"YES! PIG-SEX ME, ZAC EFRON! FORAGE FOR MY TRUFFLES!"

Oh hell yes. I’ve been waiting a long time for this, and finally it’s here, the trailer for The Lucky One, starring Zac Efron as a veteran of three tours in Iraq (OOH RAH! SEMPER FI! HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL DO OR DIE!), adapted from the novel by Nicholas Sparks. HE’S THE THOMAS KINKADE OF NOVELISTS! PREPARE FOR VERBAL LUMINESCENCE!

U.S. Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault (Efron) returns from his third tour of duty in Iraq, with the one thing he credits with keeping him alive-a photograph he found of a woman he doesn’t even know. Learning her name is Beth (Schilling) and where she lives, he shows up at her door, and ends up taking a job at her family-run local kennel. Despite her initial mistrust and the complications in her life, a romance develops between them, giving Logan hope that Beth could be much more than his good luck charm. [Apple]

Ahh, but Beth already has a husband. Hmmm, I wonder how they handle that one…

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^{(Sparklebomb’d!)}

Nicholas Sparks is a writer of weepy romance fiction who, if Nicholas Sparks is to be believed, is has more talent in his WWJD bracelet than Cormac McCarthy has in his entire collection of archaic dictionaries. Past Sparks books to be made into movies include A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, and that one with Miley Cyrus and the sea turtles and the raccoons.  Sparks recently wrote a thriller, and with such a successful track record, it’s no surprise to hear that a bidding war for the movie rights is about to begin.

Anyway, the book’s called “Safe Haven” and it carries the tagline, “in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven.”  (Yeah, tell that to a guy being chased by a bear).

When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard.

But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her . . . a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo’s support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards . . . and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven. [NicholasSparks via Playlist]

I kid, but I actually love this Nick Sparks stuff. Writing Plot-Recreated-With-Reviews posts for his movies is the most fun I ever have at this job. Oh boy,  I wonder what Katie’s dark secret will be!  Haunted by her nephew’s fatal go-kart accident, did she turn down a hackey-sack scholarship to Vassar?  Or maybe she’s a disgraced former paddleboat champion with a full ride to Sarah Lawrence and a head full of bee-sting memories.  Oooh, I can’t wait!

For a time, there was the possibility that Disney Channel super twink Zac Efron would turn his teen idol fame into a legitimate movie career.  Let’s face it, no one wants that.  Luckily, it seems more and more that he’s gone the almost-Lifetime movie route, starring in the upcoming Charlie St. Cloud, which isn’t a Nicholas Sparks novel, but if it doesn’t make at least as good a plot-recreated-with-reviews post as Miley Cyrus’ sea turtle party, I’ll be sorely disappointed.  I’ve been waiting months for this.  “Listen to ya dead brothah, Chahlie!  Help that sailor girl find her way home!”

Now from Vulture comes word that Efron will jumping from a movie that looks like a Nicholas Sparks movie to an actual Nicholas Sparks movie.  God bless that kid for the material he gives me.

Vulture hears that he is in negotiations to play a former Marine in Warner Bros.’ forthcoming adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s novel The Lucky One. This would be the seventh Sparks novel to make it to the big screen (just eight more to go!); Efron would play the titular “One,” who returns from three tours in Iraq to (where else?) North Carolina. There he searches for a mysterious woman in a random snapshot he found — a snapshot he believes was his good-luck charm throughout the second Gulf War. The Lucky One is being produced by Sparks’s own lucky charm, Denise DiNovi, who’d previously brought the author’s Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and Nights in Rodanthe to the big screen.

Hey, does anyone know what the rest of that block quote said?  I couldn’t hear anything after “former Marine” because I was laughing too hard.  I can’t wait for his supporting turn in “Hannah Montana: CIA Physicist.”

She evolved them teeth for shotgunnin' Coors cans when you can't find a pocket knife

UPDATE: Now with video, after the jump.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to cover Miley Cyrus’ “lurid” lap dance after all the gossip sites beat me to it, but I think the scene of the crime and the people involved deserve some attention.  First, the story.

From Radar via WWTDD:
The video shows Adam Shankman on the dance floor with a drink in hand grinding up against Cyrus’ backside while she grinds back. At one point Cyrus turns around and seductively opens the top layer of her shirt, teasing Shankman with her flirty dance moves.  In a second clip to the video, Cyrus is seen giving Shankman a lap dance while children under the age of 10 sit less than five feet away watching the Hannah Montana star, and neither her mother Tish nor father Billy Ray were present at the party.

Okay, so the Disney Channel trained one of their faux-wholesome stars to act like an underage prostitute and some kids saw a lap dance.  I give that a “what’s new” and a “who cares”, respectively.  But I need to give you an idea of the kind of cretinous dildos who were present at this part.

First off, this was at a wrap party for The Last Song, the movie Miley Cyrus starred in based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, the male Stephenie Meyers who compares himself to Hemingway and Sophocles and thinks Cormac McCarthy sucks.  The movie was about a girl who rescues a nest of sea turtle eggs from raccoons, and in the process, learns to love the piano again, by the way.  And that guy she was giving a lap dance to? Adam Shankman, the guy who was once moved to tears by a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance and directed the following movies:
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I just invented a new game, you guys.  Here’s how you play: Take a movie none of us are going to see (The Last Song, adapted from the Nicholas Sparks novel, starring Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth, and Greg Kinnear), then, try to recreate the plot using only exposition from the horrible reviews it’s getting.  Ready?  Let’s go!

Kinnear’s character, we’re told, fell asleep at the chapel piano one night and may have caused a painful fire, so he’s living with guilt and secrets and struggling to re-engage with Ronnie. -Chicago Tribune

Ronnie never misses an opportunity to make dad feel bad for splitting up with her mom (Kelly Preston). She’s so spiteful that she hasn’t touched a piano in years and refuses to attend Juilliard, which has accepted her on the basis of her reputation. -Boston Globe

…despite the concerns of her mother that Ronnie barely graduated high school and “failed her SATs.” -USA Today

She’s still smarting from her parents’ divorce and nursing a major attitude. This means ignoring her acceptance to Juilliard, and befriending kids who spend all night partying under the boardwalk. -NYDailyNews

She does this on an idyllic island paradise off Savannah, Georgia, where her dad is a classical composer whose pastime is restoring stained-glass windows.  She blames her dad for the divorce, is sullen and withdrawn. Ten minutes after she hits the beach (dressed in Gothic black), her milk shake is spilled by a flying volleyball player named Will (Liam Hemsworth). -Roger Ebert

In addition to the terminal illness (signaled by a telltale cough around the movie’s midpoint), there is a church fire that Ronnie’s dad is believed to have started, a wayward friend with a bad boyfriend, another friend with a dead brother, a nest of sea turtle eggs menaced by a raccoon, and a romance — did I mention it was star-crossed? -NY Times

Two things soften Ronnie’s hard shell. She discovers a sea turtle nest and vows to protect it from raccoons. And she meets a boy. -Detroit Free Press

Though a blond ex-girlfriend and the hero’s snobbish mother try to split them, we know they’ve bonded over her trying to help sea turtles hatch on the beach. -NY Post

Sadly, none of the critics had the balls to reveal the ending.  After all the raccoons, sea turtles, beach volleyball, and church fires, I’m guessing the only way to tie everything together would be for Ronnie to fight a giant spider in the third act.