Over at Entertainment Weekly, Barack Obama says Batman is one of his favorite superheroes — along with Spider-Man, who apparently tops the list — because he has “inner turmoil” and has “earned” his “status”, while John McCain says Batman is his favorite superhero because he “does justice sometimes against insurmountable odds” and keeps his good works relatively secret. Read into those emphases whatever you will. Read more

My review of Pineapple Express is now up at CT Movies. Read more

Helena Bonham Carter recently gave an interview to SciFi.com in which she talked just a teeny, tiny bit about the character she is playing in Terminator Salvation: “I kind of play a baddie, definitely a baddie,” Bonham Carter said in an interview while promoting her new film, the comedy-drama Sixty Six. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, but I’m a very bad person.” Apparently the filmmakers had originally hired Tilda Swinton to play Bonham Carter’s character, but... Read more

If you want to get a sense of the differences in sensibility between Canada and the U.S. when it comes to religious matters, look no further than the posters for Religulous, the upcoming religio-satire starring Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles. The American posters released so far have shied away from anything that might be deemed explicitly anti-religious; instead, they have zeroed in on much “safer” targets — such as the superstitious tendency to see faces in random patterns... Read more

Pineapple Express writer-actor Seth Rogen, quoted in WENN: The actor says, “There were some internal discussions. The reality being that Judd is somewhat against marijuana use and I think it should be legal. “We didn’t really want to make a strong overall message about it. We kind of wanted to leave it to the audience.” Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow, quoted in Time: “Seth and I always argue whether or not this is an anti-pot movie,” says Apatow. “To me,... Read more

Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy), the oratorio based on Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979; my comments), has been making its way through a few American cities lately. Here are a couple of the newer reviews. First, Stephen Brookes of the Washington Post: Most of the world’s great oratorios, it’s probably fair to say, don’t generate a lot of belly laughs. But then again, most oratorios don’t feature a Bob Dylan imitation, a troupe of bagpipers, three... Read more

One thing leads to another, and the news that Morgan Freeman was injured in a car accident last night — thoughts and prayers, etc. — prompted Karina Longworth to reminisce about one of Freeman’s earliest acting gigs today, which in turn prompted me to seek out a piece of my childhood on YouTube just now. And here it is: Rita Moreno singing ‘It Only Rains Where I Am’ on the classic kids’ show The Electric Company (1971-1977): Click here if... Read more

Headline in the Hollywood Reporter, last Tuesday: R-rated comedies suffer at boxoffice Headline in the Associated Press, today: Hollywood strikes gold with R-rated comedy wave They’re both right, of course. AUG 6 UPDATE: And now, back to the Hollywood Reporter: R ratings might help comedies Confused yet? Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Journey to the Center of the Earth — CDN $7,540,000 — N.AM $73,140,000 — 10.3%Mamma Mia! — CDN $9,040,000 — N.AM $87,975,000 — 10.3%Step Brothers — CDN $5,740,000 — N.AM $62,966,000 — 9.1%The X-Files: I Want to Believe — CDN $1,510,000 — N.AM $17,060,000 — 8.9%Hellboy II: The Golden Army... Read more

Here’s another delayed reaction, on my part, to a report that may or may not have come out of last week’s Comic-Con. One day before director Scott Derrickson took part in a panel to discuss his upcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, MTV Movie News posted an interview with him that touched on a completely different subject altogether: his long-gestating adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Some excerpts from the story: Imagine the most evil creature that... Read more