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The Wackness Is Dope Enough

When Ayo! Scott wants to revisit his youth, he watches Kids. Other than the raving and raping, Larry Clark’s 1995 classic about aimless NYC teens skating, boozing, drugging, fucking, fighting, and slurping juice with tampons is like a day in the life of young Ayo!

The Wackness, set in 1994, taps into some of the same nostalgia. High school outsider Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends the summer before college selling weed, getting put up on new hip-hop by his connect (Method Man), trading trees for psychiatric therapy, and crushing on his shrink’s stepdaughter (Ayo!’s boo-to-be, Olivia Thirlby). While Kids captured actual city teenagers doing how they once did, The Wackness attempts to transport young actors back in time, which proves tricky. The era references and slang spilling out of their mouths feel forced and untrue at times—though still infinitely more believable than a mesh-tank-top-rockin’ Meth’s embarrassing Jafakin’ accent.

If some details are off, the film still wins by focusing on the angst of first love, making it the coming-of-age story to Clark’s cumming-in-underage-girls story. After all, between skating, boozing, drugging, fucking, fighting, and slurping juice with tampons, we did occasionally fall in love with these hoes. See the trailer and watch scenes after the jump.

Popularity: 2% [?]

There’s A New Bad Lieutenant In Town

Variety is reporting that Val Kilmer and Xzibit are the latest to sign on to Werner Herzog’s update of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 crooked-cop classic Bad Lieutenant. The new version—which Herzog is claiming is not a remake, but a continuation—stars Nic Cage, though we doubt Ol’ Melty Face can hold a candle to Harvey Keitel’s original performance.

Keitel’s drugged-out, alcoholic, minor-raping, compulsively gambling scumbag paved the way for Denzel’s Training Day tour de force and reinforced what quite a few of us already thought about the boys in blue (word to Spider Loc). After the jump, check out a few famous moments from the original flick, as well as the Schoolly D banger “Signifying Rapper,” which was featured prominently in the movie (and was ultimately cut from the VHS version after Jimmy Page’s bitch ass complained about the same “Kashmir” sample that he later gave to Puffy).

Popularity: 3% [?]

Mutant Chronicles Is Better Than Dungeons & Dragons

Even if you’re man enough to admit that you spent your childhood playing Dungeons & Dragons, you probably couldn’t stand watching the inexcusably terrible live-action film version from 2000 (Even Marlon Wayans couldn’t save it!). But now a lesser-known role-playing game called Mutant Chronicles is coming to the big screen, and it actually looks pretty decent.

The film version is set in a strange, steam-driven future, when all of earth’s natural resources have been depleated and a worldwide war wages between four corporations. After an army of millions of mutants jumps in the mix, it’s up to a soldier (played by The Punisher’s Thomas Jane) to save the planet. It might not feature any of the Wayans brothers, but with casting choices like John Malkovich, Hellboy’s Ron Perlman, Devon Aoki and the Fugees’ Pras, we’re definitely intrigued. Watch the first teaser trailer below.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The Wackness Drops A ’90s Rap Purple Tape

When your BBQs get rained out this weekend, you may want to consider going to see The Wackness, which hits theaters in NY and LA tomorrow. The movie—which follows a weed-dealing teenager in 1994 NYC—features a soundtrack filled with classic ’90s New York rap shit that will get you in that summertime mood.

Last night we hit up a screening of the movie, and they gave out a special mixtape with 35 classic joints that didn’t make the soundtrack. With a purple cassette (a nod to Raekwon’s Cuban Linx) and joints from folks like Biggie, Fu Schnickens, Black Moon and Mary J. Blige, it’s a nice little collector’s item for the rap nerd who has everything. We’re just a little confused by the fine print on the tape’s cover that says “Tunes Inspired By The Motion Picture.” Shouldn’t it be the other way around? View the full tracklist and download an MP3 version of the tape after the jump.

Popularity: 8% [?]

RocknRolla Could Be Guy Ritchie’s Comeback

For most artists, topping your early work is always the biggest challenge. Nobody knows this struggle better than director Guy Ritchie, who hasn’t been able to catch a break since marrying Madonna and releasing his international hit Snatch in 2000. But after watching the trailer for his upcoming heist flick RocknRolla, it looks as if he might be getting his swagger back.

The film revolves around a crew of London criminals—led by 300’s Gerard Butler—who scramble for a piece of the pie in a Russian mobster’s real estate scam. Also appearing in the film are Thandie Newton, Jeremy Piven, Idris Elba and Ludacris. The movie comes out on October 31 in the U.S., so watch the first trailer after the jump.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Quantum Hoops Has Balls And Brains

In the game of life, Ayo! Scott has never taken an L, so he can’t really fathom taking 240 losses. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen—to someone else. Quantum Hoops, a tremendous documentary that comes out on DVD today, follows the bookish 2006 California Institute of Technology basketball team as it attempts to break a streak of more than 240 consecutive losses in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (that’s 21 winless years).

Director Rick Greenwald and narrator David Duchovny take viewers way back to Caltech’s early years, when the Beavers (named for “nature’s engineer”) were as athletically gifted as they were academically. They then show how the demanding academic institution, which boasts numerous Nobel prize winners among its faculty and alumni, became a joke in Division III athletics (and not a Beaver joke, mind you). Two years prior to filming, the basketball team lost games by an average margin of more than 60 points.

Between the burden of history, rigorous workloads, and the fact that basketball is a diversion for these brilliant student-athletes, there’s little reason to assume anything will change. But somehow, a team of “nerds” that fields more valedictorians than players with high school hoops experience begins to chip away at the margin of victory until eventually it’s losing legitimately competitive games. In what is an ulcer-inducing rollercoaster climax, the Beavers play their final game of the season hoping to get the elusive “W.” Whether you identify with brainiacs, love underdogs, or have simply felt the sting of losing, Quantum Hoops will make you geek out. Check the trailer below.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Get Smart And Save Your Money

Steve Carell has come a long way since he was reporting fake news for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Sometimes Ayo! Scott wishes he’d go back where he came from. Not all the time, of course. Only when he follows up comedic masterpieces like Little Miss Sunshine and The Office with three successive family-friendly turds like Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, and Horton Hears A Who! Add to that list Get Smart, his remake of the 1960s Mel Brooks TV show about good spies battling bad ones. (Personally, Ayo! was hoping for a T.J. Hooker movie.)

In the new version, Carell plays the bumbling CONTROL spy Maxwell “Agent 86” Smart straighter than Don Adams did in the original, so you root for him to be the hero even while he’s roasting his nuts with a laser beam. It has the explosive action and sex appeal you’d expect from a summer blockbuster (though Anne Hathaway seems to desperately want to be a 45-year-old women, in movies and real life), but is sadly weighed down by obvious jokes that fall flat. The big tough assassin for KAOS is actually a softie with marital problems? Ayo!’s choking on the hilarity! President Bush is stupid? That gem will keep Ayo! chuckling as the spawn of Satan leads us all into the end of days!

On the bright side, for every deuce Carell drops, Jon Stewart has him back on the show as a guest for a few minutes of actual comedy. After the jump, watch the Get Smart trailer and Carell’s recent appearance on The Daily Show and decide which doesn’t suck.

Popularity: 37% [?]

The Love Guru Will Give You The Shaft

Mike Myers’s new movie The Love Guru is one long dick joke. Sadly, the jimmy in the joke is old and suffers from erectile dysfunction. As connoisseurs of cock comedy know, it’s not enough to take a joke and stuff any old flaccid phallus into it. That sort of poppycock engorges Ayo! Scott—with rage!

The Love Guru stars Myers as Guru Pitka, India’s second most popular spiritualist after Deepak Chopra. He is tasked with reuniting Toronto Maple Leafs star Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife (Meagan Good)—who’s banging the opposing goalie (Justin Timberlake)—so he can focus and help his team win the Stanley Cup.

A decade ago, the movie might have been funny, but it’s 2008 and Myers’s story gags on recycled jokes that went limp long before Goldmember (2002) wrapped up the Austin Powers trilogy. Allow Ayo! to put the dick jokes in your face: There are names that leave penis on your breath, like Pitka’s publicist Dick Pants, Pitka’s teacher Guru Tugginmypudha, and Roanoke’s adversary Jacques “Le Coq” Grande, which translates into something like “jack the big cock!” Whenever Le Coq unleashes his legendary junk, it hits the ground with a thud—it’s that big! There are also self-help acronyms like D.I.C.K. and B.L.O.W.M.E.! Plus mini-thespian Verne Troyer is back to punch Myers in the crotch! If it weren’t for Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan, who steal the show as drug-addicted, painfully obvious hockey announcers, Ayo! would have felt completely shafted. Watch the trailer below.

Popularity: 39% [?]

How To Make Anne Hathaway Less Lame

Make no mistake: Anne Hathaway is a damn fine woman. Every time we see those classic features, red lips and porcelain skin, we get the sudden urge to make a baby and retire to Cape Cod. But damn, does she have to make so many terrible movies? If she puts out one more Disney flick, sappy rom-com or boring British period piece, we’re giving up.

With the exception of her straight-to-DVD epic Havoc—where she plays a rich girl who gets naked and engages in group sex with some Mexican gang-bangers (pun intended)—Anne has never made a single movie worth watching as far as we’re concerned. We’re reserving judgment until we see Get Smart (check back tomorrow for Ayo! Scott’s official review), but the recent rumors that she has broken up with her douche-bag Italian boyfriend Raffaello Follieri give us hope that she’s turning over a new leaf. After the jump, we reevaluate Anne’s career and suggest some movie roles she should have taken instead.

Popularity: 42% [?]

‘Punisher: War Zone’ Prepares For Battle

After the big debuts of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, Marvel is on a bit of a roll at the box office these days. But it looks like their third 2008 release, Punisher: War Zone, could be risky.

The 2004 Punisher film starring Thomas Jane, which was panned by critics and comic fans alike, was only a moderate success after being released on DVD. Nonetheless, they’ve recruited a new actor, Rome’s Ray Stevenson, to play the badass vigilante in the new flick that’s being released in December. It’s too soon to tell whether or not this is a good move, but we’re happy that they decided to cast The Wire’s Dominic West as his mangled enemy Jigsaw. Watch the film’s first trailer below.

Popularity: 44% [?]