Luke's Landspeeder Bed, 17 Again

Ned Gold, played by Thomas Lennon, was mercilessly teased and bullied in High School. But later he grows up, gets rich, and builds his own nerd palace full of goodies, my favorite being his amazing bed. Take that jocks.

Still, the mural next to his foosball room is pretty grand as well. Apparently there's this whole other plot about Matthew Perry being transformed from and old guy into Zac Efron, but I didn't make it all the way through after all the pausing and rewinding to go and drool over Ned's wonderful toys. Here are some shots of the mural.

Dr. Lazarus' Fan Head Piece, Galaxy Quest

By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, I shall have my Galaxy Quest Dr. Lazarus cap.

Brodie's Comic Collection, Mallrats

You just know Jason Lee's stash has some serious classics hidden in there. Plus, this is the collection that stated the rules we all try to follow: "Touch not, lest ye be touched."

The Van, Fanboys

It has an R2-D2 up top. Enough said.

The Trio's Van, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Since I'm trying to keep it realistic — because wouldn't we all want a working freeze ray — I'm going to have to say the second automobile I covet, and would happily hot wire home, is The Trio's ride. Especially the horn.

Oscar Goldman Acton Figure, 40-Year-old Virgin

Andy Stitzer's toy collection is, well, ridiculous. There were so many boxes around his house that made me go "ohhh and ahhhh" I lost count. He even had The Six Million Dollar Man's boss, Oscar Goldman, action figure. Second only to his toys is the video game chair...which was pretty amazing.

Darlene's Sandman Fodder, Roseanne

Every so often, Darlene would have poster's of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman up in her room. This is why we love her. I desire not just any Sandman poster but her poster, not just because she was a cool art school chick, but because Joss Whedon was crafty enough to get them posted up on the set.

The Detailed Toy Dioramas, Can't Hardly Wait

First off dioramas are cool, no matter how you cut it, but William Lichter's basement is basically his world recreated by his toys.

Milhouse's Watchmen Babies, The Simpsons

Who doesn't want a copy of the Watchmen Babies DVD that set off comic book writer Alan Moore?

Wayne And Garth's Batman Exit Strategy, Wayne's World 2

Additional thanks to Marc Bernardin and Kara Warner.

It was pretty much all good news for Coraline, which raked in an impressive average of $7,105 per screen. Henry Selick's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book came in third for the weekend, better than expected, and much better, on a per-screen basis, than other stop-motion animation films like Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. (Here's a handy chart.) Also, more than 70 percent of the movie's take came from 3-D screens, proving that people were willing to go out of their way and pay extra to see it in the best format.

Push, meanwhile, had a "moderate" opening with $10.2 million, says Rotten Tomatoes. It came in sixth for the weekend, with a "decent" $4,410 per screen. Besides Blart, Coraline and He's Just Not That Into You, the movie lost out to Pink Panther 2 and Taken. Sci Fi Wire puts a braver face on the news, saying Push's opening exceeded expectations, which had put the gross in the $6 million to $8 million range. (EW calls Push's gross "good enough.")

As for the long-awaited Fanboys, it basically failed to register, making a total of only about $164,000.

Despite hilarious cameos from big names like Seth Rogen, William Shatner, and Kevin Smith, as well as terrific performances from its main cast, Fanboys languished in development limbo for years. At one point, the studio threatened to gut the film's main plot about a Star Wars fan who is dying of cancer - and at other points, they threatened to shelve the film forever. Lucky for us, the film comes out tomorrow as it was intended, with the cancer plot intact.

I say "lucky for us" not because this film is an unqualified success - it isn't - but because the cancer plot is part of what makes it more than just another boring satire of Star Wars fandom. Five friends who have drifted apart since high school unexpectedly reconnect at a party. Eric, who has abandoned his dreams of drawing comics to run his dad's car dealerships, runs into the turbo-nerdy Zoe, Hutch, and Windows, who tell him their friend Linus is dying of cancer. Though Eric and Linus were once bromantic buds, they haven't spoken for years: Linus feels like Eric abandoned their fannish dreams for sellout crap, and Eric feels like Linus and the crew are stuck in extended adolescence.

But Eric is galvanized by the news of Linus' impending death, and reawakens their old high school dreams of breaking into Skywalker Ranch to see the rough cut of The Phantom Menace (the movie takes place the year before Episode 1 hit theaters in 1998). Eventually he convinces the old crew to go on a road trip in Hutch's tricked-out Jedi van, crossing the country from Ohio to California, on a quest to make sure Linus won't die before seeing their beloved series' new chapter.

At its best, Fanboys exudes a kind of brawling fun reminiscent of Animal House. These are young dorks just blundering their way into self-knowledge, and a few of their adventures are amusing - such as a raid on a group of Trekkies who have erected a statue of Captain Kirk in his "future birthplace" of Riverside, Iowa. They wind up getting into Star Wars vs. Star Trek gang war that's good, stupid goofiness, and Seth Rogen shines as the main Trekker defending his statue of Kirk. (Later, Rogen shows up again as a tattooed, Star Wars-loving pimp, in another gooftastic performance.)

There's also a pleasing subplot where Windows journeys out of cluelessness to discover that even though Zoe is a geek she's a girl too - and she likes him. Given that hottie Kristin Bell is playing Zoe, it's a little hard to believe that Windows had never noticed her before, but it's still cute to see the two of them falling into nerd love. Similarly, the friendship between Eric and Linus is rekindled in a way that's touching and provides much-needed narrative direction for what is too often directionless sketch comedy.

Unfortunately, most of the movie is a muddle of bad fart jokes, bad "you're a fag - no, you're a fag" jokes, bad internet girlfriend jokes, and yawn-inducing fist-fights with Harry Knowles from Ain't It Cool News. (Well, OK, the Harry Knowles thing was slightly funny, except for the fact that it wasn't actually Harry Knowles.)

A lot of the scenes feel like bottom-of-the-barrel Saturday Night Live sketches. You know, funny in the writers' room but in practice they go on for way too long and get into tooth-grindy territory. Like, for instance, when the gang is trapped in a bar full of scary Mexican dude stereotypes, who turn out (surprise) actually to be GAY scary Mexican dude stereotypes. Yeah, comedy gold. Followed by a really long, awful scene where one of the Gay Scary Mexican Dudes gives the gang peyote and they totally trip out, man. For waaaaaaaaay too long.

Similarly, an encounter with hookers in Vegas gets dragged out for what seems like hours of the unfunny. Even the cameo by William Shatner was pretty meh. Still, the movie has a sweetness to it, helped along by great performances, that make the final sequence at Skywalker Ranch into something more than a clumsily-written race through George Lucas' trash compactor, after being chased by the cops from THX 1138.

Fanboys, for all its flaws, actually made me cry. That's not because I am a wuss, but because unlike so many movies about death, Fanboys explores how everyone's lives revolve around peculiar goals that aren't easy to sum up in a Hallmark card. What's so moving is that Linus' friends understand that what he needs to die happy isn't some stupid, generic encounter with spirituality or some Benjamin Button kind of crap. It's seeing The Phantom Menace. That they help him fulfill that wish, and that we come to understand how precious it is to him, is what will make even the most macho fan dudes get weepy at the end of this flick.

The point of Fanboys is not, as some reviewers have said, simply to revel in references to pop culture. It's to celebrate how fandom brings friends together, and how a mythos like Star Wars gives us a language to describe what is truly meaningful in life: Our connections to each other, which transcend even death.

You Want To Take Your Shirt Off

Burn The Ewok

ThunderCats!



And here, I was thinking that my rallying ThunderCats cheer was special. We're all connected. The release date for Fanboys is February 6th 2009.

Big Man Japan
A nobody who moonlights as a giant superhero has to battle all sorts of beasties but also has to deal with a growing mob of superhero haters, and an Alzheimer’s-stricken grandfather. BMJ will be out in March.

Pandorum

The amazing, astounding, fantastic Ben Foster is stranded on a spacecraft with his coworker Dennis Quaid — and there's something aboard that wants them dead. Release date is September 4.

The Princess and the Frog

Hooray for old timey animation! Disney returns to the princess animations with a New Orleans set Princess in the Frog fairytale out December 25.

Push

It's like Heroes, the movie. Everyone has a brain power in Push, be they Movers or Sniffers (sadly, no Shakers) The powered film comes out February 6.

Crank: High Voltage

Wow Crank 2 just got a whole lot more insane. Will they be stop motion animating Jason Statham, but huge? God, I hope so. Crank 2 is out April 17.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Kristin Kreuk masters the high-kicks, in her own Chun-Li Street Fighter origins story, due out February 27.

17 Again


Matthew Perry gets shrunk back down to the age of 17, and injected into his own teen's high school, to try and "fix" his crumbling family. That's in theaters April 17.

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian


Bill Hader and Amy Adams join the museum cast as General Custer and Amelia Earhart (or rather, the wax figures of these historical figures that come to life after the museum closes). Museum 2 is out on May 22.

Fanboys


A group of serious fans try and break into George Lucas' Skywalker ranch, and mayhem ensues, on February 6.

Coraline


Neil Gaiman's story about a young girl who visits an alternate world comes to life in breathtaking 3D stop-motion animation, out February 6.

2012


John Cusack cools his heels while the wold ends around him, in one terrible natural disaster after another, in 2012. It's out on July 10.

Knowing


Nicolas Cage uncovers a time capsule that details in numbers when everything awful will happen on Earth. Knowing will be released on March 20.

They Came From Upstairs


Ashley Tisdale and her family have an awesome spring break, before an alien invasion happens. Or maybe after, it's hard to tell. Either way, we'll find out on July 31.

Race to Witch Mountain


Dang teens and their alien abilities to move things with their minds. This reboot of a an old Disney classic is released on March 13.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince


The magic boys and girls are back in school, and ready for the fight to end all fights, yet again. Harry is out on July 17.

Cirque du Freak


John C. Reilly is a vampire who runs a circus with Salma Hayek, and your chances of seeing Hayek do something sexy are pretty much guaranteed. There is no release date yet.

More pics at the link. [L.A. Times]

At first I was worried that director Kyle Newman had created a "let's laugh at the nerds" flick, but now I'm starting to see that this film is more light on plot and heavy on fan-jokes. Which I'm actually okay with. As long as there is no moral at the end that "geeks are people too." Fanboys will finally come out on February 6, 2009.

Looks like Optimus has undergone some upgrades over the years. Lookin' good.

[Myspace, SI Fans Of The Week and Geekologie]

Despite news that the movie - originally completed two years ago, but subject to controversial re-shoots last year - will now be released in two different versions on DVD (with nerd dying of cancer) and theatrically (without the cancer), the (original) filmmakers aren't convinced of the studio's good intent. Producer Kevin Mann says that the studio is just trying to persuade fans not to boycott their other geek-friendly movie in protest:

This is more about avoiding picket lines at 'Superhero [Movie]' than it was about making a decision about the release of our movie.

Faced with a grass-roots boycott of its films, bicoastal protests at screenings of its Friday opener "Superhero Movie" and a campaign calling its co-chairman "Darth Weinstein," the Weinstein Co. said Monday that it now plans to release two versions of "Fanboys."

Fans press Weinstein on 'Fanboys' [Hollywood Reporter]

Enter Shauna Robertson, Judd Apatow's producing partner, who's been brought in by studio boss Harvey Weinstein to make the movie more palatable to audiences. And according to the AIC post, that makes it less palatable to those closest to its heart:

Apparently the Apatow people have done research which says most people won't laugh for 5 or 10 minutes after cancer is mentioned so they want to do away with the entire cancer subplot and I've heard they have a version which edited out the entire cancer plot. This means it's just a group of punk kids breaking into Skywalker Ranch to steal a movie to see it before it comes out. Why would I root for these kids to steal the film, if the noble reason for doing it is gone?

The Weinsteins effing the f out of FANBOYS?!? [Aint It Cool.com]