GET READY TO GET LESS DONE! BEHOLD JAROO.COM

If you thought the advent of Hulu.com and Fancast.com had thrown a serious monkey wrench into your world then get ready for even less productivity in your day to day life with jaroo.com. Jaroo is basically hulu or fancast for the kiddie sect and is chock full of cartoon goodness from back when cartoons were more important than live action teen shows on saturday mornings.

Right now the site is beta testing so they have some awesome stuff (Inspector Gadget, Sherlock Holmes In The 22nd Century, Paddington Bear, etc) and some less known and kind of crappy stuff. Regardless it's all fun to watch and once the beta test is over and this thing kicks into high gear the possibilities are endless. If The Real Ghostbuster or Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends or Mr. T or Dungeons And Dragons or any of the shows I grew up loving hit that site you may never see or hear from me again.

For now enjoy JAROO for what it is.

SEQUELS, GHOSTS AND BEARS OH MY!!

So Hollywood's continuing mission to grab anything that might kind of revolve around comics, cartoons or that end of pop culture continues unabated. Now the revolting swine known as the Movie Industry has decided that it's time for a Bernstein Bears movie, yep, that's right, with Where The Wild Things are having some success I know we're going to see a lot more children's books come to life. The problem is that Hollywood won't really care about the material, if it needs to be a movie and more often than not they'll throw in some hack director who is directing the movie based on notes given to him by 5th graders from a focus group.

The original Bearnstein Bears dealt with Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Sister Bear and Brother Bear (when Honey Bear came along I tuned out) a family who lives deep in a fictional town called Bear Country. The tight knit family was usually shown overcoming problems that related to both kids and adults. They were learning books that made learning fun. Apparently the new film will be part live action and part CGI. If I know Hollywood here's what will probably go down:

A good looking but lonely boy (because there's SOOO many of those in reality) wanders away from his equally attractive and way to with-it parents in a fit of rage. The other loser girl at school (who will also probably be hot) follows him and through some kind of magical muckety muck they find the mystical Bear Country and nestle in with the Bearnstein Bears to learn about life and love and the importance of family usually while sickeningly sweet pop songs play.

However the grown us will find Bear Country while looking for the kids and a greedy developer will want to turn Bear Country into some kind of attraction, while shitty Government scientists will want to study them. The human kids will join forces with the Brother and Sister for a slapstick, action packed, crazy-but-it-just-might-work scheme to beat the grown ups. In the end the kids will return home smarter and happier.

Think I'm wrong? Trust me, it's the way Hollywood does everything. In another bit of movie news with the hot box office still burning for the large on hype but low on execution film Paranormal Activities the swine at Viacom are already plotting for a sequel. I can understand that, after all Blair Witch Project 2 was such a good fucking movie clearly this had to be done.

For my taste Paranormal Activity was boring as hell (see me review at HERE) so a sequel might be a step up. I don't know, it's a tough one. Cashing in on a out of left field movie tends to backfire but then again why not, it couldn't be any worse than the original. The new one will probably feature more blood, more CGI effects and God willing more camera angles. Perhaps a great thriller could be born from this boring one but I doubt it.

SURVEILLANCE - MY REVIEW

I don't often review movies that I happen to stumble on when renting but this is a movie so awful, so completely devoid of anything that could even charitably referred to as decent filmmaking that I felt it was almost a public service to warn people about it. Surveillance is directed by Jennifer Lynch daughter of David Lynch and boy does she share his need to toss out character, plot, pacing and dialogue for mood and "quirkiness".

Jennifer Lynch is worse than her father because while she has all of his weaknesses she has none of his strengths. Surveillance is astonishing in it's ability to horrifically nihilistic and painfully boring at the same time. This is a shitty Saw/Hostel type film trying to masquerade as art. Here's how much I hate this movie, I am now going to give away the big twist ending so stop reading if you don't want to know:


BILL PULLMAN AND JULIA ORMAND ARE THE SERIAL KILLERS.

Okay so that will hopefully get people to not even see the film. Even if they curse me for giving away the ending I can sleep better knowing I kept some innocents from wasting two hours of their lives. Surveillance "plot" seems like it might be interesting when it first unfolds. There has been some kind of accident on a deserted road near a small town killing several people including most of a family.

Supposed FBI Agents Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond show up to investigate what went down. From there Surveillance becomes a series of ridiculous events and idiotic plot twists dragged out at a pace that rivals a legless horse pulling itself through a sea of glue. I'm not sure what sucked more, what was going on in the movie or the fact that I wanted to scream "GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT" about halfway through.

Surveillance is really a miracle of filmmaking in that it fails on every level. The script is a logical mess, the characters completely uninteresting, the direction non-existent, the editing sloppy, even the costumes are fucking boring. I guess Lynch figured if she threw in some odd camera angles and creepy music that she'd be compared to her father. Instead she hands us a movie that looks and feels like a pretentious film student's final project gone horribly wrong. I seriously can't believe that somebody green lit this movie.

It's as if Jennifer Lynch walked into a meeting room, pulled down her pants and took a big shit. Then she kneeled down and started waving it around and...sniff sniff...started smelling it. Then she smiled at the movie execs, blew them all and underneath the sheen of newly fired semen she managed to produce enough photos of these producers with live boys or dead girls that she got her money. When the big twist ending reveal comes it's so laughable, so badly handled that I kept scanning the movie backwards to see if I had missed something. Nope, not at all, just a bad script brought to life by a hack director.

To round out the bad script and shoddy acting Lynch also throws in the overly mature and creepy little girl that art house films way overuse, the two in love serial killers who act all oversexed and "CRAZY" by opening their eyes really wide and yelling a lot and even the incredibly hot drug addict (which I love because we all know how hot drug addicts are). The worst of these are the two corrupt cops whose motivations make no sense and are clearly there just as catalysts for the movie's clunker plot.

Surveillance is a great example of how fucking far the apple can really fall from the tree. In this case the tree isn't all that great so the apple that falls lands all rotted and brown. Jennifer Lynch is an awful director and even worse at trying to craft a script. She has no sense of dynamics, tension or character. I beg you to avoid Surveillance at all costs. Better yet if you see a copy steal it and light it on fire. If everybody joined together we could, as a people, destroy every last copy of this vile, boring and completely reprehensible piece of shit.

NEW 24 TRAILER--GET READY TO DODGE THE SEMEN FLYING FROM MY PENIS

Yeah I know the title is a bit much but I fucking LOVE 24 and with so many other good shows either dancing the suck dance (Smallville), getting canceled (Dollhouse) or in their last year (Supernatural) I'm amped for anything I love to still be around. Plus this season looks to kick a whole lot of ass!! DIG IT!!

CAT LADY DOCUMENTARY TRAILER

About a year ago I bought my first cat after years of being a sworn dog person. His name is Quint and he's equal part ass kicking awesomeness and total cunt, which is pretty standard for cats. Now that I own one I can see why people love them and I've even caught myself wishing i could get a second cat for Quint to play with (he has Feline Leukemia so he's a danger to other cats) but beyond two I have no interest. This documentary titled "Cat Ladies" by Christie Callan-Jones is a deeper look at women who take the whole cat love thing way too far. Check it out

CHRIS WARE & NPR

It's been awhile since I posted any animation (yes I understand how that nullifies the whole Daily Animation idea so thanks and shut up) but today I found something by Chris Ware one of my favorite artists of all time. Ware put out (amongst other things) the Acme Novelty Company featuring Jimmy Corrigan the smartest boy in the world. Ware is heir to the Charles Schulz throne as the master of sensitive and extremely in depth characters for comics.

This is a short animated film Chris Ware did around a story from NPR's This American Life. I wish there was more of this stuff but for now enjoy this little gem.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY - MY REVIEW

Paranormal Activity is a new ghost story thriller that shares a lot with the infamous Blair Witch Project from a decade ago. Executed on a shoestring budget Paranormal Activity is shot mostly with a hand held digital camera in what's supposed to be a series of home movies taken by new home owners Micah and Katie. While shooting the goings on of being a new couple in a new home the two attractive yuppies are suddenly barraged by what Katie thinks is a haunting. From there on the audience is subjected to chills and thrills through the eyes of Micah's camera lens.

Being an objective critic I knew going in that most of the "scariest movie ever" tag lines were just empty hype so I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was how incredibly boring Paranormal Activity is, how absolutely nothing happens until a ludicrous ending that made the Blair Witch Project seem like Citizen Kane in comparison. When the movie ended I was shocked, not by the content but by the fact it was over. Something else had to happen right? There had to be more right? Nope, that was it, credits started and the movie was all done. That was actually the most shocking part of the movie.

Paranormal Activity fails on three basic levels. The first is that the film never actually starts, it's a series of beginnings that just peter out. The noises, the creepy moving doors, the sounds, they all seem to tell of something really bad coming that never comes. I sat and waited for this dark entity to manifest itself and instead I got another creaking door. The lack of anything actually becoming of all these precursor haunts makes whatever this evil is seem pretty rudimentary and that saps the fear right out of it. How can you be afraid of a ghost that has the same schtick as Casper or Slimer.

Don't get me wrong I know this is a low budget movie so I wasn't expecting a full fire and brimstone demon arrival but there needed to be something besides footsteps, thumps and creaking doors. A shadow that moved, even the sounds of destruction and then finding the aftermath. Something that allowed us to feel in our bones how awful this entity is or is becoming. The one kind of scary part involving Katie being carried off looks more like something Conan would do to his new lover than the actions of a dark spirit. The darkness that's spreading never really manifests into anything that moves us to be truly afraid.

The second problem comes with how the movie is filmed. It's not that the whole hand held thing is an issue it just isn't handled well here. Micah uses the camera so much, films so much unnecessary footage that halfway through Paranormal Activity you feel like he's shooting a real movie not just trying to film the experiences he and Katie are going through. Once that set in I was constantly taken out of movie by my brain saying things like "Wow, these look like pick up shots." Then there's the fact that ninety percent of the "scares" happen through one angle. The camera sits at the far end of Micah and Katie's bedroom cloaked in "night vision". As soon as you see that angle you know something spooky is going to happen which pretty much saps the tension right out of the film.

The third problem with the film is that filmmakers not fully committing to making this a realistic film. They want to make it seem as though this really happened to such a degree that they don't allow it to happen organically. First the filmmakers thank the families and the police for allowing them to use this "footage" for the movie. Yeah, sorry, at no point would cops let footage like this be used for a motion picture, especially one where college kids were being filmed watching it in order to start an online frenzy.

The filmmakers also toss in this unnecessary plot point having to do with Katie's past that ruins the idea of how awful things randomly happen to good people. The plot point feels forced as if the director/writer watched the final cut and got scared people would pull an Amityville Horror and scream "Get the fuck out of the house" so he tossed in this plot point to avoid that. It's a cheap cop out for a tiny problem that could've been solved any number of ways.

Essentially Paranormal Activity is much like the Emperor's New Clothes; there's a lot of bells and whistles but nothing really there. You never care about Micah or Katie and you never really fear this dark entity that's haunting them. Sure there are a couple of cool jumps but that's about it. If creaking doors and thumps in the night render you speechless with fear then this might be a film you'll find terrifying. For anybody else the scariest thing about Paranormal Activity is that it sucks away 90 minutes of your life you'll never get back.

I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN...UH....WELL...KINDA COMES TOGETHER?

What you're looking at my friends is the new A-Team from the upcoming unnecessary movie version of a TV show that, to be honest, really kinda sucked ass. Let's forget about how dumb this whole idea is and just drink in this photo of the new A-Team. Seriously, just view it for a few seconds and let it flow over you. Now let's chat a bit about how totally incredibly fucking stupid this casting is.

HANNIBAL SMITH: Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith? Seriously? I mean really, all jokes aside, seriously? What the fuck is this about? It's like Deniro and Pacino signing on for Weekend At Bernie's 3 or Daniel Day Lewis deciding to play The Greatest American Hero. I can only figure Neeson has a balloon payment due on a house or is in need of quick cash to keep a teenage girl with a suspicious pregnancy quiet for the rest of her life. Whatever it is I can't believe he's in this movie. Let's not forget that Hannibal is a macho idiot tough guy, I just don't see Neeson being able to pull that off.

Without even trying Neeson will give Hannibal some degree of subtly, some depth of character that makes it instantly feel like it's Ralph Fiennes up there playing a lame TV character. Try to imagine Neeson saying "I love it when a plan comes together"...yeah not at all.


HOWLING MAD MURDOCK: This pivotal part to the complex and layered story arcs around the A Team will be played by Sharlto Copley (District 9). I can only assume here that the filmmakers are going for some kind of tech-over-nutbag vibe for Murdock because Copley just doesn't seem to be truly crazy to me. If he plays it I figure it'll be like when he tried to play "nuts" in District 9. I'm also curious on why all the European actors to play parts in a TV show as all American as fake wars and apple pie.

It's not that ole Sharlto isn't a quality actor but he's not Howling Mad Murdock on any level. Personally I think that the A Team should have been a big slapstick comedy or a spoof, not some serious action film. I guess casting Fiennes and Sharlto is the filmmakers way of legitimizing it.


BA BARACUS: While UFC fighter Rampage Jackson definitely brings the toughness for BA Baracus he completely lacks the lovable quality. Mr. T was tough and could beat people's ass but he was also the kind of guy who hang out with little kids and smile when nobody was looking. Jackson looks like he'd eat little kids and only really smile once he'd gotten somebody to tap out. He also doesn't have the gold chains and that was part of the mystique of BA Baracus. Here's a guy on the run from the US Government and yet he manages to hold on to hundreds of various kinds of gold jewelry.

There's also the whole "afraid to fly" aspect of the old show. I don't think Jackson is afraid of anything much less flying. Not to mention if the rest of the team drugged Jackson and fooled him into going onto a plane as they did in the original show with Mr. T he'd just kill them all. Mr. T was tough but fun, Jackson is just mean and pissed off looking.


The only person who works here is Bradly Cooper as Face because Cooper seems like a slimy dirtbag and that's who Face was down deep. The only thing I am hoping is that in the movie people actually die. One of my biggest issues with the A Team show is that thousands of rounds of ammunition would be fired off and NOBODY ever got shot ever. Nobody died, nothing. I'm also curious to see how the handle the traditional A Team part where the music played and the team took scrapes of metal, q-tips, pencils and a pack of batteries and built a tank. Of course all of these questions can be answered when it comes out on DVD because these fools will not be getting my parents hard earned money!!

YOU WANT MAD MAX 4 NOT TO SUCK? YOU TALK TO ME

Ever since it was announced that George Miller had decided to continue the Mad Max franchise with Mad Max 4: Fury Road people have been going bat shit trying to figure out who will be playing the new king of post-holocaust demolition derby. Some have said Tom Hardy (Blackhawk Down, Star Trek Nemesis) is already locked in for the role and still others (mostly fans) have been ejaculating on message boards about how Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation, Clash Of The Titans remake) is the only man for the job.

Now I have nothing against either of those guys. Granted I'm not a huge fan of their movies but on their own each man has his own unique gift he brings to the big screen. However, I think there's a relative unknown that would be perfect for Mad Max that folks should think about before any casting decisions are made. My pick for Mad Max is Misha Collins aka Castile from Supernatural. First up check the dude out, he's got the perfect look for it:





Outside of that he is brilliant at putting across that cool detached vibe that Mel Gibson made so necessary in Mad Max before. On Supernatural Collins character of Castile is an Angel but one trying to hold back a simmering rage. His demeanor and calm assuredness makes him incredibly bad ass on the show without any bullshit tough guy machismo. Not only is Collins perfect in his style and natural ability but also because he's still unknown enough to make Mad Max his own. Worthington will be tied to his portrayal of Perseus once the Clash Of The Titans remake hits and that will really take away from whatever goes down with Mad Max 4.

So that's who I think should be Mad Max in the new flick but if Hollywood holds true they'll fucking hire Justin Timberlake as Mad Max and Topher Grace as The Great Humongous. Anyhoo, here are some shots of the new Mad Max car and a bad guy car from the Mad Max 4.

WATCH FAT ME BABBLE ABOUT RELAPSE RECORDS