January 11th, 2004

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Movies
11 Comments »

(Another) Year of the Sequel

As regular readers know, I often complain about Hollywood’s lack
of
originality.
Via the excellent cineastes at Tagliners.org,
we find this
article about the very same subject:


That’s because more than 20 sequels will glut film screens during the next
12 months; they’ll range from highly anticipated potential blockbusters such
as “Spider-Man 2” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” to seemingly
absurd fare such as “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Black Orchid” and “Blade:
Trinity.” Add in a concurrent flood of remakes (“The Alamo,” “Dawn of the
Dead,” “The Big Bounce,” “Walking Tall,” “The Stepford Wives”), a flurry of
TV spin-offs (“Bewitched,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Teacher’s Pet”) and the now-standard
gaggle of comics adaptations (“The Punisher,” “Hellboy,” “Garfield,” “Catwoman”)
and you have to wonder if anyone in Hollywood can manage an original idea
these days.

Disappointingly, “Blade:Trinity” does not feature an ass-kicking Carrie Anne
Moss. Though I do see that it
features the excellent Parker Posey, Natasha Lyonne and Callum Keith Rennie.
Is this some funky, New York-ironic indie sequel? Did Woody Allen direct?

Comments: 11 Responses so far

Rog
January 11th, 2004
7:33 pm

Dawn of the Dead is being remade?

Oh man, I’m not going to have any more 70’s & 80’s cheese left to enjoy so long as they keep remaking them. Already it’s painful to watch the old Rollerball and the original Planet of the Apes.

If they remake Soylent Green I’ll just cry.

[Reply]

drew
January 11th, 2004
8:54 pm

Woody Allen still directs movies?

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alexis
January 12th, 2004
5:50 am

Just re-read the comment about “Big Fish”.

Saw it this weekend. It was quite good, and fairly original. I’d recommend it (and I, like you, am somewhat of a movie slut.) Movie whore would probably be more accurate.

[Reply]

Darren
January 12th, 2004
9:00 am

Yeah, I thought Big Fish was pretty average. My biggest complaint was that it’s a tremendously episodic film, with no conflict to speak of. That’s okay during the ‘tall tales’ section, but it makes the regular ‘coming home to my father’ sections very dull. The acting is decent–Ewan McGregor is always a joy to watch–and the cinematography is splendid. However, it does suffer from that Forrest Gump disease–the man with a wondrous history.

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harp
January 12th, 2004
10:26 am

see 5 random Hollywood movies and see 5 movies from another country. 9 out of 10 times, the other movies will be better. Hollywood sucks.

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Darren
January 12th, 2004
10:48 am

“see 5 random Hollywood movies and see 5 movies from another country. 9 out of 10 times, the other movies will be better. Hollywood sucks.”

I have a theory about this. We only see the very best films from other countries. The average foreign film never gets released here.

I’ll give you an example. What films have made it here from Ireland over the past three years? ‘The Magdalene Sisters’, ‘Veronica Geurin’ and ‘When Brendan Met Trudy’. These are all good films. However, there are dozens (IMDB says 167) of movies that never get across the water. Some that I saw that I don’t think crossed the pond include ‘The Most Fertile Man in Ireland’, ‘Last Days in Dublin’, ‘Disco Pigs’, ‘Bloody Sunday’ and something about Harry and a tree starring Colm Meaney.

How many foriegn films have you gone to where the poster advertises how many prizes they’ve won? Or that they’re a country’s ‘official entry’ for the Foreign Film category at the Oscar? They’ve won international recognition, so they get play in North America.

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harp
January 12th, 2004
11:43 am

Foreign flicks that are shown out here are generally the cream of the crop, and some of the other films are lucky to even make it out here on video. That said, when I was living in England I saw some movies that didn’t make it here and overall, they were hit and miss…more hit than miss in terms of flicks I’d never heard of.

Though there were duds, nothing really can match a Hollywood dud, though maybe I’ve been lucky in my movie selections from other countries.

I think the bar is far lower and not as high in Hollywood, and that’s the baffling thing to me. All that money they waste…

[Reply]

Darren
January 12th, 2004
11:47 am

True, the average foreign film does seem better than the average Hollywood film. Here’s my theory on why:

Hollywood is a movie factory rivaled only by Bollywood. In life, hand-made goods are generally better than those crafted in a factory. This model also applies to movies. ‘Hand-crafted’ foreign films are, on average, better than the average ‘manufactured’ (ironically, that term’s root is ‘by hand’) Hollywood film. Given that the Bollywood industry is even more ‘industrial’ than Hollywood, I’d guess the average quality there is even worse. I haven’t seen enough Bollywood movies to judge.

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Meghan
January 12th, 2004
3:52 pm

A lot of the Hollywood films you see are all about taking a risk. That’s big money, and therefore big loss when the public hates it. Hence the re-runs/repeats. There are fresh scripts out there (I have 5 myself) but it is a big risk to fund an unknown (and an even bigger risk to attach me as director - but it will HAPPEN). Hollywood is a business and needs to show a profit. But no matter all that… we still attend. We are entertained. I even lowered my rating system in order to justify seeing “brain rot”. So much for “art”.

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harp
January 12th, 2004
7:12 pm

being Indian, I’ve seen a lot of Bollywood stuff. It’s worse than Hollywood in nearly every way. It’s made solely for ‘entertainment’, but in an escapist way. There’s the odd interesting film (Kundun), and the constant song interludes are painful, but it’s militant in how it sticks to formula for the most part.

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harp
January 12th, 2004
7:13 pm

oops, not Kundun, but Lagaan was what I meant.

[Reply]

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