If I Were Paul Giamatti's Agent...

Paul,

Great to hear from you the other night! That John Adams mini-series on HBO is really taking off. I saw that the DVD was a hot seller on amazon. Way to go, buddy! I thought I'd catch you in your down time to discuss a few options in your career.

As you probably know already, you've come a long way from Pig Vomit in Howard Stern's Private Parts (and let me tell you, I could tell you some pretty fucked up stories about pig vomit in Howard Stern's private parts... eww...). A leading man! That's what you are now! And you're a little overweight and bald and not that attractive. Good for you, guy!

So you've gone from bit character actor to leading man, but now I think it's time you became the next logical step... franchise hero! Think about it, G-spot! You've had some hits, both critical and commercial. So let's just take a look through the vaults here and come up with some viable sequels to set up some tent poles at the studios. Bear with me!

- Sideways 2: Frontways! - Everyone's favorite schlub and wine snob is back in a new wacky adventure! We're gonna team you and Thomas Hayden Church (Lowell from Wings!!!) again and set you on a heartfelt, but wine-fueled romp, through America's heartland. Now, the first Sideways was a big indie hit and made you an unexpected star. We're going to get rid of all the melodrama and the big fancy dialogue (research shows that most people don't know what a "Pinot" is or why you pernounced Mer Lot as merlow...). Instead, grab your box wine and let's get it started in here!!! We're thinking the two of you team up with a monkey and have to travel from New York to Napa to save Monkey Butt Vineyards from being sold! Along the way you'll meet a cavalcade of characters, each kookier than the last! Think Harold and Kumar for the over 40 crowd. Also thinking of calling it 2ideways! or Step Up 2 the Sideways.

- Lady in the Water 2 - We can't get M. Night Shyamayamyamyamyamlan to come back for the sequel, but it's already in pre-production, so, what the fuck. Let's just do it. The first one... Look I'll level with you Paul. It was crap. A box office bomb, critically panned, and it got M. Night fired from Disney. We wanna put all that behind us and really just focus on what worked in the movie. Do I smell a reboot!!! Oh yes I dooooooo. The new Lady in the Water, possibly called WaterLady, will be a little bit different. Instead of a small motel owner, you're going to be playing a former
Army scientist who was forced to retire for mysterious (read: sexy) reasons. The lady in the water won't be a nart or a foop or whatever the fuck the first one was about, but will be an experiment you worked on gone wrong... and it's out for bloooood. You and the rest of your former science team (Josh Duhamel, Paul Walker, and for comic relief, let's get that guy from Superbad. The fat one) are going to need to take her down for good. This one is fast tracked and will have lots of CGI monsters and robots (yes we are adding robots).

- Paycheck 2 - Again, Paycheck was a big box office bomb and one of the stepping stones to the crumpling of Ben Affleck's career. Do you know why? It's because the writers didn't focus on your wise-cracking buddy mind-eraser character nearly enough. What happens when a mind-eraser gets a taste of his OWN medicine? That's right. Hilarity ensues. No script necessary (just like Paycheck 1) and we start filming on Monday.

- Fred Claus 2: Fred Claws!!! - This time, your jolly old St. Nick portrayal won't be so jolly. We're looking at a Hard R rating for this tale of familial jealousy and violence. Your character, Santa, will be forced to beat his shiftless layabout brother to a bloody pulp in a quest for vengeance and the right to rule the North Pole. We're not really sure who the target audience is for this movie, but don't worry, we didn't know for Fred Claus either.

That's what we have lined up so far, but we can really pick up any dangling plot threads in any of your movies and just run with them. Is that American Splendor guy dead yet? Is there a sequel in that? I didn't see it, was it filled with dick and fart jokes? Can we get Judd Apatow to produce American Spledor 2: Farts and Man Penis? We can certainly try, Paul. We can certainly Try.

Signed, Your agent

Tila Tequila Is Very Obviously a Space Alien

I've never seen "Shot of Love" but I damn well only needed to see her once to realize the show is a scam for Tila Tequila to inseminate her space DNA into the Earth populace. Proof...

Why I Am More Excited For Iron Man Than The Dark Knight

So my loyal readership was shocked that I said I was more excited for Iron Man than I am for The Dark Knight. Here is a not-so brief explanation as to why...

- Iron Man is new - There have been Batman movies for decades now, especially counting the loveable 1960's camp romp with Bat Shark Repellant and other schlocky goodness. Now obviously the quality varies between Tim Burton's excellent 1989 Batman and Joel Schumacher's 1997 Batman's Nipples And Arnold's Ice Puns, but they are all Batman and it's not really something we haven't seen before. I bet that in The Dark Knight, crime strikes Gotham City, Batman has to save a girl/woman/sidekick, and Bruce Wayne will have to juggle with personal problems that may or may not conflict with his Batman life. That's all fine, but you know what it won't have? Flying through the sky with fighter jets. And repulsor rays.

- Batman Begins was overrated - Christopher Nolan is a great director (loved Memento and The Prestige... less so Insomnia, but we'll give him bonus points for the greatness of the first two) and Batman Begins was a great movie. But it was also extremely overrated. The plot becomes incomprehensible and crushed under its own weight by the end (isn't a large chunk of Gotham insane by the end? Didn't Morgan Freeman say it would take weeks to make enough of a cure? Do they not mention this before the final credits? No they do not.). The Scarecrow is completely under-used for such a damned frightening and excellently portrayed character (love that Cillian Murphy) and then at the end, he has a completely retarded fight on a horse (seriously? where they fuck did a horse come from?) and then disappears. No arrest, no "I'll get you for this Batman!" no horrible death, no good. The Katie Holmes character could easily have been completely deleted from the movie; she is worthless as an actress and a character. My final point can have its own bullet....

- Christian Bale... not a great Batman - Look, let me get this straight right away. I love Christian Bale in a very heterosexual and respectful way. Though the movie American Psycho falls way short of the book, it is completely carried by Bale, who is amazing in it. Perfect casting all the way. And as evidenced there, he plays the millionaire playboy very well. He is a great Bruce Wayne. The problem is the almost laughable grunting and deep "Batman voice" he uses when he suits up. Why does he need to change his voice at all? Answer: he does not. The stupidity of his uber deep gravel voice took me out of the movie's world and made me realize I missed Michael Keaton (or hell, even Val Kilmer). Robert Downey Jr. on the other hand? Born to play Tony Stark.

- The Dark Knight uses a lot of stupid viral websites - You know when there's a show or a band you like and it's really great? You love it and it's not super well-known, but then, oh but then, it starts to get some steam and pretty soon it takes off and EVERYONE is thinking it's really great. Then the show or the band changes to accommodate this mainstream success and it's just kind of crappy and you feel dead inside? That's what I think of "viral marketing." Like, 5 years ago, if you were on a site and it was like, "Holy shit! This site is about that awesome movie!" it was a new and unique experience. Now, everything does it. The Dark Knight has about 200 websites all about Harvey Dent and the Joker and blah blah blah blah blah. I barely have the time to write stuff on this, let alone jump from stupid website to website to find a picture of the Joker that SlashFilm will show me, without stupid hoop jumping, the next day. And the idea of Marketing executives sitting around talking about how to set up these sites makes me laugh and also die a little inside. You know what Iron Man did? Release a kick ass trailer. Boom, done. No starkindustries.com or any of that crap. The over-produced "hey this must be cool because it's on the internet" hype machine doesn't do it for me. Kick ass trailer with Black Sabbath does.

- The Dark Knight is Dark! And Edgy! - From the looks of it so far, The Dark Knight is going for a more realistic tone that is very dark. You must have seen pictures of the Joker by now, and I gotta say, it does not do it for me. Yeah, he's a crazy murderer, but did they need to make him look like an alcoholic birthday clown who got mugged? The Joker I know is absolutely insane but has a touch of class and very nearly a method to his madness. Different writers take him in different directions, and I really am not sure of what the final movie will be, but from what I've seen so far I do not like the new Joker. Iron Man just looks like complete popcorn fun. I like coming out of the movie theater excited and feeling like a kid again. Not in a deep cesspool of self-loathing because I could become the Joker given the right circumstances...

- I have faith in Jon Favreau - Jon Favreau is the man. Yes, he is more than a little responsible for the overwhelming amount of Vince Vaughn in your daily life due to their star-making Swingers, but he is the man. He was Gutter in PCU and he was Foggy Nelson in Daredevil. And he directed Elf, which do not lie, warmed your goddamn heart.

None of this was particularly well thought out and I wouldn't be surprised if I changed my mind at the drop of a hat, but... fuck you. Go write your own website if you don't like it.

I Don't Really Like Red Hot Chili Peppers

To be honest, I feel like I'm late to this realization, that a lot of the world made this decision a few years ago, but I am really sick and tired of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Some history...

In 1993, (I think that's the year, I'm too lazy to fact check any of this...) when Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out, it was a big deal. One of those iconic early 90's albums that I don't think many would argue ranks up there with Nirvana's Nevermind or Pearl Jam's Ten in setting various stages for how music would progress over the course of the decade. Sublimely converging funk, punk, and just all out rock, it was a damn good record. "Under the Bridge" is a damn good song. And they had some wild antics, dancing around on stage naked with tube socks on their wing wangs, and overall were a part of the overall gestalt that was the early 1990's to me.

Then they came out with One Hot Minute in 1995 (again, rough estimate). I remember "Aero Plane" getting decent radio play and I liked it enough. But despite having this album on my iPod for probably the past 4 years, I've never listened to the whole thing in full. I think "My Friends" is on it, and that's my favorite RHCP song, but memory serves me right... the album was a bomb. And not like a Tom Jones "Sex Bomb" either; like an Eddie Murphy's Adventures of Pluto Nash bomb.

Then they did who the fuck knows what and eventually came out with Californication in 2000. While Californication has some good jams, namely the title track and I've always enjoyed "Parallel Universe," and "Road Trippin'," the album suffers under its own popularity. I still turn on the radio and fucking hear "Scar Tissue." As far as overplayed albums go, this one is probably the fucking king (until I think of a better one...). All of its singles, including "Californication" which I go through cycles of love and hate with (loved it when I first heard it, before it was a single, hated it when it hit big, loved it when I learned it on the guitar, hated it when I heard it on the radio for the 700th time...) are still played now, 8 years later, and when they have a new album out.

That brings me to their latest album, which I can't even remember the name of. The one with "Dani California" on it. I hate that song. It sounds exactly like the entire album Californication. And it's a double album. Nothing, and I mean nothing, says "we like to sniff our own farts" more than a double album. Ok, side note, Smashing Pumpkins' Mellan Collie and the Infinite Sadness as well as New Order's Substance are both double albums and are great (though not completely perfect... you can't have 2 hours + of music and expect them all to be hits). So why do I hate on Planet Ardcadium, or what ever this album is called? Because the difference is that those were kind of the iconic albums for the Pumpkins and New Order, this is just a desperate attempt to milk the same cash cow that sold so many copies of Californication from a band whose prime is long past. If you have never heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which is probably damn near impossible, listen to Blood Sugar Sex Magik, watch their episode of The Simpsons, and call it a night. Trust me on this one.

The culmination of all of this? Tonight I finally excise my iPod of RHCP for good. I'll keep a couple of choice tracks, but say goodbye to "Around the World." I've always hated you most of all when you came up on random.

NY Comic Con 2008

I went to Comic Con 2008 here in NYC and it was amazing. I don't have much to say about it except that it was awesome, Seth Green is hilarious (and very short) and walks around like a normal person, and next year we're getting the weekend pass because it really is too much for one day. Maybe I'll elaborate tomorrow.

Movies I Have Boners For Volume 1

I am a man who can really get behind a cause, as long as that cause is going to see a fucking kick ass movie. And it usually is in the social circles I entrench myself into. With blockbuster season kicking up soon, here is a short list of movies I have raging mega-huge boners for...

- Forgetting Sarah Marshall - The funny thing is, I have already seen this movie in a test screening. It says a lot that I can't wait to go see it again. Starring my general role model, Jason Segel, this movie has vampire puppets, full frontal man penis, and Kristen Bell having fake orgasms. It is also hilarious. I can't recommend it enough.

- The Forbidden Kingdom - Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Yes they are both a little old now, and I am positive that they said Fearless was Jet Li's last historical epic, but who the hell cares. This comes out the same day as Sarah Marshall. I plan on seeing them both and superkicking any one who tries to defy me.

- Iron Man - I cannot possibly express in words how excited I am for Iron Man. I'll try and do it with a noise. GUUUUUUUAUAAAUAUUAUUARRRRAAAAAYAYYAYAA. Guaranteed to be good. I'm more excited for this than I am for the Dark Knight.

- Speed Racer - I'm going to take ecstasy and a whole bunch of methamphetamines and go see Speed Racer in IMAX. They invented new colors for this movie. This one may have actually traveled back in time from some sort of future where no one has an attention span and CGI has surpassed real actors. I had little to no interest in this movie until I started to get curious from the trailers. Now I am very excited.

I think that's it for April/May. There are probably some more at the end of May, but I'll get to those when the time comes.