Pictured: A blogger.
Opening Everywhere: Warm Bodies, Bullet to the Head, Stand Up Guys
FilmDrunk Suggests: Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh. F*ck you, January. Whatever. I’m going to try to be less negative this week.
Look, I’ve learned a few things about this blogging game, and one lesson I didn’t miss was that if you’ve got a picture of a dog in mask, you lead with that. So this is a still from Kick-Ass 2, featuring Jim Carrey as “Colonel Stars and Stripes.” Matthew Vaughn isn’t directing this one – Jeff Wadlow, who directed Never Back Down, is – which makes me very skeptical. But if its got dogs in superhero costumes? It’s a start.
Captain Ameridog keeps his identity a secret so his enemies can’t go after his bitches.
[Picture via EntertainmentWeekly]
Can combining two lame, played-out genres create something new? That’s the basic question behind Warm Bodies (based on the book of the same name), which combines the zombie movie with the unpopular-high-school-kid-in-love movie, in the hopes of earning a DOUBLE KITSCH SCORE. Nicholas Hoult (Beast from X-Men First Class) plays the zombie, Teresa Palmer is his human love interest, and you can watch the first four minutes online below. I guess it makes sense, I mean, what’s a zombie anyway if not a prototypical movie slacker, only with paler skin, discheveleder hair, a slouchier posture, and a dirtier hoody? Anyway, I have to admit, my initial reaction is “GUHHHHHHH…”, but it does come from Jonathan Levine, who last directed 50/50, which was easily one of my top five favorite movies of that year. Maybe this will be good? I wouldn’t put my money on that, but I’d bet my life that the zombies are some kind of metaphor, you guys!
This Week in Posters was postponed last week, but now it’s here! I suppose it’s kind of a “last week in posters” now, but better late than never, right? Don’t answer that.
First up, Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain. Okay, this is a pretty fantastic poster. Not that I imagine it’s very difficult to communicate a Michael Bay plot in a single image, but this one pretty much nails it. A couple a dudes, just gettin’ pumped and shredded in front of old glory. It brings a tear to my eye. Still, asking Mark Wahlberg to play a bodybuilder and then casting a guy opposite him who’s six foot five is borderline cruel. Regardless, I’m excited to see The Rock and Marky Mark get the same borderline-porny Michael Bay treatment as the Transformers girls. I’m envisioning a nice peekaboo shot up Wahlberg’s weightlifting shorts like the Megan Fox car scene while he’s doing so wicked tricep extensions. “Hey, Dawnny! You seen my chawklit flavahed mass gainah?” (*swooping crane shot of washboard abs*)
"Why didn't you write me? ... BRAAAAAAAAINS..."
God dammit. For the last time, people, zombies are not timely metaphors. They’re not symbols of consumer culture, or overpopulation, or the war on terror, and they sure as hell aren’t the perfect jumping off point for a teen romance. They’re big sacks of movie meat that you can explode without pondering motive or remorse, like Nazis. ZOMBIES ARE TO BE EXPLODED.
Anyway. Summit has released some new stills from Warm Bodies, their zombie romance adapted from Isaac Marion’s book by Jonathan Levine. Wait a second, the guy who directed 50/50? What the shit? It stars Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class), Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four), Rob Corddry (lots of stuff), Dave Franco (James’s brother), Analeigh Tipton (who?) and John Malkovich (awesome). Here’s the book description:
R is a young man with an existential crisis–he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.
After experiencing a teenage boy’s memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and stragely sweet relationship with the victim’s human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world.
Yeah, because that’s what I’ve always wanted in my zombie films, more wonder, and longing. I loved 50/50, but it doesn’t bode well that they released three pictures, and they’re all of a hot dude looking zombie-ish. Look, all I’m saying is that at this rate, it’s not going to be long before the goth dudes in high school start wearing blueish lipstick and crazy contacts to guy with the guyliner, and that’s how I’ll know it’s finally time to kill myself.
