Editor’s Note: Normally it’s Landon Palmer hustling your brain through the mental gymnastics of popular culture and film theory, but he’s grading papers or something, so Cole Abaius is taking the reigns to drop kick your mind (instead of completely blowing it). Check back next week for the brilliance if you survive the completely adequate. It’s dark. Not the kind of dark where you strain to make out figures in the near distance or the kind of dark that sends a thrill through you in a movie theater. It’s the kind of darkness that your eyes never adjust to because there’s no light, and there never will be. I’m at the bottom of a cave near the small town of Bustamante, Mexico, and after passing graffiti from the 19th century, my friends and I have all decided to turn off our headlamps before heading into the grand hall. With the lights gone, the cool of the room becomes more tangible, and the walls begin to creep inward. Fortunately, this seems to be the latest trend in movie-making: shoving someone into the solitary confinement of life threatening danger, and seeing if they can work their way out.

Finally, after months and months of waiting for the next fad in Hollywood, it’s finally emerged: casting women who look hot in their underwear professionally as stars of action films. Apparently flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalog is easier than combing through head shots. Or whatever they’re doing gives a new meaning to the term “head shots.” Or some other tasteless joke. The point is that Brooklyn Decker has been cast in Universal’s big budget toy movie Battleship – in which a US Naval fleet has to defend the world from aliens…just like in the classic game! Decker is a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and has done shoots for Victoria’s Secret. Clearly, she’s good at what she does, but whether that will translate to the big screen when she has to move around and talk has yet to be seen. Keep your fingers crossed for the next announcement of a model turning actress so we can all rejoice in Michael Bay creating yet another trend in film. And for those who feel we’re blatantly chauvinistic for using that particular photograph of Decker – it was the most discrete we could find. [Latino Review]

Last night, my fiancee and I were walking into a screening of Grown Ups when we were bombarded by what might be the largest advertising lobby cutout we’ve ever seen. It was for The Expendables, and it’s awe-inspiring with slightly-larger-than-life cardboard version of Stallone, Li, Statham, Rourke, Willis, Lundgren, and Austin. Seven big men all towering over and silently inviting us to come see them kick ass.

Julian Shapiro gets angry and pinpoints exactly what’s destroying Hollywood – and Hollywood’s million-dollar potential for success – for audiences everywhere. And you won’t like him when he’s angry.

We’ve noticed a sudden drop in actual humans in movie posters. Are studios on the verge of sticking with a new trend in one sheets?

Since we’re primarily a film criticism website, we decided to write an editorial on why film critics are obsolete. Daring? Groundbreaking? Iconoclastic? Our vote is for Ridiculously Foolish.

Last Friday, Lisa Schwarzbaum of “Entertainment Weekly”, unleashed onto the world a brilliant thesis noting that romantic comedies are back, men are getting more sensitive, and asking the question: Are movie guys the new girls? Today, we here at FSR offer an answer: No.

I am sick and tired of this current trend of movie posters. Everyone complains about the repetitive nature of films these days, and the remake trend, and this and that – but it’s worse than even you know.