Tonight marked the US premiere of An Idiot Abroad, the travel show featuring The Great Orange-Headed One, Karl Pilkington. The series already aired in the U.K. and I was filled with jealous rage when I saw all the tweets and blog posts about how funny it was… but alas, it wasn’t available in the U.S.. I was reaching the point of ordering a PAL DVD player on Amazon just to be able to watch the series in its entirety. Thankfully, Science Channel solved my problems and announced that they would air the show right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. The first episode, which featured Karl visiting China, aired just a few hours ago. I watched, tweeted like a mad man and wrote up a review of the show within a couple hours of the original air time.

Here’s a little slice of my review:

Before Ricky Gervais was pissing people off at the Golden Globes or writing the original version of The Office with friend and writing partner Stephen Merchant, he was marveling at the brain of Karl Pilkington, a radio producer assigned to the duo for their program. In fact, anyone who has listened to the widely popular Ricky Gervais Show podcasts or watched The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO is familiar with the musings of this “little, round-headed, bald, missing link, chimp-like buffoon”, as Gervais has so sweetly labeled him.

In the new series An Idiot Abroad, airing here in the U.S. on Science Channel, Gervais and Merchant send Pilkington on a trip around the globe to see various wonders of the world. Pilkington, who barely adjusts to the social protocol of his own culture, tries to wrap his little round head around foreign food, art and customs…..

You can read the whole thing on Trashwire.com.

To my pure delight, Science Channel actually tweeted out a link to my review to all their followers. They were all over Twitter during the show, posting replies and RTs to all the Pilkie fans out there. They did a kick ass job with social media and I couldn’t be happier that they distributed the link to Trashwire.

Check out a clip from An Idiot Abroad after the jump…

When you think of a comic book hero, the first name that pops into your head probably isn’t Seth Rogen. In fact, many things about The Green Hornet aren’t exactly conventional. The script was penned by Rogen and pal Evan Goldberg, who also wrote Superbad, and directed by Michel Gondry of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fame. This unconventional team is exactly what makes this film feel new and different from the Iron Man explosion fests of the world. … Read entire article »

Last night, I spent about 6 hours finding and customizing a new WordPress theme for Trashwire. After a lot of browsing, I fell in love with One Designs’ Cover WP theme. This theme is not only way easier to use from the administrative back-end, but also for readers because it puts more content on the front page and makes it a lot easier to find archived content. It also incorporates Facebook and Twitter so it’s easier to connect with Trashwire writers through social networks or personal blogs (like this one).

I still need to do a few small tweeks and adjustments, but it’s up and running now. Check it out at Trashwire.com.

See the list at trashwire.com…

Through out film history, there have been films that have changed the game using technological innovations. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings and more recently Avatar became milestones for filmmaking because they used new technology to show us things beyond our wildest dreams. The original TRON was very innovative when it was released almost 30 years ago because realistic computer graphics were still a ways off in the future and more traditional methods had to be retooled to bring the film to life. Disney’s 2010 sequel, TRON: Legacy, uses the familiar CG we see in every movie to try to bring us the next chapter in the story, but the sleek filmmaking techniques of today don’t always bring the same awe factor.

Read the rest at trashwire.com

It’s too bad The Expendables isn’t billed as a comedy, because it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve seen all year. Imagine if Tommy Wiseau was picked to write and directThe A-Team, but at the last second, they couldn’t secure the rights, so they had to make a low-budget rip off with aging action heroes. Yep, that’s The Expendables….

Read the rest on Trashwire.com

I rolled out of bed Monday morning, already feeling lousy that I wouldn’t get to meet Kieran Culkin, someone I’d wanted to meet since I was a kid. I turned the TV on to our morning show on FOX31 and heard them say that the cast would be in the studio later that morning for an interview. The studio? But that’s where I was headed! I threw on my clothes and booked it to work.

When I arrived, I heard the cast being interviewed just a couple feet behind the fake wall that divided my desk from the main floor of the studio. Oh my god! Kieran, Brandon Routh and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were right there! I would get to meet them after all!

As things wrapped up and they went to commercial, I slipped behind the wall and managed to get a picture of the cast, and another picture with the cast!

Kieran was way taller than I was expecting. After seeing him in Igby Goes Down–which I absolutely love–and after seeing how short Gerard and Mikey Way were when I saw them at Comic Con, I was sure that he would be tiny. He wasn’t. He was about my height, which isn’t super tall, but still taller than I thought, and he was kinda built. It was a surprise. He was also really attractive. I’d always thought he was cute, but he was down right hot, enough to distract me from Superman himself, Brandon Routh. Now, that’s not to say that Brandon wasn’t smokin’ hot. He definitely was. He was a total babe: tall, chiseled features, rockin’ bod. I was super jealous of Mary Elizabeth Winstead because she got to be in a movie with these two dudes and Michael Cera, who wasn’t on this press tour.

It was hard to concentrate on work for about an hour after this as it dawned on me that I just met Superman and my favorite Culkin! I kept looking at the picture on my phone just to make sure it was real and I hadn’t slept in and dreamed it all. It was real. It was awesome and it proved that the past few weeks have been my best ever. Everything’s coming up Milhouse for me these days!

Some of my faves:

Pics from my three days there are at:
http://trashwire.com/2010/07/22/sdcc1
http://trashwire.com/2010/07/23/sdcc2
http://trashwire.com/2010/07/24/sdcc3

Of course, my favorite part of it all was the two panels with Gerard Way. I took a zillion pictures and videos from both the Dark Horse panel and the Spotlight on Gerard Way panel, but these two are my favorites.

See the rest (and the videos) at Trashwire.com:
http://trashwire.com/2010/07/23/comic-con-dark-horse-gerard-way
and
http://trashwire.com/2010/07/24/comic-con-panel-spotlight-on-gerard-way

Here’s my review of the highly-anticipated Predators. I love the original film and was very pleased that this film departed from the corny Alien vs Predator sequels.

The Predator franchise was slipping down the slope of ridiculousness and on it’s way to Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus territory when Robert Rodriguez was announced as the producer of a brand new enrtry to the Predator game. Thankfully, Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal brought back the suspense of the original and ditched the cheesy b-movie feel of more recent films starring everyone’s favorite dreadlocked alien.

Read the rest on Trashwire.com at http://trashwire.com/2010/07/09/predators-elevates-the-franchise-with-suspense

Just a few days after the Predators press screening, I went to a screening for Despicable Me. Try having a 3D animated family film and a movie about people being skinned alive by aliens floating around in your head at the same time! Despicable Me was the opposite of Predators in terms of plot, but was very similar in terms of being enjoyable.

In the tradition of Shrek, Universal’s Despicable Me is a film for kids, that’s also fun for adults. The Pixar-like 3D animation wows children and the cast list alone is enough to get adults excited. When I saw the first trailer for the film, seeing Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Will Arnett, and Kristen Wiig all listed together made me mark my calendar for the release date.

Read the rest on Trashwire.com at http://trashwire.com/2010/07/11/despicable-me-fun-in-3d

I’m going to have reviews for Inception, Salt and Dinner for Schmucks coming soon on trashwire this month.

Also, definitely follow @trashwire on Twitter because I’m headed to the famed San Diego Comic Con next weekend and I’ll be tweeting live about everything I see.

You can read my “stupid idiot” review of Twilight: Eclipse on Trashwire…

When I want to watch sexy vampires and werewolves, I choose True Blood, but if I was ten years younger, I’d be swooning over the sparkly vampires and ab-tastic werewolves in the Twilight movies. If the first film and its sequel New Moon were burgeoning with sexual undertones masquerading as tween-friendly melodrama, then Eclipse is practically porn.

Read the rest on Trashwire.com at http://trashwire.com/2010/06/30/twilight-eclipse-is-like-true-blood-for-tweens

And check out my review of indie comedy Cyrus, starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei on Trashwire too…

Both Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly are more recently known for broader comedies like Step Brothers or Superbad, but both prove they can hold their own with quirky indie fare as they battle for the attention of Marisa Tomei in Cyrus.

Read the rest on Trashwire.com at http://trashwire.com/2010/07/02/cyrus-john-c-reilly-jonah-hill

Check ‘em out and let me know what you think in a comment or on Twitter @AlexisGentry. All comments welcome, even if you’re a hardcore Twi-hard who wants to call me a moron for not being in love with Robert Pattinson.