Humor District

Other overused phrases include:

- I got a bad feeling about this

- I don’t know are talking about

- I don’t know what are you talking about

Any others?

[via /Film]

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Losers is the latest comic book to be made into a movie, and it is shaping up to be an entertaining movie. Chirs Evans will be particularly interesting as he plays the character Jensen, a wise-cracking tech expert who can also kill you very easily. It’s like his role as the Human Torch in Fantastic Four, except less moody, more hilarious, and hopefully in a movie that doesn’t suck. Check out the trailer for yourself, it looks pretty good.

What makes this role particularly interesting for Chris Evans, is the fact that he will soon be suiting up as Captain America. Judging from the trailer, Chris Evans looks the part for Steve Rogers, but he might have to bulk up a little bit before he starts defending our freedom as Captain America. It also seems like he will have to reign in the comedy a bit, Cap is a pretty serious guy.

Getting back to The Losers, it will also be interesting to see Cougar, one of the coolest snipers ever. What most people are probably excited about, however, is the fact that Zoe Saldana will be playing Aisha. Zoe Saldana is pretty damn hot, even when she was a CG blue cat person in Avatar. I will probably go see any movie featuring this:

Popularity: 3% [?]

You might have heard of this guy, Seth MacFarlane. He works on a couple animated TV shows, Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland show. I guess some people watch them. He was also Dr. Johann Krauss in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Yeah, you totally remember him from that and not Family Guy. The man has practically taken over animated comedy on television, with all due respect to The Simpsons and South Park, and MacFarlane is now attempting to expand that domination to the big screen.

Seth Macfarlane has sold his movie, Ted, to Universal Studios. Details on this movie are slim, but apparently Ted will be about a man and his teddy bear and be done with a mix of live action and CGI. It will also have an “R” rating, so be prepared for some off color humor. Of course if you are a fan of Seth MacFarlane’s you already know the irreverent and offensive is what MacFarlane does best.

Popularity: 5% [?]

It is a known fact that every kid who has ever existed has gone through some point in their life when they were obsessed with dinosaurs. If you add dinosaurs to anything, it automatically makes it better. Let’s take a look at some examples. Transformers + Dinosaur = Grimlock, the coolest Transformer ever. Douchey Guy Pooping + Dinosaur = Great Scene in Jurassic Park. Me + Dinosaur = Supreme Ruler of the Galaxy. I think you get the point. To further back this up, let’s take a look at some great movies about dinosaurs.

Jurassic Park

When did you first learn the word velociraptor? If you learned it before Jurassic Park came out you are either a paleontologist or a liar. Paleontologists are too busy searching for fossils while daydreaming about riding upon sauropods to be reading this article, so you are a liar. That is the kind of impact that Jurassic Park had on our society, it taught us all a new vocabulary word that has been seared into our collective conscious. Also, it had that aforementioned scene where the pooping guy got eaten by a tyrannosaurus. The dinosaurs were lifelike enough for us to buy into the movie and actually wonder how screwed we would be if a pack of velociraptors hunted us down.

The Land Before Time

We all remember the first time we were introduced to Littlefoot, Petrie, and the rest of the prehistoric little rascals. This series remains a classic despite the terrible sequels that have been made. We even grew to love that gruff old Cera. What we had here was the perfect combination for a young audience. Kids are boring, they can’t do much, therefore they love to see other fictional kids having awesome adventures and live vicariously through them. Also, kids love dinosaurs. Seriously, if you ask a group of 10 5 year olds what they want to be when they grow up, 9 of them will say some sort of dinosaur and shun the loser who said a lawyer. The Land Before Time had kids who were also dinosaurs having adventures. It was all of our dreams come true. Plus we were all kind of curious what would happen if Littlefoot and Cera did it. You know there was some romantic tension there.

We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story

After The Land Before Time came out, we didn’t think it could get any better. Well guess what, it did. We got a sort of grown up version of The Land Before Time with We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story. Rather than having kids live out their fantasies with dinosaurs, We’re Back had kids who were friends with talking dinosaurs. This was so much better, we still got our adventure, we could tell dinosaurs what to do, and we still had opposable thumbs in our fantasies. In this movie, we also got to see what happens when the dinosaurs turn against, a little sneak peak at Jurassic Park if you will. Of course in this version our bonds of friendship with the dinosaurs were so strong we were able to talk them out of a murderous rampage. There is only one way this could possibly be improved on.

Transformers 3: Grimlock Eats Sam Witwicky’s Parents

This movie has not been made yet, but I am currently sending in numerous manuscripts to Michael Bay in order to make this a reality. This could become the greatest dinosaur movie of all time because of the shocking twist: the dinosaur is also an alien robot. That is known as the trifecta right there. Imagine the opening scene with the Witwicky parents making awkward comments about old people sex or something like they usually do. All of a sudden Grimlock tears the roof off of their house and just swallows them whole. We are trying to keep the PG-13 rating, or else he would bite them in half. You’ll have to wait until the unrated DVD comes out for that version. The rest of the movie would be Grimlock destroying everything, even Optimus Prime would not be able to contain Grimlock’s primal fury. Shia LaBeouf runs around with Megan Fox trying not to get stepped on and is essentially useless. Somehow Megan Fox’s shirt gets wet. Closing scene: Megan Fox is standing on top of Grimlock’s head as he gives out a triumphant roar. He stands upon the burning wreckage of some well known building as there is a gigantic explosion in the background. Megan Fox’s shirt is still wet. That is what is known as Oscar material. Seriously, Michael Bay, write me back.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Let’s start off with a basic overview of The Herculoids. This was an old saturday morning cartoon featuring a sparsely inhabited planet that had 3 humans living on it, Zandor, Tarra, and Dorno. For some reason, evil technologically advanced aliens were always hellbent on taking over this particular planet, or blowing it up. Luckily there were 5 creatures on the planet that would always save the day. In fact they are the first reason we love The Herculoids.

1. The Creatures

Here is a rundown of the non-human stars of The Herculoids. Igoo was a giant ape made out of rocks. He was super strong and basically couldn’t be hurt by anything. His favorite pastime was throwing boulders at invading spaceships. Tundro was also a rock creature, except he was based on a mix of a rhino and a centipede. Also, he could shoot rocks out of his horn, spin his head to drill through rocks, and his legs extended to ridiculous lengths for all those times he needed to be taller. Next we have Zok, who was basically an alien dragon. Yes, that is awesome. That includes not only being able to fly and breath fire, but also traveling through space and shooting laser beams out of his head. Last but not least we have Gloop and Gleep, essentially the first Flubbers. They are balls of goop that can turn themselves into chairs or trampolines, or whatever else they need to. The best part is all of these creatures seemed to understand what the humans in the show were saying and would comply with their orders. Imagine having a space dragon you could ride around. That was everyday life for Dorno.

2. Zandor Has a Mysterious Past

As previously mentioned, highly advanced alien races were always coming to the little planet Zandor, his wife, Tarra, and their son, Dorno, called home. Was it because these aliens had ruined the ecosystems on their home planets during their never ending search for superior technology? Were they gathering interplanetary slaves for a gigantic space war? No, they were usually just pissed at Zandor. Almost every single alien invader listed a past slight by Zandor as their main reason for attacking. It was never specifically said what exactly Zandor had done to piss these aliens off, but I think he was a space pirate. He would steal their technology and sell it to other aliens until he was able to buy a tiny planet where he and his family could spend the rest of their days wearing fur loincloths and avoiding any use of technology whatsoever. I assume all of the angry aliens had a brother killed by Zandor during a theft gone wrong.

3. Did I Mention Zok?

Yes, all of the creatures in The Herculoids are pretty cool. Zok is by far the coolest though. Let me give you a rundown of this again. Zok is a space dragon who can fly through space, breathe fire, and shoot laser beams out of his head. Now I will pause for a second as these facts sink in and you realize that Zok is THE COOLEST THING EVER. Wait, it gets better, Dorno, son of Zandor, would often ride Zok and get a great view of enemies getting blasted by laser beams. There is nothing in the world that would be greater than riding a space dragon, not even riding a 10 legged rock rhino.

4. Sexism is Funny

Zandor, being a former space pirate, was pretty bad ass. He would lead the charge against whatever aliens happened to be invading that day, and would rack up a good kill count. This is counting all of the assumed kills that happened off screen, these old cartoons never showed the good parts. Dorno inherited some of his father’s bloodlust and would use a slingshot to rain down fiery uncomfortableness upon his enemies. Not as effective as his father, but still a pretty good contribution. Then there was Tarra. Oh, Tarra, you tried. You really did. Since this was an old cartoon and Tarra was a woman, that meant she was essentially useless. Her attacks against the aliens would usually end with her being kidnapped and used as a hostage until Zandor came and rescued her. She was captured a shockingly high number of times. Chances are she was tired of living in the jungle in a fur loincloth and just wanted to leave with people who had technology such as dishwashers and hair driers.

5. Technology is Evil

The Herculoids was all about going green before going green was trendy. These were semi-barbaric humans fighting against advanced races using nothing but their wits, the environment, and space dragons. Technology didn’t stand a chance, especially because only the evil guys were using it. A slingshot was about as advanced as things got for The Herculoids. This appealed to all of us young kids who just wanted to spend all day in a treehouse using a slingshot to shoot acorns at cute girls. Looking back, I don’t think many of us really got the environmental message though. We just knew there was a damn space dragon.

Popularity: 3% [?]

AMC has ordered six episodes based off of Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic book series, The Walking Dead. This is old news, but no series is complete without the main character, who is small town cop Rick Grimes in this place. AMC made an interesting choice and cast Andrew Lincoln, a British actor, to play the Kentucky based officer. I’m not saying it is a mistake to cast a British actor as a small town American cop, after all acting is pretending to be somebody you are not, I’m just curious to see how Lincoln approaches the character of Rick Grimes.

Anybody who has read The Walking Dead series knows it is fairly graphic, contains some harsh language, and is more about the survivors than the zombies. This last part is what will be most important in a TV adaptation. Expect to hear pretty much everything except the F-Bomb in this show, see some violence, and lots of character development. The Walking Dead is about how the living cope with their lives being so drastically altered, in this case by hoards of undead craving the taste of human flesh. Some can handle it, some can’t. AMC has announced the largest casting choice with Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, we can only hope that he and everyone else cast live up to the standard set by Kirkman’s characters.

Popularity: 2% [?]

We already showed you the Nightmare on Elm Street poster for the upcoming remake, and that alone showed that Jackie Earle Haley is going to scare the crap out of us as Freddy Krueger. This new A Nightmare on Elm Street trailer lives up to that poster and takes the scare factor one step higher. After watching this I have decided to just stay up all night and leave all the lights on.

Jackie Earle Haley seems more and more like the perfect casting choice for A Nightmare on Elm Street. He uses the same voice he did when he played Rorschach in Watchmen, but it sounds far creepier coming from Freddy. The dream sequences seem pretty creative, there are some attractive ladies, and the shot of the two little girls might have been scarier than anything else in that trailer. Little kids are straight evil. Anyways, if the movie lives up to the trailer, I would not be surprised if Jackie Earle Haley returned for many more Nightmare sequels. Enjoy the trailer, and good luck going to sleep.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Since it was released at the San Francisco WonderCon the Resident Evil: Afterlife teaser trailer has made it’s way online. If anything Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter are going to carry this film all the way to the bank. It all looks rather ‘samey’, there’s are a number of Matrix inspired scenes and the promise for the use of “Most Advanced 3D Engine EVER!”.

Who’s going to go watch this? Resident Evil fans, that’s like 1000 at most. And Milla Jovovich fans, every guy on the planet minus the middle east, they more into the cloaked femme-fatale variety… Batwoman.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

Hollywood has often taken great books and transformed them into movies, mainly because it easier to make money since the books already have loyal followers. This has had mixed results, with some classic movies like Fight Club and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, while other movies based on books have completely flopped, such as every single movie based on The Scarlet Letter. It takes a certain kind of book to survive the transition to the big screen, and it takes a good crew and actors to do the books justice. All in all, it is a tricky thing to attempt, but I believe these 7 books could make great movies, as long as they were handled correctly.

Nightbringer – Graham McNeill

Nightbringer is a novel set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, which would already bring in a devoted fan following to its movie counterpart. Nightbringer is about Space Marines, genetically altered human warriors, killing some evil alien pirates in space. That already sounds like the type of sci-fi movie guys would want to go see, and that’s only the first half of the book. The true threat, an extremely ancient alien race that devours suns, is revealed towards the end, and the space marines must do whatever it takes to save the galaxy. It has been a while since there has been a good quality straightforward sci-fi movie that just involves some highly trained soldiers duking it out with their alien counterparts. A good visceral sci-fi movie is just what we need after seeing blue cat people hug trees.  

American Gods – Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of the premier authors of our age, and American Gods is arguably his best novel. American Gods takes a hard look at how the Gods of antiquity, such as Anansi, Odin, and Anubis, are being replaced as we begin to worship new Gods, such as The Intangibles, Technical Boy, and Media. The most famous quote in the book is “This is a bad land for Gods,” said by the main character Shadow about Gods in America. These are the kinds of topics that interest people, and the twist at the end of the book is better than anything M. Night  Shyamalan has produced. There are also some action sequences that could look amazing on the big screen, especially when Shadow traverses the realm of the Gods. 

Good Omens – Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

As 2012 draws closer, we are seeing more and more movies about the desperate struggle of people trying to survive the end of the world. Good Omens could capitalize on the end of the world craze while taking it in a whole new direction. Gaiman and Pratchett worked together marvelously to produce what is undoubtedly the funniest satirical take on the end of the world as we know it. The Anti-Christ ends up with a nice family, his demon dog is actually a little puppy, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have modern day jobs, all these seemingly absurd pieces come together to form a hilarious but thoughtful picture on society. Some good actors would be able to deliver some very memorable speeches and one-liners in a movie version of this book

 Trollslayer – William King

Trollslayer is a fantasy novel about a Dwarf, Gotrek, who was vowed to die a glorious death fighting evil beasts due to some past dishonor, and his human companion, Felix, who drunkenly vowed to follow the dwarf wherever he goes to record his doom in an epic poem. Gotrek is a gruff warrior who is quicker to fight than he is to speak, and Felix is caught up in the events around him. What could make this book a great movie is not only the action, but the fact that it is the first in a series of books. Throughout the series there is a lot of character growth, a twisting plot with recurring side characters and villains, and lots and lots of action. This is pretty much everything you need for a good movie series, as long as a ruggedly handsome actor was cast as Felix, you know, for the ladies.

Storm Front – Jim Butcher

Storm Front is also the first of a series of books, following modern day wizard and private investigator, Harry Dresden. The books are written with a dry wit that would be absolutely hilarious as Dresden has mastered the art of the understatement while being attacked by horrific creatures. This series could also capitalize on the popularity of werewolves and vampires in modern culture, as Harry Dresden has gone up against both of them, and not the twinkle in sunlight kind either. While it is true that there was a television show based on these books, it was low production quality and did not have the best actors. When done right, these books could be turned into a modern day fantasy series that could easily become very popular. 

Jhereg – Steven Brust

To finish this list off, we will add some balance and add the third book that is part of a series. Jhereg is the first book in the Vlad Taltos series, and follows the thief, enforcer, and assassin Vlad Taltos as he tries to work his way up the societal ranks. The kicker is that he is a human, and looked down upon by the larger and longer living Dragearans. Taltos uses his wits, cunning, and blades to keep himself safe, and he does indeed move up and gain some influential friends as the series progresses, is forced to live as an outcast, and goes on a variety of misadventures. This is another book that could be turned into a fantasy movie for the ages with the right production quality.  

Popularity: 21% [?]

In honor of April Fool’s Day, we here at Humor District have decided to compile a list of some of the best child pranksters in movie history. Children are often referred to as innocent, but these kids defy that label. These characters have laid down traps, tricked others, and had an all around good time. It is scary to think about what they’d be capable of if they came after you on April Fool’s Day.

Kevin McCallister – Home Alone

Kevin McCallister put his trouble making skills to good use in Home Alone and the various sequels. Rather than harassing his parents and siblings with his pranks, he instead harassed a pair of bumbling home invaders. He set up traps such as icing the stairs, putting a hot iron on a doorknob, and laying tacks out on the floor. These were all fairly simple pranks, but effective nonetheless. After watching Home Alone we all wanted to drop a tarantula on somebody.

Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum – 3 Ninjas

These 3 kids also used pranks as a way to fend off attackers. In fact, they seemed to pull more pranks than martial arts moves. They slip laxatives into drinks, throw pepper bombs, and just cause all around havoc. They also manage to stay adorable while they do this. Of course the 3 ninjas should have stuck to their pranks, because their martial arts were fairly ineffective against the larger bad guys. 

The Little Rascals

Pretty much every character in The Little Rascals pulled a prank of some kind. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when a dollar bill is tied to the back of a duck. That duck is then released in front of Porky and Buckwheat, so the boys chase the duck trying to get the dollar rather than staying and guarding a go-kart like they were supposed to. Even the dropping pickle jar booby trap the boys left was not enough to save their go-kart from getting stolen.  

Dennis The Menace

Dennis the Menace has certainly earned his nickname. When it comes to pranks, Dennis is second to none. Unfortunately for poor Mr. Wilson, he is always on the wrong end of those pranks. Mr. Wilson constantly finds his food replaced with wood chips, answers his doorbell to find nobody there, and finding a dog muddying up his house. Of course we can’t get mad at Dennis, he is just too adorable. You know that if he played those pranks on you though, you wouldn’t hesitate to smack him upside the head.

Popularity: 3% [?]