Summer Movie Preview 2004

It's March, and that can only mean one thing: Summer! And with the summer come the Summer blockbusters. Join us as we "head to the beach" and "catch some summer rays" with the hottest movies of 2004! We've got all the secrets! All the behind-the-scenes dirt! On the set of Van Helsing, Hugh Jackman fellated a horse! Did you know that? Of course not! And even if it's not true, it's similar to the behind-the-scenes dirt that is true, and we've got it!

Pull up a "deck chair" and put on your "sunglasses", folks! It's like it's Summer already! Holy shit, am I high right now.

36 year-old Daniel Radcliffe returns as 12 year-old wizard Harry Potter in this latest installment of the popular films. Gary Oldman co-stars as Sirius Black who, along with his sidekick Mirthful Jew, looks to end Potter's young life before he can become Best Wizard Ever of RainbowMagicLand, play a round of Skoozleball with the Fitzwidgets and open the Enchanted Fucking Doors of whatever.

Will Harry survive? Only those who've read J.K. Rowling's sequel know for sure (Harry Potter and the Enchanted Pants of Mystery, where Harry's closest friends concoct a plan to find Harry's long-lost corpse and give him a proper burial). Meanwhile, Chris Columbus is out of the Director's chair and Alfonso Cuaron is in. Cuaron's last film was the Spanish language hit Y Tu Mama Tambien, which translated means "Two Mothers, One Goat Saddle."

Radcliffe faced legal trouble after a record sixteen prostitutes turned up dead during a post-filming party in a Thailand brothel (twelve more than the previously held record by the cast of Fried Green Tomatoes). Rumors of ritual vampirism have also dogged the cast from day one, as bodies of peasants continue to show up on shooting locations drained of their fluids.

Heartthrob Brad Pitt dons the helmet of Achilles in this Trojan War epic that, at $250 million, cost more than the conflict itself. The time machine director Wolfgang Peterson built reportedly cost over $95 million alone, in order to film the actors and crew pretend-fighting against the backdrop of the actual Trojan War. The production was set back months when the time machine malfunctioned, transporting the cast to 16th Century France where several members were rampaged by dinosaurs. The device was later scrapped for helmet parts.

A lower-body double was brought in for Pitt, since the actor's two wooden legs made skirt-shots awkward. In long shots, Pitt's deformity (the result of a previous career in Vegas-Rules Alligator Kick-Battling) will be covered up through the use of CG effects:

Won't that detract from the authenticity? Peterson, a seasoned telepath, says no. "Being able to render Achilles' famous weak heel in CG throughout the film gives us a lot of freedom for the big finale." Peterson of course refers to the climactic scene of Homer's "Iliad", in which Achilles programs his heel to a devastating five minute countdown, climbs onto his wooden horse and drives his foot-payload deep into Trojan lines.

Achilles on a roller coaster death mission with the clock ticking made for such a great sequence, in fact, that Peterson briefly toyed with the idea of changing the film's name to Achilles' Roller Coaster Mission Deathclock Extravaganza. He was unable to obtain the rights from a British film of the same name.

Authenticity was apparently also a concern of Pitt and costar Orlando Bloom, who the crew says could be overheard in their trailers for hours after wrap, grunting and straining while they perfected their Greek wrestling moves on each other. Wrestling practice between the pair apparently continued unabated well after the Troy shoot finished, leading us to only one logical conclusion: Pitt and Bloom are rooting for Number Two. Will the actors get their way via a Troy sequel?

Enough money to rebuild all of Afghanistan into a giant theme park was spent to bring a live-action Garfield to the big screen. A blend of CGI graphics and an animatronic cat were used to create a result that speaks for itself: an unnatural, misshapen feline monster capable of making children weep openly and question the existence of a loving God.

"I was stunned by the results," says Garfield creator Jim Davis. "I saw the test screenings and I just turned to the director and said, 'we've really created an unnatural, misshapen feline monster capable of making children weep openly and question the existence of a loving God here. It's the Garfield I'd always intended," added Davis, whose original creation, Terror-Cat, Destroyer of Children, was toned down by the Comics Syndicate to avoid arrest.

Oscar-nominated comedian Bill Murray voices the famous cat, in exchange for the release of his family from Jim Davis' dungeon.

Garfield is at the heart of the hottest Box Office battleground of the season. The film has been aggressively positioned to take on Harry Potter for the kiddie audience and analysts say the orange cat could cost the wizard big at the ticket counter.

Problems plagued the Garfield production, though, as the nuclear fuel inside the robotic cat puppet repeatedly overheated, even melting the face off of one ten year-old extra. Filming was also slowed when several members of the production crew turned up dead, all of their blood drained from holes in their necks. Authorities suspect food poisoning.

Every year, a movie is so popular that its catchphrases are repeated around the water cooler for months. What will this year's must-say dialogue be? Read on for 2004's contenders!

Van Helsing

[to Dracula] "You're shot through the heart... and I'M to blame."

Shrek

"Pick the dung-clots out me fat green bollocks, Donkey!"

Catwoman

"It looks like this pussy just licked you!"

Harry Potter

"Trump my fuckhorn, Muchango!"

Sky Captain

"Looks like those dashed Space Negroes are up to their old tricks. Luckily I've a few of my own!"

Spider-Man

"Anybody call for a webslinger? No? I'll come back later then!"

Robbie Robotron

"You robot backtalk me one more time and I will plant my cock so far up yo' ass ya'll gonna taste boot!"

Achilles

"It looks like this pussy just licked you!"

Quentin Tarantino's two-part epic tells the story of a woman who is shot to death on her wedding day and, like most women who are shot to death, returns from the afterlife to butcher actor David Carradine to the sound of catchy tunes from the 70's.

Tarantino scrambled to piece this sequel together after he realized, only after release, that Kill Bill ended without anyone having killed Bill. Witnesses say that Tarantino ran out after the premiere of part one, screaming, "Oh, shit! I'll be right back, everybody! Nobody leave! Shit!"

According to inside sources, star Uma Thurman got pregnant midway through filming, halting production. Tarantino reportedly offered the starlet $40 to abort the pregnancy. When she refused, and Tarantino was forced to substitute Thurman with Steve Buscemi for several scenes, including the passionate lovemaking session with Carradine near the film's finale. The tactic was abandoned when test audiences punched at their own genitals in an effort to renounce love-making entirely. Thurman, at the time seven months pregnant, was brought back into the project and shot around for several weeks, then forced by Tarantino to do all of her own stunts in one last attempt to sabotage the pregnancy.

Inventor of the Crossbow Enema Dr. Gabriel Van Helsing is brought to life by Writer/Director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, The Revenge of the Mummy and the upcoming The Godfather IV: Invasion of the Mummies). Hugh Jackman plays the feared, yet strangely popular, 19th-century healer.

Sommers focuses his tale on Van Helsing's lesser-known hobby, vampire killing. Like each horror auteur who comes along, Sommers puts his own spin on the Dracula design. In Van Helsing the Count keeps himself wrapped in filthy bandages and stumbles slowly after his prey with his arms outstretched.

Rumors were rampant on the set about Sommers' sexuality, after a female makeup artist claimed that Sommers forced her to watch while he wrapped himself in gauze bandages, staggered around with arms outstretched, then sat down and quietly pleasured himself. Sommers has not commented on the claim.

The lovable feces-spewing CGI booger-glutton is back and carrying a magical bag stuffed full of penis jokes to the delight of penis-loving children around the world.

A whole new cast of classic fairy tale characters appear for the latest, including Puss-in-Boots, Peter Rabbit and Danglin the Mystical Penis-Wizard. A revolutionary new CGI technology was invented to texture the new generation of cartoon feces for the film. The crew included award-winning computer artist Akiro Yoshimoto, who headed the corn rendering team.

The plot should provide plenty of opportunities for Shrek's racy humor, including an erections-only jousting competition and constant help from Danglin's spells ("Nutsack, testes, bag of balls! / Follow my package to the Enchanted Halls!") Puss-n-boots (left) is meanwhile rumored to have the most detailed genitalia in animation history.

Rumors abounded on the set about Mike Myers' sexuality, following reports that he would repeatedly drive past children's playgrounds and yell the word penis at them through a megaphone. No charges have been filed, as authorities are not yet sure whether or not that is a crime.

Sky Captain

This remake of this 1923 serial radio hit stars whiz-kid pilot Johnny Ace (Jude Law) and grizzled prospector Salty Gruffboots (Tommy Lee Jones) as they take to the skies against their enemies on the ground, foiling the villains' cowardly attempts to run away from their righteous machine gun onslaughts.

Will Ace fly to action in time to stop an evil consortium of Suffragette women from teaming up with the insidious Space Negroes? Will they succeed in their nefarious plan to hypno-ray Government officials into giving them the right to vote? Will the dread Communist Jazz musicians succeed in their villainous plot to sell marijuana to our nation's youth in the form of harmless cigarettes?

Many sequences from the original 1920's radio programme, like the scene where Law disciplines his wife with a leather belt for correcting him in front of his dinner guests, or the scene where Law disciplines his wife for interrupting "pipe-smoking time" in the study, have reportedly been removed. But with some 47 scenes of Law disciplining his wife for various other infractions still in the film, many critics wonder if Sky Captain will sit well with modern audiences. Director Jerry Conran has insisted that the disciplining remain, as the scenes "teach modern teens about the danger of a sass-mouth," and because the film only clocks in at three minutes twelve seconds without them.