Balls of Fury
Does anything more need to be said other than that Balls of Fury is a ping pong action movie co-starring Christopher Walken? Frankly, that's enough for me. But if you happen to be a Bruce Lee fan, the fact that it's a spoof of Enter the Dragon may entice you. The comedy details a former Pong phenom called Randy (Dan Fogler), who is sent on a special mission to nab his father's killer, Feng -- who just so happens to be played by Walken. With Maggie Q and a spiritual guide, Randy gets back into ping pong shape and heads to Feng's jungle compound and his ping pong tournaments.

This DVD includes an alternate ending, a small serving of deleted scenes, a comedy bit about, erm, ball handling, and a "Making Of" featurette that includes cast and table tennis guru Wei Wang, who also helped out this year's other ping pong movie, Ping Pong Playa.

Check out James' Review | Buy the DVD

Blade Runner
It has been 25 years since Blade Runner first hit theaters, and now we're getting one hell of an anniversary DVD gift just in time for the holidays. Originally stemming from the mind of Philip K. Dick, the film is a cyber-heavy vision of the future where replicants (human clones) are whipped up to work on colonies outside of Earth. However, when some escape and head to the planet, Deckard (Harrison Ford), a cop and replicant terminator, must put aside his visions of retirement and stop them. The flick also starred the likes of Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, and Daryl Hannah -- and of course, it's one of the biggest and most loved sci-fi films to hit the screen.

Fans can choose one of 3 main sets -- the 2-Disc Special Edition, the 4-Disc Collector's Edition, or the mack daddy of collections: The Ultimate Collector's Edition. The 2-Disc set offers Ridley Scott's new, final cut of the film with three commentaries, plus a feature-length documentary on the film's creation. If that's not enough, you can up it two more discs and also get all the different cuts -- theatrical, international, and director's, as well as another disc with 90 minutes of rare footage and featurettes. Finally, you can add one more disc and store it all in a sweet, metal case. The extra DVD shares a "Workprint Version" that changes things up a bit (such as no Deckard narration and no happy ending) and includes one more featurette and commentary.

Check out Ryan's Review of the Final Cut | Buy the 2-Disc, 4-Disc, or 5-Disc DVD


Other New DVD Releases (December 18)
Stardust
Underdog
Halloween
Rush Hour 3
Evil Dead: Ultimate Edition DVD
Bring It On: In It to Win It
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True

*And apologies to Simpsons fans: The Simpsons Movie

Check out Peter Martin's Indies on DVD for even more new releases.

In a recent article for Cinematical, I wrote: "Too often, Asian-American actors are relegated to bit parts (the food delivery guy, gangster #3, mysterious prostitute) simply because of their race." Historically, there's another reason why Asian-American actors have not been cast in leading roles, even when the role is that of an Asian or Asian-American character: the "yellow face" factor, in which a non-Asian actor is cast as an Asian.

Playwright/actor David Henry Hwang has written a play with that title, which was inspired by the controversy that arose in the early 1990s when non-Asian actor Jonathan Pryce was cast as a Eurasian character in the original stage production of Miss Saigon. (Hwang's play opens shortly off-Broadway in New York.) Robert B. Ito wrote a biting article on the subject in Bright Lights Film Journal that gave historical context.

Philip W. Chung commented on the phenomenon last week in AsianWeek: "Often, these 'yellow face' performances [by non-Asian actors] both reinforced and embodied all the negative stereotypes -- funny accent, slanted eyes, buck teeth, and enough 'Orientalism' to send the yellow fever meter through the roof." Chung compiled a list of 25 "yellow face" film performances "that have arguably had the most impact on our cultural landscape." Last week's article counted down from #25 to #11.

Chung starts off his list with a recent example -- Christopher Walken in Balls of Fury -- and then stretches back to Richard Barthelmess in D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919), which he says formed a "template for Hollywood's take on Asian men ... unrealistically noble, feminine and utterly asexual." Chung takes a fascinating skip through the decades and points out "yellow face" performances by Fisher Stevens (#20), Eddie Murphy (#18) and Peter Lorre (#13).

AsianWeek's Top 10 will be counted down this week. Who do you think should be included on the list?

Halloween came a little early this year, although for Rob Zombie and the folks at Dimension Films it's more like Christmas. Their reimagining of John Carpenter's classic horror flick set a record for a film opening on Labor Day weekend. After two weeks at the top, Superbad finally slipped into the number 2 spot, just above newcomer Balls of Fury. Here are the final numbers:

1. Halloween: $26.3 million
2. Superbad: $12.4 million
3. Balls of Fury: $11.3 million
4. The Bourne Ultimatum: $10.4 million
5. Rush Hour 3: $8.5 million

What's coming out this week? Glad you asked. It's a subtle melding of idiocy and firearms, the same combination that made Elmer Fudd a star. Here's what we've got:

3:10 to Yuma
What's It All About: In this remake of a 1957 film of the same name, a rancher and Civil War veteran played by Christian Bale takes on the responsibility of delivering a vicious felon (Russell Crowe) to the 3:10 train to Yuma so he can face trial.
Why It Might Do Well: The film has two strong, charismatic leads and the director of Walk the Line at the helm.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Needless to say, westerns are a tough sell.
Number of Theaters: 2,500
Prediction: $18 million

The Brothers Solomon
What's It All About: A pair of socially challenged brothers who were home schooled in the arctic race to find a woman so they can provide their dying father with a grandchild. SNL's Will Forte and Arrested Development's Will Arnett star.
Why It Might Do Well: Humor and conception mixed well for the highly successful Knocked Up, so it may work here as well.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The relatively small number of theaters is going to keep this one out of the top five (probably even the top 10). The trailer looks promising, but this is also the type of film that walks the fine line between funny and dopey.
Number of Theaters: 650
Prediction: $2.5 million

Shoot 'Em Up
What's It All About: Clive Owen stars as a gun-toting badass fighting to protect a newborn infant from an evil crime lord played by Paul Giamatti. Monica Belluci also stars as a hooker with a heart of gold who specializes in clients with a mommy fixation. Freaky.
Why It Might Do Well: Owen's character sounds like a combination of the ones he played in Sin City and Children of Men, so we know he can pull it off. Paul Giamatti as a thug? I'm dying to see this.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Don't see that happening.
Number of Theaters: Number not available, though it is a wide release.
Prediction: $14 million

Come monday morning, I'm betting the box office top five will look something like this.
1. 3:10 to Yuma
2. Shoot 'em Up
3. Halloween
4. Superbad
5. The Bourne Ultimatum

After I mentioned last week how hard it was becoming to get a perfect score on our weekly predictions, four of last week's entrants proved equal to the challenge. Way to go, gang. Here's the rundown of how everyone did:

1. Gregory Rubinstein: 16
1. Bubba8193: 16
1. Skyler: 16
1. Chris: 16
2. Lee: 13
3. Matt: 12
3. Mario: 12
3. Porcalina: 12
3. Opp-Neg: 12
4. Jasonsmusicpage: 11
5. Jaimovich: 9
5. Amano Jyaku: 9
6. JBob: 8
6. Anna07: 8
7. Ray: 7
7. Josh: 7
7. Rich Diamond: 7
7. Tek: 7

Here's how the competition works:
Please post your prediction in the comments section below before 5:00PM on Saturday. One point for every top five movie correctly named, two points for every correct placement, and one extra point for the top movie.

There are comedy pitches so insane that they go past 'crazy,' around the sphere of possibility to 'brilliant' and back again. Watching the trailer for Balls of Fury -- a comedy backed by many of the minds behind Comedy Central's Reno 911! -- I felt something like awe at the audacity of the pitch: They're making a ping pong comedy ... with the same plot as Enter the Dragon? For those of you not in the know, Enter the Dragon was the final film Bruce Lee completed before his untimely death in 1973; the plot involved a group of martial artists being asked to take part in a tournament at the secret island fortress of a shadowy criminal mastermind. Some come to the tournament for riches; some come for the juice; but one man (Lee) comes to infiltrate the island on behalf of an intelligence service -- and avenge the death of a loved one at the hands of the criminal mastermind. ...

And that's the plot of Balls of Fury -- only with ping pong in the place of martial arts, the husky-yet-funny Dan Fogler in the place of Bruce Lee, Christopher Walken in the role of the criminal mastermind. Co-writers Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant have thrown some broad comedy stuff into Balls of Fury's mix -- mining laughs from portly people falling down or people taking ping pong balls to the head or sudden reversals of fortune. But they also have some very specific stuff that mocks Enter the Dragon -- everything from sound effects to set design to a weird-but-brilliant riff on one of Enter the Dragon's creepier moments, where the criminal mastermind host offers his guests sex slaves for the evenings of their stay. ...

And yes, it's hard to make a sex slave joke work, but Lennon and Garant manage to pull it off. Fogler (playing ex-Olympian ping pong player Randy Dakota) -- who manages to play grandiose swagger and a sweet sense of insecurity in the part -- is a big part of Balls of Fury's success; he's like a kinder, gentler version of early Jack Black, less manic and more sympathetic. He's also surrounded by a supporting cast who work with the film, and who all seem to be on-board with the film's overall arc. George Lopez plays the FBI agent who recruits Randy with something like restraint; James Hong (best remembered as the insanely over-the-top David Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China) plays the ping pong mentor who gets Randy back in the game; Maggie Q plays Hong's daughter and Randy's sparring partner.

If you grew up in or around New York and spent any time in the city's Museum of Natural History, you were probably baffled by Night at the Museum, which portrayed the landmark so loosely that it was totally unrecognizable. If you had to choose whether to bet that the museum was storing mermaids in a secret room (as in Splash) or resembled much of the interiors of the Shawn Levy-directed, Ben Stiller-starred comedy, you might have better odds with the former (it could be storing mermaids, but it definitely does not look like it does in NATM). Fortunately for us in the Big Apple, Night at the Museum 2 will take place in another location. In an interview with IGN, screenwriters Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon revealed this bit of info, though they couldn't divulge the actual museum we'll be seeing in the sequel (like Erik, I'd love to see a Salvador Dalí exhibit -- please put Stiller in Figueres' Teatre-Museu Dalí). Aside from this tiny leak, the duo, who wrote this next week's release Balls of Fury, could only share that it will be funnier than the original, which they also wrote, and that it would have "big new characters."

Of course, Robin Williams is reportedly signed on for the sequel, so the new museum will have to have its own Teddy Roosevelt statue -- unless Stiller's character takes the other one with him, which I doubt could happen. Despite the all the historical inaccuracies -- Attila the Hun obviously confused with Genghis Khan -- and the fact that it was obviously not shot inside the real Museum of Natural History, I didn't despise the first Night at the Museum. It sure was stupid, but I kinda enjoyed the miniature Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan, and I love a geriatric villain, especially when one of them is played by Mickey Rooney. Most of all, though, I appreciate the fact that it got kids more interested in the real museum, which saw a huge boost in ticket sales following the movie's success. It almost makes up for the inaccuracies that kids likely found out the real history and science by visiting the real place. Hopefully Garant and Lennon do better research for whatever museum they're tackling for part 2.

Check out IGN's video after the jump.

As evidenced by our Resurrecting the Champ insert caption entries last week, 99 percent of which included a swear word or some variation of "motherf***ing," all it takes is a photo of Samuel L. Jackson to turn even the most docile blue-haired granny into an f-bomb-dropping badass. Without further motherf***ing ado, here are this week's gloriously foul-mouthed winners:

1. "Hehe, well sh**. Maybe I should've said no to Snakes on a Plane. Hindsight. Got a quarter?"
-- Curt

2. "Ah man, I can't wait to wipe my ass with this."
-- Aaron Lopez

3. "What!! Half off at SuperCuts!!?? Out-Mother-F&%!ing-Standing!!!"
-- Shanec

See full image and all captions

This week, we bring you a photo of a mulletted Dan Fogler and a purple-robe-clad Christopher Walken from the upcoming Ping-Pong comedy-epic Balls of Fury. So let the male genitalia puns commence and hit us (not in the Balls, please) with your best caption. Winners will receive Balls of Fury underwear briefs, T-shirt, Ping-Pong paddle and a pack of balls -- just in case, you know, you don't have any of your own.

Read the official rules for this contest

The calm before the storm has ended, and now it's time to get ready for some Balls of Fury. At the end of last year, Scott Weinberg and I posted about the insane ping-pong film that has Christopher Walken looking like, in Scott's words, someone who looked like they just walked off Dracula: The Spoof. Then, as is usually the case, things calmed down for a bit. But now we're less than a month away from the flick's August 29 release date, and the buzz is brewing once again. Chris Ullrich covered the film at ComicCon, and now VH1 has an interview up where MTV chatted with the film's star -- Dan Fogler.

It's a pretty entertaining interview, and entirely appropriate for the subject at hand. You won't hear about the delicate operations of filmmaking. Instead, Shawn Adler talks with the actor about training and techniques for ping pong: "people might say it's just a matter of a turn of the wrist, but for me it's all moxy, blood, sweat and tears," and then a whole "balls" riff -- trying to think up the best movie title if one of the nouns is replaced with "balls." Juvenile, but amusing. Funnily enough, the actor goes on to talk about Christopher Walken, and muses over a potential future film where the duo go on a road trip "Thelma and Louise-style." I bet he hasn't heard about the man's latest project, which is similar -- without the army chase and "cosmic explosions." And finally, I know you all were wondering what Mr. Walken smells like. According to Fogler: "He's got a certain smell, a real Walken-y kind of smell... I'd say lilac and orange peels." Yum.

And lastly, check out the new poster to the right. Am I the only one reminded of that scene in Heathers where you saw a flash of the two croquet balls and mallet?

The news about upcoming movies and other exciting stuff just keep flying fast and furious here at Comic-Con International in San Diego. During Thursday and Friday, we've tried to bring you as much info as we can and now that its Saturday, there's even more stuff to share. This time around I'm hanging out in gigantic Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center to bring you news and information about the Rogue Studios / Focus features presentation.

Before I get to the meat, I just want to acknowledge the help I received from a few Elite security personnel and two Comic-Con volunteers inside Hall H. Their help was invaluable and I thank them. Why am I saying this? Well, because without them I probably would not have had a great seat for all the festivities and would have had to deal directly with attendees determined to steal my chair the moment they spotted any opening.

These guys and gals (some of which don't even get paid) work very hard so I just want to thank them for doing a great job controlling people I'm sure are very hard to control. Of course, if the Con had a designated area for the press to sit so we could cover the events that might make things easier. But that's another story for another time.

Anyway, on to the important stuff. First up for the Rogue/Focus features panel was a surprise visit from Neil Gaiman and director Henry Selik with a little surprise announcement of a screening of footage from the still-in-production Coraline movie. According to Gaiman, Coraline, his "scary little story for kids of all ages with people who have button eyes who really want to eat people's souls" which is really "something you need in children's fiction" is now a stop-motion masterpiece with script and direction by Selick -- who is best know for films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas.

While there are still exchanges to be made, gift cards to be used and, of course, the small matter of New Year's Eve and Day, the holiday season is beginning to wind down. As much as I may gripe about it, Christmas usually turns out to be a lot of fun, and this year was no exception. It's time to kick back, though. After all the stress and rushing around of the last month or so, I think a few laughs are in order. This week, Trailer Park takes a look at some comedies due to hit theaters in the coming months.

Unconscious
Comedy doesn't always cross language barriers well, but the humor in this subtitled Spanish language film about sexual taboos in Barcelona in 1913 seems to have survived translation quite nicely. Set against the background of the works of Sigmund Freud, the trailer is liberally peppered with double entendrés like "premature evacuation," and "penetrating the subconscious." A woman named Alma (played by the enchanting Leonor Watling) enlists the aid of her brother-in-law Salvador to find her missing psychiatrist husband. The film has gotten scads of award nomination (check them out here), and looks like a nice change of pace from Hollywood-style comedy.