Anyone with more than a passing interest in Judd Apatow's career will note how there's a curious call-back to one of Apatow's earlier works in this most recent of his productions, with the credits for Step Brothers in the exact same scrawled, stretched-out font as his comedy Freaks and Geeks. Freaks and Geeks, though, featured teens who often spoke and acted like adults; Step Brothers features adults who constantly speak and act like children.

The credit-font's evocation of an earlier Apatow work is an omen for the rest of Step Brothers, in fact, with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly recycling and amplifying their rivalry from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (also directed by Step Brothers helmer Adam McKay) but without that film's plot structure, surreal wit or inspired mockery (and celebration) of NASCAR culture; instead, Step Brothers seems constructed -- or, rather, contrived -- solely to create a circumstance where Ferrell and Reilly can act like idiot man-children and riff to their great amusement. That, however, is not the same thing as riffing to the amusement of the audience. ...

Maybe I missed something, but since when did releasing films on a Wednesday become a commonplace strategy? I know, for years and years, several titles have opened mid-week, albeit typically on a handful of NY/LA screens or to capitalize on a holiday weekend.

But due to some recent moves, every Wednesday in August now has at least one wide release opening on it instead of Friday. On the 6th, we have Pineapple Express and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2; the 13th brings us Tropic Thunder; the 20th, The Rocker; and then Traitor on the 27th.

There are at least three other wide releases on the last three Fridays of the month, but I see no distinct point at which a two-day head start would make any great deal of difference (although I presume that Pineapple still wanted to have seven days on Tropic instead of five when it comes to their similar target demographic).

Was there a holiday I overlooked somewhere? Is it now cooler for kids to go to the movies on a school night once classes are back in session? Do you guys have any theories, or will you still wait for the weekend to catch any of these regardless?

At this point I'm starting to think that Roland Emmerich must be in possession of some pretty serious blackmail material, because there is no other explanation why accomplished actors are so ready and willing to star in his films. MTV now reports that Woody Harrelson has joined the cast of Emmerich's end of the world thriller, 2012.

The story is based on an ancient Mayan prophecy about the end of the world, but Emmerich's film is no ode to Apocalypto. Instead, John Cusack stars as an academic who opens up a portal to a parallel dimension (don't you hate it when that happens?) in an attempt to contact his double and prevent the apocalyptic prophecy from happening. Harrelson will play what he calls a "modern day Cassandra" who has seen the writing on the wall and has been predicting the disaster for years.

According to Harrelson, he will "play a guy who's been talking for a long time, the whole world thinks he's crazy. But he's been talking that there's gonna be hell to pay for what's been going on ecologically and everything." Perhaps this is Emmerich's idea of a little in-joke considering Harrelson's activist leanings. In the meantime, fans of Harrelson's work will probably prefer his upcoming thriller, Transsiberian. But who am I to judge? I guess sometimes a pay check can be its own reward.

2012 is scheduled to begin filming on location in Vancouver and is slated for release in July, 2009.

Imagine you're a green alien living happily among other green aliens on a tiny planet somewhere. Then one day an astronaut from Earth shows up and starts terrifying everyone. And he has the voice of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! Except maybe contractual stipulations demand that he not be called "The Rock" anymore. Still! Scary!

That's the premise of Planet 51, a computer-animated comedy that has finally, after some shuffling, been acquired by Sony and scheduled for a Thanksgiving 2009 release. The voice cast includes Johnson, Gary Oldman, Justin Long, Seann William Scott, John Cleese, and Jessica Biel. The directors are a trio of video game programmers named Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad, and Marcos Martinez, and the script is by Joe Stillman, who co-wrote the first two Shrek films.

As we reported last November, Planet 51 was originally picked up by New Line and would have been that studio's first CG release. Then New Line was folded into Warner Bros., so the film became that studio's property, and they planned to release it next summer. But according to Variety, Planet 51's producers wanted it to come out this November instead -- and that didn't work for Warners because they're already releasing a Harry Potter film in that slot. So they let the film go, and now Sony has it. The producers will get their November release date, but it'll be 2009, not 2008. Presumably, everyone's happy now.

But should they be?

Anyone who watches a considerable amount of movies has a tendency to champion the occasional gem, a title bound - nay, fated - to be overlooked by the masses. As you may have noticed, we here at Cinematical are not immune to such behavior.

On other occasions, fans of films that are being remade will find themselves violently, vocally opposed to the idea of a tainted classic or fave, whereas cooler minds step in and point out that their precious original will exist no less in its wake.

With that said, I'm about to spout off on why I think American remake Quarantine is primed to squander the considerable merits of its source material, [REC].

(Now, what nitpicks I have are about to wander off into moderate spoiler territory, which is actually my greater concern. Ergo, any of you planning to catch either film in the near future might be best served by directing their browsers elsewhere, including away from the newly released trailer for Quarantine.)

As for the twelve of you who I know have either managed to see [REC] or who just plain don't care -- come on in, the water's whine...

Whenever Scott and I aren't out fighting crime together, we tend to be chatting each other up about horror films, as he has often either pointed me towards many a overlooked gem or brought to my attention the best titles currently making the festival rounds.

Whether or not Weinberg was the one who got me initially amped up for [REC], I can't accurately recall, but the point is that I can support his many praises over the film, and I think it's safe to say that we're both cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming American remake, Quarantine. It seems that Sony's smarter minds are also prone to cautious optimism, as Shock Till You Drop informs us that the film's release has been bumped up a week, from October 17th to October 10th.

Now, the 10th is a crowded weekend - we also have a crime thriller, a family adventure, and a teen sex romp - but what's important is that not only do none of those films appeal to the same horror-seeking demographic as Quarantine, whereas video game adaptation Max Payne might on the 17th, but the move gives it an extra week to rake it in until Saw V comes around and effectively dominates the market come the 24th.

As for me, I'm still curious about Quarantine director John Erick Dowdle's previous film, the still-unreleased The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Is it some sort of staring contest between them and the equally delayed All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, or what?

I'm not exactly sure how the act of delivering silly little video games translates into tickets bought at the multiplex, but I suppose it works like this: Sony created the tie-in games, and now I'm telling you about them. So ... I guess the method works.

Anyway, it's a slow holiday weekend, which means you might have some time to waste on clicky little browser-based video games that are based on a pair of upcoming comedies. Click here for the Donkey Kong-esque misadventures on The Pineapple Express, or click here for the "whack-a-mole" game starring Step Brothers Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

I'm definitely looking forward to both comedies ... but I'll just stick to my beloved Zuma, thanks. (Good luck making a movie out of that game.)

Okay, so we went through something similar with Frank Darabont's unused draft of the latest Indiana Jones installment, which managed to be a bit better (read: Mutt-less) compared to the still entertaining end result. Now, it appears that the original draft for Hancock -- long titled Tonight, He Comes -- has popped up by way of Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere (read it here). Oh, and if it's authentic, it happens to be missing the next-to-last page.

I've found the behind-the-scenes hearsay -- conveniently summed up in this NY Times piece -- on this film to be fairly fascinating. First, as scripted by Vy Vincent Ngo, Tonight had made the rounds as a reportedly hard-R superhero drama that capitalized on the somewhat sexual nature of the title. However, it seems once Will Smith was brought on board, Sony saw fit to tame things down considerably.

Even as recently as April, the MPAA had twice handed them an R instead of the sought-after PG-13, and now the finished result runs a choppy 92 minutes -- distinctly shorter than indicated in AICN test screening reports which made particular mention of a subplot involving statutory rape. Of course, as Wells brings up, it's hard to ignore the involvement of producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, whose recent work on Smith's last hit, I Am Legend, had a similarly slapdash second half at the compromise of the original material.

I've yet to get more than a couple of pages into this thing, but do you guys think this is the real deal, and if so, do you guys think that this is the real film compared to what's on thousands of screens this week?

Well here's something you don't see every day: A big, flashy summertime "tentpole" movie that A) takes chances, B) bucks convention, and C) takes some real risks with its subject material. Obviously the safe approach is for Will Smith to do (yet another) easily-digestible (if somewhat mindless) blockbuster like I, Robot or I Am Legend or Independence Day -- but this time the endlessly profitable Will Smith is working with a rather distinctive director who refuses to cater to formula. That director would be Peter Berg, and this guy has yet to make a bad film.

Unfortunately the production history on Hancock is not a fantastic one. There was a revolving door of directors and script polishers before Columbia finally started production -- but there were still marketing issues, last-minute reshoots, and MPAA miseries to deal with. And yet, despite all that, Hancock arrives like a breath of weirdly fresh air for moviegoers who like a little heart and soul mixed in with their hyper-kinetic action mayhem. Toss some sharp wit and an impressive display of edge into the mix, and I think you may have one of my favorite movies of the summer. (Although one can plainly tell that there was some late cutting done to the flick, all in the name of the almighty PG-13 rating, of course.)

For quite a while now, the rumor that Huey Lewis would be performing the theme song for the expectedly hilarious Pineapple Express has been making the rounds, and today... oh, today, it has come to sweet fruition, as the theme song hits first the soundtrack's MySpace profile and then my beating heart.

I can't tell you how much it tickles me to have the sax of the News accompanied by the sound of Huey uttering the word 'chronic'. Then again, I can't tell you how much I'm tickled that we're actually facing a summer movie season that will cap itself off with Huey Lewis doing the theme song for a Judd Apatow-produced, David Gordon Green-directed stoner-buddy action-comedy, followed the week after by Robert Downey Jr. in blackface. Seriously, could you have called that this time last year?

If you don't know why I'm so psyched, I've included the NSFW red-band trailer after the jump, and for those of you who are right there with me, Pineapple Express hits (snicker) on August 8th.

[God bless Spout Blog for bringing this to our attention. I'm tempted to send you guys over a basket full of pineapples just out of principle.]