The film looks to be intriguing. Very rarely do spy and government betrayal movies appeal to me, however, with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn starring as Wilson and Plame, my interest peaks. Add in the fact that the film is based off real events and not a work of fiction and I become more inclined to see it. Plus, anything that may have an anti-Bush/Dick Cheney feel is always nice.

Check out the trailer below and judge for yourself…

The film will open in select cities November 5th.

Based on the graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley, the film tells the story of Scott Pilgrim (Cera) as he tries to defeat the seven evil exes of his love interest, the wonderfully hip Ramona, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Scott’s life is simple before he meets Ramona. He’s the 22-year-old bass player in a Toronto band called Sex-Bob-Omb with his friends Stephen Stills (Mark Webber), Kim Pine (Allison Pill) and Young Neil (Johnny Simmons). He lives with his gay best friend Wallace Wells (played to infinite perfection by Kieran Culkin) and is dating a 17-year-old Chinese high school girl named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Scott isn’t particularly ambitious and is very content with his life.

That all changes when he meets Ramona Flowers, a trendy girl from New York who now works for Amazon in Toronto.

Scott begins pseudo-dating Ramona while still going out with Knives. As the relationship intensifies, he learns that, if he wants to be with her, he must defeat her “seven evil exes” in a video game-style battle to the death.

Cera has a tendency to play the same adorably awkward geek in every film, so it’s nice to see him as Scott. While Scott’s not exactly a cool guy, he has an inner confidence, bordering on arrogance, that makes him different from Cera’s previous roles. Sure, he’s awkward around Ramona, but he’s almost cocky around Knives and that break from tradition makes Scott one of Cera’s most memorable characters.

The entire group surrounding Scott is even more impressive. Wong is like a Fatal Attraction teddy bear as Knives, completely obsessed with Scott and his entire world. Anna Kendrick, as Scott’s sensible sister, Stacey, brings humor through sharp logic when advising Scott on his relationships. Still, the stand out in Team Scott is Culkin, who brings the perfect recipe of compassion and sarcasm to Wallace.

It’s hard to choose a favorite out of the evil exes, even Winstead had trouble picking one, because each has something unique and funny. There’s Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), the first evil ex who challenges Scott through a sort of emo Bollywood dance. Next is Chris Evans as Lucas Lee, an action movie star with a pro skateboard line and the pointiest eyebrows this side of Sylvester Stallone. After that, Scott goes up against Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh rocking blonde hair and glowing eyes) a vegan bass player in a band fronted by Scott’s very own evil ex, Envy Adams (Brie Larson). To Scott’s surprise, one of Ramona’s exes happens to be a girl, Roxie Richter, played by Mae Whitman. Coincidentally, Whitman also played Cera’s girlfriend on Arrested Development. After defeating her, with a lot of help from Ramona, Scott moves on to confront exes 5 and 6 in the Katyanagi Twins (Shota and Keita Saito) before making it all the way to the final ex, Jason Schwartzman as Gideon Graves. In typical video game fashion, this “boss battle” is the toughest of them all an involves using power ups and extra lives.

The visual style of the film is one of the most impressive aspects. The film spectacularly weaves in and out from simple scenes of Scott at home with Wallace to elaborate fight sequences with graphics and slow motion effects a la Sin City or 300. I would argue that it’s one of the best film representations of a comic ever with perfectly placed title cards, written sound effects and a visual style that makes you feel like you’re living inside the pages of the comic. When the fights break out, it’s like a journey through a wonderland of old school Sega and Nintendo nostalgia. Bill Hader’s video game narrations are reminiscent of the “finish him!” commands in Mortal Kombat, but with an extra hint of humor. The fact that the exes turn into coins when they are defeated is a fun live-action representation of a fond video game memory.

No doubt this is a movie for the younger generation, people who only remember playing Pong will probably find the quick cuts and vibrant graphics to be overwhelming. Anyone who spend hours playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out–which happens to be one of Culkin’s favorite games–will thoroughly enjoy the Scott-vs-ex combat. I enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs the World immensely and am already planning to see it at least four more times.

Sylvester Stallone wrote, directed and stars in this explosion fest that was probably first conceived in a Planet Hollywood somewhere. He plays Barney, a stereotypical tough guy on a team of renegade geriatric bad asses that have just returned home from a mission blowing up Somali pirates. His sort-of partner, Jason Statham as Lee Christmas–yeah, that’s right, Lee Christmas–comes home to find that, though he’s only been gone for a month, his girlfriend has completely moved on and started a new life with some dude. Feeling depressed, both guys go to Mickey Rourke, because who else would you turn to when you’re feeling blue? Rourke, as Tool (I swear, I’m not making this up!) tattoos the guys and dishes out life lessons that psych them up for their next mission: defeating a corrupt dictator and drug lord in some nondescript Latin American island.

Bruce Willis appears as Mr. Church, so named because his character only appears in one scene in a church, and assigns the crew to this new mission. If the thought of having Stallone and Willis on screen at the same time didn’t put hair on your chest, then get ready for a Planet Hollywood reunion ’cause here comes Arnold Schwarzenegger! In a fashion typical to most scenes in the flick, Schwarzeneger appears, says he’s too busy to be in this movie, and leaves with no explanation, backstory or significance.

The story about overthrowing a miniscule corrupt dictatorship and Stallone hitting on the Generalissimo’s daughter is so poorly executed that it renders the entire plot completely irrelevant. You get the feeling that the screenplay was about 17 pages and every scene ended with “fight ensues”.

But who cares when you have guns and explosions?!

The last act of the film, which is basically a solid block of blowing shit up, features handguns that sound like cannons and can blow a person’s entire torso clean off while leaving their legs perfectly intact down to the shoe laces. It also includes Stallone fighting Eric Roberts and punching Steve Austin in the face while he’s engulfed in flames.

This movie has Dolph Lundgren fighting Jet Li, Terry Crews shooting a gun that does more damage than a missile, Stallone hanging out the door of a plane while it’s taking off from the water and a slew of accents so ridiculously over-the-top that I’m surprised one of the soldiers didn’t suddenly blurt, “yo quiero Taco Bell.”

The Expendables is terrible, but it’s so terrible it’s hilarious. If you’re like me and you enjoy a good bad movie, this will be right up your alley.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

The cast of this geek masterpiece stopped by Denver on their press tour and I got a chance to sit down with Winstead, Brandon Routh, who is Ramona’s vegan rocker ex boyfriend, Todd Ingram, and Kieran Culkin, who plays Scott’s hilarious gay roommate Wallace Wells.

Though none of the three had read the comic prior to hearing about the film, they knew they were stepping into pretty big shoes as far as fans were concerned. “It has such a following. It’s grown with every book that has come out. The last one was number five on Amazon.” Winstead said.

Because the comic was such a hit, everyone involved with the film didn’t want to disappoint the devoted fans. Thankfully, says Winstead, director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) was just the man to tackle the challenge.

“We really trusted Edgar Wright,” she explained. “Everyone involved in the cast were big fans of his and all of his movies–Spaced, everything we had seen of his. For me, when I read the books, I knew he was the only person that could bring it to life in a way that is cool, unique and fun. So we all, from the second we stepped foot on the set, were just like, ‘ok, you tell us what to do. You guide us and we’ll do exactly like you want and we know that’s gonna end up the best it’s gonna be.’”

While it’s impossible to exactly recreate the comic, Culkin assured us that nothing major was left out. “Fans of the book didn’t seem to miss anything. They really like the adaptation, but, some will say they missed Kim Pines making out with Knives Chau,” he joked.

Outside of the world of comics, Scott Pilgrim vs the World also has tons of video game references spread throughout the movie. At times it’s almost as if you are watching a cut scene pulled directly from a video game. Because of that, I had to know if these guys were actually into video games.

Culkin was eager to talk about games and named Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64 as his favorite. “This game Virtual Pro 2, which is a Japanese wrestling game for the 64, I translated it into English so I can play it, but I didn’t need to. It was just for anybody else who wanted to play,” he added. He rounded off his top five with Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, Castlevania and Contra.

Routh chimed in to list his faves. “Dragon Warrior was one of the first RPGs. Shining Force, the Sega game, Shining Force 2, the sequel. Joe Montana Football, Sim City, and Warcraft.”

With video games as inspiration, the movie has a lot of really fun fight scenes. The cast talked about the training they went through to prepare.

“It was tough. We trained together for a long time, and we were really well prepared by the stunt guys who worked with us. They were fantastic teachers. Ellen had some prior experience with Taikwando, and I had prior experience with dance, so the two of us kind of combined our abilities. Ellen was so dedicated to Knives, that character, and so it was almost scary fighting with her sometimes, because she got so into character. It felt really real when I fought with her.” Culkin then asked her who would win a real fight between her and Ellen Wong. “We got that question a few times when we were interviewing together, and we always just said that would team up because, I’m like a giant, and she’s little and scrappy and fast.”

And, of course, with all that fighting comes a few injuries. “I pulled my shoulder out a bunch. Lots of tendonitis and stuff. Went to physical therapy for that. In that scene with Ellen, I got stabbed in the eye with one of her knives and was bleeding, and had to have a paramedic help. So yeah, there were lots of little things like that that happened, but it was kinda like battle scars, like we all felt really proud of our injuries,” Winstead said.

Though Wallace doesn’t do any fighting in the movie, Culkin said he trained along with everyone else. “It was more for fun, when everyone was getting together for weeks. We got together early in the morning for training, so I went along for that. Plus, I think also, when I got the part I hadn’t seen Edgar for months, so I showed up to set the first day with long green hair and thirty pounds of extra weight that he wasn’t expecting and I was like, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you want me? Just try to picture my hair shorter, and I’ll lose thirty pounds, I swear.’ I got to go home for a while and lose that weight for him.”

Scott Pilgrim isn’t only filled with video game references, it’s also got the perfect feeling of an underground indie rock movie. Music is one of the main themes in the movie, with the main characters all competing in a giant battle of the bands, and a huge soundtrack filled with underground music.

Winstead may not be an expert on video games, but she did list her music favorites. “I listen to a lot of oldies and stuff. But, I like a lot of indie rock. Gosh, where do I start?” Suddenly, Culkin jumped in and told her to start by plugging the soundtrack and she replied, “That’s actually genuine, I love the soundtrack. Right now I really love The XX, a lot of Mike Patton stuff, Mr. Bungle, just kind of all over the map, but I love anything from the 60s and 50s, David Bowie, and I also like Buddy Holly, and girl groups. The Shangri Las are kinda my ultimate favorite.”

In the last question of the day, I asked Winstead who her favorite evil ex was in the film. She said she loved them all, but Routh quickly told us that wasn’t true at all, so she had to change her answer. “No, the fight with Roxy, Mae Whitman, will always be special to me because I actually got to fight with her, and we got train together for months and months. So, that was just an awesome experience, and she’s so badass, and wonderful. So, I have to say that one.” Routh also added that Roxy rocks.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World opens everywhere on August 13^th, so make sure you go see it! The soundtrack is available now on cd and red vinyl, and it is awesome, so check it out. You can also check out the Scott Pilgrim 8-bit style video game that’s available for download on the PS3 now, and August 25^th for the Xbox Arcade version

The film opens with an over-the-top action sequence featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson as cliche-spouting action heroes. They’ll do anything to catch the perps, including crashing a car through a tour bus. They do millions of dollars worth of property damage to make an arrest for even the most minor offense. This “shoot first ask questions later” behavior is exactly what you see in most cop movies, which makes it very funny when the two meet their demise by jumping off a tall building as if they’ll make a typically impossible action movie landing.

Cut to the other guys: Will Ferrell as Detective Allen Gamble and Mark Wahlberg as Detective Terry Hoitz. They’re not glamorous cops, they’re the guys who sit behind a desk doing the paperwork the glamorous cops deem beneath them. Gamble is a straight-laced accountant-type who is content to be a whipping boy around the station and Hoitz is a wannabe tough guy who’s famous for accidentally shooting Derek Jeter.

In the course of their boring jobs, Gamble and Hoitz stumble upon a multi-billion dollar financial scheme involving crooked investor, David Ershon, played by Steve Coogan. They’re repeatedly told to drop the case by their TLC-quoting captain, Michael Keaton, universally mocked by two cooler detectives, Rob Riggle and comedy heir Damon Wayans Jr. and repeatedly robbed of their shoes by a team of stealth international bad guys.

The film caters to both those who like gross-out gags or physical humor as well as those quick enough to catch some of the more subtle jokes. At the funeral for the two deceased supercops, Hoitz has whisper fight with another detective which involves quiet punching and hushed cheers from the crowd of observers. The fight itself is funny to fans of physical humor but the fact that they continue whispering while wrestling on the ground is a joke that has to incubate a little more before before that broad audience catches it. Some of Wahlberg’s witty insults are highly quotable a la Brian Fantana in Anchorman and highlight the division in the audience between people who get it right away and people who need a few more seconds to let it resonate.

The Other Guys does feature car chases and explosions, but it acknowledges the ridiculousness of those devices. One of the funnier examples is when a giant fireball flings the two detectives onto the pavement of a parking lot. They roll around on the ground in pain questioning how people in movies can just walk away from massive explosions. They even cite the video game aspect of high-speed cinema car chases by drawing a parallel to Grand Theft Auto.

Unlike Cop Out, which set out to make a parody of a cop movie but stumbled into they very thing they were mocking, The Other Guys succeeds in being both stupid and clever. It doesn’t meet the gold standard of director Adam McKay‘s classic, Anchorman, but it’s certainly holds its own in the cop comedy genre.

Based on the French black comedy The Dinner Game, the film tells the story of Tim (Paul Rudd), an ambitious executive who isn’t actually a stock broker, though he gets labeled as one. Tim is trying desperately to impress his boss, and a mean-spirited company tradition seems like the perfect way to score points. Before he can join the ranks of the office elite, Tim must participate in a “dinner for idiots” in which guests bring the most bizarre people they can find and make fun of them for entertainment.

While driving home from work, the best idiot of them all falls into Tim’s lap in the form of Barry (Steve Carell), a broken-hearted IRS employee who spends his spare time creating a miniature world starring dead mice. Thinking he has a sure winner for the biggest idiot, Tim invites Barry to the dinner.

At the same time, Tim’s girlfriend Robin (Andrea Savage) is vehemently against the dinner and the elitist premise behind it. This is just one area where Tim and Robin find themselves growing apart. She is headed down a promising career path working with hot new artist Kieran Vollard (Clement) and spends much of her time in the orbit of Kieran’s over-the-top “animal magnetism”.

While Tim and Robin fight over the dinner, Tim and Barry grow closer and soon form a genuine friendship. The turning point comes when Barry takes Tim to see his self-professed mind controlling boss, Therman (Galifianakis), who preys on Barry’s insecurities. Tim is able to help Barry turn the tables and grows a conscience, realizing there’s no sport in kicking a guy when he’s down.

Carell has already proven that he can play lovable oddballs in films like Anchorman and The 40-year-old Virgin, but it’s much harder to laugh at Barry because he seems like a slow, borderline-Aspberger’s eccentric who doesn’t mean any harm. No matter how much he screws up Tim’s life, he always has the best intentions and it makes you feel guilty for laughing at him before he even hits the dinner. We’re rooting for Barry more than Tim because he’s more entertaining and, strangely enough, more relatable.

On that same note, Clement’s exotic, erotic creative art process and Galifianakis’ turtleneck dickie are comedy gold nuggets that leave you wishing both got more screen time. That’s the real problem with the film: they’re sitting on a comedy gold mine, but they never actually start digging. Tim’s ups and downs with his girlfriend are nowhere near as enjoyable as Kieran delivering a baby zebra or Therman’s deep concentration when performing mind control.

This Dinner will make you wish that Galifianakis and Clement were the main course instead of just appetizers.

Admittedly, I know nothing about the mini-comic series so my thoughts on this movie are based purely on what I’ve seen from the trailer and upon first viewing I’m definitely intrigued.

The premise of the movie looks to be similar to that of The Watchmen. A former crime fighting crew, this time CIA members, are off enjoying retirement (REDS – Retired Extremely Dangerous) when they realize someone is trying to kill them. Upon this realization the gang gets back together to stop their attempted killer.

Again, this is all based on what I took in from the trailer and little tidbits I gathered online so my idea of what the film is about could be way off. Regardless of the plot however, the movie looks to have a lot of promise.

The cast should be stellar headed by Bruce Willis and John Malkovich. Anytime a movie stars Malkovich, my interested immediately peaks. Add in Morgan Freeman and Ernest Borgnine and I’ll be first in line. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker are all along for the ride as well.

Anyway, enough of my rambling about what I think Reds could be about. Check out the trailer below and see what you think for yourself.

Salt, the new film from Columbia Pictures starring Angelina Jolie as the title character, is more ridiculous and less entertaining. The movie focuses on Salt, a CIA agent, who has her loyalty tested when a defector claims she is a Russian spy set to kill the Russian president. Throughout the film we follow Salt as she attempts to prove her innocence. Along the way Salt takes a path that leads us to believe she may not be who she claims to be until we stumble into an ending with a slight twist.

I went into Salt expecting to see the typical summer action movie but instead was stuck seeing a movie that seemed to be confused. At times Salt appeared to be a spy movie based in realty, then at other times it was over-the-top ridiculous, most notably in a scene with Salt making her way down an elevator shaft.

There’s nothing wrong with a movie being over-the-top absurd, but if you’re going over-the-top, go all the way. Don’t bounce back and forth between ridiculousness and realty. Pick a side a stick to it. Salt failed to do this and thus I was left feeling unsatisfied at the film’s conclusion.

More interesting than the movie is how the casting took place. Originally the lead character of Evelyn Salt was written for a male lead, to be named Edwin Salt I believe, and was to be played by Tom Cruise. When Cruise backed out, Jolie slid right in to take over. While I do find it to be quite awesome that an actress had no trouble at all taking over the lead role written for a male in an action flick, this movie would have worked better with Cruise. Not to say the film would have been good, but this was clearly written with him in mind. You could have easily put Cruise in the lead role, changed his name to Ethan and called this Mission Impossible 4.

If you’re looking for an action packed summer blockbuster to take you on a thrill ride, don’t expect Salt to be the vehicle taking you.

Fans asked Way about the next My Chemical Romance album. He didn’t go into specifics, but talked about creating songs and inspirations. He also briefly mentioned the upcoming Umbrella Academy film, though he was strictly forbidden to give away any real details. One fan presented him with custom Lego figures of characters from his comic. He also took random questions about being a father and even his favorite fictional bounty hunter.

Videos below…

Gerard Way introduction: Comic Con Spotlight on Gerard Way panel

Gabriel Ba introduction: Comic Con Spotlight on Gerard Way panel

Gerard Way on Breakfast Monkey, Bandit’s favorite book and his favorite bounty hunter

Gerard Way on The Umbrella Academy

Early in the morning, I attended the Marvel Comics Writers Unite! panel, which featured Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Chris Claremont and Mark Waid. They talked about writing within the “rules” of a predefined universe and some of their least favorite artist-writer parings. They were really engaging and had the audience cracking up.

After that, I got to check out the Spotlight on Gerard Way panel. That was very cool to see because Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba and Scott Allie talked all about the Umbrella Academy. Of course, things tend to drift pleasantly off topic during the Q&A and Ba told the audience about watching 90201 all the time growing up in Brazil. He mused that the show was one of his favorites as a kid and as he got older he realized, “that show is about nothing.” Way talked about everything from adopted-sibling love to his daughters favorite book to his favorite fictional bounty hunter–he chose Dog–and had amusing little anecdotes to fan questions. He also briefly discussed the next My Chemical Romance album and quickly mentioned the upcoming Umbrella Academy film.

Later on, I stumbled upon the Oddball Comics pane. Scott Shaw presented a slideshow of “the craziest comic books ever published” with absolutely hilarious commentary. The show presented the covers for gems from the past like Rainbow Batman and Doll Man. Shaw’s collection of useless superheroes and promotional comics was outstanding.

Next up was The Winston Effect. The panel was all about the special effects of Stan Winston and included Winston’s son Matt. The accomplished effects artists talked about creating characters, not relying solely on green screen and the new Stan Winston School of Character Arts. Winston’s work was astounding, so it was really fascinating to hear about it from people who were right there with him making it happen.

Today also featured two celebrity surprises. I spotted Joel McHale as he was exiting the G4 stage and saw Adrienne Curry in an absolutely perfect Leeloo costume.

After roaming the exhibit hall for another hour, I was ready to pass out and had thoroughly enjoyed my first Comic Con. I’m definitely planning to come back next year to see if it could possibly top the fun of this experience.