Critical End!

I don’t know about you, readers, but I’m snowed in. And when I’m snowed in, I like to watch a little bit of this:

As submitted by reader/listener Todd:

This is also useful if you were unaware of the EXACT steps involved in going to a movie. Shorty.

I don’t think we ever posted it here, but I’m a big fan of this video of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon doing their dueling Michael Caine impressions:

Michael Caine, apparently, doesn’t dig it so much. Or at least, he felt compelled to have a little fun at the expense of anyone who tries to imitate his Britishy tones:

[Via Badass Digest]

Finally home from my holiday festivities, and I’ve come baring gifts. Check out the teaser for Kevin Smith’s religious-themed horror film Red State.

Even though this tells us next to nothing, I’m pretty interested. Granted, I’m a Kevin Smith fan, and I’m anxious to see what he can do in this new genre, but casting a crazy priest as your villain seems pretty original to me. I’m probably REALLY wrong about that, so feel free to post links to all the other crazy priest movies in the comments.

Merry Festival of the Bells, folks! Like Logan said, it’s a short week. We wanted to get you guys the Tron/Tron Legacy show today, but holiday travel and technical difficulties intervened. We’ll have it for you next Wednesday, and, if all goes well, True Grit the week after that. It’s a Very Jeff Bridges Christmas.

Speaking of, here’s a bit of Tron to tide you over. The well-remembered 1982 Tron Holiday Special from Funny or Die.

[Via Badass Digest]

I tell ya, this Spider-Man musical, huh? Am I right? The shakily-reviewed, fan-maligned, still unreleased Broadway debut of your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler has been delayed once again.  So what’s the deal this time?  More horrifying wrist injuries?  No, apparently, one of the main issues is that preview audiences have had a tough time following what the hell is going on.

/Film says that producers “have decided that the second act, which is where the show strays from the classic Spider-Man mythology, is unclear and needs to be tinkered with.”  So, first, great job fucking up the story of one of the most recognizable characters in popular fiction to such a degree that it’s not only disappointing, but flat out incomprehensible.

Second, if the whole point of a musical is to tell a story through music, I’m going to guess that the droning, generic contributions of Bono and THE EDGE^TM probably aren’t cutting it. Not a surprise, based on what we’ve already seen. C’mon, that could be a song about literally anything. What does it tell us about Spider-Man?

Luckily, Batman swoops in to the save the day. Not that probably-also-shitty Batman musical they’re cooking up. I’m talking about Christian Bale himself. Check out this interview where he actually starts to sing a song from Newsies. Sure, he stops after only two words, but it still made my day. Plus he transitions in the Powerpuff Girls theme for some reason, which is amazing in its own right. Any father who exposes his daughter to an excellent cartoon that’s been off the air for six years is a great dad in my book.

[Clip via Badass Digest]

Not a ton going down today, but remember that new CG animated Road Runner short WB was working on? Well here it is (in full this time), and you don’t have to suffer through some terrible Cats & Dogs movie to see it.

I dig it. It hit all the right beats, had me laughing out loud, then got out quickly. And it reminded me of Tangled, in that it was produced with CG, but was obviously tailored to look like its hand-drawn source material. Nice going, WB. Let’s see more where this came from, hopefully in front of better movies than Cats & Dogs.

[Via /Film]

Finally, we’ve got our first real taste of Telltale’s new Back to the Future adventure game and it’s glorious. AJ LoCascio sounds amazing as Marty. Chris Lloyd is as Doc-like as ever. The look, the music, and the DeLorean are all pitch perfect. As far as I know, there’s no solid release date, but the first episode is coming out sometime this month.

The biggest remaining question mark involves the villainous Tannen family line. According to the end of the trailer, the second episode is called “Get Tannen!” That indicates that Biff Tannen or one of his ancestors will appear. But Tom Wilson, who played Biff in the films, has told BTTF.com that he hasn’t been approached for voice work. Seems odd since Telltale is pushing hard for authenticity and Wilson’s an active (and probably inexpensive) actor. Maybe the two parties have already struck a deal and are just waiting for the right time to make the big announcement. Either way, we’ll find out soon.

[Trailer via Kotaku]

Hey folks.  It’s a short week due to Thanksgiving.  No podcast and we’ll just be posting today and tomorrow.  So, before the holiday break, I wanted to clear out a couple things I meant to post about last week:

First up, here’s some long lost footage from Back to the Future Part II. It’s the full video loop that plays outside the Biff Tannen Museum scene in alternate 1985. There’s definitely more here than we see in the finished film, and it sounds like the narration is still temp. So, I guess that makes this the version from alternate alternate 1985.

[/Film via BTTF.com]

While we’re on the subject, check out this very interesting article where BTTF scribe Bob Gale debunks some common misconceptions about the trilogy.

It’s old news now, but here’s the full Green Lantern trailer. Everything about it pleases me except the costume which was created entirely by CG rather than physical material. It looked great on the cover of Entertainment Weekly awhile back, but it’s kind of fakey when seen in motion. Hopefully they’ll give it one more pass before it hits theaters.

Here’s a publicity shot for the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark wherein Nicole Kidman from Moulin Rouge! is terrorized by a slouchy, bipedal version of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Badass Digest has three others, each goofier than the last.

"It's the fact that I'm a walking abomination isn't it?"

And finally, if you’re spending Monday counting the hours until the Thanksgiving holiday, embrace your frustration with this video compilation of every violent, primal, non-lingual utterance Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever committed to film. See you next week!

[Via /Film]

Sorry for the exceedingly late post, kids.  Real life got in the way today.  To make up for it, enjoy this 15 minute short film.  It’s not really very good.  But Rider Strong’s in it, so you can pretend it’s a Cabin Fever sequel and it’s suddenly brilliant!

The idea of a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel has been around for a while.  Last time Zemeckis talked about it, he said Roger would definitely be in 2D, but just for fun, here’s some blurry video of a CG Roger test done 12 years ago.

[Via Fred Entertainment]

Man, this show just keeps catering to me more and more. It wasn’t enough to bring Chevy Chase and Joel McHale together in one half hour block of funny, now they’re upping the ante by announcing that this season will feature a stop-motion Christmas episode, presumably as an homage to the Rankin-Bass claymation specials of old.  Expect Abed to be referred to as a “misfit toy” at least once.

This news is even more exciting in that it marks one of very few times we’ve seen Chevy do an animated character.  He did the American version of Doogal a while back, and a few guest voices here and there, but it’s never been a major chunk of his career.  Which is a shame, since Fletch would have made an AWESOME animated series.  Imagine a cartoon Fletch strutting to this theme song and tell me I’m wrong…

Thanks to reader Todd for the tip!

Until today, I had no idea this show existed.  If anyone out there knows where I can obtain episodes of T and T, it is your moral obligation to let me know.

Chris Klein. Street Fighter. His entire performance. 2 minutes.

From /Film.

With Labor Day weekend at hand, I thought I’d cram a lot of awesomness into one mega post.

First up, James Cameron thinks he owns the concept of 3D and takes it upon himself to call out Piranha 3D as “exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D.”  This prompts Piranha producer Mark Canton to point out that not everyone can “take ten years using other people’s money to make and market a film.”  All I can say is that there was ritual mating in both movies and the fish film did it right.

Shamelessly stolen from cbsnews.com

Elsewhere, I Watch Stuff reports that CBS reports that 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair report that nobody gives a crap how evil Mel Gibson is.  76% of those polled said that the scandal would have no effect on their likelihood of seeing a new Mel Gibson movie. If America can separate Gibson the man from Gibson the actor, I suppose I can start going back to my favorite Starbucks, despite that one barista’s outspoken views on abortion.

Here’s Doctor Who favorite David Tennant from the upcoming remake of Fright Night.  I’ve never seen the original, but you can pretty much take any beloved genre actor and cast them as a magician and I’ll see that movie.  Just ask The Prestige.

Speaking of awe-inspiring images, Juan Pablo Bravo made a HUGE size-comparison chart of just about any Hanna-Barbera character you can think of, 600 in all.  Click the tiny sample below for the full shebang.

Almost as cool as knowing the exact relative heights of the Hair Bear Bunch, is Conan O’Brien announcing the name of his new TBS show.  It’s a good thing he’s getting back to work.  With that beard, he looks like he’d be on the streets with a beaver puppet, leaving angry voicemails for Oksana Grigorieva if he didn’t have something to keep him busy.

And finally, let’s usher in the holiday weekend with everybody’s favorite weekend activity.  DANCE PARTY!

Happy Labor Day, folks.