Sometimes, choosing the right movie for the weekly DVD drinking game is a tough decision. Other times, it comes as naturally as breathing. This week, we breathe in the Christmas goodness of the latest Harold & Kumar movie and enjoy its raunchy silliness. Yeah, we know Christmas was a couple months ago, but who says you need to have tinsel on your tree to watch this movie? These guys may not be known for following the rules, but here’s a slate of rules you’ll enjoy following while you watch the film. Just don’t try anything too strong, or you might end up like Thomas Lennon’s on-screen child. And no one wants that, do they?

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr grabs a protest sign and a test so he can occupy something. All the big cities are taken, so he decides to Occupy Hollywood, but being one of the 99%, he can’t afford a plane ticket from Ohio to California. So, he occupies his local multiplex, squatting in the front of their biggest screen. There, he has a chance to check out the loosely-related Tower Heist and later drinks some spiked egg nog and wanders into a later screening of A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. At least that’s what he’s telling the authorities.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is the world’s first interracial stoner buddy holiday comedy to be presented in the third dimension. It’s sure to be the last, too. A twin celebration of the joys of yuletide and bong rips, the flick is an appropriately manic and thoroughly nonsensical entrant in the popular trilogy that’s celebrated the joys of White Castle in one movie and condemned Guantanamo Bay in the next. This Christmas takedown is a one-time only feat, a symphony of pristine ridiculousness. You go into a Harold & Kumar flick expecting a heavy dose of weed-tinged surrealism, and director Todd Strauss-Schulson, working with the familiar team of writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, doesn’t disappoint. This is a madcap farce that sends the now estranged heroes (John Cho and Kal Penn) on a frantic Christmas Eve journey into New York City to find a replacement tree.

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was a small and unassuming comedy that happened to be pretty damn funny. John Cho and Kal Penn have some fantastic chemistry together, and that combined with some fairly sharp writing and a brilliantly conceived cameo by Neil Patrick Harris made it a winner. The sequel from 2008 saw the boys go to Guantanamo Bay, and while it was bigger in scope it was a bit smaller in laughs. Harris was still hilarious, and the movie did feature a bottom-less party scene which I had hoped would catch on both in other films and in my life (sadly it was not to be), but it seemed the magic of that first pairing was lost. But now, seven years after we first met this rascally duo they’re off on a new adventure. And it all starts when Harold murders Santa Claus… Check out the trailer below courtesy of Yahoo Movies.

It’s no surprise that Sony Pictures has gone ahead and scheduled the inevitable sequel to The Smurfs (hey, at least they waited until the first film was in theaters). The second Smurf-venture will smurf into theaters on Smurfgust 2, 20smurfteen. Sorry, I got some blue stuck in my throat — The Smurfs sequel (Smurf-quel? Fine, calling it now) will arrive in theaters on August 2, 2013. Smurf on. The Smurfs beat Cowboys & Aliens during opening weekend, and already stands at a worldwide gross of $135m over just eleven days in release. The film cost an estimated $110m to make, so while that profit margin isn’t huge as of yet, the film will have legs (little tiny ones, clad in little tiny white pants) outside the US, as The Smurfs already opened in first place in twenty-three international markets just last weekend. I have not yet seen the film, because I like to watch films that don’t hurt my eyes or offend my childhood. There are no other films currently scheduled for the August release date, so it looks like that particular date should remain firmly in their little blue-handed grasps. Thor 2 is scheduled to open the week before, and the only kid-targeted fare currently on deck within a month of the Smurf-quel is Despicable Me 2, reportedly opening on July 3. Just cede control over the Smurfs now (sigh). The sequel currently only has Jordan Kerner set to return as producer, but I’m willing to hold my breath [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr runs screaming from little blue people invading his life and seeks refuge in the old west, hoping that James Bond and Indiana Jones will protect him. When he returns home, he has a fight with his wife and uses the events of Crazy, Stupid, Love to put his relationship back together. What a godsend Hollywood can be for marriage woes. Finally, Kevin curls up for a long nap after an exhausting summer movie season with many more arrests than he ever thought he’d incur.

What is Movie News After Dark? Well, it ain’t afraid of no ghosts. That’s for sure. Tonight’s top story is that Paramount Pictures (via Yahoo) has released a gallery of new images from Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The above image shows Optimus Prime kneeling before his mentor, Sentinel Prime (to be voiced by Leonard Nimoy). The entire gallery can be found at /Film. Just know that most of the other images focus on the humans, and that’s boring.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; if this is your first time, you have to fight. Despair all ye who accidentally stumbled upon this column while searching for information on junk bonds, food poisoning, and/or Cinema Paradiso. Instead you found the weekly internet column that celebrates the cheesiest, the corniest, and the hammiest that Hollywood has to offer. Every Friday I serve up a not-so-great movie and pick apart its faults until only the greasy carcass remains. But then I fashion that carcass into an unsightly headdress which I then don as an embarrassing testament to my love for said movie. As if this weren’t obnoxious enough, I will then pair the film with an appropriately terrible-for-you snack that will wreak havoc upon your insides as the movie cannibalizes your IQ. This week’s treat: Starship Troopers

This is a question that speaks to the very core of our humanity. How is it possible that trailers have been made that are even worse, more moronic, awkwardly craven, and less funny than the brutal marketing assault that hit us during Operation Yogi Bear? Who would do this to us? What did we do to deserve this? How do we make it stop? Why is it going after our children? Cynicism and sarcasm aside, this trailer for The Smurfs might be the single worst piece of film marketing I’ve ever seen in my life. No hyperbole. Not only do jokes not land, they hang in the air begging to be noticed. The events in it are nonsensical to the point that we should all be medically concerned for whomever cut it together. It just all looks so lazy and low-rent. What’s worse, they’ve made Neil Patrick Harris do some exceedingly lame physical comedy that looks like it’s aimed at dog-levels of intelligence. Filmmakers, feel free to dumb things down if you must, but at least keep it inside the species. The horror, the horror…

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr gets an added dose of tiger’s blood and Adonis DNA to make it through all the movie-watching he endures. He bats about .500 in his screenings, really liking some but struggling through others. After a visit to the wild west of Rango, he finds his fate adjusted by a mysterious fleet of men with stylish hats. Then, he realizes how ugly Number Four really is before staying out all night, drinking with Topher Grace and Teresa Palmer… who looks a lot like Number Six.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr is all giddy because he’s been invited to a “Dinner for Winners” (though no one has the heart to tell him it’s really a Dinner for Schmucks). He also puts on his 3D glasses to take a gander at some furry spies in Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Finally, he squeals with excitement about the new Zefron film, but then weeps uncontrollably because Universal didn’t screen it in advance for him.

Good news of the day. We’ve been talking about Harold and Kumar 3 quite a bit lately thanks to a recent Twitter kerfuffle between John Cho and Patton Oswalt. And now thanks to an update from one of the franchise’s other stars, we know that Neil Patrick Harris will make his triumphant return to the world of traveling stoners.

There’s a scene (video below) midway through the Doris Day-Rock Hudson romantic comedy Pillow Talk (1959) that has always fascinated me. Through the benefit of hindsight, it’s impossible to watch the scene as it was viewed contemporaneous to its release.

One particularly interesting piece of foolish propaganda from yesterday’s April Fool’s rally was this poster for the yet to be scripted, yet untitled and wholly ambiguous concept that is the next Batman movie. It involves Neil Patrick Harris, so pay attention.

Finally someone has the brass buttons it takes to hunt down those little bastards and cook them in some sort of stew.

Mike Fleming over at Deadline is reporting that How I Met Your Mother star and all-around man of the people Neil Patrick Harris (NPH to his friends) has signed on to star alongside a bunch of little blue dudes in The Smurfs, the Raja Gosnell (Scooby-Doo) directed adaptation of the famous kids cartoon.

In spite of the fact almost nothing was screened for them this week, Kevin and Neil meet in the Magical Studio in the Sky to not talk about movies. Instead, they discuss Kevin being a near body double for Taylor Lautner, Neil’s homoerotic fantasies about Neil Patrick Harris and how to tweet in Klingon. tIv cha’!

…In the animated series Batman: The Brave And The Bold.

It’s been a year of comebacks, so we decided to take a look at a few stars who’ve made it all the way back from the void and a few that haven’t.

I know that most of you hate it when we get into politics here on FSR, but lets just consider this a work of comedy and move on with our lives.