This week on the HomeVideodrome podcast, Jim finally sees “Drive” and weighs in, Hunter reviews “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” and Jim reveals his love affair with “A Fish Called Wanda.” Also, we discuss Ryan O’Neal’s finest moment on film in Norman Mailer’s “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.” Head over to The Film Thugs to give it a listen.

You are already aware of whether or not “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” interests you. “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” is a bit of a stoner classic, possessing the sort of random logic that strings the best weed-fueled movies together. The sequel, “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay,” was raunchier and had some hilarious bits, but never really came together as a complete product the way a lot of modern comedies fail to do. This third outing fares better than the second, adding a Christmas-driven plot to the stoned “After Hours” shenanigans.

This time around, Harold & Kumar have gone their separate ways as friends. Harold is a big-shot executive on Wall Street and lives in mortal fear of his father-in-law, which is completely understandable since the in-law is played by Danny Trejo. Trejo’s fearsome father has an intense love of Christmas, with special attention reserved for the magic of his homegrown Christmas tree.

While his wife is out with the family for midnight mass, Harold pledges to decorate the tree, hoping to make into a magical display and win the respect of his in-laws. His hopes are dashed when Kumar, still a bloodshot walking disaster, shows up to give him a mystery package, which contains a magical joint. One thing leads to another, and Trejo’s Christmas tree is destroyed in a freak accident, leading Harold & Kumar on an evening excursion to replace the tree, even if it means getting attacked by Russian mobsters, going on a claymated acid trip, or having yet another run-in with Neil Patrick Harris.

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The new film “Anonymous” embraces one of literature’s most enduring questions – did William Shakespeare actually write the plays, sonnets and poems which secured his spot as the greatest English-language writer?

W. Scott Howard, an associate professor at the University of Denver’s English Department, contends “Anonymous” only scratches the surface of the mystery, but it might just make a few ticket holders brush up on their Shakespeare as a result. (Warning: Spoilers ahead)

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Big Hollywood: What was your overall impression of “Anonymous?” What impact do you think the movie will have on the subject matter? Could the film move the needle one way or the other on popular opinions regarding Shakespeare?

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Without question, my favorite 4th of July film is Independence Day (1996), also known as “ID4,” where earth engages in a desperate battle against evil extra-terrestrials (is there any other kind?).

Roland Emmerich, when he still used to make movies that entertained, pitted nerdy Jeff Goldblum, heroic Will Smith, and sensible Bill Pullman against massive enemy spaceships that were all but invincible until, ala War of the Worlds, Smith and Goldblum –  the Marine fighter pilot and the computer programmer — fly a captured alien fighter ship up to the mother vessel to impregnate it with a computer virus.

Smith’s lines remain classics to this day: after opening the hatch to a downed enemy fighter, he punches the slithering alien in the, well, face, and says “welcome to earth,” and while dragging the tentacled, smelly creature back to the base, he shouts, “I coulda been at a barbecue!” While ostensibly the movie pitted “humankind” in a struggle for survival, which Pullman, in one of the film’s lamest scenes, likened to our Independence Day, audiences knew the truth: the United States solved the problem with good old American insight, practicality, innovation, and Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin. (more…)

There are some filmmakers whom movie fans turn to for serious, introspective fare, like Oliver Stone or Lasse Hallstrom. Others are counted on as masters of the fantastic, like Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson. And for comedy these days, you can’t beat Judd Apatow. 

But if you just wanna see stuff blow up on an epic scale and watch the world fall apart in a good old-fashioned disaster movie, then check out nearly any Roland Emmerich film: “Independence Day,” “Godzilla,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “10,000 B.C.” provide hours of jaw-dropping action to go with hilariously poor logic in plotting and laughably bad dialogue. Yet they are often undeniably entertaining despite their faults, and with his new film “2012,” Emmerich has fashioned his biggest, craziest cinematic opus yet.  (more…)

Director Roland Emmerich at his London home.

“Independence Day” is one of the most profitable films in history — and after the original “Poseidon Adventure,” one of the greatest bad films ever — but there was no sure-fire, money-making blockbuster sequel because President Bush — The Abraham Lincoln of the Middle East — won the presidency:

“In Independence Day, it was about a king who leads his country into a fight against an outside invader. I didn’t want to make that movie during the Bush years. It was not thought that George W. Bush would have made a great king. Now with Obama, it’s another story.”

That’s straight from the director, the ball-less Roland Emmerich.

Sure, Hollywood is packed with the worst kind of greedy people who demand higher taxes as they shelter millions — who intend to hang on to their platinum health-care plans as they push rationed care – who demand Big Business pay their “fair share” as they beg for tax incentives… Sure, Leftist Hollywood wants to make money, bucketloads if possible, but…

….not at the expense of The Leftist Cause.   (more…)

So Roland Emmerich’s new movie is called “2012,” but it should be titled “Dude, Where’s my Balls.”

In the flick, the director enlists every CGI trick in the book to destroy various religious icons– including the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Christ the Redeemer statue. And for those of you who worship at the altar of Obama, the White House gets nailed as well.

But there was one thing missing among the carnage: an Islamic target.

Emmerich at his London home.

According to Sci Fi Wire, by way of Cinematical.com, this was no accident. In an interview, the director said he hoped to destroy the Kaaba, an Islamic holy site, but his fellow screenwriter Harald Kloser persuaded him not to.

Here’s what the hack had to say about crushing the Kaaba:

“Well, I wanted to do that… but my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. … We have to all … in the Western world … think about this. You can actually … let … Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have … a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element anyway in the film, so I kind of left it out.” (more…)