Opinions

There’s a new brand of historical fiction emerging that fictionalizes what we’ve just seen in our 24-hour news cycle. The Green Zone stumbles in the genre’s early baby steps.

Throughout history the film industry has shown its support for civil rights and equality for all. Why don’t they show the same level respect for their own product?

I love movies. I truly do. But for me there’s nothing that can match seeing actors cut loose from the confines of the screen. Film actors can be at the mercy of the greater good. Their performances can be cut to suit a director’s vision, but on stage they are the masters of their own fate. Seeing actors do their thing in real time is an experience everyone should seek out. And right now the production they should run to is “The Pride” at the Lucille Lortel theater in New York City.

Let me start with one very important commandment that must be obeyed in the world of film: Thou shalt not remake Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone With The Wind, 2001 a Space Odyssey (to name a handful of classic films) and anything directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Anything. Even if one day a reel containing a commercial shot by the man shows up, it cannot be remade.

Matthew Goode is unhappy. He is downright disappointed. His movies are never good enough to contain his prodigious “talent”. The actor who was miscast in Watchmen, made a wanting adaptation of Brideshead Revisited worse, is very talented. At whining, complaining and presenting himself as a stereotype of the self involved, egotistical Actor with a capital A.

Director Joe Johnston is on a tight schedule at this point when it comes to the casting of the title role in his next movie, The First Avenger: Captain America. Previous reports have stated that he and the folks at Marvel Studios plan to have the role filled by the first of March, with is about a week away at this point. So it makes sense that today we’re seeing the first inklings of casting news in the form of the studio’s wish list… What doesn’t make sense is how some of these actors got on this list? Wait, isn’t that the guy from The Office? All of our notions about Captain America are about to be shattered, that’s for sure.

James Cameron took it to a whole new level with Avatar, and it would only be so long until some other hotshot directors had their turn to get their hands on the technology. The first hotshot director to go crazy for Cameron’s toys is Steven Spielberg. Spielberg will use this technology to create a digital world for his newest film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which he’s co-producing with Peter Jackson.

For me to have walked away from the last two films I’ve screened — Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer — thinking that both were heavily influenced by the work of Hitchcock isn’t a shock. Nor does it make either movie less interesting or take anything away from the two great directors behind them. In fact, it makes them both more interesting.

At first, I wanted to explore and ask the question of What Can Studios Do To Market to Women, but that seemed cruel and calculated. Instead, I’d like to know what the intelligent, female movie-goer wants.

Few films in the past year have made me laugh as hard and often as Black Dynamite. Even fewer are as prevalently in love with the films it pokes fun at.

Joe Johnston’s remake of the 1941 film The Wolf Man marks the first ever, in history, reboot of a Universal monster character. No other filmmaker has ever attempted this, especially in the last 20 years. But, with this ground-breaking film how much of the original story is actually retained?

After being inundated with a slew of ads for Clash of the Titans and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, it’s completely obvious that Greek mythology is poised to be the latest trend for Hollywood. But unlike vampires or pirates, there hasn’t been a recent proven Greek mythology hit to alleviate the fears of today’s risk adverse Hollywood. So why the recent Hollywood leap of faith?

After sitting around imagining a world where Christopher Nolan happens to be the only human being who can deal with classic superheroes in a modern way, we got to thinking about what we would want from the new reboot of Superman franchise. So we’re doing our part with a list of what we, two humble Super fans, demand from the next installment. Up, up, and away…

We won’t be wasting breath discussing the unnecessary inanity behind remaking John Carpenter’s still awesome and highly entertaining 1981 classic, Escape From New York. No, we already did that back in 2007 when it was first announced. Instead we’re just going to update you with the latest news on the project and ask who you think could possibly fill Kurt Russell’s shoes.

Will there actually ever be a Watchmen sequel? Recent reports state there’s traction within Warner Brothers and DC to create a prequel and/or sequel to the beloved graphic novel and film. If it does happen, we’d like to make some suggestions…

I have no idea why we should celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first Tom Cruise Mission Impossible with even more Tom Cruise Mission Impossible.

In this year’s Academy Awards ceremony we will have 10 Best Picture nominees for the first time in 60 years, see how our viewing trends prompted this.

This is just a letter to all of those people out there that think life should be fair and easy. Life is a bit different than that, especially since James Cameron decided to take us to Pandora.

It was a quiet triumph that passed unnoticed by people who don’t follow film all that closely. But many of us took notice, as Kathryn Bigelow brought home the top prize at the DGA awards, solidifying her place in history.

I like to think my bullshit detector is fairly accurate when it comes to movie-related rumors, and my track record speaks for itself. Eddie Murphy, Angelina Jolie, or Shia LaBeouf in the next Batman movie? Bullshit. Steve Guttenberg making a comeback? Bullshit. Anything posted as a scoop on MarketSaw.com? Bullshit. Avatar will beat Titanic’s box-office? Bull– well crap.