Movies

maintaining awesomeness
one day at a time

If you’re like us and breathe college football you spend this time of year reading Phil Steele and thinking up new ways to analyze your alma mater’s upcoming season.

Your school could be thoroughly dominate. Your school could suck out loud. Either way the one true constant is that you’ll keep coming back. The whole phenomenon is a lot like Will Smith’s career (up until the day he officially announces he’s a Scientologist, of course).

So we’ve developed this convenient new system to define the type of season your team is capable of having:

The Bad Boys Season

A surprise ten win season for a team led by unproven but highly recruited players. No one thought you’d be terrible, but no one thought you’d be this good either.

Think: West Virginia in ‘05.

2008 Potential: Oregon, Minnesota, Washington, North Carolina.

The Independence Day Season

A dominant season for a team playing a laughable schedule. Public perception has nothing to do with substance and everything to do with dropping 60 on cupcakes.

Think: Last year’s Ohio State squad.

2008 Potential: West Virginia, Clemson, Ohio State.

The Enemy of the State Season

An underappreciated season for an underappreciated team. Solid contributors all around, young and old, many of whom continue to make a name for themselves in the league.

Think: Miami 2000.

2008 Potential: Auburn, Texas.

The Men in Black Season

A team everyone knows will kill. And they do — in fact — kill. Anyone can find a hole to poke, but when it’s all said and done the school is a favorite in every sense of the word.

Think: USC 2004.

2008 Potential: Georgia, Florida, USC.

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The first trailer for the Quantum of Solace has hit the world wide web and being the Bond aficionados we are we’re compelled to treat it to it’s own JAMBIT session.

What We Know:

  • QoS picks up pretty much exactly where Casino Royale left off.
  • Everyone who matters and didn’t die in the previous film is back for this one, including the way underrated Jeffrey Wright.
  • Bobsledding is the only manner of transportation the director decided not to use in an action scene.
  • Daniel Craig in his prime would kick the shit out of every other Bond in their prime, sans Connery. And don’t give us any of that, “Timothy Dalton was a mean m-fer” jazz.
  • Anyone who says they aren’t motivated by revenge is motivated by revenge. Classic denial technique.
  • You deserve to take a bullet if you get shot by a guy hanging upside down.

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Being bombarded by Wanted trailers got us to thinking that there are two kinds of actors out there: the ones who selectively pick and choose their roles in order to maintain their artistic reputation and the ones who are not scared to cash a paycheck. We’re concerned with the latter.

Editor’s Note: This list is limited to actors and actresses we think are talented and capable of producing good work and does not include people who are dead to us (see: Eddie Murphy).

Angelina Jolie - We would trade five years off our lives for a night with her so we don’t mind a mail-in job here and there as long as she looks hot doing it.

Rushed to the teller after: The Bone Collector, Gone in Sixty Seconds, The Tomb Raider flicks, Life or Something Like It, Shark Tale, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Key Indicator: Rocking the eye patch in Sky Captain.

Latest cash flow projects: Wanted and Kung Fu Panda aren’t going to win any awards but they should keep the kids in diapers.

Samuel L. Jackson - If we were ranking this list (and not starting off with Angelina in order to have her hot photo at the top) Sam Jackson would be #1 by a landslide. We defy you to find anyone less scared to endorse a studio check.

Rushed to the teller after: Deep Blue Sea, the WWE appearance he made as Shaft, both XXX flicks, The Man , Snakes on a Plane, 1408, and Jumper.

Key Indicator: The shark eating him fifteen minutes into Deep Blue Sea even though his name was above the title on the movie poster.

Latest cash flow projects: This summer’s animated Star Wars flick and Soul Men with Bernie Mac.

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Judging A Movie By Its Trailer: RocknRolla

June 25th, 2008 by NextRound

In this installment of JAMBIT we’re taking a look at the recently released trailer for Guy Ritchie’s new flick, RocknRolla.

Like everyone, we think Lock, Stock is awesome. But we also think Snatch is just as good. It’s after those two where Ritchie’s resume starts looking a little dicey. And by “dicey” we mean “inconceivably miserable“.

What We Know:

  • Guy Ritchie is trying to get back to what he does best, and that’s definitely a good thing.
  • Madonna is supposedly dumping Ritchie, and if true it’s the biggest favor she could ever do him.
  • Gerard Butler could tell us to give meth a try and we’d probably do it.
  • Tom Wilkinson makes everything better (see: Michael Clayton, Batman Begins, and John Adams).
  • We’re incapable of pinpointing just how hot Thandie Newton is.
  • Ludacris is a surprisingly solid actor, and we’re not just saying that because we like the I Got Hoes video so much.
  • British people are funny.

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If you saw the first one then you’ve pretty much seen this one. I had high hopes, but I’m afraid not even getting super stoned could make this movie good. Maybe I just expect too much from “THE CAGE” (he’s no Dolph Lundgren, but he is still KICK ASS in all caps, Bangkok Dangerous is going to rock your face). Or maybe it has something to do with the studio hiring the same guy who wrote the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. Alright, let’s get started…

Synopsis:

When a missing page of John Wilkes Booth’s diary surfaces, Ben’s (Nic Cage’s) great-great grandfather is suddenly implicated as a key conspirator in the death of Abraham Lincoln (which is apparently a bad thing for Northerners). Determined to prove his ancestor’s innocence, Ben follows an international chain of clues through Paris and London and ultimately back to the US (happens just about as quick as you just read it). Ultimately, the journey leads Ben and his crew in pursuit of the World’s Largest Treasure. (Seriously, how many “World’s Largest Treasures” are there in the states that we don’t know about? Seems like someone would have run into them all by now, or there would be a paper trail or something).

Sounds like a solid movie, huh? Unfortunately it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, it will entertain you, BUT the big problem with sequels like this is that whoever is in charge of making them doesn’t get that what made the first one cool wasn’t all the over the top action. NT2 is like a hybrid of Goonie’s and Marky Mark’s The Big Hit. For god’s sake, THE CAGE rocks a laughable receder while breaking into the oval office and kidnapping the PRESIDENT of the United States. GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.

Guess what, I read the Book of Secrets. You know what it told me? That even Seagal knows an un-rockable receder + a presidential kidnapping = a shitty movie.

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Summer DVD Binge: Dexter

June 24th, 2008 by NextRound

Summer can mean a slow death for those of us who are still awesome and like sports and television. Thankfully, Al Gore invented the DVD. Throughout the summer we’ll be running a series of DVD binge recommendations to help you claw your way to football season. Now up: Dexter.

Airs: On Showtime in the Fall. Currently two seasons in.

Genre: A rare mix of crime thriller dramedy with psychopathic tendencies.

Number of Episodes: 24 over 2 seasons. Season 3 starts this fall.

Estimated Viewing Time: If you’re single and love the couch you can knock out the first two seasons over a long weekend. If the ball and chain makes most of your decisions for you you’re looking at three weeks to a month.

What to Anticipate:

  • Blood.
  • Violence.
  • Serial Killing.
  • A surprisingly lighthearted tone despite all the blood and all the violence and all the serial killing.
  • Lots of Miami.
  • Crawling inside the mind of a sociopath.
  • Finding a serial killer to be surprisingly likable.

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Open Letter To Jessica Alba’s Agent

June 23rd, 2008 by NextRound

Dear Jessica Alba’s Agent:

We’re of the opinion your W-2 should be public record. It would be nice to put a number to your annual income when we’re discussing what a massive overpaid waste of space you are.

The Love Guru sucks ass AND bombed. Of course it did. A movie trailer with that much hockey pretty much guarantees a flick is going to be unwatchable, and that’s before you even factor in a washed up Mike Myers sporting a sack full of fart jokes.

Here’s our question: What exactly would you say you do?

History tells us reading scripts and providing input on what douchebags knock up your clients are not part of your job description. Your only duty — as far as we can gather — is cashing checks generated from the “Well, it looks fucking terrible, but I’ll sit through it because Alba’s in it” phenomenon.

We’re just fed the fuck up with your lack of effort. Sure, we could throw a dart at a pack of street performers and pick one that could out act Alba, but that’s not the point, is it? The point is she’s a renowned piece of ass and it can’t be that difficult to slip her in a decent flick here or there.

You’re telling us you couldn’t get her an audition for one of the three big superhero flicks this summer? You let penis deflators like Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler, and Maggie Gyllenhaal beat her out? What do the chicks in those movies have to do anyway? Look frightened like 95% of the time? You couldn’t just tell her you were working on her doing another flick with Dane Cook prior to every scene?

You have to understand, we want to see Jessica in movies. We really do. It’s just we refuse to see any of the following:

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Drowning Mona came out in 2000. It was no critical darling, no box office wonder, and we’re willing to bet less than half of your friends have ever heard of it. The good news is that all of these negatives are actually positives since A) Critics don’t know shit about comedy, B) From the research we’ve done box office success has exactly zero correlation to quality, and C) Face it, just about all of your friends are idiots.

Like most of our favorite comedies, Drowning Mona is dark, nuanced, edgy, and gets exponentially better with each viewing. The latter is especially true when you watch it with friends and you can later repeat lines like, “Dude, she’s like 13,” and have your buddy automatically respond, “Yeah. Finally!”

Additional points we’d like to make:

  • As much as it pains us to recommend a movie with Bette Midler, Neve Campbell, and Jamie Lee Curtis on the cover, that’s just what we’re doing. None of them suck in this flick, because none of them get too much screen time.
  • Casey Affleck is AWE-some in this movie. Dude should really get more street cred for his performance.
  • Just about all the really money comedy is dished out by people not on the cover (Affleck, this dude that you’ve seen a lot but don’t know his name, the guy who plays Jeff Dearly, and Will Ferrell as Cubby the funeral director). Needless to say this thing was poorly marketed.

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The Myers / Alexander Parallel

June 18th, 2008 by NextRound

You’d think the number of times we’ve been bombarded by Love Guru previews we’d be desensitized by now, but no, that’s not the case. Nope, every single GD time we see a preview for that surefire Hindenburg of a movie we feel a pang of disappointment for what Mike Myers has become.

We’re not sure if it’s arrogance or laziness or that he just doesn’t have it anymore, but whatever it is, the precipitous decline is remarkably similar to that of an NFL running back. One in particular…

Name

Mike Myers______Shaun Alexander

Profession

Comedian / Movie Star______Football Player / NFL Network Applicant

Place of Origin

Canada__________A weird part of Kentucky that might as well be Canada

Early Success

Accepted into Second City right out of high school______”Mr. Football” Kentucky

Next Big Step

Saturday Night Live when it was good______SEC Football when Bama was good

Made a Name for Himself

Coining “that’s what she said” on Wayne’s World______Dropping 291 yards on LSU

As a gay German in Sprockets______As the Crimson Tide’s all-time rushing leader

Playing Phillip the Hyper Hypo______Taking part in Bama’s last SEC Championship

All the Success Leads To

Feature films______Being the 17th overall pick

Good but Not Great

Wayne’s World the movie______Rookie season behind Ricky Watters

Dude Might Be Brilliant

Austin Powers makes some pee come out______D-knifes the league for 16 TDs

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The Hulk Might Not Suck

June 13th, 2008 by NextRound

As a follow up to our Hulk article from the other day we’re beginning to get the impression the movie might be OK. Some of that has to do with the generally favorable reviews, and some of that has to do with Ed Norton turning out to have a sense of humor, a self-deprecating one at that.

This is from Jimmy Kimmel Live the other night. A little long but it has it’s moments (and tiny Mexicans in green paint):

“I’m fool of angreee! The Hull smash! I doan like chu chair!”

[H/T: Tunaflix via Steve Irony]