People seem to think Hugh Jackman deserves better than a boxing robot movie. But seriously, is his starring in Real Steel any worse than his appearances in Van Helsing, Swordfish or pretty much anything else he’s done since breaking out as Wolverine in the first X-Men movie? Sure, he’s an entertaining Oscar host, and he’s apparently very enjoyable on the stage. But try to name one movie he’s really good in that warrants him roles better than a robot boxer trainer in a silly sci-fi sports flick directed by Shawn Levy. And don’t say The Prestige, because that film wasn’t great for any doing of his.

Interestingly enough, Real Steel, which has a very ’80s-action-film-sounding title, is being produced by Steven Spielberg, who also oversees the Transformers movies. Are robots his new aliens? Okay, I guess Transformers are also aliens, and before that he’d already given us alien/robot crossovers like *batteries not included and (sort of) Artificial Intelligence: A.I. (because so many people think those robots at the end of the film are aliens). But in all likelihood, Real Steel will be released in summer 2011, which has just been announced as when we’ll also be getting Transformers 3.

Although I have no interest in seeing either of these movies, I can’t wait to see which of the dueling Spielberg-produced robot blockbusters wins the season’s box office. Maybe Spielberg can even ready Indiana Jones 5 by then, too, and include robots in it. After the ridiculousness of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I wouldn’t be surprised by such an idea.

Check out what the other film blogs are saying about Jackman signing on to Real Steel after the jump:
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I’m pretty impressed by the box office success of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, an unrecognizably loose adaptation of my favorite children’s book, which I had last month included in a list of movies that really ruined our childhood. Apparently I was completely wrong in that claim and the movie is supposedly “Pixar good.” Initially I had planned on boycotting the 3-D animated film, but I’m suddenly very much looking forward to seeing it sometime this week.

I’m also now kind of curious about Jennifer’s Body, which came in at an embarrassing fifth place and is now allegedly signaling the end of Megan Fox’s career. Never mind the fact that we film bloggers shouldn’t want this to happen because she’s been such great traffic-bait for us in the past (meaning she’s allowed some of us to get paid for this once in awhile). Is she really to blame for the bomb? Or, is it the Diablo Codyspeak? Or the marketing? Or, is this simply one of those films, like its ancestor, Heathers, that will take some time to find it’s cult audience — which will, by the looks of those rallying for the film, be primarily women?

Let’s see what the film blogs are saying about Jennifer’s Body’s seemed failure after the jump:

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Just as Nikki Finke “TOLDJA” almost four months ago, Oscar-nominee Natalie Portman has been tapped for Marvel’s Thor, in which she’ll play love interest to the Norse god-turned-superhero. No stranger to comic book adaptations nor to reworkings of Scandinavian properties, the actress will play “Jane Foster,” a nurse who becomes Thor’s love interest when the “powerful but arrogant warrior” is banished to Earth by his fellow Asgardians. So far, Portman remains the sole household name cast in the movie, which stars Chris Hemsworth as the title hero, Tom Hiddleston as the villainous Loki and Brian Blessed as Thor’s father, Odin. Fellow Oscar-nominee Kenneth Branagh is directing.

The former child actress follows in the tradition of well-known but questionably talented starlets playing uninteresting love interests in comic book adaptations: Kim Basinger in Batman; Katie Holmes in Batman Begins; Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight; Kirsten Dunst in the Spider-Man movies; and Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man. To me, Portman seems like a cross between the last two actresses. She’s done the “manic pixie dream girl” thing like Dunst, but she’s a little more high class, a la Paltrow. Marvel claims they’re updating the Foster character for the film, which is good considering few comic enthusiasts even know or care much about her, but it still seems likely Portman may actually have less to do in this movie than she did in The Darjeeling Limited (not including the Hotel Chevalier prologue).

Personally, I think Branagh should have hired Maia Brewton for the role, especially now that people are re-watching Parker Lewis Can’t Lose on DVD. Sure, she hasn’t been around in awhile, and it would be stunt casting, but I always prefer stunt casting to bad casting.

Check out some other film blog responses to the casting after the jump:

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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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Leave it to Michael Bay to turn something already big into something bigger. No, I’m not talking about the “life-size” IMAX version of Optimus Prime. I’m referring to the gap between critic and general audience tastes, often referred to as the “critic-audience divide.” We’ve already seen it get worse this year via terrible yet popular movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but given the $201.2 million grossed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen over its first five days, we film writers are feeling the coming apocalypse soooo much more. Remember how last year we thought The Dark Knight made so much money so quickly due to the fact that reviews were so great? Eh, that probably wasn’t the truth after all.

Of course, a success like Transformers 2’s doesn’t exactly prove critics are worthless, only those who function simply as a thumbs up/thumbs down sort of recommendatory guide. Plenty of critics should continue to be worth reading if they’re otherwise good reads and create or allow for discussion without merely saying a film is good or bad. One of my favorite kinds of critic, for instance, is the kind that may turn me onto a film despite him/her having disliked it, as some scathing reviews of Transformers 2 have almost done.

A reader commented on my previous post about Transformers 2 with the claim that all our negative reviews helped the movie be so successful. If that’s the truth, maybe we should start using negative psychology and trash the great little films we really love. Or, we can just stop worrying about the majority audience liking different things as us and enjoy all the death threats we get from mainstream moviegoers when we disagree with them. Isn’t it often better for our sites’ traffic to stir up contention anyway?

Oh well, here’s another crop of critical whinery after the jump:
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Another blockbuster, another record broken. What’s the big deal? Well, the biggest deal might be that film critics are wasting their time reviewing movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, because a billion trillion negative words written about the blockbuster sequel couldn’t have kept it from breaking the Wednesday opening record. Grossing $60.6 million over a day and two nights (the figure includes Tuesday’s midnight show tally of $16 million), Transformers 2 knocked Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix off the throne.

I haven’t heard of anyone liking the sequel, so it’s very possible that word of mouth will keep the movie from making too much more over the weekend. But then again, if another one of my weekends is completely rained out, I’ll probably go see the thing just to see how godawful it is (this Best Week Ever post makes me masochistically curious to see it). The first Transformers was a total bore, so I’d be happier with elements as ridiculously terrible as racially offensive robots and parachute farts, as long as there was something interesting going on.

The only thing keeping me from rounding up a large posse for a MST3K-inspired viewing is the idea that buying the tickets will only encourage Paramount and Michael Bay more (how about a group of us goes and buys Star Trek tickets and then sneak into Transformers? Paramount can’t complain, since they’ll still get the money, only for a better film).

Check out the film blogs’ response to the record breakage after the jump:
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I’ll come right out and admit that I enjoyed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Do I think it was a great action flick, on par with the previous two installments in the franchise? Not at all, but there was enough good stuff in the sequel to entertain me. And I know I’m not alone in this opinion. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear there’s much that’s good in Terminator Salvation, reviews for which are downright terrible. This deeply upsets me, because this was the blockbuster I looked forward to most this summer. Now I don’t feel there’s any reason to check it out.

Of course, I’m probably alone in that last statement. Wednesday night’s midnight shows were a hit and the movie is expected to be huge at the box office this weekend (the fact that it opened on a Thursday before Memorial Day should pad the gross very well). So, since many of you will be going to see this anyway, and hardly pay attention to scores at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, I might as well reach around the blogosphere and pull out as many favorable quotes as I can find, even those buried inside primarily negative reviews. And hopefully you will do me the favor of commenting with any other good stuff that makes it worth it for me to buy a ticket.

Thanks in advance for that, and here’s the positive spin, after the jump:
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Michael Bay is apparently a big fan of the 1986 animated cult classic Transformers: The Movie. Last month, he revealed his desire to get Leonard Nimoy, voice of “Galvatron” in the cartoon film, to voice a robot character in his latest live-action installment, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And awhile back it was revealed that the sequel might have a new version of Stan Bush’s terrible ’80s anthem “The Touch” on its soundtrack. But are these the correct ways to pay homage to the old series/movie? Wouldn’t we rather actually have Transformers that look like the Transformers characters we remember from our childhood? And wouldn’t we rather have a good script and competent directing/editing? Okay, these last things might not be totally relevant to the 80s cartoon, but regardless they are elements that should be more attended to than any lame winks at members of the cult audience.

Anyway, I bring all this up because a music video for the remake of “The Touch” (titled “The Touch: Sam’s Theme”) has popped up online. Featuring both Bush and a Linkin Park-wannabe rapper in the recording and video, the new version — which still hasn’t been confirmed as being in the new film (don’t do it MB) — is undeniably worse than the original somehow. But it makes me wonder: in 10 years or so, when Boogie Nights is remade and reset in the 2000s, should this be the version of the song covered by Dirk and Reed?

A few other bloggers and commenters agree that it’s a downgrade after the jump:

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The reactions to the new G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra trailer are, as expected, pretty negative. But it’s almost as if bloggers had their write-ups pre-written, because the thing is not that bad. Maybe I just have low expectations and so therefore wasn’t expecting much to begin with, but considering all the crap that movie blogs get excited about on a regular basis, I’m dubious. Those criticizing this trailer so harshly are obviously just going along with the fashion of trashing on this movie. I’m not saying it looks good, but I might actually prefer to see this than, say, the new Transformers sequel.

And if District 9, which does indeed look amazing via its new trailer, is actually “this year’s Cloverfield, then I might also prefer to see G.I. Joe than that, too. Of course, if we go by trailers alone and not presumptions, the little-known-about District 9, which appears to be a faux-documentary sci-fi flick, completely wins the fight over our summer moviegoing dollars. And I’m certainly not alone in seeing the Peter Jackson-produced movie as the champion today. Let’s compare the responses to each trailer, from the usual suspects:

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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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One thing you have to love about the fanboys, they’re always a glass-half-full kind of people. Whenever one of their beloved movies gets ripped apart by critics, they point to the box office results with pride. Critics are meaningless, they remind us, because Transformers and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and the Star Wars prequels made so much money. And now, with their Watchmen having received both mixed reviews and a relatively disappointing opening weekend, they’re still defending its success to the end. Drew McWeeny of HitFix said it best in a Tweet this morning: “Box-office talk is absolute death to me. I just don’t care. It got made. I liked it. I win.”

McWeeny may not exactly be the king of the geeks, but he does inadvertently represent them today. Because whether or not Watchmen has technically underperformed (or “failed” in any way) should not be their concern any more than the negative reviews (or our list of reasons claiming the comic adaptation is unnecessary). But if they are going to use the defense that the box office doesn’t matter, they aren’t allowed to celebrate grosses this summer when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen receives bad reviews yet still has a strong opening.

More on the debate on the topic of Watchmen’s success or failure after the jump.

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I have always tried to maintain low expectations for Hollywood product in general. But when it comes to highly anticipated movies, particularly blockbuster sequels to popular sci-fi action franchises, my excitement can get the best of me. Whenever I need to calm down my expectations, though, I simply recall all the disappointments of 1997 (Alien Resurrection, The Lost World, the Star Wars Special Edition), and I can get through the hype pretty safely. Considering I’m one of the few who actually loved both Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and (yes, even) McG’s Charlie’s Angels movies, it’s hard for me to believe that I’m also one of the few who isn’t now expecting Terminator Salvation to be the second coming of Christ The Terminator after watching the new trailer (embedded below).

Sure, Christian Bale could very well be a lucky charm to franchise reboots (though does anyone believe this will be even a tenth as good as Batman Begins?) and T4 could easily be better than rival summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (though “easily” is an understatement, because Transformer 2 will suck just as bad as Transformers 1). But with two and a half months left until the movie opens, it’s just too early for us to be going so ga-ga over one piece of marketing. The only thing left to happen now is a backlash, which I guess I’m sort of starting right now?

Here’s a sample of the most extreme gushing to hit the blogosphere since the trailer’s premiere last night:

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• Universal Studios is building a ride in its theme parks in Singapore and Los Angeles, based on Michael Bay’s Transformers. The attraction is expected to “use 3-D HD footage with special effects, robotics and track to place humans in the middle of a war between the friendly Autobots and evil Decepticons, who can turn into cars, trucks, planes and other vehicles.” Yay, war!
• Meanwhile, Universal the studio is planning to sell genre division Rogue Pictures to Relativity Media for $150 million. Rogue has been moderately successful producing low-budget hits like The Strangers, to which a sequel is in development; Relativity will get the development slate as well as the library, although Univeral will agree to distribute all Rogue films through 2013.

MSNBC Films, the documentary unit announced by NBC/Universal’s news channel in June, has firmed up plans for their first two releases. The festival circuit acquisition Dear Zachary will premiere at Tribeca Cinemas on October 29 before rolling out to at least four markets, and in-house production Witness to Jonestown will premiere on the channel November 9. Being that two NBC employees died covering the events at Jonestown, this may be the closest thing to a personal project that a cable network could make.