20th Century Fox recently revealed the title to the 5th film in the Die Hard series: A Good Day to Die Hard. It’s always good to see a sequel that doesn’t go for the easy way out and just slap a number at the end of the original title. However, with the number of cheesy titles this series has had, you’d think George Lucas was naming them. The first sequel was officially given the title of Die Hard 2, but confusion with the tag line had a lot of people referring to it as Die Harder. Of course, the tag line is silly but works as a marketing tool as it was intended; as a movie title it would be ridiculous. What would the third be, Die Harest? No, as it turns out, it was the awkwardly-named Die Hard With a Vengeance. When that came out, it left people scratching their heads. It sort of made sense, even if it was giggle-inducing. It had the original’s title in it, which is always a good thing as it reminds audiences what series it’s part of. It also had to do with the plot of the movie, which initially seemed to be about revenge (though, of course, was actually about greed as all of John McClane’s adventures are). Continue Reading »
Bizarre Films by Prominent Directors
When you think of a given director, a certain type of movie usually comes to mind. If you say Tim Burton, immediately you think of a twisted world filled with pasty-skinned people with wild hair usually played by Johnny Depp. With Michael Bay, you get ‘sploidy things that go boom. But when you say Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, John Ford, or Walt Disney, you may be surprised at what you get. Continue Reading »
Most Annoying Things About the 2012 Presidential Race
Any time you turn on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or the major network news shows, there’s a good chance that you’ll be hearing about the 2012 Presidential election (HLN doesn’t count because all they broadcast is this week’s trial of the century). Everyone knows politics is dirty. The country’s in a mess so the Republicans blame President Obama and Obama blames Bush. That’s typical, as this kind of finger-pointing has been going on for centuries. But the continual coverage of the race has shown some especially irritating points. In particular, how the candidates have used (or attempted to use) the media, and how the media has manipulated the candidates in return in addition to some simply goofy things unique to this contest. Continue Reading »
Dear Cable TV – I Don’t Care About Dancing with the Stars
When did the results of a reality/game show become breaking news? It seems that lately every time I turn on TV, in particular certain cable TV networks, all they want to discuss is the latest details of what happened on Dancing with the Stars. I don’t watch that show, I have no interest in watching that show, and I do not want to hear about that show. It doesn’t matter if Nancy Grace is appearing on it and that she happens to be an HLN personality. Fine, HLN can mention it once as a way of promoting one of their own, but for CNN and Fox News to report it as well is just too much. Does it matter that transsexual Chazz Bono is on it and that certain religious groups are upset? That warrants one story. One. Continue Reading »
Paranormal Activity vs. TrollHunter
Fads in movies are curious things. Everyone complains that there’s no originality in Hollywood, and yet when a truly unique film or filmmaking technique comes out, everyone is quick to just on the bandwagon to make their own version of it. Audiences are just as much to blame, because they consume the imitators as readily as the studios are to churn our these facsimiles . Lethal Weapon is a huge hit, suddenly every other movie is a buddy cop adventure. Big was big, so we’re inundated with body switching films. American Pie was a runaway success, lo and behold we have a new slew of teenage sex comedies. Currently, we’re living in a time of “found footage” movies where to conceit is that some “real” people filmed video of a horrendous, usually supernatural, occurrence that resulted in a dismal end for our heroic videographers, and sometime later their footage was found and edited together as the movie we’re now seeing. The Blair Witch Project successfully pioneered that concept, artfully confusing everyone as to whether or not it was real or fiction. More than a decade later, that genre is going strong with varying results. Even George Romero got in on this trend. Continue Reading »
Plot Is Determined by Setting
The plot of any story is driven by the choices its protagonist makes. However, the other major factor that affects the plot is the setting–the time and location the story takes place. Not much thought is given to setting of movies in general; if a movie uses a contemporary setting, then it’s obvious that it’s now and where ever the production happens to be located. We’ve gotten used to seeing the suburbs of Los Angeles to represent Anywhere, USA. If a movie is a period piece or a genre like horror, science fiction, or fantasy, then setting becomes more important. Obviously, Marty McFly travels back in time in Back to the Future, thereby changing the setting. The town of Hill Valley is as much a character as any of the humans. Setting should be considered for all movies, not just specific ones. Continue Reading »
How Important Is Theme?
When asked, “What’s Moby Dick about?” you can answer in two ways: 1) it’s about an old sea-captain searching for the whale that took his leg years ago; 2) it’s about how obsession can destroy you. The first answer refers to the plot of the story while the second comments on its theme. Everyone knows that the plot is important (after all, how many times has someone seen a movie and said, “That film had no plot”), but how important is the theme? Theme is one of those vague concepts that rarely gets discussed outside an English Lit class, and certainly no one running movie studios is ever concerned with it. It’s the story’s message or moral statement–the underlying identity of what it’s trying to tell the world. Continue Reading »
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