Doesn’t it just feel like you’re Arnold over there lately, strapped into that chair and force-fed the disgusting mindwipe that is Hollywood product these days?
Patrick Goldstein has written a piece that touches on something that has been digging further and further under my skin the last couple of weeks: Hollywood’s disgusting rehashing of previous material.
It’s nothing new, of course, Remakes and sequelitis have plagued the industry from its earliest days. When it comes to economics and brass tacks, the fact is, these places are run by business-minded individuals who look to capitalize on public interest at every turn. And in an economy such as this, it simply spells disaster for moviegoers who long for something new. It doesn’t even have to be GOOD but FRESH would be appreciated. But what’s rather sad is the fact that a number of the pipelined reboots, remakes and sequels have ties to projects that never lit up the box office to begin with, clearly lost touch with audiences over the years, or in some cases, never even found much interest on home video. How does that math compute?
For some, it might seem like the oldest complaint in the book, but have you taken a look at what we have in store lately? Just in the past few weeks a slew of titles have popped up either as newly announced projects or projects landing writers, directors, etc. Do we really need a remake of “Total Recall” 19 years later? Is America so deprived of the “Short Circuit” franchise that it needs a reboot as well (no doubt some weird capitalization on “WALL-E”)? And a new “Scream” trilogy? Really?
The “Alien” prequel and “Predators” project (a sequel) have glimmers of promise but they also represent franchises that need to die a quick and merciful death. Ditto “Robocop,” also getting the reboot treatment. Did the box office nose dive of “Terminator Salvation” not teach these people anything? Fox needs to buy the “Terminator” rights (which will be on the market soon) and end it all for us with “Predaterminalien.” Just get it over with. Smothered in the night. There are other stories, folks.
Big, cold bucket of water to the face this morning. Here’s the “just the facts” story from the 
With three major film adaptations in the latest two decades alone, I wouldn’t have thought “Hamlet” was crying out for another big-screen treatment, but apparently I was wrong. (What’s wrong with Shakespeare’s other plays? Not too shabby, some of ’em.)
Remarkable cinema can be born of lesser literary source material, and vice versa. An arresting narrative hook can be enough for an adept screenwriter and filmmaker to fashion into an evocative cinematic vision; the artistry (or otherwise) of the prose is of secondary importance.
And we come to the third and final round, which will decide the ranking order of your chosen 10 most influential films of all time. For background on this series, go 
It’s interesting how news bites trickle down. A passing comment from our own Chad Hartigan over at 
It is with a notable silence that Yojiro Takita’s “Departures” – best known to many of you as that film that beat “Waltz With Bashir” to the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – slipped onto U.S. screens last week. Of course, there are various reasons for the lack of hoop-la surrounding its release.
I’m glad someone finally got around to doing this story. In the pages of 
In his first shot at hosting “The Tonight Show,” I think it’s safe to say Conan O’Brien has tamed things down from his “Late Night” antics of old.