They’re cousins, identical cousins all the way.

Battle: Los Angeles is an aliens-vs-humans movie starring Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez.  The majority of the scenes are being shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  *record scratch*

It’s not unusual to film in a state that offers bigger subsidies and interest-free loans, but trying to substitute Baton Rouge for L.A. is just ballsy as hell. This isn’t a subtle change of setting like Gran Torino, which was set in the large Hmong community of Minnesota but was filmed in Michigan, a state that offers up to 42% in subsidies toward production costs.  Michigan was also, according to Clint Eastwood, “less gooky“. 

If Battle: Los Angeles becomes a series, I look forward to these future installments:

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I didn’t get any free stuff to give away this week, but rarely has there been a week when I’ve been so proud to pilot this virtual sex boat of diseased psyches. So as a reward for your collective hilarity and offensiveness, I’m buying the winner Gran Torino on DVD.  Before we get started, the requisite explanation for the newbs:

As always, the way this works is, at any time this week, when you read a comment you think worthy of recognition, YOU nominate it by copy and pasting it in the comments section below.  I pick the winner from among the nominees the following Sunday/Monday. (To help you find it more easily, the nomination thread is always linked in the ABOUT section).

Starting things off, Chino Moreno in CHIRANJEEVI THE INDIAN BASKETBALL STAR:

ChinoMoreno says: And Chiranjeevi wins the game: 7-11

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Hollywood had its first ever billion-dollar January, thanks to fine films like, uh, Paul Blart.  Meanwhile, Liam Neeson revenge flick Taken took the top spot this week (forcefully, by shooting Paul Blart‘s wife in the arm) with $24.6 million.  Another reason it paid to be an old man with a gun, Gran Torino landed at number five, but its cumulative gross of $110 million makes it the highest grossing Clint Eastwood film of all time (the next two being In the Line of Fire and Unforgiven).  Said Eastwood when reached for comment, “If only the gooks were here to see it.  Too bad I killed ‘em.”

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Paul Blart: Mall Cop earned $21.5 million dollars this weekend according to early projections, dropping only 32% from its haul last weekend and putting it on top for the second week in a row.  “God is dead,” said industry insiders.

The closest thing to good news is that the awesome Gran Torino fell only 27% since last  weekend after being out for seven weeks (a pretty solid performance), and Inkheart, Brendan Fraser’s latest lamefest, debuted a disappointing seventh.  But in a week where Paul Blart‘s on top, good news is only good in the sense that you can eat all the ice cream you want and not gain weight, but only because you have cancer.

(full top 10 after the jump)

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Gran Torino is sort of what Rush Hour might have looked like if Brett Ratner had balls and comedic sensibility.  Which is to say that it’s a culture-clash action-comedy that isn’t particularly realistic and paints with a pretty broad brush most of the time, but it’s also funny, cathartic, and above all, entertaining as hell.  Who knew Clint Eastwood had such a gift for comedy?  I can’t remember the last time I missed this many lines because I was laughing so hard.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, the ultimate curmudgeon, a recently-widowed Korean War vet with a bunch of spoiled weiner kids and a house in a decaying suburb that’s long since been taken over by ethnic types, for whom Walt reserves at least four growls and three ethnic slurs.  Eastwood is beyond over the top but it works, because there’s just something lovable about a straight-talking old man who thinks everyone in the world is a pussy, a foreigner, or some combination of the two.  When Kowalski’s dead wife’s snot-nosed pasty ginger priest comes to take Walt’s confession (it was his wife’s dying wish), Walt calls him “an overeducated 27-year-old virgin who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them everlasting life.”
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