Looks like Hollywood’s writers’ strike is over.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you. If I was a scriptwriter – which is a highly technical specialty that I have neither mastered, nor am even checked out on – I would not have been sanguine about the studios’ most likely attitude towards using AI, either. There’s a suggestion that this dispute has been at least partially addressed, independently of the actors’ strike, which is likewise over things that I actually have some sympathy for.

I can also understand the attitude of a pox on all of their houses, sure. Still: I did grow up in a blue-collar union household. That’s the sort of thing that can grow deep roots in a fellow.

The “…Wait. Where’s the war?” THE CAINE MUTINY COURT MARTIAL trailer.

Seriously, where is the war?

Both the movie and the book exist in the context of World War II, and the stresses that it provoked in American naval personnel. Queeg has a legitimate reason to be erratic, in both cases: ‘American naval officer’ was a highly dangerous and toll-taking job in the 1940s. I’m not really sure that a peacetime story can work, in this context.

Guess we’ll see.

#commissionearned

The WEREWOLVES UNEARTHED ‘Documentary’ trailer.

I’m sorry, but there aren’t any such things as werewolves. Particularly in Pennsylvania. If there were, and they went around menacing people, then there would be shortly be a lot of dead werewolves in Pennsylvania.

And don’t bother telling me that only silver bullets would work. I get that. I also get that Pennsylvania is full of people who shoot, hand-load their ammo, and subscribe to the theory that caches of gold and silver are fine things to have in case of a breakdown in civil order. Given that a werewolf invasion would qualify as one; in that case they’re not even wrong, are they?

Still, it looks like a good little flick for October.

The BARBIE Honest Trailer.

I admit to being disappointed that it was not the BARBIEHEIMER Honest Trailer, but that might have taken a bit too much work. BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER really do have distinct differences in tone and outlook, and trying to make that just work would be hard. Making it funny? …Well, maybe you could do it, for a minute or two. It’s sustaining it that would be the problem.

Continue reading The BARBIE Honest Trailer.

The Not-Surprisingly Lovecraftian AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM trailer.

I mean, it’s not surprising in context. James Wan is, after all, a big ol’ Lovecraft nerd. I don’t think that AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM is going to be a horror flick – [expletive deleted] at DC was chaotic, but not that chaotic – but the trailer’s hitting a bunch of horror tropes. And, come, I will conceal nothing from you: I am surprisingly enheartened by this trailer. It fits, as they* say, my aesthetic.

*Which is to say, ‘my.’

The Digital-only DARK HARVEST trailer.

I will need to check with Eldest Son. DARK HARVEST may very well fit his aesthetic. If I had an Alamo Drafthouse within reasonable range of my house, we might have even gone to go see this on its one-day release.

(I would love to have an Alamo Drafthouse within reasonable range of my house, yes.)