Yahoo just released the Super Bowl TV spot for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, and Cate Blanchett.  I have to admit, it looks kind of badass, which basically leaves me with nothing but cheap and not-even-that-accurate fat jokes.  In fact, I spent the last hour trying to create a Photoshop that involved Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood and the phrase “Let them eat cake!”, but it didn’t really turn out.  Looks like you’ve won this round, Crowe.  *pets cat, plots revenge*

With Ridley Scott directing and Russell Crowe sword fighting, Robin Hood promises to be the Gladiator of Robin Hood flicks, and it even has Cate Blanchett, who promises to be the the overactingest of Maid Marians.  We’ve already seen the US trailer, but now here’s an international version.  This version actually gives us some dialog and a hint as to the plot, which as an American I find very unappealing.  Hello?  Where’s the quick cuts?  Where’s the rock guitar?  Where’s the non-diagetic sound effects?  Without that ever-present “THWACK THWACK THWACK” sound, how can I be sure this will beat me over the head with stuff?   Supersize this immediately, and then pour it down my throat so I don’t have to chew.

(“I HATE VEGETABLES!!!!!”)

(“I’M SO HUUUNGRY!”)

After the jump I’ve got your first international trailer for the long-awaited, frequently revamped, sympathetic-to-the-Sheriff Robin Hood (formerly Nottingham), from Ridley Scott starring Russell Crowe.  The trailer doesn’t really give us much, just some quick-cut fighting set to guitar and a weird bowstring-pulling-taut sound effect that dare I say it sounds a lot like a record scratch.  There’s only one line of dialog:

“Rise, and rise again, until lambs become lions.”

Whoa, a wolf used for symbolism, lambs and lions — is anyone else getting a weird Twilight New Moon synergy vibe all of a sudden?  Said Russell Crowe when reached for comment, “I wanna eat a stupid lamb,” and kicked an empty Slim Fast can.

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It sort of sucks for any actress who replaces Sienna Miller opposite Russell Crowe in Nottingham, since so far the official line on why she got fired is “too thin and pretty”.  Then again, skanks try to use that as an explanation for everything, even if they got kicked off a reality show for taking a dump in the hot tub.  “What, you saw it, those fat bitches were jealous of me.”  Anyway, today in one of their Pulitzer-caliber exposés, The Telegraph reports that Miller’s replacement MAY be Cate Blanchett.

Cate Blanchett looks more and more of a certainty for the role of Maid Marian in Sir Ridley Scott’s forthcoming film Nottingham after Sienna Miller was apparently deemed too slim and youthful for the part. “I think Cate Blanchett is set to take the Maid Marian part,” says Mark Strong, who has already been signed up to play Sir Guy of Gisbourne. “She is a wonderful actress and it would make it a much classier film if she was in it.”

Mmm, classy.  It’s true, Cate Blanchett does have that effect on movies.  She’s not like that other braindead prostitute, no offense to anyone in particular.  Basically, Cate Blanchett is to films what faux wood paneling and Corinthian leather toilet seats are to my apartment.  Call me, ladies.

Like Forrest Gump Butt Better (Mostly)

It’s not surprising that the critics love The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  The vast majority of critics are writers, part-time writers, failed writers, or wannabe writers. And Ben Button is a shameless glorification of the act of writing, a sort of a parable about the power of storytelling.  At their heart, stories are a tradition of contrived bullshit that we spew to make ourselves feel better.  The strength of Button is that it lays its most obvious contrivances (a man who lives his life backwards, love at first sight, etc.) on the table from the start, so that the focus becomes not the bullshit itself, but what it is about said bullshit that makes it so universally compelling, and why it is that we can know it’s bullshit and still be compelled by it.

Button begins roughly in the present, like its closest analog, Forrest Gump, with Cate Blanchett’s character on her deathbed prompting her daughter (Julia Ormond) to read her/us the story of Benjamin Button from his diary as her final wish. The action that occurs in the present is actually my biggest caveat in recommending this movie, but I’ll get to that later.
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