The Oscar-nominated movies in recent years have been enough to make a grown man cry… Or worse. Consider “There Will Be Blood,” “No Country for Old Men” and “The Reader” as a sampling of the morbid films jockeying for Oscar glory. This year, add Oscar wannabes “The Road” and “Precious” to the list.

Newsweek scribe Ramin Setoodeh writes about the trend in the liberal magazine’s latest edition. Setoodeh bemoans the fact that some of the best films lately take a too sober view of society. On that we can agree.

Then, Setoodeh whips out his trusty Bush bashing cudgel and starts a whacking:

You can blame Hollywood’s doom and gloom on the Oscars, but I’m not going to. Instead, I think it’s George W. Bush’s fault. Most liberal directors felt restless under his presidency, and they pushed the envelope with over-the-top, operatic tragedies. (more…)

We’ve come a long way since tough-guy Humphrey Bogart let Ingrid Bergman away in “Casablanca,” only to tell another dude, “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Or have we? 

Today, we’re living in the age of the “bromance,” where guys are no longer squinty-eyed, deep-voiced bastions of macho attitude like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne or Bogart were. Now, we’ve got dudes who wear pastels and have feelings, sharing how much they care for each other, even waking up together instead of with the girl they were lusting after in “Superbad.” 

Don’t get me wrong, these are mostly hilarious movies in which men are encouraged to be just a bit more sensitive. But one’s gotta wonder how far things are gonna go with the release of the new movie “Humpday,” which is now playing in “selected theaters” and is likely to stay that way no matter how “open minded” our society gets. 

The premise of “Humpday” isn’t focused on a workplace slogging through the midweek boredom of a Wednesday in Cubicle Land. No, it’s about two straight guys – one married, one single – who are really great, old friends – so great, in fact, that one of them dares the other to make a porno together for an amateur porn contest where the goal is to break creative boundaries.  (more…)

Those damn kids today and their strange and frightening music raise an important question for me:  When did I become my dad?

Back in the eighties – when popular music reached its pinnacle of achievement - I would be home from college, in my room, cranking cool tunes and my father would get home from work, peer in, scrunch up his face and ask how I could listen to that infernal racket.  The answer, of course, was that I had (and still have, dammit) really awesome taste in music.

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I actually pitied my Dad for being unable to appreciate the Midwestern-inflected post-punk glory of The Replacements, or the sonic frenzy of their Minneapolis brothers-in-noise Husker Du, or the soaring, roaring guitar heroics of The Clash.  I don’t know what music he actually liked.  There were some LPs lying around the house – kids, you can ask your parents what those are – but they were things like the Kingston Trio and the Sound of Music soundtrack.  This last one was a particular sore point for me since my mom got the idea to name me Kurt, which is the German equivalent of Melvin, from the little Von Trapp twerp who sang “Fa.” (more…)

With 400,000 Americans showing up every year at the Indy 500 and 200,000 more buying tickets to see NASCAR’s premiere event The Daytona 500, you would think that the most creative minds in Hollywood would be looking for a way to cash in with more movies about car racing and car culture. NASCAR has an estimated 75 million fans, and it is second only to the National Football League in terms of television ratings, so where are all the good racing movies?

Jordana Brewster is reunited with Vin, Paul and Michelle in FAST & FURIOUS

Universal seems to have answered that question by getting its successful street racing franchise back into the fast lane this weekend with Fast & Furious. The movie, which reunites Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez for the first time since 2001’s original surprise blockbuster, has exploded to a high octane $30.11M or so on Friday and that could mean a $70M opening weekend. That would make it the all-time #1 opening for a car racing movie.

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Universal’s Fast & Furious will be “burning rubber” this weekend at America’s multiplexes as the original street-racing cast reunites after some sub-par chapters of the franchise.

The original The Fast & The Furious hit theatres in 2001 under the direction of Rob Cohen who had shown a knack for action with Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story ($35M US cume) and Sly Stallone’s Daylight ($33M US cume) and a savvy feel for bigger-than-life characters in his Golden Globe winning biopic The Rat Pack (which, if you’ve never seen you should put in your Netflix cue and prepare to be amazed by Don Cheadle’s turn as Sammy Davis, Jr.). In tow, he had a 34-year-old Vin Diesel in only his second starring role following the surprise low budget hit Pitch Black ($39M cume) and 28-year-old Paul Walker, who had just starred in Cohen’s forgettable The Skulls. Also in the cast was Jordana Brewster (As the World Turns) and a pre-Lost Michelle Rodriguez, whose most notable credit was a gritty little indie called Girlfight.

Vin Diesel returns for FAST & FURIOUS

The result was box office jet fuel. Seemingly out of nowhere, The Fast & The Furious scored a scalding $40M opening weekend and reached $144.5M domestic and over $200M worldwide. But Diesel, whose signature line in the original movie is “I live my life one quarter of a mile at a time,” didn’t like the script for the sequel (or they wouldn’t pay his asking price depending on who you ask). That led to the 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious directed by Academy Award nominee John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) starring Walker along with rapper Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes. Despite Diesel’s conspicuous absence, 2 Fast still delivered $127M in the US. (more…)