The Smarmy Carny

Transformers - Autobots

The live-action Transformers movie is scheduled to be released on the 4th of July, 2007. That's exactly 7 months away from the original date of this post!

Thanks to my son, I have been rewatching the old Transformers series that I grew up with (available on a 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD) as well as watching the new Transformers Cybertron series.

If nothing else, Transformers in all its forms is a great taunt-fest. If you need great trash talk lines, you'll find plenty when you watch Transformers.

The official movie site still has more content to add, however you can already view the teaser, download wallpapers,

Though it's expected anyway, I'm glad to see that Starscream will be in the movie. On Black Friday, I bought a 14.7" tall Transformers Cybertron Supreme Starscream for my son. It's for Christmas, but I want to bust it out of the box and play with it before then. For a list of other characters appearing in the movie, watch the extremely informative the Yahoo! webcast Q&A with the writers (Windows Media Player required). They discuss many facets of the movie, including working with Hasbro, the role of humans in the movie, and working with director Michael Bay.

Thornton and Heder

School for Scoundrels looks to be an entertaining comedy revolving around a loser-turned-romantic battling a teacher of romance.

Roger (John Heder, best known as Napoleon Dynamite) is a down-on-his-luck loser who can't communicate properly with women. He has the ever-popular (and manly) job of NYC meter maid.

Tired of being pushed around whereever he goes, Roger enrolls in a confidence-building class taught by Dr. P (Billy Bob Thornton). He tells them not to bother with self-help books: "You can't help yourself because yourself sucks." Dr. P and his assistant Lesher (Michael Clarke Duncan) take the students through the dangerous yet effective confidence-building course. As promised, the program is successful for Roger: He switches from loser to lover and impresses his longtime crush Amanda (Jacinda Barrett).

After Dr. P congratulates Roger on his success, Roger makes the mistake of telling him, "Maybe one day I'll teach the class." This causes Dr. P's competitive side to come out, and Dr. P becomes obsessed with showing Roger that he is the master — by stealing Amanda away from him.

Watch the School for Scoundrels trailer and decide for yourself. Don't forget to check out the official site, too. The movie is scheduled to be released September 29, 2006.

Ferrell as Harold Crick

Stranger Than Fiction looks to be a crisp comedy with roles well-suited for Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, and Dustin Hoffman. It's due out November 10, in time for the Thanksgiving Hollywood push. Based on the trailer and other media I have seen thus far, I have placed it on my List of Movies to See (until I see it, of course).

Karen "Kay" Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is a depressive author who is suffering from writers block because she can't figure out how to kill off her main character, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell). Harold Crick is an IRS agent with OCD who lives alone, eats alone, and sleeps alone. Unbeknownst to Key, Harold is a real person, and he begins to hear Kay narrating his life as she writes it.

Harold visits a professor of English literature, Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who gives him advice about how to interact and react with the narration and developing storyline.

Finally, Key has a breakthrough and figures out how to kill him. As she foreshadows the events in her book, Harold is alerted to his imminent death. After hearing Kay on a talk show, he sets out to find the author narrating (and controlling?) his life.

Also in the movie are Maggie Gyllenhaal as Ana, the love interest and Queen Latifah as Penny, Kay's assistant.

See the trailer for Stranger Than Fiction. Be sure to visit Sony's Stranger Than Fiction site (and click on "Enter the Site") to experience this well-developed site. (Kay narrates your cursor's movements as you navigate the site.)

The Spider-Man 3 teaser is out now, and it's clear that the third installment will deal with the Venom plot line. I highly doubt they'll get into the Secret Wars plot simply to introduce Venom, so that development will be interesting to watch. My guess is that they'll stick with yet another lab experiment gone awry. Expect to see SM3 in May 2007.

Topher Grace is slated to play Eddie Brock, which should be fun. You may or may not have noticed the Eddie Brock reference in the original Spider-Man: J. J. Jameson mentions that Eddie couldn't get a decent photo of Spider-Man.

In the comics, Venom knows Spider-Man's secret identity, but since Spider-Man 2 seemed to be titled "Hey everyone, I'm Peter Parker!", the Venom plot line will hopefully be a good distraction from that mess.

If you're not a fan of Spider-Man, however, you can always watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teaser. Based solely on the teaser, the movie looks pretty good. At first, I was worried that they might have dropped the lighter side of TMNT, but you'll notice that's not the case. One thing, though: I can't yet verify that Corey Feldman is not slated to voice Donatello. Once I can confirm that, I will be much more excited about the movie. TNMT is slated to be released on March 30, 2007.

John Hawkins over at Right Wing News posted an interesting review of the recent Natalie Portman movie V for Vendetta. V for Vendetta takes place in a totalitarian future-Great Britain and involves a masked vigilante (known only as "V") and Evey (known only as "Natalie Portman"), who conduct terrorism against the "Conservative" Party government.

Hawkins complains that the Conservative Party characters are "cartoonishly" evil. This is one point I really don't have a problem with, since the movie is based on Alan Moore's graphic novel ::wikipedia("V for Vendetta"):: (and originally a ten-issue comic book limited series). In fact, Moore very publicly dissociated himself from the film, calling it "imbecilic." Moore's original story used anarchy and fascism as the two forces at play for his stories. Heidi MacDonald interviewed Alan Moore in November, and he spoke to the political themes of his original work compared with the movie:

It seemed to me the two more absolute extremes were anarchy and fascism. This was one of the things I objected to in the recent film, where it seems to be, from the script that I read, sort of recasting it as current American neo-conservatism vs. current American liberalism. There wasn't a mention of anarchy as far as I could see. The fascism had been completely defanged.

Hawkins submits that this movie goes further than most Hollywood movies and is directly pointed at current American events, despite the changes in location:

The movie isn't subtle. It uses a jackhammer to thunder home its political points. At one point it shows a "Coalition of the Willing" poster with a swastika on it. It blames the current troubles in Britain on, "America's war." The whole movie is built over top of the lunatic vision that wild eyed liberals have of America.

Should this really come as any surprise? Hollywood continues to use their powers of entertainment to push their agenda and influence the impressionable youth of the country. It's going to be a long time before that changes in Hollywood.

Liv Tyler

I stumbled across the Lonesome Jim trailer. If it gets a wide release (or at least a limited release including your city), this might be worth seeing in the movie theater.

I wasn't sure what to think of the film when I saw that Casey Affleck was involved, but then I noticed that Lonesome Jim is directed by Steve Buscemi. I enjoyed Buscemi's Trees Lounge (ten years ago already!) quite a bit. Unfortunately, Buscemi doesn't direct for the big screen that often.

Jim begrudgingly returns to his hometown in rural Indiana after failing to make it on his own in New York. He soon remembers why he left: a doting but overbearing mother, a distant father, and a depressed older brother whose "accidents" seem suspect at best.

I truly enjoy films like The Myth of Fingerprints, Garden State, and Beautiful Girls. These movies all deal with people returning to their hometowns and quickly noticing that you can't ever really go back home. Of course, the main characters of these movies all quickly realize that old friends and the subtle inherent familiarities all bring plenty of comfort. I'm hoping that Lonesome Jim brings this same quality to the screen.

Check out the Lonesome Jim webpage.

LolliLove is an independent film that might be worth a look. The DVD release is tomorrow, and if you're interested, buy LolliLove at Amazon.com.

James Gunn and Jenna Fischer play a wealthy couple looking to give back to the homeless community through their new charity, LolliLove. LolliLove gives out lollipops to homeless people with inspirational artwork and cheery slogans on the wrapper. They believe this will eradicate homelessness by transforming homeless people into happy people.

You will recognize Jenna Fischer as Pam from NBC's The Office. You might recognize James Gunn as Minute Man from The Specials. If not, you'll still probably have seen his writing work for the Scooby Doo movies as well as Dawn of the Dead and The Specials. James and Jenna are married both in real life as well as in this film.

For more about LolliLove, head over to the film's page on MySpace Film, where you can watch the trailer and get plenty of other updates on the movie.

Jenna Fischer received the Tromadance Kodak Independent Soul Award for feature directorial debut. She was the first femal to receive this award.