Friday Night Double Features Vol. 44

 by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley

New double features to enjoy during the dog days of summer.

24 Hours of Movies: Clowns

by Patrick Bromley

Everybody loves a clown. So why don't you?

To Heist or Not to Heist

by Melissa Uhrin

This whole "needing money to win at life" thing is a bitch. Money for food and the four "H"'s: Housing. Heat. Hydration. Hygiene. Just the basics required to survive another day.

Heath Holland On...Looking for Meaning in Movies

by Heath Holland

Let’s get deep.

What's Your Favorite Scene in a Christopher Nolan Movie?

Please say it's anything with Matthew Modine.

Riske Business: What Do You Do?

Pop quiz, hotshots! What would you do if you were placed in these movie scenarios? Erich and I have our answers.

Watchin' Trailerz with Doug (July 20)

You guys. The Dark Knight Rises opens today. That is all.

Our Favorite Sequels

It's summer now, and that can mean only one thing: SEQUELS! They're not all just routine, cynical cash grabs, though. Here are some that aren't. Or that are, but we just don't care.

Watchin' Trailerz with Doug (January 6)

Happy 2012, everyone! Seeing as it's our last year on earth (Mayans!), it's also fitting that this is the year Batman dies. Spoilers?

Watchin' Trailerz with Doug (Week of July 11)

The trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man will be released next week with select prints of Captain America: The First Avenger. Yay? I mean, yes -- yay. It's exciting! Never mind the fact that we have to wait an additional 353 days until it's actually in theaters (just like one of our trailers below)! I said NEVER MIND the FACT! And I bet you just can't WAIT to hear what I have to say about it (sneak preview: "I'm not crazy about Andrew Garfield!"). The reason I bring this up here is simple ... I'm NEVER NOT THINKING OF YOU GUYS. And trailers. Those two things in combination. For real, I'm 24/7 A.B.T.: Always Be Trailerz'ing.

F Weird Casting in Comic Book Movies

The Green Hornet is the number one movie in America right now, which I don't think any of us expected from a superhero movie starring Seth Rogen. Speaking of actors who might be miscast as superheroes, let's F some of the weirdest/most terrible casting decisions in comic book movie history.

1. Michael Keaton, Batman (1989) - The original WTFuck casting of a comic book movie. I get what Tim Burton was going for in casting Michael Keaton -- he wanted a guy who was odd and a little off and who might believably dress up as a bat and fight people. Unfortunately, he let that one casting decision do all the heavy lifting character-wise and spent no further time on developing Bruce Wayne or Batman. I did like when Batman made grilled cheese with an iron. You're doing it wrong, Batman!

2. Halle Berry, X-Men (2000) - Because Angela Bassett isn't a person who acts in movies.

3. Jessica Alba, The Fantastic Four (2005) - Yes, anyone whose name doesn't rhyme with "Rhis Revans" is horribly miscast in Tim Story's terrible Fantastic Four movie (even you, the Commish), but Jessica Alba's casting is particularly egregious. Maybe because she's playing a scientist. Mostly because she's playing a human. She's the worst.

4. Warren Beatty, Dick Tracy (1990) - Square-jawed, do-gooding supercop? We've got just the mumbling, incoherent sack of leather for the job.

5. Matthew Goode, Watchmen (2009) - It's almost impossible to watch Matthew Goode's fey, quasi-European, Schumacher Ozymandias in Zack Snyder's Watchmen after learning that at one point the part was being considered by Tom Cruise. That would have been some brilliant casting, and would have helped solve one of the few big problems that movie has.

6. Shaquille O'Neal, Steel (1997) - Great idea, people in charge of movies!

7. Keanu Reeves, Constantine (2005) - I'm not sure anyone who read Hellblazer pictured Johnny Utah as the chain smoking, very British badass John Constantine. Shane Falco isn't bad in a movie that's somewhat underrated, but I'm not sure you can call it a real adaptation of Hellblazer. Someone should have told them about Clive Owen.

8. Tommy Lee Jones, Batman Forever (1995) - The fact that Two-Face is one of the villains in Batman Forever at all is a mistake, but I get it that Warner Bros. had already burned through most of the well-known villains by the third movie in the franchise. I get the feeling they cast Harvey Dent more than Two-Face, and Tommy Lee Jones is an aging white man, which makes him convincing as a lawyer. No one could have predicted how fantastically shitty he would be in the part. In a movie filled with badness, he is the badnessest.

9. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (2008) - Speaking of Batman villains. I was bummed out when I learned that Heath Ledger would be playing the Joker in Christopher Nolan's second Batman movie -- partly because I didn't feel like the Joker needed to be revisited (wrong) and partly because I thought Heath Ledger was way too young for the part. It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong, and I'm fucking huge. Heath Ledger killed the part (the part returned the favor), walking away with the movie and owning the role of the Joker for the rest of time. I was wrong about Heath Ledger, too. He rules.

10. Nicolas Cage, Superman Lives (Never Happened) - I'll admit that I was excited to learn that Nicolas Cage was going to be playing the Man of Steel in Tim Burton's unproduced Superman movie, even though I recognize it's the worst possible casting choice. I just happen to love Nicolas Cage, and suspected that he was going to play the superhero like an alien freak who feels cut off from humanity, and that intrigued me. I was way less excited about the possibility of a Tim Burton Superman, because there's nothing about his aesthetic that suggests he's the right director for that job and I thought he had already said everything he needed to say about the comic book genre with his two Batman movies. This was nearly 15 years ago, before we learned that Tim Burton had already said everything he needed to say about movies. Period. Nic Cage still got paid $20 million for not making the movie. Badass. Also, wasteful and terrible.

F This Movie! - The Dark Knight

The Christopher Nolan lovefest continues as Patrick and Alex adopt their best scratchy voices and F the 2008 blockbuster The Dark Knight. It's better than going to a comic book festival.

Check out the fan-made posters for Gotham City referenced in the show, as well as the fan film Batman: Dead End.



Download this episode here.

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Also discussed this episode: Salt (2010), The Kids Are All Right (2010)

F This Movie! - Inception

JB returns so he and Patrick can engage in a spoiler-heavy discussion of Christopher Nolan's 2010 masterpiece Inception. Hear them complain about the film's cold literalism, quibble over every minor flaw and dump all over the movie...IN YOUR DREAMS!! Because actually they love it.