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This week on the Frotcast, in honor of President Obama telling us that we had to gay marry each other, we brought on Burnsy for a special, same-sex wedding edition of HOTT GOSS™, including our picks for who we would gay marry. SPOILER ALERT: It turns out John Travolta has monkey feet. Then we talk about Miley Cyrus’s wildly successful new film, LOL, and compare her actual voice to the voice you hear on her CDs, which, surprisingly, are wildly different. Later on, we bring on Laremy so that we can make fun of his morning show appearance, then talk Dark Shadows, The Avengers, Girls, trying not to turn into Peter Travers, and even get earnest-ish about politics before it all explodes in a hail of giggles. Jeez, that went downhill fast.

Subscribe to the Frotcast on iTunes (leave us a review!). Email us at Frotcast@Gmail.com. Leave us a voicemail at 415-275-0030.

NOTE: There’s some dead air between 14:37 and 15:22 right now that will be there until I can re-edit and re-upload. Apologies.

[via RoboShark]

MORNING LINKS
PICTURE: Avengers in High School – Hawkeye had a bomb-ass flat top mullet |Film Drunk|

12 Steps to Making the Next Season of ‘The Office’ More Watchable |Warming Glow|

Listen to us pitch Wet Dream on Elm Street director Lee Roy Myers our porn parody ideas. |Frotcast|

Nobody f*cks with the Jesus! [via thearcticbear]

With Leather, With Love: The World’s Fattest Woman Is Getting Married! |With Leather|

Is This What The Coming Apple HDTV Will Look Like? |UPROXX|

Real Life “Pulp Fiction”: Memphis Robbers Macabre Torture Tactics |Smoking Section|

Who’s Gotten Around More: The Justice League Or The Avengers? |Gamma Squad|

John Travolta’s Accused of Molesting A Second Male Masseur Now |TheSuperficial|

How To Poop Like a Child |Videogum|

The 20 Greatest Maurice Sendak Quotes |Buzzfeed|

10 Creations Inspired by “Where the Wild Things Are” |College Humor|

The next Jim Abbott |TheDailyWhat|

Bandersnatch Cummerbund: Washington Post’s Amazing Benedict Cumberbatch Name Change |HuffPost Comedy|

‘Red Neck Island’ Is A New Reality Show, And Stone Cold Steve Austin’s The Host |ScreenJunkies|

Indians offended that The Avengers depicts their third world hellhole as a third world hellhole |Fark|

10 Things You Might Not Know About Maurice Sendak |Mentalfloss|

Alex Tanney, Trick Shot Quarterback, Gets NFL Tryout |Guy Speed|

This is What the NFL in Los Angeles Would Look Like |Brobible|

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"Whatcha thinkin' bout?" "Mmmm, I dunno, fake pot."

Even before Miley Cyrus’s LOL hit theaters this weekend, people were preparing for a bomb. Lionsgate basically never gave it a chance, shelving it for two years (it was shot in 2010), and throwing it up at 105 locations with no promotion. It probably would’ve gone direct to DVD if not for a contract provision with foreign distributors saying it had to be released on at least 100 screens domestically. The result? The film’s entire opening weekend gross came to $46,500. By comparison, The Avengers, whose actual weekend gross of $207 million exceeded the already-record-breaking early estimates, earned $47,698 per theater. Yes, more than LOL‘s entire run. Aw, I hope this doesn’t mean we won’t still get to see Miley in Allan Loeb’s I’m Like, So Undercover (yes, that is a real movie).

Some math: LOL‘s per-screen average was $440. Divide that by $11, which is about your average ticket price, and it comes out to 40 people per theater who saw LOL this weekend. The closest theater to me showing LOL had five showings per day. If we take that as about standard, multiply that by three days, fifteen showings, and that’s 40 people into 15 screenings, meaning, if my math serves (and I fully acknowledge that it might not), that the average screening of LOL had LESS THAN THREE VIEWERS (2.667). Holy shit, you could have a Yanomami take attendance at those.

There undoubtedly would’ve been more viewers if Lionsgate had actually promoted the film at all, but considering it was a movie called “LOL,” in which Miley Cyrus’s character was named “Lol,” and whose stated goal was to LOL (MOVE OVER, TYLER PERRY!), pretending it never happened was probably the smartest thing they did the entire process.

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"Chill, babe. I gots this."

With Rotten Tomatoes scores currently throbbing at 97% (critics) and 98% (audience expectations), Marvel’s The Avengers is the perfect film to kick off the summer movie season this Friday. Sure, some people might argue that the summer movie season actually begins with Miley Cyrus’ LOL – also being released this Friday – but those people need to go back to singing “Achy Breaky Heart” at my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah, dammit.

Beyond The Avengers are some films that actually have us pretty excited about Hollywood’s collective IQ for once – but don’t you worry, there’s also plenty of crap coming out, too. Fortunately, this isn’t the end of the year, so I don’t have to focus on the crap just yet – I will still eventually see LOL because Vince loves watching my soul cripple – and we’re just examining the films that have the greatest potential to crash the box office this season, and put smiles back on the faces of the billionaires who only made hundreds of millions in 2011.

I’ve even taken the liberty of breaking the summer movies up into categories for your convenience (chronological list on the last page), and I am being assisted in presenting this guide by none other than Michael Bay’s pet tiger, Todd Brad.

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"Whatcha thinkin' bout?" "Fake pot."

According to the LA Times, Miley Cyrus’s new movie isn’t going direct to DVD, but just barely. It’s called LOL, and Miley’s character is named Lol (short for Lola), which means the screenwriter is probably going to win the Oscar for Most Clever Dude Ever. But it turns out, some folks at Lionsgate may have had second thoughts about the public’s appetite for a 19-year-old hillbilly with no discernible talent other than being born to novelty country singer and sounding like someone’s pinching her nose shut when she talks.

Azuelos said she was told by Lionsgate executives that they couldn’t give “LOL” the proper attention until after “Hunger Games.” “They couldn’t take care of my movie, and I waited in line,” the director said, sounding frustrated.
In fact, “LOL” would likely have gone direct to DVD, the knowledgeable people said, but Mandate’s contracts with foreign distributors contained a provision that the movie must be shown domestically in at least 100 theaters. As a result, the studio has very quietly decided to release “LOL” in seven cities on May 4, the same day as the sure-to-be blockbuster “Avengers,” which is expected to open to more than $100 million.
Lionsgate set the May 4 date recently without making any formal announcement and has apparently planned to do no publicity.
In a sign of how low a priority “LOL” is at Lionsgate, its marketing is being handled by the studio’s home entertainment division, not its theatrical marketing team, which typically oversees any release going to theaters.

Wait, wait! No, I’ve got it. This the easiest local news anchor lead-in ever. It writes itself! “MILEY CYRUSs’s new movie LOL hits select THEATERS this weekend, but according to director LISA Azuelos, the studio’s TREATMENT of it is NO LAUGHING MATTER. Wink Plitchkin has our story. Wink?”

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