Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Gremlins 3 and the curse of the Sequel
There is not going to ever be a Gremlins 3. Gremlins 2 made sure of that with its royal fuck you to Hollywood. Thank god. Somethings are better left untouched. I am tired of all of these sequels that Hollywood is churning out. Doesn't matte rthough becuse I will still see them through squinted eyes with one hand covering them up and the other holding onto my pride. Somethings are better left untouched. A good movie is like a souffle. Such a rarity that it can be such a success but when that dough is in perfect form all you want to do is touch it. But what happens? It pops. All the air goes out of it and it becomes a pile of dough, or shit or whatever a souffle is made out of. Matrix is a great movie. until you watch the sequels. Then the magic is gone and the original idea becomes played out hackneyed and stupid. Some stories resolve themselves. Sure, Neo doesn't solve the matrix's problem it still looms large at the end but his problems are resolved and unless this was written as a trilogy there can be no sequels. Fuck Disney for shiting out sequels to beloved children's classics. Money smells worse than diapers. And fuck you too if you think you are going to touch Gremlins.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday Roundup
This is it folks, the last week of spring. Sure, spring started only about a month ago in celestial terms but the stars don't make movies. Next week is May and that means that today is the last Friday before the movies start to kick ass. Though some of you may have seen it already, I have not seen Wolverine and am waiting until it makes it to the big screen. Look at me, like a little kid excited for next week. This week's movie's are:
- The Soloist
- Fighting
- Obsessed
- Earth
- The Informers (limited)
- Tyson (limited)
- The Garden (limited)
- Il Divo (limited)
- The Mutant Chronicles
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wrong Side of the Bay
Crusing the blogs I keep hearing the third dimension referred to as a gimmick. This is to me a case of people being unable to step off of the stepping stones of a technique and embrace it for the boulder it is about to become. I have seen many movies in 3-D but the most notable one the most recent Coraline. In Coraline director Harry Selik absolves the former mistakes of 3-d gimmickry by creating something both beautiful and functional. Whiel there were the occasional objects angled in your direction the majority of the work was used to create perspective. It was done with the hope of illuiminating an imaginary world and turning it into something believeable. It became a much more sensory thrill and the expereicne was more dynamically enthralling. The 3-d did not exist to jolt you only to enable you to more fully imagine what the character on the screen was experiencing, or to better progress the story.
I have heard two directors refer to James Cameron's December 3-D release Avatar. The first is Michael Bay who called 3-D a gimmick. The second is Ridley Scott, whose work far surpasses that of Bay, who had seen the movie and called himself a convert. Many people are docking their ships of reason on the Bay Bay and they are wrong. Their anchors are too weighted by the past that they cannot embrace the potential opporutnities 3-D is about to afford them. Perhaps if they had seen Coraline they would understand.
I have heard two directors refer to James Cameron's December 3-D release Avatar. The first is Michael Bay who called 3-D a gimmick. The second is Ridley Scott, whose work far surpasses that of Bay, who had seen the movie and called himself a convert. Many people are docking their ships of reason on the Bay Bay and they are wrong. Their anchors are too weighted by the past that they cannot embrace the potential opporutnities 3-D is about to afford them. Perhaps if they had seen Coraline they would understand.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Will Wednesday Work Wonders for Warner Wizards?
Potter fans can watch their favorite literary teenagers deal with their darkest issues a few days early now that Warner Brothers has moved the release date of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince from Friday July 17th to Wednesday July 15th. The film is the second from writer-director team of Steve Kloves and David Yates who previously worked together on the most recent film in the series Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. That is not the only similarity Half Blood Prince will have to its predecessor, however, both films were released on a Wednesday summers day, which WB President Dan Fellman credits for turning the summer week into a five day set of Saturdays.
Wednesday releases historically rely on word of mouth to get more people to the theater by the time the weekend box office closes. It replaced the sneak preview for many audiences and has become the standard for many films that want to earn more during their opening weekend but need to rely on more days in the week. So does Warner Brothers feel it needs days of fan chatter to combat potential negative reviews?
Order of the Phoenix received the poorest reviews since the first Harry Potter film six years ago. Many critics found the film too short and claimed a cursory glance to some of the darker issues that Harry and the gang faced. Well, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the darkest book in the series and guess what, it has been given a PG rating.
On the other hand Order of the Phoenix set the record for a Wednesday release. But as Dan Fellman point out during the summer, people often have Thursdays free. And besides, Spiderman 3 set a record too. So does this move to Wednesday simply indicate that Warner Brothers wants to replicate its past success or does it indicate something a little more foreboding. Perhaps as Harry Potter grows older and the books become longer it becomes more difficult to balance the childhood fantasies with the adult themes. I certainly hope not because I am a fan of the series and the team of Kloves and Yates is riding the Hogwarts Express straight down the line. I’m sure I will see this movie Tuesday night at midnight but then again I like my Potter dark.
Wednesday releases historically rely on word of mouth to get more people to the theater by the time the weekend box office closes. It replaced the sneak preview for many audiences and has become the standard for many films that want to earn more during their opening weekend but need to rely on more days in the week. So does Warner Brothers feel it needs days of fan chatter to combat potential negative reviews?
Order of the Phoenix received the poorest reviews since the first Harry Potter film six years ago. Many critics found the film too short and claimed a cursory glance to some of the darker issues that Harry and the gang faced. Well, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the darkest book in the series and guess what, it has been given a PG rating.
On the other hand Order of the Phoenix set the record for a Wednesday release. But as Dan Fellman point out during the summer, people often have Thursdays free. And besides, Spiderman 3 set a record too. So does this move to Wednesday simply indicate that Warner Brothers wants to replicate its past success or does it indicate something a little more foreboding. Perhaps as Harry Potter grows older and the books become longer it becomes more difficult to balance the childhood fantasies with the adult themes. I certainly hope not because I am a fan of the series and the team of Kloves and Yates is riding the Hogwarts Express straight down the line. I’m sure I will see this movie Tuesday night at midnight but then again I like my Potter dark.
Teenaged Franchise Filled with Mutant Angst
Marvel franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner announced today that X-Men: First Class is not going to be a spin off but the beginning of another X-Men franchise. “It’s young Scott, young Jean, young Beast and that’ll be really fun,” she said. “The plan is to follow some of the characters into their own stories, and weave them back into the X-Men world. And hopefully First Class will become its own franchise and we can follow them as they grow up.”
Because the characters of X-Men: First Class, Beast, Angel, Iceman, Cyclops and Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), have already been portrayed at differing ages in the previous X-Men films, First Class will have to be not just a spin-off but a reboot.
Christopher Nolan gave us eight years to forget Batman and Robin before he rebooted the Batman franchise whereas X-Men: The Last Stand came out only three years ago. The Wolverine spin-off hasn’t been formally released yet and X-Men Origins: Magneto is still in the works to be made. Fox is certainly taking every opportunity it can to capitalize on their superhero property now that Marvel has its own production company and it is only a matter of time before the mutants get back where they belong.
I am a fan of superheroes as teenagers and an especially big fan of the comic series. Every time I have seen this done before, however, has been on a television show. Superman had Smallville, Batman had Batman Beyond and even the X-Men had X-Men: Evolutions. The serial quality of television works well at dealing with the melodrama of teenage angst, especially when that angst is coupled with new powers. Which leads me to believe that the films writer, Josh Schwartz will be able to script a quality film.
Schwartz earned the title of the youngest show-runner for a one hour drama while writing The OC and later adapted the teenage books, of the same name, into the hit series Gossip Girl. Likewise, this will not be his first time rebooting a series with a teenaged spin-off. The mother of one of the Gossip Girl characters is getting her own show, tracking her time as a troubled teen and starring Brittany Snow. The episodes that Schwartz writes are infused with a semi-satirical quality reminiscent of a young Cameron Crowe. Hopefully he can harness that quality into something that pays tribute to the genre of comic books while at the same time embracing the melodrama that made Raimi’s Spider-Man originally so strong.
Because the characters of X-Men: First Class, Beast, Angel, Iceman, Cyclops and Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), have already been portrayed at differing ages in the previous X-Men films, First Class will have to be not just a spin-off but a reboot.
Christopher Nolan gave us eight years to forget Batman and Robin before he rebooted the Batman franchise whereas X-Men: The Last Stand came out only three years ago. The Wolverine spin-off hasn’t been formally released yet and X-Men Origins: Magneto is still in the works to be made. Fox is certainly taking every opportunity it can to capitalize on their superhero property now that Marvel has its own production company and it is only a matter of time before the mutants get back where they belong.
I am a fan of superheroes as teenagers and an especially big fan of the comic series. Every time I have seen this done before, however, has been on a television show. Superman had Smallville, Batman had Batman Beyond and even the X-Men had X-Men: Evolutions. The serial quality of television works well at dealing with the melodrama of teenage angst, especially when that angst is coupled with new powers. Which leads me to believe that the films writer, Josh Schwartz will be able to script a quality film.
Schwartz earned the title of the youngest show-runner for a one hour drama while writing The OC and later adapted the teenage books, of the same name, into the hit series Gossip Girl. Likewise, this will not be his first time rebooting a series with a teenaged spin-off. The mother of one of the Gossip Girl characters is getting her own show, tracking her time as a troubled teen and starring Brittany Snow. The episodes that Schwartz writes are infused with a semi-satirical quality reminiscent of a young Cameron Crowe. Hopefully he can harness that quality into something that pays tribute to the genre of comic books while at the same time embracing the melodrama that made Raimi’s Spider-Man originally so strong.
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