Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 11:23 am

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If we could get knocked out and wake up after The Love Guru has killed the career of Mike Myers, we’d be totally into it.

There is nothing about this preview that doesn’t make the film look horrible, mostly because it seems to be cobbled together from a big pile of leftover Austin Powers jokes, and Austin Powers got stale in its second installment.

The picture of Justin Timberlake combined with his small part in the preview actually makes him look like one of the funnier things in the movie.

This is a bad sign. Justin Timberlake should never be a key film collaborator. The man re-invigorated pop and now he wants to be a movie star. Well, we want to be screenwriters, but you don’t see us stuffing our pants and selling Juno sequels on eBay.

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Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 11:08 am

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Amy Winehouse’s husband, Incarcerated Blake, is in prison due to a witness tampering case. Blake went in front of a judge to plead not guilty against charges of attacking a pub landlord and then later conspiring with him to withdraw as a witness at the trial.

He’s due in court this April, but Winehouse has been cleared after being arrested for questioning and released on bail.

Now we can only hope that Incarcerated Blake loops through the justice system while Amy realizes that he’s probably into her for the money.

Bt, if she’s stuck with him through months of incarceration while she kicked drugs for a week or so and won some Grammys, she might just stick with him, once again proving the point that most women shoot way above or way below their standards.

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Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 11:02 am

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Someone should make sure that Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t read the newest issue of Paper Magazine. He’s a brilliant actor and has tones of cred, but it just might hurt his feelings that his sex scene in Because The Devil Knows Your Dead was rated the worst nude scene.

The guy’s kind of chunky, why we gotta rub it in his face?

Outside of that, we basically agree with the Top 5:

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman - Because The Devil Knows You’re Dead
2. Patrick Dempsey - Some Girls
3. Terry Bradshaw - Failure To Launch
4. Donald Sutherland - Space Cowboys
5. Kathy Bates - At Play In The Fields Of The Lord

Yet again, we are reminded why we never have – and never will – see Failure to Launch.

Ugh.

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Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 10:55 am

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The Lord of the Rings, Austin Powers, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Rush Hour, The Mask and Boogie Nights – all Warner Brothers properties now.

New Line has ended and will be folded into Warner Brothers, putting nearly 600 New Line jobs at risk, including those of the founders Bob Shaye, who founded the company in his New York apartment, and Michael Lynne.

Reports the big V:

Time Warner said New Line would continue to have development, marketing, business affairs and some distribution operations but those will be cut severely. And New Line films will go out through Warner Bros. pipes after this weekend’s “Semi-Pro.”

Warner will likely make ample use of completed New Line pics since the usually prolific studio has dated only three pics for 2009.

In a message to New Line staffers, Shaye and Lynne warned New Line will be much smaller.

“This was a painful decision, because we love New Line, and the people who work here have been like our second families,” Shaye and Lynne said. “But we will be leaving the company with enormous pride in what all of us at New Line have accomplished together. From its humble beginnings 40 years ago, our studio has created some of the most popular and successful movies of all time.”

We saw this coming. New Line sold off the international rights to the Golden Compass, which turned out to be the only market where it performed at all. Not to mention the endless parade of Lord of the Rings lawsuits, all from those claiming they didn’t get paid and all get dismissed or settled when the New Line books get shipped out for review.

Now, we get The Hobbitt and all the 80s horror remakes (Friday, Nightmare) under the Warners banner. Usually, these films being taken out of the indie sphere would piss us off, but ever since Lord of the Rings rocked everyone’s world, New Line was just indie by name; all their problems and all their bad calls echoed a major studio.

But we’ll never forget you, New Line, for bringing us the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 90s.

We’ll always have Cowabunga.

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Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 10:24 am

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Never, ever, ever, did we think we’d really be putting Al-Queda in the headline and/or get our War on Terror stories from Variety.

But there is a “war” going on against all this terror, and since Muslims essentially took down YouTube for two whole hours last week, here comes the terror:

Write Variety:

Al-Qaeda Thursday issued a fatwa calling for the execution of Dutch filmmaker and politician Geert Wilders, who is producing an anti-Koran short.

Wilders expects to finish the 15-minute “Fitna” by the beginning of March, and will talk to broadcasters about airing it. None are yet on board.

But he insists “Fitna” (Arabic for discord) will be available on the website of his political party in the Netherlands and a dedicated site.

The Egyptian government has already voiced its objections to the anti-Koran film. Protests have also come from Indonesia and Iran. Earlier in the week Pakistan set off a global YouTube blackout when regulators blocked an online trailer for the film.

It’s the damn cartoons of Muhammad all over again! What’s the deal with the Dutch getting all up in Islam’s shit?

There are a few religions we personally dislike (they will not be named – except Scientology), and there are religions that the internet in general seems to dislike (Scientology), but this is all in the process of American discourse. Disrespecting Islam when entire world governments are based on it, that’s just stupid.

However, a greater line is being drawn. Fitna is going to be broadcast on the internet, not in festivals, not in huge “check out Fitna you dumbasses” screenings in the Middle East.

This is terrorism in the sense that we think there will be consequences for continuing the artistic pursuit of filmmaking, even when the product is not pushed in the part of the world where all the controversy is rooted.

We’re going to do our best to at least tell you where you can watch Fitna next month, because as much as we think blind patriotism is as evil as terrorism, fuck these guys if they want to bring the fight to filmmakers.

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Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 10:22 am

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He’s untraceable because he uses the internet to kill people, get it? And they’re going to market it on the internet virally, because that’s what every executive with half an idea thinks is the thing that will make his movie stand out (and it is always hims, ladies).

The great thing about viral marketing online is that if you really don’t care, it’s really easy to ignore. We were on top of shit when the Joker started making people run around the country for The Dark Knight, and we stopped by the Cloverfield ARG (Alternate Reality Game) to see if it was going to shed any light on the monster, then the monster ended up being some sort of shaved goat left over from Alien Resurrection.

Turns out the ad campaign for the movie Untraceable has gotten pulled from Facebook. The ad was centered on a page called “Kill With Me,” just like in the movie. The more Facebookers who friended the page, the more one of the film’s torture scenes was revealed on the website.

Before the whole scene was revealed, Facebook pulled the page under it’s “pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene” clause.

A similar instance occurred when Untraceable was pulled from the smaller social networking site Seesmic, when one of it’s users who had been interacting normally with community members suddenly disappeared only to resurface claiming to be the victim of torture. Seesmic took it seriously and pulled the ad.

Dan Light, PPC head of interactive, welcomes the controversy caused by the Facebook ban but rejects suggestions that the hard-hitting campaign sought trouble.

“I am surprised and disappointed that Facebook has taken this action,” he said. “These sorts of social media campaigns are the only way to be competitive at the moment.”

Here’s the thing Dan, viral marketing like you are pulling is cool, but doesn’t really work within the framework of another site. Not to mention, a good argument can be made for not doing viral marketing with horror movies at all. People are fine if 100 of their geekiest friends dress up like the Joker or wear Slusho t-shirts. That’s the inside joke that makes marketing work.

On the other hand, simulating people dying based on web traffic is a good premise for a movie, not a marketing campaign. Anyone who knows the movie already will know it’s fake, but if people can’t tell it’s fake they are either going to hate your movie or love it for all the psychopathic reasons.

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Writing by Dave on Friday, 29 February, 2008 at 10:20 am

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There haven’t been enough good spinoffs in recent memory. There must be something about Frasier that just ruined it for everyone, because no big show have managed to put up a part of themselves and nurture it to be as big or bigger than the original.

Now, it looks like Fox is going to swing for the fences with animated race jokes and women behind bars, ‘cause the network is developing both Family Guy and Prison Break spinoffs

Writes the Hollywood Reporter:

The project, tentatively titled “Cleveland,” is being written by “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, Mike Henry — who voices Cleveland and serves as writer-producer on the series — and “The Simpsons” alum Rich Appel, executive producer/showrunner on MacFarlane’s other animated comedy for Fox, “American Dad.”

All we know about the Prision Break spinoff is that it takes place in a woman’s prison.

We’re not against Family Guy here at the B&U, though we might kind of dislike American Dad. Either way, this is the best spinoff news since there were rumors of another American Office making the scene pre-strike.

With Cleveland, the Family Guy creators probably aren’t going to stray far from the formula of a wacky family/American dad/guy, except this time he’s gonna be black, so look for a racier version of the Huxtables.

Maybe Cleveland will somehow wear worse sweaters.

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