Lately, all Hollywood seems interested in is re-imagining stuff. Taking long established franchises and beloved property, these geniuses are out to remake the world in their own image, in their own eyes. Now, while this is exactly the reason that I hate movies sometimes, it’s also the reason I love movie posters.
Specifically, with a re-imagining of popular movie posters as minimalist design concepts, the recent wave of new minimal looking art is my new favorite Google search obsession. Here is a smattering of my favorite minimalist movie and TV show posters. Heavy on the design, light on the clutter, these zen like images are both simple and superb. Let’s start.
Well, my fascination for this began some years ago with Oakland artist Jason Munn, the man behind the Small Stakes. He began some years ago drafting up hand made silk screened posters for concerts and bands. They’re simple, but memorable pieces.
The prints all encompass the three main reasons I love this style.
1. A pattern that is pleasing and simple
2. A measured precision and emotional resonance
3. A clever idea, design, or illustration
But, the reason I’m writing this is because of the influx of minimalist designs of movie posters, TV shows and the like. Here are my favorites.
These are from artist Ibraheem Youssef, who has given all of Tarantino’s films the minimalist treatment.
Artist Jamie Bolton takes the Back to the Future Trilogy and depicts it in graphic purity. Amazing.
Artist Olly Moss does a bunch of different design work, here’s a sampling from his “Eight Movies in Black and Red” series.
Now, for some TV representations, we turn to master minimalist Albert Exergian. He may be the most pure of the minimal designer, with works that often incorporate only 2 to 4 colors and little to no lines. Here are some of my favorite shows depicted by Exergian.
Well, I think that’s enough pictures for now. I just love how in-elaborate and yet creative these all are. Are there others I missed? Let me know.
So starts a new venture, where I attempt to fight off the pains of last night’s drinking with a film from director Peter Hyams. Today’s feature is the 1997 monster schlock, the Relic.
You know this movie's going to suck, they released it in January!
You see, when I’m hungover from tossing back a bottle of (for some reason last night) white wine, I want to watch a movie. But I don’t want to be bothered with great cinema, or interesting cinema, or even coherent cinema. The best sure fire cure for the shakes and aches is some Grade D movie making from the most surefire hack on the planet, Peter Hyams. The man has made a career of underwhelming, under performing, unintentionally hilarious dramas and sci fi. This time around he adapts, with the help of no less than four credited screenwriters, a very good horror novel from the two man writing team of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
I actually read the Relic about 12 years ago, and even as a kid I thought it was pretty silly. The novel held up as well as any minor Stephen King story would (i.e. the Mist, Dreamcatcher) but I can’t say I remember a goddamn thing from the book at this point apart from the most basic plot elements.
Now, the real reason why this movie is perfect for hangovers is that, first and most importantly, it’s dark. And I don’t mean it’s “a harrowing journey into the nether regions of man’s soul” dark. I mean it’s so poorly lit, so carelessly shot, so dimly staged that half the movie takes place in almost complete darkness. It’s great. I don’t even have to keep my eyes open for most of this thing, I won’t be missing much at all.
Our story begins in the Amazon presumably, as some smarmy looking photographer is snapping shots of this tribe in a ritual of some sort. Hyams uses all the stereotypes here to get the message across, as we see this white man being given and accepting a soup made with these particular leaves. He sucks it down without a thought and promptly hallucinates. You can always spot the Nat Geo rookies.
Cut to a ship, docked but leaving. That photographer is on the ship looking for something in a crate that’s destined for the Chicago Natural History Museum. He doesn’t find it, but we can assume he travels with the ship to America. Though how the ship is then found in Lake Michigan with the crew dead, when it took off from South America, MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL.
Cut to Chicago, where the museum has just received some crates containing the same leaves and a relic. Well, I guess it’s the relic from the movie title, as it’s the only one featured in this movie. And guess what? The relic is of this ancient monster believed to be the spawn of Satan himself. Here Hyams takes the term foreshadowing and turns it into overshadowing, with all the film making 101 tricks he’s probably kept in his “ideas” notebook.
Enter our resident hottie scientist, played by Penelope ‘where is she now?’ Ann Miller, doesn’t go for all the hokey son of the devil kind of nonsense. She argues with her higher ups about the dangers of using superstition as science just to attract crowds to their desperately underfunded museum..which in the very next shot is holding a new exhibition cleverly entitled “Superstition.” The very next shot.
Speaking of which, Chicago’s Natural History Museum is literally overtaken by children running, not walking, to see all the sciencey crap. This includes one of the lamest sidetracks in movie history, as two kids sneak into the museum while playing hooky, only to stay the entire day and get locked in overnight. We get the idea that these two are goners for about 8 seconds before they’re found, alive and well. Completely pointless scene.
But you know who does get it? The black guy. That’s right, Hyams wastes little time getting to the dope smoking black security guard who gets hauled out of the bathroom stall he’s toking up in and gets ripped apart by an unseen beast.
I hope you like decapitations, cause this is the first of about two dozen in this flick. Seems the beast rips open the head and eats the hypothalamus, to get at certain hormones it needs to survive and also evolve. Though how an evolutionary biologist like Miller could call this creature’s continual mutation “evolution” is infuriatingly stupid. And yes, there is more, much more, banal science sounding babble in this movie than any fictional piece of work is allowed to ramble through. DNA this, fungus that. We don’t get what you’re saying! You know why I’m not a scientist? Because I don’t care about that shit. No one is interested in the little microscopic discoveries. Just get get to the fucking monster ripping off some heads!
is...is that a fu manchu?
Tom Sizemore shows up to investigate, has a thing for Miller, threatens to shut the museum down, which of course would cancel the big gala opening of the exhibit, which they can’t afford to not have, blah blah blah. Basically the movie really exists to set us up for the movable feast of tuxedos and gowns in the final act. And thankfully it’s a gloriously cheap and absurd farce of mid-nineties CG and long awaited come uppings. All the stuffed shirts freaking out and running headlong into plate glass displays and tumbling, downright rolling down the museum steps was one of the funniest mass hysteria moments ever put to film. And this clip of the SWAT team members is easily of the most uproariously inane sequences in history.
And now I have to again enforce how sparsely lit this whole movie is. The vaults of priceless artifacts are traversed under one blinking fluorescent bulb. The tunnels(?) underneath the museum are pitch black. Half this movie is literally two flashlights dancing around in a dizzying array of “what’s that?” and “who’s there?” moments that invariably turn out to be red herrings and trick scares. I swear, every Hyams movie has an obligatory cat jumping out at you scene. Not one new idea or technique is used here.
After a while, I realize that the Relic is not an ideal hangover movie. It’s got a lot of gooey body fluid type moments, a lot of flashing lights and yelling. It’s also got one freaky looking monster, like the Predator crossed with a lion. A twist I saw coming a mile away, novel or no novel. An ending confrontation that makes Alien 3 look subdued, and basically just a bunch of stupid characters doing stupid things.
After almost two hours, my headache is still pounding, my eyes are still stinging, my stomach is still turning back flips. The Relic did not work. I guess next time I’ll have to try a different Hyam’s cure. Maybe Outland? Maybe End of Days? Hopefully not Timecop. Probably Stay Tuned. Oh man, on second thought? Please not Stay Tuned.
A few years back, I was an addicted Lost fan like the rest of the country. I followed the survivors of Oceanic 815 with fevered dedication and wild speculation. Then, after a dismal and infuriating third season, I left the camp for good. Or so I thought.
Now like the island itself, Lost has lured me back and overtaken my better judgment to become a renewed obsession. All it took was for the show to take my advice and finally end, or at least promise to end. Once I saw a finish line, I knew that I had to see it through. Having already covered half of this episodic insanity, I couldn’t not stay away.
So for the past week, it’s been nothing but Lost season 4 and 5, and now the premiere of the 6th and final run. I admit, I’m surprised the show would actually end, God knows it could keep going at least another three years or so, like the X-files before it. Kudos to Lost for not drawing it out any further.
But, at this point there are still more unanswered questions and new characters than we can possibly keep track of or even comprehend. And things just keep getting more mysterious. Seasons 4 and 5 largely covered the story of Ben and Charles Widmore, the two powerful mean at odds with each other. It also traced a history of the Dharma Initiative and John Locke’s road to bringing back the Oceanic Six. All well and good, but we’ve yet to be told the whole story- about this and many other plot lines and characters. It’s so confusing, with the jumps in time, the flash forwards, back and forth. Someone needs to put this mess in order, chronologically if nothing else.
So this next rant is a quick roundup of my understanding with more hypothesis and conjecture than any kind of real info. I’m just going on what I’ve gotten so far. I’m probably way off, but let me take a stab at it.
A brief history of the island:
So this island is obviously a place outside of normal boundaries of space and time. The fact that it can move through both indicates that it exists outside of each, independent of them.
There was an ancient civilization, something akin to the Aztecs or Eygptians that lived and built monuments on the island. These monuments include the temple and the giant statue. I presume this civilization knew of the spring that supposedly heals and allows for longevity, since the temple is built around it.
On the island lived Jacob and another man. They were there before the Spanish ship that wrecked hundreds of years ago. These two men seem to be higher powers, fallen angels or semi-gods of some sort with a certain level of omnipotence and zen like serenity. They live together on the island, though the other man wants Jacob dead. But he must find a loophole. This leads me to think that they are bound by rules. Bound by the island itself or a power even higher than they themselves at least.
The others we have been following so long are most likely originally from that Spanish ship, at least the ones guarding the temple. They probably took it from the original inhabitants or found it abandoned. They know of Jacob, so it’s safe to say he contacted them, and they have been following his lead ever since. Whether or not the others that Ben lead were in cooperation with the temple group or not is unclear.The others have also been regularly taking in new members, like Ben himself. They live on the island and combat any other outsiders who stumble upon it, either fighting or kidnapping and indoctrinating them into their own society.
Now, fifty years back, someone else found the island, and began the Dharma Initiative. Whoever they are, they knew of the island’s power, but viewed it in a scientific (or modern if you will) viewpoint, rather than the mystical (or ancient) view the others take. The conflict between the Dharma people and the others results in both the incident, now replaced by Juliet detonating the bomb, and the slaughter of the entire Dharma team. The others take up residence in the Dharma houses, but their act has put them at odds with the island. No babies are born, and it’s the island’s doing.
See how long I’ve gone on… and I haven’t even mentioned the crash (or not) of Oceanic 815, the event that started it all. I haven’t mentioned that some escape the island, only to be called back. That all these people experience displacement in time. That some of them join the Dharma team in the past and live among them.
What about how Jacob is killed by Ben under orders from the other man, having taken on a dead John Locke’s form, thus finding his loophole. That the other man is in fact the smoke monster, and that he wants to “go home.” That there’s freakin’ polar bears and hatches, a second airplane crash and an underwater alternative. I haven’t even gotten into any of that and already I’m spent.
Lost is, if nothing else and without a doubt, the most exhausting show on television. It takes you down and drags you out like no other. Having been involved in a five day marathon bender of the last 30 plus episodes, I can tell you that the show still holds tremendous power over me, and even though it’s all stopped making too much sense, I still want to know what they’re going to pull next week. I still want to know. Then I want to go back to real life and never speak of it again. Seriously. Never.
You know what’s great about 1980’s sci-fi films? When they’re great, they’re really great. When they’re terrible, they’re really terrible. Such is Runaway. A “futuristic” look at robots who malfunction and the police squad dedicated to taking them out.
As far as futuristic visions go, Terminator this ain’t. Hell, it’s not even A.I. material. The robots featured are standard household appliances and office copiers that move around and speak, and then go batshit insane and kill everything that moves. Somehow I’m already seeing problems here.
Our hero is Sgt. Jack Ramsay, played by Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck. Unfortunately, Selleck puts in zero of his usual humor and charm to his character, so instead of a fun filled adventure, we get monotonous scene after scene after scene of 1)robot goes crazy 2)Selleck comes in with a flashlight 3)robot kills stupid TV camera man who didn’t listen to Selleck 4)Selleck shoots the bot and saves the baby. Repeat.
There’s an evil madman chip programmer, basically a nerd with a grudge, who is sabotaging these robots and it’s up to Selleck and his new leggy partner to stop him. All the usual action scenes are played out with a classic 80’s soundtrack and things go exactly as we expect them to. Only, you know, crappier.
Right off the bat there is a failure of basic logic in this movie. Take Selleck’s own robot for starters. He calls it Lois. First of all, you do NOT name your robot. This thing looks like a stereo cabinet with arms for God’s sake. Why are you holding a conversation with it?
It cooks and cleans, and follows his son around, but all it does is boil pasta noodles and tattles on the kid like some kind of C-3PO nanny. What good is this thing really? You even have to give it a daily menu before it cooks your food and shit. Waste of time.
So now, how again did these robots even become so popular? I tell you, the first time a Roomba Vacuum kills a kid, those things are off the market. When we have to assign cops to robot disposal, it’s gone too far. If you tell me, hey this robot will boil water, but sometimes they lose it and cut your family up, well-I’ll boil my own water thank you very much.
Also, why the hell is there an entire police squad dedicated to this? Complete with offices, chain-mail body armor, helicopters and the full nines, it’s a total mis-use of public funds when presumably there are still actual human beings out there committing crimes. But then again, these shitty robots malfunction so much, daily it would seem, that I suppose it’s become needed.
And why are the cops called Runaways? I understand that’s the term for the robots once they go rogue, but the cops? Shouldn’t they have a useful acronym or something? And, just so you know, these robots don’t actually run away. They go nutso and kill. Very different things here, people.
Remember kids, the quickest way to disgruntle a robot is menial labor.
Basically this is just about the laziest sci-fi film that Michael Crichton could have come up with. Oh, yea. I forgot. Michael “Jurassic Park” Crichton wrote and directed this thing. He had done another admittedly decent robot flick, Westworld, in the 70’s. But this time around, he goes for more of a evil dishwasher kind of feel.
Aaahh! Kill it! Kill it! Get a shoe!
Here is a prime example of laziness. At one point, Selleck’s at a construction site. Humans and robots working side by side, but there’s a sign that reads “Warning. Robots not equipped with human sensors.” Well, somebody ought to fucking equip them then, don’t you think? What kind of a world do we live in where robots are given welding tools and cement mixers but no sensors to detect humans around them? Are you kidding me?
The foreman even boasts the benefits of the robots, all while one of his own “stacking bots” has gone nuts and is dumping 50 lb. bags of concrete off the 14th floor. It doesn’t make any sense, and just having signs around contradicting everything the characters are saying is lousy.
There’s just so many potentially good ideas put to waste and so many movie cliches that go wrong, it’s staggering. Let’s look at how Runaway approaches standard movie character development and plot.
There’s some mystery over Selleck at the beginning, why is he on the robot squad? What happened? But, where some films might have held that drama and waited more than, oh, five minutes to reveal a back story, Runaway gives it up in the second scene. And where some movies would have let the female romantic interest progress a little with the lead before a surprise twist, Runaway just flat out spills, literally, its secrets in Kristie Alley’s introduction scene. Some movies have cool futuristic guns and weapons, but Runaway is more of a cartoonish speeding bullet more appropriate for Yosemite Sam. The police chief is an asshole, the partner is a cop in a miniskirt, the villain is all “you think I’m stupid?”
Such a lazy movie. But the worst really are the robots. In a time when a Mac was still called “Machintosh” it’s easy to think that the futuristic devices seem a little dated. But that isn’t the whole story. No. They ,ostly just LAZY.
When a robot being examined is equipped with an arson explosive, puny little fireworks come out. When Selleck puts down a robot, he does it with a laser pointer.
The assassin bots are little erect-a-set spiders hobbling along before striking. The bad guy (a pretty good Gene Simmons pulling a Mick Jagger in Freejack before Mick Jagger), boasts that the spiders are filled with poison, but they just stand there. Just. Stand. There. Selleck takes three or four of ‘em out single handed.
At one point, a robot gets a gun, although it’s only about a foot and a half tall. How did it get a gun? Did you leave it on the floor? Don’t leave your gun within reaching distance of the unstable machine.
The best is the predictable climax. Right from the get go, we’re told over and over about Selleck’s fear of heights. Literally, every other scene has a reference to it. As in, “aren’t you afraid of heights, Tom Selleck?” To which Selleck will reply, “Yes. Yes I am afraid of heights.” And on and on.
So what’s the climax? Atop that same construction site from earlier, a showdown with Selleck having to face his fear in order to rescue his son. Yea, they got his son too. Come alone they tell him. But that look in his partner’s eye is telling me she’s going to follow and save him. And then, the robots fail to kill Selleck, but pounce on the bad guy two minutes later. And when it’s all wrapped up, our supposedly dead foe pulls one of those surprise “he’s actually alive still!” But where a regular movie would have had a final conflict or surprise partner kills him angle a la Die Hard, Runaway is content to let the bad guy just scream and then promptly die again. No fuss, no muss. No fun.
Tom Selleck keeps his cool around the arachnid android.
Gene Simmons? Not so much.
You know, here I thought I was going into a fun silly little sci-fi flick with Mr. Baseball in it, but this? This is ridiculous. It’s easy to see why this film never escaped 1984, and why I never heard of it till now. If you like cheesy action, big hair and manly mustaches, Runaway might interest you. For everyone else, there’s Blade Runner.
Last week was the end of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. I don’t think I need to go over the details of the departure, as everyone seems to be reporting the story continuously. I just want to offer my thoughts and explain why I believe Conan O’Brien matters.
Right from the start Conan is disarming. With his goofy hair and broad smile, the writer and host has made a career of off-the-wall humor and genuine esteem. His contributions to SNL and the Simpsons honed his wit, but it was the Late Night show where he made his greatest efforts.
I loved every episode of Late Night that I saw. It was an after school tradition for me once Comedy Central started airing the previous night’s episodes in the afternoon. Conan and his partner (I don’t think of him as a sidekick) Andy Richter were two of the funniest, and more importantly, likable people on TV. You felt that these were real people, doing something they loved and wanting nothing more than to share that with you. It was a quality that bonded me, and probably all his other fans, to Conan in a way that a hack like Jay Leno never would.
Conan and Andy, this time the guests on "Between Two Ferns"
Upon taking over the Tonight Show last year, seven months ago, Conan had some difficulties. I think it was the shock of living in L.A. and attempting to grab all those midlife Leno drones who would otherwise just turn off the tube rather than watch that cranky old Letterman. So, yea a little spark was gone, a little fire that just couldn’t quite grab the embers. I wanted to love the Tonight Show as much as Late Night, but we didn’t quite click.
So then comes the terrible news about dropped ratings and nervous executives threatening time changes and cancellations. And this was about Leno’s show! Let’s remember, the trouble started when Jay was consistently in last place at 10 pm. Sure Conan was getting beat too, but not like this. No. The new Leno show was a complete and utter disaster. A failure, a bomb. It had to go. But where? You can’t just cancel Leno like that. You owe to the man. So, let’s just bump Conan (a twenty year employee at NBC by now) back to basically the same time slot he just left, so Jay could not continue to look like such a pathetic loser. The executives were so busy trying to hold Leno’s hand, they were fine with asking Conan to basically compromise on his own life long dream by moving the Tonight Show into early morning.
And then Conan did something I don’t think anyone expected.
It’s a move that surely caused the split, the leaving and ending of the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. But it was a decision that Conan had to make. And that is why we love him.
You see, America loves values. It loves sticking to your guns, standing up for yourself and what you believe is right. Unfortunately, the last decade has seen the very worst of these qualities. But Conan showed us something else. In his letter of dissemination he fought for himself, his staff (who follow this man with a samurai like dedication), and the tradition of the Tonight Show. It’s not often we get to see this.
Conan and friends going out in style. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
And though the last week of his show displayed a lot of hostility for the network, from Tarantino’s revenge movie idea to Adam Sandler’s “you can’t say that on NBC” acronym to Robin Williams just all out giving it the finger, Conan ended things in his trademark style, with humility and humanity. His closing speech and especially his advice against cynicism of all things was some of the best TV you’re going to see all year. Through this personal ordeal, I just want to say that Conan has also acknowledged the relative triviality of his situation in the context of real crisis, such as in Haiti. The man is simply a class act all the way.
So why does Conan matter? He very much embodied a hero in the last month. In a time when the little guy is getting kicked around a lot, Conan stood strong. He sacrificed a lot to keep, for him, a relatively sacred tradition alive and well. And he lost his job. Just about everyone can relate to that. In doing so, he became one of us, a real person, just like his old self again. And through all of this, he was able to do what so many of us want to be able to do, he had fun.
You know what? Conan’s going to be ok. He went from simply Tonight Show host to the most sympathetic and equally popular man in America. I would seriously advise Leno NOT to go back to the Tonight Show, he’s going to be facing an uphill battle for every fucking chuckle. I will be one of many who plan on officially boycotting the show in Conan’s honor. I can’t wait to see Conan back somewhere on TV or even somewhere else. I go where Coco goes.
Fast Food pioneers come and go, but no loss has hit so close to me as the passing of Taco Bell Founder Glen W. Bell Jr.
From Bell's 1999 biography.
Weirdly, I just referenced Taco Bell in my last post and I just had “the Bell” on Saturday, a perfect conclusion to a night out on the town. I will always be indebted to Mr. Bell for his contributions to fast food. Without his vision, we’d all be stuck inside the bun. He will be missed.
It now being 2010 and all, I was tempted to do a “decade in review ” type of article. Well, looking back, I don’t really want to live in the past right now. The last decade wasn’t really my favorite on a lot of fronts. A mix of good and bad times about sums it up for me, and trying to compare films and music 8 to 10 years apart from each other seems pretty pointless.
So instead of all that nostalgic remembering, I’m looking ahead to the next ten years. Oh man, the teens are shaping up to be fan-fucking-tastic. From the flying cars to the ultimate domination of Taco Bell (the only survivor from the impending fast food wars), this is going to be my kind of decade.
And what am looking forward to most you ask? Why, the fashion of course. And what better way to know the upcoming fashion trends of the next decade you ask? Why, watching sci-fi movies from the 80’s of course.
On the Street… Hill Valley 2015.
Marty McFly is unable to properly fit his self-fitting jacket.
Note the inside-out pockets and multi-colored baseball cap.
These shoes are still referred to as “kicks” surprisingly enough.
On the Streets… Detroit 2015.
Part man. Part machine. All style.
Note the ED-209 in the background. An essential accessory for any mega-corporation honcho.
Note the scarf and vest and coat layering of the group. Sadly, Male Pattern Baldness is still a problem in the future.
On your televisions… 2019.
Arnold shows off the latest in athletic wear. Spandex, spandex, spandex.
Hey, Christmas tree!
Also, in the future, people will still look ridiculous working out at the gym.
On the Streets… Los Angeles 2019.
Rachel passes the test.
Note the high collar on Rick Deckard’s jacket, a must for any Runner.
Pris shows off her playful side at Sebastian’s swank uptown apartment.
Unfortunately for Replicants, invisible raincoats don’t make you invisible too.
On the Streets… Neo-Tokyo 2019.
Kaneda with his racing gear (from the original source material).
These kids are fearless. Pink polo shirts, Bermuda shorts with an aviator jacket, high water trousers. A veritable melting pot of periods and style. Kudos.
Tetsuo is bringing back the cape. Would you like to tell him no?
It has been a year this month since Fun Run Films & Records began. I have greatly enjoyed every post I have written, and looking back on this year, some where big hits. By far the most viewed entry was dedicated to the Terminator Franchise’s number one hero, John Connor. Indeed, every day I got and still get hits based on one Google search over any other, and now I proudly salute that search term and its owner, Michael Edwards.
As John “the man” Connor in T2:JDay, Edwards cemented his place in one of the greatest roles of the last 25 years. Without delivering a single line of dialogue, Edwards stuck in people’s minds like few character actors can. Perhaps it was the steely gaze, the shock of hair, the huge painful looking scar, we all have at least a little fascination with this mysterious and great warrior hero.
Ever since Christian Bale tried to take on the character of adult JC, people’s interest has been renewed in this small glimpse of the future as James Cameron, the creator of the Terminator, saw it; a much darker and more desperate land where big speeches are useless. Where every man, woman, and child is a fighter in the grim war with machines. Only in this, the most devastating of possibilities, would Michael Edwards be able to undertake the saving of all mankind. It says a lot when your character is more demanding than even the Batman could accomplish.
Jeez! Sorry, man. Take it easy!
Yikes. Well, anyways… um… right. Michael Edwards. That dude’s awesome!
And he's even great with children!
Some fun run facts about Michael Edwards: He was a male model. He’s also acted in shows like Beverley Hills, 90210 and Silk Stalkings. He was once the boy toy of Priscilla Presley. He …
Wait, what? Priscilla Presley, as in Elvis Presley’s wife?! He lived with her for six years. He even wrote a book about it called Priscilla, Elvis, and Me. Damn. Michael Edwards is up there with the King!
So, thanks Mr. Edwards. Without you, this blog, and indeed this world, would be a sadder place. Cheers, Mike. And get back into acting. We haven’t seen a thing out of you for over a decade now. All the best.
Have you ever had Deja Vu for an entire year? I feel like 2010 will be a year of films like few others, destined to be remembered as a mixtape of recycled ideas, icons, and classics. It will also be another huge year for sequels and franchises through and through. We are about to see a staggering number of reboots, adaptations, and continuations the likes of which has only been glimpsed in the past. It will be a dizzying conglomeration, sure to muddle the minds of future generations. In preparation, I’ve devised a little game: Sequel or Remake? Let’s start.
Yes, they are the classic Hollywood monster, Lon Chaney’s iconic beastie. Points for the casting and period setting, and although director Joe Johnston has mucked up some other franchises (Jurassic park 3 anyone?) he looks to provide a decent, if not familiar, monster movie. I remember watching the original movie one Saturday afternoon at nine years old. Great atmosphere, here’s hoping they forego too much CG fog and claws.
Believe it or not, this movie is a supposed third part to the Alice in Wonderland story. Now, ever since Tim Burton remade Planet of the Apes, I have been decrying his tinkering of with perfect classics. Same went for the awful Charlie and the Chocolate blah blah blah.
So when I heard this was a sequel, and NOT a remake, I guess I thought that I would feel some relief. But this film looks like it’s still going to squash any beloved childhood memory I may still hold for the Disney or even literary versions (I have read the books you know). And this poster above I chose simply because all of the others look so ghastly I can hardly stand them. How I am to watch two hours of Johnny Depp and Helena Carter looking the way they do is beyond me. Yikes!
Based on the flying dirt and bland metal soundtrack, this movie looks too manly for its own good. I still blame Gladiator. While the monsters and shit look cool, I get the feeling I’m going to be let down that Sam Worthington isn’t a Terminator or Avatar in this one. Sigh.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps-Sequel or Remake?
Sequel!
No poster or trailer yet, but this pic tells us three very important details about the upcoming Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.
1) Michael Douglas looks ooooold.
2) Shia LaBeowulf still looks 17, even with a suit and hotdog shoved in his mouth.
3) Oliver Stone loves the 80’s, or cashing in on current financial collapses. One of those two things.
From a classic monster to a modern classic! This one has potential. The trailer makes this film seem to be following the original almost too closely. Could this be a shot for shot remake deal? I’m intrigued.
…
OK, this is going on too long. There’s just too many movies to keep it up. A partial list of this upcoming year of remakes looks like this: The Crazies, Piranha 3-D, Robin Hood, The A-Team (maybe more like an adaptation of the TV show), The Karate Kid, Footloose, etc.
Not to mention sequels like Iron Man 2, Sex and the City 2, Toy Story 3, Shrek 4, Predators, Step Up 3-D, another Meet the Fockers movie, new Twilight movies, new Harry Potter movies, and even a sequel to the CG animated Cats & Dogs.
For fairness, here are a few non remake 2010 abominations-in-the-making of note: An action comedy with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Another action comedy with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. A full length film adaptation of the SNL skit MacGruber. A Jennifer Aniston rom-com entitled The Baster, as in turkey baster. Is it just me or will this be the worst year in movies ever?
If you need me I’ll be busy re-watching the trailers for Kick-Ass, my most anticipated film adaptation of the year.
This is Robert Burden’sBattle Cat Statant, showing at L.A.’s Gallery 1988. It’s one of many pieces reflecting the He-Man characters in the new show Under the Influence: The Masters of the Universe. Now, I find few things more satisfying on this world than my cherished childhood heroes depicted as proper works of art. It never fails to mesmerize me as I drop all activities to stare relentlessly at these amazing artistic creations. Here are a couple more that I can’t get enough of…
These two baddies come from actual, honest to God, real live “Garbage Pail Kids” artist Layron DeJarnette. How cool is that?
Oh man, even that little floating Jawa looking freak Ortho gets the artsy treatment courtesy of Project Detonate. Suddenly, I wish I was in L.A. for just an hour or so. And I never wish I was in L.A. Ever.
And to really boggle your feeble mind, here’s a time-lapse film of the Battle Cat painting in progress. Although, it’s exactly this kind of unbelievable talent that makes me all too aware of my own artistic shortcomings. I can’t even draw a straight line, so I will continue to be awed in the presence of such Masters.
What’s that you say? You want more? Well, on a separate, but equally nerdy topic, check out this blog featuring dozens of interpretations of beloved X-Man Shadowcat, aka Kitty Pryde. These pieces all showed right here in Portland! Yayy! And it was for a hemophilia benefit! Umm… Yayy!
-Charlie