beowulf

The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… Fantasy Movies

Posted on by sgottahurt

NOTE: Everything that follows is my opinion… and it’s all fact.

Fantasy movies are geared toward the audience that longs to be whisked away, and that’s namely the pre-teens of this world.  The reason why they are so susceptible: there’s still imagination (child-like wonder) remaining in their brains.  Any adult that is too into fantasy films obviously has a mental/social disorder (hello PotHeads and Twihards)…

I’m not meaning to be mean.  I’m merely meaning to get to the bottom of why fantasy films don’t do it for me anymore.

Growing up, I loved Clash of the Titans, The Beastmaster, The Dark Crystal, Gremlins, Tron, The Princess Bride, and some movies had to deal with a Star War or a few. There were others that I couldn’t quite get into like Legend and Labyrinth, but I always felt they were more for the young ladies (for the record, The Princess Bride was being read to Kevin Arnold Fred Savage).

Outside of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (it’s insanely absurd and clever), when I was turning thirteen, Willow wasn’t even cutting it anymore.  If I was going to like a dopey fantasy movie, it had something else going for it, such as my crush on Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands or me still being a fan of Steven Spielberg when he made Hook.

Let’s use The Neverending Story trilogy (yes there were three – and a TV show) to reiterate:

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The first film released in 1984: AWE-SOME (hyphen added for pause worthy emphasis).

The second film released in 1990: (Avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis…)

The third film released in 1994: Really?!  Highlights from an IMDB review:

I cannot begin to describe how awful this movie is… NES3, for lack of a better term, sucks.  The storyline was as unimaginative and vapid as you could hope for… After the fart jokes and potty humor commenced, I just couldn’t take it any longer.  My advice is don’t wast your time and ruin your childhood memories with this piece of refuse.

Now I don’t count superhero movies or animated films because they’ve almost attained the status of having their own genre.  Outside of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, what do you have left to defend?  The Mummy films?  Van Helsing?  (Not fair – those are mostly Stephen Sommers‘ pieces of crap.)  Okay, then.  MirrorMask?  Eragon?  Beowulf?  Lady in the Water?!  Stardust and Coraline were even kind of meh.

(SIDENOTE: I will give props to The Last Mimzy, The Bridge to Terebithia, and Big Fish for tugging my heart strings, 300 for being new, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean for the laughs. Am I missing any others?)

Ultimately, have fantasy films declined from being the shit to just shitty, or am I just getting old?  I guess the proof will be in the pudding (sorry for the oldtimer-y expression) when the following films get remade or updated:

(FINAL SIDENOTE: I really, really, really, seriously hope that M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t fuck up The Last Airbender.  I looooove that cartoon.  That ended it’s run.  On Nickelodeon.  Just last year.  Stop looking at me that way!  I don’t have that serious of a mental/social disorder!  Use this blog as proof!)

JusWondering… Wait-And-See Sequels Worth The Wait To See?

Posted on by sgottahurt

A bit ago, IMDb ran this poll:

imdbpoll

Grant it the survey was held with tongue planted firmly at the back of the throat (I know they say ‘cheek’ normally, but it is ‘growing’ out of your throat like a plant… this was funnier and not as gross in my head).

Anyjohnhughes, as much as I would love to see Ferris Bueller’s Laid Off, it ain’t gonna happen.  As of now, not any one of those films have a chance – nay, a whisper – of development talk.

These on the other hand, these sequels have been chatted up dearly:

Why not?  We’ve already seen these guys ride a cheetah in the wrong direction, and spoke down with W.  And everybody knows National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was the best of Chevy Chase’s screen family’s exploits.  Too bad they never made that Swiss Family Griswold that Chevy promised.  Oops… they kinda did.

  • Ghostbusters 3 (maybe to start filming this Christmas) – I am afraid of part 2:

This movie is the childhood dream behind a fourth Indiana Jones movie.  Keep fucking Lucas and Spielberg away (should be easy since they had nothing to do with the first two), and let Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky’s script have room to glow.  The duo writes for The Office; The Office can be is funny.  Thank Gozer that Atari (wait… really, Atari?) got the Ecto-1 rolling on making a new video game based on the franchise.  That probably helped accelerate enthusiasm, and something something clever about waking ghosts.

Is Oliver Stone relevant?  The antithesis to the ‘Greed is good’ mantra from the first film certainly is alive and unwell.  And Michael Douglas isn’t doing anything except Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Greed certainly is good for the studios, but this long-not-so-awaited sequel is a little more The Two Jakes, than The Color of Money (neither is much of a compliment).  Wait… Shia LaBeouf is in it?  Are you sure he’s not too busy?

I remember wanting to skip a summer baseball game to see the original.  Would I want to skip a soccer game as an adult to see the sequel?  No.  But I would go see a midnight sneak preview afterwards.  Director Robert Zemeckis – reigning king of creepy CGI work in The Polar Express, Beowulf, and the upcoming A Christmas Carol (third holiday shout out on this post) – wants to include… creepy CGI.  Could be an interesting mash-up of styles, and could make for a neat-o picture.

Some rumored projects that will most likely never see the light of the darkened theater.  Never say never…