^{Homophobic Turtle loves underground fight club movies, though his favorite is Fight Club.}

Hooray, another shitty MMA movie! I may be mixing metaphors here, but Hollywood’s gonna keep squeezing money from this stone until it shits a dead horse.  This one’s called Fighting and stars Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard.   RopeofSilicon has your first look.

Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur [WHO LEADS WITH HIS FISTS, AND OFTEN, HIS HEART!] (Channing Tatum) has come to New York City with nothing. Barely earning a living selling counterfeit goods on the streets, his luck changes when scam artist Harvey Boarden [GRR, A DEN FULL OF BOARS!] (Terrence Howard) sees that he has a natural talent for streetfighting. When Harvey offers Shawn help at making the real cash [making the cash and having the sex has always been my dream!], the two form an uneasy partnership.
As Shawn’s manager, Harvey introduces him to the corrupt bare-knuckle circuit, where rich men bet on disposable pawns. Almost overnight, he becomes a star brawler, taking down professional boxers, mixed martial arts champs and ultimate fighters in a series of staggeringly intense bouts. But if Shawn ever hopes to escape the dark world in which he’s found himself, he must now face the toughest fight of his life [the fight against a horrible script!]. -Rogue films via RopeofSilicon

GRR, STAGGERINGLY INTENSE!  With Terrence Howard as the mentor in this, I think they missed a golden opportunity.  He could come in and be like, “Hey, man, you seem like a far out cat. You like beatin’ people up? Why not try beatin’ on this djembe drum?  Ain’t nothin’ finer for spreadin’ the vibe, ya dig?  Chew on it while I rhyme a while.” Look how sad he looks in this picture. You can tell he’s thinking about watching a mountain cry.

^{Homophobic Turtle awards Lange the Purple Heart, for injuries to career sustained in the line of hating queers.  Uh, make that the Red Heart.}

I missed this on Howard Stern yesterday, but lovable train wreck Artie Lange was discussing how he’d auditioned for the part of a wrestling promoter in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler:

“I had what I thought was a great audition… So I went back another time, killed again. I then did a screen test. Killed again. So my Agent says to me ‘Aronofsky really likes you, and its between you and another guy.’” … “So it goes right til the end, and my manager calls me back and tells me ‘the other guy got it’. I was like ‘Aw F-ck!’ It was really like god was f-cking with me.”

Then a friend offered a possible explanation:

“My friend says, ‘Don’t you remember Darren Aronofsky?’ I was like ‘What are you talking about?’  Apparently when I was at Mad TV back in 1996 we went out to a Hollywood party, and as my friend tells the story ‘You got completely fucked up… this is one of those times when we had to pull you out of the party.’ This kid went to film school with Darren Aronofsky. He said, ‘In this party, you claimed this guy Aronofsky,’ – and this is before Requiem for a Dream – ‘you claimed that he was looking at you wrong and you kept hitting him in the head and you punched him in the face.’ I said ‘What?’ He goes ‘Yeah, you were really abusing this guy, calling him a film school fag.’ [/Film]

It’s unclear whether the incident had anything to do with Artie not getting cast, or if it ever happened in the first place or if Artie’s friend was just trying to mess with him – Artie says he thinks it never happened.  The part got cut from the final movie anyway.  But see, this is why you can’t hang out with sober assholes.  You go out and you get drunk and the next day you’ll be eating a greasy breakfast, feeling fine.  Then they’ll show up and be all like, “Hey! Remember when you punched that cop?  Remember when you went down on that tranny?  Remember when you puked on that baby?”   Of course I don’t, asshole, that’s why I was drinking.

^{Web fingaz and jazz hands, together at last. Homophobic Turtle is not pleased (…or is he?).}

I’ve covered this once before, but a Broadway producer named Julie Taymor (The Lion King) is working on a broadway musical about Spider-Man.  Today the NY Post reports the budget is $40 million, the most expensive production in theater history.

Some of the people involved (there are dozens and dozens, with more being added daily) are starting to blanch at the price tag. With straight faces, a few are running around town saying things like: “Well, it’s $40 million now, but we think we can get it down to $35 million.”
If – and it’s a big “if” where Julie The Lion Taymor is concerned – they do bring it in for $35 million, “Spider-Man,” with a weekly running cost of $1 million, will have to run about 8,000 years in a Broadway theater just to break even.
“It’s off the charts,” one source says. “Off the charts.” [Later adding, "Wave of the future.  Wave of the future, Wave of the future...]

Keep in mind this is a musical.  About Spider-Man.  With songs by Bono™.  There will be choreographed dance numbers about Dr. Octopus and the Green Goblin.  I could eat nothing but peyote every day for the rest of my life and still not come up with anything as fantastically stupid as this.

Watchmen unveiled some new character posters at Comic Con, which, along with the trailer, should get you pretty excited for the film.  Good thing you’ll only have to wait until *cough, cough* March 2009 to see it. I’m still not convinced it was necessary to show the blue guy’s bare ass.   He’s all ripped and hairless – he’s like if Patrick Bateman from American Psycho were a smurf.   I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is going to make me feel pretty gay unless a lot of hookers get killed.

[Source] 

The only thing I hate worse than Jerry Bruckheimer movies are movies based on video games.  Prince of Persia is like a frankenstein turd of the two, and now E! is reporting that Jake Gyllenhaal will play the lead.

Donnie Darko, Jarhead, Zodiac, makin’ out with Heath Ledger – he was right on the cusp of respected actorhood, and now this.

Joining Gyllenhaal in the fantasy adventure epic is upcoming Bond babe Gemma Arterton. The blue-blooded duo join forces to prevent their royal foe from obtaining the Sands of Time, a gift bequeathed  from the gods [hehe, God queefed. -Ed.] which allows its possessor to turn back time and, naturally, rule the world.

Sounds fascinating.  Was Brendan Fraser busy or something?  Sidenote:  According to IMDB, Jake Gyllenhaal fans refer to themselves as "Gyllenhaalics".  Additional Sidenote:  Jerry Bruckheimer fans refer to their age as "this many", while attempting to display the corresponding number of fingers.