lethal weapon 5

monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK… Lethal Oversight

Posted on by sgottahurt

Remember the Lethal Weapon films?  There were four of them, all released in the theater.  I didn’t see the original at the show, but I watched it plenty on VHS.  Especially the beginning.  But not too much of the beginning, because it gets depressing.

Anyboobs, the point of the monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK is to pretend what I might have written about in a blog before I had a blog (or as in this case, pre-blog, pre-TripleDoubleU).  I just realized what I’m about to share after watching Lethal Weapon 5 for the second time.  What’s Lethal Weapon 5, you might ask?  It was a video the gang made on an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and like I said… I watched this episode twice and just noticed this… but I’m pretending I did it back when Part 4 was released in 1998.

The Lethal Weapon series was always a fun one.  It was also a series based on opposing forces.

They were too young for this shit.

You had Roger Murtaugh:

  • a stable family man
  • a bit up in his years
  • had a nice home
  • a good cop that followed the rules
  • happened to be black

Then you had Martin Riggs:

  • an unstable man (suicidal) that lost his family (his wife)
  • in the prime of his life
  • lived in a trailer on the beach
  • a good cop that didn’t follow the rules
  • happened to be white

As the series progressed from the first, both men grew, and their stories paralleled each other, culminating in the dual pregnancies of the fourth film (Murtaugh’s gonna be a grandpa; Riggs a first-time dad).

I always considered myself a huge fan of the series.  In fact, when I saw part three at the theater, I convinced myself that if I had to leave after the first fifteen minutes, I was thoroughly entertained enough to justify the price of my admission.  (Which would have been a “cat”-astrophe.)

But having just noticed such a simple writer’s slight-of-hand, I’ve embarrassed myself.  In creating these two iconic characters, screenwriter Shane Black picked every mismatch possible, as I listed above.  How did I miss this?

Their initials.

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…