Another day, another dumb reboot idea: They're going to try a new version of Naked Gun starring Liam Neeson.  That alone isn't so unappealing (however uninspired) but it's being overseen by Seth "Family Guy" MacFarlane, so that's a hard pass.

Here's what bugs me tho'.  Why not just do a similarly Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker-style parody of the Taken-type of modern revenge action movies instead?  The whole point of the Police Squad/Naked Gun parody was in how ubiquitous those types of shows were in the 70s/80s.  So the extended point would be to parody something similarly ubiquitous from today's media, and the whole post-24 style of ultra-gunplay films are pretty ripe territory for scorn and scrutiny.  Do they feel that Fast & Furious has already parodied itself?  No, Hollywood is simply out of ideas.
 

Jinnistan wrote:

So Rock is saying that there's also a new Barbarella in the works, and a new Exorcist sequel witten by the guys responsible for the last three shitty Halloween sequels.  The lack of inspiration is almost starting to feel deliberate.  Malicious.  As if the studios (rather than calling it "Hollywood", I should maybe refer to it as the "Streaming-Conglomerate-Industrial-Complex") are trying to kill our collective spirits through drudgery-entertainment.  This is actually a dystopian plot in THX-1138, Pete Townshend's Lifehouse script, and maybe Brave New World, I can't quite remember.  It makes sense out of the common blurbs like "It was better than it had any right to be", "It wasn't as bad as I feared", "It was as good as I could have expected", and the studio comment about how the Justice League poster had Batman on it: "What more do you want?"  Like the inverse of the frog in the skillet, cooling our expectations, imperceptively, until we all fall into a numb complacency of "just good enough to avoid reaching for the remote".

So what else do we have?  A cursury search of some of the other remake/reboot projects currently in development (although some of these may be in some form of limbo at this point):

Toxic Avenger (with Kevin Bacon?  How old is he?)
Fatal Attraction (retooled where the man is the villain)
American Werewolf in London (written by John Landis' shitty son, Max)
Big Trouble in Little China (with The Rock)
The Birds (developed by Michael Bay's co.)
Cliffhanger (another female reboot)
Clue (with Ryan Reynolds)
Don't Look Now (which Donald Sutherland strongly protests)
Escape From New York (a long line of faceless bros are auditioning)
Every Which Way But Loose (because who asked?)
Five Fingers of Death (Brett Ratner to helm, but after those sex assualt accusations...)
Flash Gordon (Taiki Waititi is also doing a TV Time Bandits and a big screen Akira so who knows?)
Flight of the Navigator (from the Jurassic World hack)
The Fugitive (black reboot)
Green Lantern (who gives a shit?)
Gremlins (looks more like it's going to TV)
Highlander (from one of the John Wick guys)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (written by one of the Conjuring guys)
Little Shop of Horrors (by the last Green Lantern writer, because he's still getting work)
Logan's Hero (most of the prospective directors got hit with sex assault charges)
Major League (because we need more baseball)
Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (recast with Polish gangsters)
Masters of the Universe ("I'll fuck anything that moves!" - random executive)
Nightmare on Elm Street (Elijah Woods is pushing hard to be the next Freddy)
Nosferatu (possible Robert Eggers project)
Planet of the Apes (yet another reboot from a director of something called The Maze Runner?)
Pumpkinhead (from the Saw producers)
Road House (because no one understands that you can't consciously make a good "bad" movie)
Scarface (with Diego Luna)
Short Circuit (I'm going to start burning soon)
Sister Act (Whoopi Goldberg wants Lizzo in the role)
Splash (with a twist, Channing Tatum as a merman)
Strangers on a Train (David Fincher and Gone Girl scribe Gillian Flynn
Terms of Endearment (black reboot with Oprah Winfrey)
Thomas Crown Affair (black reboot with Michael B. Jordon)
Valley Girl (timely!)
The Warriors (possible TV show produced by the Russos)
The Wild Bunch (Mel Gibson's written the screenplay)
Zorro Reborn (possibly by Alfonso Cuaron's brother)

And obviusly that doesn't even count the avalanche of reboots already released this year or waiting to be released soon: Candyman, Texas Chaninsaw Massacre, Halloween Kills, Hellraiser, The Batman, Scream, Salem's Lot, Father of the Bride (Latinx reboot), Firestarter, Matilda, TWO Pinoccios....

And speaking of Disney, you have this orgy of copyright necrofuck right here.
 

Last edited by Rampop II (10/16/2022 4:29 pm)

These are not confirmation, but they do amount to a seriously well–organized tease. The creators of the original have been struggling for over thirty years to get a sequel made. Three sequels, actually. Or a tv series. Or something. The latest word had been that the ball was in MGM's court concerning the holdup (and not Disney's, as has been previously thought). But Prime completed their acquisition of MGM in June of this year, and two months later, this appeared:




It was an ad for an attraction as part of Universal's annual Halloween Horror nights event:


I don't live in L.A. so I don't know how it compares, but I'm encouraged by the attention to detail in preserving the artistic style of the original movie. 

And that very same month, this surprise reveal occurred at Gamescom 2022:


Again, strikingly faithful in detail. 

So is all this just hype for the new video game? Or are we seeing indications that a long–awaited sequel might finally be on the horizon? I want it not just for myself and fellow fans, but for the Chiodo Brothers and their team who have been insisting for decades they have an entire quadrilogy mapped out (so they'd better get the job if/when a Klowns sequel does indeed get the green light). More than that, I want a Killer Klowns sequel for the world. I'd also love to see it with its original intended title: The Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3-D.

Jinnistan wrote:

The original isn't my favorite (or least favorite) Mel Brooks film, but I'm down for this, maybe because it might be the last Mel Brooks (96) project we get to see.



 

[Rampop watches trailer]  
😃 "Hey, this looks great!"

[End of trailer: "Only on Hulu"] 
😫 "Baaaastarrrrds! 

"Only on Hulu." "Only on Roku." "Only on Netflix." "Only on Disney+"... Own, Lien... Deez Nuts!!!

 

This looks awful, but behold the awful perfection of it! 
Remember our brief coverage, back when Olivia Newton John died, of the fizzled attempt to “cancel Grease?” Their complaints were that Grease was:
...racist because Rydell High only had white students (even though it was set in 1959), 
...homophobic because it only showed “cisgender” couples at the school dance (again, 1959),
...insensitive about bullying because the character Rizzo was mean to Sandy,
...misogynistic because Sandy changed her look to please Danny (even though Danny did the same)…

Well, that history is about to be re–written! Get out your woke scorecards (and maybe your barf bags) because here comes Rise of the Pink Ladies:




I admit I didn’t know that that Rydell was supposed to be a California high school (full of 30 year–old students with inexplicable Jersey accents), so maybe I missed the chapter in history where California’s racist school system went through a five–year desegregation miracle. 
This has “algorithm” written all over it. Maybe it was written by chatGP?

Jinnistan wrote:

You forgot rape culture: "Did she put up a fight?"

I agree it looks awful, not necessarily for its demographic rewrite of 1960s LA (one of the most racist police departments in the nation), but just the complete bankruptcy of imagination represented by this opportunistic intellectual property recycling.

Aha, I knew I was forgetting at least one of those. For the record, the character Sonny, who sings that line, frequently makes comments securing our impression of him as a closet virgin with immature fantasies about sex, more invested in talking with his buddies about it than in finding it, and wouldn't know what to do with a willing female if he ever "pulled" one (more of a UK expression than a US one). He's also met with regular disapproval from his fellows for his stunted development and tactlessness on such matters. 

Maybe my concern about the apparent sanitizing of the U.S. history of racism and male–chauvinism on display here is an overreaction, considering the likelihood that the current wave of awareness–raising about such things will all–but ensure embarrassment for Paramount+ [Rampop rubs hands together in relish]. So far the public reaction seems to be negative cries of "They're ruining our nostalgia!" It kind of misses that mark, but like ONJ said, don't take Grease so seriously. A cinematic bastion of deliberately–silly post–Vietnam "50s nostalgia" escapism, set to a disco/soul soundtrack contemporary for its 1979 release, cast with, again, actors clearly far past their teenage years (consistent with 1950s cinema), and singing/dancing with Jersey accents in a supposedly California high school, was never meant to be taken as a serious history lesson. Still, lots of people still think Gone with the Wind was historically accurate, to some detriment in terms of the progress of U.S. racial equality. I just can't help but emphasize the irony of a tone–deaf production seemingly intended to "correct" history's wrongs by doing more to inadvertently enforce them through what appears to be a whitewashing. Now, I get the impression that they might try to re–invent the Pink Ladies as some kind of forward–thinking vanguard of racial inclusivity and gay equality. Wouldn't it be great if they re–invented Sonny as being closet–gay; that would actually be fitting. If Grease was set in 1959, it means that the Pink Ladies' "rise" must have happened a minimum of one year earlier... only four years after the SCOTUS Brown vs. Board of Education decision mandating desegregation of schools across the United States.
I also have to note the low–cut blouses and generally more form–fitting wardrobe on the females, again erasing the suffocating conventions of "decency" in women's clothing at the time, which Kathleen Turner described in a discussion about the more historically–accurate wardrobe used in the production of Peggy Sue Got Married: "the bras, the petticoats, the armor that girls had to wear!" At a time, I might add, where pregnant girls were taken out of school, the word "pregnant" itself was verboten (unmarried girls didn't get pregnant, they got "in trouble") and abortions occurred strictly underground, claiming an untold number of lives (the widespread assertion of "thousands" of deaths per year has been disputed, but that fact by no means diminishes the severity). 

Anyway I look forward to the schadenfreude this flop should generate. I don't normally eat popcorn so I will have to get some popcorn ready. 

That's right, I couldn't care less about the Super Bowl. 

Last edited by Rampop II (2/12/2023 6:45 pm)

Jinnistan wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

I just can't help but emphasize the irony of a tone–deaf production seemingly intended to "correct" history's wrongs by doing more to inadvertently enforce them through what appears to be a whitewashing.

Some of the worst offenders would be stuff like The Founder, about Ray Kroc who (stole) founded McDonalds.  The film shows black and white people dining together, not just in a fast food setting, but even in fine restaurants, in the late 50s/early 60s in, of all places, Kansas City.  It's one of those things where the intent seems less about advocating equality and more about denying the historical fact of enforced segregation.

[Rampop grimaces] Seriously? How tone–deaf can things get??? And why is nobody in the mainstream talking about this stuff? 
“Oh perverse generation! How long shall I endure thee?” (Some Nazarene) 
“Do you realize your insanity???” (Dick Gregory)
And this just in: I’ve just learned that Rise of the Pink Ladies is set in 1954, the year the SCOTUS mandated desegregation in U.S. schools! I trust everyone here has at least some idea what incredible upheaval accompanied this sudden, seismic shift. I mean it was all levels of crazy, involving governors, the National Guard, the FBI, President Johnson, and violent rabbles out for blood. Since desegregation was such big, big shit all around the country, and went anything but smoothly (one could argue that it’s a mission still not fully accomplished), if Rise of the Pink Ladies fails to even address it while depicting an all–girl gang that includes at least one African American member and another of Asian descent (California was, and remains to some extent, a hotbed of anti–Asian discrimination), then we’re talking about nothing less than a contemptible display of gross negligence. 

Jinnistan wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

the production of Peggy Sue Got Married:

Have you gotten around to watching this yet?

Nah, TBH I can’t get myself jazzed about it either. Speaking of which I’m finally gonna get my chance to see All that Jazz tonight, thanks to the generous and painstaking help of a certain fellow cinephile. This is a flick that is surprisingly hard to find. The only streaming options are on Tubi and Crackle, both “with ads,” and the only commercially–available release on disc in our region is through Criterion. Hey, three cheers for Criterion, but I’d sure like to at least rent the thing before I commit to that Criterion price tag. 
‘Seems fucking weird that this film is playing so hard–to–get. Is it possible Criterion might have cut some kind of exclusive distribution deal for this one?

Jinnistan wrote:

I got the Eagles

I watched The Founder but never noticed that. Probably because I don't think I ever looked directly at it.

The kind of movie I kept wondering 'how the fuck did this happen....who the fuck put this on...was it me?.......or is there someone else here?'

So I had more important things to do than actually watch it. Like scanning the corner for intruders who came into my home to watch a movie about McDonalds from the shadows.
 

Rampop II wrote:

I awaken with the oboe and snatch open my curtains whereupon The Sun greets me to a chorus of blue tits, “Good morning, my lad!!! Yesss, you FEEL it, don’t you? Like a flux capacitor fluxing in your funky pajamas, like greased lightning, greeeasin’ your greasy groin! Finally, That Fateful Long–Awaited Day has arrived, so don your two–tones, dip your Dapper Dan and GO, my son, without fear or hesitation, forward… into The Past!“

You're just not into Kathleen Turner.  I get it.  Just stay away from Body Heat.  For your own good.