The Dumb Are Mostly Intrigued By The Drum

Yup, new trailer and it's got some pretty dope shots in it. Since the other big November release has been pushed back, it will be the month of Bond if this trailer is any indication. I loved Casino Royale and this just looks dope. Hopefully I won't be disappointed. Check out the trailer over at Yahoo! here (don't forget to check out the Behind The Scenes feature here) and let us know what you think.

I just popped open the newest version of iTunes that was released today and haven't had a chance to really jump into it quite yet but from what I've heard from Mr. Steve Jobs at the event today, it all sounds pretty cool. On top of that, revised iPod Touch, iPod Nano & iPod Classic were shown off for people to fill up their loved ones stocking this winter. So other than that, not much else. The best thing to come outta the event was the announcement that iPhone 2.1 firmware software update will be out this Friday to fix all this stupid crashing and a host of other bugs from the latest update. Thank goodness. And did Steve Job look like he's stopped eating? Dude looked like a javelin up there! Head on over to Apple for more info on all the new stuff.

I've never been too hyped up about the Potter franchise but that's not to say I don't enjoy the films. When the announcement was made that the next installment was being pushed back until next summer, I was cool with it but it left me wondering how far along the film truly was. Well here's your answer: it was screened this past Saturday in Chicago. An Aintitcoolnews reader has written up a review of the film but be warned: it contains some big spoilers. If you don't care, surge ahead and click on that link to check it out!

UPDATE: Aintitcool has gone and asked the right people the right questions over at Marvel and have come back with a definitive "No" from the studio on this rumor. Consider it done. Check it out here.

Seems like today is the day for all kinds of casting rumors....so Aintitcoolnews (via MTV) is reporting that Marvel is considering Will Smith for the role of Captain America. Before people start getting all "No way Captain America should be played by a black man!" lets step back and lets ponder this: Will Smith will not be playing Steve Rogers but rather Isaiah Bradley. Who is Bradley, you ask? Well you see, after Steve Rogers was given the Super Soldier Serum, scientists tried to recreate it and tested the serum on some black soldiers. Bradley is a product of that experiment and became Captain America for a short time. Now it's been reported in the past that a Captain America film will be a World War II story so that would gel with the idea of Isaiah Bradley existing in the universe (as Bradley got older, the affects of the serum caused him to become almost childlike) and it seems to have been neglected in mentioning this possibility in any of those previous stories (this proves my nerdiness, no?). Hmmm, seems very interesting so far. What do you guys think? If this theory doesn't fly, can Will Smith play Steve Rodgers?

Well if the Hadron Collider doesn't end the world this week, the force of rabid fanboys' head's simultaneous exploding when they hear this news will. I'm taking this one with a grain of salt just like the chaps over at Slash Film (from which this comes from). We reported a while back about the rumors that Johnny Depp was going to play The Riddler in the next film in the Batman series and been hearing about Phillip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin. After the fanboys cleaned themselves up when the news hit, I think we all collectively decided it was bullshit. Well now comes this little quote from Alfred himself, Sir Michael Caine, who wondered about the rumors himself:

“I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make [a sequel to The Dark Knight]?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath — Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘Shit, they’ve done it again!’” [Laughs]

I still don't know what the fuck this atom smasher is gonna do in order to improve our everyday life (I mean, it's not the cure for cancer....is it?) but I read about it a couple of months ago and now it's going online this Wednesday, even though people have been trying hard to stop it from going online due to fear that it might destroy the world. No, I'm not kidding. Apparently this big bastard of a machine can is capable of of creating micro black holes that will stop you from ever playing The Force Unleashed when it is released next week because everyone will be dead, including you. Anyways, one of the super smart peoples working on this project has decided to make a friendly rap video in order to explain it to us all who can't possibly comprehend the complexity of this whole project. Shit, I still don't know what the hell is going on. Damn, I kinda wanted to see if they would ever make a true sequel to Desperado. Check out the full story over here at Yahoo! and see if you can decipher all the mumbo jumbo and it was nice knowing you all!

The Nic Cage action-thriller remake 'Bangkok Dangerous' led the box office this weekend with a measly $7.8 million, making this the slowest weekend for movies in five years. The top five was rounded out by 'Tropic Thunder' $7.5, 'The House Bunny', 'The Dark Knight', and 'Traitor'.

September is generally a slow month for movies. It's that weird transitional period when the summer box office is dying down and studios are gearing up to release their big Oscar contenders. Meanwhile, the television networks are all preparing to debut their big new shows for the fall season. But this does mark the seventh week this year that earnings have fallen behind compared to last year. Studio analysts are blaming this on the state of the economy, high gas prices, and the recent storms on the gulf coast. However I blame this on such craptastical releases as 'Bangkok Dangerous', 'Disaster Movie', 'Babylon A.D.', 'Death Race', 'The Longshots', 'The House Bunny', etc.

We'll find out next weekend when Focus Features rolls out the Coen brother's comedy 'Burn After Reading' and Overture Films releases the De Niro/Pacino team-up 'Righteous Kill'.

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Sony has locked in director Sam Raimi and Peter Parker himself Tobey Maguire (has dude done anything since Spider-Man 3?) for another sequel in the Spider-Man franchise. Not only that, the there is a possibility that they will try to shoot 2 movies back to back, which backs up a rumor that was floating around a couple of months ago. No word on any other actors returning to reprise roles and as far as the villain (or villains? God I hope not...) is concerned, the rumors are heavily leaning towards Dr. Curt Conners as The Lizard in this one. Finke's source goes on to mention that "once you find out who the villain is, you'll know who's playing it" so that means either Conners (played by Dylan Baker) or one of the previous villains will return. Man, I hope it's not Venom cause I don't think after Topher Grace's take on him in the last film that I can take that kinda of bullshit. What do you guys think? Should Raimi get all "Dark Knight" on the Spider-Man franchise and show us the dark side of Peter Parker?

What can I say, I like Michael Moore's stuff: always entertaining are his films. We can sit here and argue whether or not his style of documentary filmmaking is proper but I find myself enjoying his films. Anyways his latest film, Slacker Uprising, will be available for free download later this month over at BLIPTV. Interested? Check out CNET here for more info and check out the trailer down there and see if it's worth deleting those old pictures of your nephew's birthday party in order to make room for the film when it's released.

So this is supposed to be the Microsoft's answer to Apple, huh? Damn....honestly, I was hoping they were going to be awesome and maybe it's just starting off but I didn't find this too funny. Especially knowing that Seinfeld reportedly is getting around $10 million for the series of ads. I don't know, what do you guys think?

As we mentioned in our podcast earlier this week (you listened, right?) September is going to be an all out assault on the local film lovers as we have three film festivals occurring here locally. F.I.L.M.M. (Festival Featuring Independent Lyricist and Movie Makers) is the first one and it's happening this Saturday, September 6th here in Fresno at the Tower Theater and doors open at 6:30 p.m. The festival features short films, junior short films, and poetry, mixed with a little live entertainment as well. I haven't had a chance to attend in the past so I'm not exactly sure what to expect this weekend but you can bet your ass I'll be there and if you have the time, come on out, say waddup and help support local film & the filmmakers making them. Here's a quote from the press release:

The event was designed to give people in and around the Central Valley an opportunity to show their work publicly to a national audience. All of the showcased participants involved have been chosen by a set of professional judges who have established themselves within the film or poetry industry. It’s a true independent festival that wants to give an outlet or resource to those who are serious about their craft and exemplify the potential to be successful in it, but don’t have the resources in order to fulfill those dreams and aspirations. It is "FFILMM's" hope to give these artists those resources, and if nothing else just give them the opportunity to express themselves and show their creative ability.

The second film in the series opens up tonight and it's a pretty good one: Scarface. Yup, I imagine that everyone from that barbershop in Manchester with the wall to wall posters of the film will be there, along with a close friend of mine with an unhealthy obsession with Tony Montana. Anyways, you should know the drill: the film starts at 10pm at Edwards Theater at Riverpark, tickets are $5 so head on out after your done Art Hop-pin' & catch some classic films!

I'm assuming that it's quite possible that there are people who haven't seen The Dark Knight yet so I've attached the big warning in the title of this post and here: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN TDK, YOUR DUMB (wait a minute, that could be a compliment on this blog)! Oh yeah, you then shouldn't read the rest of this post (but feel free to browse the rest of the blog, it's all good!).

Aaron Eckhart was doing press in Toronto for his next film, Towelhead, when he was asked a series of questions by SuperheroHype during an interview about Harvey Dent's return for a sequel to The Dark Knight:

CS/SHH!: Is Harvey Dent alive?
Aaron Eckhart: No. He is dead as a door nail.

CS/SHH!: So he's not coming back?
Eckhart: He ain't coming back baby!

CS/SHH!: I was hoping he would.
Eckhart: No. I asked Chris [Nolan] that question and he goes, "You're dead" before I could even get the question out of my mouth. "Hey Chris, am I?" "You're dead!" Alright, cool.

CS/SHH!: That's not a problem in comic book movies. You could still come back.
Eckhart: I think in contract negotiations it's a problem.

CS/SHH!: So you were never signed on for another film?
Eckhart: No, I'm not coming back. I think unfortunately, Heath [Ledger] was supposed to go on and that didn't work out. I'm nobody. I'm a cog. I have no say over this sort of stuff. I'm sure that there's so many other characters that they could whip together. I heard Angelina Jolie was going to be Catwoman or something like that. I thought that was a great idea. I'd like to be in that one.

CS/SHH!: It must be gratifying that so many people responded to your character.
Eckhart: Yeah, I dig it. Write your Congressman. I like that for the first time in my career I'm getting fan mail from kids and 8-year-olds. "My name is Bill. I really liked the film." I've never had that before. I think that's fun. I think someone told me they're going to be Harvey Two-Face for Halloween which is cool. I said to two kids the other day, "Did you see Batman yet?" Then I come to find out like two seconds later they've seen it four times. People are really going back to see it. My parents saw it I think 12 [times] so far. They're sick that it's going out of the theaters.

CS/SHH!: Do they normally see your movies 12 times?
Eckhart: I don't know about 12, but they like to go see the movies. They like to go see the audience. They like to tell people that I'm in the movie like popcorn people.

Once again our heroes return....what heroes do I speak of you ask? Well none other than myself, brodiemash, & our new co-host of The DUmb, Bryan Harley from AMF Productions. Back again for the first time, we talk about all kinds of stuff relating to film and some other things....not so much:

• We talk about films we saw over the Labor Day weekend including The Wackness, Pineapple Express, The Clone Wars, Babylon A.D., Tropic Thunder & more.

• Next weeks DVD releases and how nobody else loves Wings but me (and Quagmire).

• How we'd make an R-rated Star Wars film.

• We reenact the conversation between Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter.

• My lunch at Livingstone's and their horrible customer service.

• The active film festivals going on in Fresno in the month of September, including the F.F.I.L.M.M and the Latino Film Festival

• The death of Don LaFontaine

• We overload on nerdiness as we discuss the awesome RED Camera.

All this and much, much more. All for free. Download it, listen and let us know what you think. Thanks to Late Update for hosting our podcast!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE DUMB #9

Oh, man....I've been waiting for this one. Glad they decided to make the first trailer a red band. Can't....wait....for...Halloween! Stop reading and watch the "Porno" already! Oh and don't forget, red band means NSFW so be warned!

I love Millar's line in that if he was given superpowers that he would "kill who ever John McCain told me to kill." Pretty much! I mean, who wouldn't want to have super powers? Well dude's always spewing gold (it's comments like those that make you either love or hate the guy) and in this interview with G4, he talks it up about everything from his latest comic book, War Heroes to the latest on his much talked about reboot of the Superman franchise on the big screen. And during the whole interview, dude's holding a beer. Ah, to live the rock star life of a comic book writer....

I know that God didn't invent them, but damn are Pluots delicious....Oh, didn't see you guys there. Well after taking it easy for a week due some insane deadlines at work, everything should be back to normal this week....somewhat. Anyways, besides working most of this holiday weekend, lets recap some of the coolness: