Quick clips for Wednesday May 20

Finally, flopping schlong pays off

When they tell you that dressing in a pink banana hammock and shaking your man hose in people's faces won't do wonders for your career, you point them towards The Hollywood Reporter, which told me that Chris "Party Boy" Pontius is going to be in Sofia Coppola's new movie. Now, his character will likely be a variant of his real life personality (hopefully with significantly less exposed nutsack), but he's still in a Sofia Coppola movie and you aren't. More alarming than this casting is the repeated description of the plot, which still sounds like a variation of The Gameplan, only with a "decadent, bad-boy actor" in place of the football player. This, of course, reminds one of Johnny Knoxville, who I believe is right now getting peed on for beer money. I'm surprised that Coppola would be cool with this kind of casting, but she probably knows somebody who knows somebody and that's how it all goes down. What I'm saying is, I need to know more people. On a side note, despite the wretched plot synopsis and terrible casting (Stephen Dorff? Really? He's the lesser of two Dorffs. He may be lesser than Dorf.), I'm really holding out hope that Coppola returns to form here (seriously, if Francis can't, some Coppola should at least make good movies these days). Not to put undo baggage on Sofia, but she's one of a handful of female directors with enough clout to actually get attention. Someone tell me why there aren't more successful female directors? Do you direct via penis? I thought she'd be the one to finally score the Best Director win for the ladies, but this plot sounds like she'll be more likely to hoist an Emmy for a very special episode of "Two and a Half Men."

Pixar makes movies, Dreamworks makes money

Movies are a business. I know that. But when I hear small rumblings of a backlash against Pixar, I want to punch people in their word holes. Other than Cars, which was not that good and has been turned into a big cash cow for the studio, they don't whore out every product until it is sucked dry. I'm mentioning this because Dreamworks is developing a "Monsters vs. Aliens" TV show to go with the "Penguins from Madagascar" TV show that's on the air and the "Kung Fu Panda" TV show that's in development. Nobody is saying that the sanctity of Monsters vs Aliens is being defiled but the point is that Dreamworks comes up with a concept, not a movie. They see visions of toys dancing in their heads, not scripts or storylines. Lately, it's seemed like there's an undercurrent of people who are sick of Pixar being so praised, as though a studio intelligently and delicately crafting one quality film a year is somehow annoying. Sorry that they're good and continue to do good things, I'm sure you can jump their shit after Cars 2, which I'll agree is a terrible idea and a waste of time. Dreamworks is a fine studio, but this is just evidence of the difference between quality and cash-cowing. Also, I'm really looking forward to Up, which I've been told is just as good as everything else Pixar has ever done. Until I'm buying Ratatoille-brand pesticide, I'm going to continue to hold the studio up as the example of how to keep dignity and make money (they should give lessons to every Vh1 reality star).

Terminator Salvation review

I've thoroughly read online that we're good to post reviews now. So, here goes. Warning: If you've got a "No Fate But What We Make" tattoo, you're going to want to look away.

Robolobotomy

Terminator Salvation be damned
Ryan Syrek

What the hell did you expect when you hired the guys who wrote Catwoman?

Writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris, who jointly ended Halle Berry’s career, have penned a script so stupid it should have its own reality dating show. Terminator Salvation is a cautionary tale of a franchise gone wrong. It also further cements Christian Bale’s status as actor most in need of a throat lozenge.

Although most Americans would score better on a quiz over the Terminator mythos than on a citizenship test, here’s a primer: In the near future, evil robots have taken over the planet. Caught up?

Brancato and Ferris spoil the one original thought they had over the opening credits, which show Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) donating his body to science before receiving lethal injection in 2003. Fast forward to 2018, where destined savior of humanity John Connor (Bale) is engaged in the robot killin’ that made machines go back in time to try to kill him in the last three movies. John’s mission yields a superweapon that could end the war: an off button for the robots (yep, seriously).

Marcus inexplicably shows up and meets Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), the young soldier from the first film who will paradoxically be sent back in time later on by John and will become John’s father. Marcus helps protect Kyle, meets Blair (Moon Bloodgood) and saves her from rapists. They then snuggle in front of a fire (awww). This works out for Marcus, and not just for “Moon Bloodgood is hot” reasons, but because she eventually sets him free after he is captured by John’s gang for a reason you can guess either (A) from the previews or (B) from the lethal injection scene. If you haven’t figured it out yet, congratulations, you might like the new Terminator movie. Then a bunch of stuff explodes.

Despite some incredibly sweet new robot models (motorcycle terminators = awesome) and one hyper-cool CGI cameo, director McG has made a movie worthy of his moniker: nonsensical. John again does not achieve his savior status, actors like Bryce Dallas Howard are shown literally just standing around (so is Common…but that’s okay) and the whole thing ends having not furthered events one iota. In every way, things would have been the same (perhaps better) had this film not existed.

Hey, at least the trailers for Terminator Salvation looked cool. Stick with those if you want to live.

Grade – D+