A lot of people like to bag on The Expendables and the upcoming sequel as terrible movies, but when you break the first film down for what it actually was – needless explosions and violence for the purpose of giving some old guys money – it was a pretty damn good film. But if you want a real reason to trash the sequel before it is even released, make it because they’re just adding anybody to the cast now.

The latest to join the action film is Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked male tennis player in the world. Djokovic has absolutely no professional cinema experience – I just assume he has a sex tape somewhere – but he will be shoe-horned into Expendables 2 to play himself because of the most valid reason ever.

He was invited to be in the film by producer Avi Lerner and is already in Bulgaria, where the movie is currently shooting. (Via Cinema Blend)

See? Not only is he friends with the producer but he’s already in a convenient location. As for the extent of his role and whether or not he’ll have a speaking role, I can only pray that his cameo is reminiscent of Bob Hope in Spies Like Us.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember that warmed-over ripoff of an 80s action movie?  It’s getting a sequel!  Which one?  ALL OF THEM!  Today in the Derp Report…

Kung Fu Panda writers hired for Karate Kid sequel. Dreamworks has hired Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff (Kung Fu Panda) to write a sequel to the reboot of the franchise that already had four sequels. Karate Kid Version 2.02, I guess you’d call it. I sat here for 20 minutes trying to think of something to say about this, but I honestly couldn’t come up with a better punchline than the actual headline.  |HollywoodReporter|

Sly Stallone wants Bruce Willis for Expendables 2, Tweets about it. In the worst thing to happen to the Internet since your parents joined Facebook, Sly Stallone has joined Twitter.  After punching through his first three keyboards in an HGH accident, he Tweefed:

“Had dinner with Bruce Willis last night. I want him in Expendables II as a super villain. What do you think?

“I am thinking what would be the most dangerous places in the world to set the sequel?”

Dude.  The Expendables was kind of fun, but you barely had enough material for one movie.  That movie could’ve been 46 minutes long. And if you wanted to make a throwback to 80s action movies, why all the quick cuts and shaky cam and CGI blood?  Please, quit while you’re ahead.

“The hardest part of making action films is attempting to inject heart and soul.. bullets are easy, emotions are hard. LIKE LIFE ITSELF.”

THE EXISTENTIAL BUFFOON STRIKES AGAIN!  “And it was at that point that I realized, I was actually superman punching my own fear of commitment.”

For the love of God, put down the keyboard.

I’m not going to lie to you folks, this week’s Frotcast is not our best work.  But we did do a “Meet the FilmDrunkards” segment with everyone’s favorite speaking-in-the-third-person Klingon commenter The Mighty Feklahr and discuss The Expendables.  So maybe… it’s actually… our best work?  No, that’s just the Four Loko hangover talking.  I do believe we’ve fixed many of our audio quality issues though.  Anyway, my favorite Expendables scene was the combination waterboarding/wet t-shirt scene.  Discuss.

• Listen

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• Download
• Subscribe (on iTunes) (non-iTunes Feed)

Frot on.

The Expendables grunted its way to $35 million, Eat, Pray, Love queefed into number two with $23.7, and Scott Pilgrim slackerishly underperformed, opening below The Other Guys and Inception with $10.5 million.  While not a bomb, Pilgrim was the only movie in the top five to do worse than EW‘s Thursday night predictions.  I’ll have a review coming up later, but I saw it, and I loved it.  It’s a shock to see a movie with so much buzz open smaller than even Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist ($11.3 million), but at least now you’ll be able to continue to love it without anyone accusing you of going corporate. (That’s not the only good thing about it, but more on that below).

Eat Pray Love earning $23.7 million was a big surprise, though its overwhelmingly older-lady audience — 72% female (compared to 61% male for Expendables), 56% 35 years and older — wasn’t.  It more than doubled Scott Pilgrim‘s gross on a similar production budget ($60 million).  Upon hearing the news, my heart skipped a beat and then flat-out tripped over itself and fell on its face.  Then my heart stood up, took a deep shrug, wanked dismissively, and announced, “(*fart noise*).”  It’s basically Entourage for soccer moms.  Oh my gosh, is Vince gonna do the movie Elizabeth Gilbert gonna find what she’s looking for?  Phew, that was close, let’s have a pool party with hot sluts eat gelato till we puke with Javier Bardem.

See the full top ten:

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, I admit, at first they were kind of fun, in an isn’t-this-ridiculous sort of way, but now I’m seriously tired of the possible-sequels stories. The latest one involves a possible Expendables sequel (yes, an Expendables sequel), and it was sparked by this quote from producer Avi Lerner via HeyUGuys:

“We all want to do it, we are already working on it and I’m ready to go. Everyone had such a great time making this.”
“We will wait until Monday and see what the (box office) numbers are like but I am pretty confident right now that we will be back and work is already underway (on a sequel). Why not? I know everyone in this would like to do another and I know that I would.”

Dude. No.  Me and Chodin have a great time holding hands while we sh*t too, that doesn’t mean people want to watch us do it.  It’s a throwback movie.  You get one. I hope it’s fantastic.  I hope it reminds us all of an awesome 80s action movie.  But no one wants a sequel.  A throwback movie is like a cover band.  People will come to the shows, girls might even show their t*ts, but no one wants to see a tribute band to your cover band.  A sequel?  Are you serious?  Stallone will be 176 years old by then.

Read the rest of this entry »