At Least We're Getting "Hotel For Dogs"

The trailer above is for a British science fiction/fantasy film called Franklyn. As to why it's called Franklyn I have no idea since, according to IMDB, there isn't a guy in it named Franklyn and it doesn't look like I'll be finding out any time soon since, currently, there are no plans to show this in the USA. Having watched the trailer a few times, that fact really annoys me. I see so many movies that, despite having spent tens of millions of dollars on the very best special effects, have the visual imagination of a molerat. The look of this movie, on the other hand, is amazing, especially when you consider it must have been made on a limited budget. England and Canada will see a theatrical release of this movie on February 20. What do we have coming out on February 20? According to ComingSoon.net, the two biggest releases that week will be Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail and Fired Up. Pardon my French, but WHAT THE MOTHER PUSS DRUNK FUCK IS FIRED UP?

Shawn Colfax (Nicholas D'Agosto) and Nick Brady (Eric Christian Olsen), the stars of the Gerald R. Ford High School football team, are dreading the prospect of another summer at football camp. When Nick hatches a scheme for the two to join their school's cheerleaders at cheer camp instead, they find themselves awash in a sea of gorgeous young women. It all goes great until Shawn falls for Carly (Sarah Roemer), the beautiful head cheerleader who sees right through them.

So, instead of an inventive fantasy film, we get the obligatory "Goes To Jail" movie that all fictional characters who've starred in a series of comedies end up doing and a movie where guys in their mid 20s play horny teenagers who find themselves in a situation that the Penthouse Forum would deem unbelievable and reject. Also, between now and then, the American cinema that won't be showing Franklyn will somehow find room for the remake of Friday the 13th, the remake of My Bloody Valentine, the remake of The Pink Panther, the remake of every crappy movie ever made (this time it's called Underworld: Rise of the Lycans), Hotel For Dogs and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. And, lest we forget, just this week your local multiplex managed to squeeze in the abysmally disgusting The Unborn and the disgustingly abysmal Bride Wars.

I have a suspicion that maybe American distributors are trying to avoid controversy, said controversy being that at least part of the movie takes place on an alternate world in which an atheist fights against an oppressive theocracy. I have no idea if Franklyn is any good but I do know that the art direction alone makes it a better film than anything I listed above, all of which look like the art direction was done by the same guy. Thing is, I have no idea what to do about this. The only way I can see a US theater risking the wrath of fundamentalist protests and showing this is if it's a huge hit in England. This means we're depending on people who think that boiling your vegetables until all the flavor has departed them is good eating. I don't have the energy to create some sort of massive online campaign to try to get this movie a domestic release so I'm just going to move to England. If there's anyone in England who can take me in for a few months, please let me know. I won't be able to pay you anything but I can entertain you with my ability to recreate every single Monty Python sketch. Trust me, around the 150th time I scream in your face, "THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!" you'll be amazed at how it never gets old.