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In Wide Release This Weekend: Abduction, Moneyball, Killer Elite, Dolphin Tale

This weekend actually has a little something for everyone, so chances are if you’re in the mood for a movie, then you’ll find something you like. Unless you’re a soccer-loving, socialist thalassophobe, in which case you’re SOL. Go rent Bridesmaids or something. Me, I’ll be at Pearl Jam 20 pretending like I’m a teen again.

Abduction

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“This laughable yarn is intended simply as a vehicle to draw teen audiences eager to feast their eyes upon Twilight heartthrob Taylor Lautner. And, yes girls, he does take off his shirt and expose his muscled physique rather quickly into the proceedings.” – Claudia Puig, USA Today

“But Abduction is as uninterested in psychological unease as it is in innovative action, and simply shuffles together explosions, bloodless fight scenes and incongruous romantic interludes with little regard for orchestrating tension.” – Andrew Barker, Variety

Armchair Analysis: A few weeks ago, Vince asked me on the Frotcast what my top awkward movie laugh moment was, and I know that if I saw this movie in the theater, it would be when Lautner says, “Not if I find you first.” I laugh hysterically every time the commercial airs. This movie could be the funniest of the year.

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If you’d been in my apartment five seconds ago, you would’ve heard me make a high-pitched noise like a dolphin and fall to the floor.  To make a long story short, Dolphin Tale has a trailer.  To refresh your memory, Dolphin Tale is the heart-warming, real-life story of a bionic dolphin created by Morgan Freeman and Marine Biologist Harry Connick Jr., a dolphin whose never-say-die attitude inspires a nation of wounded soldiers and disabled kids.  I don’t know what else to say, because nothing I write here could be better than the screengrab at the top of this page.  My God, it is magical.  Oh, I also made it a gif.

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HELP ME, DAMMIT! I'M HARRY CONNICK JR, THE FAMOUS MARINE BIOLOGIST!

I’ve been following Dolphin’s Tale, the heartwarming tale of a robo-dolphin from the director of Air Bud, since I first heard about it, and if ComingSoon‘s latest set pictures prove anything, it’s that it’s happening!  It’s really happening!  Here’s the plot, to refresh your memory:

“Dolphin” is inspired by the true story of a dolphin named Winter who was rescued off the Florida coast and taken in by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. The movie version centers on an introverted, 11-year-old boy who befriends an injured dolphin who lost her tail in a crab trap. Through their bond and friendship, the boy motivates everyone around him to help save the dolphin by creating a prosthetic appendage. The mammal’s strong survival instincts become an inspiration to people with special needs. [Reuters]

I want to make sweet butt sex to that synopsis.  SHE’S A SPECIAL-NEEDS DOLPHIN… WITH A SPECIAL NEED… TO WARM YOUR RETARDED HEART!

Wait, did I mention the dolphin’s robot tail was built by none other than MORGAN FREEMAN, THE KINDLY OLD BLACK MAN WHO DESIGNED THE BATMOBILE??? BECAUSE F*CK YEAH IT WAS.

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Well well well, it turns out North Carolina republican congressional candidate BJ Lawson isn’t the only one guilty of using a fake Morgan Freeman — a Morgan Fauxman, if you will — to endorse his run for office.  Wisconsin republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker has been running the ad above with a voice-over from someone who sounds suspicously Morgan Freeman-y.

Curiously, what with such a big name, Walker’s team has not put the ad online, seemingly content to have it run during Green Bay Packer games and the nightly local news. We’re not political strategists, but it would seem that a relatively-unknown Milwaukee county executive candidate like Walker would want to play up this endorsement as much as possible.  Walker’s campaign failed to return numerous calls for comment. Maybe they’ll return the ones from Morgan Freeman’s agent. [TheAwl]

To be fair, using a guy who sounds like Morgan Freeman without claiming that it actually is Morgan Freeman is a lot less shady than the other guy.  Still, I don’t quite understand the strategy.  In Wisconsin, the sound of a black person’s voice is as unfamiliar as a gym membership.  Anyway, I’ve attached a clip of Morgan Freeman reading from “The Poop That Took a Pee” after the jump for comparison.
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If Morgan Freeman ever decided to become a politician, his opponent would be in trouble.  He’s spent his entire career playing God, the president, and other authority figures, and as evidenced by the careers of Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, we Americans are too dumb to know the difference.  No doubt realizing this, North Carolina republican congressional candidate BJ Lawson had some campaign commercials made using a voiceover that sounded a lot like Freeman.  Lawson had been going around telling people the voice was Freeman’s. Freeman found out about it and publicly denied it, and now Lawson says he was duped by the production company, because that would somehow be better.

“Our campaign was duped,” Lawson said.
Lawson says he signed a contract earlier with MEI Political –a production company that promised to deliver a Morgan Freeman radio commercial.
The ad doesn’t say the narrator is Morgan Freeman, but Lawson says he did.
“When people heard the ad, the question that everyone was asking is that Morgan Freeman and my answer, believing what I was told to be Morgan Freeman was yes, that is Morgan Freeman,” he said.

On Monday morning, when Freeman heard the news, he released a statement.

“These people are lying. I have never recorded any campaign ads for B.J. Lawson and I do not support his candidacy,” said Freeman through his publicist Stan Rosenfield.

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