I don’t know if I can review Attack the Block the same way I would if I’d seen it a different year. At this point, the alien-invasion thing is just getting ridiculous. Skyline – alien invasion. I Am Number Four – alien invasion. Battle Los Angeles – alien invasion. Transformers 3 – alien invasion. Super 8 – alien. Paul – alien. Battleship – alien invasion. Cowboys and Aliens – alien invasion. Even Green Lantern and Thor are kind of about alien invasions, once you strip away the hot, shaved dudechests. Don’t get me wrong, Attack the Block is a well-made, fun film, and it may be unfair to the director (Joe Cornish, working from his own script) to judge it that way when he probably wrote it years before all the lesser versions drowned out my enthusiasm, but I just don’t know how many more times I need to see aliens destroy a city. The aliens come, the humans have to figure out why they came and what they want, and everyone learns an important lesson. Attack the Block is surely the most competent and least insulting version of this we’ve seen in a while, I’m just not sure that the fact that it happens in English gang turf rather than LA, the old west, the 70s, with robots, or in the ocean is enough variation to recommend it. Though I do feel like I finally understand what Ali G was making fun of, so that’s something

So the aliens, who are like chubby Chewbacca dogs with razor sharp, glowing, rave-party teeth, crash land without benefit of a ship (that’s new, sort of!) in a slummy neighborhood in West South London. In the process, they interrupt a mugging, by a group of mostly-black-but-racially-mixed teenage street toughs on a scared white girl talking on her cell phone. (Analogy for Americans: The girl is basically that toonie bitch Rebecca Hall in The Town trying to gentrify-up the old neighbahhood with a Stahbucks, and the kids are all the little hahd ons from Southie). At first, no one’s quite sure what the aliens want, other than to rave-up peoples’ innards with their dog teeth and terrorize the crew from Dangerous Minds. And since they came down looking like shooting stars on Fireworks Day (whatever the British equivalent of July 4th is) no one realizes Earth’s being invaded. Except the kids, of course, but no one believes them, because in movies, it’s impossible to convince anyone but kooky old ladies and stoners that aliens are invading even if the evidence IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR GODDAMN STUPID FACE.

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Here’s an English football hooligan marching against Islam trying to explain what it is he’s against.  With hilarious results.  Apparently he’s very much anti “Muslamic Ray Guns.”  I don’t know why, they sound cool to me.  Anyway, I’d much rather watch this version of The King’s Speech. (Spoiler alert: He says the N-word a lot.) (thanks for the tip, Niall).

MORNING LINKS

Facebook fail-log, March Edition. |Uproxx|

Yo, fa real, though, give last week’s Frotcast a listen, it’s one of our best. |Frotcast|

Jon Stewart’s amazing farewell to Glenn Beck. |WarmingGlow|

Your split-second Hawkeye cameo in Thor. |GammaSquad|

Tommy from Quinzee goes to Japan to compare tragedies. |KissingSuzyKolber|

A selection of pieces from the Quentin vs. Coens art exhibit. |UnrealityMag|

Kids react to Rebecca Black.  Fun fun fun. |TheDailyWhat|

Cops in Pittsburgh tasers don’t work.  Aw, remember when you A-holes had to actually work? |BostonBarstoolSports|

Claudia Sampedro has nice lungs. |GorillaMask|

Great interview with a great man, Norm MacDonald. |TBL|

Pic via RobotInDisguise

Kelly Brook has attractive cleavage and other shocking news. |TheSuperficial|

Shockingly, Mila Kunis does not want to become Charlie Sheen’s goddess. |WWTDD|

Sunday comics. |HolyTaco|

More badass: Sean Bean or Michael Biehn? |ScreenJunkies|

Review of Arthur, the bravest, boldest comedy of 2011.  Wait, what? |NERDS!|

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This is a clip from St. Trinian’s School for Girls, opening in select theaters October 2nd, in which Mischa Barton plays P.R. Guru J.J. French, “a PR consultant who sets out to coach the current students in the ways of creating and maintaining celebrity status.” Meanwhile, I could think while watching this was:

Gee, Pa, I cain’t see too good, is that the queen of England over tharrr?

UPDATE: Yeah, so apparently Mischa Barton was actually born in England and moved to the U.S. when she was five. But if that’s an English accent, I’m bob’s your uncle’s bobby lorrie lift, eh blokes?