I saw Werner Herzog’s 40-second rant about the stupidity of chickens when I saw Into the Abyss, from whence this clip came, but the rant out of context is even better. It’s the perfect illustration of what makes Werner Herzog’s documentaries so entertaining and also so frustrating.

“The enormity of their flat brain, the enormity of zair stupidity, is just overwhelming. You have to do yourself a favor. When you are out in the countryside and you see chicken, try to look a chicken in the eye with great intensity. And the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing. By the way, it is very easy to hypnotize a chicken. They are very prone to hypnosis. And in one or two films, I’ve actually shown that.”

Our old buddy Allan Weisbecker always used to say that comedy is about obsession, and never was that more true than with Werner Herzog, who, if you watch any of his recent documentaries, tends to find a new obsession every five minutes. The stupidity of chickens, an Eskimo welder with funny thumbs, a prison chaplain’s encounter with a squirrel, the inky abyss of a grizzly bear’s eyes (“za cold eendeeference of nature”), have all captivated Werner for minutes at a time. Hearing him expound on the subjects with the intensity of an existentialist philosopher and the fascination of an awed stoner is what makes him such a perfect character. Then there are other times when you kind of want him to finish a thought, but he’s already forgotten about dead languages and moved onto the thickness of seal’s milk. I’m serious, by the way, those were both subjects of extended soliloquoys in Encounters at the End of the World. Actual seals, I mean, not Seal the singer. That would be weird. Though I would pay to see Werner Herzog narrate a documentary about Seal. “Oont za scars on eine skin ist akin to za first glaciers zat carve za valley down za mountain, clearing za path for za horreeble plague of humanity, viss zair hybrid cars, oont cell phones, oont tabloid newspapers, oont zair Schtarbucks fockeenk coffeez. But za poet must never look away. Eez beautiful. By za way, eet eez very easy to heepnotize Seal. I’ff made seex moofies about eet.”

"I haff you right vair I vant you now, leetle friend."

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If they gave an Oscar for Things I Wish People Would Shut the Hell Up About, Andy Serkis’s performance in Rise of the Planet of the Apes would win in a landslide. Naturally, Fox is busy pouring gasoline on the fire, releasing three CG-free clips of Andy Serkis in ROTPOTA to build Oscar buzz in advance of tomorrow’s next Tuesday’s nominations, and to back up James Franco’s “Andy Serkis is the Che Guevara of Chimps” article from last week. First of all, acting like a chimp isn’t hard, no matter how many times you say it is. He had one line, and the rest was grunting. Channing Tatum doesn’t win awards for that and neither should Andy Serkis. Secondly, asking people to consider performance capture against regular acting is like someone on American Idol getting to use autotune. You can swear you hit the notes all you want, the point is, there’s no way for us to tell.

Check out Andy Serkis’s incredible chimp acting below.
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Disney doesn’t seem too worried about Muppet overexposure (and *I* haven’t gotten sick of them yet), and today we have yet another new clip from The Muppets, starring the newest member of the gang, Walter. The clip is fairly uneventful and doesn’t quite fill me with the glee that previous clips did, but you have to admit that their matching jammies are pretty sweet. I think I’m most impressed with the way the puppeteer can perform fast, twitchy movements to make Walter visibly shake with excitement. It’s very convincing. He literally has more talent in his hand than Paul Walker does in his whole body. F*ckin’ Andy Serkis, man. What an actor.

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OH ADWERD. AM SO WAIT FOR DAY YEW SAX ME! MAH BALLY IZ IN CRUMBLES.

We’ve seen a teaser, a teaser for the trailer, a trailer, and now this, the first clip from Twilight: Breaking Dawn, part one of Stephenie Meyers’ world famous Snorkels the Vampire Fetus saga. In this installment, Edward and Bella return from their wedding and flirt, as foreplay for their bed-breaking, feats-of-strength-filled, supernatural abstinence sex. Are you excited??? SO AM I!! Let’s just get straight to the clip and the captions, because god dammit, these retarded Mormon vampire sex clips are like Christmas for me.

AH NOW PRONOUNZ YEW MR. AND MRS. BALLA!

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Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Rum Diary finally hits theaters October 28th, after beginning filming two years ago. It promises to win Johnny Depp just enough goodwill that you can’t fully hate him when he shows up in the next Bruckheimer turd. I guess I can’t blame him for that. Anyway, today we’ve got 20 new pictures and two new clips, the first starring Amber Heard (HOT LESBIAN ALERT) as Chenault, when she first meets Thompson’s Paul Kemp while skinny dipping.

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