YOU'VE BEEN CUMBERBATCHED!

While I eagerly await his marriage to Imogen Poots, with whom I assume he will eventually give birth to a powdered wig (they’re not together… yet), Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast in JJ Abrams Star Trek sequel. There are conflicting reports on whether he’ll play a villain (according to Variety) or not (Deadline says it could be either), but he joins the already-cast Noel Clark, Alice Eve, and Peter Weller. Cumberbatch is best known for his role in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, playing Sherlock Holmes in a BBC series, and leading the silly name brigade to victory at the battle of snoggy bottoms.

It will be interesting to see whether Cumberbatch plays another high-class man of wealth, a role he claims to have been typecast in as a result of his rich upbringing. Jeez, you would’ve never guessed by the name.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has a ghost from his past casting a shadow over his career: he was too privileged growing up. The son of actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, Cumberbatch attended the Harrow school, which now charges $47703 in admission per year [*waves frilly hanky, faints* -Ed.]. As a result of his young posh education, he says casting directors are unwilling to see him in a role beyond that of a wealthy menace.

“I was brought up in a world of privilege. It can ostracize you from normal codes of conduct in society,” he told the Radio Times. “Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it. I realized from quite early on that, although I wasn’t trying to make a class specialty of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.” [HuffPo]

I hear he was once so upset about being served a shrimp fork for an oyster platter that he slapped the craft services supervisor with a white glove. I hear he also refers to picking up chicks as “hunting the fox” and has a secret sexual peccadillo that involves a euphemistic craving for “blood pudding.” To paraphrase commenter Galway Girl, Benedict Cumberbatch is so British, my pack of smokes started buttf*cking each other.

Much to the dismay of mostly just him, William Shatner will apparently play the same role in Star Trek 2 that he played in K.D. Lang’s J.J. Abrams’ first installment – nobody. At a question and answer panel at the Calgary Entertainment Expo on Saturday, the original Captain James T. Kirk told his legion of adoring nerds fans that he will not play a role in Abrams’ second Trek film.

As he signed autographs for more than 600 people in the span of a few hours, Shatner, seen above accepting a cowboy hat from Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and R2D2, reassured his Trekkies and Sci-Fi fans that he wasn’t pulling their legs, either.

Shatner. who was a little peeved about not getting a cameo in the first ‘Star Trek,’ announced his non-involvement at the Calgary Comic Expo during a Q+A session: “I have become an acquaintance of J.J. as of late but I’m afraid no…I will not be in Star Trek 2.”

Former Trek star Leonard Nimoy (who played a huge role in the first film) will also not be returning for the franchise’s next film. Last year, Nimoy stated that he was ready to retire from acting and that his cameo on the show ‘Fringe’ would be his final role. (Via Popeater)

Shatner could be full of it and keeping a nice secret from us for the sake of nostalgic surprise, but I really hope not. It’s nice to see that he’s taking this in stride and not acting dickish about it. I mean, Ricardo Montalbán won’t be in it either, but you don’t hear him complaining.

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Hi.

Weekend Preview: I guess Super 8 is gonna be the thing this weekend, because it’s pretty much the only new movie getting a wide release. (Haha, wide release means sex.)

Super 8: The Abrams/Spielberg super-duper top secret alienmonstertrain1970s movie.

RottenTomatoes: 83%

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“Abrams fashions Super 8 in such a calculating manner, with every element weighed both for maximum nostalgia value and ironic hipster cred, that it has an artificial feel to it. It’s like a birthday cake made of spun glass.”‘ – Peter Howell, Toronto Star

“E.T. texted a homey, Spielberg paid the earth-bound ticket, and now we have Super 8.” – Mike Ward, Richmond.com. [Note: I'm only including this quote because the phrase "E.T. texted a homey" kinda makes my favorite ODB clip relevant.]

“Has moments of greatness, but the ending is a slight disappointment.” – Richard Roeper, RichardRoeper.com

“Loving, playful, and spectacularly well made, Super 8 is easily the best summer movie of the year — of many years. And I make that declaration with full knowledge that the season has just begun.” – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Armchair Analysis: Except for our fearless leader, the reviews are generally positive. I don’t know what that means. It’s either the best summer movie in the history of the sun, a wet fart, or somewhere in between. My biggest gripe is with the SHHH IZ ALL SECRETS marketing strategy. I’ve refused to see movies marketed this way since I took a date to see Blair Witch as a teenager. My date hated it, I wasted like $20, and any semblance of “mood” was killed by some old lady who got WAY motion-sick from the shaky camera. Do what you need to to stir up interest Hollywood, but don’t salt a man’s game, nah mean?

NEXT: JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER

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Wow, you guys.  Did I miss the memo that Super 8 was a kids movie?  Because I must admit, with all the hype, the super-secret teaser trailers, the squeals of the Lost fanatic, no-spoiler gestapo (relax, I’m not going to ruin anything for you, freaks), I never heard the part where JJ Abrams was making a really expensive Disney Channel movie.  Because that’s what Super 8 seems to be.  Either that, or a painfully earnest, non-comedic parody of 30-year-old Spielberg films where the hot new element is “LENS FLARES!”

All you really need to know about Super 8 is that at one point, it commits the cardinal sin of “YOU JUST DON’T GET IT, DO YOU!“  But blah blah plot summary wank fart (*snooze*).  Okay, so there’s this group of kids. Each of them has a paper-thin gimmick disguised as characterization.  For instance, there’s a fat kid who says “Mint!” every five seconds, an ugly kid with braces who loves fire, a pussy who vomits, and a protagonist who keeps his dead mom’s locket with him wherever he goes (thank God every dead chick in sh*tty movies carried lockets or else no one would remember them).  All interactions between them seem designed to make sure you don’t forget their central conceit. EXAMPLE:

(*external threat*)

“Have you seen my mom’s locket?”

“MINT!”

(*explosion*)

“AWESOME!”

(*puke, cry*)

(*audience laughter*)

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My panties were so moist over R-Pattz’ abstinence-induced rage sex that I scarcely noticed that the MTV Movie Awards had also debuted a new trailer for JJ Abrams’ Super 8.  Opening this weekend, it stars a group of wiener kids as a group of wiener kids in 1979 who witness an alien-related train crash while shooting an amateur film (the kids, not the alien).  Other than Elle Fanning, I don’t recognize any of the actors involved, though the cast does include the awesomely named “Britt Flatmo.”  In any case, it looks like a movie I already saw two or three times in the 80s, but then, JJ Abrams made Star Trek, and that turned out better anyone had any right to expect.  At the very least, Super 8 harkens back to a more innocent time in America, when every circle of friends had just one fat kid.

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