Jul 18 2007 Chuck & Larry Ripoff Controversy

Watching the trailer for Strange Bedfellows, an Australian comedy that came out in 2004, you get the feeling that it was the basis of the idea for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. Bedfellows star Michael Caton said as much himself.

According to JoBlo, which cites an article in Variety from 2000, which describes an earlier incarnation of Chuck & Larry that was to star Will Smith and be directed by Tom Shadyac, if anything, the ripoff was the other way around.

In either case, it's a bit like trying to figure out who did one of Carlos Mencia's bits first. The fact that someone with taste that bad chose to steal from you just reflects badly on you. Sometimes I get drunk and pee myself, but when I do, the neighbor kid with Down Syndrome doesn't sue me for royalties.

Apr 17 2007 Transmorphers is Coming!

Able to morph between really shitty and really, really shitty.

Right now, most likely at your local Blockbuster store, there's an industry that's thriving on the ineptitude of video rental customers who can't tell the difference between a blockbuster movie that's just been released in theaters and its shoddy, low-budget, similarly-named counterpart that's already on DVD. At the forefront of this burgeoning industry is Asylum, who have just announced their unique vision of giant transforming robots in the new straight-to-DVD Transmorphers.

Though I was vaguely aware of these knock-off titles, Cinematical has graciously taken the task of cataloguing the shameless Asylum library and pairing the titles up with their Hollywood counterparts. I'm blown away.

King Kong -- King of the Lost World
The Exorcism of Emily Rose -- Exorcism: The Possession of Gail Bowers
When a Stranger Calls -- When a Killer Calls
The Hills Have Eyes -- Hillside Cannibals
The Da Vinci Code -- The Da Vinci Treasure
The Omen -- 666: The Child
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- Pirates of Treasure Island
Snakes on a Plane -- Snakes on a Train
Eragon -- Dragon
The Hitcher -- The Hitchhiker
Primeval / Rogue -- SuperCroc

My favorite is definitely Eragon to Dragon, because it almost makes it seem like Eragon is the knock-off. I sure know what a dragon is, but an Eragon could be nearly anything. Why place my bets on a word similar to dragon when I've got Dragon right there, on DVD shelves months before whatever this "Eragon" is? The Da Vinci Treasure is pretty good, too.

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