Frat Pack Upcoming Movie Grading Guide

My brother-in-law Alex was the first person to ever use the term “frat pack” in a conversation with me, and I actually thought that he didn’t know what he was talking about when he explained that the members of the group included both Judd Apatow, who I think is a genius, and Ben Stiller, who I think is probably the worst thing to happen to American cinema in the last two hundred years (except, maybe, for Owen Wilson, who might be worse). So, I went home and looked up the term on Wikipedia. And sure, enough, Alex was not bullshitting me. There is such a thing as the Frat Pack.

And now, according to New York Magazine’s Vulture, there is apparently a definitive way to tell if a film featuring these fine folks will be any good or not.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is also written by an Apatow acolyte, Freaks & Geeks vet Jason Segel (3), who also stars along with Undeclared’s Carlo Gallo (1.5). Sadly, it’s directed by Nicholas Stoller (-2). We are promised wangs, “several scenes,” so let’s say three minutes (3). No big stars, but Kristen Bell is at least as proven an actress as Katherine Heigl (3). That gives us a relatively solid movie, with a total score of 8.5 — somewhere between Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Not bad!

Any other Apatow fans up in hee-ah? What do you think?

[Via Kottke]

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Geek Force Five Mentioned on News Askew

The fine folks at News Askew were kind enough to mention Geek Force Five in their write-up of the possible release date for Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I’d like to take a moment to welcome any News Askew readers who are visiting us for the first time, and I’d also like to thank Brad and Chris of News Askew for the shout-out.

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Zack and Miri Have a Release Date?

CinemaBlend.com is reporting that Zack and Miri Make a Porno has a release date. Their source (Box Office Mojo) says that the next film by Kevin Smith will be released on October 31, 2008. There’s no word yet from Kevin or News Askew on this, so I’m holding back judgment until I hear it from the horse’s mouth. But, if it turns out to be true, I’m with Josh Tyler at CinemaBlend. October 31 is not a good release date. You don’t want to be competing with the latest horror flick for the same young male audience that you’re hoping to pull in, at least not on that date. On any other day of the year, the young men are going to choose porno over horror. But on Halloween, all bets are off.

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FiveCast Going Weekly

For the sake of my sanity, I’m scaling back the schedule for the Geek Force FiveCast. I just don’t have time to do five shows a week. Last week, I was home early from work every day and I still barely got them done. And I’ve been stressing out since Monday about how to find the time to get one organized and filmed for this week. They’re fun, and I feel like people are enjoying them (except for that one YouTube troll), but I just can’t allow myself to stress out about something like this. As those who know me know already, I stress out about far too many things as it is.

So, the FiveCast is going weekly. That’s the best I can do, and I hope that you’ll stick around to check it out.

Now, if I had the time to film an episode today, here’s what I’d cover:

• Burger King Ketchup and Fries Flavored Potato Snacks. Oh. my. Jesus. Seriously, when I spotted these things in a vending machine on the Lesley University campus this morning, I thought they’d be an amusingly bad snack and not much more. But these things were amazing! They tasted like french fries. With ketchup on them. But without the mess. Seriously, I don’t know how they did it, but they better keep doing it. This is one snack that simply must not go off the market.
• Syd Field’s Screenwriter’s Workbook. I teach a class on Writing and the Literary Arts, in case you didn’t know. This week, I’ve been having the kids watch Wonder Boys as part of my segment on drama. We’ve been discussing the structure of drama versus the structure of short and long fiction, and I’ve been referencing Syd Field. After class this morning, while one of my students made up the mid-term exam (she’d been very sick on the day of the test), I was paging through The Screenwriter’s Workbook when I got to thinking about how the structure paradigm that Field uses to help his students breakdown their screenplays into manageable chunks could also be used, with a bit of tweaking, to help people (me, for instance) write novels. It was a very exciting realization, something that I’ve totally been geeking out about all day.
• Human Mario. The image I’ve included above was among the pile of stories waiting for me in my RSS reader on Monday/Tuesday, after a long weekend away from the Interweb. And, my goodness, it’s disturbing. Dontchu think? Geekologie has more.
• Pix from Zack and Miri Make a Porno. News Askew has been posting some still photos from Kevin Smith’s next film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Check them out here and here.
• Bible Fight. Oh, and then there’s Bible Fight, a game I found out about through Geekologie. The gist of it: It’s a Bible-themed fighting game where you can pit Jesus against Mary as easily as you can pit Jesus against Satan. If I believed in hell, then I’m sure that’s where I’d be going for having such fun this.

So, yeah, that’s your text-based FiveCast for the day. A real, live video FiveCast should be coming at you later this week.

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Incredible Hulk Trailer Smashes Onto the Interweb

The teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk is now available for viewing online, and it is every bit as cool as the teaser teaser I mentioned in Monday’s FiveCast seemed to suggest it would be. Comic Book Resources suggests that this is a “restart for the franchise” but I don’t see anything in this trailer that completely disavows all knowledge of the previous film. I don’t see how you can completely ignore that film, imperfect as it was. It came out too recently.

Newsarama has a good (but poorly written) summary of which versions of the Hulk this trailer suggests the new film is borrowing from:

From the looks of the trailer, The Incredible Hulk borrows some from the version of the Hulk as established in Marvel’s Ultimates (as well as nods to the television series): a man on the run from a government that sees him as a living bioweapon, a hunger for more creatures like the Hulk to fight for world powers, and Banner ultimately conceding that he is the only thing that can stop the Abomination.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am very excited about the possibility of a Hulk film that nods to the television series. So far, so good on this one, Marvel.

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