THE AVENGERS, not SUPERMAN, to film in Cleveland
Twitter is fun. Earlier today, the Cleveland.com tweeted news that the new Superman movie would be filmed in Cleveland. There were two things wrong with the story. Cleveland.com said “Marvel/Disney” as the studio in the link they provided. (Now corrected with no mention of Superman) And Vancouver was the rumored filming location for Zack Snyder’s reboot as far back as December. Of course, being the overly excitable Superman fan I am, I decided to ignore the obvious and start the #cletropolis hashtag anyway. Getting friends to help tweet things like “Lex Luthor buys @OfficialBrowns and plans to move them to Baltimore” and “The city of #cle hires #superman to stand the free stamp back upright” was all fun and games until the truth came out. Cleveland.com’s full report said that the superhero movie that’s filming in Cleveland is The Avengers, not Superman. So...
Read MoreRobocop speaks to Detroit
The original Robocop, Peter Weller, took a break from his scholarly work in Roman and Renaissance Art to record a special message about Detroit’s Robocop statue. Weller’s silence over the past few weeks has been deafening, but like Al Gore in 2008, his endorsement is easily the most important one in this...
Read MoreFinal Oscar Predictions
Best Picture It’s been a long few months for Academy Award watchers. I don’t a remember an Oscar race that has been as heavily covered as this one. Part of the reason, of course, is that the critics came out early and aggressively for The Social Network. After the New York Film Festival’s Scott Foundas reacted to the film in August, a month before its premiere, the film and its zeitgeisty goodness became the fascination of many cinephiles. At that point, many people made the mistake that a film so lauded couldn’t possibly lose the Oscar race. (Forgetting, maybe the Brokeback Mountain v. Crash race.) On the day of the Oscars, however, the Best Picture trophy is The King’s Speech‘s to lose. And The King’s Speech could lose, just not to The Social Network. Instead, The Fighter is a...
Read MoreJoel McHale’s 10 ways he’ll screw up the Film Independent Spirit Awards
The Oscars aren’t the only awards show this weekend. Tonight Joel McHale hosts the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and yesterday McHale shared the 10 ways he’ll screw up as host of the Spirit Awards with EW. Here’s are some of my favorites: Introduce the new President of the Independent Spirit Awards, Hosni Mubarak. Recreate the classic one-armed push-up acceptance speech using a Weekends at Bernie’s-inspired pulley system on Jack Palance’s corpse. Jump start the show with revamped version of Naughty By Nature’s hip-hop classic: ”You Down With IFC? Yeah You Know Me!” Unveil my documentary You Will Be Missed, Ya Know What I Mean?: A Retrospective on the Films of Jim “Ernest” Varney. For the full list, head over to EW’s Inside TV blog. And you can catch the Spirit Awards tonight at 10 p.m. on...
Read MoreOscar hosts Franco & Hathaway do GREASE
Yes, James Franco, you’re the one that we want. Franco tweeted this Grease-infused vid, featuring your Oscar co-host Anne Hathaway, today. And it’s charming. Maybe I was wrong when I said he wouldn’t make a great Oscar host. In fact, he may just be the host the Oscars really need to “appeal to younger audiences.” Anyway, watch this: Also, from Twitter, James Franco likes...
Read MoreYes, Detroit needs a Robocop statue
It’s been a week since Detroit Mayor Dave Bing replied to a tweet saying that “not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop.” The Internets, as they sometimes do with their Egyptian revolutions and whatnot, said otherwise. And when it comes down to it, I’m pretty sure a Robocop statue will do more for Motown than all the Chrysler commercials in the world. I mean, I traveled to Detroit last summer with a group of friends just to see the Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow screening of Verhoeven’s masterpiece. Do you think anything would stop us from going to see Detroit raise a Robocop statue? You hear that, Mayor Bing. That’s the sound of tourism dollars coming your way. All practicality aside, Detroit would score some major awesome points with this one. And 100 years from now, when parents...
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