'Real Genius' becomes the latest film to get the unnecessary remake treatment...

...and if I sound mildly bitter, it's only because it's one of my all time favorite movies. Here's the applicable part of the story from Pajiba:

We’ll start with the molestation of your childhood memories remake: Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment (oh, Ron Howard, how could you?) are developing a remake of Real Genius. Yes, that one. The Val Kilmer movie that everyone over the age of 30 loves. Except Communists and trash humpers. It’s about the youngest kid to be accepted into a program for geniuses who teams up with his roommates to develop a high-powered laser, which is stolen by the military and used as a weapon. But, of course, it was so much more than about that. In 1985 it was a satire. In 2010, no one knows what the hell a satire is or what it even means. The second take on the script is now out to writers, and soon, the “Mythbusters” guys may have to find a new movie to pattern their lives after.

Jesus. It just won’t be the same without the ’80s soundtrack. Also, the original made $13 million at the box office. Why would they remake this movie? (Note: This is not the sequel that was rumored years ago. This is a remake. Val Kilmer’s participation is unknown.)

-I'll see it, just in the hopes it doesn't suck, but I highly recommend seeking out the original...thoughts?

Is the director of 'The Reader' going to helm the final 'Twilight' movie?

It seems like he's just one of many Oscar-nominated directors that are being pursued. Here's the story from Worst Previews:

The fourth "Twilight" film will soon go into production and Summit Entertainment has been looking for a helmer to bring it to the big screen. Some of the named attached are Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette), Gus Van Sant (Milk, Good Will Hunting), and Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Gods and Monsters).

Now, LA Times has learned that Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Reader, The Hours) has joined the list. This comes as no surprise, since the franchise has been able to attract lots of big names.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg is currently working on delivering a detailed outline to the directors. That should happen sometime soon. There is still no word from Summer whether the final film (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) will be broken up into two parts.

-Fingers crossed that all of them have the good sense to turn this down...

Do we really need a sequel to 'Four Brothers'?

Well, the logical answer is no, especially considering the title Paramount is working with is 'Five Brothers' (fairly impossible for a fifth brother to come out considering the plot of the first one, but who am I to quibble?), but it's potentially coming anyway. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Paramount is developing a sequel to its 2005 thriller "Four Brothers," bringing back many of the creative team for "Five Brothers."

Mark Wahlberg eyeing a return to star and hatched the sequel idea with original writers David Elliot and Paul Lovett, who are writing "Five." Lorenzo Di Bonaventura is back to produce.

The 2005 movie, directed by John Singleton, revolved around four adopted brothers (Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, Andre Benjamin and Garrett Hedlund) who come together to avenge their mother's death in what at first appears to be a random robbery. Although not a massive hit, it still grossed a tidy $74 million in domestic boxoffice.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, and it is not clear which of the other actors, if any, would return. Hedlund would appear to be out, as his character was killed in the first movie.

Wahlberg, repped by WME and Leverage Entertainment, stars in Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones" and appears in "Date Night" with Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

Elliot and Lovett, repped by Verve and Category 5 Entertainment, were writers on "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," Paramount's tentpole hit this past summer.

-Thoughts?

Now you can hate the Twilight films in Imax as well!

From Variety:

"Twilight Saga: Eclipse," Summit Entertainment's third "Twilight" film, will launch in Imax theaters simultaneously with the film's opening on June 30.

Summit and Imax, in a joint announcement Wednesday, said "Eclipse" would be digitally re-mastered into the Imax format. It's the first Summit title to be released in Imax theaters.

"Twilight moviegoers will have a whole new way to experience this next installment of the series, with the enhanced image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience putting them in the movie," said Richie Fay, Summit's president of domestic theatrical distribution.

The first two films have been outsize successes with "Twilight" grossing $380 million in combined domestic and foreign box office while "New Moon" has hit $500 million worldwide in only three weeks.

"Eclipse," directed by David Slade, centers on the struggle between vampires and werewolves.

-Aren't you just overjoyed?

Is it actually better to LOSE an Oscar than to WIN one?

This article in Cinematical seems to make the arguement that the great films/performances keep their strength by not winning, using The Wrestler/Mickey Rourke as an example:

The Oscars are history now and soon people won't even be able to remember the winners. But I keep thinking about that Best Actor race that came down to a near-draw between Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (291 screens) and Sean Penn for Milk (111 screens). My group, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, simply called it a tie. We agreed that both men gave the performance of their lifetimes. Other critics groups and other year-end awards also split between them; there was no clear consensus. For my annual predictions, I went with my gut on this one: I got the vague impression that, just from the cultural temperature, people were really into Rourke. But Penn won. And now that it's over -- with some hindsight -- it makes perfect sense. The Oscars didn't want to ruin The Wrestler for us.
The Wrestler is just a couple of months old now, but it has already gained a certain type of following. It has actual fans; people love this movie rather than just admire it. Milk has become a good movie for students to watch in school, but The Wrestler is a film that they will choose to watch, in their free time. It's a cult film now. And cult films don't win Oscars. It automatically disqualifies them from cult status. A cult film is something that people discover on their own. If the Academy acknowledges it, then it has been plucked away and turned into something official. It has a stamp of approval, and cult films are all about not being approved.
You can bet that Citizen Kane wouldn't always poll as the best movie of all time if it had actually won Best Picture in 1941. (The actual winner, How Green Was My Valley, is a good film, but it doesn't get nearly the same kind of love.) Think about films like Showgirls (1995), The Big Lebowski (1998), Fight Club (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), Memento (2001) or Brick (2006). Together those six beloved cult films earned a total of three Oscar nominations, and all lost. (Fight Club for Sound Effects Editing, and Memento for Screenplay and Editing.) Part of the fun of enjoying these films on a cult level is the idea of coming to their rescue, pulling them from obscurity and planting our own flag on them.
Additionally, I seriously believe that part of Martin Scorsese's enduring, loyal following from 1972 all the way through 2006 came from the fact that he never won an Oscar, and thus was never officially accepted. (Just look at his Oscar-winner colleagues like Coppola, Schaffner or Avildsen.) Now Rourke is riding on this cult success. Now that he has become our actor and not their actor, we will demand -- and get to see -- him in lots more films. I imagine the odds are only about 50-50 he will ever be nominated again, but won't it be fun to see him going nuts in two, three or even four movies a year? But better still, just imagine if Penn had lost. He'd probably go back to making more angry, message-laden films, hoping for more nominations. But now that he's got two Oscars, he has stopped, smiled and taken a role as Larry Fine in the upcoming Three Stooges movie! That alone will be worth his Oscar victory.
-What do you think? Does this arguement hold water?

Statistically, Meryl Streep is the Greatest Actress Alive?

What makes debating movies fun (and painful) is that there is really no objective answers. There are no unequivocal right answers. Some people think Godfather is the greatest movie of all time, while others believe the Dark Knight is the greatest film. We spend hours discussing these sort of questions, and never truly leave with a sense of what's right (or wrong). I've always wondered what it would be like if someone tried to provide more objective responses to movie debates. And, Bill Simmons has offered them.

Simmons writes:

Sports are objective (you win or you lose), whereas movies are almost entirely subjective. I believe Pacino's performance in The Godfather: Part II is one of the 10 greatest of my lifetime. Did he win a best actor award in 1974? Of course not. The Oscars are littered with injustices like that: De Niro's not winning for Taxi Driver, Paul Newman's not winning for The Verdict, Anthony Hopkins' winning a best actor for 16 minutes of screen time as Hannibal Lecter.

He proceeds to use Oscar nominations/wins as a way to quantify someone's quality as an actor/actress. Of course, there is a high level of subjectivity that goes into selecting nominees and winners for Academy Awards. Quite honestly, it might be entirely impossible to provide objective answers to quality based movie questions. It sort makes me wonder why I discuss these things in the first place. It's like discussing whether God exist or if there are universal truths. No one truly knows. Which means I can hold on to my belief that Twilight is the greatest movie ever made. Prove me and millions of prepubescent girls wrong.

Is Revoutionary Road The Secret Frontrunner?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about it lately, and I think the fact that Revolutionary Road has sort of fallen a bit silent in terms of buzz is a good thing for the flick. If it had been touted all year as loudly as it had been at the start of the year, it probably would have fallen under its own weight in terms of recognition in the big categories by the Academy, ala Dreamgirls. Letting Benjamin Button and Slumdog and Milk get the mentions now leads it to almost fly under the radar and make a bigger splash. It certainly has the potential with the cast and crew, almost all of which are Academy favorites (excpet for the screenwriter Justin Haythe and Michael Shannon, but that could easily change with a nomination this year) like Leo and Kate and Kathy Bates, and let's not forget that Sam Mendes already has an Oscar on his mantle. Toss in the fact that the film is based on an incredibly well regarded novel by Richard Yates and that the early word doesn't make any mention of the book being butchered and I think we might just see Revolutionary Road make a, well..."Revolution" of sorts come Oscar time.

-What does everyone make of my little theory/rant?

Anne Thompson On Men?

Occasionally, I check around the web to see what other critics are saying about the Oscar race. Sometimes their comments strike me as bizarre but I tend to let it slide. However, Anne Thompson's characterization of the movie taste of dudes has forced my hand. She writes, "Men would rather die than go to a romantic comedy--unless it stars Seth Rogen, Vince Vaughn or Adam Sandler. Judd Apatow figured out that making rom-coms for both sexes was the way to go". First, this is a complete (and false) generalization. Adam Sandler isn't popular anymore. He sucks. The same is applicable to Vince Vaughn. He plays the same character in all of his movies.

Also, we don't see Seth Rogen/Apatow films because of the romance part. We go see them primarily because of the crude juvenile humor. The romance parts of Knocked Up accentuate the comedy. If it was just romance for the sake of romance, I'm pretty confident most dudes would've hated it.

She also writes that, "they [movie studios] like to make movies for men because they're more predictable and reliable and less finicky and demanding than women."

I really just take issue with the "more predictable" part. Women aren't that complicated. If you make a romance comedy that's pretty sappy, then most women will go see it. You turn Sex in the City into a movie, then plenty of women will go see it. I don't see how this makes women less predictable. I like to believe that most movie goers (women and men) are fairly predictable. You can probably tell what they are interested in within the first minutes of speaking to them. For instance, if a girl likes america's next top model or the hills, then it's highly unlikely that she will citizen kane, and will go see there will be blood. There's nothing wrong with this of course. But, I don't think its right to characterize men as more predictable movie watchers. Most people are fairly predictable.

An Obama victory helps The Dark Knight?

I apologise for the tardiness on this one. I read this entry a few days ago, and it struck me as an odd argument to make. Here's a passage:

Usually I'm not the kind of guy who thinks that outside events have too much influence on the Oscar race. I generally think it's about the movies, more or less in a vacuum. But I do think that this week's election-day results may have a profound effect on the Best Picture chances of two films. For starters, there's The Dark Knight. I thought the sequence involving the two ferries (in which a group of commuters and a group of convicts have the power to blow up each others' boats but don't) was a bit too reality-show-ish for my taste. But I know most viewers loved it. Either way, that part of the film speaks to the innate goodness of human behavior. And let's remember that Oscar ballots are due next January 12, just a week before Barack Obama is inaugurated. It's safe to say most Hollywood types will also see that event as an example of innate human goodness. All of this only helps The Dark Knight's chances, don't you think?

I respect Dave Karger's work, but this line of reasoning strikes me as illogical. For starters, though one part of the film spoke to innate human goodness, there were other parts of the film that spoke to human badness (whether innate or not). Moreover, his argument presumes that most (even some) academy award members interpreted that particular scene as he did. Moreover, it presumes that most (even some) academy award voting members will interpret Obama's inauguration as an example of innate human goodness. I'm guessing that most academy award members probably weren't thinking along those lines.

When I first read the headline, I thought Dave might argue that the concept of "change" (a concept crucial to Obama's campaign) would influence ampas memebers. In that, if American voters were able to embrace the idea of voting for an African American president, then we can certainly embrace the idea of voting for an atypical movie. This argument makes slightly more sense, but I'm confident both will not resonate in the minds of ampas members.

Barack Obama, Willie Stark, and Populism

I decided to watch All the King's Men (1949) again, which chronicles the rise and fall of Willie Stark. If you haven't had a chance to read the book or watch the film (not this one), then I highly recommend. Aside from the obvious parallels between Stark and Obama (both ran on a slightly populist platforms, both started off as "innocent" lawyers outside of politics, both believe in wealth redistribution to some degree), the only thing I want to point out is that people should be wary of politicians, especially those who are insanely popular. I don't think Obama will end up like Willie Stark, but if a politician becomes too popular, we may "neglect" to criticize him. History or not, he is the leader of our nation, and he should be held accountable for all that he does (good or bad). He is a human being like the rest of us, so always keep a degree of skepticism about him. It's the only reasonable way to judge a person.

Dark Star Dilemma?

Pamela McClintock offers an interesting take on this year's potential contenders. She writes that:

The specialty film class of fall 2008 includes some disturbing and bleak storylines that will need careful marketing at time when moviegoers might want to escape the real-life reality of a failing U.S. economy.

Interesting, but I'm not sure if it's correct. She mentions that these films might need "careful marketing", but for what goal? If last year is any indicator, then marketing will not be enough to encourage people to go see these films. Moreover, even with a poor economy, it takes more than careful marketing to see the type of films she speaks of. I just don't think there is much of a connection between "escaping" reality and going to see bleak films. If you really want to escape harsh reality, then why bother to check out bleak films even if the marketing is "careful". It seems that once you've reached the point of escaping reality, nothing will encourage you to see a slightly depressing film.

The Dark Knight Buzz Kill?

You ever dislike something because of the people that like it? I like to call this the Staind effect. I was once a fan of the late 90s/early 2000s rock band Staind. They had a dark grungy appeal to them, and their debut album was insanely depressing. However, around 2003, their fan base started to shift. The death nail came when I overheard a 14 year 'NSYNC loving girl* singing one of their songs. After that, I deleted all of their songs off my Ipod, and vowed to never download another one.

I don't think the Dark Knight will suffer a similar fate as Staind, but I'm seeing people that I wouldn't normally trust counting to ten LOVE this film. I don't like when the movie world is out of order. Yes, people should like this movie because it's a Batman film, there are explosives, and its a summer flick. But, when the 14 year old 'NSYNC loving girl is calling this movie "brilliant" or "genius", it makes me question my own intelligence.

*note the 14 year old 'NSYNC loving fan is a general representative of the "not so smart" generation (1980-beyond)...correction (90s-beyond)