Weakends Episode 3: Growing Weaker

Sorry for all the freakin delays with this. I had a shit ton of technical difficulties* when making this. It was actually recorded Wednesday, the 19th. This week Tom gets down and dirty with some upcoming Summer releases before he and G.Rett (myself) get to

The Top 5 Stories for the Weak of 11.14.08 - 11.19.08

5. Little Fockers is in the works

4. Seth Rogen is making porno for Showtime

3. War Monkey's is going to be Crazy!

2. Spike Jonze dishes out some Where The Wild Things Are tidbits

1. New Star Trek Trailer!

As always, you can check out the podcast here, or head direct to the episode in the sidebar. Let us know what you think of the show in the comments. If you have any suggestions or would like to e-mail us some comments, do so at filmadelphiablog [at] gmail.com and we'll be glad to read em on the air!

*if anyone knows where I can get a free GarageBand upgrade for OSX I would much appreciate it. Right now it only lets me edit up to 30 minutes of sound.

Stephen Chow(s) down Green Hornet

This is just a quickie to keep this thing on the sort of kind of regularly updated side of things. Stephen Chow, writer/director of Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, and CJ7 (none of which I've seen... I know... all my geek credit is gone... I need to get on that... anyone wanna loan me some copies?) has signed on to co-star as Kato alongside Seth Rogen in the Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg written Greent Hornet adaptation. Rogen mentioned long ago he'd love to have Chow play the part, and apparantly his wish has been granted.

But the news doesn't end there folks, he's also signed on to direct! This would seem to confirm that this will be a comedic version of The Green Hornet, although I don't know what anyone else would have expected from Rogen and Goldberg. Rogen was quoted a while back as saying they were toying with the idea of it being about Kato being more famous and recognizable than Green Hornet (Kato was originally played by Bruce Lee and is much better remembered by audiences); a story where the sidekick is more famous than the actual hero, which definitely seems like a premise ripe for comedy.

I'm gonna say I'm cautiously optomistic about this one, as I'm not familiar with the source material, or the director. But my yearning to see Seth Rogen don tights* ala Charlie in It's Always Sunny supercedes all of that. What do other people think about this choice?

*Our faithful (and possibly only) reader Dustin has informed me that Green Hornet doesn't wear tights, something I should have known based on all the pictures I've seen of the original show scattered about the net. As Dustin puts it, his costume is similar to The Spirits, just a suit and a mask over his eyes. Thus, my reason for being excited about this has been destroyed. However, Dustin assures me the source material is the kind of campy, fun stuff that Chow has made a career out of, so it sounds like a perfect fit. Consider me re-excited.

More Ghostbusters confirmation

It seems my speculation that perhaps Rogen and Goldberg are writing the Ghostbusters sequal was wrong.  Apparantly Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, the guys who wrote the upcoming Harold Ramis directed Year One (and also some of the better episodes of The Office this past season), are working on a script for a Ghostbusters sequal.  This is all that's confirmed, but the connection to Ramis is promising.  Also promising is that Year One is being produced by Apatow, thus another connection to previous rumors.  Here's hoping this thing all falls into place, cause I, for one, am very excited.

Banned Zack and Miri poster!

Apparantly this will only be appearing in Canada, as it was banned by the MPAA (jerks, I can't believe they control the advertising too. But I guess in todays world someone was bound to be controlling it). I think this is just hilarious. Look at Rogen's face.

And really, only astute viewer's would catch the ludeness. I also don't think children would figure out what was going on here. I see no reason why this was banned. If anything should cause this poster to be banned, it should be the word Porno, because I can see kids asking their parents what that word means. However, I'm so glad the MPAA has allowed them to pass with that as the title, because it is perfect and hilarious.

Is it me, or does Rogen only do movies with obvious, self-referential titles (or are all titles technically self-referential?)? 40 year-old Virgin, Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri make a Porno, even Superbad (sorta). Indie film-makers, this is your chance. Write a movie called "Asshole" and make the main character a complete dick. Seth will be sure to do it, and we'll get to see him take a turn as a bit of a different character for once.

New Red Band Zack and Miri Trailer!

I'm wicked excited for this folks, and I'd like to thank Peter over at /film for tweeting this.

I think the first scene in the trailer made me laugh the hardest.  "Is that like a sequel?" could only be delivered so humorously by Seth Rogen.  Oh wait nevermind, Craig Robinson talking about not being happy with his wife might be funnier.  That dude is a fuckin scene stealer.  I was already wicked pumped for this one (huge Kev nerd) and this has only fueled the fire.  Here's hoping we don't get too much spoilerish stuff before the movie comes out, as Smith tends to do (or at least he did on Clerks 2). 

I'd also like to point out that when Peter tweeted this, he called it the "Red Bank" trailer.  Very clever Mr. Sciretta.  Very clever, indeed.

Did this make anyone else laugh out loud?

If Stephen Colbert were actually president...

It would go something like this.  The trailer of Monsters and Aliens won't be up for long I'm sure, so check it while you can.  I'm typically unimpressed by the large, star-studded voice casts they have for these movies, and Dreamworks animation usually disappoints, but I think all signs point to go on this one.  The preview is funny without trying too hard, and the cast seems like a balanced fit for once.  What do you think?

Someone fly me to Toronto!

Cause their festival is gonnabe kick-ass this year! They're getting Synecdoche, New York, The Brothers Bloom, The Wrestler, AND Zach and Miri Make a Porno.

Let's go through the list (in the order mentioned above). You've got Charlie Kaufmann's directorial debut starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener, so um, fuckin duh. Then you've got Rian Johnson's follow-up to Brick, which as I said the other day was one of my favorite films of 2005, and if you haven't seen the trailer for this, you've got to check it out. It's got an interesting cast and could be a real winner.

Then there's Aranofsky's latest, and while I said the other day that the new photos that dropped really didn't leave me yearning to get to the theater, he hasn't disappointed me yet, and I really love his visual sense. I suppose I'm kind of excited to see how that translates with this kind of material. And then there's the movie I'm probably most excited to see this year, and it's only cause I'm a fucking huge Kevin Smith fanboy. Oh and also cause I'm a huge Rogen fanboy, and I think working of a Smith script is going to be like the perfect comedy storm.

Also of note are Danny Boyle and Richard Linklater's latest, Slumdog Millionare and Me and Orsen Welles respectively. I know nothing about either of these, but both are exciting filmmakers who I really enjoy, so I'm gonna include them anyhow. If you have any info, send it our way! Anyone else excited about any of these?

Pineapple Knights

This weekend, it's been reported, is the fourth weekend in a row that The Dark Knight has enjoyed the numer one spot, coming in this weekend with an estimated $26 mil. This is fantastic news, and all us geeks should cheer. Yayyy.

But Pineapple Express was surely meant for some of us geeks as well wasn't it? Of course it was, and the weekend numbers reflect this, putting it at number two with $22.5 mil. But is this really an accurate representation of Pineapple's numbers? I mean, it opened wednesday, so shouldnt its opening weekend either be considered wednesday to sunday, or its first three days in release? According to cinematical, the film had actually pulled $40.5 mil for the full 5 days, meaning its techincal opening weekend was much larger than TDK's take this weekend. I know this means all of the info about other movies that weekend would be inaccurate (you'd have to look at the 5-day cume for all of them, or something) But I think this movie should be given a fair chance.

Maybe what I should be arguing for is no more wednesday releases. If they're not going to tally wed and thurs into your opening numbers, what the hell is the point of opening a few days earlier?

What do you think? Is it fair to say that TDK actually held the number one spot again this weekend? Do you think movies should be allowed to open on Wednesdays?

Rumors are like STD's...

Only dicks spread them. Or something like that. MTV interviewed James Franco the other day about a possible Pineapple Express sequal (which Seth Rogen has said, given the right budget, he'd be interested in doing) which I actually think could be a great sequal. Just like the 80's action movies they're taking from, they could franchise Dale and Saul (and hopefully Red too). However, in the interview, Franco muses about a sequal in which the kids from Superbad buy weed from Dale and Saul and have to go on the run together. While this actually sounds like it could also be a hilarious concept (here's hoping Rogen's Officer Michaels is sent after them so that we can get a Rogen vs. Rogen chase scene, on foot) and the characters could actually come together in a logical way, I don't think Franco was being serious. I feel as though I saw an interview with Rogen not too long ago where he mused about the same concept, but he definately sounded like he was kidding. Even the way Franco phrases most of what he says indicates to me that he's just thinking off the top of his head.

The only reason I'm even posting about this is because I feel as though this happens far too often, especially now in the blogosphere (do they still call it that?). Reporters choose specific quotes from interviews they do and then pull them out of context and say "A Pineapple/Superbad crossover! Could it be true?" And then they give a bunch of conjecture about what Apatow might be thinking, and suddenly people are talking about this like it's actual news, when really Franco was just having a laugh with the reporter. This is made worse by the blogs who then pull even smaller quotes out of the already small quotes in the original article and ask, are these rumors true? It's dumb. Why not report that Franco had a hilarious little idea that perhaps Rogen should consider writing. Because that's really what you mean MTV. That Franco made you laugh with his little idea, and now you think it would be funny to see it come to fruition.

Does anyone else notice this, and does it bother you as much as me? Or are you just satisfied knowing that you know better, and you can filter out the bullshit yourself?