First there was Date Movie, and it was ... not good. And then came Epic Movie, and it was ... even worse. Most recently we received Meet the Spartans, and it was ... you get the point: By now we're well aware that sophomoric spoof-merchants Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are not even remotely interested in making a good film. Their goal is simply to throw as many current* pop culture references onto the screen so that bored 14-year-olds with more allowance money than common sense will line up to chuckle (feebly) at the duo's desperate antics. (* And if the jokes are this bad when they're "current," what the hell will these flicks look like in ten years?)

But you know what? It's almost creepy how well these things do: For a production budget of about $20 million apiece, Date, Epic, and Spartans made about $84 million each. (That's worldwide box-office, and thanks to Mojo for the numerals.) So Fox essentially gave these guys $60 million and three shots, and they virtually quadrupled their budget each time out. (So why does the IMDb rate these films at 2.6, 2.3, and 2.4, respectively? I have no idea. How many times must a person get smacked on the skull before they start avoiding the hammer?)

Anwyay, Friedberg and Seltzer have moved their parody tent over to Lionsgate, and that's who'll be unleashing the aptly-titled Disaster Movie on August 29. (And people call Saw torture. Ha!) Click right here to enjoy the trailer, and by "enjoy" I actually mean "sit there and subject yourself to amazingly half-assed jokes about clumsy superheroes, pregnant teenagers, and tons of other horrific stuff that I can't believe passes for comedy." And yet I bet it will make about $84 million worldwide and we'll all be sitting here next year, bemoaning the impending arrival of Friedberg & Seltzer's Action Movie.

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

Since Epic Movie was not screened for members of the press, here's what I had to spend in order to bring you this review on opening day: A $19 cab ride, a $7 movie ticket and a $10 day-pass for T-Mobile's wireless internet access at a nearby Border's Book Store, which is where I am currently sitting, drinking a (very strong) vanilla latte and trying to figure out how in the hell a movie this sloppy and stupid could ever earn itself a theatrical release. One can only assume that last year's Date Movie (which was perpetrated by the same duo that unleashed Epic Movie) made just enough money to warrant (yet) another pseudo-movie in which a dozen recent blockbusters are spoofed in amazingly limp and uncreative fashion.

Suffice it to say I really took one for the team today. To be completely fair, I chuckled two or three times during the generally witless Epic Movie, which instantly makes the flick more recommendable than Date Movie -- but if all a movie can give you is a small handful of stray and listless chuckles, well, I don't really think that's a movie worthy of your eight dollars (to say nothing of the $36 I just wasted this afternoon).

Are you among the 14 people who actually paid money to see Date Movie? If so, at any point during that movie did you find yourself thinking "Wow, I really hope someone gives these filmmakers money to make another spoof movie!!"? Well, if so then you're an idiot. Because someone did. And now we have something to look forward to called Epic Movie.

Based on this retina-demolishing trailer, Epic Movie looks to be yet another endless collection of movie-related sketch comedy bits. Yeah, just like Date Movie, all four Scary Movie movies, and every Leslie Nielsen "comedy" post-1981. To be fair, writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer spent a good deal of time on their Date Movie audio commentary apologizing for the lame jokes and atrocious filmmaking ... so let's just see if the guys tried a little harder this time out. Sad to say that based solely on the trailer, I'm not exactly holding my breath.

Epic Movie performers include Kal Penn, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge and Crispin Glover as Willy Wonka. Limp-ass parody bits that'd get booed off the stage on free beer open-mike night include swipes at X-Men, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Chronicles of Narnia, Nacho Libre, Snakes on a Plane ... Borat, and ... um, Paris Hilton. Witty, timely and truly "epic" stuff there, fellas. I can barely wait to see what Friedberg & Seltzer have cooked up for January 2008. After Scary Movie, Date Movie and Epic Movie, I can only assume the next one will be called Crap Movie.

For those who'd like to know when they should avoid the local multiplex as if it were infected with Insta-Deth Ebola, I'll tell you this: Epic Movie opens on January 27th. And if the thing's even half as wretched as the trailer (or, god help us, Date Movie), I think I may pen a strongly-worded letter to Fox and ask where I can get some of whatever they're obviously taking.

This could be the most bizarre casting idea I have ever heard: Nicolas Cage is said to be producing a Liberace biopic, in which he will star as the flamboyant pianist. Is it just that everyone wants to play gay these days or could this really be a dream of Cage's? After his hilarious retro cameo in Good Night, and Good Luck, Liberace is ripe for more spotlight, but Cage? Nicolas Cage as Liberace? I'm dumbfounded. There is no way that this movie could be taken seriously, right? Right. And it seems that Cage must not really be intending for it to be. Hired to write the screenplay are Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, the guys who gave us Date Movie, and who partially gave us Scary Movie. Since they're so good with titles, let me be the first to guess this one will be called Liberace Movie.

Of course, there is just too much about Liberace that requires a serious portrayal of his life. Can Seltzer and Friedberg handle the AIDS aspect with respect? According to the report on this project, the writers are approaching the idea with more care than their other scripts, so it is possible. But I am hoping that they can find a happy medium and include a good amount of silliness, too. There is a very slight chance that a combination between camp and drama could work, though Cage is going to have a tough time finding that perfect director to make it happen.

• Date Movie - Nowhere in the formula "Comedy = Tragedy + Time" does "Cruelty" figure in, something that this caca-palooza -- "from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie" -- sets out to correct from the very first scene. When they introduce us to morbidly obese Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), it is with ridicule as they paint her as a hideous beast that makes men vomit and turn gay. Of course, when we remember that 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie were Wayans Brothers, whose stock in trade is that kind of cruelty, it makes sense (even if these are another two writers.)

A parody of romantic comedies like Bridget Jones's Diary, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Hitch, this lame spoof goes for the easy laugh almost every time, beating to death with a golf club every gag with the subtlety of, well ... someone who beats someone else to death with a golf club. The "13" in the movie's "PG-13" rating would seem to be either a limit for either I.Q. or emotional age, as the movie's show pieces are either juvenile blue bits or have something to do with either poop, pee, puke or pus (the dreaded "4 P's"). Putting gifted comic actors like Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge in this stinky mess makes them both stinky by association, though as time goes by, the whole lot of them will only be guilty of contributing to a vast background of white noise that we will have learned to filter out when we grow up. Presently #64 on the IMDB's Bottom 100 of all time.
 

• Breakfast On Pluto - The Crying Game writer-director Neil Jordan never really does get into why Patrick “Kitten” Braden becomes a transvestite, but he does manage to save his film from being a rote and self-indulgent celebration of uniqueness when he bobs and then weaves a political cry (for Irish independence) into it. The criminally attractive Cillian Murphy plays Kitten a little too much like Mrs. Doubtfire, though he does sustain the character, and an incredible glam-packed soundtrack helps create an energetic sense of time and place.
• Deep Blue - While not as stunning as the likes of Winged Migration or March Of The Penguins, this BBC-produced nature film sure is pretty to look at. With a calming, minimalist narration by Pierce Brosnan (supplanting Michael Gambon's from the UK release) and a dreamy score by George Fenton, the underwater photography is stunning. The beast-on-beast violence is a bit intense, with one hapless sea lion meeting his end when two orcas play hacky-sack with his mangled corpse (in slow-motion, no less).

Great news everyone - for once, a crappy movie that was kept from critics didn't open at the top of the weekend box office! Instead, Eight Below, the tale of the doggies who survive despite the cruel neglect of Paul Walker and his friends, took the top spot by earning just over $25 million over the long weekend, beating out the review-less Date Movie, by nearly $3 million. The next four spot were held down by last week's debuts, with The Pink Panther, which made $21 million and was down only 15% from last week's returns, showing particularly impressive staying power.

Other notable results were Freedomland, which ended up seventh with a very weak debut - though it was shown on only 500 fewer screens than Date Movie, it took in less than a third of what that film did. Oscar favorites Brokeback Mountain and Walk the Line continue to lurk around the top 10, coming in eleventh and twelfth respectively. Finally, surprise hit Hoodwinked fell out of the top tier after more than two months in release. The full listing is after the jump.

Three movies open wide this week and, though there are copious reviews to be found of both Eight Below and Freedomland, the third wasn't screened for critics. You know what that means, friends: Date Movie, though it will inevitably suck, will just as inevitably find itself at the top of the weekend charts come Sunday. Sigh. To distract us, though, we've got Puppies! And Racial Tension! Too bad they're in different movies - otherwise, man, that's box office gold.

• Eight Below: Nathan Lee of The New York Times calls it "Grade A pooch porn, an orgy of canine cuteness," and no one else is grumpy enough to argue. Few, however, are willing to say that cute dogs necessarily make a movie good. Instead, most find it bland at best, and possibly too scary and too violent (don't worry, we're talking about animal-on-animal crime here) for the youthful audience at which it is presumably aimed. Those who like the movie appreciate its old-school Disney animal "realism," and often wish there were fewer scenes with those meddlesome humans.
  

• Freedomland: This one is not exactly wildly popular among critics. Though my man Mick LaSalle is inexplicably a fan, pretty much everyone else considers Freedomland a bit of a mess. While there's no agreement about the performances of Julianne Moore and Samuel L. Jackson (they're either brilliant or overacting), no one is willing to say anything against Edie Falco, whose work in a supporting role seems to be the best thing in the film.
  

It is no secret that many of Hollywood's films have been accused of being what talking heads refer to as "agenda" or "issue" films recently - this year's Academy Awards heavily featured such films. It seems like hardly a week goes by without somebody being offended by the context or content of a new movie. However, if one had to wager on the slate of current movies as to which would most likely draw political protests, I doubt the popular choice would have been the teen comedy Date Movie. The sad/funny fact of the matter is that a particular group has, in fact, found the movie to contain offensive ideology, and they've taken steps to make their unhappiness known. Advocates for the homeless population of America staged a protest (of roughly thirty or so individuals) outside of the Regal Theatre in South Portland. Apparently, somewhere in the course of this spoof/parody film, a girl and her boyfriend beat the living tar out of a homeless man after someone yells "Bum Fight!." This is apparently a reference to the infamous "bum fight" video series wherein homeless people are encouraged to fight each other. Advocates say that violence towards the homeless is NOT a funny issue, and shouldn't be made to look so on screen. The National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington is calling on the filmmakers to either eliminate the scene from the movie entirely, or at least run a public service annoucement before showing the film.

I don't know about you, but nothing makes me want to go punch a street bum in the face more than seeing someone do it in a movie. It's just like when I watched Curious George, and then ran to the nearest ritzy apartment complex to break in on a wealthy fat lady and paint her walls in a jungle motif. Oh wait...I didn't do that. I bet you I won't go punch a homeless guy either.