The Movie Game: FOT Edition '09

[Regular Joe]

The Build-A-Movie game! Listen to the show it began from.

Someone calls in to give Tom three celebrities, then he builds a movie around them on the spot. Of all the old topics I've heard, this is the one I would most want to call in about now. I'm just terrified of being thrown off a ship in the middle of the ocean with the intention of being drowned!

[senorcorazon]

Daniel Day-Lewis
Artie Lange
Shaquille O'Neal, credited as Charles Barkley

Daniel Day-Lewis and Artie Lange return to South Africa for their grandfather's funeral. Lange ("Nicky Zaduta") is an alcoholic living in Palm Beach, having recently run his most recent trust-funded business into the ground with a taste for cocaine that would make even the champions of the Williamsburg Kickball League squeamish. His brother Edward (played by Day-Lewis) is a corporate lawyer from Manhattan; rumors are that Day-Lewis spent 18 months working as a paralegal incognito in order to get into character.  Edward and Nicky haven't spoken in years; Charles has contempt for his brother's wild lifestyle, while Nicky thinks that Edward is a heartless dick. When they return, they meet Charles, known around town as "Gnarls", who has purchased their grandfather's estate in Johannesburg. In a touching and revealing series of conversations and flashbacks, we learn of the apartheid history of their family, and Nicky and Edward realize that nothing can overcome the bonds of family, especially the Family of Man. Charles forgives the family and his dedication to his own family gives the Zaduta Brothers a mean case of white guilt. At the funeral, Charles dunks the grandfather's urn full of ashes, two-hand, and busts a rap as the credits roll (a contractual requirement for Shaq). 

"die bande van familie is die ergste slawerny van alle ..."
"The Bonds of Family Are the Worst Slavery Of All"

James Caan
Katherine Heigl
Idris "Stringer Bell" Elba

[Chris L]

James Caan
Katherine Heigl
Idris "Stringer Bell" Elba

Famed auteur Uwe Boll changes pace and siphons some Judd Apatow comedy magic in this unofficial sequel to the smash hit Knocked Up.  Katherine Heigl bravely reprises her starmaking role while simultaneously taking out full-page ads in the press and posting banner ads on Greencine decrying the new film's content.  Ten years have passed since Seth Rogen's character (here replaced by a bewigged Idris Elba in flashbacks) fell under the spell of a shadowy internet collective and went underground to blow up eHarmony's corporate headquarters.  Heigl is more successful than ever though, having parlayed her E! hosting gig into a fledgling political career (<-- satire).   But another ill-advised night of partying threatens to undo everything, when this time she's "knocked up" by pitiful, homeless schizophrenic James Caan.  The iconic film poster for G4 Presents: Bum in the Oven places Caan's dazed mug - ravaged by two decades of physical and mental rot - front-and-center, much to the delight of laugh-starved summer audiences.  Boll also takes a subtle, timely jab at Sarah Palin, as Heigl launches a shrewd plan to hide the pregnancy and pass Caan’s spawn off as belonging to her now-10-year-old daughter from the previous film, but instead she finds herself gradually won over by Caan’s rancid, tragic charm.  The last 1/3 of the film boldly eschews narrative resolution as the characters spontaneously band together to torture and execute a real-life critic from a small-market Arizona newspaper who was mildly critical of Boll in 2005.  Along the way the film not only makes fun of Heath Ledger’s death and the Mumbai terror attacks, but shows Caan taunting squirrels suffering through the recent acorn shortage for good measure. 


Meryl Streep
Sean Hannity
Luis Guzman

[Regular Joe]

Meryl Streep
Sean Hannity
Luis Guzman

Luis Guzman plays a mechanic who spends most of the movie locked inside a garage kicking the shit out of Sean Hannity, who's playing a guy that can't stop crying. About 45 minutes in, Meryl Streep makes an appearance as some lady looking to pick up her car. When she sees Luis Guzman delivering this beating, she runs over to stop him. She breaks up the beating using her classic Meryl Streep bravery and authority, then rushes over to the bloodied heap on the floor. She turns the weeping man over to get a better look at his wounds, but when she realizes it is Sean Hannity, she just ends up helping Luis Guzman kick the shit out of him for the next 45 minutes. They use wrenches and stuff. The End.

Jon Lovitz
Dan Akroyd
Tim Allen

[Chris L]

Jon Lovitz
Dan Akroyd
Tim Allen

Dan Aykroyd and Tim Allen are longtime friends and neighbors with failed marriages behind them and distended livers in front of them.  To regain some of their lost youth, they decide to renew the junior high spelling bee rivalry that shaped the course of their lives.  The typical high energy montage of "guys gettng in shape" is here extended to 47 minutes of wry dictionary gags and synced to a previously unheard collaboration between Steve Crooper, David Sandborn and Jeffrey Lee Pierce.  These guys may be spelling champs, but it turns out the only three letters in their alphabet are L-O-L.  Featuring Jon Lovitz as a nefarious, white-maned, tattooed Russian mobster trying to fix the bee results in favor of his nephew, Tarkovsky. 


Sophia Loren
Morrissey
Frank Caliendo

[Chris L]

Sophia Loren
Morrissey
Frank Caliendo

That's right, I'm just going to do my own, as someone in the chat sorta requested a revive (good enough for me).

The producers of the always-durable James Bond franchise seek to strike goldfinger/en-eye/pussy twice with pop star-by-night, secret agent-by-day-or-night  Dean Wilde, portrayed by famous music-affiliated personality Morrissey.  But this new guy does things a little differently than 007:  Whereas Bond would jump on any woman with lungs, gills, or both, Wilde is aloof, sexually ambiguous, and more likely to be found writhing on top of a rock than an exotic, filthily-monikered lady.  Wilde's first adventure finds him doing battle with the sinister Dr. Chameliendo, who is able to flawlessly impersonate the rich and powerful while convincing everyone else the victim has gained a substantial amount of weight.   Chameliendo assumes Bob Geldof's identity and announces plans for a massive animal rights benefit called Petsaid,  with the goal of soliciting millions of encouraging texts for an animal shelter in Swindon.   At first, Wilde is only too eager to lend his singing talent to the non-human-helping cause, but NME columnist Sheila Takeabow (Loren) soon informs him she's uncovered a dark secret:  once the "animal shelter" receives the texts, Dr. Chameliendo will send a signal back to all the phones that will turn the phones into super-lasers and the owners into mindless zombies who find Chameliendo hilarious and want to do his bidding.  Wilde's bosses at SMITHs (Spy Monitoring and Interception of Technological Hazards) don't buy any of this, and are all like "what difference does it make," and "that joke isn't funny anymore" and "barbarism begins at home" (?) when Wilde tries to explain the danger, so Wilde must go off the grid and stop Chameliendo himself in... MEAT IS GOLDENMURDER.   As one producer recently told Variety, "come on, you should have figured out from the title QUANTUM OF SOLACE that we were going in a really mopey direction."


Mickey Rourke
Tim Heidecker (from Tim & Eric)
Rivers Cuomo

[yesno]

Rivers Cuomo is a recovering meth addict working as a janitor at a Flying J truck stop.  He's had some rough patches in his life, but he dreams big.  His twin brother, Tim Heidecker, wants nothing to do with him.  Tim is a partner in a venture capital firm that primarily funds Web 2.0 startups (this movie is set in 2004).  His partner, Mickey Rourke, is a wizened veteran of the late 1990s tech bubble who thinks Tim is being reckless and overly optimistic with his investments.

At a family gathering, Rivers buttonholes Tim and pitches him on a business plan of his.  Tim, of course, just brushes it off.  But when Tim's latest investment starts to get shaky because of a patent dispute with Real Networks, he remembers Rivers' plan and realizes that he has no choice but to turn to him.  Today we know of the company that Rivers Cuomo and Tim Heidecker founded as Cuil, the world's biggest search engine.

Summer Glau
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
Whoopi Goldberg

[Sarah]

"Millions of encouraging texts for an animal shelter in Swindon" made me guffaw.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Summer Glau
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
Whoopi Goldberg

The film is called "Butcher Boy."  Summer Glau plays Emma Priest, a young film student in NYC.  There is a murder spree in Manhattan. The killer leaves the words "Butcher Boy" scrawled in blood on mirrors in the victims' homes.  Priest comes home one night to find her roommate has become a victim of the Butcher Boy.  Whoopi Goldberg plays one of Priest's teachers at film school, Professor Kelly Leet.  Leet explains to Priest that there is an old Fatty Arbuckle short comedy from 1917 called "The Butcher Boy" and that she happens to be the world's foremost expert on old silent comedies and specifically the repertoire of Arbuckle. That being said, she does not see any parallel between the old film and the murders occurring in New York.

But Burke becomes obsessed. She does not leave her apartment for weeks, watching the old film over and over for clues.  Then, upon the fiftieth viewing, she realizes it's not the visuals that hold the clues...it is the printed dialog. Priest notices that each time dialog is printed on the screen, it includes the name of one victim. For example, the dialog references a dog named Teddy. Her roommate's name had been Teddy.  Now there is only one piece of dialog left: The one in which Arbuckle tells his love that they should find a priest and get married.

Whoopi as Professor Leet turns out to be the "Butcher Boy" and chases Priest around for a while in an old film archive. I don't know, I guess it ends with Glau hitting Goldberg over the head with a film canister.

Now it's YOUR turn:
Klaus Kinski
Oliver Platt
Verne Troyer

[senorcorazon]

Now it's YOUR turn:
Klaus Kinski
Oliver Platt
Verne Troyer

Let me just say, this is one of the ugliest lineups imagined. I went for a heartfelt story but the presence of Troyer means one thing only:

THE GUYS WHO BROUGHT YOU DATE MOVIE AND SCARY MOVIE 3 PRESENT: BENJI BOTTOMS! The story of a reverse-aging man with an insatiable desire for breasts and a severe flatulence issue, we follow this path of Benji (played by Troyer, Platt, and Kinski) as he develops his knack for both grabbing chests (with his patented catchphrase "Holy Gazungas!") and for farting on command, including: his time spent as a spy during the Great Wars sending messages in Morse Fart Code (including the tension-filled moment when he's caught by the Nazis after a lunch of broccoli and has to hold on to his message even while being his in the nuts with frankfurters), his time spent in vaudeville (pursuing both of his passions), and his redemption as an artist with the Royal Opera of Vienna (playing his butt and seducing a busty trombonist). Cameos include Leslie Nielson as the frumpy evil King of Germany, D.L. Hughley as his vaudeville sidekick, and Carmen Electra as his nurse Chesty McBreasticle.
 
Poster tagline: "You'll laugh, You'll cry, You'll poot" or "He'll get to the Bottoms (and tops!) of Life" or "Take a squeeze out of Life"

Sam Rockwell
Sarah Jessica Parker
Pre-recorded Bernie Mac

[JonFromMaplewood]

THE GUYS WHO BROUGHT YOU DATE MOVIE AND SCARY MOVIE 3 PRESENT: BENJI BOTTOMS! The story of a reverse-aging man with an insatiable desire for breasts and a severe flatulence issue, we follow this path of Benji (played by Troyer, Platt, and Kinski) as he develops his knack for both grabbing chests (with his patented catchphrase "Holy Gazungas!") and for farting on command, including: his time spent as a spy during the Great Wars sending messages in Morse Fart Code (including the tension-filled moment when he's caught by the Nazis after a lunch of broccoli and has to hold on to his message even while being his in the nuts with frankfurters), his time spent in vaudeville (pursuing both of his passions), and his redemption as an artist with the Royal Opera of Vienna (playing his butt and seducing a busty trombonist). Cameos include Leslie Nielson as the frumpy evil King of Germany, D.L. Hughley as his vaudeville sidekick, and Carmen Electra as his nurse Chesty McBreasticle.
[/quote]

I laughed. I cried. I pooted. WELL DONE!

[Although I am a little offended, because my mother's name is Chesty McBreasticle.]

[Wes]

Sam Rockwell
Sarah Jessica Parker
Pre-recorded Bernie Mac

In the 853rd century, the sun will begin to falter and humanity will only survive when octillionaire Terrell Benedict (Andy Garcia, who will look like a green Dr. Manhattan thanks to state of the art CGI effects) develops Project Solaris, an artificial replacement for the sun. Earth and its colonies fall under the iron rule of the sinister Benedict thanks to the mysterious signals emitted by Solaris, which bend the human mind and enslaves the galaxy to Benedict's will. Soon, a rebellious cyborg named D’Neo Xan (Sam Rockwell) learns a shocking truth: the sun did not extinguish, but was instead transported to a neighboring solar system to serve as the crown jewel of Benedict’s collection of rare and priceless objects. Determined to free humanity from the clutches of Benedict Interplanetary, Xan devises a daring plan to steal back the sun. But he’s going to need some help, and there’s no one better for the job than history’s greatest thief – and Xan’s ancestor – Danny Ocean (George Clooney)!

Back in the 21st century, Danny and his crew are in the middle of planning their most audacious caper yet: simultaneously pulling all three scams from Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13 in the exact same ways they did the first time around. Donning a fake moustache to disguise himself, Xan arrives with the intent to pull a Five Doctors (kidnapping the gang from the timestream), but is discovered when the electromagnetic field powering his cybernetic limbs interferes with Reuben’s (Elliot Gould) pacemaker. Xan explains the situation and begs the crew for their help, but Danny explains that they are already in the middle of their own elaborate triple-heist. Luckily, Roman Nagel (Eddie Izzard) shows up and a plan is formed: Frank (Bernie Mac, using footage of Mac from the previous three movies) will remain in the past to continue setting up their current heists, while Roman will take Frank's place on the team and accompany Xan in the future.^*

And so Danny, Rusty (Brad Pitt), the guy Matt Damon plays (Matt Damon) and the other ones all go to the future with Xan to steal back the sun and disable Solaris. Will their throwback style and retro schemes be enough to foil the vile Benedict and the amazing technology at his disposal in the 853rd Century? Yes. Will Frank be able to keep the 21st Century heists going by recreating his actions exactly from the first three movies? No. But not to worry, as he’ll get some help...in the form of Danny’s wife Tess (Sarah Jessica Parker, taking over for Julia Roberts)!^**

The stakes are higher than ever in Ocean’s 1,000,000, the final chapter of the film series that has provided mild diversion for filmgoers around the world!



^*Note: This will largely be considered a massive plot hole by those who question why the Ocean gang doesn’t just go to the future, pull their caper and then return to the present moments after they left. But this is not a plot hole, this is simply not how time travel works in the Ocean’s Eleven universe based on the rules established in the prior films in the series.

^**The casting change is explained when we learn that Tess has just emerged from partially-successful experimental reconstructive facial surgery following a freak accident that happened after the second movie, which explains why she wasn't in the third one.



Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rooney
Micky Dolenz

[Sarah]

All these movies sound far too plausible.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them on the silver screen someday.  ("Silver screen" is an odd term, isn't it?  I mean, screens are white or grayish, not silver, damn it.  I know "silver" is sometimes used poetically for "gray," but it implies shininess, an attribute only a bad screen would possess.)

[Martin]

I BELIEVE it's called "the golden silver screen".

[senorcorazon]

Wes, I bow to you. The "serve as the crown jewel of Benedict’s collection of rare and priceless objects" -- the idea of pompous green Andy Gracia throwing a cocktail party and then, at the opportune time, pulling the drapes back to say "ladies and gentlemen, I give, the SUN." --- brilliant.