This is the trailer for William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID LOL), a documentary about you guessed it, Einstein P. Smartbrain, William S. Burroughs. It features appearances by David Cronenberg, Peter Weller (who’ll surely have important things to say about Burroughs’ contribution to the literary canon because he played Robocop), Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Jello Biafra, and everyone’s favorite, Genesis P-Orridge. (I don’t even know, dude, just keep walking and try to avoid eye contact). Anyway, it’s a good thing William Burroughs shot his wife and was into guns and gay sex and gay sex with guns, because otherwise all they’d have to talk about is that f-ing unreadable heroin ramble of a book he wrote.

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At the end of Eastern Promises (SPOILER ALERT), we find out Viggo Mortensen’s character is really an undercover British agent.  Between the open ending and the fact that Watchmen and Forgetting Sarah Marshall exposed America’s appetite for full-frontal male nudity (dudity), the time is ripe for a sequel.

“We are moving forward with it,” Cronenberg told MTV News in an exclusive chat. “We all are excited about the idea of doing a sequel.”

The “we” includes Mortensen, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role as Nikolai; the film’s screenwriter, Steven Knight; original producer Paul Webster; and original studio, Focus Features.

“We are going to have a meeting very soon between me, Steve Knight and Paul Webster to discuss what the script would be,” Cronenberg said “If all goes well, Steve goes away and writes a great script. If we all like it, we make it.”

I’m a Cronenberg fan, but Eastern Promises was far from his best work.  In this day and age, there’s just no excuse for poorly choreographed fight scenes.  I know a thing or two about naked fights to the death in a Russian bath and I demand realism dammit.

I didn’t feel like devoting an entire post to most of these stories, so here they are in lightning round format.

• France is awarding David Cronenberg their highest honor, the Legion d’honneur.  Upon hearing the news, Viggo Mortensen ran around with his cock out and strangled a Russian. [Variety]
• Forrest Whitaker had to drop out of The Expendables and was replaced by 50 Cent. The role now has 100% less Oscars and 50% more functioning eyeballs.  [AICN]
• An AICN reader with a super gay fake name saw Tom Cruise talk about Mission Impossible 4 on Japanese TV. Three movies, three different directors, now a fourth movie? It’s almost as if this mission has no chance of being completed. [AICN]
• Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman will co-star in a rom-com.  The hot popular guy and the cute smart girl getting together — OMG this is gonna be just like Sixteen Candles! [Empire]
• Pixar’s Up will open the Cannes Film Festival, become the first animated film ever to do so. Director Pete Docter, upon hearing the news, shouted, “That’s right, son, we just opened up a Cannes!  Wait, what?  How’s it pronounced now?” [THR]
• Crank 2 released a new poster via Twitter. THE STATH: Oi, it’s all fock’n black and yellow, donnit?  It’s loike oy’s a fock’n bumble bee, now don’ Oy?  Dat is well fitting, cuz Oy do loike ta poke fit birds wif me stinga.  D’you know what Oy mean?  Oy’s talkin’ about knobbin. [Twitter]
• And speaking of Twitter, Stephen Colbert went on the Today Show to promote Monsters vs. Aliens and said “twatted”.  In the movie he plays the president, and also in my heart. [WarmingGlow]

Premiere recently did a series of features called "Sex on Film".  The introduction to their short interview with David Cronenberg included this gem:

If there’s such a thing as Method directing, Cronenberg is the DGA’s Robert De Niro. He reportedly brought his wife of 30 years to the set of History of Violence and had his way with her to put Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello at ease and show them that long-term married sex doesn’t have to be vanilla.

Now, before you picture this scene, keep in mind that Cronenberg is two years older than my dad.  And yet he’s having rough sex with his wife in public to show the young whipperhoppers how it’s done.  "Okay, now first thing I do before we gets to the couplin’, is I remove mah breeches so they don’t come a-tangled in Mavis’ nipple rods.  Step two is I lift up her belly flap – makin’ sure to bend at the knees and lift with the legs – allowin’ access to the honey hole."

Everyone finished vomiting?  No?  Well anyway, according to his IMDB page, Cronenberg is "also known as The King of Venereal Horror."  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some crying and screaming into my pillow to do.

[Thanks to RoboPanda for this disgusting, disgusting tip] 

Thanks to my crappy ISP, it’s impossible to fully cover all of today’s news, but here’s the break down:

Spoilerific details about the Hulk have emerged. We don’t have to wait 40 minutes for the Hulk this time, Bruce Banner is in Brazil looking for a flower to destroy the gamma rays in his blood, etc.  Honestly, I’m not sure why you’d want to know all this, and anyway, it’s about what you’d expect.  They had me at "Lou Ferrigno". [IESB]

James Purefoy, AKA Mark Antony on Rome – an incomparable hardass, has been cast as Solomon Kane, a character from a classic comic book about "a 16th century Puritan swordsman".  Hmm, I liked him when he was a boozy, drugged up, nympho.  Not sure about the whole Puritan thing.   [Variety]

Derek Luke will fill in for Wesley Snipes in Spike Lee’s WWII movie. It also stars Jim Gandolfini and John Turturro. It’s about "four members of the U.S. Army’s all-black 92nd Division who get separated from their squad behind enemy lines. The soldiers, bitter about racism and the feeling that their own government treats its enemy better than it does them, finds humanity in the small Tuscan village of St. Anna."  Yeah, I’m sure that won’t be preachy. [RoS] 

Remake planned for David Cronenberg’s Brood. I’d rather see Cronenberg himself directing something new, or pretty much anything where people’s heads explode.  I’m old fashioned like that.  [Rotten Tomatoes]  

Rose McGowan even more might probably maybe be Barbarella. One thing is for sure, she’s a shitty actress.  With big cans (NSW).  [CinemaBlend]