- Tom Cruise working on a Les Grossman movie? Hollywood will never ever learn the lesson of “less is more”. Les Grossman was a funny character in Tropic Thunder. But now, he is getting over-exposed. This is the same phenomenon that plagues SNL movies. Your characters are funny in short bits…never in an extended format. Wayne’s World is the obvious exception to the rule.
- A remake of Ghost…in Japan. Japan, your remakes rarely work here. Know what happens with the reverse? 同上
- Die Hard 5 update. Rumored title is Die Hard 24/7. That’s all sorts of ridiculous. Few action movies will match the intensity and crazy fun of the first Die Hard. But this franchise needs to die. I know this industry is based on money and “sure bets” but what if instead of doing sequels, Bruce Willis made other action movies just to give us something different? Oh wait…he already gave us Cop Out, Surrogates, 16 Blocks, Lucky Number Slevin, and Hostage. I stand corrected.
- Battleship moved up a week. Yes, Peter Berg is directing a movie based on a board game. Sort of a board game. See the link for details on a project that sounds so bad, my brain struggles to comprehend it. So much of it sounds awful but one thing I must point out. Taylor Kitsch (Riggins on NBC’s “Friday Night Lights”) plays a commanding officer of a destroyer. Kitsch is 29. That is another trend in Hollywood that is outrageously stupid. Casting fresh, hip, young faces in roles where the disparity between movie age and reality is so far apart.
- Is the Red Dawn remake going to die? I want to end on this note simply because it’s an interesting look at a major Hollywood studio that is having serious financial problems. MGM is in such dire straights financially that it is now run by its creditors instead of execs. I don’t know what led to their woes, but they have been counting on a Poltergeist reboot and remakes of Robocop and Red Dawn to pull them into the black. In addition to Red Dawn, the next James Bond film and The Hobbit are on ice. MGM has been around since 1924. The studio’s official motto is “Ars Gratia Artis”, a Latin phrase which means “Art for art’s sake”. Now, MGM has made some landmark films over the years, but it’s interesting to me that they are floundering financially yet counting on mostly remakes to pull them out of the drek. I know their issues are far more complicated but this is why people such as myself are strongly drawn towards independent film. Independent films, in general, get that idea about art better than the studios now.
Random Shots - June 14, 2010
On June - 13 - 2010
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