As I pointed out in my first Golden Globes wrap-up, mainstream journalists are some of the most self-serious d-bags in the world, and they have no idea how to write about comedy, so of course they saw only controversy.  People are used to seeing movie stars get their butts kissed at awards shows, so Ricky Gervais cleverly took the roast approach instead (I read in Popular Science that surprise is an important element of humor).  Most of the audience understood that, and it didn’t seem like that big a deal.

(Slight Digression: One notable exception here was Judd Apatow, who was mildly critical of Gervais, which for a comedy writer/lover is like seeing your parents fight.)

There was a lot of blah blah blah about who was offended and whether Gervais would be invited back (who hosts an awards show three years in a row anyway?), but now Gervais himself has responded, the way all true gangstas respond, on his blog (via WarmingGlow):

Obviously the rumour that the organizers stopped me going out on stage for an hour is rubbish. I did every link I was scheduled to do. The reason why the gaps were uneven is because when I got the rundown I was allowed to choose who I presented to. I obviously chose the spots that I had the best gags for. They couldn’t move around the order but I could move around however I wanted.

All the same conspiracy theories as last year too… “So and so was offended”… “hasn’t been invited back yet”… exactly the same as last time. “Paul McCartney was furious”…no he wasn’t. And nor was Tim Allen and Tom Hanks. I was drinking with them after.

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Courtesy of Funny or Die, here’s the trailer for Tim Allen’s fake movie, Arbor Daze.  Tim Allen plays “Douglas Furr”, a regular guy who doesn’t care about trees and has a strained relationship with his son.  Then ONE DAY, he turns into a TREE.  Tagline: “Real dads never leaf.”  It’s a pretty successful parody, if you judge success by making me check IMDB to see if it was real.

Additional trivia: there are no less than 86 titles on IMDB that include the Days/Daze pun, including my favorite, a 1995 Hong Kong film called Mi Jian Fan, which is alternately known as “Daze Raper.”

Oh yeah, here’s the poster for Tim Allen’s next actual movie.  I bet all those people are thinking, “Hey, let us in!  We heard you were filming a terrible movie in here.”

[Thanks for Rob for the tip]

(This is the actual final frame of Old Dogs. This scene should have chalk around it.)

Seeing the promos for Old Dogs was like watching Hollywood rape a child on film and then try to sell tickets for it, but they say the Lord works in mysterious ways.  You see, last week, the failure/embarrassment of Old Dogs led new Disney chief Rich Ross to pull the plug on Robin Williams’ equally horrendous sounding Wedding Banned.  Less than a week later, Variety reports that Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride has also been Rich Ross’d.   I’m starting to like this guy.

The Touchstone pictures sequel to the 2007 hit was revving up to begin production by next summer, with Walt Becker back as director, and John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy reprising their roles.
…new writers were in the process of being hired.  That ended this week, when word came down that the picture wasn’t going to get made.
The timing of the move follows Disney’s release of the Becker-directed Old Dogs.  The comedy was trounced by critics and did not score at the box office.

Though Old Dogs was a disappointment, it wasn’t exactly a bomb ($40 mil on a $35 mil production budget, so far).  Killing a movie from the same director with the same star is a smart, though fairly easy business decision.  What’d be even cooler is if he did it not only because it was a money loser, but because he was actually ashamed of his company making money off a sub-par product, instead of just shrugging his shoulders and saying “I dunno, I guess people like sh-t sandwiches.”  What a concept.

I always found Tim Allen to be that sort of boring, not-really-funny comedian who doesn’t even have the decency to suck enough to inspire true hate like Larry the Cable Guy, but who’s just popular enough to hang around the periphery of pop culture for GD ever. I hated Home Improvement when I was still young enough to love Steven Seagal movies unironically, which shows you how much that show sucked.  And that’s why it was with fear and trepidation in my heart that I watched the trailer for Allen’s directorial debut, Crazy on the Outside. He went to prison and everyone thinks he’s been in France, you see.

Yet again, even in the realm of sucking, Tim Allen is nothing but a disappointment.  With nary a record scratch, a nutshot, or an embarrassing meeting with an Asian businessman to be found, the sad truth is that this looks about 75% better than most Tim Allen movies.  Of course, anything that didn’t involve him rapping, switching bodies with an animal, or turning into a mythical creature would’ve accomplished that.  Thus, it’s not even fun to ridicule. Tim Allen’s suck is so powerful, he’s not even sucky enough to make making fun of him fun.  At least he’s consistent.  Because when you think mild dissatisfaction, think Tim Allen, the Miller Lite of movies.

Tada, it’s the trailer for Toy Story 3. Probably none of the creative team actually wanted to make a Toy Story 3, but then your mom probably doesn’t like blowing dudes on the corner either.  …Okay, bad example.  Point is, money.  Anyway, forced to come up with a plot, it seems Disney-Pixar stole a page from the Transformers 2 playbook, in that the story begins with the kid about to go off to college.  What are his old toys to do now that he no longer needs them?  But rather than crying or humping Megan Fox’s leg or perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes, the toys get sent off to a daycare center, where they get yanked and sucked and licked and fondled roughly against their will — pretty much like an evening at Roman Polanski’s house.  HEYO! Haha, good one, Jay.  So then, the toys decide to escape the daycare center, and yadda yadda yadda, Tim Allen becomes Mexican.  Trust me, it doesn’t seem nearly as racist as it did in person.

[Also available in HD at Yahoo]