The Story Behind "Thriller"

As far as I'm concerned, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is the greatest music video ever made. I'm old enough to remember when it first came out, and it really did revolutionize the entire genre. I recently posted about John Landis, who directed the video, and that led to me picking up a recent book about him (John Landis by Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan) and subsequently I discovered some interesting things about the making of this landmark video.

First of all, like many big success stories in the entertainment field, nobody had any interest in making "Thriller" at the scale and scope it was made. Jackson, after seeing the jaw-dropping werewolf transformation scenes in Landis' horror film An American Werewolf in London, contacted the director and said he wanted him to turn him into a monster as well. Landis, at the time, was a very successful film director, having already made Animal House, An American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers and Trading Places. No

major film director would stoop to directing music videos, (though the huge success of "Thriller" would quickly change this, soon after Brian DePalma directed "Dancing in the Dark" for Bruce Springsteen and Martin Scorsese was behind the camera for Jackson's "Bad".) Landis was intrigued by the idea of working with Jackson, an entertainer who was a year into the runaway success that his Thriller album brought him. "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" had already made the album mega-successful, with the record spending over a year at the top of the charts, but it had slipped to the number six spot when they decided to issue the title track as a single. Despite the appeal of working with Michael Jackson, Landis also had another incentive to accept the offer. His last film, Twilight Zone: The Movie, almost destroyed his career. A horrible helicopter accident on the set of the movie killed the films star Vic Morrow as well as two child extras. Landis would be hauled into court and charged with involuntary manslaughter as well as child endangerment. The accident - and subsequent trial - was a black cloud over Landis (even well after he was cleared of all charges) and he insisted on working as much as he could while the case crawled through the court system.

He accepted the offer to direct the video on two conditions: First, Jackson would need to have a love interest in the video ("Beat It" and "Billie Jean" both ignored that angle and Landis wanted to sexualize Jackson - and he did, casting a former Playboy Playmate as a female lead) and secondly, he wanted the video to be more of a short film and proposed a 15 minute "theatrical short" in lieu of the more traditional music video format. Landis brokered a very unique deal with Jackson, he agreed to make the short only if it was actually released in movie theaters instead of heading straight to television. The record label was not pleased with the deal Jackson arrived at, and when it came time to pay for the extravagant shoot, they balked. In 1983, the biggest budget ever for a music video was $70,000. Landis projected "Thriller" to cost closer to $700,000. The label refused to fund it, despite Jackson being the biggest star in the world at the time, and it was up to Landis and Michael to find an alternative way to foot the bill. They also found little support from the album's producer, Qunicy Jones for their ambitious project. The video would require a new version of the song. The album cut runs nearly six minutes, but the video would need a running time of closer to eleven minutes. Jones not only refused to extend the track, but he wouldn't turn over the master recordings either. Jackson and Landis, under cover the night, arrived at a studio and stole the master recordings. Landis recently described the cloak and dagger effort as "very illegal, but the statute of limitations is up."

The first fund raising idea was to simultaneously shoot The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller which would require them to create forty five minutes of "behind the scenes" footage that could be packaged with the finished video allow them to sell an hour to a television network for the entire project. Landis and his crew dismissively called it Michael Jackson's Filler, because thats essentially what it was. The idea would prove to be more successful then they ever imagined. They sold the exclusive hour long special to Showtime, who would air it after it debuted in theaters. When MTV (who had only recently began showing African American acts on the network because of the massive success of "Billie Jean" and "Beat It") caught wind of the sale, they wanted a piece of it too, so they also forked over a huge wad of cash to buy an exclusive three week window that they could air the special after Showtime had premiered it. Suddenly they had more money then they would require for the shoot.

The music video made it's world premiere in movie theaters attached to, of all things, Walt Disney's Fantasia. It must have terrified many children in the audience, and after a few weeks, it then went to Showtime, then to MTV. By that time, it was such a massive pop culture phenomenon, the record label - who didn't want to make it in the first place - started to send it out to all sorts of television stations free of charge because it was essentially a free one hour commercial for their recording artist. To absolutely no one's surprise, the Thriller album went back to number one.

However, there was still more money to made. An upstart home entertainment company called Vestron Video wanted to secure the rights to sell "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller." Landis thought the idea was absurd because the video and the special were widely available for free on television, but he underestimated how huge his little short had become. At the time, the notion of buying something on VHS for home viewing was unheard of. Feature films cost $90 a pop, which created the entire industry of video rental stores. Vestron set the price for "Thriller" at $24.99 and as a result, created the first ever "sell-through" video tape, and a very popular Christmas present. The music video that nobody wanted to make continued to pump cash for its creators.

Perhaps the most interesting footnote of the whole thing is that Jackson himself ordered the negative destroyed before anybody ever saw it. Jackson's grandfather was a Jehovah's Witness minister and shortly after production wrapped on the shoot MJ had a nightmare where he was visited by the Devil. The next day Michael ordered his lawyer to destroy the negative, but Landis intervened and saved the project by writing the silly disclaimer at the beginning that informs the viewer that the video in no way should be interpreted as Jackson endorsing the occult.

Earlier this year, Landis, who worked with Jackson again directing the video for "Black or White" sued Jackson over unpaid "Thriller" royalties. The suit claimed Landis was owed four years worth of royalties from the very succesful video. Now, with Jackson's untimely passing, the suit will now continue against Jackson's estate. Despite the lawsuit, it appears Landis held no ill-will against Jackson; he travelled from London to Los Angeles to attend the stars memorial service last month.

Check out the video here.

Cameron Crowe Directs New Pearl Jam video

For my money Cameron Crowe directed the greatest movie about rock and roll ever with Almost Famous. (Even better is his extended cut that goes by the alternate name Untitled. You can grab it on DVD and it's highly recommended.) Crowe also wrote the script for Fast Times At Ridgemont High, a high school classic, made his directorial debut with the excellent John Cusack flick Say Anything and wrote and directed Jerry Maguire, which I think is one of Tom Cruise's best performances. However, much like my previous post about John Landis, who started off making fantastic movies only to lose that spark and fizzle out, Crowe has hit a dry run after making some truly great movies.

His next project, following the incredibly underwhelming Elizabethtown, is called Deep Tiki and is described as a "Hawaiian adventure romantic comedy" (which makes me think of the loathsome Joe vs. the Volcano.) That film recently saw its start date pushed back to 2010, freeing up Crowe's schedule, which has allowed him to direct the new video for Pearl Jam. Crowe, of course, has a history with the band. His 1992 flick Singles was set in Seattle and had Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder cameoing as a drummer.

Wizard of Oz Sequel: Is Nothing Sacred?

As a movie nerd, there are some films that I've seen a ridiculous amout of times. I've seen The Blues Brothers over 100 times. I remember taping the movie off of CityTV back in the mid-80's, shortly after we got a VCR - which we rented for like two years instead of actually buying one for some reason - and I never really recorded much else, so The Blues Brothers was watched many, many times. Around that same time, I became smitten with horror films and for a good five year stretch I was obsessed with Friday the 13th movies. Even now, despite the fact I can clearly tell what lousy films they are, they series holds a spot in my heart tinged with nostalgia. As a result, I've seen Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter upwards of 40 times. (Interestingly, The Final Chapter wasn't so final, less then a year later a sequel came out. This series is so messed up that two films in the series have Final in their subtitle and neither of them are the last of the sequels!)

Somewhere down the list of multiple-viewing flicks is The Wizard of Oz. TVO used to air it a couple of times a year and I would watch it with my mother from as early as I could remember. Recently my daughter, who is two and half, has started to find the television interesting after largely ignoring everything but hockey when she wandered by the screen. I was amazed when my friend and movie reviewer/journalist Chris Alexander told me his young son, who was half the age of my daughter loved watching flicks with him. I began to plot out the films I would introduce my little lady to first. A couple of months ago I was at a Fall Preview for Warner Brothers Home Entertainment (hoping to bag a few free Blu-Rays like I did at their previous event, no luck) and one of the things they were showcasing was a deluxe 70th Anniversary Edition of The Wizard of Oz. (Out September 29th) I turned to my buddy Johnny Hockin, who was attending with me, and told him I would be grabbing that when it came out to watch with my little monster.

1939, the year Oz was produced, was a truly extraordinary year for American cinema. Joining The Wizard of Oz that year in cinemas were Gone With the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights and Stagecoach. It took me many years to discover the other special films that were made that year, but The Wizard of Oz was introduced to me as a very young child and the movie was pure magic to me. Having the movie go from black and white to color blew my tiny mind and a story of witches, tornadoes, munchkins, lions and tigers and bears (oh my) and the magical Emerald City is like catnip for a child. I loved this movie.

So how will Hollywood piss all over this legacy and taint my memories of the movie? With a shitty sequel, of course! Now, it should be noted that they've tried this before. In the mid-60's and again in the mid-70's animated follow ups were made. Journey Back to Oz and Return to Oz respectively didn't register a blip on the pop culture radar. In 1985, all of the books in the Oz

series by creator Frank Baum became public domain and Walt Disney quickly churned out a sequel, also called Return to Oz and because all of the books were now public domain, they didn't need permission from MGM, the studio behind the original film. This follow up was live-action, starred Fairuza Balk as Dorothy and was incredibly dark and frankly pretty creepy for a Disney flick. I kid you not, the movie opens with Dorothy - still a young girl - being subjected to shock therapy. The movie had a very large budget for 1985 - $25 million - and only made $11 million at the box office after opening up in 7th spot.

The utter failures of the sequels haven't stopped them from trying though. Today I read that Dakota Fanning is set to star in yet another sequel that will be produced by Canadian Todd MacFarlane. MacFarlane's involvement doesn't exactly make me feel like maybe this is something worth exploring. His filmmaking credentials include the lousy Spawn movie and a Korn video he directed. But it's not just his not-so-impressive resume that leads me to believe that this new sequel will be an insult to the original film. The new movie will be set in present day, with Fanning portraying the original Dorothy's grandaughter. MacFarlane explains more about the character: "You've still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she's much closer to the Ripley character from Alien than a helpless singing girl."

Sounds great, Todd. Sounds like you really get what made the first movie so special. I think I'll stick with the new special edition Blu-Ray and MacFarlane can stick to making super shitty movies.

Is it time for a John Landis comeback?

I've always been puzzled by directors that make a string of great movies then spend the rest of their careers churning out shit or worse yet, not getting any work at all. A great example of this is Rob Reiner, a filmmaker who's directed some of my favorite films ever.

The first four features he made would all be on my personal top fifty of all time list. This Is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. Three of those films are classics as far as I'm concerned and The Sure Thing, though just a dopey 80's sex comedy, is one of my all time favorite comedies. Though very much a product of the 80's, the film still holds up well as a comedy. John Cusack is fantastic in this movie and the script, brought us in part by the writer behind The Lion King and Monsters Inc. is much better than the 80's teenager-wants-to-get-laid genre deserves. Reiner would also direct A Few Good Men, Misery and When Harry Met Sally... then he never made a half-way decent film again.

Another director with a strange resume like that is John Landis. Landis also directed some films I absolutely adore. Between 1978 and 1983 he helmed Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, and, of course, the most iconic,

famous music video of all time: Thriller. After 1988's Coming to America, he never made another good movie. The 1990's were "hilighted' by the truly awful sequels Beverly Hills Cop III (which Landis was hired for after his previous successes with Eddie Murphy) and The Blues Brothers 2000 (which has my vote for worst sequel in the history of sequeldom - take that Troll 2!) With so much time elapsed since his massive successes of the early 80s, Landis has spent the bulk of the last decade directing for television.

I recently watched a surprisingly well produced A&E Special, on, of all things, the making of Animal House and Landis, of course, was featured prominently. Landis had a great working relationship with John Belushi on that film and they would re-pair two years later to make one of my favorite films of all time, The Blues Brothers. Seeing him in the doc; and seeing how animated and passionate he was talking about the movie, it was clear this was not a man who ran out of stories to tell and 'retired' from Hollywood. Over the years, I've often checked his imdb profile to see what he has in the works and was always amazed that he wasn't getting any work. After watching the A&E Special, I once again checked, and, once again, saw nothing significant on the horizon for Landis.

So I was pleased to read today that Landis has a new film in the works with Simon Pegg. The film, called Burke & Hare, is based on the true story of two Irish murderers who started a cottage industry selling cadavers to a medical school. Of course, this business, like any other, is all about supply and demand. The two went on an eighteen month murder spree while the Edinburgh Medical College saw a dramatic spike in the amount of corpses available for dissection before they got too sloppy - and too greedy - and eventually were caught. As famous as Landis is for his comedies - and deservedly so - I think An American Werewolf in London, his black comedy horror film, is Landis at the peak of his powers as a story teller and as a filmmaker. His sense of humor seems dark enough that his real comfort zone seems to lay outside the traditional comedy genre, despite his successes there. When I read this was his next project; and Pegg was involved, it brought a smile to my face. A John Landis comeback movie would be fantastic, and would ease the disappointment that I will never get to see the John Hughes comeback flick.

Say It Ain't So

Martin Scorsese is my favorite filmmaker. I eagerly wait for each of his new films, and while I've heard a lot of people bitch and moan about how often he works with Leonardo DiCaprio, I feel that they've formed a dynamic creative partnership that has already given us some terrific movies. The Departed and The Aviator are both fantastic movies and when I heard they were pairing again to make Shutter Island I was quite keen to see what they would come up.

Shutter Island, based on the Dennis Lehane novel, sees DiCaprio playing a US Marshall sent to a remote island prison for the criminally insane to investigate a case of a woman that somehow went missing from the facility. Of course nothing is what it seems, and soon things take a turn for the spooky. Scorsese hasn't done the spooky thriller thing since his flawed but ultimately entertaining remake of Cape Fear and I was counting the days til the film came out in early October.

Well, I'm gonna be counting a bit longer. The film has been pushed from it's October release to a February 2010 release instead. I must admit that when the Shutter Island trailer came out, I was a little concerned with how paint by numbers the story seemed and how reliant it appeared to be on genre cliches, but wtih Scorsese, I'm obviously willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So hearing the movie was going to be pushed out of Awards season, when it appeared to be the exact kind of film a studio would want on its schedule for a fall release set of alarm bells. Did Marty and Leo drop a stinker?

That certainly would appear to be the case, but the film tested very well and the limited online buzz there is for this flick is overwhelmingly positive. A report at /Film says the movie was pushed because the studio - hard hit by the recession - doesn't have the cash required to heavily market the movie for awards season.

What? Seriously?

Is this industry so fucked up now that a big movie with a movie star in the lead and an acclaimed director behind the camera gets pushed out of Awards season because the studio can't afford to blow $40 to $60 million bragging about their movie? What happened to just making movies and you know, showing them to people? The Academy Awards - which is rapidly becoming a punchline; this season they expanded the Best Picture category to ten films - ten! - instead of the normal five. Why? Well, they claim it's to spotlight more worthy films. Right. I call bullshit on this. It's so more studios can get the valuable buzz of re-printing their posters with "Nominated for Best Picture" on their hard to sell and increasingly rare "drama" films and try to recoup the costs. But, because Hollywood is Hollywood, in order to go from "nominated" to "winner" they then blow millions and millions of dollars promoting the film, sometimes spending more then the production budget of the film, because really, it's not about which film is actually the best, but rather, what campaign is better. If you think I'm being overly cynical, look no further then Shakespeare in Love, a good but not great movie that somehow got some Oscar love, not-so-coincidentaly after Harvey Weinstein aggresively campaigned for the flick with no regard to the boatloads of cash it cost Miramax.

Which brings us to Paramount and Shutter Island. The studio doesn't want the ego bruise of not being able to launch a big, stupid, self-congratulatory campaign as they try to buy Academy votes, so instead they bury their own prestige flick in February where nobody would expect such a campaign. Great idea.

This is beyond stupid.

Jonas Brothers Tear It Up 'Regis & Kelly'

My good friend deerwolf, who generally doesn't favor boybands, recently was raving about how good the Jonas Brothers were live. I ignored him, but he finally convinced me to check them out live and when he posted this video of their appearance on Regis & Kelly, I finally relented and watched their performance.

I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. I was wrong. The Jonas Brothers absolutely kill this performance. Check it out.

Quentin Tarantino's Top 20 Flicks of the Last 17 Years

Over at incontention.com they've got Quentin Tarantino's Top 20 Flicks of the Last 17 years. That takes you back to 1992, the year that Tarantino arrived on the scene as a filmmaker.

Last week he came to MTV to promote Inglorious Basterds, unfortunately, he cancelled tape interviews and I didn't get a chance to meet him. I had been writing my Tarantino interview questions in my mind from the moment I had heard he was coming in to promote the movie back in July. However, in lieu of talking flicks with him, getting his list of the top twenty movies of the last 17 years is a decent runner-up prize.

The list is pretty interesting. In typical QT style, the list has some surprises, quirky choices, and some really mainstream stuff that he likes that you wouldn't expect (Uh, Speed? Anything Else? That's the Jason Biggs Woody Allen film!) That being said, he has some movies I really love on this list, though. Dazed & Confused, Lost in Translation, The Matrix, The Insider, Shaun of the Dead. I found what he had to say about The Matrix particularly interesting because that movie, for a long stretch, fell down on my list because I was so disappointed in the shitty sequels that followed. Now, as the stench of those movies had dissipated, I find my affection for the original film has grown again. I'm also on board with him about Unbreakable, which I thought was a criminally under-rated movie, but he loses me altogether when he praises Speed.

Why?

Great news in yesterdays Hollywood Reporter, Sony and the Wayans are prepping White Chicks 2. In Funny People, when they show the spectacularly shitty movies that Adam Sandler's character was to have starred in, I thought of the Wayans brothers.

This is good news for Rob Schneider, who starred in the film that previously held the title of least anticipated sequel ever with Deuce Bigalow 2

This... Is "Epic."

Here's the video for the first single from Nicole Holness' upcoming album.

Nicole - known to me as L'CoCo - originally started as a back up vocalist for underground hip hop sensation MC Liqourpig. But it looks like CoCo is all grown up.

Custom "This Is Spinal Tap" poster

I've never been to Texas, but I have a friend that has gone to down to Austin a few times and raved about her time there. I've heard many good things about how Alamo is a city with a great arts scene but what really intrigues me about that town is my desire to go to the Alamo Draft House Cinema. The owners have cleverly fused two of my favorite things: movies and beer. Picture a comedy club, with cabaret seating, tables and chairs, waiters bringing you booze and food and, of course, movies. While they started as a revue cinema, they now have locations that show first run movies, however, the Alamo Draft House is known for putting together cool little festivals, themed evenings, director showcases, cult classics, menus designed to compliment the movie showing (I'd advise skipping The Silence of the Lambs) and all kinds of other cool, creative things. One of my favorite little things they do is commission artists to make "custom posters" for classic movies they screen. The above This Is Spinal Tap poster, a film I absolutely love, is a fine example. I was all gung ho to order a print of this poster until a co-worker told me that buying movie posters was for 13 year olds.

Check out more of the custom posters here.

Megan Fox PSA

Megan Fox Public Service Announcement - Watch more Funny Videos

I'll be honest, it really doesn't matter at all what she has to say here, I was gonna watch it no matter what. If it's entertaining, it's really just a bonus. But in this case, it's worth clicking.

This is a little promo for Megan Fox's upcoming flick - which I'm gonna see at TIFF - Jennifer's Body. I've been intrigued by this movie because it's written, directed and starring a female. There's actually a few films coming out in the next month that can say the same thing, including Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It, starring Ellen Page. Speaking of Page, Jennifer's Body is written by Juno scribe Diablo Cody, who I'm a fan of. I enjoyed Juno and certainly wasn't as annoyed by the stylized dialogue that Cody favors as many others I've spoken to about the film. It was actually Cody's book Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, which documents her brief dalliance in the adult entertainment biz that really made me a fan of her. It's a very funny, candid book that I would recommend.

I must admit that I wasn't very impressed with either the red band or the regular trailer for Jennifer's Body. It's hard to judge from a trailer, but it felt like the tone just wasn't right. But as a fan of Cody, I guess I'm willing to watch Megan Fox play a smoking hot high school chick. For two hours. Hopefully, the school is some sort of private school. With ridiculously lax regulations for how the uniform is worn. Like, everyone looks like an extra from a Van Halen video. 'Cause really, if it's like that, who cares if the script is any good or not?

Would the Real Ferris Bueller Please Stand Up?

I'm not sure when I first started using the name "Ferris" as a pseudonym of sorts, but it dates back to the early 90's at least. My high school experience was full of Ferris Buellerian scams, so the name always seemed right. A teacher at my school was the first to hang the name on me. I was enrolled in his class, but very rarely attended, always having some reason or other why I couldn't be there, though I always handed in my assignments and wrote all my tests. One day, when my absence had become a bit of a running gag, while calling attendance for a field trip to the Royal Ontario Museum that I didn't go to, instead of calling my name, he simply said "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?" After that, when I did turn up in class for a test or to hand in an assignment, I was often called "Mr. Bueller" or simply Ferris.

There were, however, some key differences. I've never driven a Ferrari, don't have a bitchy sister, and would never allow my best friend to wear a hockey jersey anywhere except to either play or watch hockey. Another big difference was instead of making my principal my adversary, I opted to befriend him. Having your principal on your side makes high school a much more pleasant affair. I won't name the school, so as not to implicate anyone, but while every other student needed a bare minimum of 30 credits to graduate, I actually did it with just 29. In exchange for shooting a video project for the school, I was given a free credit, and actually had an OAC credit upgraded by 14 percent a full year after completing it. Despite not being in the music program, I went on two music trips to the states as a "roadie." When a spat with a spectacularly bitchy drama teacher meant I wasn't able to use the little theatre on the third floor for a play I wrote, I was instead given the 1200 seat auditorium for my production and was allowed to not only write, direct and produce a play outside of the drama program, but additionally I permitted to cast my friend in the lead role, even though he never attended the school and was, at the time, a York University student. In the "online" world, I've often used the screen name Ferris, I play Golden Tee with that name, I have Xbox Live and PlayStation accounts with the name and it's possible if you met me in a nightclub about a decade ago, I might have told you that was my actual name.

So it was with great interest that I stumbled upon at article over at /Film that reveals the "real life" Ferris Bueller. After the passing of John Hughes, his childhood friend Edward McNally wrote an essay for the Washington Post remembering his old pal (and trying to refute the notion that he is the basis for Mr. Bueller.) McNally, interestingly, grew up to become a lawyer, a presidential speech writer, and Senior Counsel to President Bush. Meanwhile the fictional Ferris grew up to marry the horse-faced Sarah Jessica Parker.

Read McNally's thoughts on Hughes - and his alter-ego - here.

Check Out "It Might Get Loud"

It Might Get Loud is a pretty cool documentary if you are a music nerd. At last years Toronto International Film Festival, I checked out a press screening of the movie with my colleague (and unabashed music nerd) Johnny Hockin. It looks at three guitar players from three different eras: Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. Each musician has an interesting story to tell. Page emerged out of a musical era of acoustic hippie folk songs that soon bled into acid rock. Page of course would become the dominant guitar player of the 1970's, shredding with Led Zeppelin and recording some of the most iconic guitar riffs of all time. Then you have The Edge who arrived on the scene in the early 1980's with U2 and crafted a guitar sound, laced with echo and effects, that was truly his own. Finally you have Jack White, the vocalist/guitarist from the White Stripes, who brings an old-school style of blues guitar. White, who favors a warts-and-all approach to recording and embraces the chaos of loud, spontaneous angry music is a veritable dinosaur in an era of endless overdubs, electronic music and producers who are just as well known as the musicians. The film explores how they found their sound; their relationship with their music and their love affair with the guitar. Ultimately the movie builds to a summit of sorts where all three assemble in one room with some lights, a lot of cameras and three guitars.

I recently produced an interview with The Dead Weather and White, when asked if his time with Page influenced the blues rock on their debut album, conceded that well before he ever actually sat down in a room with him, Page's influence was all over his work. The doc is directed by Davis Guggenheim, who also directed An Inconvenient Truth (and, interestingly directed the pilot of the new Melrose Place series) and will hit theatres in a limited release this Friday.

Music nerd heaven.

McLovin as Denzel Washington in "Training Day"

Cinemash has been doing several of these "remixes" of famous movies, and they seem to be getting better and better each time.

Here's the latest, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, better known as McLovin, paired with Common for Training Day. Apparently the next one will be Will Arnett taking on the title role in Carrie.

Check out the rest of the at their site.

Red Yawn

I'm not a big fan of Hollywood's recent obsession with remakes. The first reason, and easily the most important one is simply because there are precious few examples of any good ones. Besides the lack of quality, there's also the issue with the studios picking stupid projects to reboot. Right now they are working on a remake of Cliffhanger. The utterly forgettable Sly Stallone mountain climbing "thriller" from 1993? Why on earth would someone need to remake that film? There's an endless slew of horror remakes and then, the latest trend - anything that was remotely successful in the 1980's is likely being remade. Seeing these bastardized versions of the movies I grew up loving is makes me feel old and sad. Not exaclty the thing I watch movies for. There's a new Predator on the way. (By the way, the original Predator is the only film I can think of that starred two Governors, Big Arnie and Jessie "The Body" Ventura, the one time governor of Minnesota.) Short Circut is being is also being remade. The Karate Kid is becoming the Kung-Fu Kid, starring Will Smith's son. (I'm not joking, that's for real.)

Here's a stupid one. Red Dawn is being remade by MGM. For those that missed it the first time

around, Red Dawn was about a group of small town Midwestern teenagers who literally watch a helicopter land on the football field through the windows of their classrooms as the Russian military quickly takes over the town. Of course the teenagers rally to battle back to save the good ol' US of A. The movie starred Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and C. Thomas Howell, who was upon a time was an actor on the rise. This down with the commies epic was written and directed by John Millius, better known as a screenwriter and the man that brought us Dirty Harry, Apocolypse Now, and, his most significant pop culture effort - the famous Indianapolis shark infested waters speech from Jaws, that he contributed to the script, uncredited.

I don't have an issue with this remake because the original film is sacred. Far from it, actually. I recently re-watched the film after being sent a copy of the "Special Edition" DVD and was quite amazed at how shitty it was. The issue here is the movie is such a product of the era it was made. In the early 80's, the idea of the Russians landing helicopters and trying to occupy American soil wasn't a crazy notion, it was everybody's darkest fear. The new film will replace the Russians with the Chinese. Cause you know how concerned everyone is about the Chinese storming American soil. They're not going to invade America. They practically own it. Frankly it seems kind of naive and sweet to think the fear would be a sneak attack in the midwest rather then a rain of nuculear weapons decimating the major cities. This premise really doesn't work in 2009, its very much a product of the early 1980's.

The film will be directorial debut of Dan Bradley, a former stunt co-ordinator and veteran second unit director. Bradley's cast is a who's who of who? Chris Hemsworth headlines, seen recently in A Perfect Getaway and soon to be Thor. Then there's Isabel Lucas, who you know is a really good actress 'cause she was in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Then, of course there's Josh Peck, who's best known as a voice actor. But then, in the sea of no names, I found a name that instantly rang a bell. Connor Cruise.

Connor Cruise is the child that Tom Cruise adopted with Nicole Kidman because having a child of

their own wasn't possible because he wasn't far enough into the Scientology program that makes girls less icky. Connor, now 14, made his acting debut last year playing a younger version of Will Smith in Seven Pounds. Now he has a co-starring role in a major feature film. Seriously? Did I miss the part where this kid paid his dues? Or even paid a due? Just one? Maybe a two episode arc on Gossip Girl? So let me get this straight: Smith's own son, Jaden made his debut in The Pursuit of Happyness, playing Will's son (big stretch) then he was handed a plum roll in The Kung Fu Kid. Now Connor Cruise plays Smith's son in Seven Pounds and he gets handed a roll in Red Dawn. Whoever the next actor to play Smith's son in any movie will no doubt be the new Teen Wolf.

Who likes "Creed?"

I admit, I'm a sucker for nostalgia. This summer's been rough, I feel like my childhood is dying with the loses of Michael Jackson and John Hughes. Nostalgia has driven me to purchase many DVDs that I regretted purchasing just moments after the credits rolled, or in some cases moments after they began. Everything is always better in your memory. You tend to remember what you loved and sweep what you didn't like under the carpet.

I went to The Police reunion show, and I must admit, I didn't go in expecting much. I was simply going for nostalgic reasons and because they were a band I always wanted to see live. Part of my musical live show bucket list. While I was expecting a bunch of aging rockers mailing it in and collecting a massive pay day, they actually put on a fantastic show. (If you're a music fan and you get a chance to see Stuart Copeland drum live, I would highly recommend it.) So I fully understand the lure of the "reunion" concert, honestly I do.

But honestly, did anybody want a Creed reunion show? I feel like we got pretty damn lucky that they decided to split up after such a short time together putting out truly shitty music; and I really don't recall anybody mentioning them after they left the scene, so why are they coming back? Is it like Candyman, and some bastard said "Creed" three times in a row which brought them back from the depths of hell? Whatever evil forces conspired to make this happen, I'm not sure, but on Thursday night Creed launched their reunion tour.

It gets worse.

Unfortunately, they're not just going town to town churning out their sub-par Pearl Jam cover band crap but they are also going to inflict another album upon us too. What the hell? Aren't things bad enough with the economy tanking, global warming and Paula leaving Idol? Do we need this too?

SCOTT STAPP LOOKING LIKE A FIST MAGNET

Who exactly is this reunion for? Was there actually fans out there clamoring for their return? I've never - in my life - encountered a Creed fan. Who are these people? Are they the same people who are mysteriously purchasing Nickelback albums, apparently under cover of the night? I just don't understand what the appeal is for this band. Their music seems so ... generic. What do Creed do that a dozen other bands don't do significantly better? Usually I can see why artists I may not be a fan of personally are successful. They write music with infectious hooks, they work with skilled pop producers that make radio-friendly music or they simply know how to write a catchy chorus that you find yourself singing and hate yourself for simultaneously. I don't find anything unique or interesting about Creed's music in any way. There's nothing they are doing that you haven't heard any number of other bands do much, much better.

What are Creed delivering that has led to such massive success? I dismissed Creed as shit from the get go. I can honestly say that "With Arms Wide Open" might be my least favorite song of the last twenty years. I avoided all things Creed until I heard the pleasant news that the band was splitting up. (In the interest of full disclosure, I thought Creed sucked ass well before I discovered what a massive douchebag lead singer Scott Stapp is. And wow, he really is a huge douchebag. He once told Rolling Stone that he considered suicide because he felt his whole band hated him and he was going to kill himself to become a "Kurt Cobain martyr-type" and that the band would be happy cause his death would lead to greater sales. What kind of asshole thinks this, let alone tells a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine?)

Awhile back, in our morning meeting for MTV News, someone pitched the Creed reunion for the headlines of our show, and I mumbled some sarcastic remark (as I often do) but later on, out of curiosity, I read up on what Creed had done before they split. It was shocking.

• They have sold 35 million records, 26 million of them in the States alone. Thirty five million records!

• Their second album, Human Clay, the musical atrocity that gave us "Higher" and "With Arms Wide Open" is certified 11X Platinum. It's the 54th highest selling album in the history of the United States. Sadly, this isn't something we can simply blame on Americans and their lousy taste; it's 6X Platinum in Canada. It's also - beyond a shadow of a doubt - fucking awful.

• Human Clay was in Billboard's top 15 albums for over a year.

• Creed are the first band to have three singles on the Billboard Top 20 at the same time. I would have had difficulty naming three Creed songs if I didn't check out their discography on wikipedia.

• Creed released an album called Weathered in 2001. I'd never heard of it, and I can't say I'm familiar with any of the songs on the album except the craptastic "My Sacrifice." However, the record was #1 for eight weeks, which is a record they share... with the Beatles. What!?!

How is all of this possible, first of all, and secondly, how is it that I don't know a single person that likes this band? There are plenty of things that are very popular that I find baffling. For the life of me, I don't know why professional Wrestling is popular; it amazes me that phone sex is a successful business idea and I must confess that the entire Harry Potter phenomenon is something I've never quite understood.

WORLD'S GREATEST T-SHIRT

But in all of those cases (well, maybe not the phone sex one, but I can see why someone might keep their fandom quiet in that case) I know plenty of people that like these things. Do Creed fans know the music is utter shit, and as a result they keep the fact that they like the band on the down low? People are clearly listening to this shit and buying their CDs... the evidence is there, but nobody seems willing to admit they are doing so.

Is Creed the musical equivalent of phone sex?

Documentary on John Hughes

Just saw this on Slash Film, a documentary about the "disappearance" of John Hughes, who essentially retired from Hollywood after directing Curly Sue in 1991. The film, Don't You Forget About Me, follows for Canadian filmmakers as the travel from Toronto to Hughes' home of Chicago to try and track him down. The movie is loaded with interviews with former cast members and other filmmakers who've made teen flicks (Jason Reitman, Kevin Smith) but I suspect they never did speak with the reclusive Hughes, as he doesn't appear in the trailer. It's a shame he died before this came out... seems like a Hughes love-in.

Update: The film has officially been picked up, with Canada's Alliance Releasing securing the rights. No date has been set for its release, yet.

More details at the movies official site.

New Trailer for "Where the Wild Things Are"

@ Yahoo! Video

My most eagerly anticipated film of 2009. I had read that the second trailer was going to use a Flaming Lips song, but Arcade Fire returns for trailer two as well.

Not sure why it's cropped here, but click the link for Yahoo below the media player to see it properly (and in HD.)

Top 5 John Hughes Flicks

With the passing of John Hughes, I've been talking to a lot of people about his films, and inevitably the conversation turns to what were the best... It's amazing to me, but there are films I absolutely love that don't even make this list. Anthony Michael Hall's performance as Farmer Ted in Sixteen Candles is so strong I will watch that film any time I stumble upon on TV, but it doesn't crack this list. Vacation is literallly filled with classic lines, but I'm omitting it here and using the excuse that because Hughes didn't direct it, it's okay to leave it off. Pretty in Pink is another solid flick that just has too much competition ahead of it to crack the top five (though the Duckman would make a list of Hughes' classic characters.) I could go on, but I won't. Without further ado, the Top Five John Hughes flicks....

5) Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

When this film came out in 1987, much was made about the fact that this was John Hughes' "adult" movie, and there were legitimate questions about whether he could make a grown up picture. There was also a lot of talk about him spreading himself too thin. In a two year span leading up to this movie Hughes either wrote or directed (and often did both) The Breakfast Club, European Vacation, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Some Kind of Wonderful. It is mind boggling that one man could be that prolific, then on top of it, he decides to change gears and make an "adult" movie. Well, the concern was all for not. The movie is a modern classic with John Candy (who worked with Hughes often, but never better than here) giving the best performance of his too-short career and Steve Martin also delivering. This is a very funny film, but also a movie with tremendous heart.

Best Moment: For me, it's the scene where Candy is driving Steve Martin at night and another motoroist tries to tell them they are driving the wrong way on the highway. "How would he know where we're going? He's drunk!"

4) Weird Science (1985)

Hughes always seemed to have an afinity for the geek, and Anthony MIchael Hall made a career out of playing dweebs for him, but this film is the ultimate nerd fantasy. Weird Science - for my money the funniest of all the Hughes films - is a fantasy about two highschool geeks that create the perfect woman on their computer. This movie is just flat out funny and includes mutant bikers, the gorgeous Kelly LeBrock, a pre-fame Robert Downey Jr. with his pre-fame teeth, a missle silo and Bill Paxton as Jabba the Hutt.

Best Moment: This one's easy: Anthony Michael Hall, 17 and drunk in a seedy Chicago blues bar working a cigar whilte telling his tale of woe about "an eighth grade girl with great big titties."

3) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

I remember when I first saw this movie, I walked out of the theatre certain I had just seen the best movie ever. Well it doesn't still hold that title for me, I am still incredibly fond of this movie and totally baffled that Matthew Broderick, who showed such charsmia in this movie didn't become a massive movie star. Jeffery Jones, as Principal Rooney is fantastic in this movie and Charlie Sheen's cameo at the end of the flick in the police station is top notch. (Sheen stayed awake for something like 36 hours leading up to shooting his scene in order to look appropriately bleary-eyed for his role as a drug offender. Next time you watch the movie, look at his eyes ... it worked.)

Best Moment: Ferris taking over a float and channelling Wayne Newton and the Beatles is a pretty iconic scene now, twenty years later. At the time, I was confused as to why he was lip synching a song obviously sung by a woman. Years later, I discovered that woman was Wayne Newton.

2) The Breakfast Club (1985)

To me, this is the ultimate classic high school movie. On paper, the premise sounds way too cliched to have any chance of working. Each character is literally a cliche ... The jock, the nerd, the princess, the space cadet, etc. But the film is so well written, and the angst and issues are not just instantly identifiable to teenagers, but they are relatable to people long since removed from their teen years because quite simply it's real. Judd Nelson as Bender delivers a career defining performance (though he probably didn't know he could measure what was left of his career in months at the time this movie was made) but all of the soon-to-be dubbed "Brat Pack" give great perfromances in this movie. Also, the late Paul Gleason, as Richard "Dick" Vernon, the teacher that oversees detention, is nothing short of fantastic.

Best Moment: There are so many iconic, classic scenes in this movie, but if I had to pick a favorite, its the scene where Nelson's Bender has wandered off from the detention and Vernon finds him in the gym with a basketball. Vernon, incensed, demands he return to detention and Bender responds "Don't you want to hear my excuse? I was goin' for a scholarship!"

1) Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

I suspect there will be a lot of "Best of John Hughes" lists in the next 24 hours, and I also suspect this movie won't be on those lists, but to me, this is the best of the bunch. Eric Stoltz plays Keith, an alienated highschool kid who pines for Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson) and when he shares this with tomboy best friend Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) she laughs off his chances. The movie does an excellent job of examining what it feels like to be a teenager wrestling with a crush, where it all feels so intense; particularily as you watch it literally tearing Watts apart. Canadian actor Elias Koteas steals almost every scene he's in as Duncan, a skinhead Stoltz befriends in detention and Craig Sheffer nails his role as the rich asshole that dates Amanda Jones.

Best Moment: Stoltz's character is about to get his ass kicked when the door swings open and there's Duncan with his crew to save the day announcing to the assembled masses that he doesn't think that ass whoopin' is gonna be "neccessary." What follows is one of my favorite scenes in cinema and still leaves me with a big smile on my face now, even though I've seen it a dozen times.

John Hughes 1950-2009

John Hughes, the filmmaker that brought us classics like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off passed away today at 59.

Hughes was easily my favorite filmmaker as kid. When I think of the movies I loved in the 80's, his name comes up over and over again. Besides the ones mentioned above, I was a huge fan of Vacation, Weird Science, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and Some Kind of Wonderful. I actually just recently watched Weird Science again, on DVD, after a lengthy discussion about "what ever happened to John Hughes" during a trip to Seattle with a colleague. For my money, one of the funniest scenes in all of cinema takes place early in that movie where Anthony Michael Hall's character gets drunk off his ass in a Chicago blues bar and starts to tell the regulars there about his teenage love life.

Hughes successes in the 1980's coincided with the rise of MTV; and the two pop culture titans complimented each other very well. There are many songs that when I hear them, I instantly think of a John Hughes movie. I can't hear "Holiday Road" without thinking of Clark Griswald driving the family truckster across America. When I think of Sixteen Candles, I hear The Thompson Twins singing "If You Were Here." Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" is forever linked to The Breakfast Club (and, interestingly, the band had no interest in recording the song but Hughes himself convinced them to record it. It became their biggest hit ever.) When I think of Pretty in Pink, I think of OMD's "If You Leave." Dave Wakeling, from the English Beat recorded to the title track to She's Having A Baby and Ferris Bueller's Day Off introduced me to Sigue Sigue Sputnik and, of course, Yello's "Oh Yeah" which will forever be the theme song playing in my head when I see a kickass car.

Hughes, in the 1980's, was incredibly prolific. Vacation was his first produced screenplay, and after it hit, the one time Chicago ad-man saw several of his screenplays go into production, many with him directing as well. As the 80's transitioned to the 90's, Hughes was the reigning king of "teen cinema" and his formula was quite simple. While others made films exclusively about horny or stoned teenagers, Hughes took the seemingly simple step of making them actual human beings with relatable problems and funny dialogue. His movies rarely had nudity, sex or dick jokes, hallmarks of "teen movies" and instead looked at things like class struggles, first crushes, sibling rivalry and growing up. With nothing left to accomplish in teen movies, Hughes started the 90's with a monster success, the family comedy Home Alone. While that movie was successful beyond his wildest dreams and made him a gagillionaire, it really was the beginning of the end for Hughes the filmmaker. A few more kiddie flicks followed, including the awful remake of Miracle on 34th Street and the totally unnecessary 'live action' version of 101 Dalmations before Hughes simply retreated from Hollywood altogether.

So many of his films were important to me growing up, and so many of them are laced with such nostalgia that it's very difficult to pick a favorite out of the group. But the one that really stands out, and really holds up after many many viewings is one of his least known. In 1987, Hughes

wrote and produced a film called Some Kind of Wonderful, that, in many ways, was a re-hashing of his 1985 flick Pretty in Pink. (Both films were directed by Howard Deutch, strangely, considering how similar they are.) Some Kind of Wonderful is a simple teenage love story about Keith, a blue collar kid who doesn't really fit in at school who pines for the unattainable Amanda Jones, who rolls with the rich kids. Keith has a tom-boy best friend Watts; who tries to talk him out of pursing the girl of dreams. The relationships in the movie are all incredibly well written, the friend, the love interest, the interaction with his family, all of it. While many will be talking about his well known classics, this is the movie that I would hold up as an example of what an excellent writer he was. If you haven't seen it, you really should.

Rest in Peace, John Hughes, and thanks for all of the wonderful memories.

Check This Flick Out: "District 9"

I went to a press screening this morning for the new sci-fi flick District 9. In a summer of crappy action films - I'm looking at you, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - and megahyped sequels along comes this movie, with nobody you ever heard of in the cast and a cryptic advertising campaign, and, the biggest sin for blockbuster season... it's an indie film!

District 9 rose out of the ashes of the ill-fated big screen version of Halo. Neill Blomkamp, the films director, directed a few Halo shorts and was tapped to direct the feature film version of the popular Microsoft video game, but five months into pre-production, the movie collapsed. Peter Jackson, who was producing the film, instead had him adapt one of his short films Alive in Joburg into a feature. Personally, I have zero interest in a movie about a grossly over-rated video game, and after watching District 9 - and seeing what a truly amazing directorial debut it is - Halo collapsing is the best thing that could have happened.

District 9 is a sci-fi flick, but like most good science fiction, the movies themes are torn from the present. This movie is really about race and xenophobia. Blomkamp, who's based out of Vancouver but grew up in South Africa, sets the film in Johannesburg. In a recent interview, he

spoke of his desire to set a sci-fi story in the world he knew growing up; but I suspect the setting has more to do with Apartheid then it does geography. The movie tells the story of Aliens that are "trapped" on earth; their mothership is stuck, hovering over the city for decades. Instead of a hostile attack; or a brotherhood and a sharing of technologies, instead the aliens are essentially refugees. Ultimately, as the world's leaders argue about what do with them, the aliens are forced into internment camps in South Africa where they live in squalor under the boot of the oppressive government. Blomkamp does an excellent job of raising questions without getting preachy; and I suspect as a native of South Africa, he had plenty he wanted to say on the subject, but he lets the audience, for the most part, arrive at their own conclusions. He never gets heavy handed as a story teller and does a great job of pacing the movie as well as balancing the social commentary with the action of the movie.

As I mentioned earlier, this movie started out as an "indie" before eventually picking up a distribution deal. This is baffling because this looks like a $90 million film (though it was apparently made for closer to $30 million.) The film is literally wall-to-wall special effects, but the CGI is never distracting from the story (like it almost always is for me) because they are simply incredibly well done and they are always there for the story. Also worth noting is the performance of the lead actor Sharlto Copley. I'd never heard of him heading into the screening, but he delivers a fantastic performance as a field operative tasked with relocating all of the "illegal aliens" from District 9 to a new camp. Copley, a South African native who is a childhood friend of Blomkamp and had no previous screen acting experience, appeared in some test footage, and impressed Peter Jackson enough that he okayed him playing the lead role in the film. This really is the anti-blockbuster. It's written, directed and starring people you've never heard of, made for a tiny budget (relatively speaking for these kinds of movies) and set in South Africa. This film would never get made in Hollywood. They would never go for the no name cast, they would force the film to be set in a US city, and, of course, they'd hire a legion of hacks to "re-write" the script over and over again until it was "commercial" enough. That begin said, t's loaded with special effects, amazing action sequences and a really compelling story. I think this movie will do big business.

This is not only a truly great sci-fi film, but it's also an exciting debut for Neil Blomkamp. He's already revealed that his next project will likely be another a Sci-Fi flick that he's developing that he described as being "very unique." Count me in.

Check out his short film, Alive in Joburg that inspired District 9 right here

Why "Bruno" Disappoints

I was really looking forward to Bruno. I thought what Sacha Baron Cohen did with Borat: Cultural Learnings of America to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was nothing short of revolutionary for the comedy film. I saw Borat with a colleague during the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Our screening was early in the morning and we were savagely hungover from a way-too-late evening the night before. During TIFF, several bars have extended last calls, and we had shut down a few in a row. When we arrived at the screening, we were just minutes away form the curtain opening, and the only seats available were in the front row. Front row seats with your head thrown back so you can see the screen, viciously hung over, in a theatre filled with jaded press people is probably the worst way to see a crass, low-brow comedy, but that theatre literally erupted with laughter.

What I loved about that movie - beyond that it was simply hilarious - was the clever way that Cohen used Americans ignorance about the world outside their borders against them, and simply gave them enough rope to hang themselves. By playing a foreign character that seemed so keen to embrace everything that is "America," they immediately let their guards down and embraced him. No matter what offensive, outrageous thing he said, they either didn't react to it (cause everyone knows foreigners can be such savages!) or worse, they acknowledged it and behaved like their were around like minded people. Then he was free to start letting out the rope - like the scene with the frat boys on the RV - and let them hang themselves as they reveal their own racist and sexist beliefs. No question, many people were duped and made to look very bad in that film - but the trickery aside, he didn't put those words in their mouths. The lawsuits that resulted seemed to be a lot of people angry they got tricked. They should be angry that so many people saw how smallminded they were and how much ugliness they had inside them. The film really created a device for them to say the things they normally wouldn't, and many of them felt "safe" to do so because they were under the impression the "film" would be shown only in Kazakhstan, a place I suspect many of them had never even heard of.

I naturally assumed that Bruno would use this same "gimmick." It seemed like a fantastic idea, as homophobia still seems to be a widely accepted form of bigotry in North America.

Despite all the advances the gay rights movement has made in the last twenty years, you can still walk into any classroom in this country and hear one student call another "gay" without a teacher batting an eye. If you substituted the word "gay" for a racial slur, this wouldn't fly. Even in the media, the homosexual lifestyle is presented in very specific, stereotypical ways. Gay males in cinema are primarily the "fabulous" best friend to a plucky female who's not having much luck on the romantic front. To ensure that these males are not too gay, they are almost always not involved in a relationship themselves, because, afterall, we don't want to see the gay character, you know being gay. Other forms of media do little to hide their own personal agendas. Every year when the Gay Pride Parade happens here in Toronto, the local news stations cover it and without fail, they will show a group of men in leather gear, asses hanging out walking someone on a leash as if that is an actual representation of what the parade is about. They seem to go out of their way to find the image that will most upset a conservative viewer as if to say "you we're right! These people are deviants."

So it seemed to me, the timing was fantastic for Bruno. I though this film would really do a great job of showing these biases, this bigotry, and letting people see how truly stupid it all is. Unfortunately, it seems the filmmakers forgot what it was that made Borat work so well in the first place. While the character of Borat was obviously a gross exaggeration; he was presenting this character to people that would have no idea what a man from Kazakhstan would really be like, so it worked. The concept of the film wasn't to see how people would react to him, it was to see how people would react to the phoney belief system he presented as the way of life from where he was from. Women beneath animals in terms of the hierarchy of their society, Jews are evil, etc.

The problem with Bruno is Cohen creates a character that would be offensive to anybody, regardless of their opinons of homosexualty. His characterization is so over the top that it's not identiiable as real in anyway. Early on in the film there's a sex scene involving Cohen, a little person and a machine mounted with a dildo. This has nothing to do with the homosexual lifestyle; and worse then that, is simply not comical in any way. (It sounds much funnier then it plays, sadly.)

At no point in the film does Cohen create the kind of situations he so skillfully managed to find himself in in Borat. I was fully expecting a film that took a comedic - but revealing - look at what the average man on the street American really thought about homosexuality. With gay marriage such a hot button issue in the United States, and the bible belt still raging against gay rights, it certainly seemed like best thing to do with the character of Bruno. Instead, Cohen wants to look at things like celebriy worship (gee, what a taboo) and wastes a chunk of the film taking shots at Angelina Jolie and Madonna for adopting African children (the kind of satire one might expect in Scary Movie 5) While Borat had many cringe-worthy scenes where you're laughing at how stupid the people he's duping really are; this film had very little of that. There's a great scene where a woman is so desperate to book her child for a photoshoot, she completely disregards common sense, good taste, and the childs safety. And there's another scene where two vapid "PR Experts" illustrate that it takes very little brains to work in that industry. Both are very funny scenes. Neither have a thing to do with homosexuality. There's a sequence in the movie where Bruno has made a pilot for his North American television show, and he has a chance to show the program to a focus group, as well as a network executive. This is the perfect set-up for him to present something that will cause people to show their prejudice. A shot of two men kissing shouldn't be anymore offensive then a shot of a man and woman kissing, for example, so he could put people in a situation where they would have to defend or explain their own bigotry. Instead, the television show he previews for them shows slo-motion photography of his cock being whipped around in a circucular motion, over and over again. He goes so far in the other direction, that you're not revealing peoples bigotry, you're showing them something that any sane person would say is unacceptable for television and is simply offensive. Perhaps this would be excusable if it were at least funny. It's not.

So if the film isn't about lampooning the hypocritcal homophobes in the United States, and is actually taking the piss out of the star obsessed culture that celebrates Paris Hilton and the like - then what was the point of making the lead character gay? Just so you could take a few cheap shots? In the end, the film is really more about the same tired anti-gay jokes that the kid in the classroom who insults his friend by calling him "gay" would think is funny in the first place. What was the point?

Before the film was released, I was speaking with a gay friend about the movie, and he said he was looking forward to it, but his only concern was there would no doubt be a large chunk of the audience that wouldn't realize he was satirizing homophobic ideas, and instead would think the movie was simply bashing gays. Little did we know that the movie wouldn't really satirize it at all, and instead simply would play the gay character as an over-the-top sexual deviant with a crippling case of megalomania.

This movie is a big missed opportunity.