Quick Clips for Wednesday July 23

You need some Spaced

Simon Pegg is one of the three British people my wife claims to love (the other two are Hugh Grant and some girl with an accent from the Obama campaign who called her the other day). Although most people fell for Pegg in Shaun of the Dead, the funniest film to ever feature cannibalism (which is weird because cannibalism is inherently hilarious), he first demonstrated his hilarity capability in the BBC series Spaced, which is the funniest straight-up sit-com I've ever seen. After years of begging, a nearly disastrous and thankfully scuttled American remake (which would have been helmed by McG...shudder), and more critical praise than a certain movie featuring a leather-clad mom beater (sorry Christian, alleged mom beater), Spaced is finally available for purchase here in the US of A. No need to rent it, just buy it outright then come back here and tell me how awesome it is.

In my day, they waited to adapt comics until after they came out

Rob Liefeld, who is to comic book artists what Carrot Top is to comedians, has had his latest as-of-yet unpublished comic "Capeshooters" optioned by Warner Bros, who must be high on bat-fumes to option a comic created by a man whose best idea to this point has been his semi-retirement. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will follow slackers (uh oh, I thought Judd Apatow had a copyright on the slacker character) who videotape superheroes and end up on the run after they determine a good guy is actually a bad guy. Sort of like YouTube meets Spider-man (see, I can do Hollywood pitch meetings). Brian Singer, who did what Lex Luther couldn't do by defiling Superman, is slated to direct, but that will likely change after his long-gestating, rumored-to-be-God-awful Valkyrie finally comes out. Why? Because Tom Cruise will likely scream "By the power of Xenu" and rip him in half.

I have two digits I'd like to present to Disney

In what can only be described as the single most irritating thing since horse-hair underwear, Disney has opted to punt Ebert & Roeper At the Movies. Sure, Richard Roeper has been begging for a kick in the pants so relentlessly I've often thought about driving to Chicago and obliging him, but Roger Ebert is the Godfather of movie critics. He's literally the reason I started doing this. I know Leonard Maltin's beard is technically the oldest movie critic in the country and people have long worshipped at the afro of Gene Shalit, but Ebert's thumb is the single greatest critical body part in the history of criticism! Variety is reporting that E! blogger Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz are the replacements for Ebert and his partner, but Ebert and Gene Siskel trademarked the phrase "Two Thumbs Up," leaving Disney the choice of accepting my proposed replacement only two fingers away.