Dear Hollywood, Stop Making Spoof Movies

Back in 2000 when Keenen Wayans decided to make Scary Movie, I wonder if he knew the hell he would unleash upon moviegoers worldwide. While Scary Movie wasn’t horrible and some would even argue good, it had a huge breadth of material to pull from, in fact over 100 years worth of horror films. Unfortunately the film grossed 42 million on opening weekend assuring the world of numerous sequels and spinoffs. Seriously who spins off a spoof movie to spoof another segment.

This horse has long since died! Please stop beating it and expecting cash, all that comes out now is utter shite. I don’t know if you have noticed but there is a magical place you can share your crappy spoof compilations of fart jokes, Dr. Phil sing alongs and stereotypes; it’s called Youtube.com. Please stop invading my moviegoing experience with your horrid trailers. You can use the Internet and play to the lowest common denominator just as well and for 1/8th of the budget. You don’t need big names for a spoof movie, hell I saw 8 people last week who could have passed for the main character in the first Scary Movie, and once you get past that you’d be better off having the bums from BumFight star in your spoof film.

Would spoofing a Spoof of you not making a spoof movie, make a spoof movie not happen? I don’t know but please, give it a try.

Would You Digg It?

The new cyber thriller, Untraceable, coming out January 25th features a Killer who has hooked his victims up to a device which kills them quicker based on the number of users visiting the site which runs a streaming video of the unfortunate soul. The FBI warns the public to stay away from the site and BOOM, the victim is dead in a snap. While this situation is far out I wonder what the Digg Effect would be on this type of scenario. You can leave your thoughts in the Poll below.

Personally I think the Digg community would be too interested to stay away but some enterprising user will use some web hackery to grab the video and put up a mirror which would either go unregistered or register as one user on the “death machine”. From the knowledge I have seen in the Digg community if such an event would really happen I wouldn’t be surprised to see several users deputized after they assisted the search for said bad guy.

Who Will Lead the Sci Fi Movie Revolution?

Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly wrote a great (IMHO) article about the State of Science Fiction movies as a genre. He lambasted the genre for being too wrapped up in nostalgia and not taking chances.

Ideally, sci-fi’s next rescuer should be someone whose ideas about the future derive from somewhere — anywhere — other than old sci-fi. It can be done. Just a year ago, no movie genre looked deader than the Western. Then 2007 brought us not only a familiar but lively overhaul of 3:10 to Yuma but also the gorgeously arty mood piece The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and a handful of extraordinary films — the Coens’ No Country for Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, and even, in its way, Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah — that drew deeply and inventively on different aspects of Western conventions and mythmaking to create something new, often stunning, and not instantly identifiable by genre. Sci-fi desperately needs filmmakers who are interested in bending the form toward their own passions and obsessions as artists. 2001 has come and gone, and right now the future looks too much like something we’ve already seen.

In reading this several authors come to mind but I am pulling a blank for directors at the moment. Do you know who could direct a new science fiction film which would bring the genre out of its nostalgic vegetative state? If so leave their name in the comments.
We need new settings, new plots, new universes, new futures.

I want to see some adaptations or original works from Cory Doctorow, Tobias Buckell, John Scalzi, Scott Sigler, hell not sure Vernor Vinge’s latest is suitable for a movie adaptation but its something different. All these authors bring me to the point that not every future has to be of the “bad guy in the hulking ship with deathstars” universe. We can have all other types of settings, alternate modes of transportation, some steampunk maybe? Can I get a sci fi film with a Dirigible? Alternate futures near and far away, please someone wow me.

I for one will welcome our new Sci Fi Film making overlords…if they don’t muck it up.

Movies…The Beginings of Great Flicks

This morning several movies shared their beginings with the world.  I am planning on seeing all of them.   Unfortunately I Am Legend’s opening scene is stuck in Yahoo Movies and Cloverfield’s first 5 minutes are embeddable in about anything other than Wordpress or plain html (good job guys).  The Dark Knight’s opening minutes are in HD so I’ll forgive the creators for not having a embeddable version.

Opening Scene of I Am Legend - Yahoo Movies

Plan to see before 12/31/07

First 5 Minutes of Cloverfield - Slashfilm

Additional Interview with director

Plan to  see opening weekend

First 2 Minutes of Dark Knight - A Taste for Theatrical

Plan to see within 2 weeks of opening

TechFellas: If Goodfellas Were In IT

19th & Wilson, an independent film company from Virginia have created several IT related spoofs of Martin Scorsese films including; The Department and TechFellas.  The team recently caught up with Scorsese as he was honored at the Kennedy Center and presented him with copies of the parodies.  Unlike many rights holders Scorsese was thrilled with the parodies and the gesture exclaiming, “This is hilarious!”.

Below you will see TechFellas on Youtube and the trailer for The Department.  Both are also available on DVD for $10 each.

TechFellas

The Department Trailer

I found both of these hilarious and I’ll have to remember them when the local theatre has it’s next independent film festival, which I should be assisting with.

Don’t Enter 1408, But Watch It!

Amber and I just finished watching 1408.  This movie starring John Cusack is amazing.  This movie simultaneously earns two awards from me.  1408 ranks in my top 20 movies (top 5 scary movies if you are counting) and Movie I never want to see again.

1408 is one of the freakiest movies I have seen…ever.  The screenplay, adapted from a short story by Stephen King does a marvelous job of taking you places you don’t see coming again and again.  The move eschews the standard “pop goes the weasel” scare moments horror and scary movies have turned to recently for invoking genuine fear.

Thankfully the movie includes some “lighter” moments when viewers can laugh at the dark, dark humor.  You should watch this movie…with other people…in the day….with a nice unicorn chaser.

Im Not There, A Dylan Movie

I just found this trailer for a new movie about Bob Dylan, in which numerous actors appear to play Dylan in a variety of stories.  The trailer depicts stories which range from true through exaggeration and into falsehood.   I am looking forward to checking this out, it make take some convincing to get Amber to see this one with me though unless I wait for the DVD release.

I’m Not There trailers and video clips on Yahoo Movies

HD DVD Wins the Format War…On Facebook!

The latest Poll that facebook listed in my sidebar declares that HD DVD has beat Blu-Ray in the format war at 64% HD-DVD to 36% Blu-Ray.

The responses though not necessarily scientific are interesting. I enjoyed looking at the breakdown by Gender and Age Range.

If you want to check out the Poll of 1,000 poeple and see the overall breakdown of Age and Gender head over to the Facebook HD-DVD v. Blu-Ray Poll

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