One week.  That’s how long 50 Cent lasted as Forrest Whitaker’s replacement on The Expendables.  With no word on why, Stallone told Harry from AICN that 50 was being replaced by Terry Crews.  It’s a shame they lost Forrest Whitaker – with Stallone, Statham, Li, Trejo, Lundgren, Rourke, et al, they needed an Oscar winner for credibility.  Now there’s no guarantee that the movie isn’t going to be like wandering into a party that’s just a bunch of roided up old dudes flexing. (and who hasn’t been there?).  But Terry Crews certainly fits in better.  Forrest Whitaker doesn’t even take his shirt off at the pool.  ;-(

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]

As you may have already seen, here’s that trailer for Powder Blue, in which Jessica Biel plays a stripper.  I’ve tried to attach some relevant screenshots, but the footage I’m working with isn’t that great – this one or this one’s probably the best – but I definitely screen capped a little kid on a gurney by accident at one point, and that should tell you a lot about what my life is like.

It’s hard to tell exactly what the film’s about, but the dialogue-free trailer screams DRAMA! and GRITTY REALISM! in a way that’s never the least bit realistic (see: Crash).  It co-stars Ray Liotta, Kris Kristofferson, and Forrest Whitaker, whom we see jumping off a building while dressed as Santa Claus. I can imagine why he’s depressed, he probably scared the shit out the kids with that eye.  I kid, I kid.  But seriously, is it weird that I imagine him turning back at the last moment and seeing Joaquin Phoenix with “BYE GOOD” written on his knuckles?

This is the trailer for Winged Creatures, which has all kinds of Oscar winners, but from what I can gather not a single fucking pterodactyl.

A moment of random violence erupts in an ordinary Los Angeles diner. The survivors (Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Forest Whitaker, Josh Hutcherson) find that the meanings of their lives have changed. No matter how much their families and friends (Jennifer Hudson, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Embeth Davidtz) attempt to understand, these individuals must follow their own paths to recovery seeking to regain trust in a world that now seems chaotic. [TrailerAddict] 

The problem with a movie about something like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is that it’s characterized by the sufferer’s fight or flight reflex being triggered by situations that aren’t actually perilous.  Basically, they might be fighting an intense battle internally, but meanwhile everyone else is just going about their daily business, lighting some M-80s in fatigues and a ski mask or whatever.  Seriously, chill out, Jumpy McSpazzerson, this isn’t ‘Nam.