The Super Mario Bros. Movie: A F**king Nightmare?

Remember the Super Mario Bros. movie? The one that featured Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as everyone's favorite Italian plumbers? Remember how it had nothing to do with the video games and blew consistently and thoroughly?

If you answered no, I envy you. I mean really, look at that poster above, with the quote "It's a blast!" from The Washington Post. I'm fairly confident that the rest of the quote reads "...in the face with a loaded shotgun."

Arguably, this cinematic bowel movement was the first in a long, long line of horrible video game-to-movie adaptations. The only watchable one? The first Tomb Raider. Only because it featured a lithe Angelina Jolie and her two co-stars. I'm talking about her breasts. But you knew that.

As for Super Mario Bros., just how did so many good actors get roped into this thing? Bob Hoskins? Dennis Hopper? John Leguizamo? Well, that last one was a clown in a fat suit a few years later in the detestable Spawn movie, so he doesn't necessarily count in this case. But seriously, what the hell? The movie had something to do with a meteor and some snot fungus. Oh, and everyone ate fried lizards. Everything that made the games great, right?

Well, this rant all has to do with this article I came across from the UK's The Guardian, in which Hoskins refers to the film as a "f**king nightmare," and calls the husband-and-wife directors "f**king idiots." It's little things like this that just make my Sunday that much better. Check it out here.

The Color Yellow is Kicking Ass This Summer

It's official: The Simpsons Movie is a box office juggernaut. Despite this weekend's release of The Bourne Ultimatum, which I have yet to see, Homer and the gang have raked in over $236 million worldwide, with a domestic weekend gross of 25.6 million.

This adds to a theory that I've had since Transformers came out of the gate with a $70 million plus opening weekend, which is that audiences are immediately drawn to yellow movie characters. Bumblebee? Yellow. Homer Simpson? Yellow. Read between the lines people!

Yellow: The color that's saving Hollywood. Blue? Red? Green? Hang your heads in shame.

Hot Fuzz: A DVD Review

Hot Fuzz, the cop movie parody from the guys that brought you Shaun of the Dead, arrived on DVD this week, and is worth picking up whether you caught it during its theatrical run or not. Like its predecessor, it demands repeat viewings.

The film tells the story of London cop Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) who is promoted to sergeant with one catch: he's being transferred to a small country town, Sandford, because he's making everyone on the force "look bad." As it turns out, the small town is hardly what it seems on the outside. Teamed up with the oafish Danny (Nick Frost), Angel has to get to the bottom of a string of suspicious murders while Danny teaches him the finer art of jumping through the air while firing two guns at once.

I say that because this film, while primarily about a city cop trying to cope with policing a small town, is a send-up of big-budget cop films like Point Break and Bad Boys 2. While Shaun spoofed the zombie films of George Romero, Hot Fuzz takes pot shots at Michael Bay. And it works.

Alas, it's just not as good as Shaun , at least not during the first viewing. When watching it again, you'll noticed how layered the film is, and how every character and every situation pays off later. Shaun similarly gets more enjoyable each time you see it, but Hot Fuzz lacks that "wow, this is brilliant" charm on first viewing of its predecessor. It's very good, but fans of Shaun of the Dead may be disappointed at first. If this is the case, watch it again. And then 3 or 4 more times just for fun.

If you like British comedy with some gunfire and explosions thrown in, you'll love Hot Fuzz.