the blogsitters. Professional. Fun fact: despite being Uproxx’s preeminent fill-in movie blogger (What the hell is a “Burnsy”?), I have never heard of most of these movies. And away we go.

RED RIDING HOOD: Amanda Seyfriend stars as a girl whose movie should get eaten by a wolf.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 7% (HOLY SH*T, 7%)
Gratuitous review quotes:

“Another idiot child of “Twilight,” “Red Riding Hood,” directed by original “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”), arrives, and the Twi-hards are about to get hoodwinked.” – Boston Herald

“[Hardwicke] has a gift for taking situations of bloodcurdling thrills and investing them with all of the drama of a sophomore fussing over her prom date.” – New York Post

Armchair analysis: Yeesh (*tugs collar*)
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