BLOGS
July 2010 Archives
Are things about to get a little weird at your local cineplex? Famed song parodist, TV geek and MTV personality "Weird" Al Yankovic, who wrote and starred in the cult comedy UHF back in 1989, has a new movie in the works. He wrote it for Cartoon Network, but the channel has recently pulled the plug on all movie projects, leaving Weird Al with a script and a dream. Could the comedic genius (you heard us) end up in theaters again? We certainly hope so, because UHF is frickin' hilarious. Here are my ten favorite things about the film.
Well, it's official: Lindsay Lohan is going to jail. True, the sentence is only for 90 days, and now it seems like it's only going to be about 25 days, and the last time she was in jail it was only for 84 minutes, but it's still going to put a crimp in her moviemaking schedule. (When will her Linda Lovelace biopic be completed now?) Luckily, this will open up a whole new genre for her -- prison movies! With her newfound prison cred and, hopefully, scared-straight work ethic, studios will be scrambling to get Lohan behind bars again, this time for a hefty paycheck. Here are a few prison films we think Lohan should remake, with storylines custom-tailored for the actress's professional and criminal rap sheet.
Producer Jon Landau hinted at this back in April, but now it's official: James Cameron will re-release Titanic in 3-D in April 2012. I'm hoping that when they convert the film to 3-D they go ahead and add some more scenes that take full advantage of the 3-D process. Because while sketching in cars and enjoying fine meals certainly makes for good cinema, it doesn't make for action-packed 3-D excitement. C'mon, Cameron -- let's Avatar this sucker!
Well, this isn't good. It seems that the start of The Hobbit has been delayed for so long in its search for a director that it's starting to affect the talent's schedules. Luckily, all of the talent is debatably replaceable, with one glaring exception: Ian McKellen, who absolutely must play Gandalf the Grey. Or must he? McKellen has a potential scheduling conflict and may have to drop out, which sounds devastating, but while Gandalf does not age as men do, and should therefore look more or less the same as he does 60 years later (when The Fellowship of the Ring occurs), isn't a little creative license a good thing? Couldn't a new Gandalf help to differentiate these films from the original trilogy? Nobody wants to see McKellen replaced, but it's better than another delay or even the death of the film, so here are some suggestions for actors to play the original sorcerer supreme.
How do you talk about the weekend box office when one movie opened on a Wednesday, the other on a Thursday and everybody had Monday off for the Fourth of July? Luckily, it doesn't really matter, because one of the movies was The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and it set all kinds of records in its newborn-vampire onslaught on a nation of quivering Bella Swans. Not only did it have the biggest Wednesday opening ever ($69 million, yet another record stolen from Michael Bay), it had the second-highest opening day of all time, right behind its predecessor, New Moon. Of course, it also opened in the most theaters ever (4,468), so that might have helped get butts in seats. You know, in addition to the rippling abs of Taylor Lautner. The four-day weekend total was $83 million, but counting Wednesday and Thursday, not to mention the midnight Tuesday screenings, the grand total comes to $175 million so far, and that's in just six days. Six days! Lautner's shaved chest is barely even stubbly after six days!
The girl with the dragon tattoo and the single man should totally hang out and go bowling. Or, you know, solve murders and mourn their dead lovers. Either/or.
After reading many, many dismal reviews of M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender (most of which made the joke "Please let the title be accurate") my expectations were sufficiently low to go in with a blank slate. I even opted to see it in 2-D, rather than the tacked-on 3-D, so I could see the effects better and focus on the story and characters. And I saw everything that has been criticized -- the poor acting, the weak effects, the miscasting -- but I also saw a lot of things that made me want to see a sequel that would focus on the good, improve the bad and, ultimately, make this film look like a halfway-decent start to a great franchise.
It's just a rumor for now, but word on the blogosphere is that Amanda Seyfried may play Cinderella in a live-action adaptation of the Disney film. It makes sense, considering the box office bonanza that was Alice in Wonderland, not to mention Enchanted, which was basically about a Disney Princess who comes to life. And since you know that a live-action Cinderella will make a mint, the rest of the princesses can't be too far behind, which is why we're looking at the young actresses of Hollywood to see who could play the rest of the royal family. Here are our choices.
I tore through these books a few years back like a crack addict desperate for a fix, but these movies... they might be the death of me. And yet, I still force myself to go see them to see just how terrible they are. On the one hand, they are hysterical (especially the newest one), but on the other hand, I'm not entirely sure that they're in on the joke. Like, should I be laughing when newborn vampires are eviscerating a poor soul because their leader Riley just has the dumbest look on his face? Probably not, but it totally makes me giggle to no end. Writing a review of this is pointless, since, judging by the hordes of teens and moms at the theater near my house at 10 PM, this movie is going to make a gazillion dollars no matter how awful it may be or how much of a set-up it is for the last two films (which have the most preposterous plot... I can't even...), and people will turn out in droves, plan parties, start rival gang wars, buy merchandise, set up shrines, etc... But before you're forced to take your favorite pre-teen (or drooling spouse) to the film, find out what insanity this latest Twilight installment has in store. Fair warning, the text below does contain a great deal of spoilers, but if you haven't read the books and you're planning on seeing this anyway, you probably really don't care.
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