Yesterday afternoon, as your Uncle Grambo was making his way from a haircut at Frank’s Chop Shop to meet The Senator at Georgia’s Eastside BBQ in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I happened upon quite the ruckus at the corner of Orchard and Stanton. Not only was debris strewn all over the street, but giant boulders appear to have crushed a Ford Taurus. I’ll admit, my first instinct was to panic a little bit on the inside. But that feeling subsided when I saw someone approach one of the boulders and begin painting it. It was then I realized that we stumbled upon a movie set.

In an attempt to do some actual man-on-the-strizz journalism, your Uncle Grambo asked a few gents what movie was filming there. All I got from the union dudes were shrugs and ehs. But then, I spotted a permit that said the production was being shot by Paramount Pictures and was called “Cheese” (see photo below). Cheese? Methinks not. Although I can’t verify this, my guess is that the street was prepping for a night shoot of the Untitled JJ Abrams project, aka Cloverfield, aka 1-18-08, aka Monstrous (please don’t let it be Monstrous). I say buzz.

(Pics courtesy of The Senator’s camera phone)

UPDATE (2:45PM): Curbed is reporting that ZOMBIES attacked this same stretch of road late last night! Also, a commenter over at Gothamist thinks that the movie might be a live-action version of the `80s rock ‘em sock ‘em arcade classic Rampage. Hadn’t heard that rumour yet, but if it proves to be true, can’t wait to see that monster werewolf!

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…exactly what Perrey Reeves is doing to earn her brand-new spot in the opening credits of Entourage, anyway? How many scenes has she been in this season, like three? SHOW US YOUR TITS ALREADY! (…again.)

RELATED: How come Rex Lee (aka, Lloyd) doesn’t warrant any opening credit buzz? Are Executive Producers Mark Wahlberg and Doug Ellin HBOmophobes or somethin?

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Let’s face it, the offerings presented to us at the cineplex this summer have either been really sucky (Pirates 3, Potter, Oceans) or really meh (Transformers, Knocked Up, Hot Fuzz). And while I would wholeheartedly encourage every member of the FOW Nation to get out and see flicks like Sunshine, Live Free or Die Hard, Ratatouille and 1408, there’s really only been one must-see movie to hit theaters in the last few months — Once.

This low-budget indie film, which debuted to raves at the Sundance Film Festival back in January, compassionately details the blossoming relationship between an Irish busker (Glen Hansard, lead singer of The Frames) and a Czech maid (Marketa Irglova) struggling to make ends meet in present-day Dublin. Not only does the film turn the entire concept of the movie musical on its ear (best soundtrack evs!), the chemistry between the film’s two leads crackles and pops in a way that I haven’t felt since Ewan McGregzies used the words of Bernie Taupin to seduce Nicole Kidman (in Moulin Rouge, natch). And if you don’t believe your Uncle Grambo, the film scores a whopping 97% Fresh rating on the Tomatometer, so it’s got that going for it.

All of which leads me to this. Thanks to some last-minute shenanigans that my friend Penny was able to pull, your Uncle Grambo was able to score a ticket to last night’s sold-out show from The Swell Season at the Gramercy Theater. If you are unfamiliar, The Swell Season is the name that the aforementioned Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform under. Armed only with a beaten up acoustic guitar (the one from the film!) and a Yahama keyboard, the two real-life lovebirds (along with a backup keyboardist) performed a dazzling set of songs from the Once soundtrack to a rapturous crowd last night (one that included SNL’s Jason Sudeikis and the one yuppie scum dude from the Dawn Of The Dead remake). It’s been a long while since your Uncle Grambo been to a rock show with 1,500 other people who showed such adoration and respect for the evening’s performers — it was so quiet in there that, during the songs, you could HEAR THE AIR CONDITIONING UNIT rattling slightly somewhere backstage.

This was the first time that Glen and Marketa have performed in concert since the limited theatrical release of Once, and it was obvious from the get-go that the two were slightly stunned by the fans’ overwhelmingly positive reactions both to the movie and their music. While I won’t reveal any spoilers about the goings-on in the movie, I can say that seeing these two interact with each other on stage was a perfect (and almost necessary) coda to the film. They brought the same kind of passion and intensity to their performance last night that they did in the film, which fans of the film will attest is next to impossible to do. Whether they were performing key songs from the film like “Falling Slowly” and “When Your Minds Made Up” or covering tracks like The Pixies’ “Cactus” or Van Morrison’s “Into The Mystic,” the two could do no wrong in the audience’s eyes. Although the tour that they are headed out on will be brief, your Uncle Grambo HIGHLY suggests that you hit that shit up if their show comes through your town. Even if you haven’t seen Once yet, I guaran-god-damn-tee it will be the best show you see this summer.

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Sorry to have left you, the loyal FOW Nation, in the lurch for the last couple of weeks. It’s not that your Uncle Grambo doesn’t care for you or, worse yet, that I fell out of love with The Blogosphere™. Quite the opposite, in fact — it’s just that the last two weeks of inactivity here on whatevs (dot org) are the direct result of my new project at Video Hits One taking flight. While I can’t go into too many details at this point (other than the fact that we’ve been writing our new site for the last two weeks), the good news is this: we should be launching one of our hyper-programmed verticals sometime before month’s end. When that time comes, you’ll be the first to know it. Not only will you be able to read your Uncle Grambo rant all day, every day, I’ll also be popping by here at a schedule still-to-be-determined (likely 3-5x per week). So yeah, um, I guess I got that going for me.

So yeah, I’m sure by now you’ve all seen Spidey 3 (aiight), Pirates 3 (durst!) and Knocked Up (pretty tigs). But unless you’re crazed magills like moi, you’ve almost certainly NOT seen Bug. Which is a shame, really, because I haven’t seen anything this crazed since the last time I saw El Topo. In the grand tradition of darkly depressing druggie movies like Permanent Midnight and Requiem For A Dream, Bug revolves around characters who have already been dealt a bad hand by life, characters that the audience immediately recognizes are teetering on the precipice between maintaining status quo or sliding sharply into deep, deep trouble (Bart Simpson steez). Not only should leads Ashley Judd (playing WAY against character as a washed-out, part-time lesbian cokehead) and Michael Shannon (pictured above) get some SERIOUS consideration when the 2008 Awards Season rolls around (not kidding), director Billy Friedkin makes like its the 1970s all over again by turning in his first bravura film since The Exorcist. Really. Not only does he work in more close-ups than you’ve seen since manning the microscope in earth science class, he manages to fill every square inch of the dingy motel room that Judd and Shannon hole themselves up in with a tension not really felt on the big screen since Linklater shot Tape. And if you’ve seen Tape, you know that’s really saying something.

If you’re anything like your Uncle Grambo and you’ve been jonesing all year for something original, something vibrant, something BEST from the movies, this is the film that you’re looking for. Swear to Jer.

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Those crafty, crafty stoners graphic designers over at the DetNews have redefined journalistic synergy with the intricately rendered (and photorealistic!) CGI computer graphics they put together for their BREAKTHROUGH story on how your blog/MySpace profile can come back to haunt you during your next job search. Take a long gander at the graphic of what appears to be some illegitimate child of Bill Walton standing in front of a giant marijuana leaf on the computer screen in the image above. Then, re-read the story’s lede. Anything catch your eye? Like, maybe, “Weed out”? Clearly, this is the work of someone equally versed with the work of both J. Spicoli and J. Jonah Jameson. Brills.

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