Ever since Paul Blart: Mall Cop earned upwards of $180 million worldwide, Kevin James has been a bona fide A-list star (THIS DRESSING ROOM’S GONNA NEED MORE CHEESEBURGERS!). And yet he still gets no respect because the fickle public stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the artistic merit of horrific crapfests. Hopefully all that will change come this summer, when James stars in Little Boy, which offers the surefire-award-bait one-two punch of foreign director and “developmentally-disabled” child character. Paul Blart: ‘Tard Cop? Okay, that was bad, but certainly no worse than Variety’s pedophilia pun headline.

L.A.-based Metanoia Films is set to make helmer Alejandro Monteverde’s “Little Boy,” starring Kevin James, Ben Chaplin, Emily Watson and David Henrie.
Pic is budgeted at $24 million, funded by a nearly 50-50 split between U.S. and Mexican investors.
“Little Boy” is a family drama set in small-town America in the early days of WWII.
It revolves around an 8-year-old with developmental problems. His only friend is his father, and with his departure to war, the troubled boy is forced to confront the cruelty of schoolmates and others.
It will begin an 11-week shoot in Baja California at the end of August and should be ready for play in 2012. [Variety]

I’m probably a bastard for saying this, but I hope this goes terribly, terribly awry. It’s just that when retarded-kid movies (I’m assuming here, don’t quite know what ‘developmental problems’ means yet) go right, you get What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. And there’s not much to say about What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. When they go wrong… you get something like this:

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A film like Paul Blart Zookeeper (yes, that is the official title, please update your notes) isn’t the type of film I’d normally review. The target audience knows what they’re getting, and hey, I’m not 10. But the trailer was on TV every five minutes, and every time I saw it, I felt like I’d taken peyote. Was Kevin James really singing a duet of a popular hip hop song with a fake gorilla? This was some modern day Ed Wood-type sh*t, or maybe just part of Adam Sandler’s experiment to find the actual lowest common denominator, to discover just what it would take to hit the tipping point, at which he’d actually underestimated the audience’s intelligence/cultural savvy, when they’d finally turn on him.  On that note, Paul Blart Zookeeper had me intrigued. If not as a movie then as a sociological experiment. I had to witness it firsthand.

Here’s what I learned: Kevin James falls down. A lot. A lion gets sick, and he falls down. The animals talk for the first time, he falls down. He tries to test out a tire swing for a gorilla, and he falls down. Romantic bike ride, he falls down. Wedding? Falls down. He goes to a fancy dinner party and pees on a fake plant, because the zoo wolf voiced by Bas Rutten told him to and he listened for some reason; he falls down. If they awarded an Oscar for falling down, the man would trip three times on the way to the podium and probably fart.

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Some wise soul out there on the intertubes has wisely discovered that the heart of any Paul Blart movie — be it Paul Blart Mall Cop, Paul Blart Zookeeper, Paul Blart Toilet Inspector, etc. — is bit of signature satire known as “fat guy dancing.”  Of course. Everyone knows that. “Fat Guy Dancing” will be the words on Paul Blart’s tombstone, to be chiseled in front of rows of crying mistresses and a flaming trough of McDonald’s cheeseburgers as tribute.  But did you know he also rave dances?  It’s true, and as proof, here’s a full five minutes of it.  I think what he lacks in variation he more than makes up for in energy.

KEVIN JAMES RAVE DANCE TOO FAST FOR CAMERA

See also: Rave Party Conan.

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Apologies in advance, folks.  Sometimes I get burned out on writing up movie news, and at times like these, I often find strange ways to entertain myself.  Ways like, say, going through Kevin James’ back catalog and replacing him with the glib gorilla from the Zookeeper poster (who’s voiced by Nick Nolte in the movie, if you can believe that).  I just saw the poster and felt like the gorilla stole the show, you know?  I mean, you’d think a jungle-dwelling primate like a gorilla would be freaking out on a roller coaster ride, which is meant to be scary even to jaded humans who live in houses and drive cars after all, but judging by his facial expression, he’s calm as a Hindu cow.  There’s something bewitching about him, this mysterious gorilla, like a furry Mona Lisa.  Where did he come from? What’s he thinking? What other stuff does he like to do?  So that’s why I went back through some of Kevin James’ most memorable posters and replaced him with the gorilla.  They give his films a more thoughtful vibe, I feel.  I thought about calling it “Everything’s more fun with monkeys!” in honor of The Hangover opening and the monkey in that, but then that opens up a whole debate over how gorillas are apes, not monkeys, and whether it’s okay to refer to an ape as a monkey because “monkey” is a funnier word, and blah blah blah.  The point is, I made some pictures to entertain myself, and now I’m sharing them with you in lieu of doing actual work.  I hope that’s okay.  This is probably the dumbest thing that I’ll ever post.  But no promises.

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I’m still in Utah and I’m rushing off to stand in more lines (I’ve already stood in two, and it’s not even noon!) so I can’t give you the usual, thorough breakdown, but the basics are:

• Lindy West returns as guest frotter
• We discuss Jay-Z/Will Smith/Willow Smith’s Annie remake, in which, we postulate,  Kevin James will play “Fattie Warbucks,” or possibly even “Farty Warbutt.”  In fact, this might be our fartyest frotcast ever.
• Lindy gives us the lowdown on Green Hornet and The Dilemma
• We talk Lethal Weapon reboot, that moron who fell in the fountain, and the flatulent knife murderer
• Plus, we get to Westboro Baptist protesting Red State, which led naturally to that video of the Ugandan “He eat da poo poo!” minister, which, incredibly, neither Bret nor Ben had heard.

Listen, fart, and enjoy.

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