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After the jump, it’s the first trailer for Universal’s Battleship, which is loosely based on the board game and reportedly cost $200 million to make. I think it looks amazingly terrible, but then I could be biased because I’ve read the script. It stars the poor man’s Chris Pine, Taylor Kitsch as a cocky young blah blah something something aliens come and Rihanna is there. Liam Neeson reprises his role as Guy Who Likes Paychecks, and Alexander Skarsgård is all “HURRR, I’M HANDSOME.” Also, the aliens have jumping battleships in this one. That’s right, JUMPING BATTLESHIPS. It makes sense, because they’re aliens. Hey, Hollywood, maybe it’d be easier to just tell us which movies AREN’T about alien invasions from now on.

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"Baby, this is serious: when's lunch?"

For the unfamiliar, there’s this game we like to play.  We take a crappy movie we’re probably not going to see, and try piece together the plot using only exposition (NO ANALYSIS!) from the bored critics forced to suffer through it.  Usually the best targets are Nicholas Sparks-y type movies, with all their sea turtle nests and sailing scholarships to Stanford.  We haven’t had any of those in a while, but this weekend did see the release of Paul Haggis’ The Next Three Days, and what’s Paul Haggis if not a Hollywood Baby Boomer version of Nicholas Sparks?  You’d figure a movie from an Oscar-winning director starring an Oscar-winning actor would’ve gotten more attention than The Next Three Days, unless the studio really thought it sucked, and… well, let’s find out, shall we?

“Crowe plays John Brennan, a Pittsburgh community college literature teacher whose life is upended one morning when his wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks), is arrested for the murder of her awful boss. The night before, Lara was ranting about how much she hated the soon-to-be-dead woman, so it’s tough to explain away the blood on her coat and her fingerprints at the scene.” -NY DailyNews

“There is just one “fateful” night where everything goes wrong. There’s a dinner, and Lara goes all postal about whether the friction at work is because her boss is a woman.” -LA Times

“Later, in the car, John and Lara enjoy an illicit moment of post-catfight sex. The next day, she’s charged with having murdered a co-worker just moments before arriving at the restaurant.” -Washington Post

“Flash forward to the cops breaking down the door to arrest Lara for the murder. Flash forward again to prison doors slamming. Flash forward yet again to the appeal being denied and her attorney saying to John, ‘Just look at the evidence.’” -LA Times

“But John, raising their 6-year-old son alone, hopes to win Lara an appeal even after three years. When her attorney tells him it’s hopeless, John devises a plan to bust Lara out himself.”  -NY Daily News

“John decides to plunge into the world of drug dealers and meth labs.” -Washington Post

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That’s right, Bill Clinton will have a cameo playing himself in The Hangover 2.  While I tend to agree with Todd Phillips that comedy relies on the element of surprise, and it kind of takes the fun out of it to constantly spoil them with gossip columns, by now this news is already all over the web, so the only thing I’d be doing by not posting it is hurting myself.  And if I’m just going to hurt myself, what am I paying these hookers for?  Anyway, Clinton is joining Paul Giamatti and Liam Neeson as yet another famous person with a cameo in The Hangover 2.

Jizz on my dress, TMZ:

Bubba was spotted on the set in Thailand yesterday where we’re told extra security was added for his presence.
Our spies say they saw Bill walk on the set and were told by crew members he was filming a cameo. None of the people we spoke to, however, saw Bill actually step in front of the camera.
Although some people associated with the flick have told us Bill just “hung out,” we’ve now confirmed he did indeed shoot a cameo.
In the photo on the right, you can see Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper riding in a rickshaw — Zach is sporting a shaved head like in the pictures we posted earlier this week.
We’re guessing Clinton did some serious work … on the craft service table. [TMZ]

Haha, the craft services table, get it?!?  Ouch, my sides.  Phew, that was a good one, TMZ.  Let’s see… Thailand, blow jobs, Mel Gibson, Hangover 2… yeah, definitely gonna go with a Bill Clinton-is-fat joke here.  If only we could somehow work in a reference to that hot new MTV VJ, Kennedy…

So, to recap, Hollywood Morality: Angrily demanding a blow job from your wife = unacceptable. Actually receiving a blow job from not your wife = totally cool.

Liam Neeson has replaced Mel Gibson in The Hangover 2, after the latter was blackballed by the Hangover cast in the fallout from Pack of N-Words Gate.  To be fair, if he didn’t want to get blackballed, he probably shouldn’t have dressed like that. Neeson will play the role of “deranged tattoo artist” originally slated for Gibson, which makes sense, because Neeson brings a similar level of gravitas, and considering his recent movie choices, he’d probably lick the floor of a peep show if you gave him five bucks and told him you were filming it.

Director Todd Phillips recently spoke about Gibson’s firing to our buddy awkward Josh over at MTV, saying he was surprised by the cast and the public’s “lack of empathy”.  Mel figures it’s probably just something they learned from the wetbacks.

“I was surprised in some way by the reaction, because I think in some way we have, especially in Hollywood, empathy for people who have struggled with alcoholism.”
“We just had a long talk about it, I explained it,” Phillips said. “He certainly understood, you know. He wasn’t happy, but he certainly wasn’t upset, I mean, it just was kind of a bummer because I think he understood the intention of the casting and the role.”
Phillips told MTV that despite the actor change-up, the role has remained completely the same because Gibson was never intended to play a version of himself the way Mike Tyson did in the first “Hangover” film.
“It was very different. [Gibson] was coming in to add a little bit of weight to the situation that unfolds in Bangkok, so we just needed an actor that brings weight. I think Mel and Liam, and there are probably four other guys in that age range that sort of bring that gravitas,” he said.

That interview is after the jump, along with some “spoilery” pictures from The Hangover 2.  In any case, this certainly marks the first time in history an Irishman was hired for being the least racist.

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Someone took Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and re-wrote it so it was about the Star Wars prequels and then cut together a video, because that seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.  Said Freddy Mercury, “Jeez, those Star Wars prequels were worse than AIDs.” |via MilkandCookies|

In Otter News…

Director of Speed 2 to direct a live-action Mulan.  Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (Memoirs of a Geisha) has been cast in a live-action version of Mulan (yes, the same story they made the Disney story out of) from Jan De Bont, the director of Speed, Speed 2, and Tomb Raider.  If you can think of a weirder idea than that, Gary Busey will come to your house and bite into a raw onion. |THR|

RELEASE MY AGENT!  Liam Neeson has joined Rihanna, Taylor Kitsch, and Brooklyn Decker in Peter Berg’s adaptation of the classic game, Battleship.  He’ll play Admiral Shane, Decker’s character’s father, the disapproving future father-in-law to the protagonist (he’s too much of a cowboy! he’s wild and can’t be trusted!).  I had the good fortune to read this script recently, and I can say without a doubt that it is one the the top 5 films about alien battleships that “jump” that I have ever read. |Deadline|

Hollywood Accounting strikes again. William Peter Blatty, who wrote the book and screenplay for Exorcist, is suing to get Warner Bros to let him inspect their books.  Shockingly, he claims WB is holding out on profits and wants to see the books to be sure.  For their part, WB just wishes he’d wait for the movie.  Haha, good one, Jay. |TMZ|