Zoo Hunter vs. Political Assassin!

http://deadline.com/2018/03/famke-janssen-primal-movie-nicolas-cage-casting-1202337362/

Famke Janssen Game To Join Nicolas Cage In ‘Primal’ deadline.com EXCLUSIVE: Famke Janssen has been set to star opposite Nicolas Cage in Primal, the indie action movie to be directed by Nick Powell. The film is being produced by Luillo Ruiz of The Pimienta Film C…

Greetings! It's been a pretty long absence here at The Mung Hour. We blame social media for being far more interesting. That said, let's take a breather from yelling at each other, and examine the next some-sort-of-paycheck for actor Nicolas Cage. I have some observations and questions:

1) Cage is a big game hunter for zoos. Um, is he the hero? I'm sure when he darts endangered tigers, the money goes straight to the local villages.

2) What exactly is an "Hispanic freighter"? Are there options to take a ride on a "Caucasian freighter"?

3) Political assassin being extradited in secret on a slow-moving freighter. I guess it does save a few bucks.

4) Political assassin "escapes and releases the captive animals." Okay. So, the political assassin is either suicidal or is indeed, Tarzan.

5) Famke Janssen plays a "neurologist lieutenant in the U.S. Navy." What role does a neurologist lieutenant play on a slow-moving freighter of zoo animals? Is she the Navy's answer to Dr. Doolittle? Or, is she assigned to the political assassin, because he needs to be studied. Or maybe, he has a fast-moving brain tumor, and they need her on hand to ensure he lives, so they can complete the extradition and execute him.

Hopefully, these questions will all be answered when this film finds a distributor. Filming begins this April in Puerto Rico, with or without power.

Hey, hey, hey, it's the 2016 MUNG HOUR OSCAR WRAP-UP!!

Remember that awkward first season Mad Men episode where Roger Cooper anticipates meeting with a Jewish client, so he scours the agency for their only Jewish employee to join them in the meeting? Well, last night’s #AcademyAwards damage control was about as subtle as Mel Gibson directing Fiddler on the Roof at the Geffen Playhouse. That said, last night's show was over three entertaining-ish hours of watching The Man get his by a bunch of angry Hollywood liberals. These tireless freedom fighters for change all took time out of their hectic schedules to don $1,500 tuxedos and $15,000 dresses to trudge through traffic in limousines and town cars to take a stand against injustice, before heading over to the Vanity Fair party for Kobe beef sliders and champagne.

To boycott or not to boycott, that is the question. Each year, I hear people people ponder, "Should people boycott the Oscars?" My reply is always, "Of course, people should boycott! There are a hundred reasons to boycott!” But where to start? I mean, for a century now the film industry has been one steaming pile of nepotism, cronyism, sexism, racism, classism, you name it. That is of course, a topic for another time. The bigger issue last night, and it really is a painful topic to discuss, was that ...well, the Girl Scouts completely upstaged the Boy Scouts. The girls routinely sell delicious cookies, reaping millions of dollars, while the boys schlep wrapping paper and fragranced candles for pennies. Shame on you, Chris Rock! #BoyScoutCandlesMatter

Moreover, it’s a great thing that the crusade for the Advancement of Attractive People in LaLaLand (the little known acronym #AAPL) is finally winning the war. We all know that actors who are overweight, or have facial birthmarks, missing limbs, or are in wheelchairs have had no problems leaping to the head of the line at casting calls, but that’s finally ending. Hopefully gone will be the days when Poor Will Smith has to fight for roles over more privileged actors like that paraplegic from Galaxy Quest. Brad Pitt will one day no longer need to voice his ire to deaf ears about routinely losing roles to Patton Oswalt. This will end someday. #PrettyLivesMatter.

There were some surprises last night. The best surprise though is always the surprise on someone else's face, so happy when someone else wins...

And now, after a merciful hiatus, The Mung Hour returns to its very 2004 tradition of the following ....

"I am bothered by climate change. It's far and away my number one dinner topic with the Victoria’s Secret models I bang. Oh, they try to steer the conversations to our foreign trade deficit or Social Security insolvency, but I’ll have none of it.” 



“I know, folks. This week’s worst kept secret was that I’d be showing up to the Oscars to introduce Lady Gaga.”  

 

Not so fast Abe Vigoda, but publicist Morton Hock has passed! 

 

Fish paralyzer. It’s what’s for dinner.
 

“Hi, our future therapists were thrilled with the results of our parents’ coin toss. Summer camp and soccer … or starring in Room and Beasts of No Nation.”

“This is about how long your careers have until the studios replace you all with CGI.”
 

“Hi, I used to work for Fox News, and this joke will self-destruct in 2 seconds.”
 

“Hi, I just won an Oscar. Your knowledge of who the hell I am will self-destruct in 2 seconds.”  
 

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour …”

12 Years a Viewer: THE MUNG HOUR 2014 OSCAR WRAP-UP

Two things have returned from the dead, THE MUNG HOUR and the massive sucking sound of Hollywood ego, as it roared onto our TV sets this past Sunday, following the rain and thunder of LA's Storm Watch 2014! 

The aeronautics community's uproar over Gravity's Sandra Bullock in her tight little Ellen Ripley panties instead of Depends is relevant, as we all could have used adult diapers watching hour upon hour of last night's Oscar telecast. The show was nearly as long as Frodo Baggins' farewell to the Hobbits. Offering a safe, pedestrian and soporific evening, we must applaud Ellen DeGeneres for hosting the stage alongside those damn ghosts of Oscar hosting past. (If you look closely and squint, you can see a few who photo-bombed her selfie.) 

The highlight of the night (and yes it is like picking on the disabled kid) was everyone's favorite dead badger-wearing Sweathog, John Travolta. We applaud him for introducing to the stage, the newest toast of the Palestinian pop scene, Adele Dazeem.

Known for her keen observation, the always sensitive-to-discrimination Mrs. Portia De Rossi righteously called out a party-crashing female impersonator, who was taken into custody at the break. It's bad enough security allowed a potential Islamic terrorist like Adele Dazeem to perform onstage, but this oversight was intolerable. So, we're glad this helmet-headed sham artist in blue is now undergoing the CIA's notorious Clockwork Orange torture of enduring all three Transformers movies in one sitting.

 

Roses are red, Oscars are gold,

But plastic is always reserved for the old.

It's hard not to notice those under the knife,

But look at the crowd, it's a lot of folks' life.

And though it's all easy to gawk and to stare,

Kim's face ain't got nothin' on Matthew's hair.

Last night's awards ran the gambit of science-fiction to slavery to brutal cold and flagrant greed, just like a Weinstein Company staff meeting. Yet the list of winners seemed fairly by-the-numbers. Despite the variety of nominees, the non-stop siege of awards shows like the S.A.G. Awards and the Golden Globes tend to make the Oscars a bit like the hotel room after prom night. You've already spent a fortune on the tux, dress, flowers and dinner that it's a forgone conclusion you're gonna get lucky after the dance. The only real surprise of the night seemed to be an endless parade of Gravity-defying love that crashed like Sandra's escape pod as a film about America's dark history took home the big prize.

 
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It was a sad night for bigots, racists, and Bible-thumpers when heads exploded in Texas, Arizona and other red states as they watched a Mexican, a black man named Steve McQueen, and two hot leading men portraying AIDS patients take home Oscars. Our hearts go out to them all, and we can only hope that Kirk Cameron can be up there on stage someday praising the Lord above, instead of that traitorous Texan, Matthew McConaughey. 

Speaking of Matt, while he thanked nearly everyone including his childhood hero, himself, and his future hero, himself, he regretfully forgot to thank his day-to-day hero, himself. Fortunately, at the post-awards press conference, he heaped deserving praise on his shadow. 

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Jared Leto does it junior-high style in his bid to win Anne Hathaway's affections.

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Oscar's Wall of Death struck the right cords and perfectly timed the bathroom break for the audience and viewers with the vomitous Bette Midler, performing that song which was officially banned from ever being sung by maids-of-honors at weddings again. 

 

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The "Burt Reynolds Award For Looking the Most Pissed-Off At Not Winning" goes to Leo, who took out his disappointment at the Vanity Fair after party, by re-enacting the opening scene of Wolf of Wall Street for charity, kind of like a kissing booth. Yeah, kind of like that. 

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The winners for Best Makeup were impressed to learn that Samuel L. Jackson is the "What's in your pants?"guy from the commercials.

We cheered as the blonde wonder from Down Under finally won a Best Actress Oscar. Even more impressive has how she nearly hid the fact that scarfing lunch at Hometown Buffet after 3pm was a terrible idea.

 

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And Harrison Ford wow'd the crowd by breaking his own Guinness Record for the biggest bong hit followed by the longest exhalation of Best Picture nominees in one breath.

Summer's Shiny Objects Sound the Death Knell For Filmgoer Dignity

I'm not going to pretend that I have no blood on my hands regarding the pervasion of shiny objects that adorn our film landscape and clog up the studio coffers preventing good films from being made. I just paid for The Avengers. A fun and well made movie but a shiny object on many levels. But for me at least, Battleship represents the worst of shiny objects, Hollywood at its most greedy and cynical. There is no doubt in my mind that this very film premise was literally a joke in the back rooms of real movie executives 15 years ago. All those parody films from SNL, Mad TV and booze-soaked parties are actually being made as big budget films now. There is no parody anymore. This is real.

At least when 1996's Independence Day came out, it took a time-worn premise of alien invasion and melded it with the theatrics of Star Wars and patriotism of Top Gun. Like the Indiana Jones films, it took the premises of other genres and created its own take on it, effectively inventing a new kind of summer action film (that has been copied many times since).

Battleshit (no, that's not a typo) is filmmaking at its most utter laziest. Studios have long been guilty of harvesting known properties that they either own previously or license from. It's that 'safe bet' that they can pitch to their corporate overloads, since we haven't been in the days of filmmaker owned studios since the early 1980. But at least The Avengers is based on stories that have characters. There is a history there that is being translated through actors and live action. Hell, I will even go slightly out on the limb and defend the craptastic Transformers movies, taken from cartoon toy commercials in the 1980s, as at LEAST deriving from characters with names. Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, etc. The shiny objects have a voice and a history.

But Battleshit? I mean, where do I begin? Let's just state the hilarious obvious: it's a board game with pegs and plastic ships. There are no characters, there are no stories. They just looked at the toys lying around their office or their licensed partner's offices and said, "What's plastic grid with round red and white dots on it? Screw it. Let's make a movie about that. Here's $150 million." Was this whole project a dare by some drunk execs out on the town seeing who would actually greenlight a movie out of the dumbest premise?

Regardless, it's a tentpole for a studio, and it's laughable. And sad and pathetic. Worse, there are likely good scripts out there sitting in dustbins. Films that would have had a shot at consideration 15 years ago, hell maybe 10 years ago even, but will never be made now. All that development and production money going to Hasbro's toy collection. And all because the once great Universal Studios is a shadow of its former self, a loathed stepchild handed down from corporation after corporation, trying to please its masters by vomiting out anything that maybe will make money. (And now I hear they're even rebooting their horrific Van Helsing, a nail in their classic monster coffin if ever there was one.)

I'm very glad that there are no WWII heroes left who will likely see Battleshit. Remember when Hollywood would make war movies? We are so cushioned now from real movies about real war that we rely on videogame Calls of Duties and alien invasions to stir any notion of what soldiers do. It's really a pathetic trend. One could make the argument that our mighty military no longer has real-life villains worthy of Tom Cruise and Will Smith to fight in their jets and submarines, but studios don't even try because they know their audience is so dumbed-down now, so schooled on video games and CGI battles, that it's pointless to bother. Leave that stuff to HBO. This modern audience prefers the XBox version of war. Hell, I don't think we'd even get a Tony Scott film like Crimson Tide or John McTiernan's The Hunt For Red October greenlit again. The suits would balk at the lack of aliens and giant robots. And cardboard heroes. There was a time when summer gave us the depth of leading men like Sean Connery and Denzel Washington. Now we get Shia LeBeouf and Taylor Kitsch.

With each film like Battleshit that does makes money, film loses its sense of artistry, and yeah, we're all culpable to some agree. True film snobs want to blame three decades of Luca$ and $pielberg dominance for the soul-sucking of cinema, furthered by their proteges, the Bays, Emmerichs and Ratners of the world. But now, it just seems really, really worse since the appearance of Jar-Jar Binks 13 years ago. We're just setting ourselves up for the inevitable critical mass needed for Mike Judge's Idiocracy to come to fruition. Next up, "ASS: THE MOVIE". Just a big ass on screen. Farting and launching CGI missiles.