Miss March Exclusive Clip

What would happen if you slipped into a coma, and the love of your life became a Playboy Bunny? Me...I’d probably get a new girlfriend. But hell, what kind of movie is that. Our hero Eugene has other plans, as he travels across the country to sneak into Hef’s domain to find his dream girl. The mansion security has to have seen this before, though....

After the jump...more pics from the new comedy, Miss March. 

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Battle for Terra Trailer

Today we’re treated to a new trailer for Battle for Terra, an exciting new CGI space opera with an interesting twist. We are introduced to a peaceful, organic society living ostensibly within its means. The good-natured folk, unbeknownst to them, are poised to be invaded by an aggressive and hostile alien force. No, this isn’t Independence Day all over again. The twist this time...the invaders are humans. The peaceful inhabitants are the aliens.

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The 2009 Oscars - UGO Style

Like a drunk uncle you see each year at Thanksgiving, the Oscars are back.  Every year I’ve endured the agony of this endless display of false modesty, groupthink and salute to sound effects editing until I’ve gone running for a bottle of Pepcid AC.  This year I really do plan to give the show a pass.  But I’ve said this every year since Raiders of the Lost Ark got robbed (I was into this as a young ‘un, what can I say?) But what the hey, Wolverine is the host.  Let’s see how I feel Sunday night.

And this doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about predictions.  And, more importantly, who would win if I ruled the world.  With that, let’s run down the top categories and see who I think will win, who should win and who got robbed.

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Churros With Wes Craven

Clotheshorse that I am, I am always concerned with my appearance.  Which novelty T-Shirt will I wear today?  My red-on-black Tron recognizer?  Or my red-on-black “Wo Hop” tee, advertising New York’s sketchiest Chinatown dump/cockroach domicile?  Last night was a night I dream of.  I busted out my red-on-black Ingmar Bergman as Iron Maiden joint, one of the more absurd tunes in my repertoire, to attend an early screening of Last House on the Left followed by cocktails with the film’s exec producer Wes Craven.  Last House on the Left is a remake of Craven’s first feature, which in turn was “inspired” by Bergman’s The Virgin Spring.  Only this newest iteration, however, has a head exploding in a microwave.

“I wore this shirt for you!” I said to the legendary horror director.

“That’s a riot.  Bergman was the inspiration for the original Last House on the Left, you know.  Inasmuch as it is a classic, very basic, very primal tale dating back to the medieval period.”

“Have you ever considered mining Bergman’s work for other horror adaptations?”

“You mean, ‘what else can I steal?’”

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Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Cast

I just started reading Bryan Lee O’Malley’s North American manga, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, right before New York Comic-Con a few weeks ago. I knew O’Malley was slated to hold a Q&A panel, and I’d heard a lot about the slacker book from several co-workers. Chris Evans also told me it was one of his next projects in a recent interview.

That’s a lot of buzz in my circle for a little manga from Canada, so I went to O’Malley’s panel to ask about the movie adaptation. His response?

“Yeah, it’s been optioned by Universal. I’ve been involved as a ‘script consultant,’ but that’s about it.”

Not a very loquacious dude. Anyway, Scott Pilgrim, about a Gen-??? slacker from Toronto, is pretty entertaining in a early-Whedon/early-Kevin Smith kind of way. Sweet snark...gosspiy relationships...teen anxiety and insecurity...it’s got it all. Even though Pilgrim is 23.  Delayed adulthood is all the rage these days. (Just ask my mom)

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Nerd Journalists Angry With Nerd “Blogger”

We have a bit of a journalism donnybrook on our hands this afternoon. You see, the LA screener of Watchmen was shown yesterday, and a select few writers (my boss Jordan Hoffman included) got to see the highly anticipated flick weeks before the salivating public. This is pretty standard procedure for a big marketing campaign. Let the journos see it, wine and dine them with cheap chardonnay and crab cake mixers, then just have them wait on the glowing reviews until the right moment. It’s called an embargo. It happens all the time. And most of the time, writers respect it. Because, ya know...it’s their jobs, and big-ass movie studios won’t invite you to the next pigs-in-blanket soireé in Culver City next time.

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Kyle Piccolo - Comic Shop Therapist

Coming to you from For Your Imagination studios, is the new hilarious webisode series, Kyle Piccolo: Comic Ship Therapist. We’ve always wanted to work in a comic shop, and we’ve always wanted to dole out unsolicited life-changing advice. (Thanks Dr. Phil!) And this funny new take on the comic world combines them into a dream show.

In this episode, Kyle explains Pirates vs. Ninjas and helps one lucky customer (sans shifting mask?) to truly understand himself. Two more shows, still to be shot, will go out over the next few weeks, all embedded with cryptic Watchmen references and mentions.

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New Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer

Mr. Bay looks to be bringing the thunder for this summer’s action tentpole, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. In this new trailer, we see a series of flaming comets falling out of the sky, totally effing up the Pyramids and an aircraft carrier battle group. The comets are obviously more Transformers coming to Earth, and the trailer is peppered with various badass machinery, including the massive Devastator Decepticon. Revenge is out June 24th, and we just got a little more excited.

Midnight Meat Train - Clive Barker Is Weird

He’s weird but we freakin’ love Clive Barker here at UGO. He marches to his own drummer, and you gotta respect that in today’s Hollywood. Check out his extremely thoughtful answer to this important question we asked him awhile back.

This clip comes to us courtesy the special features of the new DVD Midnight Meat Train starring Vinnie Jones, Bradley Cooper and Brooke Shields, based Barker’s original short story from his classic Book of Blood collection.

Dig his crazy explanation on the nature of art as we check out some of his paintings in his home studio. Midnight Meat Train is out today, Feb. 17th. 

Fan Fiction Movies - The Hunt For Gollum

What a pleasant surprise. My sister is really into Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter fan-fiction on the internet. I never really got into it, but I’m totally guilty of reading a lot of Timothy Zahn Star Wars novels back in middle school. And while the fan-fic movement is inherently nerdy, and slightly intellectually lazy, it’s entertaining as hell.

One of the fictional worlds most ripe with potential for geeked-out supplemental stories was always Middle Earth. The problem is, nobody can write as well as Tolkien. But...could they film as well as Peter Jackson? If this trailer is any indication, it’s very possible. The Hunt for Gollum is a non-profit short film made by Tolkien-enthusiasts, who produced it for only about $6000. The movie will be distributed for free and the story will be familiar to those steeped Elvish lore.

The script is adapted from elements of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. The story follows the Heir of Isildur; the “greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth” as he sets out to find the creature Gollum. The creature must be found to discover the truth about the Ring, and to protect the future Ringbearer.

The Hunt for Gollum is out May 3rd. Trailer and images after the jump.

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Bitch and Complain Friday: Matthew McConaughey

Goddammit, Matthew McConaughey. As if your last name name wasn’t annoying enough to spell, you have to keep making terrible career decisions. Can’t you just go on record and state for the good and welfare of the movie business that you will never make another actual movie ever again? That’s it - from now on, no real scripts. You will only devote your stoned-bongo energies to making the puerile nonsense that have come to be known as Romantic Comedies.

Fool’s Gold? Failure to Launch? How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? The Wedding Planner? Kill yourself.

Here’s the one sheet from your newest travesty, The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past . These boring, formulaic pieces of garbage are consumed by the chocolate-eating unoriginal masses who are so ineptly obsessed with the concept of their own failed relationships, that they actually enjoy watching parabolically more beautiful people act out the same inane fantasies swirling through their Outback Steakhouse-addled minds.

Let me guess...you’re a wealthy, attractive, morally flawed man, and - wait for it - Jennifer Garner is your intellectual match who will eventually get you to settle down from your rakish ways. Insert a few variables (great jobs, scatalogical pratfalls, witty best-friend sidekicks) and you have yourself a withering “date movie.”

And you started with such promise, too.  Wooderson in Dazed and Confused is one of the all-time funniest characters on film. And you used to make actually serious movies...For Chrissakes you were in A Time To Kill, man! That movie was about child-rape and Sammy Jackson murdering people in a courthouse! Heavy, actual content. But no longer. You realized you could keep doing crunches, and phoning in the same piece of toxic waste once a year, and you would be paid handsomely.

I’m done with you, Matt. Even if you throw another party at the Moontower. I won’t go.

And you better watch out, Vince Vaughn. I’m looking at you next.

The Raping Of Pelham One Two Three

I promised myself I would reserve my judgment until I saw the film, but the debut of today’s trailer for Taking of Pelham 123 has every muscle in my (large) cineaste’s body quaking with rage.

I howl from the very depth of my soul:  Enough, Hollywood, enough!  Enough with the remakes!  Enough with taking works of art that truly mean a lot to me on a personal level and stretching them through a ringer of blandness and unoriginality, then defecating them out as another mundane product of consumption.

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