Here’s Ricky Gervais’ beautiful introduction of Mel Gibson at the Golden Globes:

It’s pushing 15 years since Mel Gibson made a good movie, but the guy’s always a good sport and his idea for a gritty, realistic viking movie from the writer of The Departed sounds pretty good.  Leonardo Dicaprio is attached, and of course Mel will shoot it in the original language, as soon as he figures out what that was.  From Collider:

Gibson:  I think it’s going to be English – the English that would have been spoken back then – and Old Norse.  Whatever the 9th century had to offer.  I’m going to give you real.

Collider: Is that really important to you.

Gibson:  I want a Viking to scare you.  I don’t want a Viking to say, “I’m going to die with a sword in my hand.”  I don’t want to hear that.  It pulls the rug out from under you.  I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low guttural German who scares the living sh-t out of me coming up to my house.  What is that like?  What would that have been like?

For Mel, I bet it’s kind of like when a guy shakes your hand and says, “Hi, I’m Avi Greenberg.”

Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in a viking movie Mel Gibson is directing from a script by Departed writer William Monahan.  Presumably DiCaprio will play the Viking who makes the other vikings row while his arms get flabby and he bangs models.

Graham King will produce with Gibson and Tim Headington in a co-production of King’s GK Films and Gibson’s Icon Prods. Shooting is expected to begin in fall 2010, meaning that if everything falls into place, it would be the next directing effort for Gibson.
There is no distributor at the moment, but Gibson and King often make their films outside the studio system and secure distribution later.
The principals confirmed the project but would not divulge many details. DiCaprio, who has long been fascinated by Viking culture, will play one in a storyline that will be as unsparing as Gibson’s other period directing efforts, “Braveheart,” “The Passion of the Christ” and “Apocalypto.” [Variety]

It’s been a long time since Braveheart, but if a Viking movie’s getting made, I’m glad it’s someone like Mel Gibson who’ll show them in all their raping, pillaging, murdering, Jew-hating* glory, and not Jerry Bruckheimer turning it into guys in horn helmets visit a haunted castle.  It’s also nice that there’s no studio attached, which is why no one mentioned 300 in the article.

*Artistic license

Hooray, it’s the second installment of 80s dating videos.  I defy you not to laugh at the 45-second mark when Viking Man comes back.  What kind of weak-ass viking needs to video date anyway?  What’s that?  He’s actually a mathematician?  Shocking.  Oh dating videos.  Thank God you can just put pictures of your weiner on craigslist nowadays.  Yes, it’s a wonderful time to be alive. [via OhHaveYouSeenThis]

DCJ Links:

• Hey look, a Victoria’s Secret commercial.  Because boobs. |Guyism|
• 25 American Gothic parodies. |HolyTaco|
• The 10 best corrupt movie cops, inspired by Papa Cage in Bad Lieutenant. |ScreenJunkies|
• I’m not sure what’s wrong with this girl, but I’m pretty sure I could cure it with a blunt object and a ride in a van. |WarmingGlow|
• Brady Quinn promises a dying man a completion.  Which, when you play for the Browns, is like Babe Ruth promising to hit 12 home runs.  Which he once did, whilst drunk and suffering from the clap. Does a completion for a loss of two count?  |SportsPickle|
• The ten longest movie fight scenes of all time.  Though I’ve heard that it’s actually the girth that matters. |ToplessRobot|
• A new study shows that men are quicker to say “I Love You” in relationships.  Though they’re also quicker to say “bitch, make me a sandwich.”  |Asylum|
• Atom’s number one video from last week, texting while walking.  It’s, like, British. |Atom|

A few weeks back, the blog-o-tubes were up in Cheetos-stained arms about Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train, which had been groomed for a wide release by Lionsgate, only to be dumped into a handful of dollar theaters when Joe Drake took over at Lionsgate. The film went quickly to DVD after making about $80 grand, and most assumed Drake screwed it over to keep it from competing against The Strangers, on which Drake had a producing credit.

That brings us to today, when the rumor is the Weinsteins might do something similar with Outlander. Speculation stems from DreadCentral‘s discovery that some DVD sites and Amazon are taking Outlander DVD orders and have set the release at November 18th, even though Outlander still doesn’t have a date set for a  theatrical release. Meanwhile, /Film quotes an Outlander site as saying the Weinsteins are contractually obligated to give it at least a limited theatrical run.

It’s all speculation at this point, but the only thing we know for sure is that I just wrote three paragraphs about movie where an alien crash lands on Earth to help some Vikings fight a f*cking space dragon. If I wasn’t so good looking, I’d hate my life right now.

To refresh your memory, Outlander is a movie about a guy from outer space crashlanding on Earth during Viking times and joining forces with them to fight a space dragon.  The guys who wrote it are also working on the latest draft of Conan the Barbarian.  The studio released this new clip this weekend, featuring spaceman Jim Caviezel getting interrogated by the suspicious Norsemen.  I really like the way they edited it.  Carefully choreographed fight scenes are so passé, the new cool thing to do is thump sounds spliced between guys going ‘Oof.’

On a related note, Outland was a great cartoon.  There’s a cat wearing underwear, LOL!