One of my favorite screenplays of all time is Daniel Waters’ Heathers, mainly because of its clever, yet not necessarily realistic dialogue. However, I’m not that into the work of Diablo Cody, whose writing style is often compared to and admittedly influenced by that earlier black comedy. Waters’ line “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?” could easily fit in a Cody-penned film, as could “No one at Westerberg is going to let you play their reindeer games.” But most of the memorable, quotable Heathers lines are smarter. Aren’t they?

I often wonder if I would have had any appreciation for Heathers had I seen it as my older, more cynical self. Would I have dismissed the script the same way I now do the scripts for Juno and Jennifer’s Body? Or, is Codyspeak a lot more forced and cheesy than Waters’ writing? And is Waters more respectable for not following Heathers with continued attempts at similarly clever dialogue? Imagine Waters’ script for Batman Returns with lines like “I’ve gotta motor, Alfred, if I want to catch the Penguin” and “What’s your damage, Catwoman?”

Okay, so Waters’ later scripts weren’t very good anyway, and it’d probably be pretty interesting to see a Cody-penned superhero movie (just as I was curious about Kevin Smith’s Superman script). But reviews for Cody’s latest are nowhere near as good as Juno’s were (and she’s certainly not going to win another Oscar for it), and part of the reason may be that people are no longer giving her goofy Codyspeak (or “diablologue”) a pass. In reviews, interviews and other posts, film bloggers are criticizing Cody’s words more than ever.

Check out some of these criticisms after the jump:

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While most water cooler discussions today focused completely on the Kanye West VMA controversy, the playground likely had room for another topic related to MTV’s award show: the new trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Moon. But were the boys participating in that talk? Summit probably hopes so given that the spot seems to be trying harder to appeal to that young male demographic.

I don’t think the attempt will work, however. For the first Twilight film, after reaching out to the true, female-dominated fanbase, Summit released a trailer that admirably sold the thing as if it were a superhero movie. It came really close to getting me in the theater. This time they’ve got another more action-heavy trailer, which at times makes New Moon seem like The Matrix as directed by Stephen Sommers. Which I guess might seem cool to teenage boys. But there’s still enough obligatory beefcake shots and romantic fluff to overpower that idea.

Male moviegoers, feel free to prove me wrong. First, though, let’s see where the other film blogs stand on the issue after the jump:

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Day 2 at TIFF 2009 brought on the two films at this festival that could be thought of as Juno followups: the Jason Reitman-directed Up in the Air, starring George Clooney as a traveling merchant of vocational death and Vera Farmiga as the woman who induces his midlife attack of consciousness; and Jennifer’s Body, starring Megan Fox as high school evil incarnate, directed by Karyn Kusama from a script by Diablo Cody. The former has emerged as near-unanimous favorite both here and at Telluride; the later has been largely derided as a disappointment. Whatever Juno seemed to be at the time of its release, two years later I imagine it would be hard for either its biggest fans to get it up enough to defend its Oscar-worthiness, or for its hardest haters to declaim it as a travesty. If anything, Up in the Air and Jennifer’s Body reveal the extent to which Juno could have only worked as a cultural phenomenon by committee: Cody’s instinct as an auteur is to drop a breadcrumb trail of code, while Reitman’s obsessive yen for polished explication is Academy all the way. Each needs their talent balanced by the opposite.
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I was hoping the Inception teaser trailer would keep the Christopher Nolan-obsessed fanboys puzzled and therefore occupied for a while. But someone had to go and spoil the premise of that otherwise cryptic film and now the geeks and gossip rags are back to their old favorite online game: spreading rumors about Batman 3.

British tabloid The Sun has made up a story claiming Megan Fox has “signed on” to play Catwoman, despite the fact that there’s no script to guarantee that such a role will even exist. But hey, Fox News has picked up the “news” so it must be true. Then there’s the Harry Knowles-ignited rumor about the third installment potentially being shot “FULLY” in IMAX.

Certainly speculating about big and highly anticipated movies is fun. Whether we discuss why Nolan shouldn’t even try to follow The Dark Knight or if we write a list of actresses we’d like to see cast as Catwoman, it’s important that we recognize that it’s all just wishes and wonders. And being able to tell the difference between a viable scoop and a rumor is what separates us respectable blogs from the unreputable people at British tabloids and, umm, Fox News (which, like The Sun, is owned by News Corp.).

The only silver lining is those websites that immediately nip such rumors in the butt and then proceed to make fun of the idea further through some kind of list or whatever. Especially when it’s a slow news day, such posts provide good reading.

Check out the film blog responses to today’s ridiculous rumors after the jump:
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SpoutBlog is sitting out this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International, but that doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention to the geek mecca from afar. In a way, we get to have a more sane perspective without all the screaming and crowdedness (between Twilight and Johnny Depp, it’s apparently madness). Plus, we’re checking out all of the direct coverage, and I do believe we’re getting a more comprehensive experience this way.

I’ve selected some of my favorite coverage from the last 24 hours so that you may share in the appreciation as a fellow outsider (or maybe you’re there and want to see what others have seen/heard). Check out all the best comments, videos and links after the jump:

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With Comic-Con beginning tomorrow, there’s so much movie stuff being talked about today that I almost didn’t know what the biggest topic was/is. And really, the most discussed film-related news of the day was the Sam Raimi/World of Warcraft movie announcement. But WOW fans have apparently gone back to playing the game and aren’t hanging out on the web so much anymore, so it appears the teaser trailer for Alice in Wonderland has taken over as the most exciting thing for movie geeks to drool over right now. Even more than the hot photos of Freddy Krueger, Jeff Bridges on the set of Tron 2.0 and the Megan Fox Fangoria cover.

All I can say is that if you told me 15 years ago that I’d ever be this disinterested in something involving either Tim Burton or Lewis Carroll, let alone both, I would have called you a liar and then beat you with my Edward Scissorhands DVD (see, the joke is that I was such a big fan back then that I had the DVD before it ever existed). It doesn’t look as bad as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I guess, but it looks a whole lot duller than I expected. Maybe this is just too perfect and obvious a pairing that there’s no need for it, in the same way we don’t really need a Terry Gilliam-directed Good Omens or a Chris Columbus-directed Percy Jackson (doh!). I guess that’s the main reason I have no desire to see this movie, but the fact that it somehow looks both murky and meretricious has me turned off completely.

Let’s see what the rest of the film blogosphere thinks of the teaser, after the jump:

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The selections for this year’s Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness genre film section  has just been announced via Twitter. The lineup will close with a gala presentation of Jennifer’s Body, the hotly anticipated second feature scripted by Diablo Cody, directed by Karyn Kusama and starring Megan Fox. Other highlights: Cannes stop-motion animation hit A Town Called Panic; “a post-modern, thinking man’s throwback to the ‘B’ Movie/Exploitation films of the 1950s/70s as well as a loving, sly parody of the same” called Bitch Slap!; Symbol, Hitoshi Matsumoto’s follow-up to Big Man Japan, of which Todd Brown said based on the trailer, “Either Matsumoto has cooked up yet another slice of unorthodox genius or he has completely lost his grip and made something totally abstract and self indulgent”; and George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead. The full lineup is also on the TIFF website.

Just as we’d prefer for Hollywood to remake bad films rather than beloved classics, we’d also like to see more TV adaptations of obscure and failed series — as long as there’s going to be such a giant void of creativity anyway, why not go for the forgotten titles and at least make it seem like you’ve got fresh ideas?

Unfortunately, Hollywood continues to ignore our logic and is instead adapting the popular 80s cop show T.J. Hooker for the big screen. It may not be the most familiar or beloved series of all time, but it has enough name recognition to make it a success, a la the S.W.A.T. and Starsky & Hutch movies before it.

We have no interest in yet another veteran/rookie team-up, though, especially a blatantly recycled one. So we decided to mine deeper into our TV Guide issues from the 80s and pick out some lesser-known high-concept shows that would make awesome movies if only they had more of a built-in, nostalgic audience to justify a green light.

Check out our pitches after the jump, and thank us when Hollywood gets wise to the ideas.
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I understand that we were all watching the Michael Jackson memorial today, but did one of the most blogged about movie-related story have to involve Megan Fox? Again? Really? Wasn’t it enough that we devoted yesterday’s post to that derivative and divisive Jennifer’s Body movie? And that neither Fox nor Michael Bay nor their Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie needs anymore publicity?

Allegedly, Fox had to wash Bay’s Ferrari as part of her audition for the first Transformers. And he supposedly filmed the whole thing, though there’s no proof of this (online at least, which is where it’d be if it existed). Did it really happen? I guess it doesn’t matter, because it’s already in the consciousness of boys and men everywhere to help them sleep better tonight.

True or not, check out the responses to this non-news after the jump:
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Everyone’s talking about the new R-rated trailer for Jennifer’s Body, a horror comedy starring Megan Fox as a possessed cheerleader. My first impression was that it seems too much like last year’s Teeth, only with less interesting subtext. Alison Willmore of The Independent Eye instead finds the movie reminiscent of 2000’s Ginger Snaps, though she doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. Either way, coming from screenwriter Diablo Cody, Jennifer’s Body doesn’t appear original in any way except for its forced, writerly dialogue (”You need a mani bad. You should find a Chinese chick to buff your situation.”). And interestingly (coincidentally?) enough, her Oscar-winning movie, Juno, just so happens to feature actress Emily Perkins, costar of the Ginger Snaps trilogy.

Originality aside (it’s also being likened to Heathers and Species), Jennifer’s Body is being celebrated as low culture, criticized for being worse than low culture and otherwise dividing the bloggers up as only Cody’s feature follow-up to Juno could. Meanwhile, the truly important people (i.e. the teen boys looking at blogs) probably won’t care about what’s a good screenplay or what films this may have ripped off, because they’re probably only paying attention to all the teased Megan Fox nudity (including plenty of footage of that “topless” scene we saw “leaked” photos of last year).

By the way, my second impression of the trailer was that it’s cool they used a Runaways song so that this Bloggery can be linked to last Friday’s posting, in a way. Shows how bored I was with the plot/dialogue/visuals. Also, because you probably won’t see her acknowledged on most posts about this movie, Jennifer’s Body is directed by Karyn Kusama, of Girlfight and Æon Flux.

Now, on to the film blog reactions, after the jump:

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If you were a movie producer looking to make a lot of money, and you had the chance to do this with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, would you put the project in the hands of the people who made the first film, which was not successful in any way, shape or form, or would you put it in the hands of the guy who wrote the first, crappy film but who later redeemed himself with an enormously popular, long-running TV series adapated from that film?

Obviously, most of us would choose the latter, but then I guess we just don’t know something Roy Lee and Doug Davison (of the Asian-horror-remake factory Vertigo Entertainment) know. The duo is teaming up with Fran Rubel Kuzui, who hasn’t directed a film since Buffy but who “served” as an exec producer on the TV show, and her husband, Kaz Kuzui (producer of the original movie), to relaunch the franchise with a new, darker, event-sized Vampire Slayer movie, which will have nothing to do with the show, and which, as of yet, has no involvement from Joss Whedon.

Due to the success of Twilight and True Blood, I can see why someone would want to kick start another vampire franchise, especially one with name recognition, but is there anyone who would look forward to anything Buffy without Whedon? And even with him, would anyone accept a new actress in the title role after Sarah Michelle Gellar made it iconically her own? Let’s check out the film blog reactions to this ridiculous announcement after the jump:
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I know what brings traffic to movie blogs: Megan Fox wearing as little as possible. Case in point: Movie Gab debuted some paparazzi pics of Fox on the set of Jonah Hex a few weeks ago, but she was wearing a robe, and not surprisingly I heard nothing of the photos. Today the same site presents more images, this time of Fox in an Old West Prostitute costume (i.e. corset, stockings, boots, gloves) and the internerds explode with posts. Sure, it’s also yet another slow news day in terms of stuff that excites the collective film bloggery, but I’m sure these shots would still have shown up on every movie and gossip site on a much busier day. Why? Because Megan Fox pays our bills, of course.

Not that I understand the attraction. I don’t mean to insult Fox, who is indeed an attractive woman. But I don’t get what she’s got that at least a thousand other hot young actresses don’t have. Aside from the fact that she’s sold on sex, be it through cleavage-exposing publicity photos or that recent Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen footage of her stripping, what is it about her that makes her the Clara Bow of the late 2000’s? (Confession: Bow never did “It” for me either, so maybe I’m just out of touch). Anyway, I am noticing that these new Fox photos are garnering some criticism for how skinny her corset makes her look, and I do appreciate that not everyone is positively spellbound by her.

Anyway, check out what other bloggers are saying about the images after the jump. Meanwhile, I’ll be checking out that sexier wet, tattooed back shot of Sandra Bullock that Mark Graham has posted over at Vulture.

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When the recent announcement came that Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore had been cast as Bill and Hillary Clinton, respectively, in The Special Relationship, Peter Morgan’s third film involving the Premiership of Tony Blair (played once again by Michael Sheen, who previously portrayed the former British Prime Minister in the Morgan-scripted films The Deal and The Queen), many of us began wondering if Monica Lewinsky would appear as a character, and if so, who would play her. Anne Thompson even provided an hilariously implicit visual aid for why Anne Hathaway would be great for the part.

Unfortunately, it’s been revealed that Lewinsky will only be included in the made-for-HBO film via archival footage. But that isn’t going to stop us from imagining who should have been cast in Morgan’s film had he decided to focus more directly on the Lewinsky scandal. Because we’d all much rather see that film, right? And although a low-budget depiction of the affair, titled The Blue Dress, is already in the works, it certainly won’t be as much fun as a high-profile picture featuring big stars as the infamous figures involved with the scandal.

So, we’ve cast the second-term Clinton movie we’d prefer be made. And as always we welcome you to suggest your own casting ideas — whether to substitute for those we’ve selected or to play characters we’ve forgotten — in the comments.
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Lists of movies within movies are fairly common on the internet, enough that I now realize I need to finally see Bowfinger simply because I’ve counted about a million list makers in love with something titled “Chubby Rain.” And the lists are likely to keep on coming thanks to this week’s hot release, Tropic Thunder, which actually features two movies within (the Vietnam War film “Tropic Thunder” and the festival-winning making-of documentary “Rain of Madness”), as well as the upcoming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which has spawned a popular fake movie trailer for an NC-17 film titled “Mother Theresa: The Making of a Saint” (previewed above). Yet until someone makes a Wikipedia page for “List of Fictional Films,” these blogged and forumed lists are necessary to keep us movie fans remembering those non-existent movies we wish existed.

Narrowing down to ten seemed to be difficult — fictional films have been at least nominally been created for tons of films about filmmaking, otherwise reflexive films, sketch comedies, spoofs, etc. — until I realized that a lot of these films within films are appropriately nominal or trailer- or clip-sized gags and would in reality be terrible (imagine actually watching the entirety of “Asses of Fire” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Even “Je Vous Présente Paméla” (”Meet Pamela”) from Day for Night and the sci-fi film being made in 8½ would probably be major disappointments in actuality if you expected from them the work of Truffaut and Fellini, respectively.

So, I went mostly with fictional films that would probably be bad, but would at least be amusingly bad — though I purposefully avoided fictional porns, including those from Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski, of which there are literally thousands:

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