Many, many, many people have complained about how Hollywood has run out of ideas. Of course, this is usually regarding the motion picture industry’s propensity of remaking old movies and TV shows, as well as adapting everything under the sun. The few original movies that make it to the theaters are breaths of fresh air in the stagnant gene pool that is the movie studio system. One upcoming movie, The Sitter, purports to be an original film with screenplay credit given to Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. The movie is directed by David Gordon Green, who made a splash making serious, though-provoking films like George Washington, All the Real Girls, and Undertow. Somehow, he segued into profane, R-rated sex and drug comedies like The Pineapple Express and Your Highness. The Sitter does not seem to be much different in that respect. The problem is, it looks like a remake of 1987’s The Adventures in Babysitting, which was Chris Columbus’s debut as a director from a screenplay by David Simkins. Continue Reading »
Battle of the Babysitters
Stephen King’s #1 Fans
There probably has been no other author in history that has had such a success in Hollywood as Stephen King. To date, over 30 movies plus countless sequels have been based on his novels or short stories (including The Lawnmower Man, which only stole the name of his story), plus King wrote Sleepwalkers directly for the screen. He even directed one movie (the less said about that the better). Sixteen TV movies and mini-series have been made from his work as well as five TV series; not to mention that he wrote episodes for The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Monsters, and Tales from the Darkside. His movies have been nominated for 15 Oscars, winning one for Kathy Bates in Misery. His TV shows and mini-series have been nominated for 30 Emmys, winning eight of them. There were even five Razzies (two, if you can believe it, for The Shining). His work has created some of the best horror movies ever made, including The Shawshank Redemption topping the IMDB voter’s list, and have generated some of the worst direct-to-video sequels. King loves film so much that he even licenses out certain short stories that he wrote to first time filmmakers for a dollar, which account for the seemingly endless number of short films made from his published stories. Continue Reading »
Releasing Movies – When Holiday Films Collide
Updated 11/24/11, original article published 11/23/11
The holiday movie season is upon us. Thanksgiving is one of the biggest times for people to go to the theater in the United States since most of us have a four-day weekend (excluding, among others, those who are forced to work in retail thanks to Black Friday sales). It’s no surprise that the Wednesday before our national holiday has several major releases vying for our well-earned dollars. Continue Reading »
How Cinematic Are the Star Trek Films?
As everyone knows, Star Trek began life as a TV series in the ’60’s that lasted three years. This was followed by a short-lived animated series that continued the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise, and a subsequent live-action show ended up transformed into the first big-screen adventure, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (though with ten sequels, the definitive article in the title has a sense of self-indulgence). Four more shows hit the television airwaves from 1987-2005, one of which (Star Trek: The Next Generation) spawned four of the feature films. While many TV shows were turned into movies, Star Trek is one of a few that retained the original cast and continued the story from one medium to another. One criticism of the motion pictures has targeted its television origins in the fact that many people find the movies too “TV-ish.” The question remains of exactly how cinematic these movies are. Continue Reading »
Dominion – An Alternate Prequel That Exorcises the Other One
The Exorcist series has had a strange, and some say cursed, history. The movies have gone from the best to the worst of what cinema has to offer, and has been a constant source of controversy. In the early 2000’s, a fourth film was made–and then re-made. These back-to-back films were prequels, telling of the early days of Father Merrin, who was played by Max Von Sydow in the first two movies of the series (even though the character died in the first). The version of the prequel that the studio didn’t want to release was released anyway as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, which tells an alternate story to the movie that was released theatrically, Exorcist: The Beginning. This is perhaps the first time in history that a remake has been released before the original. Continue Reading »
The Future of Star Wars
Image via Wikipedia
We live in a Star Wars culture. For nearly 35 years, this cinematic phenomenon has affected our society in more ways than it just being a movie series. It changed the entire motion picture industry, for instance. We’ve now had two generations weaned on the exploits of Luke Skywalker and friends with six movies, several animated series, a plethora of novels, countless toys, a number of video games, and even a religion created around Jedi mysticism. There’s also talk of a new live-action TV series, though typical of Lucasfilm projects, not much has been said of it over the last couple of years. Continue Reading »
‘Tis the Season for an Unappetizing Meal
Maybe I’ve lived in a cultural cocoon, but I have now been introduced to an apparent Thanksgiving tradition that’s gone back for a couple hundred years in one form or another. Of course, I’m talking about the turducken. This is a meaty treat that’s a composition of turkey, duck, and chicken (TUrkey-DUCK-chickEN).
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