mondojohnson

I’ve got to say that all of this dogpiling on Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is pretty excessive and unwarranted. Nerds and cinephiles alike have been unfairly brutal on the summer blockbuster and its smashy-crashy director Michael Bay.

I saw the flick on the 4th of July, and I gotta say it gave me a good old-fashioned summer movie thrill. Loud, clanging and full of gratuitous sexuality aimed directly at the eighth-grader within. Sure, there was the thin plot and product placement, but I wasn’t expecting Citizen-frikkin-Kane, okay? You gotta take these things on their own terms. T2:RoF was a rollicking, percussive CG spectacular; way over the top — which is precisely where I wanted to go. I was looking for the air-conditioned escapism of a giant mall movie, and I was not disappointed

Enough already from Will Smith, whose goody-two-shoes schtick is so tiresome and nauseating. He should be run off the screen for trying to sell that latter-day Jimmy Stewart-wannabe horseshit, over and over again.

What pushed me over this edge was learning that the Fresh Prince is producing a remake of “The Karate Kid”, starring one of his god-awful precocious offspring as Daniel-san (renamed “Dre” to provide the bland Disney-ghetto cred that Smith invented). But it doesn’t stop there — Jackie Chan will be playing Mr. Miyagi.

We should be concerned about the possibility of a Smith dynasty in Hollywood. Its bland horrors could stretch over generations, just like the Bushes….

[Hat tip to FILMDRUNK for breaking the awful, awful news.]

No huge surprises here. TIME magazine reports that Ronald Reagan, that masturbatory idol to the right wing, named names during the infamous “red scare.” He, along with then-wife Jane Wyman happily turned over lists of “suspected” Hollywood commie sympathizers to the FBI. And it wasn’t a one-off, he was a full-fledged clandestine operative with a code name.

Read all about it on the TIME web site: American Notes Hollywood

 So it turns out that the suicide of Dr. Lawrence Kutner on “House M.D.” was not meaningless after all: it was brought about by the job offer given to Kal Penn (the actor portraying Kutner) by the Obama White House.  Penn is going to be “liason to Hollywood” or something like that.

I still salute the writers of “House” for coming up with the suicide to deal with the sudden disappearance of Kutner; it was a dramatically potent move.  But finding out that the plot twist was likely manufactured to accomodate Penn’s career move takes away from the fun exercise of watching House re-runs on USA and thinking “was that foreshadowing?…was that Kutner crying for help?”, etc.

Good luck to my Jersey boy in his new job.  Don’t keep that handsome mug off the screen for too long, though.

Read all about it: Barack & Kumar Go To White House

Tonight I have a roof, at the Coral Sands in Hollywood (which will be significant to a sleazy minority of followers). Today starts well.