NEW MOVIE REVIEWS:

“Kung Fu Panda 2″ (B-)
“The Hangover Part II” (C+) [Film.com]

MOVIE COLUMNS:

Eric’s Bad Movies: “Thrashin’” (1986). There were several skateboard-centric movies in the 1980s. I chose this one because it was available on Netflix. “Gleaming the Cube,” alas, is not. [Film.com]

What’s the Big Deal?: “Jaws” (1975). I hadn’t seen this in a while. Man, this is one GORY PG film. The fate of the Robert Shaw character is particularly alarming. Anyway, this article mostly focuses on how “Jaws” changed the summer blockbuster season. [Film.com]

An Obsessive-Compulsive’s Guide to the Summer Movie Season: Here’s my first piece for Movies.com, where quite a few former Cinematical writers and editors have found refuge. It’s a nerdy thing full of statistics about the summer blockbuster season. [Movies.com]

MY OTHER STUFF:

Snide Remarks: “It Takes All Kinds” — We are diverse, and also kind of fat.

Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider: Reviews of “Kung Fu Panda 2″ and “The Hangover Part II,” plus a chat with “Saturday Night Live” writer Bryan Tucker. What’s up with “What Up with That”? We ask. [Cascadia.fm] or [iTunes]

In the Dark: Subscribe to this weekly e-mail and get all the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info delivered to your electronic mailbox. [Eric D. Snider's In the Dark]

MISCELLANEOUS MERRIMENT:

The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr exposes how movie theaters are letting 3D ruin 2D movies, too: by leaving the 3D lenses on the projectors, resulting in dimmer 2D showings. You should not put up with this. [Boston Globe]

Not to revel in the misfortunes of others, but … “HuffPo Employees Flee AOL After ‘Brutal’ ‘Awful’ ‘Worst Few Weeks.’” [Business Insider]

The “SNL” season finale was pretty solid, as is always the case when Justin Timberlake hosts. Here’s a funny sketch that was cut after dress rehearsal. [Hulu]

Speaking of “SNL,” a fellow enthusiast, Mike Ryan, interviews former cast member Will Forte about his current activities. [Movieline]

Sean O’Connell launches a new column for movie geek parents: “When Can I Watch ____ with My Kids?” First up is “Star Wars.” [Movies.com]

Are you a fan of “Parks and Recreation”? Of course you are, unless there is something wrong with you. Here’s a compilation of Rob Lowe’s character’s best moments. (By the way, the footage is mirror-imaged because somehow that keeps the network from pulling it down quite as fast. The more you know!) [YouTube]

How did we not notice this before?? [Funny or Die]

A see-through frog? Thanks, nature. Thanks a heap. [National Geographic]

Remember how dumb children used to write to me thinking I was Raven-Symone? Turns out Oprah Winfrey has some fans who are just as dumb. [Opera News]

NEW MOVIE REVIEWS:
“Pirates of the Caribbean” (C-)
“Priest” (C) [Film.com]

MOVIE COLUMNS:
Eric’s Bad Movies: “Cutthroat Island” (1995). This is far from the worst movie I’ve dealt with in this column. In fact, seeing it the same week as the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” produced an interesting question: Which movie is actually worse? “Cutthroat Island” eventually wins because of Geena Davis’ wooden performance and Matthew Modine’s general charmlessness, but in terms of plot and story and whatnot, it isn’t appreciably any dumber than “On Stranger Tides.” Yet “Cutthroat Island” was a total box-office flop, while “On Stranger Tides” will make $100,000,000,000,000,000 this weekend alone. [Film.com]

What’s the Big Deal?: “Dirty Harry” (1971). This came up recently when I was chatting with some pals from The Film Stage movie blog. I forget how the subject arose, but these pals expressed puzzlement over “Dirty Harry’s” status as an iconic film. Good entertainment, sure, but what’s the big deal? And that’s why What’s the Big Deal? exists! For situations just like this! [Film.com]

MY OTHER STUFF:
Snide Remarks: “One Less Boogeyman” — The crackpots react to Osama’s death

Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider: We review “Pirates,” “Hobo with a Shotgun,” and “Hesher,” and play a rousing game of Pitch Me with surprise guest Dawn Taylor. [Cascadia.fm] or [iTunes]

Reject Radio: Matt Patches and I were guests on this show, facing off in a news quiz and then discussing movies as art with host Cole Abaius. A fine time was had by all! [Film School Rejects]

In the Dark: Subscribe to this weekly e-mail and get all the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info delivered to your electronic mailbox. [Eric D. Snider's In the Dark]

MISCELLANEOUS MERRIMENT:
Few things in life are more entertaining than dumb people who think articles from The Onion are actual news stories. [Buzzfeed]

Fans of the movie “Network” — which should be everyone, really — may be interested in see screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s notes on the script. [New York Times]

Beloved fictional character Scott Weinberg gives us the rundown on the characters in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” juggernaut. [Movies.com]

NEW MOVIE REVIEWS:
“Bridesmaids” (B)
“Priest” (C) [Film.com]
“Everything Must Go” (B+) [Film.com]
“Hesher” (B+)

MOVIE COLUMNS:
Eric’s Bad Movies: “Bats” (1999). Starring bats. As a personal challenge, I didn’t make any Batman jokes. [Film.com]
What’s the Big Deal?: “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962). No Batman jokes in this one either, though it required less restraint in this case. [Film.com]
What to Expect When You’re Expecting “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” I had to make some educated guesses. [Film.com]

MY OTHER STUFF:
Snide Remarks: “My Body Is a Wonderland” — Gross descriptions of gross things
Blog: Eric’s Bad Movies needs more suggestions, por favor.

MISCELLANEOUS MERRIMENT:
Friend and fellow writer Erin McCarthy has a friend named Kate who freaks out a lot when she watches scary movies, and apparently talks a lot when she watches movies in general. Erin made a hilarious video called “Watch Kate Watching ‘The Thing.’” [Twitvid]

Friend and fellow writer “Cole Abaius” is a terrific interviewer. Here he is talking to legendary stuntman Vic Armstrong on this week’s edition of the Reject Radio podcast. [Film School Rejects]

Former friend and fellow writer Peter Hall stopped being my friend when he made me afraid to sit down anymore. Read this and be likewise afraid. [Daily Infographic]

Uh-oh! Looks like the contest to be Obama’s biggest fan has a new frontrunner! [Twitpic]

A Hoth realtor addresses some of the concerns being raised over his decision to turn Han Solo’s deceased tauntaun into a modest studio apartment. [McSweeney's]

Speaking of which, Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead, Vader says. (The attention to detail on this parody is very impressive.) [Galactic Empire Times]

My old SLC pal Scott Renshaw wrote a highly entertaining and informative cover story about his first attempt to drink coffee. [City Weekly]

I enjoyed Tina Fey on “Saturday Night Live” last week. Here’s a sketch they cut after dress rehearsal, “Great Women Writers Throughout History.” [Hulu]

This article about David Eagleman’s research into the way we perceive time totally blew my mind. Then I read it again, and it blew my mind again. Fascinating! [The New Yorker]

Subscribe to “In the Dark,” a weekly e-mail with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info.

Listen to “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” a weekly Internet radio show featuring Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, at Cascadia.fm. It’s live at 11 a.m. (Pacific) every Friday, then downloadable as a podcast. Ignore the iTunes “explicit” tag; we always keep it PG.

It is time once again to solicit suggestions for Eric’s Bad Movies! This is a weekly column that I write for Film.com, in case you didn’t know, and I rely upon you, the readers, to point me in the direction of terrible movies that deserve mockery. Truly, I do! A sizable chunk of the 144 movies I’ve covered so far were ones I hadn’t heard of or never would have thought of on my own.

Basically, here’s what I’m looking for in a Bad Movie:

- The more well-known it is, the better. I’m avoiding straight-to-video releases and TV movies. Movies that played in theaters and were backed by Hollywood studios and had stars in them are ideal.

- Comedies are extremely hard to make fun of because they already don’t take themselves seriously, so I tend to avoid those. Focus on action movies, dramas, and the like.

- It needs to be something whose badness is generally agreed upon, as opposed to something that YOU happen to hate but that is otherwise fairly well regarded. Remember, I need to think it’s bad, too. Don’t waste my time with movies that I think are OK!

- I don’t want to do movies that I reviewed in the normal movie-critic fashion when they came out in theaters. I’ve been reviewing movies since 1999, so in general, you can skip anything released since then.

After the jump, the list of what I’ve covered so far. Then it’s up to you to post suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

(If you’ve suggested a film in the past and I haven’t used it, you don’t need to suggest it again, I promise. Either I’ve considered it and rejected it, or it’s on my to-do list.)

Continue reading…

New movie reviews:
“Thor” (B)
“Hobo with a Shotgun” (A-)
“The Beaver” (B+)
“Something Borrowed” (D) [Film.com]

Tribeca Film Festival reviews (all at Film.com):
“Angels Crest” (B)
“Everything Must Go” (B+)
“The Good Doctor” (B+)
“Higher Ground” (A-)
“Point Blank” (A-)
“Roadie” (C+)
“The Trip” (B)

Movie columns:
– Eric’s Bad Movies: “Above the Law” (1988). This is Steven Seagal’s first movie. I always assumed it must be at least sorta good, since he immediately got offers to make more movies, but this was not the case. [Film.com]
– What’s the Big Deal?: “Beauty and the Beast” (1946) — not the Disney cartoon (though I love that too), but the magical old French version. [Film.com]

My other stuff:
Snide Remarks: “A Matter of Control” — Video games reveal that I am elderly.

Miscellaneous merriment:
– You may have heard that Osama Bin Laden passed away quietly in his sleep last Sunday. Would you like to see how America’s dumb teenagers noted the occasion? [Facebook / FaceDumb on Twitter]
– This now-iconic picture of the White House situation room is mesmerizing to me. Click “Original” for the giant version and look at the faces, especially Obama’s and Clinton’s. There was some intense shiz going down. [Flickr]
– The night before Bin Laden bit the dust was the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Obama had some pretty good jokes in his speech (though his delivery is still off), including some aimed at Donald Trump… [YouTube]
– …and then “SNL” head writer Seth Meyers annihilated Trump and cracked on just about everyone else, too, including 2008 Obama vs. 2011 Obama. Of particular import: At 2:05, Meyers makes a joke about C-SPAN’s lack of viewers that references the whereabouts of Bin Laden. Check out the reaction from Obama, who had signed off on the mission to kill or capture Bin Laden just hours earlier. [YouTube]
– I compiled some of the most amusing Bin Laden jokes from Twitter. [Eric's Blog]
– Speaking of Bin Laden, right after 9/11, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, and Michael Jackson went on a road trip. [Vanity Fair]
– My sister is taking a film class at a community college. This is a journal entry by one of her classmates. (We THINK she meant that the people who made “Disturbia” should have noticed they were copying “Rear Window.”) [Twitpic]
– My old pal Scott Weinberg, formerly managing editor at Cinematical, started a new gig at Movies.com this week. His first item: Dear 3D, Please Die Already (Again). [Movies.com]
– Matt Patches, whose name makes it sound like he should be a circus clown or an old-timey hobo, writes about the movies his ex-girlfriends made him watch and what he learned from them. [Film School Rejects]
– Drew McWeeny filmed his two little boys reciting the Green Lantern oath. It’s impossibly cute. [HitFix]
– In honor of the Beastie Boys’ new album, here are explanations for 170 of their previous lyrical references. [The AV Club]
– Forget about Twitter. The best political zingers still come in the form of letters to the editor. Man, this lady sure let Trump have it, am I right?! [The Salt Lake Tribune]

Subscribe to “In the Dark,” a weekly e-mail with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other pertinent info.

Listen to “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” a weekly Internet radio show featuring Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, at Cascadia.fm. It’s live at 11 a.m. (Pacific) every Friday, then downloadable as a podcast. Ignore the iTunes “explicit” tag; we always keep it PG.

The best thing you can do with Twitter is use it to fire off one-liners seconds after a news event happens. We once had to wait until the next night’s talk show monologues or “Saturday Night Live’s” Weekend Update to get this kind of joke; now it’s there immediately.

Sunday night, as news spread that President Obama was going to make some kind of important announcement, and as word trickled out that it pertained to the death of Osama Bin Laden, snarkmeisters both professional and amateur took to the tweets to make with the ha-ha. The question of whether it’s ever appropriate to celebrate anyone’s death, even a mass murderer’s, is valid, and I will leave it for other people to talk about in other places. But I say if we can’t make jokes about the death of Osama Bin Laden, what can we make jokes about?

Here are the tweets that I saw Sunday night, in chronological order, that made me laugh. Note how they start out basic, making now-obvious connections, and then evolve as more news arrives. From a purely sociological standpoint, it’s fascinating. From a joke-writing standpoint, it is also fascinating.

@confessions123: Tea Party already denying the kill, demanding Osama’s longform death certificate.
@misterpatches: Yeah, but what about Carmen Sandiego?
@jerslater: Not to take all the credit, but I’ve been saying someone should kill bin Laden for like ten years now.
@BrianLynch: Cause of death: dynamite tied together to look like hot FEMALE terrorist.
@marklisanti: Let this serve as a lesson to future terrorists: When we finally kill you, we will mock your death with ten billion tweets. Not worth it.
@SmarmyJerkface: Man this was a REALLY long season of 24.
@Deadzero: President Obama doesn’t need to say a thing, he should just pull Bin Laden’s head out of a bag and throw it on a table.
@jennamgriffith: CIA just ousted Osama Bin Laden as mayor of Islamabad on @FourSquare
@jimmyfallon: Got Bin Laden AND interrupted Celebrity Apprentice? Win for Obama all around.
@ApocalypseHow: FOXNEWS REPORTS: Obama Administration Kills Homeless Religious Man with Kidney Disease
@natebargatze: It is pretty awkward in my cab right now
@irwinhandleman: President Obama is the worst Muslim sleeper agent I’ve ever seen
@ditzkoff: Weirdly, bin Laden also had a secretary named Hitler who warned him not to go to Pakistan that day.
@MattDentler: I hope the soldier that killed Bin Laden is an openly gay, Jewish woman.
@thesulk: I’m just glad it wasn’t the “there’s an asteroid we can’t stop” speech.
@nealbrennan: The Al-Queda guys are totally gonna have a Big Chill type weekend, I bet.
@astamate: I bet Osama will get the loudest applause during the “In Memoriam” portion of the Al Qaedies this year.
@MrBrandonMarcus: Bin Laden was killed while living in a huge mansion in Pakistan. Why does Obama hate rich people so much?!
@ThrashRuske: U.S terror alert upgraded to “Double Rainbow”.
@dontsitonart: Tonight was the night history was made, and a nation redefined the concept of Too Soon
@caissie: Whoa. That was huge. Guys, let’s not spoil it for the West Coast, though, okay?
@me_irl: Beloved character actor Osama bin Laden, star of TV’s “Fox News”, dies age 54