Git R Dud!

[UPDATE: So, how's this for weird. I write a post about how there's a lot of bad movies coming up in the next year, and that very same day, Quint at Ain't It Cool News posts an article about the new Zach Braff movie. It's just as Dr. Thompson said...All energy flows in accordance with the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy it.

Anyway, Quint starts the article with this delicious bit of slack-jawed idiocy.

I loved GARDEN STATE. Loved, loved, loved it. Natalie Portman has never been cuter onscreen and that's saying something.

That's nice, Quint. Now why don't you go outside and play? Adults are talking.

Here's the meat of the story:

OPEN HEARTS is a remake of a 2002 Danish flick called ELSKER DIG FOR EVIGT about a man who is paralysed in a car accident and his fiance who ends up having an affair with a doctor in the hospital where he's recovering. To add another twist onto things, the Doctor's wife is the one responsible for the accident which paralysed the poor bastard. I haven't seen the flick, but it sounds complex and right up Braff's alley. A Zach Braff romantic comedy is proving to be a treasure to film, a breath of fresh air to the genre.

Yeah, sounds right up Braff's alley. It's set in a hospital...just like his dim-witted sitcom, "Scrubs"! It's structured around ludicrous turns of fate, odd coincidences and accidental connections...just like his dim-witted feature Garden State! Plus, the original film isn't in English, which could only benefit a Zach Braff feature. Let's hope he'll stick to that in the remake, so I don't have to hear any more painful dialogue about hamster burials and the life-altering greatness of The Shins!]

So far, 2006 doesn't exactly seem to be blowing away the competition in terms of overall movie quality. And I'm not just saying that because there hasn't been a single film released in theaters yet that I've had any desire whatsoever to see. I mean, I know January and February are slow months...but come on, Hollywood, I know you can do better than Madea's Family Reunion and a Steve Martin Pink Panther remake that was held over from Summer 2005 because it's so noxious. I know you can.

I'm also kind of down on 2006 this week because all of the news on upcoming releases is so dire. There are some bright spots on the horizon, particularly in terms of science-fiction, and this Winter does bring us a new Martin Scorsese film starring Jack Nicholson, but overall, 2006 feels kind of bleak. Even a lot of the upcoming films that do sound intriguing don't actually open until 2007 (like, for example, Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers' adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are).

In addition to that atrocious X3 nonsense I wrote about yesterday and Bryan Singer's thus-far-questionable Superman spin-off and Michel Gondry's apparently-disappointing Eternal Sunshine follow-up, The Science of Sleep, check out some other anxiety-causing 2006 releases:

- John Travolta has written a romantic comedy in which he hopes to co-star with Olivia Newton-John. Okay, go throw up, I'll wait until you get back...All better? Okay, good. Anyway, it seems that he is also writing a theme song for the film which he will sing himself. But don't worry...John assures Sky News that "fans will love it." My only question is: Fans of what?

- Ben "Bull Cow" Affleck will write and direct an adaptation of Mystic River author Dennis Lehane's mystery novel Gone Baby Gone. It's about a husband-and-wife team of private detectives investigating how the hell Ben Affleck managed to get himself cast as Jack Ryan in Sum of All Fears. Oh, sorry, I meant they're investigating the disappearance of a little girl. And how Ben Affleck managed to get himself cast as Daredevil.

- Check out the trailer for Larry the Cable Guy's movie debut, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Now, those of you who aren't currently enjoying a wicked glue buzz may notice that this title gives one man, Larry, two different jobs, which is kind of confusing. If he switches occupations, wouldn't he then cease to be "Larry the Cable Guy," and become "Larry the Health Inspector"? Just like how that guy changed his name from "Cedric The Entertainer" to "Cedric the Bloated Overpaid Waste of Life."

- A sequel to Bruce Almighty is in the works, with Jim Carrey out and Steve Carrell reprising his role as "Evan the Forgettable Supporting Character" from the first film. I don't have a good joke here, I'm just stupefied that Steve Carell would want to kill off all his career momentum right now by doing a lame sequel to a Jim Carrey movie that's too stupid for even Jim Carrey. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like him in Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine and The Cable Guy (in which he did NOT play a Health Inspector!)...but this is a man who found Ace Ventura 2 to be a perfectly acceptable follow-up project. How dumb does a movie have to be before Jim Carrey goes, "Hey, you know what? I'm above this. I'm going to go do Fun With Dick and Jane 2, then something arty, and then some different movie where I cram asparagus down my nose and move my asscheeks to make it appear that my butt is speaking."

- Did you know that Lindsay Lohan is making not one but two different films about historical assassinations? She's playing one of the 22 bystanders at the Ambassador Hotel the day RFK was shot in Emilio Estevez's Bobby AND a friend of John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman (Jared Leto) in Chapter 27. Here are a few other assassinations I think it would be fun to see Lindsay Lohan recreate:

• After an evening of partying at the Lotus, Lindsay stabs, poisons, burns, castrates and finally drowns Rasputin (Christopher Lee)
• While spending an exotic, coked-out weekend with Gavrilo Princip (Vincent Gallo) in Sarajevo, Lindsay witnesses firsthand the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, sparking the first World War
• Driving home, and having enjoyed a few too many chocolate martinis at a Golden Globes after-after-party, Lindsay is horrified to discover that she has hit Jimmy Hoffa (Jack Nicholson) and Natalee Halloway (Mary Kate Olson) with her car, killing him instantly. She, her ex-boyfriend Wilmer Valderama and her former rival Hilary Duff must concoct a scheme for hiding of the bodies.
• Three words: Lindsay Kills Biggie

- You just know Dave Chappelle regrets ever doing that Rick James episode. Don't get me wrong...I, like everyone else on Earth, find it hilarious. When I first saw that "Chappelle Show," I laughed non-stop. I mean...come on..."I'm Rick James, bitch!" That's gold! But now, everywhere he goes, people yell that shit at him. That sketch has become, in its own way, as popular as Rick James and his music. An entire generation will automatically associate that man and his life's work with the phrase "cocaine is a hell of a drug" and Dave Chappelle in a bad wig saying "bitch." This is the challenge that will face Terrence Howard should he go through with the decision to play Rick James in a movie. That article, by the way, mentions other real personalities Howard might play in films, like boxer Joe Louis or judge Thurgood Marshall.

What's interesting is how much his Rick James character might resemble his pimp character DJay from Hustle and Flow. It's hard out here for a superfreak.