How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cute

I despise how precious this movie is. I hate that it’s so mannered that it might as well come with a sweater, and I loathe its fake-quirky conventionality. But most of all, I hate the feeling that it’s as engineered to fit the established tastes of white intellectuals and critics as Yogi Bear was to fit children and morons.

So when, like a girl scout, Our Idiot Brother arrives at my door in its quasi-fascistic outfit, selling sugary treats of no nutritional value to raise money for some dubious cause, I’m eager to boot it down the steps or yank it off its little pink bike by the pigtails. I am a thinking adult. I am not fooled by your dimpled fake smiles or shiny merit badges. But… what’s that you say? Your treats are made of Paul Rudd and his unconditional love for a golden retriever? Paul Rudd and a golden retriever? But… but… that’s… cheating! Paul Rudd is already a human golden retriever! COME BACK! I’LL TAKE A THOUSAND BOXES! A MILLION! EVERY BOX YOU HAVE! I DEMAND TO KNOW WHERE THE FACTORY IS!

90 minutes later I am comatose. Broke, bloated and covered in shame tears, but content. You have beaten me, Our Idiot Brother.  You have pandered to a demographic, and that demographic was me.

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Jesse Peretz’s indie comedy Our Idiot Brother (which used to be called My Idiot Brother) stars Steve Coogan, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Rashida Jones, and of course, former Bat Mitsvah DJ Paul Rudd, the most likable man in show business.  I missed it when it was at Sundance, where the Weinsteins paid $6 million for it, but it opens August 26th and the trailer is after the jump.  It looks… very much like an indie comedy.  This is the kind of comedy that critics love while they deride stuff like Your Highness, even though this will be less funny and probably more derivative, but at least it didn’t offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities with the coarse language and the references to genitals, God forbid!  Yay, more easily-digestible family quirk and sweaters!  But hey, I’m just judging by the trailer.  Maybe’s it’s not the cutesy smarmy yuppie Chardonnay of a movie they’re selling it as. It’s not like you have to try this hard to make Paul Rudd likable, the man’s a human kitten basket.

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MSN has debuted the new red-band trailer for Your Highness (watch it after the jump), starring Danny McBride, Zooey Deschanel, James Franco, and Natalie Portman’s butt.  You’ll definitely want to watch the red-band version, because in the regular, green-band version, Natalie Portman’s medieval thong (see links at left) has been altered, nay, CENSORED, too look like this:

(*cleans monocle, does spit take*) Whaaa? Did they shoot this scene twice with two different bikinis?  Was she digitally de-thonged? If so, how’d they’d decide who got the job of post-production full-butt bikini supervisor?  And if they shot it twice, was there a sexy costume designer around to supervise during the wardrobe change?  I mean, someone would have to monitor it, for continuity, right?  The point is, I’m intrigued.  And now, farbeit from me to diss Natalie Portman’s butt, because, as a blogger, Natalie Portman’s butt puts food in my mouth, but… well, it could be meatier.  I’m just sayin.

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Scientists say that this recent picture from Sundance, if tests prove conclusive, is the Zooey Deschaneliest photo ever taken.  |via SuicideBlonde|

MORNING LINKS

Plaxico will play in 2011. |WithLeather|

The 10 most obscure jokes from Archer. |WarmingGlow|

Charlie Sheen in the hospital for “laughing too hard.” Things are just really funny when you’re flying on coke. |WWTDD|

Daleks. You know, for kids. |GammaSquad|

If you put Tracy Morgan on live TV, he’s going to make a masturbation joke.  That’s just how it goes. |TheDailyWhat|

Arena League coach in trouble for having video on his computer of women doing each other with a fish.  That’s gross, now the fish is going to smell all fishy. |BostonBarstool|

9 Excuses we’re about to hear from Charlie Sheen’s publicist. |ScreenJunkies|

Gianna Dininno has a funny name and a round butt. |GorillaMask|

Raw video of protestor getting shot in Egypt. (Not a comedy link, sorry). |Buzzfeed|

An open letter to Kevin Smith.  |NEEEEEERRRDS|

Is your bootlegging doing any damage? |TheSmokingSection|

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In yet more new movie trailer news, IGN has debuted the red-band trailer for Your Highness, the medieval stoner epic from David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and Ben Best (basically the creative team from Eastbound and Down).  It stars James Franco and Natalie Portman, whose graduation from earnest-but-slightly-pretentious smartypants who cares about important world issues to just-because-I-care-about-world-issues-doesn’t mean I can’t act like one of the guys continues.  I’d suggest enjoying this phase as much as we can before the eventual transition to “suburban yuppie.”  Trust me, man, I know these college chicks.

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