Contents

Almost Everyone Loves Avatar… Almost…

Director James Cameron’s Avatar is receiving almost universal praise from both critics and audiences alike. Chris Neumer investigates the ‘almost’.

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Another Self-Serving Controversy

During a recent meeting, one of the magazine’s editorial assistants pitched a story to me about the negative stereotypes that surround Italian-Americans in film and on television.  She simply said the words ‘Jersey Shore’ and everyone within earshot knew exactly …

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Because Someone Like You Has Gotta Give The Holiday Two For the Money

When it comes to romantic-comedies, Hollywood has finally crossed a line: industry professionals are becoming completely and totally confused by the broad, non-specific names of these projects.

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Getting Smarter

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like for a sixties era television series in another time period, Get Smart’s revival has the answer. Chris Neumer is amazed at the results.

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If a Smurf Smurfs in the Smurf and No One Smurfs, Does It Smurf?

The most entertaining Hollywood scandals are the ones that don’t take. Columbia Pictures found this out the hard way last week when a poster for its upcoming The Smurfs movie got leaked… and no one cared. Chris Neumer investigates and learns that this is only one of many reasons that The Smurfs is going to be a horrible movie.

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Indiana Jones and the Legend of Capitalism

Hollywood is about one thing and one thing only: making money. From the key grips to the actors to the studio executives (especially the studio executives), money remains paramount. America is going to see a new Spider-Man orBatman film …

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John Travolta Is Not Gay…

It’s mid-May and the heat is still on in my apartment.  This is enough to make any man a hair depressed, especially given that I have many friends in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles who love relaying the fact …

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Knowledge… Isn’t Power?

I see a fair amount of movies with my brother.  One thing I’ve learned over time is that he and I have wildly divergent methods of vetting potential viewing choices.

I go by feel.  If I decide that I want …

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Million Dollar, Buck Naked Baby

What’s wrong with the above picture? Give up? Hilary Swank is in bed and wearing clothes. Chris Neumer investigates Swank’s revealing statement that she walks around her boyfriend’s six year old son naked and wonders whether interviewer Joanna Coles could have handled the matter any worse than she did.

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My Nemesis

Most people are lucky enough to not have a nemesis. Chris Neumer is not one of those people. He breaks down his most nefarious archrival here: himself at age 16.

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OMG, C Saw Gossip Girl… WTF?

As a misanthropic, 33-year old, near hermit who is grumpier than both Waldorf and Stadtler, Chris Neumer is not in Gossip Girl’s target demographic. This doesn’t stop him from taking the plunge and attempting to get into the completely and totally off-the-hook world of Gossip Girl. The results are shocking. LOL ROFLMAO.

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Oscar Nomination Reactions 2012

I have been making a concerted effort to remove the word ‘unique’ from my lexicon.  The reason for this is simple: everything is unique.  Every movie, person or city is different than every other movie, person or city.  Richard Feynman …

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Oscar Nomination Reactions 2013

The 2012 Academy Award nominations were released this week. Chris Neumer gives his reactions and gets inside why nobody is ever snubbed, why dramatic film making and good film editing don’t go hand-in-hand and what Daniel Day-Lewis’ new nickname should be.

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Remaking the Unremakeable

Red Dawn is the single most unremakeable film in history, just ahead of Indiana Jones and Scarface. Most interesting of all, this didn’t stop MGM from taking a stab at it. Chris Neumer investigates.

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Some House Cleaning

I started publishing Stumped in late 1997. From early 1998 to 2001, I requested screener copies of what now seems like every single movie to have been released to the home entertainment market during that time period. Worse yet, I …

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Stone Cold Crazy Too

The core idea behind director Michael Hoffman’s surprisingly underrated film Soapdish is that the behind-the-scenes lives of the actors working on a soap opera were far more bizarre, comical and horrendously managed than anything fictional that a group of writers …

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Surfers are Everywhere… Except on the 1,000 Foot Wave That’s Heading Toward New York City

Surfers go to great lengths to be wherever the big waves are. Why, oh why, wouldn’t they be trying to surf the once-in-a-lifetime wall of water heading towards the United States in the disaster film of your choice?

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The Curious Case of the Academy and the 10 Best Picture Nominees

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences couldn’t have found a worse year to expand the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Chris Neumer investigates the train wreck and is truly scared; America is closer that it ever should be to the phrase “Academy Award Best Picture nominee, The Hangover“.

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The Incredible… Failure?

Marvel Studios learned from the mistakes of director Ang Lee’s 2003 film, Hulk and went about correcting them in 2008′s The Incredible Hulk. The unusual part of this is that the ‘corrected’ version is an even bigger disappointment than 2003′s flop.

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The Most Influential Filmmaker in the World: N.B. Nakoula

Entertainment magazines often release yearly power lists of the film industry players to rank who the most influential filmmakers are for a given year.  The lists are especially scientific and occasionally seem designed to sell more magazines (shock!) than for …

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The Most Unusual Superhero Movie Ever

Superhero movies earn more money than almost any genre of films. From The Dark Knight to Spiderman to Iron Man, these comic book adaptations rake in box office. Chris Neumer investigates the strangest superhero movie of all time, Batman: The Movie. Prepare yourself for one hell of a… trip.

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The Nigerian Connection

If you told Chris Neumer there would be fans of his writing in Nigeria, he wouldn’t have believed you. If you told him that those Nigerian fans would go on to hit him up for money, that might have held a little more water.

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The Stink of Success

How many industries reward abject failure? Not many. Interestingly, Hollywood is one, particularly when it comes to screenwriters. Chris Neumer delves into the sweet, sweet smell of… horrible failure.

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The Tenth Time is the Charm

Director by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, with a score by Danny Elfman, Sleepy Hollow should be the perfect atmospheric, late fall movie. This is, however, not the case. Chris Neumer has yet to learn this lesson though and is convinced that his next viewing will right all previous wrongs.

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Wandering Eye of the Tiger

There are a lot of sad things surrounding the adulterous Tiger Woods at present. None are sadder than the fact that Tiger seemed to think that his mistresses were into him… for him! Chris Neumer investigates how adultery is impacted by fame and how to avoid the pitfalls of this if you have to, you know, cheat.

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Watching Snakes on a Plane on a Plane

Chris Neumer takes movie watching to another level… that of 35,000 feet. Nothing could have prepared him for the experience of watching Snakes on a Plane on a plane.

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When the ‘It’ Girl Hits the Fan

‘It’ Girls are the most coveted resource in Hollywood. The Unborn’s director, David S. Goyer, stumbled onto a new and extremely interesting way to get the latest ‘it’ girl, Megan Fox, into his debut film: he cast a dead ringer for her in the lead. Say hello to Odette Yustman, Megan Fox when you can’t get Megan Fox.

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