Today’s Tinsel Trash Talk

What’s this? Perhaps a recur­ring col­umn on the Such Small Portions blog? My four read­ers best get excited for all the news you already don’t care about with that good ol’ Poritsky twist writ­ten in clean vari­etys­peak like you’ve never seen. I couldn’t make this shit up even if I tried. Here goes…

Cog Breaks Free of Comedy Cabal

Fresh off being branded a mere pup­pet in the Apatow-Rogen agenda, helmer Greg Mottola landed a big pic deal on a script of his own, “Adventureland”. Miramax is foot­ing the bill while NYC clique This is That will pro­duce it (holler for the East Coast). 11 years ago Mottola pumped out the award-winning “The Daytrippers”, which gained him an award for each day of the biz week in a few coun­tries, but alas he has kept to the TV cir­cuit since. Bobing his head back into the fea­ture realm, he has been met with boffo BO but not a lick of decent crit­i­cism. He has been writ­ten off as just a cog in the Apatow machine, which mostly has to do with the fact that that’s exactly what he was. Like a great edi­tor, the less you noticed his direc­tion in the Rogen-centric piece, the bet­ter. So good for you Greg, let’s see more of your dis­tinc­tive and orig­i­nal voice.

Michael Bay Races Douch, Photo Finish

As the for­mat war was just pro­pelled even fur­ther into the future when Paramount and sub­sidiary Dreamworks opted out of Blu-Ray com­pletely in favor of HD-DVD, appar­ently no one was more pissed off than that great force in out art, Michael Bay. In a blog post­ing that has since been removed, the wun­derkind of “The Rock” fame lam­basted his employ­ers for choos­ing one for­mat over the other. His solu­tion, as you may have guessed it, would be to have his films, par­tic­u­larly this summer’s BO god­send “Transformers”, released on any for­mat that comes along so it’s more acces­si­ble to auds. So appar­ently Michael Bay has some love for Blu-Ray, which is hard ’cause he’s so busy lov­ing money and him­self 24/7. Bay even threat­ened, mind you, not to return to direct “Transformers 2″ unless Par jumped back on the Blu Band Wagon. Shortly after he reversed the state­ment and said he now under­stands the busi­ness behind the deci­sion and will gladly direct sequel if asked. I was hop­ing Alfonso Cuaron would take the reigns, but I guess we’ll have to site through another Bay-joke infused adven­ture with Optimus Prime and bud­dies. Odd point in the deal though, Spielberg, the big S in SKG, gets the lux­ury of hav­ing his films only released on Blu Ray, start­ing with the mother of all video releases, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. So as the Red Laser Blue Laser debate rolls on, one thing remains clear for the future, Michael Bay is a douche.

Extreme Times Call For Extreme Toy Pitches

After the ridicu­lous suc­cess of Hasbro’s toy-to-screen model this sum­mer, “The Mummy” writer/director Stephen Sommers got his shit together and walked into Brad Grey’s office at Par with a six inch labor of love on his mind. That’s right you Gen X ers who haven’t had your fill, he pitched “G.I. Joe” and was hired on the spot to helm sans script. They’re still shop­ping for a writer to all of you aspir­ing ones who read my blog. I remem­ber when I first saw “The Mummy” and being blown away by how much of a romp it was. It had all the action, racism, and sex­ism that made the Spielberg films of my youth so great. Of course, the fran­chise spi­raled out of con­trol, cul­mi­nat­ing in a third sequel invol­ing Dwayne The Rock Johnson sport­ing pig­tails. He also found an amaz­ing flop in “Van Helsing”, another of his clas­si­cal cin­ema screen adap­ta­tions. But fear not, he has plenty of time to get this one together. Shooting begins in February, 2008! Par suits are try­ing to get this ready for sum­mer 2009. Perhaps so as not to com­pete with Transformers 2 in 2010? Who knows what they’re think­ing, but here here Stephen, I’m excited to see a film you’re so jazzed about.

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Listening to:

Rolling Stones

December’s Children (And Everybody’s)