Category: Movies

So apparently I can’t watch *good* movies on the treadmill.

The better the movie or show, the less I like it while exercising.  But I’m halfway through Death Race 2050 at this point and I’m apparently OK with that*.  Kind of weird, really – especially since I can read pretty much anything and still be fine. Then again, I’ve long since taught myself to read anywhere and at any time.

I suspect that I won’t want to watch merely bad films, though. I am going to need the Cheese.  All of the Movie Cheese.

Moe Lane

*My God, but it’s absolutely dumb. The good kind of dumb, which comes when you actually have an artistic vision and attempt to fulfill it. I’m never going to watch it again and I think Roger Corman’s more than a bit of an ass, but am I not entertained?  …Yes. Yes, I am.

So, live action/CGI ‘The Rats of NIMH.’

This story about the upcoming movie The Rats of NIMH is an interesting one, because of this: “According to Variety, the new film will be an adaptation of Robert C. O’Brien’s 1971 novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and not a direct recreation of the original Don Bluth film.”  It’s interesting because I happened to read the book before I saw the movie – we didn’t really watch much Disney in the house, growing up – and when I did see it I was startled a bit to see how the conversion from book to movie also somehow required flipping the genre from science fiction to fantasy.  The contrast was a little jarring, if I recall correctly.

Mind you, I’m not saying that The Secret of NIMH was a bad kid’s film, or that Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH was hard science fiction. And I’m not even saying that the director shouldn’t have flipped genres like that.  I’m merely saying that it would be interesting to see a film version that’s more faithful to the source material.  Although I blanch at the thought of another live action/CGI movie…

One hopes that the ‘Slice of Life’ people learned from Axanar’s mistake.

As in, making sure that the copyright holders of Blade Runner won’t mind them raising money to make a twenty-five minute Slice of Life movie. Let’s not have another Axanar, shall we? The last one caused a lot of hurt feelings, all around.

Continue reading One hopes that the ‘Slice of Life’ people learned from Axanar’s mistake.

Two John Wick 2 clips.

I’m kind of with Coming Soon on the first clip: it’s like a Matrix reunion!  I’ll go one further, in fact: John Wick 3 should be a Matrix reunion. Turns out that this world is the new, improved world that the cow-battery AIs came up for all of us after whatever the hell happened in the third Matrix movie that I did not even bother to watch.

Continue reading Two John Wick 2 clips.

Movie of the Week: Arrival.

I’d call this feature something else, except that I’m pretty much locked into it at this point. Anyway: Arrival is coming out on DVD in two weeks, and if you missed it the first time then you should correct that.  This is the kind of science fiction flick that will infuriate you about Hollywood, because they can clearly make movies like this, but won’t. And there’s no excuse. It was a hit. It racked up a bunch of Oscar nominations, including some of the ones that the studios most like to brag about. I am an unrepentant blow-em-up, popcorn-movie guy, and I raved about Arrival.  And now Hollywood will go back to making stupid (in both senses of the word) movies that nobody likes, because God forbid they should challenge their audi… sorry. I’ll stop ranting, now.

Arrival. Awesome flick. Go pre-order it.

And so, adieu to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Continue reading Movie of the Week: Arrival.

Tweet of the Day, This Addams Family Re-imagining Works Remarkably Well edition.

Particularly Wednesday’s. Really gets the subtle menace of the character. Christina Ricci did a very marvelous job in a movie full of people doing marvelous jobs.

Whither the Fantastic Four?

Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson wants to integrate the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  (pause) …You know what I’m going to say about that, right?  Yup: “And I want a pony.”

It’s starkly incomprehensible why Fox can’t make a watchable F4 movie. It’s not the superheroes in question: they’ve got a good interpersonal dynamic and absolutely top-file villains to fight. Doctor Doom alone would be a stellar addition to the MCU’s bad-guy roster, and God knows that the MCU needs more good villains not named Loki. But you can’t really do Doom without Reed Richards, and the MCU can’t get Reed Richards without Fox’s permission, and Fox won’t give that permission and apparently can’t do the job right on its own.

I’m starting to think that the only real solution here is to have Marvel and/or Disney invade Fox, conquer it, and annex outright the F4 and X-Men properties…

Arrival/Needful Things production team 21 Laps to do Larry Niven’s Inconstant Moon.

Oh, 2017. How much nicer you are to me than that last, horrid year was. From Hollywood Reporter:

After nabbing a spaceship’s worth of Oscar nominations for Arrival, Shawn Levy and his 21 Laps banner are jumping back into the elevated sci-fi drama genre.

Fox 2000 has preemptively picked up an untitled pitch that is based on Inconstant Moon, a short story written by Larry Niven, the author behind the sci-fi literary classic Ringworld.

Continue reading Arrival/Needful Things production team 21 Laps to do Larry Niven’s Inconstant Moon.

So, who wanted a remake of ‘Every Which Way But Loose?’

YOU SHOULD BE VERY ASHAMED OF YOURSELF: “A new take on “Every Which Way But Loose” is headed to the big screen, the 1978 comedy that teamed Clint Eastwood with an orangutan named Clyde.” In fact, I want you to sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done. Because do you think that Hollywood is going to let us have a simple trucker-with-a-monkey flick? No.  No, they will not.  We will get something else.

Something unholy.