Meat Slay Love

You’ll never hear me arguing that the 1982, Arnold Schwarzenegger version of Conan the Barbarian was any kind of watershed moment in cinema, but the new version from Marcus Nispel (a music video director who specializes in remakes) is still enough to make you nostalgic. It’s hard to pinpoint specific reasons why this tits, muscles, and gore-filled fantasy exploitation is dead eyed and hollow compared to the tit-filled, musclesploitation film from whence it sprung, it’s just that feeling you get when stupid people try to recreate things they think are cool. Like when strip mall strippers try to look like blonde playmates from the seventies and they come out looking like more crispy-haired versions of Coco Ice with bigger implants. Or when untalented musicians try to be Guns and Roses and end up Papa Roach. You know all they saw in the first place was blonde hair and big tits, or loud guitars and angry vocals, so it follows that when they went to recreate that, they were like, “Well NOW it has BLONDER hair and BIGGER tits, and LOUDER guitars and ANGRIER vocals! How much more do you love it, fagg*t!”

Gone are any sense of whimsy or kitsch, replaced by needy, semi-mean-spirited posturing. Nispel doesn’t so much tell a story as spend 90 minutes trying to gross out squares to prove his goth cred. It can occasionally be funny watching dimwits try to offend when they lack the creativity, but it’s funny in a sad way. That’s sort of the movie in a nutshell.

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Lionsgate’s Conan the Barbarian reboot opens August 19th, and all signs point to it putting the “lame” in “lamentations of their women.”  Directed by Friday the 13th remake director Marcus Nispel, it stars giant Hawaiian Jason Momoa, known up until now mostly for Baywatch Hawaii and more recently for playing Hatef-ck McEyeliner on HBO’s Game of Thrones.  The trailer has pretty much everything you’d expect — growling, UFC intro music, men in skirts, sand monsters — it looks pretty bad for a movie, but really good for a Syfy original.

Come with me after the jump for some fist-pumping.
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Lionsgate just released the new trailer for the Conan the Barbarian remake, starring Baywatch Hawaii wunderkind Jason Momoa and Ron I’m-in-every-genre-movie Perlman. Additional gossip fact for the ladies: Momoa has two children with former Cosby Show actress Lisa Bonet, the youngest named “Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa.”  GRRR, VOWELS! Not to mention the rare first-name hyphen.  Looks like you just got served, last-name hyphenated people. Your hippie parents must be so embarrassed.

Conan opens August 19th, and it was directed by Marcus Nispel, of Pathfinder and Friday the 13th remake fame, so it’ll probably be really good (*armpit fart to indicate sarcasm*).  Incidentally, Marcus Nispel looks like this:

…and Jason Momoa looks like this:

…so I imagine a lot of their conversations began with “Whoa, bro.”

Anyway, I know I’ve been calling him “Conan the Samoan” because it rhymes (he’s actually half Hawaiian), but the truth is, I couldn’t care less whether Conan is played by a white dude (or is played by anyone at all, for that matter).  The incredibly complex plot is that of a man who walks around the desert whacking people with his giant sword, which is clearly a Freudian stand-in for his dong (isn’t everything?).  So I guess the bigger question is: shouldn’t it be a black guy? I say yes. But what do I know? I’m just a guy who would enjoy watching a black guy whack people with his dong.

The first bit of news I have to report is that the first pictures of Jason Momoa as Conan in the Conan the Barbarian remake have surfaced on a Robert E. Howard forum (via CHUD).  The second bit of news I have is that apparently there are Robert E. Howard forums.  I really need to catch up on my homoerotic pulp novels from the 30s.  I know some people might point out that Momoa is Hawaiian not Samoan, and to those people I’d point out that “Conan” and “Hawaiian” don’t rhyme nearly as well.

To refresh your memory, this remake comes from Marcus Nispel, director of Pathfinder and a Friday the 13th remake, and the guys who wrote Sahara.  Star Jason Momoa was previously in Baywatch: Hawaii, Stargate Atlantis, and a bar fight that required 140 stitches. He’s also married to Lisa Bonet, and between them and director Marcus Nispel, the Conan set has pound for pound the most disgusting grungy hippie hair of any film ever.  I hear the teamsters could smell incense and B.O. from five miles away.

Long story short, I don’t know why anyone’s treating this movie like it’s a real movie and not just some bargain-bin, direct-to-DVD throwaway.  The studio sure isn’t. Hmm, who should we get to replace one of the most iconic movie stars of the 20th century?  Oh I know, we’ll get a Hawaiian model from a Baywatch spinoff.  Problem solved, hookers and cocaine for everyone.

(“Hey, Brah, I’m da new Conan. Your sista’s pretty hot for a haole, by da way.”)

It’s hard to keep track of these things, but I believe it was LatinoReview who first broke the news that the part of Conan in the Conan the Barbarian remake will be played by (*drumroll*)… Jason Momoa (*whoopie cushion*).  It will be directed by Marcus Nispel, the guy who previously directed Pathfinder and looks like a douchey hippie.  Hopefully he’ll bring to this project all the wisdom of the Orient.

With less than eight weeks to go before production starts, Momoa starts training rigorously for the part on Monday. Momoa has starred in Stargate Atlantis, Baywatch Hawaii, and a couple of episodes of CW’s The Game.

Wow, what a resume.  I hear the next two bullet points are “Blows dudes for money” and “Proficient in Microsoft Word.”

LatinoReview also reports that Mickey Rourke has been offered the part of Conan’s dad.  Which I think goes without saying would be an awesome career move. Way to earn that Oscar nomination, Mick.