Quick clips for Tuesday August 12

I bet most of you won't read this once you see the pictu...yep, there you go

I love the "Prince of Persia" video games, at least the first reincarnation on the Playstation 2/X-Box (not the original one, which looked like squiggly lines doing things to other squiggly lines, or the newest ones, which are so dark and crazy my character is dead before I turn the thing on). I also know that many of you out there loooove Jake Gyllenhaal (notice the extra Os in love, which I feel accurately describes your passion), although I'm guessing it isn't because he's an awesome actor (which he is), but rather, for reasons demonstrated in the first picture of him in character as said Prince of Persia (despite his not being in any way of Persian descent, which is sort of like Denzel Washington playing the king of Sweden). He looks very much like a muscled hobo, which is fine, but I'm wondering if they're even going to address the whole "Whitey McWhiteboy" playing someone of Persian descent issue. Then again, Angelina Jolie just kind of got tan for her role as Marianne Pearl in A Mighty Heart and no one seemed to mind. Whatever, point is, Just Jared has a half-naked, stringy haired looking Jakey G, and I know most of you reading this blog and most of you will thank me for this.



Howboutcha argo-not do that?

Again, as has been reiterated over and over recently, if a Greek dude took a good poop a few centuries back, it's going to be made into a movie now. At some point, when all of these 300 clones come out and fail miserably, we'll be back in a world where you can't get anyone to make a toga movie. For now, we have to deal with reports from Variety that Zak Penn (who should be spending every waking minute making damn sure he doesn't dribble his Avengers draft down his leg) is penning a new Jason and the Argonauts movie that is "based on Penn's original take on the classic Greek tale." This makes me laugh because (A) in what omniverse does Penn have an "original take" on a centuries old myth? Sure, poets and playwrights have been working on it for generations, but the guy who wrote The Incredible Hulk is going to graciously reimagine it. (B) Why do you do something that has already been done perfectly. Ray "God among special effects chumps" Harryhausen already had his hand in the 1963 version of Jason and don't be tellin' me it ain't perfect! This is a good time to mention my undying love of all things Harryhausen; the man just made such hand-crafted, endearing special effects. I know that stop-motion characters are not "photorealistic" like the computer generated stuff, but if you can watch the below collection of Harryhausen's creatures without smiling...then you suck (that should be more clever, but good lord am I tired this morning).



Splash meets Forrest Gump

If you are trying to get me interested in a movie, describing it as Splash meets Forrest Gump is the way to do it. I mean, does that suggest that an intellectually slow mermaid eats chocolate in the ocean and is superimposed over footage of former presidents? Does that mean that a mermaid is ridiculously inserted into major historical events with a soundtrack that makes Baby Boomers go all tingly-woo with excitement? Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, this actually refers to an upcoming remake of the Russian novel-turned-1962-film The Amphibian, about an American surgeon living in the Amazon who gives his son shark gills to survive a fatal respiratory disease. Saywhat? This novel is apparently incredibly popular, which is remarkable, because it sounds just absolutely awful. I mean, the potential for unintentional humor is pretty high and I'm going to see any movie described as it was above, but someone really thinks this is a good idea? Really? The fact that I haven't sold a movie script by now is obviously entirely my fault, because those guys will make anything.