Between Jon Favreau Tweeting the making of and USA Today and Entertainment Weekly covering promotional bases in more-traditional ways, we may actually be sick of Iron Man 2 by the time it’s done shooting, let alone by the time it opens next summer. Okay, that’s not at all true, but isn’t it still a bit premature for EW to feature the Iron Man sequel on its magazine cover already? Even with Comic-Con around the corner?

Well, the mag and the production might at least be a little more careful about what is being let out of the figurative poly bag so early in the game. After all, on the day that Paramount releases the first official (and initially blurry) look at Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow the online discussions shouldn’t be focused on Mickey Rourke’s cockatoo. Never mind that not all the reactions to Rourke’s quote in EW aren’t negatively the sort of preemptive backlash studios fear, the distraction from the big sell alone should be cause for slight alarm.

Personally, I’m more excited about the bird than the chick, anyway, seeing as how awesome Rourke was with a little dog sidekick in Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Let’s see the rest of the blogosphere’s reactions to Rourke’s new pet after the jump:

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A few days after unveiling Mickey Rourke as “Whiplash” from Iron Man 2, USA Today brings us the first image from Michael Moore’s new documentary, which is still without a title. In a way, it corresponds well to the earlier photo premiere, because many people think of the liberal filmmaker as the true villain of his own movies. Others believe him to be the superhero, however, which would make Goldman Sachs the nemesis in this picture, in which Moore is once again met with police opposition, likely because he’s attempting to trespass on the financial institution’s property.

Apparently the trailer for the movie hits theaters this weekend, too, so hopefully someone will find a bootleg or copy of that somewhere on the web [update: I've embedded the Jimmy Fund-parodying teaser below]. My hope is it’s appropriately attached to The Taking of Pelham 123 due to that film’s involvement of a stock market scam. For now, though, let’s see what the film blogs are saying about this promotional photo:
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The first photo of Mickey Rourke as the villain Whiplash in Iron Man II popped up online last night, courtesy of USA Today, and the film blogs have been critiquing it and/or defending it all day (and night, if they got to it early). I’m not familiar with the character from the comics, so I can’t judge how faithful Rourke’s appearance is, but I will say that the costume looks terrible. It reminds me of both Dolph Lundgren in Masters of the Universe and Halle Berry in Catwoman. I’m not saying that it will take away from Rourke being totally awesome in the Iron Man sequel. And maybe this isn’t the guy’s final getup, so it shouldn’t be criticized so harshly. But this image is hardly a worthwhile promotional tool, since many bloggers are immediately trashing it. Personally, I hope we eventually get to see Rourke in the more fabulous Blashlash wardrobe.

Check out a sample of the comments from the blogosphere after the jump:

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Even though no readers bothered to guess the answer to the question asked in yesterday’s Bloggery post, I’m going two-for-two this week with another hot mystery: who will Fox get to fill the role of “B.A. Baracus,” originally played by Mr. T, in the A-Team movie? Regarding the trades’ confirmation that Bradley Cooper will likely play “Face” in the Joe Carnahan-directed TV adaptation, along with the disappointing news that Liam Neeson may be cast as “Hannibal,” many film blogs have reacted mostly with indifference. These aren’t the casting announcement we’re looking for, after all. We just want to know who the hell is going to try to take the place of someone as iconic as Mr. T.

I actually pity the poor fool whose job it is to make the casting choice. I also pity the person who has to decide if the new B.A. will sport Mr. T’s signature hairstyle and jewelry. And of course I pity the fool who has to play the part. He (Common, probably) is going to have to endure a lot of scrutiny long before he’s able to show audiences if he’s actually worthy.

While we’re waiting for the official announcement, though, bloggers are already on a roll with jokes about who should get the gig. Check out their ideas after the jump:

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What is worse about the now-infamous Watchmen sex scene (watch it here), the distracting soundtrack or the explosive metaphor at the climax? Even if intended to be funny, and regardless of its (more-subtle) appearance in the graphic novel, the fire blast as stand-in for ejaculation is so cliché that it has no place in a story that means to shatter conventions. Plus, sexual metaphor is a little unnecessary in a film that already has a lot of nudity and a distinct moment of impotence. Especially at the end of a scene that is quite gratuitous compared to the comic’s depiction, that blast is more a symbol of how incorrectly handled Watchmen is than of the orgasms it’s intended to represent.

Between that shot in Watchmen and our recent list of sexiest non-sex scenes, we have had bad sex-scene clichés on the brain. So, to relieve us from the tension of list-making blue balls, we’ve decided to release this short burst of a list for discussion. Think we should have included saxophone-heavy soundtracks or any other cliché you’ve come to notice, let us know in the comments.
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Never mind last night’s show being the gayest Oscars ever (I doubt it). And never mind it potentially being the most predictable (nuts to the Academy for not going with any of my badly foreseen surprises). Here’s my biggest criticism of the ceremony: the 81st Academy Awards had surely the worst directed telecast in history. Throughout the show I found myself commenting over and over, “show the clips, not the [stage; musicians; Queen Latifah; etc.].” There were great injustices done to the deceased, to Baz Luhrman’s choreography (even if it wasn’t a great musical number) and to the nominated actors and actresses, many of who could have used a spotlight on their performances rather than isolated praise from a random peer.

But apparently this year’s ceremony wasn’t designed for the TV viewers, possibly because the Academy didn’t expect anyone to tune in anyway (we showed them; ratings were actually up!). It was a big insular party for Hollywood — and a number of foreigners with excellent accents (and Styx tributes) — during which we were all better off reading the live-blogging and live-Twitterings found all over the interweb than watching the actual program. Often, awards live-blogging is pointless; too many bloggers merely list wins and incidents as they happen, which is redundant for people actually watching the show, while others comment without details, which is insufficient for people who missed the event. But overdone Snuggie references aside, this year’s type-it-as-they-see-it bloggers were better than usual. Chalk it up to boredom, but the commentary on the disasters and disappointments of the Oscars was witty, insightful and actually worth reading. Maybe not on all websites, but on a lot of them.

So, for my final Oscar column of the 2008 awards season, I’d like to circumvent celebrating the event (which doesn’t deserve much praise, in my opinion) and instead celebrate five of my favorite live-blogged/Twittered moments of the night. Though everyone loves to watch a train wreck in progress, sometimes it’s better to turn your head away and listen to someone else describe the tragedy for you. Here is a sampling of the best such observations of the worst such wrecks at this year’s ceremony:

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I had heard a couple of weeks ago that Bennett Miller, director of The Cruise and Capote, had directed a short film that was to be shown at the Oscars. The short apparently included interviews from “regular filmgoers.” I know that at least two known film bloggers were interviewed for it, including one who has contributed to SpoutBlog (not me). But as the show stretched into its third hour and nothing resembling what I had heard about the Miller short had yet shown on the broadcast, I started to wonder about its fate. I Twittered to that effect, and I got a private email in response from someone close to the production of the short (and not one of those interviewees, I assure you):

People at Radical Media (the producer) said it wasn’t great - too many old white men - more Mickey Rooney than Mickey Rourke - apparently it got cut…Also, as of Friday night they thought it was in, I don’t know who or when the decision to cut it was made. That being said, the show was 4 hours without so…

I had heard that the short had been set to open the show; I was personally surprised when the telecast started with Hugh Jackman on stage, just because that seemed extraordinarily abrupt in comparison to the montages that have opened the show in years past. The New York Times reports that the Miller short was seen in the Kodak Theater, but didn’t make it to telecast. Did you see it? Do you have any idea why it wasn’t shown to TV audiences? Please let us know.

UPDATE: I’m now hearing that four clips were cut hours before broadcast, as producers calculated the show would run 40 minutes over if they left them in. More details as they come in, until I stop caring…

UPDATE 2:40 PM: The short film is embedded above, via Vanity Fair. Looks like none of our blogger friends made the celebrity-studded final cut, but Jay and Mark Duplass did.

Two more days until we find out who wins this year’s Academy Awards! Okay, so the exclamation point is more than forced. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had even an ounce of excitement about the Oscars. But we mustn’t let predictability get us down. Sure, even the still-uncertain races (Penn vs. Rourke; Winslet vs. Streep; Man on Wire vs. Trouble the Water) are anything but interesting, because the everyman of 2009 couldn’t care less about who gave the year’s better performance and would probably be fine shrugging his shoulders at the TV screen in the event of a tie (or, better yet, irresolution). However, there’s one thing people keep forgetting about the Academy: they’re full of surprises.

So, rather than just go with the easy, “predictable” predictions, we attempted to guess who and what will Crash the Oscars this year with a surprise victory — preferably the kind that adds an “ing” to “upset.” And once again, we’d like to extend the forecasting fun to you. What surprises do you expect and/or hope for? Or, if you’re down with the boring route, what “certain” winners do you truly believe in? And why? The most accurate comments will be reprinted in our final Oscar column on Monday.
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• Fox may frustrate fanboys once again. Though not as sharp a jab as the studio’s Watchmen lawsuit, an option Fox holds on Emily Blunt could potentially keep her from playing Black Widow in Marvel/Paramount’s Iron Man 2 (a role she’s perfect for). Instead, she’ll have to settle on starring opposite Jack Black in Fox’s reimagined adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels.
• And speaking of disappointing fanboys: as if Scott Derrickson hasn’t already done enough damage to science fiction with his recent remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, he has just been tapped to direct a single movie combining two of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion novels.
• 2009 Oscar nominee John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda) will direct the new He-Man movie, Masters of the Universe. Worse than that, however, is Variety’s reminder that another 2009 nominee, Frank Langella, costarred as Skeletor in the godawful 1987 Masters of the Universe.
• 2009 Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke (who is also slated for Iron Man 2) will star in a kind of anti-Slumdog Millionaire, an American gangster flick titled Broken Horses, that will be scripted, directed and co-produced by Indian filmmakers. It will be the first Hollywood film from Reliance Entertainment since the company funded the DreamWorks exit from Paramount last year.
• “Breaking a longstanding taboo, Fox is releasing male-driven pic Taken on Super Bowl weekend,” begins the weekend box office preview from Variety. While I may believe that Taken could indeed be a guy movie, it certainly hasn’t been marketed as such. Anyway, I never understood the concept of a Sunday event keeping men from going to the movies on the Friday and Saturday before. So, if the film does take the top spot this weekend, I for one won’t be too shocked.

…And the Oscar for most sorrowful face goes to… Mickey Rourke! Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler grabbed our heart, slammed it to the mat, and showered it with tears. But does Mickey Rourke’s resurrection have what it takes to beat Sean Penn’s transformation in Milk?

Karina gives an update about IFC’s Festival Direct, a way to be among the first to see new indie films even if you can’t spring for a festival pass. Also, an odd run-in with Steven Soderbergh, who may or may not have a bone to pick with our intrepid blogger.

We debate which is the most absurd piece of Che merchandise sent in by listeners, and respond to feedback about usefulness of subjecting terrible, exploitative horror movies to the rigors of film criticism.

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro

2:05 - Absurd Che merchandise

9:42 - Listener response regarding horror and film criticism

15:30 - The Wrestler

35:58 - Karina on IFC, Che

filmcouch-106

The Golden Globes have been handed out, and the last of Oscar ballots are to be postmarked by today. So, that’s it, the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards are being figured out as we speak, and campaigning is over until the official contenders are announced on January 22. Hopefully a few Academy members took notice of our unlikely last-minute suggestions, but it’s more probable that we’ll be looking at an unsurprising crop of films represented in the major eight categories. As you’ll see after the jump, we predict that two heavily-buzzed supporting performances will be snubbed. Of course you’re likely to disagree with these foreseen omissions. In fact, we welcome all you readers to make your own predictions in the comments section — what you think will be nominated, not what you want nominated. And on Monday, January 19, SpoutBlog will feature a post highlighting the best of these comments and predictions.

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We all like to make fun of the Golden Globes, even when the telecast *doesn’t* involve the bequeathing of an unusual amount of power to Billy Bush. So prepare to have your mind blown: there were eight moments on tonight’s telecast that actually transcended my knee-jerk cynicism over awards in general, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Awards specifically. Some were funny, some were borderline surreal, and all struck me as — gasp! — genuinely unscripted. Join me in counting the moments down to the best — and, in all probability, booziest! If you’re on the West Coast and the show’s going on and you want to avoid spoilers … well, then I don’t know why you’re reading a movie blog, but don’t click through the jump.

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From the first scenes of The Wrestler, in which Maryse Alberti’s handheld camera follows Mickey Rourke from behind as his Randy “The Ram” Robinson goes through the closing motions of what we’re to understand is a typically trying day, director Darren Aronofsky announces that he’s picked up a new set of aesthetic references since his last film, the non-linear effects extravaganza The Fountain. It’s apparently impossible for contemporary directors to adopt the technique described aboce without someone suggesting that they ripped it from a film by the Dardennes brothers, but its use in The Wrestler feels very different from its use in, say, L’Enfant: it doesn’t produce the same sense of a tension that could break if the camera ever allowed its subject to get too far away. In fact, several times, the camera just stops while Rourke keeps moving, allowing us to appreciate the full physicality of the actor’s performance long before we ever see his face.

There must be a cerebral component to the way Rourke approached becoming the aging wrestler at the center of this film, because otherwise I doubt he’d have been able to so deftly navigate the character’s expansive emotional arc while still nailing all the jokes. But this performance goes way beyond the brain, or the precision with which Rourke transformed his appearance, or even the naturalism with which he performs the wrestling choreography. This is a performance that seems to start and end in the cardiovascular system, making everything Rourke actually does seem effortless. As if he’s just breathing it.

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