CGI-mouth-on-a-pet technology, developed to allow dogs and cats to talk in kibble commercials, making them funny, once again proves its utility with Cats & Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore . The trailer for the second clever pairing of cats and dogs is here, bringing back the familiar voices of Alec Baldwin, The Green Mile, and the non-operatic Fratelli from Goonies , while Chris O’Donnell has taken on Jeff Goldblum’s role as Only Actor Willing to Actually Show His Face for Any Significant Length of Time. In short, it’s the Baby Geniuses 2: Superbabies of talking animal movies.

Good news if you like alliteration, fish, and The Green Mile flexing in an aura of wacky faces. There’s this new movie from the Broken Lizard people that appears to have all of those things! Here’s your trailer:

Before The Slammin’ Salmon , I wouldn’t have called myself a fan of the boys from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, though I have some mild, slightly embarrassed affection for Super Troopers and Club Dread . But Salmon is 90 minutes of truly inspired comic mayhem. With valuable assists from the rest of their cast, Broken Lizard has crafted the funniest film of SXSW - and they had some fine competition. I know I said that you can’t trust me , but trust me: this is great stuff. Broken Lizard is Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske and Kevin Heffernan. Heffernan directed and the entire troupe is credited for the screenplay. But in a shrewd move, The Slammin’ Salmon revolves around an outsider: Michael Clarke Duncan, who plays a boxer-turned-restaurant owner named Cleon Salmon, a.k.a. “The Champ.” In the best comedy tradition, the Champ combines dim-witted cluelessness with peerless confidence. That, combined with his enormous size, puts his employees in mortal fear of his wrath. So when, one evening, he announces that the waiter with the most sales gets $10,000 while the loser gets a “broken rib sandwich,” the waitstaff - led by their officious manager (Heffernan) - step to. Filed under: Comedy , SXSW , Theatrical Reviews Continue reading SXSW Review: The Slammin’ Salmon Permalink | Email this | Comments

While putting myself through the not good Street Figher: The Legend of Chun-Li , two aspects of the film seemed to merit particular note. The first would be Chris Klein’s astoundingly bad faux-macho performance as a swaggering Interpol officer (”Nash out!”); the second would be every other line of Michael Clarke Duncan ’s dialogue as big, bad Balrog. I bring this up because at any given moment, Duncan’s Balrog is given to let loose with a hearty chuckle, and he does this at many given moments, as if director Andrezj Bartkowiak was concerned that he might’ve been too stoic on all those other days of shooting and just wanted to cover his butt. I’ve already elicited some amusingly crude responses from pals, but even if you haven’t seen the movie, I would like you guys and girls to complete the following sentence: Every time Michael Clarke Duncan chuckles… (And “an angel gets its wings” is out of the running from the start. My game, my rules. Feel free to play off of that, though.) Filed under: Action , 20th Century Fox , Games and Game Movies Permalink | Email this | Comments

Happy Presidents Day! You’re present is a new batch of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li production stills ! I point them out not because they look any better than the rest of the mundane crap we’ve seen from this movie but, rather, because they’re so ridiculously mundane to the point of it being a joke. It’s like even the marketing team is trying to keep expectations abysmally low. What is this, Michael Clarke Duncan parallel parking? That’s almost as enticing as this shot of Bison sampling various fluids while staring directly at the camera. Or this one of Vega showing us his bare fist instead of the giant metal claw on his other hand. If this production releases any more photos, I’ll be shocked if they’re anything better than driver’s license photos.

What are they waiting for on the poster where the Street Fighter characters are literally jumping out of the arcade console to the delighted surprise of a pair of 14-year-old video game players? They have to know that’s what we want. Or at least what I want. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Poster [IMPA]

Since everyone was loving that Japanese version of the Street Fighter trailer from last week, here’s the higher quality English edition from IGN . Now you can truly hear the powerful narration describing the delicate balance between two primary forces in our universe. Good and evil? Light and dark? So you’d think! No, it’s beauty and terror. Those two are constantly at odds. The simultaneous existence of both Heidi Klum and Osama bin Laden is all that has kept our world from either plummeting into pure and utter terror or exploding in a makeup-filled rainbow of absolute beauty. That is why we must fight in streets to maintain that fragile equilibrium.