Awful directors and the awful movies they make

In theaters Friday: Hairspray, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and Sunshine.

New on DVD: Factory Girl and Premonition.

Celebrity birthday: Kristen Bell turns 27 today. Happy birthday Krissy! Sorry Veronica Mars was cancelled. But on the bright side, that gives you time to star in another of what I’ve come to term the “dreaded gerund movies,” Forgetting Sarah Marshall. (see Finding Forrester, Serving Sarah or Regarding Henry for other inducing cringe examples). But since your gerund happens to co-star Paul Rudd and Mila Kunis maybe it will be decent.

It pains me to say that I still haven’t seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I hope to have an extensive review for you next week. It looks to me to be just about the only summer blockbuster that isn’t a let down in some form or fashion. Spider-Man 3? Ugh. Pirates 3? Bloated like Davy Jones. Transformers? Mixed bag.

Despite most reviews I’d read, I rented Troy last weekend. Eric Bana and Rose Byrne are two of my favorite actors right now, and they didn’t disappoint as Son of Troy Hector, and his Vestal Virgin cousin Briseis. What did disappoint was the casting of Brad Pitt as the not-quite-invincible Achilles. Pitt’s performance was decent, but when I look at Mr. Jolie, I see the modern man, not an ancient warrior, no matter how much blood and dirt make-up artists smear on him.

The story is pretty familiar. Spartan Queen Helen ditches middle-aged King Menelaus for a strapping young Trojan named Paris. Menelaus’ brother, the Greek tyrant King Agamemnon uses Helen’s “abduction” as an excuse to conquer Troy, and launches a thousand ships to the shores of Turkey to take her back. An amazing story no doubt, it’s just too bad Homer wasn’t around to adapt his own screenplay. There were major script issues and Orlando Bloom just annoyed me as headstrong weakling Paris. But fun performances from Brian Cox and Peter O’Toole, and the Hector vs. Achilles grudge match kept me interested. Troy isn’t quite a poor man’s Gladiator, it’s more like the middle-class’s Kingdom of Heaven.

Here’s another reason to see The Simpsons Movie on July 27: The first teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, will screen before it. Interested in some spy footage of Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight? Thought so. Click here. Some fanboys are decrying this look as too close to Brandon Lee’s version of The Crow. Yeah, I can see that…but I don’t see the problem with it. In his first interview about playing The Joker, Ledger said he would have a darker Clockwork Orange feel. To me, mixing the aesthetic of The Crow and Alex de Large sounds like a winner. And everybody loves a winnah!

Okay, this list is hilarious. I’m all about calling people out, and as usual The Onion’s AV Club does a great job of culling together otherwise obscure directors and shining a big fat light on them and the annoying movies they’ve made. Without further ado: 10 Director’s you didn’t know you hated. My personal favorite/least favorite in this group is Steve Oedekerk. Anyone who directed Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls AND produced Juwanna Man has got to be stopped. No seriously, give this guy a desk job and a restraining order to keep him at least 50 yards from a camera at all times.